While We Were Dating

by Jasmine Guillory

  Hope you’re having a good weekend,

  Ben

  Ten

  Wednesday afternoon, everyone was in a bad mood on set. It was like the set had been cursed—everything that could go wrong that day had, between Gene getting in a fender bender on the way and getting there late, to craft services messing up breakfast, to it being so windy all day that they had to do a million retakes because the whistles of the wind outside were so loud in the background.

  Anna sat wrapped in a sweater as she waited for yet another lighting change. Why did she have to be in this stupid sundress when they all knew it would be cold outside today? This was usually just part of the job for her, but today she was freezing and deeply irritated about it.

  She glanced over at Ben, the one person on set who didn’t seem affected by the gloomy day. He was over in the corner, chatting with the sound guy—and, from what she could overhear, trying to cheer him up. He glanced her way and caught her looking at him and winked at her. She blushed and looked away.

  She’d meant to be chilly to him on set, to make it clear that the night—and morning—in Palm Springs had been a onetime thing, that even though she’d trusted him for some incredible reason with her biggest secret, she wasn’t going to fall back in bed with him, no matter how much she liked him.

  But Ben was so relaxed, so easy, so cheerful, that when he’d grinned at her on Monday morning over the craft services coffee and asked how she was doing that day, she found it impossible to not grin back and say she was well rested.

  After that moment, she’d given up on her plan to chill Ben out. They’d been mostly normal with each other all day Monday and Tuesday, though she still had trouble looking him in the eye—every time she did, she remembered that look on his face right before that last time they’d had sex in the hotel room. Which was also why she’d avoided him at the end of the day, out of fear she’d accidentally invite him back to her hotel. He hadn’t sought her out, either, which she insisted to herself was a relief.

  And now it was this overcast, windy, dreary day, and Anna just wanted to get out of here and let herself stress in her hotel room about Vigilantes—even though things looked promising, she still didn’t actually know anything—and the Varon film, which she wanted more every time she read the script, which she did far too often. Simon was going to be in town the next day; they were supposed to have breakfast to strategize. She had to make a list of things to talk to him about.

  Why was Ben standing over there cheering up the sound guy and not her? Ugh, the weather was getting to her. She turned away from Ben.

  And then the power went out.

  There were a bunch of high-pitched screams—why, Anna didn’t know; it was two in the afternoon, not the middle of the night. Someone ran outside to check the lights and discovered the whole block was out. Everyone freaked out, except for Ben, who picked up his phone. Anna walked over to him to see who he was calling.

  “Power company,” he said as she approached. “Want to see if they have any idea how long it’ll be out.”

  She stood close to him as he was on hold, not saying anything. They watched the chaos around them together—everyone stressing about phone batteries and lighting and laptops; someone flicked the light switches over and over, like that would do anything; someone else took pictures at the windows, as if a middle-of-the-day power outage was an Instagram-worthy event.

  Finally, Ben came to attention in a way she could tell meant he was listening to something on the other end of the phone, then sighed and hung up.

  “They say this will last until eight tonight, at least. I bet a tree’s down. I’d better tell Gene so we can call it a day here.”

  Ben strode over to Gene and whispered to him. Gene yelled, “Fuck!” just once, which made everyone turn and look at him.

  “Power’ll be out for the rest of the day,” Gene announced to the room. “Go home, everybody, and drink some excellent alcohol. See you tomorrow.”

  Everyone groaned, then jumped up and bustled around to leave before Gene could change his mind or the power came back on. For some reason, though, Anna didn’t move.

  Ben came back to her side a few minutes later.

  “You heard the man,” she said. “It’s time to drink some excellent alcohol. Want to join me?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  * * *

  —

  Where do you want to go?” Ben asked when they got into his car. He tried to be cool, to ignore that Anna was in his car again, to act like it was just a normal “getting drinks after work with someone he worked with” kind of thing.

  Things had been weird between them for the past few days—she’d seemed to want to steer clear of him, and he never wanted to push himself where he wasn’t wanted, so he’d avoided her, too. But today, she’d kept looking over at him—which he obviously only noticed because he kept looking over at her—and had actually walked over to talk to him during the power outage. And now she was in his car.

  “Oh,” Anna said. “I didn’t think of that. There’s a bar on the top floor of my hotel, but I’m not sure if it’s open at this hour. And I know the news is out that I’m here in San Francisco, and I’m not sure if I want to deal with being recognized today.”

  Why was she here in his car, then?

  “Normally, I’d say we could go sit on my deck, but you probably—”

  “Oh, that’s perfect,” she said.

  He hadn’t expected that.

  “I’m going to warn you now, my place is kind of a mess,” he said, “but I promise, I can make an excellent cocktail.”

  One of those things was a lie. His apartment wasn’t a mess at all—he’d cleaned it all day Saturday, with nothing else to do after he’d woken up and talked to Theo and emailed Dawn. But women were always very impressed when you called an almost-immaculate apartment “a mess.” For the most part, he tried not to play games like that—he’d tried some of those tricks to get dates when he was in his early twenties, and it just made him feel like an asshole. And then he’d realized all he really needed to do was listen to them and ask them questions and give them compliments that weren’t about their boobs (okay, not just about their boobs). He didn’t know why more people didn’t try that.

  But small white lies to make himself look slightly better to someone like Anna felt like an exception.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Anna said. “After living in a hotel, being in an actual home will be nice. And the cocktail will be even better.”

  “It’s still windy outside, but we can sit out on my little deck and pretend we’re at a beer garden,” he said. He turned down his block. No parking. Of course. Didn’t the universe know that he had Anna Gardiner in his car and should get a parking spot right in front of his building?

  She scanned the street along with him.

  “Is that . . . Oh no, it’s a hydrant, damn. Sitting outside sounds nice, and I have many scarves with me. I come prepared for San Francisco weather. Oh, look!”

  Ben swiveled his head to where she pointed and saw the car pulling out on a side street. He quickly turned left and made it to the spot before anyone else could approach it.

  “Nice job,” he said. “You haven’t lost it.”

  “Haven’t lost what?” she said, in what he hoped was a mock-offended voice.

  “The ability to sense an open parking spot. Come on, you’re not going to try to pretend you have to still look for parking now, are you? Doesn’t everywhere in L.A. have valet?”

  She laughed, and he felt triumphant.

  “Not everywhere, but okay, fine, this isn’t a skill I have to exercise that much anymore, that’s true.”

  She wrapped her gray scarf around her neck and the bottom half of her face before they got out of the car, and she put the plain black sunglasses he’d gotten her at Target on, instead of her big flashy ones.

  “Yo
u were right,” she said as they walked toward his building. “These are much better for purposes like this. No one looks at me twice.”

  He wasn’t sure if that was a compliment on his strategy or a knock on his fashion sense.

  “Next time you need to dress like a normal person, you know who to call,” he said, and she laughed.

  “I’m this way,” he said when they got to his building. He gestured for her to go ahead of him and unlocked the front door. “Up here.”

  He let her precede him up the stairs to his apartment.

  Good God, why had he let this happen? She’d made it clear that she didn’t want a repeat of Palm Springs, and he understood that. But this was going to kill him.

  “Make yourself at home,” he said as he opened the door of his apartment. That must have sounded ridiculous to someone who lived in what was probably an enormous gated house somewhere in L.A., and who was now walking into his spacious one-bedroom apartment. Everything about this was weird.

  “What do you want to drink?” he asked.

  “It’s cold outside.” She sat down on the couch. “Something that’ll warm me up.”

  Well, that was vague and only slightly helpful. Thank God he did actually have excellent liquor on hand—all thanks to his brother, who’d told him he was ashamed to share bloodlines with Ben that time Ben had pulled a plastic jug of vodka out when Ben was twenty and Theo was a very-full-of-himself twenty-three. He’d given Ben expensive liquor for every birthday since. Now Ben could and did buy his own, but somehow the stuff Theo bought him was always far better.

  He threw together Manhattans—one of the few cocktails he knew how to make—and poured the drinks into two glasses.

  “Want to sit here or outside on the deck?”

  Anna jumped up from the couch.

  “The deck, definitely. At least, until I’m freezing and need to come back inside.”

  She slid open the door to the deck, since both of his hands were full, and they both walked outside.

  “The sun!” She looked up and then smiled at him. “Maybe it won’t be so cold out here after all.”

  He set their drinks down on the small IKEA table he’d labored to put together.

  “It’s the reason I live in the Mission—it’s too cold everywhere else in San Francisco. If the sun is going to come out, it comes out here first.”

  She sat down and lifted her glass to him.

  “To half days. I know I should be annoyed about this because it pushes the schedule back, but I feel like a kid who got let out of school early.”

  He clinked her glass with his.

  “Oh, this is good,” she said.

  “One of my specialties,” he said. Then he laughed. “Another way to put that is that it’s one of the, like, three cocktails I know how to make.”

  She laughed out loud, and something in the tone of her laughter dispelled the awkward feeling he’d had around her since Monday. He smiled.

  He leaned back in his chair, and she did, too. They were side by side, looking out over the tiny garden next door, with the sun trying to break all the way through the clouds.

  They didn’t talk much at first. They enjoyed the sun on their faces and the drinks in their hands and being there together.

  Or, at least, Ben did, and he hoped Anna did, too. He was usually good at telling when women enjoyed being with him, but suddenly with Anna he had doubts. Was it because she was such a great actor that he wouldn’t know if she was pretending? Or because he wanted her to like being with him so much he didn’t know if he was just wanting it or it was actually true?

  She could be anywhere right now, though, and she chose to be here. With him. He’d take it.

  * * *

  —

  Anna smiled as she took another sip of her drink. Sitting outside on Ben’s deck drinking a cocktail with him was definitely better than sitting alone in her hotel room stressing about her future.

  “So what’s up for you, after this shoot is over?” Ben asked.

  Speaking of her future.

  “I’m still kind of figuring that out now,” she said. “I have a lot of promo for Vigilantes coming up as soon as I get back to L.A., so I have to gear up for that. But also, there’s this film role I’m dying to get; I love the script, the director is incredible, and I’ve been wanting to work with her for years.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her.

  “So what’s the holdup, then?”

  She sighed.

  “The studio isn’t convinced I have enough box office-draw, or at least, that’s what they say.”

  He put his drink down and looked at her.

  “What do you think the real story is?”

  She leaned back in her chair.

  “ ‘Not enough box office-draw’ in Hollywood usually means ‘not white.’ It’s so frustrating that no matter how hard I work or how on top of things I am or how good I am, I’ll always be second best. They’ll always want a white actress first; they’ll always pay her more money than they would have paid me. Because, you see, they’re ‘universal’ and I’m not. And yes, sure, their movies do make more money at the box office than mine do, but is that because people like them more? Is it because they’re white and I’m Black and people automatically like me less because of that? Is it because the studios believe in them more and promote them more and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who knows. Likely a combination of everything.” She sighed again. “Sorry for the rant; this has obviously been building up.”

  Ben shook his head.

  “No apology necessary. Rant as much as you want. That fucking sucks.”

  She laughed and took another sip of her cocktail.

  “It fucking sucks indeed. I really want it, though, so I’ll do whatever it takes to get it. I’m hoping that I make a splash in Vigilantes, which would help a ton, but it’s kind of a faint hope—I only filmed a handful of scenes for that, and for all I know, it could end up being a bit part. I guess we’ll see. I’m having breakfast with my manager tomorrow; hopefully he’ll have some ideas.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,” Ben said.

  She grinned at him.

  “Please do.”

  She was glad she’d come here today. Just talking about the stuff she was most stressed about with Ben made her feel calmer.

  Why was that? She still barely knew him, even though it no longer felt like that after that trip to Palm Springs. She realized that she’d talked to Ben a lot about herself and her family during the drive to and from Palm Springs, but he hadn’t told her much about his. She knew he had a brother he was close to—that was all.

  “Do you see your family often?” she asked him. “Your brother is in the Bay Area, you said—are your parents here, too?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Yeah, my mom lives in the East Bay. I see her every few weeks or so. At least once a month she demands that my brother and I come over for Sunday dinner.” He shook his head, but with a wry smile on his face. “She drives me up a wall, but she’s hilarious. I never miss her summons for dinner, unless I’m out of town.”

  “What does she do?” Anna asked. She was suddenly very curious about Ben—who his family was, how he came to be the person he was. He’d mentioned his mom, but not his dad, but in that way where she didn’t think she could ask why.

  He drained his drink and set it on the table.

  “She’s a nurse. She has been my whole life. Or, at least, as long as I can remember. After . . . when I was little, she doubled up on her shifts for a while—Theo and I spent a lot of time with our cousins then. Once we got old enough to stay home alone, she would take the night shifts, which meant she was always there in the morning to get us ready for school and then again when we got home to supervise our homework. I was always sort of a class clown, but I never wanted to get in so much
trouble that the principal would call my mom, because I knew if anything woke her up during the day, she’d be on the warpath.”

  He smiled reminiscently. Anna pictured Ben, twenty years younger. She could see him as a teen, with dancing eyes and a mischievous smile. His mom probably had her hands full.

  “Has she thought about retiring? I only ask because I keep trying to convince my parents to retire, and it’s not going well.”

  Ben laughed.

  “From the glimpse I got of your parents, I can imagine that. And she talks about retirement sometimes, but sort of in that pipe-dream way. Like ‘when I retire, your aunt Leslie and I are going to spend a month in the Virgin Islands’ kind of way. Nothing serious, at least not yet.” He paused. “Though maybe she’s said more to Theo. He’s always been the responsible one. I should ask him.”

  He didn’t seem to have any bitterness in his voice when he made reference to his brother as the “responsible one.” That was nice—she knew too many people who had been scarred by how their parents tagged them and their siblings as kids.

  He picked up her empty glass and raised an eyebrow at her, and she nodded. He stood, taking both of their glasses with him, and walked back inside. She followed him.

  “What does your brother do?” she asked.

  He opened the freezer and pulled out ice cubes.

  “He’s the spokesman for the mayor of Berkeley,” he said. “Great for me—with his help, I got the permits for all of the filming for this shoot much faster than anyone predicted.”

  She watched him pour liquor into the shaker.

  “Big brother pulled some strings for you?”

  He shook a finger at her.

  “Never. My brother is far too by the book for that. But he knows everyone, so he told me who to contact, and as soon as I mentioned that he was my brother, everyone was all ‘Ohhh, I love Theo! Anything to help out his brother!’ ” He stopped for a minute, the bourbon bottle in his hand. “I guess I should probably tell him that.”