by Alice Ward
Of the few I’d had since entering show business, not a single one had become anything serious with the potential of settling down forever, and I’d progressively lost more and more interest in trying to find a solid partner as the years went by. At this point, I firmly believed it was safer for me to remain single. Dating Sadie was perhaps the riskiest venture I would’ve taken yet, because my attraction to her was so intense that she was the equivalent of a gateway drug that would lead me into deeper things — and I couldn’t have that.
Or, could I?
I wanted it. That was the most frustrating thing. Sadie was different. She’d treated me like a normal person, which, in my hyper-famous world, was a treat. She was sophisticated and confident without the arrogance that tended to come with such confidence, yet she’d had a measure of quirkiness and uncertainty that made her adorable. Furthermore, for the first time in my sexual escapades as far back as I could remember, I cared more about her pleasure than my own. In fact, her pleasure had been my pleasure. She was definitely different, and the devilish side of my brain was whispering that I couldn’t just look past that.
It dawned on me that I didn’t have her phone number, so even if I decided to get in contact with her to set up a date, I didn’t have the means.
“Maybe you didn’t ask for her number because your subconscious was stopping you from making a bad decision.” Talking to myself had become normal in the past couple of days. God forbid anyone caught wind of that little gem and spread it around, or I’d be getting calls up the wazoo from media outlets to explain my sudden onset of insanity. “You know better than to get involved with anyone, let alone a reporter, you dumbass.”
I smacked my pillow, and the movement jostled the bed. The paper crinkled in protest against the light quake, reminding me it was still there and open to Sadie’s article. My imagination, a cruel and vengeful entity, summoned a picture of Sadie sitting exactly where the newspaper was, reading what she’d written with only a foot between us and an unchristened — at least by us together — bed beneath.
“Damn it.” I shoved myself up into a sitting position and grabbed the paper viciously. Scanning the review again, I hunted for a direct contact method with Sadie, be it an email or a phone number, but there wasn’t one.
Infuriatingly, the gossip column beside hers featured both an email and a phone number for the writer, a Jenna Grammer. I considered reaching out to Jenna and requesting a way to contact Sadie, but I didn’t want to encourage any additional attention to myself because she was sure to ask who was calling, and I’d be forced to give my real name if I wanted Sadie to take the call… to a freaking gossip columnist.
Um, no.
Rifling through the rest of the paper, I found a tiny number printed at the bottom of the back page. I stared at it for a long second, contemplating whether I really wanted to do this. I avoided dating like the plague nowadays.
But she was different.
“She better be different.” I tugged my phone free from my pocket and punched in the number, then listened with a throttling pulse as it began to ring.
There was a click. “The Apple.”
Well, that was succinct. I paused, waiting for further explanation of who I’d reached, or even a courtesy inquiry about how I was doing, but the only thing I heard was the telling clicks of nails on a keyboard.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and dropped my tone, hoping to disguise my voice. “I’m calling for Sadie Danes.”
“Who’s calling?”
Damn. I’d hoped to escape that question. “Tate Mc—”
“McGrath? Hold please.” The woman was so brusque in her interruption that I actually finished saying my surname the second the line clicked off, and elevator music swelled in my ear. I breathed a small sigh of relief that she’d either dealt with enough celebrities not to be fazed or managed to contain her excitement until I was no longer auditorily present, but my relief was short-lived. The elevator music stopped, and the same keyboard clacking noises took its place. I steeled myself to hear Sadie’s voice.
“She’s away from her desk at the moment. Would you like to hold, or shall I send you to voicemail?”
It was my last chance to duck out and oblige the reasonable, though admittedly paranoid, side of my conscience. I could hang up now, and Sadie would never be the wiser. Maybe she’d review another one of my plays in the future, or maybe I’d read a review she’d written on a dull day, but we never had to cross paths again. I could get away scot-free.
I knew better than that though. There was no getting away from this one. Not yet, anyway. Even if I were to hang up, I would just end up calling back after I nursed my pride a little bit. One didn’t spend two days with tunnel vision just to snap out of it without warning.
“I’ll hold.”
“Have a good day, Mr. McGrath.” The receptionist, secretary, or assistant, whichever she was, sounded rushed, and she didn’t wait for me to thank her and wish her the same before turning the dreadful music back on.
A swell of synthesized saxophone blared in my ear. I pulled the phone back by an inch or two and rolled my head back to grimace at the ceiling. “You’re such an idiot, McGrath.”
Just as I finished berating myself, the music halted abruptly, and I heard a chirping voice. “This is Sadie Danes.”
CHAPTER NINE
Sadie
When I first started at The Apple, my phone rang all the time. Angry actors and defensive directors would call after reading an unfavorable review I’d written to accuse me of prejudices or declare I was nothing but an infant in the world of theater who lacked experience and insight.
Once, I was threatened with continuous three a.m. pizza deliveries after I refused to print a retraction. It was supposed to be some kind of mental torture in the form of constantly interrupted sleep, but I’d found myself wishing the furious producer had followed through on more than one occasion. After about a year of fielding such calls, however, I went to my editor and asked that a line of defense be instated against up-in-arms members of the Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway communities.
He obliged me in the form of Sandra, a thirtysomething receptionist with a no-nonsense attitude and a killer sense of fashion. Since her hiring, my phone literally rang maybe once a month, so as I returned to my cubicle from the restroom, I was surprised to see the waiting light blinking on the base unit.
I picked up the receiver and slid onto my chair. “This is Sadie Danes.”
“Good morning, Juliet.”
My heartbeat stuttered. I knew that voice all too well, but I was afraid I was projecting what I wanted to hear onto what I was actually hearing. My fingers were gripping the receiver so tight I was losing feeling in the pads, and my lungs didn’t seem to be able to get enough oxygen to satisfy them. Between my conversation with Jenna and the inner monologue I’d been reciting over and over again, I’d managed to convince myself my evening with Tate was the first and last time I would speak to him, let alone see him.
Apparently, I’d been wrong. And I wasn’t upset about that.
“Good morning.” My mouth was as dry as sand, and I cringed at the croak in my voice.
“You were on my mind today.”
The busy sounds of the newsroom around me became nothing more than dull buzzing, and I was suddenly clammy. I had to be imagining things. I was probably talking to someone important, like my editor, and hallucinating I was talking to Tate instead. It seemed much more plausible. And infinitely less intimidating.
“I was?” The croak had gone to make way for pubescent breathiness. I wasn’t sure which was worse. “Why?”
Our night together was the best I’ve ever had…
I’ve never met anyone like you…
You’re the kind of woman I could see myself with…
“Because your review was printed today, and I picked up a copy.”
I frowned. The responses of my fantasies were clearly just that: fantasies. “Are you calling to request
a retraction? Or a clarification?” I winced at the last part. Clarifications were the bane of journalism and something many outright refused to do, but it was Tate McGrath. If he wanted a clarification, my editor was going to make sure he received his clarification — and I received a sharp tongue-lashing for failing to write the interview properly the first time.
“Not at all. I thought it was excellent.” Phew. There was that, then. “Although, I noticed the interview you wrote took place entirely in my dressing room, and that’s not exactly how I remember it.”
There was a teasing note in his tone that sent ripples through my belly. I decided to test whether I could incite the same response in him, so I injected a flirtatious lilt into my response. “I thought I’d protect your dirty little secret.”
He didn’t say anything right away, and I smiled inwardly, figuring I’d succeeded. The silence dragged on so long, however, that I had just started thinking the line had disconnected when he finally spoke again. “What secret?”
“You know, your bug-out tactic.” I picked up a pen and started doodling on a sticky note just to keep myself as casual as possible as we chatted. My emotions were way too out of control. “If I’d printed that you left two locations to avoid crowds of fans, everyone would start gathering in mobs around every exit to any building you’re ever in just to catch you on the escape.”
“Your insight is impressive, Miss Danes.”
He was a cheetah, purring to tempt me to him, and I was a gazelle, skittish and uncertain. I desperately wanted to believe he’d called for a reason other than to praise my writing and question my choice to place the interview solely in his dressing room, but this was the real world. Movie stars-slash-theater gods didn’t fall for nobody girls who slept with them the first night they met. But the way he said “Miss Danes” was dripping with the silk he’d draped around his words when he’d called me “Miss Capulet,” and it sparked a hope inside me that his next sentence would be, I have to see you again.
“Well, the tiny peek I had into the obsessive fans that come with stardom was enough to make me reconsider my childhood dreams of fame and fortune, so I figured you’d appreciate the uncompromised privacy.”
“I certainly do.” What was it about this guy? He could make a simple phrase sound like pornography and a love poem at the same time, and I was starting to sweat beneath the loose collar of my neat black blouse. I kept my head down to prevent any co-workers passing my cubicle from seeing my heated cheeks.
Unlike when we were in person, a silence fell between us, and I wasn’t sure what to say. Should I thank him for calling to tell me his thoughts? Should I ask if there was anything else, or would that sound too much like I was hoping there was something else? Should I play the hard-to-get card and end the conversation, either giving him the chance to chase me or to tie up whatever loose ends there were after our sexual encounter? There didn’t seem to be a good solution to my predicament, and I ended up letting the quiet drone on for far too long until I was mentally clubbing myself for being so awkward.
I was dying to know what was going on in his head at the same time. If he had even one of the same questions as I did, I wouldn’t have felt like such a foolish schoolgirl on the phone with her crush.
“Okay.” I had to talk. The pause had gone on well beyond the limits of comfortable and was bordering on horrible. “I guess I’ll let you get on with the rest of your day then.”
“Yeah.”
It was evident another pregnant pause was headed our way, and I was determined to head it off before I wanted to bury my head even deeper into the metaphorical sand. “Thanks for—”
“Actually, you know what?” My heart seemed to stop altogether for a split second before hammering violently in my throat. He was speaking rapidly, like he was trying to get it all out so his brain or his mouth didn’t have an opportunity to stop him, and I couldn’t breathe in anticipation. “I wanted to know if you were free Saturday night.”
Yes!
There it was in all its fairy tale glory. The ask-out. The I know we slept together already, but I’d like to see you again and find out if this could be something real. Or the I know we slept together already, and I want to do it again, but I don’t want to just invite you over for sex like a cheap hooker. Either way, I was over the moon, and my tensed muscles relaxed into goo.
“I am.” I was impressed and slightly embarrassed with how naturally husky I sounded now that I knew he wanted to go out with me again, this time on a real date. “Don’t you have Concrete though?”
“I’ll be done by eleven, and we live in the city that never sleeps.”
We certainly did, and if the fire between my legs was any indication, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be sleeping much Saturday night either.
I tugged on the end of my ponytail. “What are you thinking?”
“A late dinner at Coin in the East Village. Eleven-thirty?”
The restaurant was unfamiliar to me, but I didn’t want to ask him what I should wear and sound completely uncultured. Google would tell me everything I needed to know as soon as I hung up the phone, anyway. “Sure. Eleven-thirty.”
“Great.” He was back to purring, and I sucked in a breath. “See you then, Miss Danes.”
I hung up, stared blankly for a second at my denim-like cubicle wall pinned with dozens of playbills and snippets from other papers mentioning my reviews, then whirled my chair around to face my computer. Feverishly, I punched the buttons on the keyboard until the Google search page responded to my incomplete inquiry of “Coin Restaurant NYC.” The first link under the ads was the restaurant’s website, so I clicked it.
The screen flooded with the image of a narrow, crimson room. Paintings featuring men and women in Marie Antoinette-style attire hung on the walls in intricate, gilded frames, and a single golden chandelier dangled from a low-hanging ceiling. I counted only ten tables behind a single hostess podium, but I assumed there was a larger dining room hidden behind the regal curtains draped across the back wall. It was very upscale, elegant, and reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. My stomach fluttered as I started exploring the site.
Nope. I was wrong. There was no back room filled with tables for a flood of diners. There was room for twenty. Twenty. I was instantly reminded of the pizzeria and its measly four tables, and my stomach tightened with the dull ache of misgiving.
“Hey!”
I jumped and spun around so fast in my chair that I rotated a full three-sixty before grabbing the edge of my desk to look into the eyes peering over my cubicle.
“Sorry.” Jenna’s nose, mouth, and chin appeared, and she grinned. “I wanted to hear about your call.”
“What call?” I tried to click on a different browser tab to hide the Coin website, but it was too late. She rounded the flimsy wall and bumped me out of the way to fill the screen again with the photograph of the small, sophisticated dining room.
“The innocent act isn’t your forte, Sadie.” She motioned to the image. “What’s this?”
I nudged her aside just as she had done to me. “It’s a restaurant. How did you know about my call?”
“Sandra. I heard your phone ringing, which never happens anymore, so I figured it had to be Tate, and she confirmed it.”
“I guess she’ll be getting a generic soap and lotion basket for Christmas this year,” I muttered.
Jenna tapped the screen with a glittery fingernail. “Is this where he’s taking you?”
“Who said he’s taking me anywhere?”
She planted a hand on her waist, jutting her hip out so far it made her skirt’s hemline appear crooked, and fixed me with the kind of withering stare usually reserved for line-skippers and subway butt-grabbers. “Can you stop the guilty criminal routine and talk to me like I’m your best friend, please? You dating Tate McGrath is something out of the movies, and I want every little detail.”
“Would you lower your voice?” I scooted backward to peek around the divider to ensure nobody was nearby
to overhear us. “I’m not dating him—”
“Right, sorry. You’re just sleeping with him.”
I flailed a hand around haphazardly to shush her. “Shhhh!” She looked back at me with amusement. “I’d rather that didn’t get around the entire office. And I’m not sleeping with him, either. We just slept together. Once.”
“So, this has nothing to do with him?” She jerked her chin at my computer.
She had me there. I frowned, averted my eyes, and responded in a mumble. “Okay, he asked me out for Saturday night, and that’s the place he suggested.”
Jenna grinned, and her hands came up like she was about to burst into applause, but I grabbed her wrists and forced her arms back down.
“Don’t get excited.” The taut knot in my belly tumbled. “I don’t think it will turn into anything.”
The disappointment her face adopted mirrored the disappointment I felt inside upon hearing the reality spoken aloud. “Why not?”
“I don’t think he wants to be seen with me.”
She let out a guffaw so loud it echoed off the drop ceiling. “Yes, because men so commonly go out of their way to call and ask out women they don’t want to be associated with.”
“No, I’m serious, Jen. Look.” I drew her attention to the website, pointing to each individual table. “This place is tiny. Only ten tables, two chairs each. And the pizzeria we were at before going to his place was even smaller.”
“So? It’s intimate. Romantic.”
“Yeah, but as soon as someone noticed us, he booked it out of there like someone had strapped a torpedo to his ass.”
Jenna rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Do you hear yourself? Or have you completely lost your mind?” I opened my mouth to reply in defense of my intuition, but she flattened her hand and slit it across her throat in a silencing motion. “You’re not thinking about this logically. He’s a celebrity, Sadie. Can you imagine how exhausting it must be to not even be able to get a sandwich without being hounded? Of course he’d try to get away from that. Plus, how much fun could he, or you, have trying to get to know each other on a date when flashbulbs are popping in your eyes and fans are screaming in your ears? If you ask me, I think he’s being courteous to you. He wants to take you to places where he has a shot at being able to actually focus on you.”
