“Andrea, this is McKinley Evans.”
Andrea looked angry that Jake’s attention wasn’t still on her. “And what is she doing here?”
“She’s my friend,” Jake said, slowly. “I invited her to come watch.”
“You don’t have friends,” Andrea said, firmly. “You only had me and you don’t have me anymore.”
I looked at her incredulously and then looked at Jake, hoping he would say something to her. Instead he just looked crushed at her words.
“All right, everyone back on the set!”
Andrea smirked. “Let’s go, Jake. Its our scene.”
I wasn’t sure what made me do it. It could’ve been the smirk on Andrea’s face as she hurt someone she used to love or it could’ve been the look of pain on Jake’s face, the most real emotion I’d ever seen on his face. It could’ve been pure insanity. All I knew was that something made me walk forward, take his hand in mine, and kiss him on the cheek. As I pulled back, I read the shock on his face and I smiled slightly, biting my lip. “Good luck.”
“Break a leg. You mean, break a leg,” Jake said, still in shock.
“That too,” I agreed, squeezing his hand. Jake’s smile returned and for a quick moment, I felt a little flustered.
“Come on, Jake,” Andrea snapped, taking his arm away from me and dragging him onto the set.
The next scene was a lot better than the previous. It was a scene where Mikey, played by Jake, and his girlfriend Maggie, played by Andrea, got into an argument over the time Mikey was spending on the current case. Jake’s acting was more genuine, though he could be channeling his real emotion towards Andrea. The only problem that he had while filming the scene was that he couldn’t seem to keep his eye contact on Andrea. I could’ve been wrong but his eyes darted in my direction several times.
We stayed there for the most of the day, though there was a long break for lunch and other breaks where we went back to the room and played video games. By the time it was time to go, I was ready to pass out. I had been up since four thirty in the morning.
We’d almost reached Brea when Jake pulled off the freeway to get gas. While he pumped gas, I got out of the car and walked into the mini mart to buy a soda. When I came back out, Jake was waiting for me, leaning against his car.
“I was wondering where you had went,” Jake said, as I walked closer.
“Just needed some caffeine,” I said, holding up my Dr. Pepper.
“Oh, okay,’ he said, nodding. He stood there, not getting in the car, just staring at me. I started feeling self conscious, and ran my hand through my long hair. I took a deep breath and looked away, wanting to avoid his unblinking gaze.
“McKinley.” Pause. “McKinley.”
“What?” I asked, meeting his eyes again.
Jake met my eyes and smiled at me. “Thank you for coming today. I had a really good time.”
I smiled back. “Sure. I had a good time too,” I answered, truthfully. We stared at each other for a moment longer. “We should probably go now.” I started walking toward the passenger side of the car.
Jake’s arm reached out to me, seemingly coming out of nowhere. He pulled me towards him and then stopped, so our faces were merely inches apart. We stared at each other and then he grabbed my face and started kissing me.
I didn’t react at first. I was too shocked to even think. Then, as if my body had a mind of its own, I was kissing him back, pushing him back against his car, and pressing myself closer to him. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over.
“Oh shit,” I said, taking a step back.
“Shit,” Jake said, running his hands through his hair. “Shit. You have a boyfriend.”
“Gabriel is not my boyfriend,” I said, automatically. “God, what the hell was that for?” I asked, angrily, shoving him in the shoulder.
“Wait, what?” Jake said, looking at me as if I had grown another pair of arms. “Why did you kiss me back?”
“That…you…I…” I said, stumbling over my words, something that almost never happened. “Maybe you should take me home.”
Jake looked like he was going to argue but decided against it. We both got in the car and he drove me the rest of the way home in complete silence. When he pulled into the diner parking lot and I got out of the car, he finally said something.
“Hey McKinley?”
I paused, my hand on the door handle. “Yeah?”
“You should come back by the set sometime, you know, if you’d like to.”
My body was still reacting to that kiss and I wasn’t quite sure what Jake meant. “Um, sure, Jake. Call me sometime.”
“Perfect,” he said, his face lit up with success. “Good night.”
I got out of the car, and made my way into the diner, my hands fumbling at the key in the lock.
“Well, you were gone all day.”
I spun around and saw Luke sitting at the counter, doing paperwork. “Jesus, Luke, you scared me.” I slid onto the stool next to him and looked over his shoulder. “Ah, doing the order for the next week?”
He nodded. “So…Jake Kennedy, huh?”
My cheeks colored slightly. “Um, yeah, I guess so.”
“What about Gabriel?”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, it’s not like that with Jake. And I’ve told you, Gabriel is not my boyfriend.”
Luke looked at me, a smirk on his face. “Whatever you say, McKinley.”
I stood up and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going upstairs to do homework.” I paused and said, “Don’t tell Amanda okay?” You know the way she is about Jake…”
Luke turned to look at me, standing on the stairs. For a moment, I knew that he could see right through me. “Are you going to see him again?” he asked, always asking the question I least expected.
“No, no, I’m not,” I said, turning to walk up the stairs and knowing, deep down, that I was probably lying.
* * * * * *
I was tapping my fingers on my lap nervously, my eyes darting around the counseling office of my community college. It had taken some persuasion from both Luke and Amanda but I had agreed to come and meet with a counselor at the college to discuss my options. At the moment, I wasn’t even sure I had any options.
“McKinley Evans?” The counselor extended her hand toward me. “I’m Sandra Gomez.”
I shook her hand firmly and scooped up my purse from the ground and followed the counselor into the office. She typed a few things into the computer, and turned the screen towards me so I could see the transcript she had pulled up. I winced at the earlier semesters, semesters where I had dropped or failed nearly every class I had taken. I felt a sense of pride at the later ones, where I maintained a consistent B average.
“So, Miss Evans, what can I do for you?” she asked, tilting back in her chair and surveying me over the rims of her glasses.
“Well, “ I said, my palms planted firmly on my thighs, “I’m here to see what my options are. I’ve been going to this school for years, and its time to actually make something of it.”
Sandra leaned forward and took a look at my transcript. “Well, you have nearly have enough units for a transfer to a university and a couple classes more than that would put you at an AA degree. What is it exactly that you were hoping to do in the future, Miss Evans?”
I hesitated. “I don’t…really know,” I admitted to her, feeling ashamed. I felt like the only twenty-two year old in the world that had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.
Sandra smiled. “That’s not uncommon. I know you’re probably thinking that everyone has an idea about his or her future except you but that’s entirely false. Even folks my age are still figuring it out sometimes.”
I felt like she was lying to make me feel better but I nodded. “I just don’t want to keep wasting my time and money if there isn’t a direction to it. I’ve thought about possibly transferring to a university but I wouldn’t know what to do once I got there. I don’t even have a major and my grades a
ren’t fantastic. Then I think maybe I’ll just get my associates degree but it just doesn’t feel like it’s enough.”
“Well, your transcript isn’t too bad. The first year or two that you were here weren’t great but you’ve made a lot of those classes up and we can fill out the necessary forms to replace the passing grades over the failing grades. Any Cal State university would be happy to have you, and I’m sure Cal State Fullerton would be a good choice for you.”
“University is expensive though, and I’m not sure that I could afford to go there, especially since I have no real purpose going there,” I explained.
“Well, how about this then?” Sandra said and I flinched some. How bout this was one of my mom’s key phrases. She pulled out a sheet of paper and starting writing things down. “Let’s get those bad grades factored out of your GPA and then we’ll set you up with some classes in the spring that’ll help you get closer to a transfer. At the end of this semester, we’ll meet again and we’ll discuss what your options are and what you would like to do with them. As long as you continue to do as well as you have been doing and you keep that GPA up, I think you’re in a good spot for transfer.” She slid the paper across the table.
I picked up the paper and looked at the list she had created for me. “You make it sound so easy.”
Sandra took off her glasses and laid them on the desk. “What about all this scares you?”
I scoffed. “Scares me? Nothing about it scares me.” She raised her eyebrow at me. “It’s not that it scares me, necessarily. It’s more…well, I can’t go on being the assistant manager of a diner forever. I mean, I love my dad and I enjoy the diner but is that all I’m ever going to be good for? Is that all I’ll be known for?”
“Do you feel like you’re obligated to your father, to work in the diner?”
“No!” I said, quickly. “But also, yes. Luke wants the best for me, I know he does but sometimes I think he just expects me to take over the diner once he’s retired. And as much as I want the diner and I would hate for it to be in the hands of anyone else, I feel like it would tie me down.”
“College would give you chances, McKinley, to explore alternatives to that. Sure, maybe you’ll stay at the diner but maybe you’ll find something new that gives you passion and reason and is something that you can see yourself doing in the future.” She paused. “The amount of college dropouts increases every year, McKinley, and most often its because students don’t believe in themselves. There is no rush to get things right, or to finish, McKinley. Even if you go to a university and spend more than two years there, at least you’ll be getting something out of it. Knowledge isn’t measured in a degree.”
I thought about that for a moment. “But the money…”
“I’ve taken a look at your financial status, McKinley, and that of your father’s. You’re a prime candidate for financial aid, especially grants from the government. That wouldn’t be so much a problem.”
She had put me in a tight corner, one that I was having a hard time arguing my way out of. “Well, maybe transferring to a four-year college is an option for me.” I glanced back down at the list. “And you’ve definitely given me something to think about.”
Sandra smiled. “Well, that’s what I’m here for.”
As I was walking to my car, keys in hand, I studied the paper she had given me in the other hand. I had never pegged myself much for a college graduate. Amanda was already at Cal State Fullerton, studying speech therapy. She was the brain of the twosome and I went to school because it just seemed like the right thing to do. I pictured myself leaving the diner and all I could see was a haze in my future. There was nothing in this world that I was passionate about but reading and jazz and you couldn’t really make a career out either of those, unless you wrote and I was a terrible writer. However, the list so far was easy: fix my current GPA, keep my grades up, and consider my options. For now, these things were things I could handle.
* * * * * *
Despite what I had said, despite the promises that I had made, I met up with Jake a few days later. He had an off day on the set and was heading out to Yorba Linda to visit his parents, who he hadn’t seen in awhile. Yorba Linda was just ease of Brea, and he wondered if he could stop by and see me.
I must’ve been crazy. Without pausing to think, without even realizing what I was doing, I typed out a yes response to him.
We met up at a Starbucks. Jake showed up incredibly incognito, basketball shorts and a t-shirt, sunglasses on. He kept his head down while he ordered coffee. I watched from my seat by the window, as he dumped a ton of creamer into his coffee, two and a half packets of Splenda and then made his way over to me. I couldn’t help but notice a few heads turning as he walked by. It might have been because he had sunglasses on inside, but that probably wasn’t it. The guy was gorgeous. He had that super dark hair falling into his face, in that perfect styled way, perfect blue eyes (though you couldn’t see them now). He obviously worked out; he had to look fit to play a badass cop on television. But it was more than that. It was the way he carried himself, so sure and confident, making his way through the room like he owned it.
He came and stood next to me for a moment, a small smile curling up on his lips. God, those stupid lips. “So is there room for me?”
I looked at the fairly big loveseat that I was sitting on. I was taking up most of the room, though there was definitely room for two. I pointed to the armchair directly across from me. “Right there.”
He shrugged, good-naturedly, like he didn’t care either way.
“So, why did you meet up with my anyway?” Jake said, glancing around the café. “You seemed pretty pissed the other night.”
“I wasn’t pissed,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I was tired.”
“Yeah, tired wasn’t exactly the emotion I was getting from you after that kiss.”
I held my hand up. “Uh, no. No kiss. No talk of the kiss.”
“Fine, fine,” Jake said, sounding bored. “Its easily forgettable.”
I rolled my eyes, ignoring the stab. Especially since I knew, as much as he did, that it had been a great kiss. “What about you? Why are you hanging out with me? Besides the obvious.”
“Oh, the obvious? What could you mean by that?” Jake said, mockingly, a grin on his face.
“You are ridiculous,” I answered, shaking my head.
His nonchalance, his acting as if he didn’t care where this was going was driving me insane. A few days ago, he’d acted like someone trying very hard to make an impression on me. Now, he seemed to be acting more like a person who wanted to get in my pants, who wanted to get in the pants of all the girls he met.
“How many girls have you slept with?” I blurted out before I could think of what I was saying. I immediately took a sip of coffee, trying to cover up my ridiculous word vomit.
Jake paused before taking a swig from his own drink and looked over at me. I wish I could see his eyes; it was so hard to read what he was thinking or feeling. “Do you really want me to answer that question?”
“I don’t know,” I said, coyly, raising my eyebrows at him. “Do I?”
“And what about you, McKinley?” He took his sunglasses off and I suddenly wished he hadn’t. There was something about those stupid blue eyes. “What’s your number?”
I laughed, looking away from him. “Oh, we are so not going there.”
“All right,” Jake said, laughing a little himself. “I bet you have a little notebook with allll the names of guys in there.”
“I don’t have a list,” I said, avoiding the plural assumption. The fact was, he wasn’t far from the truth.
“I’m sure,” Jake smirked. “I’m sure you could get any guy in the room.”
“Maybe,” I answered, gripping my cup tighter in my hands. I was good at playing games; I was the master at playing games. I had become an expert on the give and the take. I knew how to enter a room, and I knew how to exit the room, either with someone or without someone. I kn
ew what to say, what to wear, what to do and who to do. I knew how to be in control and I thrived when I was in control. I wasn’t used to someone using a game back at me. “And what about you, Jake? You’re so famous, I bet all the girls just line up for a shot to be in your bed.”
“You’re not wrong,” he said, his eyes meeting mine, a playful smirk on his face.
“And you are damn cocky,” I shot back.
“It comes with the business,” he shrugged, leaning back in the chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him. I looked away, avoiding looking at his stomach or arms or anything. I noticed the barista behind the counter eyeing Jake. Now that he had taken his sunglasses off, he was way more obvious. Los Angeles was known for being a little more celebrity friendly, but this was Brea, and this was Orange County. People tended to get a little bit star struck.
A Little Less than Famous Page 6