by Thea Dawson
Not sure what else to do, I call an Uber and head back to the apartment. Even if she’s pissed at me, I can’t see Annabelle not giving back my wallet; sooner or later, we’ll have to arrange to meet, and I’ll figure out what’s going on then.
I walk into the apartment, trying to keep quiet. I checked on Alex this morning, but she still isn’t feeling well after her marathon drinking session this weekend. She called in sick from work, and I don’t want to disturb her. I make some coffee, wondering what to do about Annabelle. I check my phone at least a half dozen times before the coffee’s finished brewing, just in case I don’t hear a text come in, but there’s nothing.
I pour a cup and walk into the living room, then I see it: my wallet on the coffee table. I pick it up—yes, definitely mine, driver’s license, credit cards and all. Even that stupid card from Annabelle’s aunt.
I narrow my eyes as I run my thumb over the worn leather, then put down the coffee, walk down the hall and knock on Alex’s door.
“What?” she groans.
“Come here, I need to ask you something. Please.”
After what seems like several minutes but is probably just a very long few seconds, she opens the door. She sees the wallet in my hand and nods.
“Oh, yeah. Your friend came by and dropped that off.”
“What did she say?”
Alex blinks blearily.
“Alex, tell me. This is important.”
Alex slumps dramatically against the door frame. “Um … she said to tell you she’d stopped by. I guess you somehow talked her into letting you stay with her for the weekend? How’d you meet her? She’s not your usual type at all—”
“Alex, what was she like? Was she upset? How was she behaving?”
Alex huffs out a sigh. “Dude, I’ve got to sit down.”
“Come on. I just made coffee.” I grab her by the arm and pull her down the hallway. “Sit.”
She sits on the couch, and I pour her a cup of coffee with cream, no sugar, the way she likes it. I hand it to her then pull up a chair so I’m facing her. “I need you to tell me everything that happened, Alex. It’s important.”
She frowns over her coffee cup. “Who is this girl?”
I keep my voice deliberately calm. “I spent the weekend with her, and it’s really important that I get in touch with her, but she’s not answering my calls. I think she’s upset with me, and I’m trying to figure out why.”
She looks at me suspiciously. “Well, did you pull one of your seduce-and-abandon moves? Because she did not look like the type who’d take that in stride.” She closes her eyes and takes a sip of coffee.
I clench my jaw and pray for patience. “Alex, I need to know everything she said and everything you said.”
Alex looks up at the ceiling as if trying to recall. “Umm … she asked if I was your roommate and if I was okay. I told her I was a little hung over from the weekend—” She gives me a guilty look. “I might have been a little rude to her. I think I said I wasn’t really up for much conversation.”
“What else?”
Alex shrugs. “She gave me your wallet—honestly, I thought she must have found it somewhere.” She yawns. “I never would have thought you’d be hanging out with a girl like that. I mean, she’s kinda cute, but—“
“Alex, focus!” I snap, and she looks at me in surprise.
“Archer, what’s going on? Who is this girl? What are you so upset about?”
“Alex, what did she say?” I’m almost shouting now.
Alex finally seems to be taking the situation seriously. She puts down her coffee cup and looks at me. “She just asked me to tell you she’d dropped by.”
I look at her. “And what did you say?”
Alex shrugs again. “I don’t know … thanks for bringing the wallet … Oh.”
“Oh what?”
“I … I said something along the lines of don’t get your hopes up.” She looks at me then shifts her gaze away. “Sorry. I guess it was rude, but she looked like she was probably half in love with you, and I know you’re never going to call her—”
I groan and let my head fall into my hands.
Alex stares at me. “Were you going to call her?”
My head snaps up. “Yes!” Alex looks startled. “I like her, Alex. I like her a lot.”
Alex’s expression is concerned, as if she’s worried about my mental health, but she’s smart enough not to push it. “I’m sorry, Archer. I could tell she had a crush on you, I just felt sorry for her. And I guess I’m still kind of bitter about Trevor and took it out on her a little.” She winces. “Is she mad?”
I look down at the coffee table again. “She’s mad, all right. I feel like there has to be more to it than that, though. Did you say anything else? Anything at all?”
Alex shakes her head, trying to think. “I told her we’d had a fight and I’d kicked you out for the weekend—“
“She knew that already.”
“Told her we were fine now. Said I love you but you’re an asshole when it comes to women—“
“You told her you love me?”
“Well, in, like, a friend way. Don’t get freaked out.”
“I’m not freaked out about you. I’m freaked out about her. Do you think she thinks you and I are together?”
Alex is silent for a moment, considering. “You know, she did seem kind of surprised to see me. Did she not know you lived with a woman?”
“God damn it!” I pick up a throw cushion and hurl it against the wall. I was sure I’d told her … but maybe I’d just said the name Alex, and Annabelle has assumed my roommate was a guy.
“I don’t remember exactly what I told her,” I say. “Maybe I assumed she knew, and she didn’t. I look at her in dismay. “Is that what you were wearing when you answered the door?”
Alex looks down at her braless chest and short shorts. “Um, yeah?”
I groan. I’m sort of pissed at Annabelle that she couldn’t have given me the benefit of the doubt, but from her perspective, I can see it was kind of a perfect storm that made me and Alex look like lovers.
Alex leans forward and pats my arm. “Just call her and explain. If you want me to talk to her, I will. I’ll tell her I wouldn’t date you if you were the last guy on earth.”
“Thanks, Alex,” I say drily. “I think you’ve done enough for now. The problem is I think she’s blocking my calls.”
“Oh. Ouch.” Alex sips her coffee thoughtfully. I can almost see the wheels in her head turning. She’s trying to think of a way to make this right for me. Despite her breathtaking ability to screw things up, she genuinely means well, and I know she wants to help me.
But I’m not sure that anyone can.
Alex looks up at me. “How did you meet this girl, anyway? Do you have friends in common who could help put you in touch?”
I sigh. “Remember that gig with Gentlemen, Inc. last week that you were teasing me about?”
Over the next few minutes, I spill the whole story to Alex, who, despite her hangover, listens intently. I half wonder if she’s thinking about plot points for her next screenplay, but if she is, she’s wise enough not to say so.
“So you don’t know where she lives?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I picked her up at her parents’ house. I guess I could drive out there and ask them …” I’m not sure what she’s told them or what kind of reception I’d get there, but I’ll do it if I have to.
“What about her sisters?” Alex asks.
“I don’t have their numbers. I know where they work, though.”
Alex shakes her head. “Last resort. You don’t want to look like a stalker.” She sighs. “Well, you know where she goes to school. I bet you could get her email off their directory.”
I nod. It’s a good idea, but if she’s not willing to talk to me, I’m not sure how willing she’ll be to read my emails.
“Maybe you could just go hang out in the physics department and hope you run into her.”
I frown. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to be a stalker.”
Alex grimaces. “No. Just tossing out ideas here.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I know. I appreciate it, Alex.” I rub my temples. “I have a screen test with Zac Borstein next Monday.”
“What?” Alex almost drops her cup and coffee sloshes onto the coffee table.
“It worked. The whole ‘make the family love me so they put me in touch with their famous director friend.’ They did. That’s where I was this morning, at an interview with him. He asked me to come back for a screen test.”
“Oh my God!” Alex stumbles into the kitchen and back with a handful of paper towels. “That’s great news, Archer. Congratulations! What’s he like? When’s your screen test? If he needs any writers, you’ll mention me, right?”
I lean back in my chair, barely registering her words. I look out the window, while Alex continues to chatter and clean up the table. The sky is the same deep blue it was an hour ago, but it’s somehow lost its brilliance. The sun doesn’t seem as bright and the trees aren’t as green.
I have almost a week to prepare for my screen test. I need to look over the lines his assistant gave me, set up a meeting with my acting coach to prepare, and figure out what I’m going to wear.
I’ll get those things done. I’ll show up for my big break, and whatever they want me to be, I’ll be. Because I’m an actor, and what I do best is pretend to be something I’m not.
But I’m not going to be happy again until I get to the bottom of this thing with Annabelle.
26
Annabelle
Another difference between me and my sisters is in the way we cry.
Brianna, as far as I know, doesn’t cry at all. The last time I saw her cry was when she fell off a horse when she was twelve and broke her collarbone. Even then, she was stoic about it, biting her lip and fighting to keep the tears back.
On the other hand, pretty much everything makes Carina cry: babies, kittens, Super Bowl commercials, sappy love songs, sentimental memes … you name it. Her eyes well up with tears at the drop of a hat, and if she’s really moved, they’ll roll down her face one delicate drop at a time, like a heroine from an old movie. Her skin remains flawless, her makeup stays intact. At worst, she’ll give a ladylike sniff followed by a soft, self-deprecating laugh at how silly she’s being, and the world falls in love with her all over again.
I, of course, not only cry, but ugly cry.
But before I give into the tears that I held back on the drive back to my apartment, I take a few minutes to fill out the feedback form from Gentlemen, Inc. that’s been sitting in my inbox since Friday, and I absolutely trash Archer. It’s petty and mean, and for all I know, Cassandra will ignore it and Archer will never hear about it. It’s a tiny outlet for the storm of emotions that threatens to drown me, but it’s better than nothing.
Fortunately, my roommates are both at work, so I have the apartment to myself, and I don’t bother to choke back my sobs when I finally give into them. I’m not sure how long I cry, but it’s long enough to give me a bad headache, and by the time I go into the bathroom to shower and see if I can get myself under control again, my eyes are swollen and red, my nose is running, and my skin is blotchy and pale.
I stare at myself in the mirror. Elizabeth Taylor … what a joke.
The whole weekend was a joke, and the worst part was that I have no one to blame for this fiasco except myself.
I allowed myself to fall in love—and sleep with!—a man I’d known for just three days. A man I knew to be a good actor, with a troubled past, who saw the world as a great big balance sheet, favors done and favors returned. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
Well, I’d been scratched, all right. Scarred, in fact.
Being heartbroken is bad enough, but being heartbroken and feeling stupid is worse.
And I have no one to talk to, though I desperately want to talk the whole thing through, get some of it off my chest. But how much sympathy would my roommates or my fellow graduate students, most of whom have to count every penny, have for a rich girl who’d spent hundreds of dollars on a date just to impress her family? The entire sorry episode makes me look entitled, insecure, and desperate. I’m not sure who I can turn to and expect a sympathetic ear.
I’m not sure if I actually deserve one.
I get in the shower and let the cool water run over me until the angst subsides into calm—or at least numbness. When I get out, I’ve stopped sobbing intermittently and the blotches on my face have started to fade. My eyes are still red, but not as swollen as they were, and I’ve realized that there are two people I can talk to.
I’m not sure how they’ll react, but I do know that no matter what, they’ll still love me.
Three hours later, I’m sitting in Brianna’s expensive condo in downtown Los Angeles. The city is spread out below us, the hills in the distance, and the sun is starting to set, turning the sky brilliant shades of pink and orange and gold.
I’m feeling … not better, exactly, but calm enough to talk the whole thing over with my sisters. Bree mixes me a drink from her bar, while Carina looks at me through wide, concerned eyes.
Neither of them knows yet what’s going on, but when I texted them and said I needed to see them tonight, their response was immediate. Brianna left the office before seven and Carina met us here, and now they’re both waiting for me to spill the whole sad story.
Brianna hands me a cold tumbler filled with ice and alcohol. I take a sip.
“Oof, that’s strong!”
“Drink it slowly,” she orders. “You only get one.”
Carina, sitting next to me on the couch, squeezes my hand. “What’s going on, sweetie?” she asks.
So I take a deep breath and tell them.
I tell them about how I read about Gentlemen, Inc. in a magazine a few months ago, and that when Mom told me to find a date for the spring party, I got the crazy idea to hire a beautiful man.
“I could have introduced you to someone!” Carina exclaims. “I know tons of guys.”
I shake my head. “They’re all in love with you, Carina,” I point out. “Whenever I bring a guy home, he can’t keep his eyes off you. It just got embarrassing not being able to keep anyone’s attention. I just thought it would be nice to, you know, not have to worry about that for once.” I look down at the tumbler of ice. “I feel sort of stupid about it now.”
Brianna gives me an appraising look. “Actually, I think it was rather enterprising of you,” she says, taking me aback. “I might look into Gentlemen, Inc. for myself.”
Carina and I stare at her.
“Why not?” she says. “I don’t have time for a real relationship, and I have some events coming up where I should really bring a date. Archer certainly played his part well.” She shrugs. “I think it’s a fabulous idea.”
I blink. Brianna’s not the type to say something she doesn’t mean just to make you feel better, so I guess I should accept this for the rather odd compliment it is. It beats being told I’m pathetic.
“Not that I condone lying to your family,” Brianna adds quickly before my ego gets too comfortable. Fair enough, I guess. I look sheepishly at my lap.
“But why did you feel like you had to impress us in the first place?” Carina asks. “We’re your family. We just want you to be happy.”
“I know.” I give her a tired smile. “But you two are just so … gorgeous and successful and popular. I feel like kind of a dud next to you.”
“Yes, I hear you doctoral students are a bunch of slackers,” Brianna says drily.
I roll my eyes. “Look, I know I’m smart, and my research means a lot to me, but it’s a different world. When I’m with you two, or Mom and Dad for that matter, I feel plain and out of place. I just wanted an evening where I didn’t feel like that.” I look down at my drink.
“So what was the deal with bringing Archer to the lake?” asks Brianna. “Were you still trying to impress us?
You two did a good job. I never would have guessed it was an act.”
I can feel my cheeks start to warm up. “I wasn’t acting … but I think he was.”
I tell them about the weekend: Archer’s supposed fight with his roommate, his promise to continue being my charming fake boyfriend, hooking up, finding out after his abrupt departure that he had a meeting with Zac, then meeting Alex.
“So, basically, I think he not only had a girlfriend all along, but he was just using me to get to Zac through Mom and Dad,” I conclude.
Carina’s eyes, not surprisingly, glitter with tears. “Oh, sweetie! I’m so sorry this happened to you!” She slides next to me on the couch and puts an arm around me.
Brianna says nothing for a long time. I study her expression, trying to get a read on what she’s thinking. “I agree that there’s something off about the whole thing,” she says, “but I have to wonder if there’s more going on. I really thought … I thought he really liked you.”
I manage a cynical little smile. “Listen to you, the hopeless romantic,” I say.
Something flashes in her eyes and for a moment I wonder if I’ve hurt her feelings, but she recovers quickly. “I’m not being sentimental,” she says, as if sentimentality is something that comes covered with germs. “You two just seemed really genuine, is all.” She sighs and looks a little wistful.
Carina breaks in. “Well, I think you’re better off without him,” she says loyally. “You’re beautiful and smart and wonderful, and you totally deserve better than a guy who’s using you for anything. There are plenty of other fish in the sea, and we’re going to find you one!”
I smile gratefully at her. I don’t particularly want another guy, but I’m touched that she’s being protective and supportive.
“I have an idea!” she continues brightly. “We got passes at work to a new club that’s opening this weekend. Why don’t we all go out together? Get Annabelle’s mind off Archer?” She looks hopefully at me. “There’ll be lots of nice guys there. Maybe we can find you someone new to take your mind off Archer.”