Remember When 2

by T. Torrest

  I laughed and answered, “Yeah, sorry. I had a lot to process afterward.”

  “Just shut up and tell me what happened. How did he look?”

  “Hot, dammit. Just as hot as he is onscreen. The cameras don’t lie.”

  “Yum.”

  “Yeah, well, if you think he’s hot in his movies, try being in the same room with him.”

  “That bad, huh.”

  “Worse.”

  The tone of my voice and my following silence conveyed my confession.

  Lisa took a breath and said, “Oh, no. You didn’t. I thought you knew I was only kidding!”

  “No!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t do that,” I emphasized, trying to sound haughty at the fact that at least I hadn’t slept with him. “But... he did kiss me.”

  “Wait. Like, kissed you, or, you know... kissed you?”

  “The second one,” I said, even still trying to downplay what had happened between us back in that hotel room.

  “Layla! You have a fiancé!”

  “So does he.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  I wanted to tell her it was no big deal. I wanted to blow off the kiss, which probably meant a whole lot more to me than it did to him anyway. But I also really needed to sort out everything that had happened. I needed to get it out so that I could put it behind me and move on.

  “Lis, please don’t judge me. I’m already beating myself up enough for the both of us. I just really need to talk about this.”

  “Judge you? Oh, hell no. I wasn’t judging you. I want details!”

  I laughed in spite of my remorse and said, “Well, good, because you’re about to get them.”

  I relayed the day’s events, every single moment between my orderly shower that morning and my complete loss of control in Trip’s arms that afternoon. Lisa was a rapt audience, only gasping with shock every now and then or interjecting with an occasional, “Oh my God!”

  As I got to the part when Sandy walked in, she said, “Oh no!”

  “Oh, yes. I almost died, Lis, I swear. There I was, trying to look all innocent—obviously failing miserably—but Sandy barely even flinched.”

  “What did Trip do?”

  “Laughed.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Yeah. It was a bit of a rude awakening.”

  “Like, it wasn’t the first time his assistant caught him mauling some poor, unsuspecting girl.”

  “Exactly. They were both all business after that, Sandy handing me some legalese in a blue folder and Trip shaking my hand all formal, thanking me for the interview.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Well, no. I mean, he was smirking as he did it, busting my chops, and Sandy just shot him a look like she’d be laying into him later, but still.”

  “But still. So, then they just left?”

  I told her yes, and started to get into how I hit the video store on the way home, when I heard the unmistakable beep of a call breaking through the line. “Hey, Lis, hang on a sec. Call waiting.”

  She said, “Sure,” and I clicked over to my other call.

  I’d barely said hello before a woman’s voice launched in. “Layla? It’s Sandy Carron. Trip’s publicist?”

  I had a strange teenage flashback. It’s unsettling when you feel like you just got caught talking behind someone’s back. But I said, “Oh. Hi, Sandy,” wondering what prompted her call.

  Her voice was halting and I could tell she was trying to sound calm. “I’m sorry to bother you at home. But there’s been an accident on the set.”

  “Accident?”

  “Yes. Trip’s been hurt.” My stomach dropped as she continued, “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I thought you’d want to know. He’s at Beth Israel Hospital downtown, and, well, he could really use a friend right about now.”

  My mind was swimming, but I know I managed to thank Sandy for calling before clicking back over to Lisa.

  “Lis?”

  “Jesus, I was just about ready to hang up. Whadja forget me?”

  “That was Sandy, Trip’s publicist. She said there was some sort of accident on the set. He’s been hurt.”

  “Oh my God! What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, then conveyed the few details that Sandy had given me. I was already pulling my hair out of a ponytail and slipping into my shoes when I asked, “You think maybe I should head over there?”

  Lisa didn’t hesitate to agree. “Yes! Go! Call me when you find out what’s going on.”

  Chapter 13

  DIVIDED WE FALL

  I grabbed my purse and noticed that my hands were shaking. My body went through the motions of locking my door and sprinting the few steps up to 7th to hail a cab, but my mind was running in a constant loop, Sandy’s words playing over and over in my head: Trip’s been hurt.

  Somehow, I made it to the hospital. I rushed the front desk and managed to speak to the first person I saw behind it. “Trip Wiley?”

  The receptionist eyed me warily, trying to decipher if I was a friend or foe of their latest patient. She hesitated for a second too long, so I blurted out, “Terrence Wilmington? Terrence C. Wilmington the Third. Please. I’m a friend.”

  I must have looked completely panic-stricken, because I could see the shift in her expression, the realization that I knew him personally enough to look so worried. She rifled through a file box on the counter behind her and presented me with a laminated blue visitor pass. “Mr. Wiley is still in the triage area, but you can go down and see him. Down the hall, make a right past the elevators, through the double doors and he’s in bed twenty-four.”

  I don’t even know if I thanked her before darting down the hall, my gait somewhere between a brisk walk and a flat-out run. I pushed the button so the heavy steel doors would open and checked the numbers above each drawn curtain. I convinced myself that he mustn’t have been hurt too severely if he was accepting visitors in triage and not unconscious and laid out on an operating table or something. The thought calmed me down and slowed my pace, so that by the time I reached his room, I wasn’t frazzled and out of breath.

  I saw Sandy emerge through the curtain just as I reached twenty-four. She was speaking to an invisible Trip when she said, “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. I’ll be back in a few.”

  Poor Sandy looked even more haggard than I felt. Must have been a rough day. She turned and saw me just then, relief washing over her face.

  “Oh! You’re here! I didn’t know if you would come!” she exclaimed as she hugged me hello. It wasn’t an odd gesture, even considering we’d only met for the first time a few hours prior. We were two women bonded by our shared affection for the same man. I hugged her back, grateful that Trip had someone that wonderful to care for him so deeply.

  “How is he?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  Sandy swiped a stray hair from her face, her sleek ponytail from earlier having come undone over the course of the day’s events. “He’s fine. He’s going to be fine.”

  “What happened?”

  She shot a look over her shoulder at the drawn curtain before answering. “I’ll let him tell you.” She gave me a wink and a pat on the arm before sauntering off down the hall.

  I took a steadying breath before quietly parting the mauve curtain to Trip’s “room”. He was lying on his back, eyes closed, with a bandaged arm resting across his midsection. I took an extra second to look him over, to appease my nerves with the truth that he was, in fact, still breathing. He looked so young lying there- not so much like the dynamic movie star that the world knew and much more like the beautiful young boy that I once knew. So peaceful, so striking and perfect... even in spite of the cast around his forearm.

  “Knock knock,” I finally said, alerting him to my presence.

  He opened his eyes and just lit up when he saw me. The look on his face shot a tremor of pure joy through my blood, before an inexplicable sadness overshadowed it. I realized that aside from Sandy, I was the only other person to be the
re for Trip in his time of need. Here was this big, hotshot movie star, surrounded by thousands of admiring fans, hundreds of people he worked with, and yet, no one was there but me.

  It must be a weird kind of loneliness to be famous.

  “Hey!” he said, his voice groggy.

  “Hey, yourself.” I shook my head at him. “Jesus, Trip. I leave you alone for a few hours and come to find out you’re all banged up in a hospital bed.”

  “Which is why you shouldn’t have left me alone tonight, sweetheart. You and I’d be in a much nicer bed than this one if you hadn’t.”

  I just sighed in mock disappointment at his joking words. Same old Trip.

  That made him laugh.

  I gestured to the cast on his arm. “You gonna live?” I asked.

  He appraised the damage and answered, “Yeah. Compound fracture, broken in three places. Blood everywhere. Looked worse than it is. It’s the concussion they’re more concerned about.”

  “You got a concussion?”

  “Yeah.” He said it like he was disappointed. Pissed at the very word itself.

  “How did you manage to-”

  “Aw, crap. I don’t know, Lay. One minute, I’m chasing Nick down a fire escape, the next, I’m laid flat-out on my ass in the middle of the sidewalk with a busted arm. I talked to Marty already. He says it’s fine. He’s already worked it into the script. But he has to rearrange the whole damn shooting schedule for the next few days until my head heals.”

  “How long will you be laid up?”

  “Who knows. They’re trying to get me into a room, just so they can monitor my skull for the night. Sandy’s pretty great, but there’s no way she wants to babysit my ass for the next twenty-four hours. I haven’t even called my mother yet. She’d probably insist that I spend the night there, and I don’t want to put her through that.”

  I guessed it was hard for him to be clear across the country from his home and have something like this happen. It was sweet that he didn’t want to put his mother out, but knowing her, I thought she was going to be beside herself when she found out what had happened to her son after the fact.

  “What about Jenna?” I asked, without even thinking.

  “Nah. She’s getting ready for a show. She’s got a trip to Milan in the morning. Besides, even if she had hopped a flight when she first heard the news, it would still be hours before she could get here.” He fiddled with the wires connected to his body, trying to sound unaffected as he added, “I suppose she could have at least called, however.”

  I stared at him, speechless, wondering what kind of fiancée wouldn’t even want to hear his voice after something like this. Make sure he’s okay. Hop on a freaking plane anyway and just be by his side. She’d be passing over New York, for godsakes. How flipping difficult would it be to just layover for a few hours and grab a connecting flight?

  I should have had some couth and just let the subject go, but my mouth tends to shoot off without permission from my brain sometimes. “She didn’t even call you?”

  Trip tried to shrug it off like it wasn’t a big deal, but his lips tightened as his eyes settled on the threadbare blanket covering his legs. His fingers picked at a loose string dangling from the woven fabric, pulling until the edge turned ragged and frayed. “Like I said, she’s in the middle of a lot of stuff right now, Lay. She and I... we always make it a point to be independent. It’s fine, really.”

  “Bullshit.” There was no way I was letting this go. “Are you kidding me? Trip, Jesus. Screw Milan. She should be on a fucking plane on her way here to you now. That’s not being independent, that’s being selfish.”

  I didn’t know if it was the haze of drugs or the blow to his head, but Trip looked close to tears. I mean, who could blame him? Times get tough and his pathetic fiancée can’t even think past one stinking fashion show in order to check in on the man she’s planning to marry? I probably shouldn’t have stirred the pot, but he was acting so nonchalant. Someone needed to be outraged on his behalf. So, it surprised me when he opened his mouth to respond, not in defense of his fiancée, but to look at me and say, “Jesus, Layla. You were always too good to me. You always treated me way better than I deserved.”

  I blamed the concussion for his over-emotional state, and let that comment rest for the time being. I pulled the naugahyde chair out of the corner and dragged it closer to the edge of his bed to sit down. I saw his undamaged hand lying at his side, and without thinking twice, I took it. There was something really easy and familiar about that. Something comfortable.

  “I broke my wrist once too, you know. When I was eight. It wasn’t fun.”

  Trip tore his gaze from our intertwined hands and asked, “Oh yeah? How’d you do that?”

  “Invisible airplane.”

  He let out a chuckle. “Ah. Of course. I hate when that happens. You gotta watch out for those things.”

  “Yep.”

  That made us both smile.

  “You know,” I started in, “I never did manage to finagle that lunchbox out of the deal.”

  Trip looked at me vacantly. “Uh, Lay? What the hell are you talking about?”

  I laughed and amended, “Sorry. I guess I kinda started that story in the middle.”

  I rested my other hand on the bed as well, absently playing his fingertips with my own. “After I’d broken my arm, my mother told me she’d get me a special present, anything so long as it wasn’t alive, like a pony or something.” He smiled warmly, and I tried to ignore the ache that that caused my heart. “It wasn’t a problem, because the only thing I wanted in the world was a Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox. Debbie Napolitano with her perfect Laura Ingalls braids had been flaunting hers all around the cafeteria for months, and I was so jealous!”

  He laughed, “That bitch!”

  I laughed, too. “I know, right? But the stupid thing meant so much to me.” I caught the raised brow he shot me and explained, “I was eight. Humor me. Anyway, I was such a little pain in the ass about it, asking my mother every day if she’d gotten around to buying it for me. She gave me every lame excuse in the book: not being able to find one, how she was doing her best to scour the stores but striking out, blah, blah, blah. The thing was, I told her that Debbie had gotten hers at the Bradlees right across town.” I ignored the bite that had crept into my tone and just continued rambling. “This went on for weeks and weeks. I couldn’t understand what the problem was. I mean, it was such a simple thing: Go to the store. Buy the lunchbox. It took me years to realize she just couldn’t pull herself together long enough to go get the damned thing.”

  Trip’s face was pensive, and I started in again before it could turn sympathetic. “She wasn’t well, my mother. I know that now,” I said softly, feeling Trip’s hand tighten on mine.

  My voice had started to shake, the memory turning sour as I continued, “Anyway, years later, right before she left, we’d gotten into some stupid fight or something. I don’t even remember what it was about. I don’t know why, but I brought up how she’d never gotten around to buying me that freaking lunchbox and threw that fact right in her face. Four years later! Like it even mattered anymore.”

  I was still trying to make light of it, but the true depravity of the situation spilled out when I added, “Actually, that’s the last time I remember talking to her.”

  Trip said nothing through my babbling. I ignored the sting of tears behind my eyes, trying like hell—and failing—to reel myself in. My laugh was a bit maniacal as I forced out a joking tone and delivered the punchline acidly, “The most ridiculous part is, somehow, I managed to tie all of my obvious abandonment issues into that stupid lunchbox. I still can’t watch the goddamned show whenever I come across it on TV, and it used to be my favorite. I have it all moshed together in my mind. Like her unconditional love was personified by a fucking Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox. A stupid, piece of shit-”

  “Layla…”

  “No. Don’t.”

  I let go of his hand and gave a quick swipe t
o my eyes, embarrassed that I’d gone off on such an indulgent tangent. I’d started the story as an attempt at levity, but in telling it, registered how pathetic it really was.

  “I don’t even know how we got into this. I’m sorry. Here you are all laid up, and I’m whining about something that happened a million years ago.”

  “You still haven’t seen her?”

  “No. And I really don’t care if I ever do. And that’s the truth, I swear.”

  I didn’t know where the big rant had come from. Something about seeing Trip as the teenage boy I once knew just opened up all the old wounds. Besides, he was always a really good listener.

  It was definitely time to change the subject. I took a cleansing breath and switched gears. “So… Sandy... is she your publicist or your assistant?”

  Trip was still looking at me cautiously, his eyes brimming with a compassion I didn’t want to acknowledge. After a moment, he splayed his hand palm-side-up on the bed, and I slipped mine back into it. It was enough.

  “Both, actually,” he answered.

  “Seems like an uncommon arrangement.”

  “It is. But there aren’t too many people I can trust out there, and Sandy was already my assistant when I realized I was going to need a publicist, too. It’s a position she’s more suited for and way more interested in. She offered to play double-duty until she can whip Hunter into shape to take over the assistant role.”

  He rubbed a hand at the back of his neck, working out a kink and said, “Okay. Enough about my job. Tell me everything. How’s the old gang from St. Norman’s?”

  I was able to give a chuckle and answered, “Well, I already told you about Lisa and Pick… Let’s see… Cooper is still down in Maryland, gunning for a junior partner position at his law firm. I haven’t talked to Sargento in forever, and Rymer is… well, Rymer. He still lives in town. I see him every once in a while. Oh! And there’s a reunion next October.”

  Trip’s eyes started to look sleepy, but he responded, “Oh yeah? Jesus, ten years.”

  “That seems to be the collective reaction.”