by Maggie Riley
“I won’t,” she said. “It’s not a big enough ask for that. Just a few thousand dollars.”
But we both knew that it was more than money that Joanna was asking for. More than money that was involved in these exchanges. At some point, Joanna might be required to do something more drastic than going to fancy lunches and getting her photograph taken there.
“Besides,” she said, as the food arrived. “Anything that requires us to share a meal at Armonia can’t be that bad.”
It was hard to disagree as the scent of vegetable lasagna floated up towards me.
We ate in silence for a while, enjoying our meal. My mind wandering back to the auditions and then back even further to last night. To Josh. To the kiss.
And then I remembered tonight. Eight o’clock. A date. He was taking me on a date. I felt a little flutter of excitement. And nervousness.
“Dammit,” Joanna muttered under her breath. “Don’t look behind you,” she ordered me as she lifted her head and pasted an enormous fake smile on her face. It was her socialite expression. I totally hated it. But I really hated the people she had to use it with. And the fact that she was wearing it now, and that I could hear someone approaching the table, told me that whoever was coming over to us wasn’t someone I was going to enjoy seeing.
“Joanna Millett,” a familiar voice said from over my shoulder.
My stomach plummeted into my feet, my lasagna turning to dust in my mouth.
“Patrick Anderson,” Joanna said, her smile still wide, but her voice cold. “I didn’t think you came here.”
Her eyes met mine for a moment, a flicker of apology crossing over them.
“Not usually,” the voice behind me said. “But I make the rare exception for their excellent wine list.”
“Of course,” said Joanna. “What better time to enjoy wine than in the middle of the day.”
“You always had such a lovely sense of humor,” Patrick said.
Whatever Joanna was known for, it definitely wasn’t her sense of humor. I tensed as I heard Patrick come around the table.
“Oh, hello, Caroline.”
I forced myself to smile as I looked up at the smirking face of the guy I had lost my virginity to. The guy who had dated me, slept with me, all because he thought he could get to my parents by way of my panties.
“Patrick,” I said.
He was wearing a black suit and red tie, his blond hair neatly combed, his handsome face made less handsome by the arrogant grin that he always seemed to be wearing. How had I ever believed that he had actually liked me? Anyone could see that he was only interested in people for their status or their connections. But I had been so desperate to win my parents affection and approval that I ignored all of that.
Joanna had seen it. Right from the beginning she had warned me about Patrick. Warned me that he would hurt me. That he would use me. What had happened with him was one of the reasons I didn’t trust myself to judge the intentions of men.
And looking at him now, at the lips I had once kissed, at the man who had told me that he cared about me, that he loved me, I wondered how I had been so easily tricked. Was I just stupid? Naïve?
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said, and it was then that I realized he wasn’t alone.
A beautiful young woman, her blonde hair in shiny waves across her shoulders, her face done up in that perfect natural-beauty way that could be accomplished with the right make-up, was standing next to him.
“This is Nina,” Patrick said, sliding a hand around her waist.
She was wearing an expensive dress, designer no doubt, with diamond earrings, a pearl necklace and oh—a diamond engagement ring. One that was prominently displayed as she put a possessive hand on Patrick’s chest.
I didn’t blame her. Patrick was considered a catch in those circles.
“Nice to meet you,” said Joanna coolly.
“Darling, why don’t you head to our table and order some champagne,” Patrick said to her and she nodded, kissing him on the cheek before heading away.
“I suppose congratulations are in order.” Joanna’s voice was flat.
“Thank you,” said Patrick, but his eyes were on me. “It could have been you,” he said. “If you weren’t so—”
His gaze swept down my body and I knew what he was seeing. My giant glasses, my boring hair, my loose black clothes and my completely make-up free face. When we had been together, I had tried to be the perfect socialite girlfriend. I had wanted him to like me. Because my parents liked him. They were thrilled when we started dating—it was a good match, they had told me. But even when I tried, I hadn’t been good enough. He had been just like my parents. Looked at me and found me lacking. It ended as soon as I walked away from my parents. From the money. From the family name.
Weird was the word he was looking for. It was the word he had used when he broke up with me. Why do you have to be so weird, Caroline? He’d asked me. I didn’t have an answer then and I didn’t have one now. And even though it went unsaid in this moment, I could still hear that word directed at me. Like a slap that had left a bruise. One that had never fully healed.
“Well, I guess there’s no use in looking back now,” he finally finished.
“No, there isn’t,” Joanna said, some fierceness slinking into her voice. “Goodbye, Patrick.”
He gave her a small nod and then left us.
I felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Like I was seventeen years old again, wanting desperately to be accepted. To be loved. And all I got was rejection. Because I had never been right. Never been good enough.
“He’s despicable,” said Joanna. “I hope their sex life is unsatisfying.”
It had definitely been unsatisfying the one time we’d had sex. Unsatisfying for me, at least. I was pretty sure he had barely noticed I was present.
The memories that washed over me were unpleasant and uncomfortable. Not just because of the way he had treated me, but because I had let him treat me that way. Because despite everything. Despite his obvious disinterest in me as a person, despite his social climbing motivations, in the end, I wasn’t the one who had broken it off. He had dumped me.
And that was the most embarrassing part of it. That I hadn’t even been able to break up with someone who was clearly using me.
“Are you ok?” asked Joanna, reaching a hand across the table. Her gentle touch pulled me out of my unpleasant thoughts.
I forced a smile on my face. “I’m fine,” I told her.
But I wasn’t. Because all I could think about was the look on Patrick’s face. The look that reminded me that while I was many things, I wasn’t a woman who could hold a man’s attention. Not the way I was. Not like this.
“We still have some time before the next round of auditions,” Joanna looked at her watch. “Do you want to order some dessert?”
“Actually,” I looked down at myself, at my basic black clothes. The last thing I wanted was for Josh to see me the same way that Patrick had. “I think I need to do some shopping.”
Chapter 19
JOSH
I was nervous. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt nervous before a date. Maybe when I was sixteen and convinced my dad to lend me his car so I could take Susie Pritchett to the movies. And even then, I had been more nervous about driving his car than I had been about what was going to happen on the date.
Tonight was different. I had agonized over every detail. Especially over where to take Reagan for dinner. After all, this was her city. No doubt she knew all the best places and had probably already been to them. There wasn’t much I could offer that she probably hadn’t already experienced on her own. Or on other dates.
I tried not to think about the other dates she might have gone on. Because they had probably been with guys who were a whole lot nicer than I was. More cheerful. More like the guy I had been before I busted my shoulder.
The lock on the main door of Reagan’s apartment was broken, so I
let myself into the building, making a mental note that someone ought to get that thing fixed. The last thing I wanted was for some angry artist to be able to storm right up to Reagan’s front door without her permission.
When I reached that door, I gave it a loud knock with my fist. I heard movement inside and imagined Reagan, her cute black glasses slipping down her nose as she made her way through her messy, cozy apartment, grabbing her bag or her jacket or whatever she would need before coming to the door and flinging it open.
Except, when the door did open, the person standing in front of me didn’t match the one I had been imagining at all. The Reagan standing in front of me might as well have been a stranger. Gone were the cute black glasses and the black clothes.
Her dark hair was swept back into some sort of complicated twist, a pair of pearl earrings in her ears. She wasn’t wearing her glasses and her eyes were lined with brown liner, her lips covered in some shiny lip-gloss thing. She was wearing a dress. A green linen thing with white trim that looked like something Joanna might wear if Joanna wore color. It was sleeveless and fell to her knees, and she was wearing a pair of basic black pumps. It was simple and proper and totally unlike anything I had ever seen her in. She looked beautiful and untouchable and not like Reagan at all.
“Hi,” she said, and I realized I had just been standing there staring at her.
“Hi,” I managed, still trying to take everything in.
As I did, I saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. Shit.
Immediately I ran through a list of things I could say that wouldn’t get me slapped or a door slammed in my face. I had sisters, I knew that there were a few innocuous-sounding statements that were actually just as bad as asking when the baby was due. That’s a new look, was one of them.
“You look great,” I told her.
Because the last thing I wanted was for her to feel uncomfortable. She smiled at me and there she was—the Reagan I recognized. Who knew why she was dressed the way she was. It didn’t matter—she was still the same person underneath. The person I couldn’t wait to spend an evening with.
“Thank you,” she said, a little red highlighting her cheeks—not from the make-up this time. “Let me get my bag.”
I nodded, noticing how out of place she now looked in her apartment. How cool and polished she seemed. And how much I was missing the messy, bespectacled girl I had asked out.
REAGAN
I felt like an idiot. What had I been thinking, dressing up like this? When I bought the dress, when I went to get my hair done, when I put on the make-up, I had been thinking about the girl I thought Josh was used to. The kind of girl who went on dates with handsome men. The kind of girl that wouldn’t embarrass him. That wouldn’t have embarrassed Patrick. That wouldn’t have embarrassed my parents.
But it didn’t fit. It didn’t seem right. And it was too late.
When I answered, I could barely speak because he looked so good. In a pair of dark jeans that fit him perfectly, molding to his strong thighs and sitting low on his narrow hips. His green button up shirt looked as though it had been made for him—emphasizing his wide shoulders and showing off the shades of green in his brown eyes.
He looked wonderful. Like all the fantasies I’d always had about guys like him. About the guys who never looked twice at girls like me. And now he was looking at me and I could tell that he could see right through me. Right through this disguise. But still he smiled. Said that I looked great.
Because maybe this was the kind of girl Josh really wanted. That he had been hoping was there all along. It would make a hell of a lot more sense than being interested in some gawky, oddball theatre director who told him to meditate half-naked. Or he was going on this date because he felt sorry for me. And that was the worst possible option.
Suddenly I felt incredibly uncomfortable and wanted more than anything to go back into my apartment and scrub all this make-up from my face. Take my hair down. Throw the dress away. Because I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be the girl I was dressed as. The girl he probably wanted.
Because I knew it was the kind of girl that Patrick had wanted. The kind of daughter my parents had wanted. And I could still see how they had looked at me. All that disappointment. I couldn’t take seeing that in Josh’s eyes.
We took one step outside my building when he took my hand and I lost my nerve.
“I’m sorry, Josh,” I said.
Confusion flitted across his face as I pulled away. But if I went on this date, I would be going as a fake. As a fraud. And I wouldn’t do that again. I wouldn’t pretend, no matter how much I wanted Josh to kiss me again.
Turning on my heels—heels that were pinching my toes—I ran back into the building. I heard him follow me, but I had caught him by surprise and had a lead on him, managing to get inside my apartment and close the door before he could reach me.
“Reagan!” His fist pounded against the wood as I stepped away. “Reagan, let me in!”
I felt like a coward.
“Please go,” I said, hating the waver in my voice.
“What happened?” he asked, no longer knocking. “Please, Reagan. Talk to me.”
“It’s not you,” I told him, backing further and further away from the door.
“Don’t use that line on me,” his voice was muffled.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to. After a few minutes of silence, I stepped back into my kitchen. He had left. I didn’t blame him. Who wanted to deal with this? With me? Even when I tried to be normal, I couldn’t pull it off.
My clothes, the make-up, the hair. It all felt like it was a costume that didn’t fit. Even these dumb contacts. Grabbing for my glasses, I threw the disposable contacts in the kitchen trash as I moved away from the door and further into the safety of my apartment. As I did, I undid more of the façade I had created. I kicked off the uncomfortable shoes.
I tugged at the pins holding back my hair, the pins that had been digging into my scalp for an hour. My hair began to unravel, the heavily hairsprayed curls dropping down onto my shoulders. I got most of them out before I turned my attention to the zipper of my dress.
The beautiful, expensive dress that I couldn’t really afford, that would have looked wonderful on Joanna, or Allie, or Liz, but just looked wrong on me. Felt restricting. Like a snakeskin that was too tight. I struggled with the zipper, as it was located in the terribly inconvenient spot right between my shoulder blades. The kind of zipper only a contortionist could reach. But somehow, I twisted myself into a position where I managed to grab onto the tab and was just about to pull it down when I heard my door open and close.
I froze.
My hands still wrenched behind my back, my fingers still grasping the tab of my zipper, I spun around to see Josh charging into the apartment, his face a mixture of frustration and worry. I could only stare at him. It had been hard enough to pull away from him the first time, I didn’t know if I had the strength to do it again. Especially since we were both now in my bedroom.
He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.
“You didn’t lock the door,” he said.
“Oh,” was the only thing I could manage.
“Do you need help with that?” he asked, gesturing to the awkward position of my arms.
I immediately dropped them to my sides.
“No,” I said quickly.
I wanted him to go.
I didn’t want him to go.
“What happened?” he asked, approaching me slowly, as if I was a scared animal that might bolt if he got too close. Like I had already done.
“This was a bad idea,” I told him, stepping back.
But I didn’t really have anywhere to go. The brass footboard of my bed stopped my progress and unless I wanted to duck around him and run into my bathroom and actually lock the door behind me, I was trapped.
“What was a bad idea?” he wanted to know, moving towards me.
“The date,” I blurted out. “You don
’t want to date me.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I don’t?” He paused in front of me, leaving only a few inches between us. “Then why did I ask you out? Why did I kiss you?”
“I don’t know.” Embarrassment made my face hot. It was bad enough that I had acted like a coward and ditched him on my doorstep, but having to explain why I did it was nearly as difficult.
“I asked you out because I like you.” Josh’s hand came up and brushed a curl back over my shoulder, leaving his hand there. “And I kissed you because I like you.”
“I—uh—” my voice got lost in my throat. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t the answer I had expected.
Josh moved closer, his thumb smoothing across my collarbone. I shivered. I couldn’t help it. I could feel his breath on my cheek. My pulse was racing and I was sure he could see it in the hollow of my throat when his eyes dropped down for a second, before coming back up to meet mine.
“The question is, Reagan,” his mouth was close. So close. “Why did you kiss me back?”
“Because you’re hot,” I blurted out, squeezing my eyes shut as soon as the words left my mouth. Oh god. Why had I said that out loud?
I waited for Josh to laugh at me. But he didn’t.
“You think I’m hot?” he asked.
I opened one eye. He had leaned back a little, a smile curving up the corners of his gorgeous mouth.
“Of course I think you’re hot,” I told him before I could stop myself. The words just seemed to tumble out of me. My nervous rambling now out of my control. “Have you seen yourself in the mirror? You’re, like, hotter than hot. You’re the kind of guy that women would throw their panties at. You could kiss anyone.”
“And I want to kiss you,” he said, his eyes dark with something wicked and tempting.
“Why?” I asked, because I was clearly unable to control my tongue.
“Why?” Josh leaned back a little more, his head tilted to the side as if he was really considering my question. “Well, because I think you’re hot.”