Kittenfish: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy

by Brenda Lowder

  I duck my head and bite the end of my pencil while my insides strain toward my hand sanitizer. Adult films? Oh my goodness. What am I doing here? There’s no way this is going to work. What was I thinking? “Good. Good. That’s great. Just so you know, there won’t be any sex scenes in this movie. Our producers want to keep it strictly PG-13 material, you know, so it’ll appeal to a wide audience.”

  “Sure. I get it.”

  “So there might be a kiss—or two—but nothing more. Are you comfortable with that?” Tarek doesn’t deserve free kisses let alone ones I’m paying for, but for the sake of selling the romance I imagine there might need to be at least one.

  She crosses her legs and clasps her hands over her knee. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

  “This is our lead actor’s first role, so you won’t have seen him in anything before. Since this is an indie film, the producers wanted unknowns as the leads so you both could really dig in and disappear into the characters you’re playing. Make them real. We’re going for a cinema verité kind of feel, so we don’t want you and your co-star to interact or even speak to each other when we’re not filming.”

  “Okay. Yeah.” She frowns and seems to think about it for a minute. I start to panic that she’s going to call B.S. “You know, I think that’s really good actually.”

  “You do?” I’d started feeling like all of this was screaming loud and clear that THERE IS NO FILM and YOU’RE INTERVIEWING WITH A CRAZY PERSON, but here she is not only buying it but being supportive. My pulse revs with excitement. This is going to work.

  She runs a hand over her hair and twists a strand of it around her index finger. “Yeah. I have a boyfriend, so if I’m not even talking to this other guy off set then there’s no reason for my boyfriend to get jealous like he did with those other films I was in.”

  I swallow, picturing her boyfriend who’d probably love to find out she’s been lied to and was starring in a fake movie. Um, no, I’m sure he wouldn’t. If the controlling boyfriend finds out, I’m toast. “Yes, that’s true. Excellent point, Lexy. There’s nothing for him to be jealous of here.”

  Her pretty face splits into a huge grin. “So I’ve got the part?”

  “You’ve got the part!” As anxious as I am, I can’t help but reflect some of her enthusiasm.

  She squeals and hugs me, knocking my clipboard and papers to the floor.

  “Sorry!” She scoops them up and hands them to me in a jumbled mess.

  “No problem,” I say, but really, my problems may just be beginning.

  Chapter Six

  It’s so easy to create the perfect woman for Tarek to fall in love with. I’ve only known him since I was ten years old and he was eleven. Yes, he likes blondes, boobs, and blue eyes. Check, check, check. Lexy has all that and more.

  But what he’s also going to need is a soul-to-soul connection that will have him rethinking his life choices and deciding that there is indeed real value to commitment.

  And I’m pretty sure I can give him that.

  Tarek has always been the dumper, never the dump-ee. If you can even call it that. I can’t remember a single one of his “relationships” lasting longer than a week since he was in high school.

  I can set him up with the perfect girl—one who’ll tease him and tantalize him but remain teeth-grittingly out of reach. She’ll engage him in a scintillating game of high-stakes sexual tension for a period of, say, six months—because that’s how long I’m paying Lexy—and he’ll come out the other end mangled, lacerated, shredded by the claws of despair. He’ll know the iron-hot searing pain of loving someone with his whole heart only to be ripped away from her, from that only person who’d filled the gaping hole in the center of his being. If she could find a way for him to lose a couple of his toenails, I’d be good with that too. That’s painful. Only then will he understand what he’s done to me. Only then will he drown in a Florida-sized swamp of remorse. Only then will he crawl to me, naked, and dirty—from all the crawling on the ground—and beg for a particle of my forgiveness. At this point, he’ll have even become a better person. One who’ll be dead sorry he wrecked my life.

  I create the social media profile on Facebook for Tarek’s perfect woman using the “promotional” photos I took of Lexy after her audition yesterday, but the picture is where the resemblance to Lexy ends.

  Tarek’s dream woman is named Giselle Bisset. She loves rock climbing, dogs, and beaches with palm trees. She’s a freelance photographer whose photos have been featured in travel and lifestyle magazines around the world. She knows a lot about wine, a little about fishing, and almost nothing about football. She’s been living in Germany working for an online German travel magazine and is now back in the US, finally giving in and joining Facebook.

  After I create her fictitious account, I friend her with my real account and create several more (fake) people for her to be friends with. Then I have her send friend requests to several of my friends as well as random people with lots of Facebook friends who make me think they’re not too particular about whom they accept friend requests from. I briefly consider setting up other social media sites for her, but Tarek only looks at Facebook, so I don’t bother.

  Tarek has never gone after one of Kya’s or my friends in our inner circle, but he’ll think a Facebook friend, especially someone perfectly suited to his tastes whom I’ve never mentioned, would be fair game.

  By the time Giselle sends a friend request to Tarek, she looks legit. Even I’m half in love with her.

  It takes him four minutes to notice.

  Facebook Friend Request Accepted

  Tarek Oliver

  Hey, Giselle. Nice to cyber-meet you. How do you know Marissa?

  And then I wait.

  If I know one thing about Mr. Tarek Oliver, it’s that he hates being ignored. He craves attention. All the time. He’d ship it in from other countries if he could avoid the import fees. If the lady in question isn’t being an appreciative enough audience to his magnificence, he raises the stakes in his circus sideshow until the number of swords he’s swallowing is impossible to ignore.

  I think about answering him in the afternoon, but then I reconsider. Tomorrow would be even better. But to tweak his nose, I have Giselle post some photos she took in Sri Lanka—which I buy off an amateur travel photographer on the internet—so he knows she’s online and just not answering him.

  It works.

  Three hours later, I get this.

  Tarek Oliver

  Can’t believe Marissa never mentioned you. Actually, I can. Ha!

  Really enjoying your work.

  I roll my eyes. It’s so pretentious of him to say work like he’s well-versed in travel photography. Just add travel photographer to all the things he thinks he is. Watch. Next he’ll be saying he’s a wine connoisseur. He knows nothing about wine. Unless Guinness counts as wine.

  I wait an hour before messaging him back. Waiting until tomorrow would upset him more, but Giselle did friend him, so I decide it’s more believable for her to be at least a little interested in answering him.

  Giselle Bisset

  Hey, Tarek. Nice to meet you too. I knew Marissa in California. She was my best friend in third and fourth grades, before she moved away. We’d lost touch. Yay for Facebook.

  And that’s it. That’s all I have her say. I don’t have her do the girl thing like asking him a bunch of questions to show an eagerness to engage with him. I don’t acknowledge his compliment or offer him one of my own.

  I can almost see him in his apartment, reading at his laptop, forcing himself to walk away and then going back again, unable to leave it—Giselle—me—alone. I giggle out loud imagining his expression, his leaning away from the keyboard to run his hands through his hair, his eyebrows all mashed together in frustration.

  It only takes him three minutes to write back.

  Tarek Oliver

  Want to get together tonight and tell me all about it?

  Whoa.

  Wow, he works f
ast. I mean, I’ve always known he works fast—that’s part of the problem. He operates on looks and superficial characteristics. He’s always after the cheap thrill, the one-night stand, the sex without strings attached. Who a woman really is, her thoughts and feelings, are immaterial to him except to exploit in conversation so he can pretend to be understanding or sympathetic or sensitive until he lures her into bed then cuts her loose.

  But this is super fast, even for Tarek. He’s operating from a Facebook picture and just a few lines of messaging. Ugh, Tarek.

  Giselle Bisset

  You’re sweet! Being new in Atlanta, it’s nice to start making friends. I can’t, though. I think my boyfriend might get the wrong idea.

  His reply comes a split second later.

  Tarek Oliver

  Boyfriend, huh? New in town and you already have a boyfriend? Some guys have all the luck.

  Giselle Bisset

  Not in town, unfortunately. Anton is still in Germany. We’re trying the long-distance thing.

  Tarek Oliver

  Long distance? No problem, then. Come on over and you won’t even have to tell him.

  I shut down my laptop. Yup, that’s the player I know and thousands of women have loved—briefly. I shudder. That’s about as much of Tarek as I can take for today. And the more I let him twist in the wind, waiting for some kind of attention, the more desperate he’ll be for it. I stretch my hands behind my head and shift in my chair and frown at the pain. I think I must have bruised my butt when Tarek dumped me in the shower. I decide to make a doctor’s appointment for later today.

  I dread going back to work on Monday. I’ve taken my two-week honeymoon off to recover from my happily never after. I haven’t recovered, but I can’t afford to be unemployed. I have a fake movie to finance. So Monday I’ll have to do a walk of shame that says look at me, I took time off for a trip to the Bahamas I didn’t take and a wedding that never happened.

  Chapter Seven

  Are we expecting flooding today? What’s with the swim ring?” Blaire jerks her chin at the inflatable plastic ring I’m carrying as she intercepts me on the way to my desk Monday morning.

  I hold up the seat donut. “It’s a cushion. For sitting. I, um, bruised my bottom. It’s sore. The doctor gave me this.”

  “Wow! And here I thought you were home drowning your sorrows. I didn’t know you’d be out getting physical. Tell me all about it.” She props her chin in her hand and rests her elbow on top of the short wall of my cubicle.

  “I fell in the shower.”

  Her face falls. “Oh.” It brightens a second later. “Alone?”

  “No.” My anger bubbles up like boiling caramel—thick, sticky, and about a hundred degrees hotter than boiling water—as memories of Tarek pierce flaming swords through my heart. It’s not just my bruised backside. It’s the white-hot humiliation of being hefted like a sack of inferior chocolates and thrown onto the shower floor after Tarek admitted he’d forced the love of my life to abandon me.

  She squeals and claps her hands.

  I shake my head and correct myself. “I mean, yes, of course I was alone.”

  Blaire pouts. “Oh, boo. You’re no fun. You know what you need? Revenge sex. Come on. Get back at Liam by slamming some hard bodies. Hand me a Post-it. We’ll make a list of the guys you can have revenge sex with. Get your old attic dusted.”

  I don’t hand her a Post-it and sigh instead. “I’m not interested in revenge sex.” Or getting my attic dusted. I almost wish I were. It’d cost less than the secret Tarek tortured-by-love plan, that’s for sure.

  Troy from Sports walks around the corner and stops short when he sees Blaire.

  “Hey.” His eyebrows waggle and a light I haven’t seen before comes into his eyes. She may have caught a live one here.

  “Hey,” she returns without looking at him.

  He clears his throat, but she still doesn’t turn around. He takes a beat and then scoots past her, sucking in his stomach and inching sideways so they don’t touch. She doesn’t move to allow him any space.

  When he’s gone, I tilt my head at her. “What’s up with you and Troy now?”

  She rolls her eyes and steps back, glancing down the hall to make sure he’s out of earshot. “I’m letting him get ideas.”

  I blink at her. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, I’ve been flirting with him for a month. That’s it. Now I ignore him. He should get ideas.”

  “What kind of ideas?”

  “Ideas about me. About us. About making us happen.”

  “You should just ask him out.”

  She snorted and assumed an expression of superiority. “Troy writes for Sports.” She puts emphasis on the last word and stares at me like I should know what that means.

  “So?”

  “So he’s a guy’s guy. A man’s man. Masculine. Macho. Primal. He must do the pursuing.”

  “Okay.” I nod along like I’m following her logic.

  She continues. “I indicated I was interested. Gave him attention these past four weeks. And now he has to act.”

  “Or you’ll ignore him?”

  “Or I’m cooling off on him and he’d better notice.”

  I shrug and concede to her superior skills. “It was downright arctic in here.”

  She puts her nose in the air. “Thank you. I try.”

  “So how long are you freezing him out?”

  She scowls at me like I’ve missed the point. “For as long as it takes.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?” She glances at me sideways, and for a second I can see the vulnerability she’s masking.

  “Seems like you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into this one.” I search her features, but she hides behind the mask again.

  “He must be the one you really, really want,” I press.

  She looks around. The desks nearest mine are empty, but she lowers her voice anyway. “Well, of course he is,” she hisses. “Why do you think I engineered this run-in in the first place?”

  My face splits into a grin. “Oh, Blaire, that’s great!” I stand up and try to hug her, but she stiffens and pulls away. I persist.

  “What are you doing? This is nothing to celebrate.”

  Clinging tighter, I give her a squeeze, laughing. “Yes it is. You’re in love. Admit it.”

  “I will not. It’s not even a crush. You are oversensitive to love and much too fast to jump to commitment,” she says, but hugs me back. When I pull away there’s a rigidly contained, tight-lipped smile sneaking onto her face. “Although it might be…something. Someday.”

  I fake-slug her on the arm. She teeters on her high heels and grabs the cubicle wall for balance. Deep inside Blaire, there’s a hidden romantic. With my heart still an open wound gouged by Tarek—I mean Liam—you’d think I’d be bitter, but I’m pleased to see Blaire hopeful about finding love and commitment. I have to believe that more love in the world in general will bring my love back to me.

  “Just make sure I’m a bridesmaid.”

  “Oh, shut up and go sit on your donut.” She smiles and flounces back to her desk.

  I set the inflatable cushion on my chair and wince when I sit down. The truth is my pride is more wounded than my backside. But it’s my heart that bears the greatest pain of all, and for this Tarek must pay.

  There are more than six hundred new emails and a virtual stack of obituaries waiting for me. People say print is dying, but so is everyone else. I ignore all of them and instead open up Facebook.

  Giselle’s account.

  Sure enough, Tarek has written.

  I purposely did not even look at her page this weekend. I want Giselle to seem busy—and unconcerned with Tarek in the extreme.

  Hopefully Tarek noticed. Hopefully it drove him crazy.

  There’s a message from him. Sent Saturday afternoon.

  Tarek Oliver

  I can understand if you don’t want to come over, jealous boyfriend and all. But maybe we can meet f
or lunch or a drink sometime with Marissa so you guys can reconnect and you can make some new friends in the city. I hope I can be one of them.

  Oh, Tarek. Invoking my presence so he seems safer? So transparent.

  But I type Giselle’s answer.

  Giselle Bisset

  That would be great. I’ll message Marissa and see when she’s available.

  A chuckle escapes as I push send. A giddy bubble of happiness rises up inside me just picturing Tarek twiddling his thumbs, unable to bag his most recent intended conquest because he has to wait on my schedule.

  I giggle under my breath until I’m laughing out loud. It might be hysteria, or it might be the fact that for the first time since Liam left me and Tarek humiliated me, I feel a little spark of hope.

  “Excuse me,” a voice says behind me.

  I swivel around in my rolling chair and face the opening to my cubicle. A tallish, handsome-ish man is standing there gazing down at me. He appears to be about six feet in height, with sandy, light brown hair, and a slightly crooked nose. Dressed in khaki pants and an ironed button-down shirt, he’s holding a dog leash and regarding me with soft eyes.

  “Can I help you?” I lean in his direction, trying to make my butt donut less noticeable. Suddenly I feel self-conscious to be sitting on something I’ve only ever seen grandmotherly hemorrhoid sufferers use.

  He clears his throat. “Um, yes. Thanks. I was looking for the classifieds reporter, but a sign at her desk said to come here?” His statement shouldn’t have been a question, but he said it like one.

  “Oh, yes.” Blaire no doubt had some relationship emergency she had to attend to and decided to pawn off any unexpected walk-ins on me. Typical Blaire. But if it helps her with her pursuit of Troy and her happily ever after, I’m glad to help.