Still, when I board the bus to get back to LA on Sunday evening—Winter had to go earlier to catch a flight to Bangkok—I’ve never been happier to leave my hometown.
***
When I get off the bus in LA I’m surprised to find Bill, Christian’s driver, waiting at the station for me. Christian had offered to have his chauffeur drive me to and from Pasadena, but I’d refused. Naïve me thought arriving home escorted by my boyfriend’s driver would raise too many questions.
Ah!
Plus Winter drives a hybrid, so it was okay to carpool.
“Hi, Bill,” I say, going to him.
“Good evening, Miss Voynich.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Please call me Lana.” I stop in front of him. “What’s the message?”
He smirks. “Mr. Slade has asked me to inform you the cats are fed and cuddled, while he has remained cuddle-less for three days.”
I cross my arms, suppressing a grin. “Has he now?”
“And even though you have plans to celebrate your birthday tomorrow evening, Mr. Slade has taken the liberty to commission Chef Jeff’s famous red velvet cake, if you wanted to blow out a candle tonight.”
Homemade—or should I say, chef-made—red velvet cake? The man plays dirty.
I hand Bill my suitcase—knowing there’d be no point in trying to carry it myself—and follow him to the Tesla.
Sixteen
Christian
“Did she like it?” Penny asks me first thing as she barrels into my office on Monday morning. She means Lana’s birthday present.
“Mmm, yeah… She, mmm, thought it was cool, yeah.”
I gave Lana her gift last night instead of tonight as I’d planned. I was so excited I couldn’t resist, but her reaction was… not what I had expected.
“She had no idea, right?” My assistant nails the issue.
“No, I don’t think she had a clue. I don’t even know if she likes it.”
“Ah, Boss, you should’ve known better.” Penny scoffs. “You wanted someone who didn’t like you for your money… Sorry, but that means you have to put in the work now when you buy presents. The price tag doesn’t matter anymore; you need to find something meaningful.”
“Like what?”
“Boss, I can’t tell you what to get. You’re the one in a relationship with Lana; think of something she’d like. But it has to be relevant. As Britney said, you gotta work, bitch.”
What do they say? Careful what you wish for…
“How about the other issue?” Penny asks. “Was Lana upset?”
“She said the weekend at home was bumpy, but she brushed off most of my questions about the ex news piece.”
“And what’s your take?”
“The article hit her harder than she expected, but she still wouldn’t have wanted me to pay a cent to her ex. And I have to respect her decision.”
Penny sighs. “I hope the gossip meat grinder doesn’t get too much for her…”
Yeah, I add silently inside my head, me, too.
Lana
“Does anyone have questions?” I ask after finishing my explanation of fluids viscosity.
A bunch of hands shoot in the air.
“Jordan,” I say, addressing the punk-looking kid in the first row. “You go first.”
“Are you really Christian Slade’s girlfriend?”
The question takes me by surprise and, damn it, now I’m blushing in front of my students. “That’s none of your business,” I say. “And it’s outside the scope of this lecture. Monroe, what’s your question?”
“What’s it like to date a celebrity?” the skinny girl in the second row asks.
My nostrils flare. “Does anyone have a question not related to Christian Slade?”
About half the hands in the classroom lower.
“Adams,” I fire next.
“Did your boyfriend really cheat on you with your best friend?”
This disturbing new trend of asking personal questions needs to be shut down at once.
“Guys,” I address the class at large. “My life outside this class is not up for discussion. So please stop asking inappropriate questions.” I pause to let the message sink in, then ask, “Does anyone have a question about viscosity?”
There’s a general murmur of discontent and all hands flop down disappointed, except for one.
“Yes, Chang?”
“Is dynamic viscosity dependent on temperature as well?”
“Great question,” I say, relieved we’re back on solid—or, rather, fluid—ground. “And the answer is yes. Dynamic viscosity is a function of kinematic viscosity and can be calculated as the product of kinematic viscosity and the density. So both these quantities are influenced by the temperature. Which brings us to the second part of the lecture…”
I write a list of discussion points on the board and address them as I go. “Is it better to have a low or high temperature for fluid motion? What are the advantages of both, and what happens in extreme heat conditions like, say, in a turbine? Or at the opposite end of the spectrum when the temperature drops below zero? Like it happens in certain conditions in space, and the temperature plummets, reaching values lower than minus one hundred degrees Celsius.” Turning to the class, I ask, “Can anyone guess the answers?”
Thankfully, the debate keeps my students’ brains stimulated enough to avoid any further attempt at discussing my love life. And I don’t even have to resort to more serious threats—like extra homework—to keep them disciplined.
***
Once the class is over, I exit the engineering department and head toward my favorite café to have lunch. I’m walking across campus when a random student falls into step next to me.
“You’re that professor, right?” he asks. “The one in the paper.”
“You read my article in Engineering Science and Technology?” I ask. “Are you a student of mine?”
The guy seems puzzled for a second, as if I’m speaking Arabic to him. “No, I meant you’re the one dating Christian Slade. You were on the cover of OK! this week. Hey, can I take a selfie with you?” And before I can say no, he’s already taken out his phone, placed his face inappropriately close to mine, and he’s snapping away. “Cool,” he concludes after taking a few shots. “See you later.”
And as quickly as he arrived, the boy is gone.
How people can care so much about a complete stranger’s personal life is really beyond me. I mean, what’s the point of knowing which celebrity is dating who, if you don’t know any of them?
“People are bored with their lives,” I remember Penelope telling me. “Your relationship gives them a thrill. Christian dating a non-celebrity is on the same scale as a prince marrying a commoner; it makes every girl on the globe dream about becoming a princess. And when the story turns from a fairy tale into an ugly breakup, it comforts people that even the rich and famous experience heartbreak. It makes them feel less alone.”
I’m still not convinced, but, for my relationship’s sake, I need to learn how to grapple with the unwanted attention.
I reach the café, order an avocado toast, and fish my phone out of my bag to pay. My new bag. Christian’s present for my birthday.
I stroke the red leather with my fingertips, and sigh. It’s a nice bag, really. Undoubtedly some expensive designer brand. I shouldn’t complain. But even so, it felt a little impersonal, as presents go. I mean, even Johnathan the Cheater was slightly better at choosing gifts. Last year, he got me a cute pink T-shirt with “I love you” written in binary code.
That being said, John has known me for ten years, whereas Christian and I have been dating for barely a month and a half. I should give his gift-making skills time to grow. And to be fair, my ex and I came out of the same nerdy pool; I can’t expect everyone to get excited about binary code.
“Anything to drink?” the girl behind the counter asks me.
“No, tha
nk you,” I say. “I have my own water.”
Single-use plastic bottles are as bad for the planet as gas-powered cars.
The girl pushes a few buttons on the cash register and smiles. “Go ahead.”
I scan the code on my phone and sink it back into my bag.
“Avocado toast for Lana,” a guy shouts from behind the counter.
I grab my sandwich and move outside to eat in the sun.
I haven’t been seated two minutes when my resolution to learn how to deal with unwanted attention is already put to the test. Hard as I try, I can’t ignore the cluster of girls sitting at the table next to mine who are clearly gossiping about me. It’s obvious from the way they whisper to each other, heads bent close together, and keep throwing furtive stares my way.
No, they’re not bothering me. I’m letting it go. I’ll sit here and eat my toast without paying attention to—
“Excuse me?”
Sticking to my resolutions becomes impossible when one of the girls—a tall, lean blonde—approaches me directly.
“Yes?” I say, staring up at her.
“Sorry to bother you,” she says. “But my friends and I…” I’m expecting the are-you-that-professor-dating-the-famous-actor question, when she surprises me by saying, “We couldn’t stop looking at your bag. Is that the real thing?”
I throw a glance at the red bag sitting on the chair next to mine, and blink. “What do you mean, the real thing?”
“Is the bag original? Or is it a knockoff?” she asks, and I only have a moment to think, What a rude question, before she adds, “If it’s a fake, it’s an impressive one.”
Should I thank her for saying my allegedly fake bag looks like a really nice copy?
Christian doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who buys counterfeit presents, so I say, “I think it’s real. But I don’t know, really, it was a present.”
“Oh my gosh.” The girl’s excitement turns up a notch. “Your boyfriend must be loaded.”
After a moment of shock at the even more blatant rudeness of the comment, my first instinct is to counter that, no, my boyfriend isn’t loaded. But then I remember that Christian is, indeed, rich.
The girl must read the answer on my face, and also the confusion, because she says, “Wait, you know that bag is an Angelika Black 901 limited edition, right?”
“Well, I know now,” I say, failing to keep the irritation from my voice. “What’s so special about it?”
“What’s so special…?” The girl scoffs, incredulous. “Only that it’s one of the most exclusive fashion pieces on the planet. You can’t buy that bag in a shop; the waiting list is, like, five years long, at least.” Then I see a flash of shrewdness pass through her eyes. “I’ll tell you what; I’ll give you five thousand dollars for it right now.”
Five thousand dollars, for a bag? She must be crazy. But then I give the girl a better look, taking in her expensive-looking clothes and shoes. She must know what she’s talking about. But there’s something about the sly light in her eyes that tells me she’s conning me somehow.
“Sorry,” I say. “The bag’s not for sale. As I said, it was a present.”
Her evil little grin dies on her lips and she grimaces, saying, “Your loss, lady.” Then she turns on her heel and rejoins her group of friends.
And no matter how lovely the day is, I don’t want to stick around and overhear a bunch of twenty-year-olds mock the lady who didn’t know she had a five-thousand-dollar bag. So I go back to my office. Once again, I’m in front of the old sage, knower-of-it-all, Google.
I type Angelika Black 901 bag in the search box.
About 41,000,000 results (0.41 seconds)
My gaze drifts at once to the eBay ads windows. There are three bags on sale like mine going respectively for $22,000, $23,550, and $21,000. Apparently, that canny blonde was trying to short-change me by about $15,000. No wonder she was so angry when it didn’t work.
But the girl is the last of my problems right now. If I thought a bag wasn’t much of a present for my birthday, Christian must really have no idea who I am to buy me something so expensive.
How could he think I’d like it? I almost find it offensive for a bag to cost as much as—or even more than—a car.
And then I get irrationally mad. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m scared. The bag seems like a glaring red leather flag signaling Christian and I don’t belong together. That our worlds sit a universe apart, that I’ll never fit into his starry kingdom made of mansions, red carpet events, and twenty-thousand-dollar bags.
The halo of doom and gloom stays with me throughout the afternoon. No one shows up for office hours, leaving me with too much free time to contemplate all the reasons why my relationship with Christian could go bust at any moment.
The bag also makes me curious about the women he’s dated before. Were they all designer-clothes types? The lack of interruptions enables me to dig into Christian’s past in depth. After all, his exes are just a click away, forever recorded on the Internet for everyone to read about. So I do.
All his past love stories seem to follow the same hyperbole: the secrets and rumors phase, followed by the official, openly dating and happy phase, and then a press release about the relationship being over, accompanied by endless speculation on why it ended.
They all follow this pattern, except for his relationship with a certain Marissa Mayer.
She’s one of several actresses he’s dated, but of all his exes, she’s definitely the most intimidating. Strikingly beautiful, but with a wholesome, girl-next-door look that makes her even more attractive. Big smile, dark blonde hair with highlights, light-blue eyes.
This relationship gets by far the most attention—not because it’s so different from the others, but for the way it ended. She was caught cheating on him by the paparazzi.
I mentally go back to our date on the beach, when Christian told me the story about his cheating ex. So when he said someone saw his girlfriend with another man, he must’ve been referring to this never-disappearing press carnage.
My head spins with all the new info, and to save myself from permanent brain damage, I shut my laptop and kill an hour or so by grading homework.
The temporary distraction is not enough to erase the side effects of all my rampant soul searching and Google searching. So, when I walk out of the office later that evening, I’m still in an awful mood.
Christian and I are supposed to have dinner for my birthday tonight, but I’m not in the state of mind to celebrate.
Penelope is waiting for me, parked in the usual spot. I get in the car, mumble a hello, and keep staring out the window, morose.
She must notice my attitude because, halfway to Christian’s house, she asks, “Are you okay?”
“Did you know this is a twenty-thousand-dollar bag?” I ask, pointing at the offending piece of fashion.
“Ah, yes, you found out.” She keeps her eyes on the road, her expression unreadable. “You don’t like the concept, I take it?”
“It’s so…”
“Over the top?” Penelope suggests.
“To say the least.”
“In his defense, when you earn as much as Christian does, for as long as he has, it’s difficult to remain in touch with the reality of most people. To him, that bag is spare change.”
“Well, to me, it’s almost a year’s rent,” I say, indignant.
“You should probably discuss this with him.”
“Oh, I will.”
We stop at a red light and Penelope types something on her phone. I don’t feel comfortable enough with Christian’s assistant to lecture her on texting and driving, which only makes me angrier. I hate when people think their messages can’t wait ten minutes to be sent. What does she have to text that’s so important, anyway?
Seventeen
Christian
I’m at home, nervously waiting for Lana and Penny to get here, when my phone pings wit
h a short text from my assistant. A warning.
L knows about bag
Pissed
Shit.
So, Lana found out how much the bag is worth. I wonder how. I also hope that my second present will make up for dropping the ball on the first.
The ladies arrive ten minutes later, and I didn’t need Penny’s text to see something’s wrong with Lana.
“Hi,” she greets me, along with a quick kiss on the cheek.
“You’re mad,” I say.
I like that I can be direct with her. That she actually prefers it that way. No need to circle around things.
“More like overwhelmed,” Lana says, equally direct.
“What happened?”
She launches into a ramble about inopportune questions during a lecture, boys taking sneak selfies, and a girl offering her five thousand dollars for the bag. “I mean,” Lana concludes, “you know the neighborhoods I go to for my volunteering; they could’ve shot me dead for a bag worth this much.”
Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.
“Sorry,” I say. “That was stupid of me.”
“I get that you wanted to give me a special birthday present, I really do. But something so flashy… It’s not me.”
I pull out the big guns and make my sorry-cute frown. “Would it help if I said I’d already realized my mistake and bought you a second, incredibly cheesy and soppy present…?” And before she can say anything, I add, “Price tag under a hundred bucks, I swear.”
Lana tries to keep serious, but a smile pulls at the corners of her mouth. “It would.”
I finally feel brave enough to pull her close and nuzzle her neck. “And what shall we do with the bag?”
Lana looks up at me, big sapphire eyes I can’t say no to peering into mine. “Can we auction it off, give the proceeds to my rocket project? We’re starved for new funds.”
“I can make a donation; no need for an auction.”
“I’m not comfortable walking around with twenty thousand dollars on my shoulder.”
“And selling the bag would make you happy?”
To the Stars and Back: A Glittering Romantic Comedy (First Comes Love Book 4) Page 13
