Famous (A Famous novel)

by Jenny Holiday

  “A mix. Some of it was here. I brought all my shit from Florida, but once I got here, I realized I didn’t miss half of it, so I never really bothered unpacking. And I really only use the kitchen and my bedroom. I grade papers here.” He tapped the kitchen table.

  “But what about the little living room in front—with all the art?” Not his art—he had made his stance on painting quite clear last night—but that room had been full of art he owned, judging by how different those pieces were from the florals and landscapes that dotted the rest of the house.

  “Yeah, I had this idea that I might keep the furniture that came with the house, for now at least, but swap out the existing art with my collection. I only got as far as that room, though, which is kind of embarrassing given that I’ve been here seven years. All my other pieces are still packed in moving boxes. There are also pieces lying around in that front room that are submissions for this town art show that I’m supposed to be curating at the end of the summer—over in that barn we saw at the farmers’ market. I need to sort it all out—figure out what’s going in the show and what I want to hang here in the house.”

  “I can do that!” Surely there would be a wikiHow article on how to hang art. “Let me help,” she added. “It will make me feel better about imposing on you. You can direct me as it relates to the art, and as for the rest of it, I can help sort though it—donate what you don’t want to keep and organize what you do.”

  Damn him, there was that silent staring again. Emmy realized how profoundly unused to that she was. Normally, when she was with other people, they talked a mile a minute. Everyone had an agenda, a case to make, an urgent question. Everyone wanted something.

  To be fair, Evan also looked like he wanted something, or like he was trying to figure something out. She just wasn’t sure what it was.

  “All right,” he finally said, hoisting his coffee mug in a toast. “You got yourself a deal. I’ve gotten so used to walking around all the crap in this house, but it would be nice to put it to order.” Then he turned. “I’m going to hit the shower.”

  “Great!” She lifted her mug in return, and as she watched him retreat, she ordered her brain not to think of him in the shower. Summer of No Men!

  When he disappeared up the stairs, she heaved a sigh.

  Now she had to figure out how to make hamburgers and hang art. In other words, she had to figure out how to be a regular person.

  Mrs. Johansen, it turned out, could make more than just casseroles. She could also, for example, make hamburgers.

  “I’m so glad you stopped over,” Emmy said as she watched Mrs. Johansen beat the patties she’d been struggling with into submission. “I would have had no idea you had to put all that stuff into hamburgers.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Mrs. Johansen, who had come by for some advice on an OkCupid date she’d set up and, seeing Emmy forming plain ground beef into patties, had run home and returned with an envelope of dried onion soup mix and bottles of ketchup and mustard. “They taste much better this way.”

  “And here I was thinking people put ketchup and mustard on their burgers,” Emmy said.

  “Yeah, well, I figure if it’s going to go on top anyway, why not put it in the meat mixture? It’ll stay moister that way.” She slapped the final patty onto a platter. “Throw some Saran Wrap on this and stick it in the fridge. Take it out a bit before you plan to throw them on the grill.”

  “Grill?” Emmy echoed.

  “You’re not going to cook inside in this heat, are you?” Mrs. Johansen asked. “Isn’t that why you’re doing burgers in the first place?”

  “Uh, yes,” Emmy said, following Mrs. Johansen as she made her way to the front door. “Yes it is. Are you sure you can’t join us for dinner?” She tried to keep the desperation out of her tone with that last question. Are you sure you can’t help me with this grill thing?

  “You’re the one who told me to jump on JollyGent35,” said Mrs. Johansen. Then she grinned. “In a manner of speaking.”

  Mrs. Johansen had been surprisingly forthright with Emmy about her goals for dating when they got together to set up her profile.

  “I’m not looking for another husband,” she’d said. “I had one of those, and he was the love of my life.” Her devotion, so plainly stated, gave Emmy shivers. “But let’s face it,” Mrs. Johansen went on, “I haven’t had sex for eight years.”

  “You know I meant jump on his profile—like, don’t let him get away,” Emmy teased. “But jump him in the other sense, too, if you want. But I recommend against doing so on the first date.” But who was she to talk? She would have jumped Evan that night on the roof in Miami if he hadn’t been such a damned gentleman. Or last night in the attic, for that matter.

  “What am I waiting for, though?” Mrs. Johansen parried. “I’m not getting any younger.”

  “You’re waiting to make sure he’s not a psychopath.”

  “A psychopath!” Mrs. Johansen exclaimed. “How exciting!” Emmy laughed, and when they reached Mrs. Johansen’s door, the older woman stopped and said, “How are you with makeup?”

  Emmy thought back to the hundreds, if not thousands, of makeup chairs she’d sat in over the past few years. “I’ve picked up a few things in my day.”

  “I’ll be over at five thirty.”

  Emmy found herself looking forward to it. When was the last time she’d helped someone just to help them? Without it being a Big Freaking Deal?

  She jogged up Evan’s porch humming a tune that had been clattering around in her head all morning as she’d started on the house organization project, moving boxes around and making piles for Goodwill.

  Time to find her guitar.

  And maybe to root around in Evan’s medicine cabinet to see if she could find some condoms for Mrs. Johansen.

  It might be the Summer of No Men for Emmy, but at least someone was getting some action.

  When Evan arrived home from teaching that afternoon, it was to find Emmy on the porch, applying hairspray to a much puffier version of Mrs. Johansen’s usual hairdo.

  “There,” she said, standing back to admire her handiwork. “You look good.”

  Mrs. Johansen stood and raised her eyebrows at him. She seemed to be looking for approval, and he gave it freely. “You sure do.” She was wearing a blue skirt and a crisp, white, short-sleeved blouse with a glittery blue brooch, and her lips were painted scarlet.

  Mrs. Johansen would make an interesting subject to paint.

  Whoa. Where had that thought come from? He had been happily coexisting with his neighbor for seven years, and he’d never once had the urge to paint her. But now that the idea was there, he couldn’t stop thinking about how he would capture the delicate, crepe-paper skin of her neck, the deep lines around her mouth. The mouth itself, such an unlikely artificial red hue.

  Her lips were the same color that Emmy’s had been when she’d arrived on his doorstep, in fact. His Google-stalking of Emmy had revealed that red lips were her signature thing. She had kind of an Old Hollywood glamour about her. He liked that look.

  But he also liked the fresh, no-makeup, short-shorts and tank top look she seemed to be settling into at his house, even with the black-hole black hair.

  He liked all her looks.

  Which was a problem.

  In fact, it was probably his urge to paint Emmy yesterday that was making him think such crazy thoughts about Mrs. Johansen now. It was like he was hung-over, the residue of last night’s painting binge and the subsequent encounter with Emmy still there in his psyche, making itself known.

  He forced those thoughts back to his elderly neighbor—the reality of her, not some imagined painting of her. “So where is this hot date going down?”

  “Wanda’s,” Mrs. Johansen said. “Emmy said that in addition to not sleeping with my new friend on the first date, I shouldn’t have him pick me up because he might be a psychopath and in that case, I don’t want him to know where I live. She said we should meet there.” />
  Trying, and, he feared, failing to hide his shock, Evan glanced at Emmy, who was nodding vehemently, though since she was behind Mrs. Johansen, she was out of the older woman’s sightlines. “I’m afraid things have probably changed since you last went on a date, Mrs. Johansen,” he said as Emmy’s eyes telegraphed her approval. “Emmy’s right. It’s good to be cautious.”

  “Well, I overrode her. He’s picking me up. I’m pretty sure I can outrun JollyGent35. And that’s saying something, because I can’t run. The jury’s still out on the other matter.”

  Emmy cleared her throat. “I also told her to have coffee for the first date. That way she’s not stuck with a long meal if JollyGent turns out to be less jolly than advertised.”

  “Yep, and I ignored that advice, too. I gotta go. He’s picking me up at six thirty, and I want to go home and sit in the air conditioning for a while so I’m not sweating like an ancient pig when he gets here.” She blew them both kisses, and Evan jogged over and gave her his arm, sharing an amused/alarmed look with Emmy as he passed.

  It sort of felt like they were in cahoots, sending their kid off on a first date or something. “Emmy sure seems to know a lot about internet dating,” he teased, winking at her over his shoulder. After he escorted Mrs. Johansen home, he’d be left alone with her. Teasing might get them back onto more comfortable footing. After all, if he was teasing Emmy, he couldn’t stick his tongue down her throat.

  “Hey,” Emmy protested. “I read!”

  But as he and Mrs. Johansen descended the stairs, he did wonder why one of the most famous women in the world knew so much about internet dating. As far as he could tell, her romantic history was full of other famous people. He had done some more internet stalking last night after their aborted grope-fest. Surrendering to the knowledge that there was no shower cold enough to break the hold she had over him, he’d delved deeper into those three hundred and seven million pages of Google results. Her last boyfriend had been a musician, and as far as Evan could tell, the douche had been cheating on Emmy with a model, and she’d stumbled across them making out in Central Park. And of course the paparazzi had been on hand to document her humiliation. It baffled the mind how a man could have a woman like Emmy and throw her away like that. A famous man, he amended—a man who already didn’t mind the limelight that came with being Mr. Emerson Quinn.

  “You sure there’s nothing going on between you and Emmy?” Mrs. Johansen whispered when they were out of earshot. Evan had a flashback to the feel of Emmy’s breasts in his hands, to the sound of her breathing heavily as her nipples pebbled under his fingers.

  “No,” he said, thankful that Mrs. Johansen was watching her feet as they mounted the steps to her porch, so she didn’t see his face, which he was pretty sure was flushed, even in the heat. “We’re just friends. And anyway, neither of us is looking for a relationship right now.” That much was true. Even if he hadn’t been allergic to the idea of fame, he had his tenure bid to focus on, and Emmy was taking a break from dating. All signs pointed unambiguously toward the friend zone.

  Mrs. Johansen didn’t say anything until she had opened her front door. Then she kissed him on the cheek and said, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” and slammed the door in his face.

  Her refrain echoed across the lawns, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to explain it to Emmy.

  “Oh my God!” Emmy cried from his porch, obviating the need for him to address Mrs. Johansen’s outburst.

  “What?” There had been genuine anguish in her tone, and he jogged back across the yard searching for something amiss on the porch.

  “The burgers!” She was already down the steps and streaking past him, heading for the gate that led to the backyard.

  By the time he caught up, she was standing, shoulders slumped, in front of his grill.

  His grill which was belching out an astonishing quantity of thick black smoke.

  He moved around to take a look. The fact that Emmy had mentioned burgers was the only clue as to what the carbonized, black, vaguely round things on the grate had once been.

  “I forgot about them!” Emmy wailed. “I put them on, and then Mrs. Johansen came over, and they’ve been back here unattended for like an hour!”

  “It’s hard to believe they got that burned that quickly.” Sure, half an hour would have produced well-done burgers, but they shouldn’t be this far gone. “Did you let the coals ash over before you put them on?”

  Her eyes darted between him and the dead burgers. “Excuse me?”

  “You lit the coals with lighter fluid?”

  She nodded.

  “And then you waited for the coals to die down and ash over a bit before you put the burgers on?”

  After a short pause, she switched to shaking her head no.

  He burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. She looked so chagrined, and the pucks formerly known as burgers, so pathetic. So he gave in, throwing his head back and letting his eyes fill with the blue, blue sky as laughter rumbled through him. It was a strange feeling.

  “I’m sorry! God, I’m so stupid.”

  That snapped him back to reality. Her tone had been over-the-top critical, like she was disgusted with herself. “Hey, don’t worry about it.”

  “I don’t know how to do anything,” she went on.

  “Not that many people have charcoal grills anymore.” She still looked stricken, so he added, “And anyway, I’m pretty sure you have other talents.”

  She raised her eyebrows skeptically.

  “Like making multiplatinum records?”

  She blew out a dismissive breath. “I don’t know how to do anything real. That oatmeal from this morning?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I had to look up how to make it on my phone. I’m completely incompetent.”

  “So?” He tried not to smile. She acted like she was confessing a mortal sin. “You looked it up, you made it, it tasted good. I think that’s what they call competency.”

  “Just like I had to look up how to grill,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “And here I was, congratulating myself that I figured out the difference between charcoal and gas. God, I’m useless.”

  He took her arm. “Hey, I get it. After my dad’s fall from grace, I was like a goddamned baby bird pushed from the nest. I really couldn’t do anything—not even oatmeal.” He cringed inwardly now to think of his old self. He’d been so angry for the first few years. Hell, he was still angry at his father, but he was glad he wasn’t living that way anymore, dependent on his parents for money, his teachers for inspiration, and his friends for entertainment. God, he’d relied on everyone except himself. Like the world owed him. It almost made him physically shudder.

  But, thankfully, everything was different now. He put food on the table himself—well, Mrs. Johansen put food on the table, really, but he bought her veggies, and he was more than capable of managing on his own. He conducted research and taught classes he was proud of. He had carved out a nice life in this little town, even if “curating the town art show” was what passed for a social life.

  It was…kind of awesome, actually. It was a jolt to realize how much he liked the life he’d built, all the more because of how hard-won it was. He just needed to survive his tenure bid to make sure he didn’t lose everything he’d worked so hard for.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a freezer full of casseroles. You can take your pick.”

  “Wow,” she said a minute later when they were in his basement standing over his chest freezer. “You weren’t kidding.”

  “She makes me one or two a week. I’m only one person, and I usually buy lunch on campus, so I get behind. So I decant them into individual portions and freeze them.” He chuckled. There were a lot of Tupperware containers in there. “So what’ll it be?” He started rummaging around, reading the masking tape labels he’d affixed to the containers. “Chicken Divan, tuna, baked ziti, beef pot pie, mac and cheese—”

  “Mac and c
heese!” she exclaimed. “That tuna last night was amazing, but mac and cheese sounds pretty compelling. I don’t know if I’ve ever had macaroni and cheese that didn’t come from a box!”

  “Well, your world is about to shift on its axis, then,” he said, grabbing two containers of Mrs. Johansen’s cheesy goodness and gesturing for Emmy to precede him upstairs.

  “Can we eat on the porch so we can check out JollyGent35 when he arrives?” she asked as they stood in the kitchen waiting for the microwave to heat their dinners.

  “We can indeed,” Evan said, a surge of something that felt remarkably like excitement swirling in his stomach. Which was ridiculous, because being excited about eating defrosted casserole on the porch in order to spy on the comings and goings of his elderly neighbor? He had just been thinking about how much he liked his quiet, small-town life, but, even for him, that was pathetic.

  They sat side by side on his porch swing because it allowed them both a clear view of Mrs. Johansen’s house. After Emmy’s exclamations over the mac and cheese, a comfortable silence settled. He was relieved—and surprised, frankly—that there was no lingering awkwardness from last night’s attic encounter. When they’d both finished eating, he took her Tupperware from her and set it along with his on a side table before settling back down and giving a push with his foot to start the swing moving.

  Emmy sighed. It was, he thought, a contented sigh. He felt it, too. There was something so companionable about eating dinner on the porch with someone, united by shared anticipation.

  A long, green Cadillac appeared at the end of his street. It moved slowly toward them.

  “I bet that’s him!” Emmy whispered, the excitement in her tone making him less embarrassed by his own.

  “Yep,” he agreed, and sure enough, the car inched its way to a stop in front of the house next door, its green hue and slow pace bringing to mind a tortoise.

  Its occupant moved just as slowly, taking his time levering himself out of the car, setting his cane on the ground, and shuffling up the walk.