“He works for a marketing company or something. He had mentioned that he was here with clients going over marketing and sales in Dallas and he had a marketing problem back in LA.”
“Well maybe he travels and will have a chance to come see you in Milwaukee.”
“Maybe.” I hated to sound so glum about meeting a cute guy, but the chances of me seeing him again were not particularly good. I’m too much a realistic person I understand distance and the cost of flying back and forth across the country. I had to look at this from the prospective that now I can move on from my ex-boyfriend and find someone new in Milwaukee.
The rest of the convention dragged on. I was happy to be busy showing our new program to lots of potential customers and even happier the following day to be breaking down the booth and helping Melanie pack it back up. We would be heading to the airport, and soon I would be home with my friendly little dog to snuggle with. I also could not wait to have dinner with Lisa and talk about my date. She would be so shocked. I should have gotten a picture of him so that she would believe me when I told her how cute he was.
My flight back was short. I must have dozed off on the plane. I happily made my way through the airport and to the parking lot in search of my car a 2000 Jeep Wrangler. In Atlanta I only had a soft top, but since moving back to Wisconsin I had to invest in a hard one. That took some of the fun out of owing a Jeep. The June air had a crisp chill, I was glad that I had worn my sweater on the plane. I made one quick stop at PetsSmart before heading over to get Thor. He is always a ball of energy when I pick him up, but that only lasts a few moments. Once he knows he’s safe at home, he drifts off into a sleep coma. I’m always convinced that he doesn’t get any sleep when I have to board him.
That night I was unpacking my bag and found Grays phone number. I took it out, looked at it and smiled. I actually wanted to pick up the phone and call him; instead I put the slip back in my purse. I looked over at Thor he was already dozing off on the couch. “Just us again”
.
Chapter 4
On Monday morning, my alarm went off, and my normal routine started again. I got up, got ready for work and let Thor out. My drive in was slow. There was a wreck on 43 South. I watched the cars slowly move toward the city and finally I was at my exit.
When I reached my cube, there was something waiting for me in the middle of my desk. Someone had sent me a dozen roses. I could hardly believe it; my birthday was months away. This had to be a mistake.
I quickly opened the card. To my surprise, the roses were for me. The note was short and sweet:
“Wish I could have stayed longer in Dallas. I have been thinking about you. Grayson Edwards.”
Grayson ... Oh, Gray had sent me the flowers. I laughed quietly to myself, thinking it was funny that I hadn’t even known what his last name was. Quickly I picked up my phone and called Lisa.
“Guess what?” I chirped as a fell back into my office chair and spun around, giggling.
“What?” she asked sleepily.
I could tell that once again I had woken her up. Lisa worked at a local department store, and she normally wasn’t up as early as I had to be. The downside of her job was that she had to work nights and weekends.
“I got roses from the Dallas guy!” I gushed doing a little happy dance in my chair.
“Wow, Abby, that’s great!” Lisa said. “Where does this guy live again?”
“Well, that’s the bad part. He lives in LA.”
“You just have bad luck with guys, don’t you,” Lisa stated.
“I guess I do. Maybe he will come and see me,” I said with a hopeful tone.
“You can always invite him to Fish Day,” Lisa said sarcastically. Lisa knew that I would never invite some hot guy from LA to come to our small town’s fish celebration.
“Sure, some guy from LA would really want to come to Port Washington’s famous Fish Day,” I said with a sarcastic tone.
“Well, you will never know unless you ask,” Lisa pointed out. “Hey, I have to go now. Let’s get drinks later tonight.”
“OK, thanks,” I said. A girls night out was just what I needed. I was staring at the roses when the thought crossed my mind that I should call him to thank him for the flowers. I took the paper he had given me out of my wallet and dialed his number.
One ring, two rings … I was hoping that I would get his voicemail, but no luck; he picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hello?” he said sleepily.
What a dummy I was; I had forgotten about the time difference: it must be 6 a.m. in LA. “Oh hi, Gray. This is Abby from Dallas.”
“Hi, Abby,” he said. I could tell that I had, in fact, woken him up.
“Sorry to call you this early, but I wanted to say thank you for the flowers. They are beautiful.” I said.
“I’m glad you liked them. I wish I could have delivered them to you in person.”
“That would have been nice,” I chirped. I could not believe the effect this guy had over me. I must sound like a stammering idiot to him. Then it hit me what did I have to lose by inviting him to Fish Day? Nothing. I would have plenty to gain if he actually said yes. I gathered up all the courage I had.
“This may seem really strange, but do you have any plans for the third Saturday in July?” I asked hopefully.
“No, I think I’m free,” he said. “Are you coming out to LA?”
“No. I was wondering if you would like to come to Port Washington’s Fish Day?” I bravely asked. Lisa was right. I would never know unless I asked.
“Fish Day?” Gray said. He sounded confused.
“Fish Day is the world’s largest outdoor fish fry,” I said. “It’s a huge party on Lake Michigan. I thought since you were from England you might like a good fish fry.”
“Well, that does sound good,” he said. “I don’t get any of that here.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t in California,” I said.
“Let me check my schedule and get back to you,” Gray said.
“OK, just let me know. I will guarantee that you will have fun. Oh, before you go, did everything work out with your poster?”
“My poster?” Gray asked confused.
“The marketing problem with your poster. The reason why you had to leave Dallas early.”
“Oh that worked out fine. Sorry Abby its 6am here I’m just half asleep at the moment. I’ll call you latter on tonight and tell you about it. Bye, Abby.” He said.
“Bye, Grayson.”
I could not believe how brave I had been to invite him. Normally I would be practical and say to myself that there is no way he would buy a plane ticket to come and see me and go to Fish Day, but there was something about him that made me want to go outside my comfort zone. I could not wait to see Lisa tonight.
My day crawled by slower than any other day. It seemed like all my customers had problems that I didn’t have the answers too. We had just released a new version of Mercury and support was always flooded with calls the day after. This normally left me extremely frustrated, but that day it just annoyed me. I also had a ton of leads to enter into our sales system and draw up a report about the trip to Dallas. I had hoped for a quiet day, so I could daydream about Gray and our date, but obviously this was not going to happen today. Once the clock hit five, I bolted out of my cube before another customer could call me. I made it home, changed into jeans, a cute tank top, and ran out the door to go meet Lisa.
Lisa was already at the bar waiting for me. We decided to meet up at a dive bar in Port that was famous for its beer selection. Lisa and I enjoyed sampling all the different craft and microbrew beers that they would get in. She was wearing a cute pair of jeans and a cotton blouse. This bar always attracted more of a male crowd, and several guys sat around Lisa at the bar, obviously waiting to see who she was waiting for. Lisa was doing a terrific job of ignoring th
em and saving me a seat.
“Did you call him and thank him for the flowers?”
“Yes mom!” I replied. “Even I know that you should call a guy to thank him.”
“Just checking,” she said. “I know it’s been a long while for you. It’s my job to make sure you remember all the rules and protocol.”
“I was glad to have an excuse to call him and make sure he gave me the right number.” I said.
“Did you talk long?” Lisa asked. “I want all the details.”
“We talked for about twenty minutes. I took your advice and asked him to Fish Day,” I said proudly.
“No you didn’t!” Lisa shrieked. “Abby I was joking about inviting him!”
“Yes, I did! And he said maybe!” I said, very proud.
“Congrats, Abby! Maybe you finally found a guy.”
“Too bad he lives so far away.”
“What does he do?” Lisa asked.
“He works for a marketing company in LA. He had to leave early due to a poster being printed incorrectly,” I said. “He also said something about sales so maybe he’s salesman or something. He has a great sales person name: Grayson Edwards.” I let his smooth name roll off my tongue.
I looked at over at Lisa, who suddenly seemed to be in deep thought.
“Grayson Edwards?” She asked. “Are you sure that’s his name?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Here’s the card.” I took the card from the flowers out of my purse and let Lisa examine it. She then pulled out her iPhone and began a Google search.
“Abby, I can’t believe how out of touch with reality you are,” She said. “Is this what Grayson looks like?”
I took Lisa’s phone and saw that the picture she had pulled up was Gray. I couldn’t believe she had found a picture of him so fast.
“How did you do that?” I asked. “Is that off his Facebook account or something?”
“Abby, get serious,” Lisa said. “Grayson Edwards is the star of Texas High!” Lisa rolled her eyes and took a long swig of her beer. I knew from her expression that she would have recognized him in a second on any given day sunglasses or no sunglasses.
“The what?” I asked and looked at her phone again in shock. How could I not know that Gray was a movie star?
“He’s the actor from the movie I saw on Friday night!” Lisa exclaimed she was still in disbelief that I had no idea who Grayson Edwards was. The movie was terrible, but I enjoyed watching him.”
“No, there has to be a misunderstanding,” I said. “Nobody famous asks me out.” I took out my iPhone and Googled his name. The search brought up almost 100 sites right away. I click on images, and my screen was filled with pictures of Grayson. Some were staged, others were candid’s. I did a Google searched for Grayson Edwards poster typo and a news story came up about the movie poster for Texas High had a consistency problem and needed to be re-shot over the weekend and rushed out to movie theaters.
“I can’t believe you went on a date with Grayson Edwards,” Lisa said excitedly and then ran all her questions together. “What is he like? What did he order? What does he smell like? Did he have the Scott hair? You have to tell me!”
“Well, he was very nice and charming,” I said. “But I really didn’t get to know him that well. We only had lunch. Why do you want to know what he smells like?” I wrinkled my nose. I had no idea what her question about the Scott hair meant.
“You only had lunch with Grayson Edwards!” Lisa was almost shrieking at this point.
“Hey, Lisa, calm down a bit. People are starting to stare,” I said, trying to get her to breathe again. She was practically dancing up and down on her barstool.
“I’m sorry,” she said “This is unreal. Like Pretty Woman or something.” Lisa took a deep breath and repositioned herself on her chair.
“Be careful who you call a prostitute,” I joked.
“I’m sorry Abby, you know what I mean. This is just unreal.”
“What did you mean about the Scott hair comment?”
“Grayson’s character in Texas High is named Scott. The way he wears his hair in the movie makes him look so HOT, but in real life he never does his hair that way. I guess I should have known you would have no idea what I was talking about.” She sighed.
“I will have to go check out the movie, but to be honest he looked hot regardless,” I said, and a smile crept across my face as I remembered our brief lunch date.
Lisa and I finished our drinks, and it wasn’t until I was driving home that it hit me: I had invited a movie star to the middle of nowhere Wisconsin to go to a fish-fry festival. He must think I’m crazy. What would I do if he came? I suddenly had many questions running through my head.
I had just walked through my door when my cell phone rang. I looked down and saw it was Gray. Shoot, I could barely pick up the phone.
“Hello?” I said timidly, wondering if I could contain myself and not start screaming at him.
“Hey, Abby! It’s Gray,” he said.
“Oh, hi.” I was doing my best to sound casual. My heart was racing, and I was trying think ahead to what I would ask him next.
“Good news. I am free for the fish thing you were talking about.”
Oh My God! I could not believe that he was coming to here to Wisconsin. I had to think fast. Should I ask him what he does? Could it just be luck that he looked exactly like Grayson Edwards the actor?
“That’s great,” I said. I was fighting to keep my tone calm and collected. I just wanted to scream into the phone, “Are you the star from Texas High?”
“I’m planning on flying into Milwaukee on the Thursday before Fish Day and then leave on Sunday evening.”
My mind was spinning. He was coming for three whole days! I would have to make sure to take Thursday and Friday off work. What was I going to do with him? I was sure he was used to fancy diners, going out to night clubs, and being entertained by adoring fans.
“Grayson, it’s really nice you offered to come, but you don’t have to. I could always come to LA instead,” I said, thinking he might be more comfortable in LA than in Wisconsin.
“I want to come. I always enjoy getting out of LA and seeing different states. Besides, you promised me a fish fry, and I can’t get that in LA. Should I rent a car?”
“No, I can pick you up at the airport,” I replied. My mind started to rush again. Would people recognize Grayson at the airport? I’m sure he could get around in a small town without too much attention.
“Okay then,” Gray said. “It’s a date.” His voice was smooth. I could tell that flirting with girls came remarkably easy to him. I barely knew him, and he already had me wrapped around his finger.
“An official date?” I asked with a teasing tone.
“Yes, an official date,” he replied. “I wanted to take you to dinner in Dallas, but you know how it goes with work stuff.”
“That’s oaky. I was so busy in Dallas with the convention I really didn’t have time to go to dinner,” I said knowing full well that Melanie would have found time to make that happen, but I didn’t want him to feel guilty for leaving early. I also appreciated any small talk that distracted me from the question I had been dying to ask ever since he had called, but the conversation came to a stop. I mustered up all the courage I had to ask him what he did for a living. What is the worst thing that could happen? I might find out he is an actor. Most girls would die for that. I thought for the moment about the poster. This might be my chance to ease into the topic.
“So Gray…” I asked, “what was the problem with the poster again?”
“There was a misprint, and I had to help fix it.”
“But with computers couldn’t you have approved a new proof from Texas?” I asked. Gray was unusually quiet. I could have heard a pin drop. I could tell he was taken aback by my sudden interest. There was a long pause on
his end. I shifted my weight, longing to hear his answer.
“Well it’s not that easy. I had to be on site for the correction.”
“Gray you can tell me what you really do.” He must have realized that he was busted.
“I’m an actor,” He replied. He seemed a bit nervous to be sharing this part of his life. I wondered when he would have told me on his own. Maybe never, I guessed. My heart stopped. This was the Grayson Edwards! How was I ever going to compete with all the Hollywood actresses who were throwing themselves on him? Not to mention all his teenage fans, and Lisa?
“Have you acted in any movies I would have seen?” I asked, knowing full well that he has.
“I have played a lot of supporting roles, mostly TV shows in England, but I’m the lead in the movie called Texas High,” he replied. “I also had a bit part in Crystal Caldron.”
“So that’s why you were in Texas.”
“Yes. I had to attend the opening night in Texas. The movie is based on a real-life story, and the kids from the real Texas High were at the premier.”
“I see. So that’s why so many teenage girls were at the theater down the road,” I said.” I had moved to my bed and let myself fall all the way back. Thor jumped up and snuggled down next to me.
“I guess so,” He replied. “I hope you still want me to come see you.” His voice had fallen a bit.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, surprised that he sounded so disappointed that I knew his secret. He could have almost any girl he wanted, why would he sound upset that I might not want him to come to dull Wisconsin?
“You’re a nice, sweet girl. I could understand if you wanted no part in the Hollywood game,” He replied. “You have no idea what I have to put up with, or what you might have to put up with too.”
“I don’t care what you do, Gray. That doesn’t matter to me.” I wasn’t lying to him about that either. I had genuinely liked him before I knew he was famous.
“Good,” He replied. “I’m looking forward to getting out of LA for vacation.”
My Life With The Movie Star Page 3