by Sunniva Dee
And I cry.
Frieda and Charlotte are home. It’s too late for them to be up, but I can’t sleep and they won’t. My face doesn’t dry. It leaks grief and disappointment, cups and cans and buckets of it.
That wasn’t Ciro.
Sam tells me the film is three years old. It’s probably not what he does anymore. But Ana told me he’s such a great actor. Ana told me he could be a voice actor. She moaned like he does in bed.
Ana knows how my baby moans!
Ciro isn’t mine. No, Ciro is everyone’s. Whoever wants to enjoy the sight of him, his beautiful body, every inch of him including his ass, balls, dick and how it leaks ecstasy. Whomever some film company pays to do it with him gets their chance. He’s open arms as long as he gets paid.
Big money. He’s in London making big money with his ex. London Heat. Goddamn, of course; London Heat!
Ah my stomach cramps. I’m the only one who didn’t know.
“I suspected it, but I wasn’t sure either,” Frieda murmurs.
“I sweal, no idea!” Lin squeals.
Merciful and suffocating, my pillow leaves me in darkness.
“Sav, I’d have told you if I knew. I’ve never seen a film with him before, and I’ve seen a shit-ton of them. I bet he’s done with that stuff, that it was a one-off.” Sam’s dark pitch rumbles through the stuffing of my pillow. “It’s a typical way of getting into the business, you know. When they don’t make it on mainstream auditions, they take the less mainstream route. I have a friend who did that for a sec. She got out fast and does commercials now.”
Charlotte strokes my arm while my body bucks with dammed-up emotions. She asks if she should get my mother over here. Hell no, it’s the last thing I need, I tell her. I can’t take care of Mom today. If she saw me like this, what crazy new band wagon would she hop on?
Sam digs under the pillow until he reveals my eyes. “I’ll go and talk to him.”
I almost laugh. “About what? It’s not like he’s been lying to me. The signs were there all the time. I just didn’t want to read them.”
“That’s bullshit. I’ll give the asshole a beating for not telling you.”
“He was going to tell me! God, I wish I’d waited.”
“What difference would it have made?” Frieda asks.
“Ha! He could have made the truth a little prettier.” It comes out stupid. I don’t care.
“Would you have stayed though?”
“Of course not.” I sit up. Eye my computer on the desk. “Hand it to me.”
“Shit.” Sam rubs his face. “Savannah, don’t do this. You’re just going to make it so much worse for yourself.”
“Didn’t you just say it was a one-off?” I glare like Sam’s my enemy. The lack of a comeback is a bleak victory.
Charlotte hands me the laptop. Sam shakes his head and backs toward the door.
“What was his artist name?” I bark at him.
“I don’t know,” he answers so fast.
“Fine. I’ll have to go down there, then. Turn on the damn movie again.” My words come out stuttered. “Because I’m about to find out all the truth there is about my boyfriend.”
Ex-boyfriend. Oh god! We’re over.
Sam’s jaw muscles flex. He clenches the doorway as if he’s blocking it. “The guys have left. That was Johnny’s rental, and he took it with him.”
A lie. I throw a pillow at him, he ducks, and it hits the hallway wall behind him. “Yeah? Whatever, I have other ways.”
I pull up the tender beautiful, smiling picture of Ciro. It’s so big on my phone, so detailed. I want to Google it, but I can’t figure out how. I growl and send it to my email, open my laptop, download it.
Sam turns his back to me and walks away from my misery. Charlotte follows him, too sensitive for the shit show I’m about to break open. I get it. I get it.
Frieda tells me it doesn’t matter, that I’m good and why search the web for him now that I know? Lin is never quiet, and yet now he doesn’t speak. Only his eyes are there, expresso-deep.
Hundreds of thousands of hits come up on Ciro’s face only. Many of them are of similar-looking male models, but then, there he is, and I’m sucker-punched, because—my baby—my Ciro—
Eyes liquid with desire and lips moist with has-been kisses, he doesn’t smile in these photos. The ultimate female fantasy, he exudes a virility so thick my body rushes hunger through my veins and floods my agony with hormones.
“Please, stop,” Frieda begs as Lin covers his mouth and backtracks out to the others. It’s just she and I, now, with the shit show.
“I’m never seeing him again.”
“Of course you aren’t. Who wants to date a porn star?”
“I don’t.”
“I’ll tell him for you. What’s his number?”
“No, I’ll do it myself.”
“You sure?”
“Damn sure.”
I call him. Does he sleep alone, ever, while he’s gone, or do they all pass out together in one big orgy of sleep and juices?
“I need alone-time, Frieda.” My stomach has knotted into a ball of disgust and jealousy.
“I don’t know. You don’t look like you should be alone.”
I suck in air and look up at her from my phone. I think I have a smile on my mouth. “You’re only next door, right?”
She nods, eyes glossy for me.
“If I start knocking shit around the room, come back, ’kay?”
She likes my attempt at humor. “’Kay. I’ll be here, ’kay?”
“’Kay.”
We both smirk as she exits.
My phone. I jab my fingers into numbers and letters wanting to kill it. I ring, ring. I guess I expect him to pick up. Hurt and want make me hang up and redial. When he doesn’t answer, there’s a new type of rejection in me. Is it worse than this betrayal, than the lies by omission?
“Hey, it’s your girlfriend,” I start out in a purr fueled by the growl in my chest. “Are you too busy fucking everyone else to pick up? Don’t you get enough pussy during the day to remain celibate at fucking night?” I’m losing it, and the words projectiling from me aren’t me anymore. They’re something awful, something he’s created—
Me like this is his fault!
“Guess what, Drake Konstantine. You’re down another girlfriend, and I don’t ever want to see your face again. Three days on a yacht, huh? Had you planned to paint a pretty-pretty truth by telling me in person that you fuck for a living? No. Oh no. Ugly truths never get pretty. Bye, gorgeous. Bye, fucker. Bye, and thanks for ripping my heart out while I slept.”
The Valley isn’t big enough for the two of us is the first thing I think when I wake up. I’ve already erased Ciro’s messages and blocked him on my phone. I can’t even tell if he’s tried to call.
I feel bruised. My muscles are sore like I’ve been in a fight, and I’m hoarse as if I’ve been screaming. I’ve erased my search history on the internet, because I’m smart like that. Why would I want to keep looking at my boyfriend having sex with other girls? My former boyfriend.
Charlotte is in the kitchen, wearing an apron and making eggs. I called in sick to Mr. Dakapoulous, and just quit my phone-sales job. I didn’t make crap on it anyway.
Status Quo just broke so completely. Ciro made it quaver by entering my world, and now he’s shattered it. I need a new Status Quo.
“How’re you doing? I heard you scream at him.”
“Yeah, via voicemail.”
She twists to look at me. “I’ve never heard you yell like that before. I was sure you at least had him on the phone.”
She ladles the scramble on top of a bun and hands it over. I hold it, glancing around for the nearest plate. Sam passes one to me while shoving a scoop of steamy yellow into his own mouth.
Numb
and analytical, I was doing okay when I got out of bed half an hour ago, but the mention of the phone call brings last night back with a flood of grief. I duck into the fridge and hold onto the grapefruit juice.
“Hey.” Charlotte is there, behind me. She strokes my back gently. “You don’t have to hide from us. We understand. It’s not like you’re gonna get over something like this that quickly. Hell, if it were me...”
“We’d been together so short, though.” My voice warbles. I turn and lean into her hug. “It should be easier than this.”
“Oh sweetie. I know if I found someone I loved as much as you seemed to love Ciro, I’d take forever to get over it. The man did everything right, and it was all taken away just like that.”
“Charlotte, are you serious right now?” Frieda’s voice makes Charlotte hug me tighter. “Way to make her feel better.”
“Gah, I’m sorry. I just wanted to tell you how much I understand. It’s like the carpet has been ripped out from under you, right?” Charlotte murmurs.
“No.” My face is wet again, and I laugh through my tears at how little she knows. “It’s like my chest has been emptied of everything vital and stuffed with ashes.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” Sam mutters. “I mean, ashes?”
“Shut up, douche,” Frieda barks. “You’re such a douche. I had no idea everyone’s a bunch of douches around here!” It’s not the first time I see Frieda transform into an ebony-haired bundle of wrath. It still makes me chuckle nervously.
I mope around the rest of the day. Then, I go to Mintrer’s for my shift. Frieda thinks I should lick my wounds at home some more, but I need to get out. Tonight, we’re so short-staffed that Il Signore gives me a whole section for the first time.
It freaks me out to be the main waitress of the entire section A, six tables when the most I’ve ever done is two at once. Bussing and two tables at the same time is a lot to handle, but tonight Il Signore calls in reinforcements, and the new dishwasher who has the night off is happy to come in for a temporary upgrade to bus boy.
I don’t have time to think about Ciro while the middle-aged couple at table two glare at their watches when I take too long to get their wine. I don’t feel like crying when the twin babies at table five pitch a synchronized fit and one of them falls out of his high chair and pulls the tablecloth with him.
Right before closing time, Il Signore’s Nonna—his incredibly old Sicilian grandmother—has a stroke at home and is charted off to the hospital. Il Signore tosses the keys to Vickie and barks that we’re in charge of locking up.
“Hey, he keeps you busy, doesn’t he?” Vickie says in her still-thick Southern accent.
“Yeah. Suits me tonight.”
It’s twelve thirty by the time we turn the lights off in the back and leave only the dimmest front-room lights on. The kitchen staff left an hour ago, and as Vickie locks the middle door behind us, then the front door, I feel the darkness of idle thoughts sieve in.
The only cars in the parking lot are mine, Vickie’s, and... a Bentley.
“Vickie!”
“What?” She turns in her seat, one foot in her car and the other still on the asphalt.
I swallow. I haven’t told anyone at work that Ciro and I are over, and I don’t want to discuss it now. Plus, Ciro still has two full days of filming left in London. That’s not his car.
I force myself to wave at her. “See you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing, honey. Early shift?”
“Yeah, early shift.”
My yellow beetle gleams bright behind the Bentley. I have to walk past it. My heart thunders in my chest, but the Valley has plenty of Bentleys. Someone probably left it here in a safe parking lot knowing we have twenty-four-hour surveillance. Someone who’s partying it up in a bar.
The door opens. Ciro slides out of it. He’s tired. It’s the first thing I think about him. Why is he in California? His hair is ruffled.
“Go away.” I walk faster.
“I can’t.” He folds his arms over his chest, and his eyes gleam in the dark. He leans against his car instead of coming toward me.
Did I think he’d come at me? Is that why I was scared? No, sick hearts are just scared of more pain. That pain doesn’t come from being grabbed, shoved against something, slapped. It’s what I’m doing right now, staring into his eyes and feeling the loss of him again.
“I don’t want to see you again, Drake.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m still Ciro.”
“Still? Ha. You destroyed me. Months of lying, and then I find out, in front of all my friends, that you’ve been sleeping around the entire time. I thought we were exclusive. You were the one insisting. You wanted us to be an item. If this is what you wanted to do—fuck everyone you see—why didn’t you just leave us at dating? Dating isn’t exclusive. Yeah, it would still have hurt, but at least it’s not fucking betrayal!”
I burst into tears and cover my face on my way past him. He reaches for me. I pass close to him, too close. I don’t know why I do that when I could have given a wide berth out of reach. The parking lot isn’t small.
His hand grazes my lower arm, fingertips warm and gentle, gliding as I slip away. They leave pinpricks in me, invisible searing ones, marks that might not disappear.
“Can we please talk?” He follows me but doesn’t try to grab me again.
“Why are you here anyway?” I sob out. “Shouldn’t you be screwing your ex for another couple of days in London? What happened to Malcolm Jax? Did you fuck him too?” I’m hurting myself.
I get to the beetle and can’t find my car key. I hurry, rummaging through my purse, but when your eyesight is gone in a watery storm—
“Please. Please, hear me out. I didn’t want for you to find out like this.”
He’s here, taking my purse away and leaving it somewhere so my hands are free. I don’t want my hands free. I need them occupied so they don’t punch him. Touch him. Caress him. Love him and try to wring the evil out of him.
“I’ve done nothing with Silk. She was there, but Sharon made sure I never even had to kiss her.”
“Oh my god, what standards do you think I have, Ciro? ‘Oh okay. If you didn’t even kiss your ex, then we’re good.’” My throat and nose are filled with thicker moisture than my eyes.
I can’t believe this is real. Is it a nightmare? Am I in one right now and about to wake up? If I wake up, I won’t have had a boyfriend at all. Because I see it now. Someone as good as Ciro could not be in my life as anything but this, a too-good-to-be-true fantasy, the perfect boyfriend turned the worst one ever.
I didn’t know emotions can suck strength from you. I swing and lean against my car for support. I’m at the core of what I wanted to avoid, right now, right here, staring up into the most beautiful face I know, and it slams me in the gut how much I love every single feature of it. His dark eyebrows with the three hairs standing at attention at the very tip on the left side. The other eyebrow tapering off with a short line of scattered hairs toward the outer edge of his eye.
I love his mouth, a double hairpin curve at the top, shaping a heart that’s still intact. The mauve color of it and how his lips go darker when I suck on them.
Everyone sucks on them!
I slap him harder than my strength allows. The cacophony of it sounds so much smaller than it feels in the palm of my hand.
The slap doesn’t surprise him. Slowly, his cheek reddens, and I’ve done that, hurt him. I’ve hurt my love, and he deserves it and it doesn’t make me feel better. “I hate you.”
“You hate me.” I wait for him to touch his cheek. The red grows angrier. “Love turns to hate so fast, doesn’t it?” There’s no bitterness in his voice, only acceptance of a fact he knows well. His body moves closer to me, the body that just embraced and invaded god knows how many other women. Ha, I don’t even know how many!
>
I flinch when his hands cautiously touch the roof of my car on each side of my shoulders. I can’t get enough air into my lungs. Would I feel better if I gouged his eyes out so he couldn’t tender-aqua-stare at me?
I feel lightheaded.
“Easy, baby girl.” He covers my mouth with a hand. I want to pull away, because what is he doing?
“You’re hyperventilating.” His fingers shape a cup as he covers my nose too. “Take it slow, okay? Easy. I don’t have a bag for you, but just breathe the same air from me.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. Why does he have to be so sweet? It’s probably why he’s a star in that business too, the way he reads minds, nerve endings, skin— My breathing speeds up as my brain starts on its new favorite hobby, free association over Ciro in bed.
I crumble at the palm of his hand smelling like him.
He drives me back to his house. His car is familiar. It’s just ours, no balloon-boobed womens’. The souvenir cup he bought for me at the pier in Santa Monica lies partly unwrapped at the bottom of my feet. This is where I forgot it. I was wondering about that. Ciro + Savannah = Forever. So naive.
We don’t talk on the way there. People say you need closure when something monumental happens, and he won’t let me leave without it.
The worst part is over, isn’t it? To see him do that with another girl was the worst. To see him first thing when the pain bled fresh was the worst. I exhausted energy and ashes down there at the Mintrer’s parking lot. I feel weak.
We round the last curve to the top of the hill, and I say, “There’s no use, you know. You could never have convinced me to be okay with your lifestyle. No level of brainwashing could make me pat you on the back, like, ‘Bye honey, have a nice day at work! Stay safe, okay, as in don’t get AIDS.’”
He shoots me a glance. It’s not surprised or wounded. All I see is sadness and acceptance. I hate the way he looks like he’s the victim.
“Listen, I get that you’ve been through this before with your ‘fifty former girlfriends’”—I make quotation marks—“but no matter what you think, you’re the asshole here. Not me. You’re the one using women for your own winning, whether it’s money or entertainment. You did it with me.”