Falling into You

by Abrams, Lauren

  I laugh at the thought of a giant candy blob. Where did she come up with these things?

  “Try that one,” I tell her, watching her face as we come to a neon-colored horse status.

  “Well, that one…”

  We spent another couple of hours wandering around the museum. For each piece of art, I beg her to tell a story and they get more insane as the minutes pass. She bets me a hundred dollars that the one in the corner was actually painted by a cat and that it expressed frustration over the fact that people always liked dogs better.

  For another one, Hallie decided that the artist had spilled cans of paint onto the canvas because he was angry that he never sold any paintings. He decided to call the canvas “The Droppings of the Human Condition,” which caused a major uproar in the art world. The artist’s reward was a lifetime of fame and fortune in a profession dominated by poverty and struggle.

  Apparently, neither of us was much of a modern art person. I turn to her.

  “We could always try the Met.”

  She appears to consider this for a second, and then looks at me mischievously.

  “I think that we could just up the ante here.” She points to another group of students sketching in the corner. “All we need is some black clothes and sketchbooks and we could have really loud conversations about the meaning of life. Then, if anyone asked us to keep it down, we could just tell them that we’re actually the artist of the painting. I mean, I don’t think any of these guys has ever shown their face in this place.” She points to a truly awful picture. “Come on. If you painted that, you would never come out in public again.”

  I pretend to consider it. “You know,” I start in a loud stage whisper. “The placement of the canvas is actually a symbol if the edification of…”

  I can’t even finish the statement, because we both dissolve into endless laughter. The guard who had been shooting menacing looks in our direction for the entire afternoon takes a step closer to us, obviously intending to come our way.

  “It is definitely time to get out of here,” she says, grabbing my arm.

  “Before we get arrested for figuring out the meaning of life,” I counter.

  When we manage to make our escape into the cold air, she turns to me and smiles. “That was fun.”

  “Even if you thought it was all crap.”

  “I’m sure some of it isn’t crap. I just don’t know how to tell the difference between crap and masterpieces.”

  “Easy. Someone tells you. That’s what your art history class is for.”

  She’s pensive. “I guess. I think all of that stuff probably meant something to someone. They wouldn’t try to share it with other people if it didn’t. But I think it’s impossible to figure out why and what they meant. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all of that business is fine for some things, but ultimately, art’s about what it means to the person that’s creating it, right? So, even if I had the most beautiful picture in front of me and it was absolutely perfect, I don’t think I would have enough there to call it a masterpiece. Not just from the picture. I want the story. I want to know why and how and who and what. I want to know why anyone ever thought it was a good idea to smear animal blood all over a giant piece of rock.”

  I had that same question just a few minutes earlier, but I turn to her and laugh instead. “I think most of those guys are dead, so they probably wouldn’t be available to answer your questions.”

  She punches me in the arm, lightly. “And that’s why they had their cats paint their stuff.”

  “You should be a writer,” I tell her, studying her quietly out of the corner of my eye. I want her to be serious.

  “No way!” She’s surprised.

  “You’re a born storyteller,” I say, watching her.

  “It’s just because I’ve spent too much time with my nose in a book. I’m just recycling old plotlines.”

  “Come on? The candy blob monster? I’m telling you, it’s the next bestseller.”

  She’s laughing now. “Oh, yeah. Candy blob takes over Manhattan. That’s a winner.” She pauses and glances at me. “I like stories, but I can’t ever seem to get what I want on paper. It’s my friend Ben who’s the real writer. I’m basically just taking all of his ideas and presenting them as my own original work.”

  She looks at me for another second, because I’m staring intently at her face and she must feel the intensity. All I want her to do is to keep talking, even though I wish it wasn’t about this Ben guy, whoever he is. But I nod anyways.

  “He just finds these moments that exist in real life. The moments when you can never seem to find the right words—he gets them all on paper. He can say what everyone else is always thinking, but he says it better. I mean, he writes about vampires and zombies and all of that fantasy stuff, but what he’s really talking about is how people connect to each other, how they talk to each other, how they try to make their way in the world. There have been a million times when I’ve read his stories and I’ve said to myself, I’ve had that thought. And he said it better than I thought it. That’s real talent. I couldn’t do anything like that.”

  “What do you want to do, then?”

  She shrugs. “I’ll probably be a teacher like my mom. It’s not the most glamorous thing in the world, and everyone says if you can’t do, teach, but she just seems really happy, you know? She loves her job and she loves her kids. I’ll never be as good as she is at it. Her students adore her, even though she’s not like the young, cool teacher or anything like that. She’s been Teacher of the Year like a thousand times.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I used to think we would get a trip to Tahiti or something, but it’s always a gift certificate to Applebee’s. Every year. So even though I’ll never be a millionaire and I’ll probably never even get one of those gift certificates, I think I could be happy with doing it.”

  “That’s a really noble thing to want to do.”

  She shakes her head quickly. “Not noble.”

  “Teaching? It is.”

  “It’s a job like anything else. Some people go into it with the mentality that they’re saving the children, and I think that’s total crap. I’m not totally selfless. I’ll take the paycheck and the summers off, just like anyone else. But I do want to do something that I can feel good about at the end of the day. I need to be happy with my work, with my life. What else is there?”

  I still think it’s a noble goal, but the furious shaking of her head tells me not to continue. I tease her instead.

  “There’s always art.”

  “There is that. I would definitely have to get a cat, though. He could do most of the work for me.”

  My phone buzzes. “Chris, you have to get that. Someone has been blowing up your phone all day, and whoever it is will have a heart attack if you don’t pick up soon.”

  She’s right. I’m sure it’s Marcus, calling about whether I’ve figured out what I want to do with James Ross yet. After last night’s hysterics about ignoring phone calls, he’s definitely going to be pissed. To be honest, I don’t even care. I’m so wrapped up in this absolutely perfect girl who accidentally waltzed her way into my life.

  She hasn’t given me any indication that there’s anything romantic from her side. She did practically jump out of her skin when I touched her at breakfast, but judging from her seemingly horrified reaction, she was not harboring secret fantasies about me. I need to come up with a plan. Quickly. Before I go absolutely crazy at the fact that my hands aren’t in her hair, touching her face, her lips, her skin.

  “I should get that,” I say blankly. Marcus won’t leave me alone until I do.

  She nods at it, and I pick the phone up.

  “Chris, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? The audition is in two fucking days. I swear, I really will kill you if you’re dicking around the city with some fucking girl.”

  Hallie’s eyes widen with laughter, and I pantomime putting a gun to my head. I cover the receiver partially with my hand s
o that she doesn’t have to hear Marcus’s gratuitous use of profanity. While I’m getting the impression that Hallie isn’t exactly a perfect innocent, she does flinch every time an obscenity comes out of my mouth. “Shoot” and “crap” seem to be at about her limit, which I find strangely endearing.

  “Jesus, Marcus. Calm down before you kill yourself.” I start to explain the work I did in the cab ride over to Sophia’s apartment, which now seems woefully inadequate. I’m struggling to find something to tell him, so I say that I want to make James more vulnerable, that maybe giving him a broken heart somewhere along the line can soften him up and make him more real.

  I remember Hallie’s words and repeat them to Marcus. “I mean, at the end of the day, even though he’s this ass-kicking jackhole, he just wants to do something he feels good about. He wants to be happy. And he’s not sure whether all of the girls and the booze and the other crap is making him that way or not.”

  “That’s good, Chris, but Jesus fucking Christ, get some goddamn actual work done. All of the scenes need to be memorized. All of that, fucking shit. Two days. Find someone to practice with.”

  I turn back to Hallie, who’s looking at her own phone with a slight grimace.

  “Hey. Sorry about my idiot agent. He seems to think that he might actually get laid if he uses the word fuck as an adjective often enough.”

  She laughs and puts away her phone.

  “Is he always like that?”

  “Worse.”

  “You were talking about a character…” She leaves the end of the sentence open, and I smile at her.

  “It’s this part that my agent is having me audition for.”

  “Go on.”

  “You know the James Ross remake that I was telling you about last night?”

  “The one you never thought you were in the running for?” Her eyes are wide and I remember her endless questions about Hollywood the night before. I may have a plan, after all.

  “They want you to be James freaking Ross?” she asks.

  “They want me to be James freaking Ross. And I could use some help with that. Have a spare hour or two?”

  Chapter 11

  HALLIE

  I’ve never had a more perfect day.

  I have memories, mostly of Ben, that I play over and over again in my mind, memories that I’ve labeled as perfect sometime after they happened. Even the most vivid one that I return to over and over again doesn’t compare to today. Still, the thought of it causes a smile to cross my face.

  It was a few days before senior prom, and I had just broken up with my annoying, toolbag boyfriend, Aaron. I hadn’t quite considered the fact that it was going to leave me completely dateless and alone, but I couldn’t stand being with him for even one more day. I went to the dance anyway and danced with my friends during the fast songs and stood in the corner for the slow ones.

  I was about to give up on the notion of senior prom entirely when I heard Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” start to play and I realized that there was no one standing in front of me with a boombox. Just as I was turning to leave, Ben caught my arm and swept me away to the dance floor and it was the most romantic gesture I could possibly imagine. Five minutes of pure, unadulterated happiness.

  Even then, I was too wrapped up in a bubble to recognize perfection when I saw it. It was only later when I floated away to sleep that I realized that it had been one of those life moments that I would remember forever.

  Today was different. In all of the moments at breakfast, in the museum, in the street, with Chris, I’ve been perfectly happy without having to wait until later to figure it all out. It didn’t even matter if I never saw Chris again. I was going to be miraculously, beautifully happy for this one day. And the remembrance of perfection pales in comparison to living in it.

  When he took the phone call from his agent, I thought it was a sign that the day was over, that I would have to return to reality. Instead, he asked me to help him with the script. I had to fight not to appear like a total crazed fan and to make my agreement sound casual. But there was no way I was turning down the chance to spend more time with him. Not to mention that there was the possibility of actually getting my hands on a real movie script.

  We had taken a cab over to a stately building on a quiet street on the Upper West Side. The building took up almost the entire block, and we had to walk through a winter garden to reach a pair of heavy, imposing gold doors.

  As we walked into the lobby, I gasped in surprise. It was beautiful—understated and elegant without being too stuffy. Still, I recognized the expensive touches everywhere—plush furniture, a gleaming marble floor, an enormous crystal chandelier, and two uniformed men who greet Chris by his last name.

  “I’ll go up and grab the script,” he says.

  I’m rendered almost speechless by the opulence of the building. “I get it. You’re ashamed of living here.” I laugh and gesture around the lobby, grinning at him.

  He’s silent for a minute. “I just…” He clears his throat and finds words. “I just want to get working on the script, and there might be people upstairs that will distract us. Do you mind waiting down here?” He’s searching my face anxiously.

  Ok, so it’s me that he’s ashamed of. “Of course not. I’ll just try out one of those.” I point to one of the couches and make my voice as cheerful as possible.

  He smiles gratefully. “How do you feel about Central Park?”

  “I don’t know if I really have feelings about the park. But I’m willing to give it a try.”

  With a brief touch of my hand, he disappears into the elevator, and I’m standing alone in the foyer. This confirms it—Chris is rich beyond my wildest imagination. Despite our first encounter (the one where he had passed off his coat and party contribution to me), I had forgotten that Sampson and shopping and doormen and chauffeured cars were all a part of Chris’s world. I stare at the gold leaf again. Definitely not a part of mine.

  “Hey.” He’s breathless and clutching something in his hand when he emerges from the elevator a few minutes later. “Ready?”

  “Of course.” I sneak a look at the item in his hands, and he laughs at the expression on my face.

  “Here,” he says, offering it to me. “You carry it.”

  It’s a leaf of papers all bound together, with The James Ross Project printed in block letters on the front. I treat it like it’s a priceless artifact (and the thought of that makes me giggle at the paintings we just saw and the fact that they’re probably considered priceless as well).

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  He grabs my other hand and takes it in his. “Your hands are cold.” He takes off his gloves and puts them on mine, balancing the script between us as he fumbles slightly with the gloves.

  “It’s okay.” I feel a little breathless myself at the contact.

  “We can skip the park if you want,” he suggests. “We can find someplace else to go.”

  “I’m like a polar bear. I like cold. More importantly, I need to see this park that people have all these deep feelings about.” I smirk at him, trying to distract myself from the hand-holding.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Tell me about the movie, about what you’re thinking about the character,” I say as we reach the outskirts of the park.

  When he talks about the movie, his entire face lights up and I’m captivated by him, by the way in which he’s trying to immerse me into the world. The park is beautiful, but I can’t seem to care about trees and plants with him beside me. He finds an isolated spot untouched by the dusting of snow from the night before, and drags me down to sit with him. He maneuvers so that our legs are touching and our arms are entwined together. When I give him a curious look, he shrugs his shoulders. “Body heat.”

  I wish he wouldn’t sit so close. Red is creeping up my cheeks and I’m afraid he can see inside my head.

  He must know that I have developed an absolutely gigan
tic crush on him. The only thing I can do is make sure that I don’t throw myself at him, which is going to be easier said than done. I am definitely going to have to stay away from the alcohol at any future parties, just in case he shows up and I decide that making a total fool of myself sounds like a good idea.

  “So, why is James doing all of this stuff?” I ask again. He’s described the characters, the setting, the plot of the script, but it still doesn’t make sense to me.

  “What do you mean?” He’s genuinely puzzled.

  “I mean, why? Why is this James Ross guy doing all of this stuff for a girl he hardly knows? What’s the motivation? That’s what you need to figure out. You can do the acting stuff, probably with your eyes closed, if I had to guess. I think you’ll get the part no matter what. But you don’t want them to hand you the part.”

  “I don’t?” He’s teasing, but I shake my head.

  “No! You want to go out and grab it and makes absolutely sure that there’s no one else that could possibly play the role. It’ll be easier if you can tell yourself about his history, his family. History is important. It determines who people are. Does he have a little sister? Does the girl that he’s trying to help remind him of her? Does he actually want to help her, or is he acting out of some macho need to be the savior?”

  “He’s in love with her,” he says, tracing the letters on the cover of the script.

  “But he literally just met her. He doesn’t know anything about her. He knows two things about her. A. She’s running from an ex-boyfriend. B. The guy has some mafia connections and is planning on killing her. Most people would run headfirst in the opposite direction. Even James Ross, who’s really just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’s not a CIA assignment, she’s just some random girl that gets caught in the crosshairs.”