She nodded, wiping at her eye for a second. "Yeah," she said. "Shall we take me home?"
"Sure," Jake said. "Let's take you home."
He loaded their suitcases into the BMW's trunk and then opened the passenger door for Helen. She climbed inside and buckled up. Jake climbed into the driver's seat and did the same. He pulled out of the parking lot and started the fifteen minute drive back to Helen's house.
"Is everything okay?" Jake asked once they hit the open highway.
She didn't answer for a few moments. Finally she nodded. "Yes," she said. "Everything will be okay."
For the rest of the drive, she seemed to have slipped back into her uncaring persona. She spoke only in monosyllables, with little or no animation in her face. Jake didn't push her, although he felt the familiar troubled sense of being slipping back into him.
When they arrived at her house, she disabled the perimeter alarm but didn't bother making a recon of the outside of the house. She also didn't bother checking out the interior of the house once she let them in the front door. Instead, she carried her suitcase to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Jake stared at the closed door for a few moments and then shook his head. He walked to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. He cracked it open and walked out to the back porch to have a few sips and smoke a cigarette. He sat down in one of the lounge chairs and sparked up, staring at the distant mountains he'd just flown over.
After a few minutes, just as he was finishing up his first smoke and lighting the second, the sliding glass door opened and Helen emerged. She was still wearing the jeans and t-shirt she'd put on at his parent's house that morning. Her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying.
"Helen?" he asked her. "What's the matter, hon? Talk to me."
She nodded, grabbing a seat in the lounger next to him. She pointed to his cigarette pack. "Can I have one?"
"Uh... sure," he said, fishing one out. Helen, like Celia, only smoked when she was drunk or stressed out. He lit it for her and handed it over.
"Thanks," she said, taking a deep drag. She looked at Jake, her face miserable but determined. "We need to talk, Jake," she told him.
Jake swallowed, feeling a little burst of adrenaline go through him. Those were five words that no one in a relationship ever wanted to hear. "About what?" he asked.
She didn't answer him; at least not directly. "I had a very good time these past few days," she said. "It was just like when we first got together, you know?"
"Yes," he said. "I know. I had a good time too. It was nice to see you back to your old self again."
She nodded slowly. "I was," she said. "I was back to my old self because I wanted to enjoy being with you again, like we used to be, you know, back in the beginning. It worked. I was able to put everything else aside and enjoy your company, enjoy loving you and being your girlfriend again. I wanted to do that on this trip, Jake, but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to at first."
"But you did, didn't you?" Jake asked. "You're not going to try to tell me that was all an act, are you?"
"No," she said, shaking her head strenuously. "It wasn't an act at all. I truly did have a wonderful time and all of my emotions were sincere. The reason I was able to put... you know... other things aside and do that was because..." She took a slow, deep breath. "Because I knew it was going to be for the last time."
Jake looked at her, into her eyes, feeling the adrenaline rush kick up a few notches. "The last time?" he asked. "What are you saying?"
"I think you know what I'm saying," she said. "It's time for you and me to... go our separate ways."
"You want to break up?" Jake asked numbly, although that was obviously what she'd just said.
"I don't want to, Jake," she said. "I love you very much and I always will. But I have to get out of this relationship. For my own peace and sanity, I have to. I can't live as the girlfriend of a rock musician anymore. I want my old life back."
Jake felt as if he'd been hit in the stomach. He actually felt it possible he might vomit. "Helen," he said, "how can you say you love me in one breath and tell me you don't want to see me anymore in the next? That doesn't make any sense. When two people love each other they try to work things out, don't they? Isn't there some way we can work this out?"
She was shaking her head, tears running freely down her cheeks now. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, Jake," she pleaded. "I do love you. You're the first man I've ever loved in my life and you have to believe me when I say this is tearing me up inside. But there's no way we can go on. There is no way we can make this work."
"We can!" he insisted.
"We can't!" she countered. "For God's sake, Jake, we have absolutely nothing in common except a physical attraction. How in the hell did we ever fall in love with each other in the first place? Whose idea of a sick joke was that?"
"What do you mean we have nothing in common?" he asked. "We have lots of things in common."
"We have nothing, Jake! Nothing! You're a musician and I'm almost completely tone deaf. You like to dance and I have no rhythm at all. You like to dress up and go to fancy restaurants and I like to stay home and eat in my sweats or my jeans. You grew up in the city and I grew up in the country. You like to fly all over the world and I like nothing more than staying right here in my home. You bought a goddamn house in New Zealand, Jake! That was what really convinced me, really drove it home for me that this could never work. You plan to live in fucking New Zealand for half of the year. I consider it too far of a move just to live in Los Angeles. I'm a homebody, Jake. A country girl who doesn't want to leave the country. Why in the hell do you think I never agreed to move in with you?"
"What if I gave up the land in New Zealand?" Jake asked her, feeling desperate. "What if I moved here to Ventura County? Bought some property and..."
"No no no, Jake!" Helen said. "That isn't the answer and you know it. I could never ask you to give up New Zealand. I know how much that land means to you. I know how much you want to live there, build your house there. It's part of what make you Jake Kingsley and if you gave it up for me you wouldn't be happy, you'd be resentful. And don't even try to tell me you wouldn't."
He didn't. He knew she was right.
"It's not just that we have nothing in common," she said. "It's everything about this relationship. I'm not cut out for this lifestyle. I don't like living my life in the spotlight, with reporters following me around all the time, with my picture showing up in the fucking American Watcher and reporters speculating that I've put on a few pounds over the summer, or that I might be pregnant. I especially don't like psychotic bitches coming onto my land and planning to kill me with knives and a blowtorch because they're obsessed with you. I know you told me back in the beginning that it could be rough dating you, and I know I said I was willing to live with it, but... but I never knew it would be this rough. I can't take it, Jake. I love you with all my heart but I just want to go back to being anonymous Helen Brody. Can you understand that?"
He sighed, feeling a tear going down his own cheek now. "Yeah," he finally said. "I can understand it."
"So you agree that this just can't work?"
He shrugged. "I guess I don't have any choice but to agree, do I?"
She wiped her eyes. "No," she said, her voice breaking a little. "You really don't."
Jake put out his cigarette and finished off the last few swallows of his beer. "Well," he said, standing up, "I guess I'd better go up to your room and start gathering all my stuff together."
"Okay," she said with a small nod.
"I'll put all the stuff you have at my place into boxes for you. You can pick it up whenever you want... or I can bring it over here sometime."
"Okay," she said again. "This doesn't have to be ugly, does it, Jake? I mean, I know there's no such thing as staying friends after you break up, but we don't have to be nasty to each other, do we?"