by Renee Ahdieh
“I just don’t want to lead him on or give him any expectations. I mean, I don’t even know if he likes me! I want to handle it right from the beginning. I can’t clean up another mess retroactively.”
“Cris, you need to stop trying to control everything like life is a scripted saga. It’s not. Right now, you’re just talking about a phone call. Next time, call me if he asks you to have his lovechild. That’s something worth worrying over.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing I should be concerned about?” I murmured. I felt like a neurotic child suffering from hypochondria. There are no monsters in the closet.
“Of course I’m not sure. All I know is it’s just a phone call. Chill out. Go to sleep. And for God’s sake, don’t call Hana. All this situation needs is another obsessive mind pondering every nuance as if it were Shakespearean theater.”
“Okay. Thanks G. Believe it or not, you’ve helped me a lot.”
“I believe it. Love you, chica.” I heard her yawn in the background. Gita Talukdar . . . the frontrunner in the Cut the Shit Campaign.
“Me too. Talk to you tomorrow.”
From: Cris Pereira <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: Tom A.
Date: Thurs, January 15, 2009 at 2:27 AM
Subject: Phone Call
Zimmerman
Sure. I usually take my lunch break between 12:30 and 1:30.
Chip
I stared at the email from my Sent inbox for a few more minutes, then I forced myself to shut down the computer.
God only knew what tomorrow would bring.
Chapter Five
All morning at work, I knew it looked like I had done a long line of cocaine when I first woke up. I was annoyingly cheerful and almost hyperactive in my interactions with my colleagues . . . kind of like a squirrel with a nervous disorder. I knew that they noticed, and it bothered me to no end.
Usually, I was a fairly bubbly person and purposefully exuded an inordinate amount of energy in nearly everything I did. It helped me a great deal to be this way, especially whenever life took a turn for the worst. People with the propensity to pity me usually forgot about their concern whenever they saw my smile and heard my laughter—even if both were secretly forced. Regardless of my typical modus operandi, I was probably taking it too far today.
I tried hard not to let my nerves get the better of me . . . damn him for making me wait to find out what he couldn’t say via email. It was a lot easier to feign detachment and disinterest when I didn’t have such a large chunk of time to obsess about the burning question mark in my inbox. Ugh.
As soon as 12:30 hit at the top corner of my computer screen, I pulled out my phone and began making the walk outside to the car. Again, I didn’t want anyone to know that my rather mundane existence of the past few months had just taken a small shock to the nervous system.
I sat down in the car and put on some Stravinsky. The last two movements from his Firebird Suite were usually like a soothing balm to my scorched psyche. It would do me no good at all to make him realize how much my mind turned to thoughts of him recently. I didn’t even want to admit it to myself: I was really beginning to like Movie Star Tom, and it was destined to cause me problems sometime very soon.
The vibrations of the phone in my hand startled me just as a swell in the music elicited a drawn-out breath of relaxation from my tensed frame. The crescendo of violins retreated softly into the background as I lowered the volume and cleared my throat.
“Hello?” I said as nonchalantly as possible.
“Hi.” I imagined him smiling as he said the word. Shit, why did I let my imagination take control of me?
“How’s your day been so far?” Again, I thought I did a fairly good job of straddling the fence between mild interest and common courtesy. Right?
“I’ve actually been a bit nervous.” He laughed warmly.
“Why?”
“Well, I keep thinking that I’m doing a decent job of seeming normal to you, and now I proceed to muck it up by asking you to do something I’d venture to be a bit of a stretch for you . . . and now I’m rambling nonsensically. Two very good reasons to be nervous.”
My responding laugh was edgy and high-pitched . . . reminiscent of an idiotic schoolgirl. Excellent.
“See? It’s now contagious.” I saw him smiling again as he said the words and couldn’t help my heartbeat from accelerating ever so slightly.
“How about we make a deal . . . I’ll stop laughing like an idiot and you stop rambling nonsensically.” My voice sounded more normal.
“Deal.”
“Shit, I just had to stop myself from laughing like an idiot,” I said with a grin.
“I’d forgotten how much I liked the sound of your voice,” he said in a lower register.
No, no, no! My heart skipped a beat. This would not happen.
“See, now that better not be the only reason why you wanted to call me.” I pretended to sound irritated in an attempt to change the direction of the conversation.
“It’s not. Regardless, you have the cutest accent.”
“What? I know the guy who says words like ‘manky’ and ‘bollocks’ is not telling me I have an accent.” I attempted to say the strange colloquialisms with the same inflection a British person might use . . . at least I thought so.
“God, that was the worst fucking impression of a British accent I’ve heard yet. Swear to me you won’t do that again.”
“I worked hard as a kid so that I wouldn’t sound like a foreigner, thank you very much. I’ll only swear not to do a British accent again if you swear to pretend that I succeeded in my attempt. I’d rather not worry that I sound like Rosie Perez for another day in my life.”
He laughed loudly. “It’s not a marked accent. It’s very slight. Like I said . . . I think it’s quite cute.”
“Humph. Watch out, England! Cristina is loose and bastardizing the public’s perception of your charming accent. Shakespeare and Jane Austen are turning in their graves!” My horrendous imitation even grated against my own eardrums. Blech. I sure wasn’t Gwyneth Paltrow.
He laughed again. “To hell with it . . . I’m just going to ask. I have way too much fun talking to you.”
“Ask me what?”
I heard him take a deep breath. Suddenly the cheeky attitude I had developed within the last few seconds of our conversation vanished and was subsequently replaced by its predecessor (aptly named “panic”).
“So . . . I had a rather . . . brilliant idea last night. Well, I think it’s brilliant, but you may think it’s a bit . . . mental.”
He was being extremely careful in his choice of words—a fact that doesn’t usually bode well for the other person involved in the dialogue. It reminded me a bit of my father. Whenever he had something unpleasant to say, he would usually take his time, as though he were an elocutionist teaching a slow-minded person how to speak.
“Just spit it out, Zimmerman,” I joked in an attempt to force both of us to relax and stop taking this conversation seriously. It was easier to pretend something didn’t matter that much when you could control the timbre of the exchange in your lighthearted favor.
“Hah. Fine. I’m going to be in Atlanta from tomorrow through Sunday. Initially, I was planning on having your long-absent iPod mailed to Raleigh, but . . . I’d rather you come and get it yourself.”
“Excuse me?” They were the only words I could manage to squeak out.
“If I were to, for instance, have a ticket waiting for you at the airport tomorrow to come to Atlanta for the weekend, would you come?”
I couldn’t even think straight. Was he serious? He wanted me to come to Atlanta? Why?
“Cris?”
“Give me a second.” My brain worked overtime hashing out rationalizations both for and against this insanity.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I hope I’m not coming off as a complete tosser. Like I’ve said before, I
really like talking to you.” He sounded completely forthright, but he was an actor, after all.
“But why the hell would you want me to come to Atlanta?” I blurted out thoughtlessly.
“For the same reason I want you to respond to my emails. I think I’m quickly becoming fascinated by you . . . in a very non-stalker-like way.”
“Non-stalkers don’t offer to buy girls they hardly know plane tickets to visit them,” I bit out.
“Very true. Do you see now why I was nervous?”
“Not nearly nervous enough,” I murmured.
“Did I offend you? I’m truly sorry if I did. I feel like I’m doing a terrible job of properly expressing how much I would like to hang out with you this weekend. I know it’s too soon to ask, but I wish you would trust me when I say that I just want to relax and spend time getting to know you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. I want to get to know you better and, unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to park myself in Raleigh to do so.”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“Look, I don’t want to pressure you. My closest friends live and work in London, and if I could get them to come and visit for a weekend that would be fantastic. I’ve resigned myself to the fact they won’t be able to come . . . at least not with any frequency. That basically means I need to make some friends in the states or exist like a tortured hermit for the duration of the time I live here.”
Friends? He wanted friends? If that was all he wanted, I could be okay with that.
“Tom, I don’t want to fly to Atlanta to visit you.”
A brief moment of silence. “I totally understand,” he said softly.
“But . . . I will drive down to Atlanta to pick up my iPod on Saturday.”
“Isn’t that a bit of a drive? Why don’t you just fly?” His voice had instantly become more animated, and my heart matched its intensity alarmingly. Really bad, Cris. You had better watch yourself.
“I don’t feel comfortable taking a plane ticket from you.”
“Why not?” he asked with surprise.
“I don’t know. I need to feel like I can come and go on my own schedule. Plus, I don’t like to feel beholden to others. If I wanted to fly, I could buy my own plane ticket.”
“I’ve said it before . . . you really are quite surprising,” he said thoughtfully.
“Yeah, I still don’t know why you think that.”
“And that’s exactly what makes you so fascinating. Can I at least get you a hotel room so that you don’t have to drive so much in one day? I can ask my agent to reserve one in your name.”
I thought for a moment. “It sounds like a fair compromise.”
“Excellent. Would you mind calling me when you’ve left?”
For a moment, I felt my heart jerk to a sudden stop. Whenever things were good, Ryan had always wanted me to call on my way to visit him and when I returned home. It hurt to hear another man’s voice asking me such a secretly intimate thing.
“I’ll call you when I’m an hour away,” I said firmly.
“Another fair compromise.”
“I can’t believe you’re making me come and get the iPod that you essentially stole!” I joked.
“I have to say it was one of the better filches of my life,” he stated with mock pride.
“You realize that this basically makes you an asshole.”
He laughed. “I’ll take it as long as you’re coming this weekend.”
“You’d better. I’ll see you soon.”
This time, I definitely heard him smile. “See you on Saturday, Cris. Thanks—from your friendly non-stalker.”
“You’re welcome, Tom.”
Oh, Holy Mother of God . . . this was not good.
Chapter Six
As far as my mother knew, I was going away for the weekend to Charlotte to hang out with Hana and Gita. If I told her the truth, she probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.
My friends were the only ones who knew the truth—I was driving to Atlanta to spend time with a movie star. The sheer lunacy of the situation would have driven me to crazed bouts of laughter had I taken a moment to detach myself from the startling reality. A movie star thought I was fascinating. God only knew why. Unfortunately, I was beginning to find the movie star irresistibly charming as well. Complete idiocy. There was nothing like rebounding with every girl’s fantasy. It was sure to make my ability to select a proper lifelong match that much easier with such an excellent basis for comparison. In actuality, it was every girl’s fantasy but mine. All I wanted was to rewind time and still have Ryan. The boring truth to my sad dream was beginning to eke out a hole in my brain that I needed to fill with something more constructive. A fun weekend out of town just might be the answer.
I decided about halfway through the drive to Atlanta that I would use this opportunity to cement in both our minds that we were destined to be passing friends. Of course, I was still pretty sure he didn’t want anything more than that anyway, so that conversation was probably not going to be too difficult. Surprisingly fascinating or not, I was newly damaged . . . definitely more of a project than anyone should willingly take on for the moment. I hoped I didn’t have to tell him what had happened to me. I’d avoid it at all cost if I could help it, as it was excruciatingly embarrassing to tell anyone that I’d been cast aside for some bimbo my fiancé had known for all of two minutes. Four years of solidarity thrown away for two minutes of spontaneity. Men were such a pain in the ass to understand.
I called when I was sixty miles away from Atlanta.
“Cris?”
“Hey. I’m about an hour away. Where should I go?”
“Do you know how to get to Peachtree Street? I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton,” he said quietly. I assumed he was in a room with other people who might be listening to his conversation. I heard the slight din of voices in the background.
“Swanky.”
“Hah. Just check-in under your name and then call my cell once you’re settled. I’ll send my agent Melissa to get you.”
“Okay. Um, is there something you want to do?”
“Well, I’m actually getting ready to leave a press conference. I’m free for the rest of the evening.”
“I guess we can figure it out whenever I get there,” I said with a slight sound of unease. I still had no idea why he wanted to hang out with me.
“Sure. See you soon.”
“Bye.” After I hung up the phone, I spent the rest of the car ride trying to quell the confusion and focused on being myself. I was sure to have a better time if I didn’t feel so completely bewildered and uncertain by this situation. Cris Pereira was not a girl who suffered from a lack of confidence . . . I just suffered from an apparent inability to maintain control of my life.
The life that I had sought to create for myself with a careful precision akin to delicately constructing a house of cards had been decimated by an errant blonde breeze named Amber . . . seriously, her freaking name was Amber. Wasn’t that the quintessential stripper name? Now, anytime I heard the name “Amber,” I became irrationally angry, as though it were my trigger word. For a moment I thought of that scene in the movie Zoolander where Ben Stiller’s character was brainwashed into killing a Prime Minister by the song Relax. Hah! If only. . . .
I pulled into a space in the parking deck of the Ritz and checked in. Whoever had made the reservation spelled my name correctly. Pretty shocking. I walked into my room and took the requisite look around before calling Tom’s cell phone. He told me that Melissa would be downstairs in ten minutes to bring me to his suite, so I took the time to brush my teeth and run a comb through my hair.
I had decided not to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over what to wear. This wasn’t a date, and I wasn’t interested in having him walk away with any impression about my appearance other than boring normalcy. If it looked like I tried too hard, it wouldn’t serve me well on that account. I opted to wear some o
f my comfortable jeans and a long-sleeved, fitted black top. It was my favorite shirt because a multi-colored, Warhol-esque depiction of Che Guevara was emblazoned on the front. It was a screaming shout-out to my heritage, and my father had loved to see me in it. I wore simple black flats even though heels would have better served to hide the fact that I was a vertically challenged five-foot-two. My people were not celebrated for their height. Instead of growing upwards, God blessed us with the burgeoning backsides that gave rise to Jennifer Lopez’s infamous insurance policy. No matter how much I worked out, I could never hide that part of my genetic inheritance. My hair was slightly wavy in spite of all the torturous attempts to flatten it, and I wore a bit of powder and mascara. Clean and neat . . . nothing that appeared to have taken any extra effort.
A knock at the door startled me from the studious glance of my appearance in the bathroom mirror. I walked to the door and slowly pulled it open. The woman in front of me appeared to be around forty, and her dark blonde hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail that looked like it might be giving her a tension headache. She was pale, and her visage appeared to be utterly no-nonsense. Her clothes were perfectly pressed and tailored to her extremely thin frame.
In ten words or less: this lady did not take shit from anybody.
“My name is Melissa Nash. I’m Thomas’s agent. He asked me to bring you upstairs to the suite.”
She didn’t blink or look me in the eyes once. In fact, it appeared as though she had chosen to introduce herself to a spot on the wall behind me. If I had to venture a guess, she was not a member of my fan club.
“Hi Melissa. I’m Cris,” I said as cheerfully as possible. I threw her a sunny smile in an attempt to defrost her icy demeanor. I failed.
She raised her eyebrows at me as she stared at my face for the first time. She probably thought the same thing I did: Why does he want to spend time with her?
“Follow me.” She turned. I had to quickly grab my purse and jacket from the bed in order to keep up with her.
Following her down the hall reminded me of being in grammar school in Puerto Rico. I had always been an innately curious child and easily distracted by things around me. As a result, I usually fought to catch up with the person in front of me. We walked down the hall in linear formation because I could barely keep up with Melissa Nash. I felt utterly ridiculous running behind her to match her long strides—the preying mantis and the tiny ant.