Dream Lover

by Aubrey Wright

  But this place was a bachelor pad. It was built into the bones of the apartment, and all the HomeGoods décor in the world wouldn’t change that. The sleek white stylings that I’d loved now felt more like the waiting room of one of those high-end plastic surgery clinics where they’ll snip your nose and blow up your lips while you listen to Enya and check Instagram.

  Not that I’d know anything about those places, of course. I liked my beak just how it was, thank you very much.

  The only reason this place even felt like a home anymore was the two ladies currently chilling on the couch, one wrapped up in her cheesy ’80s soaps and the other with her little head buried in a book—just what I liked to see.

  “Evening, gals!” I said as I strode into the living room where a large fire was crackling in the fireplace. “Hope you both are in the mood for some grub, animal-style!”

  Mom and Sophia’s attention flicked right over to me as soon as I spoke. Sophia burst out of the pile of blankets she’d been nestled in, running over to me and wrapping her arms—arms which seemed more and more by the day like they belonged to a teenager—around me with such force that I nearly dropped the burger bag right square onto her head.

  “Well, good to see you too, kiddo,” I said, reaching down with my free hand and mussing her dark hair.

  “Whoa, whoa,” she said, stepping back and ducking her head away from me. “Watch the hair.”

  “What?” I asked with a grin. “Too good for a little fatherly affection?”

  But Sophia said nothing, her sharp features in an expression of something like surprise and indignation—the adorable kind of indignation, of course—her shamrock-green eyes wide.

  “She wants you to notice something,” said Mom as she strolled past me, taking the burger bag from my hand. “Something hair-related.”

  I gave my little girl another look, realizing right away what Mom was talking about. Sophia’s hair, typically tied back into a simple, no-muss-no-fuss ponytail, had been chopped into a chic little bob, the sharp points of the front hanging by her tiny chin.

  “Oh, hair!” I said. “Hair!”

  “You like it?” asked Sophia, giving the bottom of her do that little fluff-up gesture with the palm of her hand. “It’s French.”

  “French, huh?” I asked. “You know this is an American household, right? Hence the burgers.”

  Sophia, well used to my bad jokes by this point, smirked and rolled her eyes.

  “It’s from one of those foreign movies she loves,” said Mom as she set the table. “What was this one? Amy?”

  “Amélie,” said Sophia as she plopped into one of the chairs, snatching a fry dripping with goopy cheese out from the bag and tossing it into her mouth. “And it was sooo good.”

  Sophia, keeping in theme with her general precociousness, couldn’t get enough of art-house films. The subject of her current fascinations was France, and it seemed like the big TV in the living room was constantly playing one of those old black-and-white films by Truffaut or whoever else. Hey, fine with me—less obnoxious than Avengers movies rattling the speakers.

  Her eyes lit up, as if she’d just thought of a brilliant idea.

  “Dad,” she said, putting her hands on the table and looking up at me. “Can we go to France?”

  I laughed at Sophia suggesting a trip to France with the same tone that a kid might use when asking to go to the park tomorrow.

  “France, huh?” I asked, dropping into the chair next to hers and sharing a knowing look with Mom.

  “Yeah!” she said, her eyes lighting up in that way they did whenever she talked about something that was totally interesting to her, be it a book or movie or whatever else.

  I loved it. Never got old.

  “Jeunet makes the city…so captivating!” she said. “I want to see if the city is just as amazing as la Nouvelle Vague makes it look.” She clasped her hands over her chest like she was swooning.

  “Kid,” I said. “You lost me. I understand the France part, but you know unless it’s got a beat and some guitars it’s not really my thing.”

  “Then I’ll just have to show you,” she said. “When we go.” A big, toothy grin followed.

  “Let’s see how the rest of the semester goes,” I said, reaching over and mussing her bob.

  Mom went to getting the food set out, and as soon as silence returned I found myself thinking about the night that had just passed—the show and the party and, of course, Pepper.

  “How was the show?” asked Mom. “I wish we could’ve been there, but you know I don’t like taking this one to places like that.”

  “I’m old enough,” said Sophia, her hand disappearing into the bag of food and coming out wrapped around a burger, her fingers only barely long enough to wrap around it.

  “It was good, thanks,” I said, Pepper still on my mind.

  Mom sat down next to me, giving me that look that made me remember there wasn’t any point in trying to hide what was on my mind from her, like she had some kind of weird sci-fi mind-reading machine built into her eyes.

  “Something happened,” she asked. “Good or bad?”

  For a moment I considered fibbing, but, you know, the mind-reading.

  “Show was good,” I said, repeating myself. “Just…met someone while I was there.”

  Now it was Mom’s turn for her eyes to light up. “Met someone?” she asked. “Like a ‘someone’ someone?”

  Mom allowed herself a small smile. She’d always been the pretty standard mom-type in this regard—constantly riding me to get hitched and start the grandkid factory. But ever since I actually came up with a grandkid for her she’d only upped the pressure. “Daughters need mothers,” she’d say. Sure, I’d tell her it was the twenty-first century, and all kinds of different family setups were the norm, but that didn’t dissuade her.

  She had a point, though. As much as I wanted to be an all-in-one super parent for Sophia, man, was it hard. Watching the kid tear into her burger like a linebacker, I knew that as much as I wanted to be able to do it all, I needed some help.

  Hell, and some love wouldn’t kill me.

  “Nothing,” I said, absentmindedly dunking some fries into a white-red glob of mayo and ketchup. “Nothing worth mentioning.”

  Mom gave me a look—that look, to be specific. One that let me know there was something else on her mind.

  “OK, Mom,” I said. “I’ll bite.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said.

  Difference between me and Mom—when I said something was nothing, like I’d just done, it meant that it was either well and truly nothing, or that it was something I didn’t want to go into. When Mom said it, on the other hand, it was a sign that not only was it not “nothing,” but a very big “something” was about to head my way.

  “OK,” she said, letting it out as if she’d just had a particularly intense internal debate and had come down on the side of expressing her feelings. “It’s just that I’m happy you’ve met someone.”

  “I haven’t—”

  She blew past me, skillfully seeing through my flimsy lies. That’s moms for you—always have an active radar for BS, especially from their kids.

  “But I don’t know if I want you hanging around with one of those kinds of girls I know go to your shows.”

  The emphasis she placed on “those kinds” left little doubt as to what she meant by that.

  “Those are loose women, Noah. You know what that means, right?”

  Yes, I most certainly did. But I didn’t say it.

  “Not the kind of women you really want to be associating with, and what’s more I don’t think that…”

  Together the three of us worked through our burgers, Mom going through her point-by-point list of why the kind of woman who went to rock shows was the type of woman I should avoid. And I let her. I knew it was out of love.

  And as she spoke, I found my eyes drifting out to the skyline of the city, the glittering lights of the LA skyline reminding me of tho
se that illuminated the outline of Pepper as she danced, her dark hair flicking around her head, a big, gorgeous smile on her face like something out of a Nagel painting.

  I had to see her again—no damn doubts about it.

  But how?

  10

  PEPPER

  I couldn’t focus on a damn thing. Bad news when you’re an executive at one of the largest publishing companies on the West Coast.

  It was Monday, and the office was abuzz with the usual insane degree of work that was typical at the beginning of the workweek. Suited fellow execs strode here and there, hip-dressed interns zipping around carrying coffee and files and everything else, all desperate to look even busier than they already were.

  I was ready to work. Sure, I loved my job. But more than that I needed something, anything to get my mind off the weekend. All I could think about was Noah, me and him in the manager’s office, just the two of us and the city outstretched through the window to our backs. I’d been so, so damn close to making my most fevered teenage dream come true.

  But, of course, it wasn’t to be. Nope—because that would’ve been simple and easy. And nothing in my life, for better or worse, was simple and easy.

  After a quick stop at the Keurig, I mentally prepared myself for the day ahead. We had a ton—more like a shitload—of new authors to go through, lots of projects to line up for the coming quarter. And seeing as how that was kinda sorta my job, I needed to get my head in the game. I figured a few cups of coffee would be just the thing for that.

  On my way back to my office, however, right at the exact second the coffee passed my lips, I spotted just about the last person I wanted to see.

  Moira Walsh.

  Moira was one of the freelance writers that my company, Penrose Publishing, frequently worked with for various projects. Though if you were to check her Instagram, you wouldn’t know writing factored anywhere into her oh-so-glamorous life. No, that was all stuffed to the gills with various pictures of her jet-setting around the globe, petting elephants or paddleboarding or whatever it was that people like her who didn’t work in offices did.

  And if it were just that, it wouldn’t be a problem. There was more, specifically that Moira wasn’t just someone who I worked with—she was a fellow graduate of Buena Vista High in Sherman Oaks. Same school, same year, same everything. Same guys, too. Though with the minor detail that she actually dated them, while I simply fantasized about it.

  “Pep!” she said, her perfect mouth in a big, too-much smile as she strolled over to me in one of her usual effortlessly hip and stylish outfits, her cinnamon-colored hair in a pixie cut.

  “Hey, Mo—”

  I didn’t get a chance to finish before she pulled me into a tight hug, the scent of her sandalwood perfume wrapping around me like a nice-smelling octopus.

  “So good to see you,” she said.

  “You too,” I said, giving her a pat on the back with a stiff palm.

  She always hugged me like this, which I could never figure out. Moira and I had never been close in high school, and that didn’t change one bit once we’d come into each other’s lives again through work. Moira was one of those “spiritual” women who was always dabbling in some vaguely mystical something-or-other while traveling, and I’d always figured her ultra-chill vibes were a part of that.

  But they were a total put-on. Moira was a vicious little thing in high school and never missed a chance to make my life a living hell. And while I didn’t work with kids’ books, I knew enough about them to have heard the old story about how leopards never change their spots.

  Shit, I’d never forget about what she did back in junior year, back when I actually thought there might be a chance that she and I could be friends. We’d hang out during lunch, and during one of these little gossip-seshes I’d let slip that I had a major, major crush on Ian Fowler, an impossibly gorgeous upperclassman I knew was out of my league.

  I didn’t think much of it at the time, but who did I see her with not a week later? You guessed it—her and Ian making out in the hallway between classes, right where she knew I’d be able to see her. It was like she got some sick thrill out of sinking her claws into the guys she knew other girls wanted, just to show the dude off. Instagram really wasn’t a thing back then, but if it had been I knew without a doubt that she’d have been plastering pictures of her and her dude-of-the-week all over it.

  After a beat or two too long, Moira let go and put her hands on my shoulders, looking me up and down.

  “You’re looking well,” she said. “Did you get a chance for a little self-care over the weekend?”

  “Something like that,” I said, already wanting to be out of the conversation. “Went out with the girls.”

  “Sounds lovely,” she said. “I managed to sneak in a little mindfulness retreat up in Big Sur—just me and the waves and nice, mellow energy.”

  With the speed and stealth of a damn ninja, she managed to slip her phone out of her pocket and have her Instagram opened and in front of my face. Sure enough, there were a handful of shots of Moira in front of the ocean in various poses, her body decked out in head-to-toe Lululemon and a very pleased-with-herself smile on her face.

  “Very nice,” I said as she flipped though the pictures.

  “You still haven’t added me on here,” she said, her tone almost sad. “I’d love to see what you’re up to these days.”

  “Not really the Instagram type,” I said. “More a live-in-the-moment girl, I guess.”

  I had one, sure, but it was set to private, and I barely used it. Not to mention the last thing I wanted was coworkers poking around on my very small social media presence.

  She gave me a knowing look, one that suggested my often-discussed lack of enthusiasm for social media was some quaint little quirk, like a preference for making my own butter.

  “Sure, sure,” she said, tucking her phone away. “I know how you like to…do things.”

  I most certainly noticed the little extra emphasis she’d put on the last two words of the sentence. And I was sure she’d wanted me to.

  “But!” she said, sticking a finger into the air, her expertly winged, dark-lined eyes lighting up. “You’d better be ready to have that pretty little face of yours all over the internet in a about six weeks.”

  I was confused. “Huh?” I asked. “What’s going on in six weeks?”

  Moira’s jaw dropped, and she regarded me as though I’d just told her about some plans to renounce all worldly things and wander the Mojave in some kind of spiritual quest.

  “Are…are you serious?” she asked. “I mean, I can never tell with you, Pep. Your sense of humor’s always been on the…dry side.”

  I let that one slide. “Of course I’m serious,” I said. “What’s happening then?”

  “The reunion!” she said, giving me a too-hard jab to the shoulder that nearly caused me to spill my coffee. “Are you seriously telling me you didn’t know about it?”

  I did a quick scan of my mental calendar, trying to remember if I’d made any note of it happening. But nope, not a thing.

  “Pep,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s our fifteenth-year reunion.”

  “Is a fifteenth reunion a thing?” I asked.

  “Well, no,” she said. “But the tenth got canceled because of that, um, internet thing that Principal Bannon got caught doing…”

  “Oh yeah,” I said.

  “So everything got pushed back to the fifteenth which, since you’ve clearly forgotten, is coming up soon! Less than two months away!”

  “Wow,” I said, still struck by the news. “Kind of snuck up on me.”

  “You seriously didn’t get any of the emails?” she asked.

  “I mean, there might be some in there,” I said. “My spam filters are, uh, pretty brutal.”

  “And it’s been all over Facebook and—” Realization hit her. “See,” she said, playfully wagging her finger at me. “This is what happens when you think you’re too g
ood for social media.”

  “It’s not a matter of thinking I’m too go—”

  “Well that doesn’t matter,” she said, waving her hand through the air and cutting me off. “The important thing is that you know, and no excuses.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling nervous all of a sudden. “I might be—”

  “No excuses,” she said. “I know you’re not exactly the dating type, so showing up with a date to make all the other girls jealous likely isn’t in the cards—”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She blew past me. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a splash. I mean, look at you!” She gestured to the bustling office around us. “You’re kind of a big deal around here,” she said. “I mean, not everyone that we went to school with managed to be a…um, what are you again?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Junior Vice President of Acquisitions,” I said.

  “Yeah!” she said. “That! Pretty impressive, if you ask me.” Her eyes lit up. “Anyway, you’ve still got a week to mentally prepare yourself,” she said. “Because there’s not a chance you’re not going.”

  Truth be told, I would’ve been happier not knowing about the whole thing. But now I didn’t really have a choice—especially with Katy almost certainly wanting to go.

  Just as I began to try to puzzle out the mystery of why Katy hadn’t told me, Moira began speaking again.

  “Anyway,” she said. “I didn’t just come to say hi—the old man wants to see you.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yep,” said Moira. “Has a project in mind that he thinks you’d be perfect for. And not just you—but me too.”

  “What kind of project?” I asked.

  Moira took me by the hand, this time causing a tiny wave of scalding-hot coffee to slosh over the side of my mug and singe my hand. “Come on! It’s a surprise!”