Nikki widens her mouth in mock outrage. “Oh, so I was the unprofessional one?”
He winks at her. “You were the boss; you took advantage.”
There’s clearly more of a story there, something perhaps they’re not comfortable discussing with a complete stranger. So I move on to the next obvious—and hopefully less painful to witness—topic.
“What do you guys do?” And with a cheeky grin, I add, “I’m in entertainment.”
Nikki laughs, then answers, “Advertising, at an agency on Madison Avenue. We specialize in video commercials. I’m a producer.”
I turn to Diego next.
He shifts in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. “Man, I feel really awkward saying this in front of you… but I’m an actor.”
Oh, yeah, that was definitely unexpected. I brace myself for the customary follow-up entreaties: Can you give me your agent’s number? Can you introduce me to your producers/directors/movie friends? Can you… whatever else for me?
But Diego only gives me a lopsided, awkward-I-know grin, and I immediately like the guy a hundred times better.
“Have I seen you in something?” I ask. Now that I take a better look at him, he seems familiar but… wrong, somehow. Like he was wearing the wrong clothes or hair.
And then I get a flash of galloping horses and Nordic warriors. “Wait, you were the Viking king in that Super Bowl commercial!” I superimpose on him the braided long hair and beard and imagine him riding on horseback in full armor. Definitely him. “That ad had me cracking up.”
Diego nods and smiles. “Flattered you remembered, man.”
I nod back. “Are you working on something else?”
“Snatched my first real part on Broadway.” Diego’s smile is proud this time. “Only a supporting role, but the cast is stellar and my name is on the manifest, so I can’t complain.”
“What’s the play?”
Diego swallows a bite before answering, “Trudy and Truman. It’s a fun act. You should come see it.”
I become wary again, thinking the help-me-get-where-you-are request will arrive after all.
But Diego only says, “We’re sold out for the season, but I can get you a ticket if you’d like.”
Damn, I like this guy. “Yeah, sure, mate, that’d be great.”
“So, what brings you to New York?” Nikki asks.
Ah, I wanted the conversation to get flowing… and now it comes back to bite me in the arse.
I take a sip of wine and make the liquid swirl in the glass. “Only the oldest story in the book: a boy, a girl, and a broken heart.”
Nikki’s smile drops. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you and Olivia break up?”
I grimace bitterly. Well, at least I have definite confirmation that my ruse worked.
Before replying, I turn to Blair, hesitant.
“You’re off the record and among friends,” she quickly reassures me. “You can trust everyone in this room to keep this conversation private. Nothing you say will be repeated outside these walls.” Then, with a crooked smile, she adds, “I can make them all do the scout salute if it makes you feel better.”
I grin back. “No need.” Then I turn back to Nikki. “The relationship with Olivia was fake; a business arrangement.”
Blair’s friend looks more confused than ever, so I tell them about Lana, our relationship, her dislike of the public attention, and of the night of the crash. “…the only way to get the press off her back was to feed them another, juicier story, so that’s what I did. I asked my assistant to find me a down-to-business actress interested in some extra publicity, and Olivia was the perfect match. She eagerly agreed to play along.”
The table remains in stunned silence for a few seconds, until Blair says, “So, let me get this straight. You’re still one hundred percent in love with Lana, but instead of trying to win her back, you made the world—including her—believe you’re dating someone else?”
I shift the green and brown food around my plate with my fork. “Lana wanted the paparazzi off her back. I gave her what she asked for.”
Blair and Nikki exchange a “poor bastard” look.
“Are you sure there was no way to win the girl back?” Diego asks. Then, with another small grin meant for Nikki alone, he adds, “Even desperate situations can turn out for the best if you try hard enough.”
“Lana was clear: she wanted nothing to do with me and my lifestyle.”
“But you guys had just been in an accident,” Blair says. “Maybe she was in shock, or scared, and that was something she said in the heat of the moment. Did you give her time to reconsider?”
“Err…”
“How long after the accident did you have the Olivia lie circulate?” Blair presses.
“The next morning?”
The female audience gasps—Chevron included.
“So you buy this girl a star,” Nikki says, utterly appalled, “and the next day you splash a fake rebound hook up on her?”
“Only to get the press off her back,” I insist.
“Yeah, mate,” Richard chimes in. “But is there any way Lana could’ve known it was a fake story?”
“There’s no way she’d believe I could be with someone else so soon. She knows me better than that. And she doesn’t read gossip magazines, anyway.”
“But some of her friends might, or her family,” Nikki says.
“And it wasn’t a one-off,” Blair adds. “You kept the story going for weeks.” She blushes. “Sorry, celebrity gossip is my jam.”
“So what should I have done?” I ask.
They all give their two pence:
Blair. “Give Lana a chance to process.”
Chevron. “Woof.”
Richard. “Beg her to take you back.”
Diego. “Get her a kitten.”
Nikki mock-scolds her boyfriend at what is clearly another inside joke, then says, “Tell the girl you love her.”
I start at that.
“You did tell her you’re in love with her, didn’t you?” Nikki insists. “At least once, right?”
“Mmm, I might have implied it with my actions…?”
Blair attacks next. “But you didn’t say the actual words?”
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t seem to find the right time.”
“How much do you love her?” Nikki asks.
“Is there a scale?” I ask, perplexed.
Nikki and Blair exchange a nod, and Blair talks next. “If she suffered from short-term amnesia and forgot you every night as she went to sleep, would you make her fall in love with you all over again every day?”
I’m taken aback by the question. “What?”
“Just answer them, mate,” Richard suggests. “They have this annoying habit of comparing every real-life situation to movies.”
“What movie is that again?”
“50 First Dates,” Blair and Nikki reply at once.
I sigh. “I guess I would?”
“Woof, woof,” Chevron interjects. Blair translates for her: “She’s probably asking if you’d share spaghetti and meatballs with Lana. Chevron loves watching Lady and the Tramp.”
“I would,” I say, more definitively this time.
“Woof,” Chevron approves.
The next question comes from Nikki. “Would you run after her in the snow, wearing only ‘genuinely tiny knickers?’”
Oh, I know this one. Bridget Jones.
“Are the tiny knickers a requirement?”
“Definitely,” she says.
“Then yes.”
Richard shakes his head, amused.
“Now, the final test,” Blair continues, unfazed. “Your ship has sunk in the freezing Northern Atlantic Ocean and there’s only a plank of driftwood to hold on to, but it can only fit one of you. Would you—”
“Yeah, she can have the damn plank,” I interrupt. And so help me, I mean every word of it.
“Then it is tru
e love,” Blair says. “You can’t give up and accept it’s over.”
I drop the fork and stop pretending I’m eating. “Sorry, but it’s not up to me.”
“If you give up you’ve still made a choice,” Blair insists. “What do you have to lose, anyway?”
“Well, having your heart walked all over twice is no fun.”
“Neither is being a moping sob,” Nikki says. “Respectfully.”
“Woof.”
“What if Lana doesn’t want to talk to me?” I ask. “What if she believed the Olivia story? I’d hate my guts if I were her.”
“Then be creative,” Blair says as she gets up and starts collecting plates. “Force her to listen.”
“Woof.”
“All right, ladies, you win. I’ll think of something.”
“Here, mate.” Richard pours me more wine.
I raise my glass and say, “To the great romantic gesture.”
Twenty
Christian
New day. Time for a new plan.
After sharing the sofa-bed with Chevron, I wake up galvanized. With a purpose. I still don’t know what I’m going to do. But a tiny seed of hope to win Lana back is enough to make me feel a thousand times better than I have these past few weeks.
Richard and Blair have already left for work, so I’m alone in their house. I don my standard, public-spaces disguise—baseball cap, hoodie, sunglasses—and head outside. If I met myself in a dark alley, I’d think I was about to get mugged. But the gangsta look is the only style that allows me to walk the streets undetected.
Last night, Diego gave me a ticket to a matinee showing of his play, so I cab to Broadway to go watch it. Immersing myself in the creative arts is the best way to find inspiration.
I haven’t been to the theater in too long. Hollywood makes it so easy to forget the beauty of performing in front of a real audience. And the live show leaves me even more energized; the plot is original and witty, and Diego is a stellar actor.
As the curtains close, I’m tempted to go behind the scenes to congratulate him, but I don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention. So, when the show’s over, I exit the theater and walk all the way to Central Park, enjoying the indifference of the New York crowds.
In LA, every tourist, and even some natives, are all on a constant celebrity hunt. Here, everyone seems to mind their own business. Vacationers are more interested in the architecture than in noticing who’s walking beside them.
Blissfully ignored by passers-by, I buy a hot dog from one of the famous street carts and go eat it on a bench in the park.
So, Lana. How do I convince her to give me a second chance?
I flashback to the time we’ve spent together, from the night at the observatory backward to the day we met in the Peninsula’s closet.
And then it hits me! The perfect solution.
I take out my phone and call my assistant.
Penny picks up on the first ring. “Sometimes they return,” she says.
“Hi,” I say. “Listen—”
“No, please, feel free to go MIA on me whenever you want,” she scolds. “It’s so much fun to deal with all the people you’ve stood up, blowing up my phone asking where you are, why you left, when you’re coming back—”
“Sorry! I needed a break.”
Penny sighs. “Men, always using the ‘on a break’ excuse. So what can I do for you, Boss?”
“Remember that sci-fi flick Martin wanted me to do so badly last March?”
“Yeah?”
“Have they already offered the lead to someone else?”
“I don’t know, but I can call Samantha Baker and find out.”
“Please do, and call me back ASAP.”
***
Two days later, I’ve made my agent a very happy man by signing the contract with Denouement Studios to be the lead in their blockbuster movie The Descendant of Dawn. The studio was so desperate to hire me, I managed to make them agree to all my unconventional requests—more shooting time in LA, filming must start right away, a generous donation to a cause close to my heart, and the hiring of a script consultant of my choosing.
The lead producer for this project, Samantha Baker, is based here in Denouement’s New York branch. So I kill two birds with one stone and attend a pre-production meeting with the movie team that had already been scheduled for today.
The meeting is taking place in a swanky glass room high in a skyscraper in central Manhattan. There are a lot of friendly faces here. The director is a good friend of mine, and we’ve worked together in the past. I also know some cast members—mostly attending via video conference. And Samantha is one of my favorite producers to work with; I’ve done several projects with her.
She has given the team a rundown of the project: from schedule, to location, costumes, photography, special effects, and the training each actor will have to undertake for his/her specific role. Seems I must learn lightsaber fighting.
“This leaves us with only one major point unsolved,” Samantha says, as she nears the conclusion of her presentation. “The casting of Morrigan.”
Morrigan is the evil overlord from a destitute planet who wants to subjugate the whole galaxy.
“Christian joining the cast as our hero is wonderful news,” Samantha continues, nodding toward me. “But if we want this movie to be a success, we have to find a great villain. Unfortunately, I had confirmation last night that Jason Pratt officially turned down the role.”
And thank goodness, I think.
The guy’s a self-absorbed, arrogant prick with a huge ego and he’s a nightmare to work with. Six-foot-five of muscles with no brain.
“We’ve looked at several other candidates, but with no luck so far.” Samantha pulls a lock of her super-straight-above-the-shoulders bob behind her ear. “We need someone exceptionally tall for the role, especially now that Christian has come on board. And as you know, that’s not an easy find.”
An idea pops into my head.
“Hey,” I say. “Would you consider an unknown actor?”
“If he was good and fit the physical description, why not?” Samantha says.
“I have the perfect guy for you.”
I grab my phone and google Diego’s Super Bowl ad. He looks mighty fierce as a Viking King, and perfect for the part of the villain in our story.
I hand the phone to Samantha and she watches the short commercial.
“Mmm,” she says once it’s over.
I would’ve expected a little more enthusiasm.
“What do you think?” I prompt.
“The guy’s really handsome,” Samantha says, with a downward curve of her mouth.
“Oh, is that a bad thing? I didn’t see must-be-ugly in the physical description.”
“True.” She hands me back the phone. “But this guy is exceptionally good-looking.”
“And that’s a problem because…?”
“In our experience, having two very handsome leads can foster conflicts on set.”
I frown.
“You know, big personalities and all…” Samantha trails off.
And the shoe drops. “Are you calling me a prima donna?”
“No, I’m saying that if you put this guy on screen, he might very well end up as the Sexiest Man Alive next year.”
“Ah, hell, they can’t name me every single year, now, can they?”
“So you wouldn’t have a problem in sharing the female fandom?”
“No.”
Samantha finally cracks a smile. “Then, yes, he’d be perfect. Guys,” she addresses the room. “That’s all for today. We re-adjourn in a week.”
While the others leave, Samantha gestures for me to stay behind.
“I’m so glad Marvin convinced you to sign. This part was made for you.”
“You could’ve sweet-talked me into it yourself,” I say. “Long time no see in LA.”
“Oh.” She brushes
me off with a perfectly-manicured hand. “You know how I am; take me out of New York and I wither.”
I take in her pale skin. “Not a sunshine lover?”
“Nah, I’m more of an indoor gal. So, this guy,” she says, going straight back to business. “Where did you find him?”
“He was at dinner at a friend’s house the other night.”
“And how do you know he’s a good actor?” Samantha sounds skeptical again. “I mean, he’s a magnificent horse rider, but other than that?”
“I went to see him on Broadway the other morning; he has a supporting role in Trudy and Truman.”
“Oh, I’ve heard great things about that show.”
“Go watch it, see for yourself.”
“This guy owes you a real solid. How come you’re going out on a limb for him?”
I give her the simple, honest truth. “Because he didn’t ask.”
***
Apparently, all the private jets in New York are rented; I couldn’t find even a biplane to take me back to LA with a few hours’ notice.
A disaster, as I haven’t flown commercially in years, and the prospect scares me. Gangsta look or not, there’s always the risk of people recognizing me. Still, if I want to get back to LA tonight, I have no choice.
I say goodbye to Richard and Blair, and almost steal Chevron, before I go catch the red-eye flight to Los Angeles. I’m going to miss that pup.
Before leaving, I didn’t tell my friends about Diego and the movie in case nothing comes of it. I wouldn’t want to get his hopes up and then crush them. But I’m sure that if Samantha goes to see the play, she’ll offer him the part on the spot.
When I get to JFK, the airport is almost empty. So, instead of hiding in the first-class lounge, I take my chances at a bar near the departure board.
Even though the place is deserted, I still take a seat at the far-end corner of the counter. Old habits.
The barman—younger than me, with short sandy hair, a broad smile, and a friendly face—immediately comes to serve his only customer.
“What can I get you?”
“A beer, please,” I say, looking up at him.
I had to remove the sunglasses, as wearing them indoors would’ve been more conspicuous than keeping them off.
To the Stars and Back: A Glittering Romantic Comedy (First Comes Love Book 4) Page 16
