by Stacy Travis
“I guess I can’t relate to that.”
“I know. You’re like Chris. Your passion for your work is what drives you. My passion for art and travel—and for my friends—is what drives me to do my job and have energy left over for all those things. It’s a different mindset, but that doesn’t make it wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I asked. I expected her to put all her litigating skill behind arguing her case.”
“Yes. Okay. I hear what you’re saying, and I more or less accept it as a life choice.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. I love you. I’m always going to push if I think you’re settling, but you’ve convinced me. For now.”
I rolled my eyes. Her qualifying afterthought pretty much ensured we’d be having this conversation again. Fine. As long as I didn’t have to examine all my life choices tonight. It wasn’t the time.
“So.... Let’s talk about your dreamy superhero boyfriend instead.”
“Oh my God. You sound just like the people at work. Why does everyone care so much about him?”
“Because he’s super hot, and every woman with a pulse would like to be in your shoes.”
The view was nice. The conversation was not. “Yeah,” I said on a sigh.
“That’s not the sound of a woman who’s falling hard for a gorgeous actor.”
“Maybe that’s because of the tree in the forest.” I sipped my wine, which reminded me of France.
Annie picked up the flower and twirled it in her fingers. “Now you’ve lost me.”
“Like when the tree falls and no one hears it. Does it make a sound?”
“I’m familiar with that. What does it have to do with your hot boyfriend? Unless you’re telling me something about his wood.” She winked. I wished she wouldn’t do that, but if anyone could get away with it and still be my closest friend, it was my closest friend.
“I mean, if I fall in love with him and the relationship fails, it all feels very public. Everybody hears the tree crashing to the ground. I’m used to failing privately.”
“Who says you’re gonna fail?”
“Because he’s there and I’m here. Because I’m bad at relationships. Because he’s a sexy hot superhero, and eventually, I won’t be able to keep up. I don’t want to let my emotions run wild, only to have to reel them back in when it all falls apart.”
“Wow. So you’d just rather cut it off at the knees instead?”
“I just don’t want to set myself up for disappointment.”
“Yeah, but no great love ever came from calibrating expectations. You need to aim for what you want.”
“Maybe I don’t know what I want yet.”
“If that’s true, I respect it. But if you’re lying to yourself to avoid putting your heart on the line, I don’t.”
She was making my brain hurt. I chose to avoid choosing one of those options. Drinking more wine was infinitely more pleasant than continuing the conversation. Hoping she would forget what we were talking about, I changed the subject. “Hey, do you want to go for a hike while you’re here? On the other side of those hills, there’s a great trail we can access from Mulholland Drive.”
Annie flagged down our waiter and ordered a salad and a chicken sandwich for us to share. And being the dogged litigator, she didn’t let me change the subject. “Okay, listen. I’m not gonna bug you for details about Chris… right now. The more important thing is that I bug you to deal with your shit.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little. Her bluntness didn’t annoy me as much as the winking. “Didn’t we just talk about that? Do I have more shit?” I had a feeling I knew what she meant, but truthfully… not really.
“Can I be honest?”
“Why do you always ask that? Yes, you can be honest. But if I said no, would it stop you?”
She held up her hands like she was weighing the two options on a scale. “I think you do know what you want. Come on, we’ve known each other forever. You’re different about him than with other guys. You feel something profound, and it scares the crap out of you. This could be the real kind of love, the big epic love. But I worry you’re too nice. You don’t stick up for yourself. You don’t ask for what you want.”
I was surprised at her assessment. I’d always thought of myself as someone who stuck up for herself. I wasn’t a doormat. “I told you. I don’t know what I want.”
“Of course you don’t. Because you’re holding everything back, trying to control your heart so it doesn’t get crushed. You think you’re doing a good thing—the smart thing—because you always see the best in people, even yourself. But you just might be ruining the thing.”
Annie never ceased to make me think and see new perspectives when I’d thought I’d covered them all. I had to admit, her view was interesting. I didn’t have a ready retort, which seemed to give Annie license to keep going.
“You don’t ask for what you want because you don’t want to upset people, even if that means you don’t get what you want. You did it with Johnny, convinced you were okay with his live-in-the-moment shit when really you wanted a real relationship. That way, when it failed, you hadn’t really ventured out with all of yourself. So you didn’t lose as much. And now you’re doing it again.”
Am I? It was a lot to sort through, and my instinct was to tell Annie she was dead wrong. “You’re dead wrong.”
“Am I?”
“I don’t know.”
Annie laughed. “Exactly. You will people-please to the point of contradicting yourself. Or not even understanding yourself. You need to champion how you feel and what you think, because no one else is going to do it for you.”
“What if I just don’t know what I want?”
“You do know. And by always hedging your bets and holding back out of fear, I’m worried you’re dooming it to fail. So at the end of the day, you’ll end up being right in your expectation. But only because you caused it.”
As if to punctuate her sentence, she picked up her drink and downed about half of it. I didn’t know if she was right. It would require some thinking later on, maybe with a paintbrush in my hand and a nature soundtrack in the background. That was how I did my best thinking.
“Do you feel like doing some shopping? We’re a stone’s throw from some good stores they don’t have in my ’hood, and I could use some shoes,” she said.
“Shoes?” I immediately perked up at that, not to mention feeling relief now that we were done analyzing my relationship missteps.
“I hear the Beverly Hills stores are open late on summer nights. It’s called BOLD or something. Open late days?”
“They are? How do you, who live four hundred miles away, know this, and I’ve never heard of such a thing?”
She shrugged. “I know stuff. Let’s get one more round to go with our food. Then we can walk to the shops.”
As if on cue, a beautiful salad and sandwich were placed on our table, along with two plates for sharing. I wouldn’t normally have described food as beautiful, but the two plates looked like art pieces, with every vegetable and swirl of aioli styled for a photo shoot. I ordered another glass of wine, and Annie followed by asking for another flowery drink without the offending flower.
Once we’d polished all of that off, we walked to Neiman Marcus to look at all the fabulous shoes. And they were very fabulous. Shoe shopping was my happy place, and that particular store was a golden temple of shoe divinity.
Annie tried on about ten pairs and settled on a pair of loafers she could wear to work or with jeans. At five foot seven, she didn’t need shoes with heels and rarely wore them.
I found a pair of navy stilettos with a black-and-white silk wrap tie around the ankle. They were gorgeous. And I knew I wanted them.
Chapter Five
New York
Chris
I had to admit, it felt good to be back in New York. As much as I loved Antibes and the beach, I’d been craving the fast pace of the city and
feeling a little antsy during the last few days of my vacation.
It was true, what people said. After living in New York, it was hard to live anywhere else. I had to come to terms with leaving, though, if I wanted my time with Nikki to be more than a two-week fling.
Brittney, the barista at the coffee place on my corner, smiled at me when I walked in the door and was already clicking the espresso machine and tamping down the grounds by the time I got to the counter. She’d worked there for as long as I’d been coming to the shop, which was going on three years. I had fifteen minutes to grab a cup before I needed to head home and meet the car picking me up to go to 30 Rock for my late-show gig. Just enough time if I walked quickly.
“Hey, stranger. I wondered if I’d see your face again,” she said, tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear. Her hair hung straight down her back, and she wore it in a low clip, which didn’t do much to keep it out of her face.
“Are you kidding? I couldn't stay away for long. The flat white here is too good.” The place was empty, which was unusual. Or maybe I hadn’t been there in the afternoon before.
“I do make a sick flat white,” she said, smiling. She had a tiny diamond nose piercing and tattoos on the insides of both arms, bright flowers that were prettier than most tattoos I was used to seeing.
“How’ve you been?” I asked.
“Chillin’. One more semester at NYU this fall, then I’m done.”
“Yeah? That’s great. What’s next?”
She shrugged, steaming the hot milk for my coffee. “Who knows? But if I’m still posting up here in a year, please kindly kill me.”
“You’ve had enough of making coffee for assholes like me?”
“Especially for assholes like you.” She checked the temperature on the steaming milk and poured it into a paper cup, shaking the metal pitcher and drawing a heart shape in the foam. She was quiet when she handed it to me, looking down at the counter instead of at me, which was odd. I took a sip, figuring she wanted some affirmation that I liked her creation, so I sipped and complimented her.
She nodded silently.
“Okay, well… nice to see you.” I started to leave, wondering about her abrupt shift in tone, but not too much.
“Um… I guess, congrats?” she said, asking it as a question.
“Thanks,” I said. I waited for her to elaborate. Maybe she wanted to talk about the latest White Serpent movie, but I had no way to be sure.
She was staring at me as if she was trying to figure something out. “Crazy, right? Parenthood’s gotta be a trip.”
Oh, here it comes.
Tabloid news traveled quickly, and I was naïve if I thought the paper was above publishing rumor and she was above believing salacious gossip just because I was a regular. At least she was nice enough to try to make lemonade of it.
“I imagine,” I said, feeling desperate to leave the coffee.
“So are you gonna raise this kid?”
The last thing I needed was to get into a debate about twenty-first–century parenting.
“I’ll keep you posted,” I said. I would not. I waved at her and pointed to the coffee. “Thanks, as always. Good stuff.” Then I hurried out of the place and called my attorney. “What the hell?” I asked the second his assistant put the call through and I heard him click onto the line.
“Welcome back,” intoned Dave Craggs, my lawyer for ten years, speaking smoothly and as though the supposed non-story hadn’t already morphed into a real story that the barista down the block took as fact.
“I thought you were handling this pregnancy thing.”
“I am handling it. It will go away as soon as they get the paternity results. You took the test, right?”
“Of course I took the test. But that didn’t keep a college kid with no horse in the race from asking me if I was going to raise the kid.”
Dave sighed. “Chris, will you please relax?” I could tell he was more concerned by my reaction than by the fact that the story had leaked, which meant he already knew but hadn’t told me.
“Who ran the story?”
“Page Six.”
“Great. Might as well hire a skywriter.”
“And again, I urge you to relax. They’re not saying you’re the baby daddy. They’re reporting that she’s making an accusation. Big difference. They came to me for comment. I told them you took a paternity test, and there’s no story there.”
A car honked at me, and the driver yelled a string of profanities because I’d ignored the traffic signal and crossed right through traffic. I couldn’t walk through the streets and have that conversation if I didn’t want to die. So I wandered toward Washington Square Park, found a quiet spot under a tree, and sat.
Dave didn’t respond, and I heard him typing. He was a multitasker, and I was used to him checking out during our conversations while he read an email or looked something up.
“Dave. Talk to me. Can you get them to chill out? Or take it off the online edition?
He chuckled quietly, and I was annoyed by what I assumed was him paying more attention to something other than my problem. “Their job is to sell papers, and they didn’t print anything that isn’t true. They’re allowed to do that. Quit reading Page Six.”
“I don’t. I was informed of my paternal options by my neighborhood barista.”
“Good times. Seriously, don’t worry. Assuming you’re not the father, this will go away yesterday. And if you are… We’ll deal with that tomorrow.”
“I’m not the father. It’s impossible. I wasn’t even in the country when she got pregnant. And unless her dates are off by a month, Page Six should be worried about looking really stupid for printing that shit.”
“Okay, okay. Cool your jets, man. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Try to get ahead of this stuff. I’d rather not read about the paternity results before I get them. And I’d really like to avoid having Nikki read about me on Page Six when she’s across the country.”
“So why are you on the phone with me? Call her.”
It was my turn to sigh, because he was right. The truth was, I didn’t put any stock in a story on Page Six, any more than I was actually concerned that I was someone’s dad. But now that we weren’t in the same city, I did worry about what Nikki would do when the detritus from what she called “my world” leaked out of its barrel drum and littered her front lawn. There was only one way to find out. I had to call her.
According to my watch, I was already late to meet the car the show sent to take me to the studio. I knew the driver would wait, but I had to pick up my pace to a jog, and I would still be five minutes late. That meant I had to dump the coffee and hustle. I couldn’t do that and have a phone conversation, so I sent a long voice text, hoping it would reach Nikki before the tabloid news did: Hey. Don’t freak, but Page Six got the pregnancy story. They’re treating it as an unproven accusation, but still. Please don’t let this bug you. I’m on the run, but I’ll call you in a bit. As long as I alerted her, I felt pretty certain we could talk through the details later and she wouldn’t freak out.
I felt better. Even if the story made its way to other gossip news sites, at least I’d warned her. I slowed my pace to a fast walk as I approached my block and saw the black car idling in front of my building. Then my phone buzzed with a text from Nikki: I’m not freaked out. But that’s annoying. I’m sorry they ran the story. Try not to let it get to you. Unless of course it’s true…
I’d been feeling good until the last sentence. Damn, texting. It was impossible to detect tone, and I had no idea if she’d tacked that on as a joke or if she was really wondering whether I’d knocked up my ex-girlfriend and was denying it.
Me: Haha. I think
Nikki: Don’t worry. I am reserving judgment until there’s something to judge
Me: Can’t stop thinking about you
Nikki: Back atcha.
Me: <3 call you soon
Nikki: <3 <3
I exhaled heavily. N
o wonder I was feeling like my lungs were going to explode while I ran home. I told the driver I’d be down in five then jogged up to my apartment to grab a change of clothes. I wasn’t that worried about getting to the studio a few minutes late. They always had me sit in the green room for at least an hour after hair and makeup.
As the driver steered us to the Westside Highway to get us uptown faster, I looked at the Hudson, which had yellow streaks of sunlight dancing in the current. Yeah, its water was a little browner than the Pacific Ocean—okay, a lot browner—and it didn’t have a wide, sandy beach, but I really did love living in New York.
I would have lived in an anthill in the freezing tundra to be with Nikki, but the East Coast was home, and it always would be. I did need to find a house to rent in LA, but maybe I could be bicoastal. With the amount of work I always had in New York, it made more sense to keep my place. There was no point in staying in a hotel when I had a great apartment.
Better than great. With its sweeping view of Hudson Bay and proximity to my favorite Village restaurants, it was a good investment property and an awesome place to live. I would just have to buy a second set of clothes and other personal stuff to keep in LA.
I immediately felt better with the knowledge that I didn’t have to give up New York for good. I felt certain Nikki would like it in the city when she got a chance to visit. Maybe she could even meet my parents.
Funny, like you’d let that happen.
Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t meet them right away. I needed some time to prepare her first, and even then, it seemed best to keep them apart for as long as possible.
Chapter Six
Los Angeles
Nikki
Someone had recently refilled the jar of M&M’s, which left me in a quandary. The new candies were the peanut variety, and they were currently occupying the top two thirds of the glass jar. I hated the peanut kind, but I didn’t see an easy way of scooping down to the regular ones at the bottom.
Therefore, I had a critical choice to make. I could wait until my colleagues ate through the peanutty goodness at the top, which could have taken days or even weeks. Or I could use the metal scooper to dredge through the peanuts in hope of finding the regulars. It seemed unsanitary.