by Amy Finnegan
“Okay, cool.” I switch places with Sophie so I’m now between them. “I’m really not that exciting, though. People usually write every clever line I say.”
Mark and Sophie laugh, and Devin wants to know why, but they won’t tell him.
Once Jake’s game starts, it’s hard to watch him—but not too closely—and also pay attention to Sophie and Mark. Time flies, though, because the game only goes to twenty-one points. One of Jake’s teammates hits the winning shot, and Sophie and I cheer. But Devin and Mark curse.
“They’re just mad because they lost both of their games this morning, which means they’re out of the tournament,” Sophie explains. “So now they have to buy Jake a shake at The Hamburger Hut.” She pokes Mark in the ribs. “Because he isn’t a loser.”
“Just to clear things up,” Mark tells me as we all walk down the bleachers, “Sophie’s not really flirting with me—she’s my cousin. And she’s already dated Devin. And Jake breaks every heart that gets within a hundred miles of him, so Sophie stays clear of him too.” Ugh. That’s likely a warning I should listen to. “Sophie just likes to annoy us.”
“Yeah,” she says. “And to remind Devin why that sweeping romance we once had, when we were fifteen, was the best week of his life.”
“You dumped me, remember?” Devin says. “Why rub it in?”
“Why not? Someone has to keep you guys humble.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, suddenly distracted. The game had been shirts and skins, and Jake is only a few feet away from me now. Shirtless. I’ve seen him in this glorious state a few times before, but never in the high afternoon sun—with a freshly glowing tan, and having just poured a bottle of water down his chest. Washboard abs doesn’t begin to describe the view.
I’m sweating more than Jake is.
“Put your shirt on, you show-off,” Devin tells him.
Jake swats his head. “How was your back rub?”
Devin looks at me with mock fondness. “Amazing.”
“Why didn’t you tell us she’d be here?” Sophie asks Jake, and he shoots me a quick glance for help. “A little warning would’ve been nice.”
“Actually, it isn’t his fault,” I say. “He knew I’d be coming to Phoenix this weekend to interview his mom, but I wasn’t sure how much time I’d have today.”
“Not so fast,” Devin says. “We have a rule around here: Jake has enough good luck for all of us, so whenever anything bad happens, he has to take the blame for it.”
Mark nods. “Jake’s the only one out of a bunch of our buddies who hasn’t had a thing for you at some point. Then we’re all sitting around Devin’s pool a while ago, and Jake tells us, totally casual, ‘Hey, I got this acting gig, and you’ll never guess who I’ll be working with.’ Anyway, there’s not a lot of love for this dude around here anymore.”
“Not that there ever was,” Devin puts in.
“Eh, don’t take it so bad, guys,” Jake says. “You wouldn’t want to spend your days with this diva anyway.” I put a hand on my hip, and he goes on. “I mean, one minute it’s about a pedicure gone bad”—I try to hide my newly polished toes, which I’ll admit I’m sort of obsessive about, but I can’t—“and the next, she’s complaining because her lettuce isn’t crisp enough.”
“That’s Kimmi!” I swing my bag, and he jumps out of the way.
“Really? I get you two confused,” Jake says, now channeling Brett. “But before you stab me with your eyebrow pencil, Mark and Devin owe me a shake, and they’ll buy one for you too. Wanna come along?”
Why not? The most awkward part of being discovered here is over. And I like these guys.
Jake
The Hamburger Hut is pretty much empty, but we still sit in a back corner away from any windows to lessen Emma’s chances of being recognized. She goes straight for the two small tables I pull together while Devin orders fries and shakes—Oreo for me and banana cream pie for Emma. I sit directly across from her.
This place has been around forever, and the way it looks now isn’t much different from when I was a kid. The black-and-white-checkered floor is the same, and the booths that line one side of the restaurant have shiny red vinyl, with thick chrome edging on the tables.
The only big difference is that it’s missing the long bar that used to run in front of the kitchen. About the time I started high school, I remember walking in and having my entire body go rigid when I saw that the owners had torn it out. My dad and I sat up to that bar on high spinning stools countless times, usually after one of my Little League games. It was kind of our thing to come here. Having that bar ripped out made me feel like someone had thrown away my best childhood memories with the trash. But now, I’m glad it’s gone.
I wish the memories of my dad would go away too.
My friends fill the restaurant with a ton of noise. Everyone asks Emma questions over the top of each other, curious about the true nature of a celebrity’s life. Sophie talks more than anyone, which is typical. “You actually do your own laundry and stuff?”
“Except for normal things that most people take to the cleaners,” Emma says.
Mark wants to know about a fifty-foot trailer, and I tell him, “Emma has a dressing room that’s twenty-by-twenty feet, but I only have a twelve-by-twelve box.” I can state the exact dimensions because Kimmi measured all the dressing rooms for comparison. “Our producer likes his principal cast to be inside the studio, where he can yank us onto a set himself if he needs to.”
“My dressing room is only bigger because female cast members usually have longer wardrobe racks,” Emma clarifies. “That’s all.”
“But my clothes are bigger. And I have bigger feet that need to walk around.”
“So true,” Emma says. “But there’s a sprawling desert right next to the studio, where you can walk for miles and miles.”
I already want to get out of here. Things changed for us in Mom’s garage, and I’m dying to be alone with Emma again. Snail mode is slow, but it’s better than being parked at a stop sign.
“Do you have your own hairstylist and makeup artist?” Sophie asks.
Emma might be thinking the same thing I am because her eyes stay locked with mine a little too long before she turns back to answer Sophie. “Some actors put that in their contracts. But every project I’ve worked on already had a great hair and makeup team.”
“It must take an army to get Jake ready for the cameras,” Devin says. “Between his buckets of bronzing powder and gallons of sculpting gel … sheesh, the studio must need a separate storage unit to hold all that.”
I pretend to yawn, like Devin’s jokes never bother me. Then I steal the cookie from the top of his own Oreo shake—he always saves the best for last—and toss it into my mouth. He swears and slugs me.
“You can bug Jake whenever you want to,” Sophie tells Devin. “I need Emma to tell me if Brett Crawford is a good kisser.”
Wrong question in front of the wrong guy.
If it wasn’t in the script, I wouldn’t know if Brett and Emma have kissed or not—I’ve never had to be on set for one of those scenes. And if I can get away with it, I won’t watch them kiss on TV either.
Emma gives my foot a tap, so she must’ve noticed that I shifted in my chair. “Do you mean Brett’s on-screen or off-screen kissing?” she asks Sophie. “Because, despite media reports, I only have experience with one, and it might spoil the show if I tell you which.”
“I don’t care,” Sophie says. “I just want to know if he’s as good as he looks.”
Emma hesitates, then explains to Sophie what she once told me—that screen kissing is different from the real thing because so many people are watching, and it’s pretty much choreographed. “Who knows what Brett kisses like in real life? Well, plenty of girls do, I’m sure,” she adds. “He’s probably a bit spastic, though, if you want to know the truth. But on set, I haven’t really paused to evaluate him. If he did a bad job, it would be McGregor who’d say, ‘Cut! You’re drooling down her chin.’
And we’d have to shoot it all over again.”
“And over and over again, until you get it right?” Sophie asks, and Emma nods. “That’s so weird!” Sophie goes on. “ ’Cause what if Brett was your boyfriend in real life, but you had to kiss someone else at work—like Jake—right in front of him. That would be crazy awkward! He’d probably get totally jealous.”
So close, Sophie. Just reverse that.
“Time’s up,” I tell her before this subject goes too far. “No one else is getting a word in, and Mark and Devin will go home in tears if you keep talking about Brett.”
“Oh, sorry, guys!” Sophie says. “You can flirt now.”
For the next thirty minutes or so, Mark continues to make a good effort with Emma, but Devin is suddenly way off his A-game. In fact, he’s paying more attention to me, and all I’m doing is listening to everyone else. Then, even though I’m sitting just twelve inches away, Devin sends me a text:
Devin:
Dude. You’re whipped! How long have you been dating her?
Me:
Whipped? How couldn’t I be? But not dating.
Devin:
You haven’t even asked her out? You chicken.
Me:
I’ve asked. She’s declined. Technical difficulties.
Mark is still completely hypnotized by Emma, but Sophie notices our phones semi-hidden under the table and pulls out her own. She starts up a group text between the three of us.
Sophie:
OMG, Jake! You like Emma!
Devin:
Took ya long enough, Soph. I figured it out the second you started talking to her about kissing Brett. Jake was squirming like a guppy.
Me:
No way. This chair is just uncomfortable.
Sophie:
Jake, I’m SO sorry I said all that crap. I just barely noticed your puppy dog eyes a few minutes ago when she was telling Mark about her foundation. You have to promise I can be your best man or something, K? I’ll even wear a tux. And I want to be your nanny too cuz you guys are gonna have the most beautiful kids in the history of ever.
I’m on the verge of cracking up but Emma and Mark are now talking about his wrestling team, so I don’t want them to think I’m laughing at what Mark is saying. I can tell Devin is barely holding it in too. But I should probably abstain from this text conversation, anyway, or I might say too much.
Devin:
Soph, they aren’t even dating. Jake says she doesn’t want to. Do you buy it?
Sophie:
No! LOL! Jake, did you flex for her? Have you smiled like REALLY big so she can see how insanely straight your teeth are?
Devin:
Yeah man. That should do the trick. Just don’t mention your Batman boxers. Not cool. Sooo not cool.
Sophie:
Seriously, Jake? Batman? Superman is way hotter.
Devin:
True. And you’ve already got those buns of steel.
That’s when Sophie loses it, and Mark turns and grabs her phone. “This better be good.” He’s silent for a sec as he scrolls through the messages, and I hold my breath. I doubt the content will surprise him; I’m just wondering what he’ll say to Emma. “What the … why don’t you guys ever talk about my buns of steel, huh?”
Everyone laughs, including Emma who still has no idea what’s going on.
Mark turns to me when she isn’t looking and flips me off, but he doesn’t mean it. No matter how much I push and shove with my friends, in the end, we’re thick as blood. I should’ve given Mark and Devin more credit—known they’d be cool about this. Why doesn’t Emma think Rachel will understand too?
“Okay, I’ve obviously missed something,” Emma says.
Mark leans over to whisper to her, but he’s laughing too hard to speak quietly. “Jake has Batman boxers.”
“Oh!” Emma says, and hurries to turn away from me as if I’m actually sitting here in my underwear. “That’s … crazy. I took Jake for an Iron Man sort of guy.”
“And I voted for Superman,” Sophie says.
Soon we’re all talking about which superheroes we’d want to be.
Devin eventually nudges me and says, “I’ve gotta show you something in my car.” I follow him outside. Then he gives my head a swipe. “Why did you set me up with Emma?”
“You really think I wanted to?” I ask. “I could’ve dealt with you being pissed off if I didn’t, but Emma’s best friend has a thing for me, so Emma asked me to take her out. Then she thought of the even dumber idea that we should double, because I’d already told her that you wanted to go out with her. So now I just need you to … I don’t know, punch me in the face, but then I’m hoping you’ll be my wingman anyway. Or that day is gonna be painful.”
“Whatever. That’s cool. And the rest? Does Emma like you or not?”
“I don’t really know,” I say, because I figure it’s only okay to admit how I feel. “She has a full constitution of reasons for not dating me—including this Bremma thing that the media has made up—but very little of it makes sense.”
“Then under all that Hollywood hotness, she’s just a typical girl. And when do chicks ever make sense?” He has a point.
When Devin and I get back inside The Hamburger Hut, Emma asks my friends to help keep her visit to Phoenix a secret. She tells them straight out that it’s because of this couple crap the tabloids invented about her and Brett, so things might get messy if people start talking about her hanging out here with me, even though she’s only working on her foundation.
My friends all promise to keep quiet, and I’m not too worried about Devin and Mark, but … “I’ve gotta bribe Sophie,” I tell Emma once we’re in my car.
I pick up my phone to make the offer: “Hey, Soph. I forgot to tell you that I have some extra tickets for the premiere and after party—a ton of stars will be there. So if you can help me keep our other idiot friends from telling even a single person that Emma was in Phoenix today, I’ll let you decide who gets the tickets. And you can have one too. You cool with that?”
Sophie’s scream just about shatters my bones.
* * *
We’re back to my mom’s house by eight, and while I shower, Mom and Emma work some more on the quilt. I return to the living room in gym shorts and a T-shirt, and even though I’m hardly camera worthy with my hair still dripping wet, Emma’s entire face lights up. She’s never looked at me this way before, not like I imagine my own expression to be when she catches me looking at her.
I don’t know how, but something has definitely changed.
“Isn’t Star Trek on tonight?” I ask Mom. She loves watching reruns of old TV favorites, and I need to take advantage of that. I check the time. “Yep, liftoff is any minute now.”
“Jake, dear,” Mom says, “please don’t confuse a space shuttle with a starship.”
“Yeah,” Emma adds. “It’s an insult to future technology.”
“Oh, jeez. Don’t tell me you’re into all that geek garbage,” I reply, but really just to keep teasing my mom. I’ve been known to watch a few episodes myself.
Emma answers with the Vulcan salute.
“You’re the one who refused to wear anything but a spacesuit for a full year of your life,” Mom reminds me. She looks back to Emma. “He once went door to door in it, informing the neighbors that I’d started up a daycare—which I hadn’t—and for a dollar, I would watch their kids for an entire day.”
“I was business-minded even at five,” I explain. “And I wanted more friends.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Emma replies.
“All right, Jake,” Mom says. “Remember that you have a hotel expecting you. Don’t leave any later than midnight.”
“One thirty,” I reply.
Mom glares at me. “My roof, my rules.”
We’ve played this curfew game plenty of times before. “How about one?”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Elliott,” Emma throws in. “I’ll fall asleep long before then. Jake’s
just going to help me figure out my classes for next semester, then if there’s any time left, we might watch a few YouTube videos of him prowling the catwalk.”
“Uh … I don’t think so,” I say. Has she already watched them?
“That should be fun,” Mom replies as she heads for her bedroom. “If you need me, I’ll be hanging out with Captain Kirk. That darn tractor beam keeps breaking.”
Once she’s closed her door, Emma says, “I love tractor beams. They can snatch whatever they want, right out of space. Like this!” She grabs my hand and pulls me onto the couch, right next to her. “Pretty cool, huh?”
Oh yeah. “Do you take the magic of the movies with you everywhere?”
“Always.” She reaches for my laptop on a side table, and I notice that her oversize shirt slips to the edge of her shoulder. This chick is into torture. “Where should we go first? School or the catwalk?” Her fingers type out YouTube.
I steal the laptop and ask, “Do you already have some new classes in mind?” I’ve finally started three of my own: finance, economics, and business management. I study whenever I can at work, and since I’m on planes at least eight hours a week flying between Arizona and my remaining modeling jobs, I get plenty of homework done on my flights.
Life is pretty darn good. Especially today.
“I’ve finally decided to major in psychology,” Emma says. “My dad should at least think it’s academic enough, but my mom … well, she wants me to study history and politics, because that will make me refined enough to discuss sophisticated topics.”
“And you’d rather talk about anxiety and depression?” I ask.
“Heck yeah!” Emma replies. “Psychology will teach me about a ton of interesting topics. I want to know why humans do what they do, and why they’re afraid of certain things, and how they get through all the crap that happens to them.” She takes a breath. “I mean, I already know the techniques of acting. But the best actors can dig deep inside the heart of their characters and connect with them—figure out why someone would do something like sit and cry rather than face their problems. And academically, psychology is the best way to understand that.”