Starring Me and You

by Ella Bradshaw

  “Jesus, someone’s not happy,” Tim quipped as he backed out of his parking space, “Can’t he survive for one night without a maid?”

  “I’m not his maid!” I said. I resented that insinuation. So I cooked a little, of my own free will. That didn’t mean it was my job. I certainly wasn’t cleaning up after Nate, that was for sure.

  “Right, right I’m sorry. You wouldn’t have gotten hired if you didn’t have some special skills.”

  He said the word ‘special’ in an exaggerated voice that made my skin crawl.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Nothing babe, nothing. Now, where will we go? What are you in the mood to do?” he said. With perfect timing, my stomach gave a low rumble. I hadn’t eaten all morning and it suddenly hit that I was ravenous. I looked up at Tim hopefully.

  “I’m kinda hungry. Maybe we could go for dinner?” I said, before quietly adding, “I heard La Bella Roma is nice.”

  Tim gave an exaggerated sigh.

  “Have you seen the prices on their menu? It’s outrageous! Fucking hell, you could buy a box of Kraft mac and cheese and a slice of grocery store cake for dessert and eat the same damn thing for a tenth of the price at home.” he said. I sunk down into the cold leather of my seat. It had only been a suggestion and it wasn’t like I wasn’t fully willing to pay.

  “Sorry.” I said.

  Tim softened visibly after my apology.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean it. I’m not mad at you, honey. I’m just mad at them. But if you’re hungry I guess we have to feed you and there is a good atmosphere there, I’ll give you that. La Bella Roma it is!” he said. I grinned. The thought of getting some nice food without having to cook it for myself was appealing. It had been a while. Though Tim’s attitude hadn’t been fantastic so far, I could deal with it if it meant a break from my Nate sitting gig, “Maybe Nate’s hungry too, do you think we should ask him to come along?”

  “On our date?” I said. Was he fucking serious? That was too far. I’d heard of double dates, but third wheeling would just be ridiculous. Besides, the thought of asking Nate if he wanted to tag along made me sick to my stomach. I had no doubt that he would reject the offer flat out. Or worse, he would agree to come along and make the night a total nightmare for Tim and I. Okay, so I could tell already that Tim wasn’t going to be my soul mate and there probably would not be a second date. That didn’t mean that I could not have a night out without him for once.

  Tim looked at me sheepishly.

  “Well, maybe not this time then. I asked you out, right? So I guess it should just be the two of us tonight.” he said. He spoke as if he was choosing his words very carefully. I’d expected someone older and with more life experience to be a little bit less basic.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, Tim. That would be great,” I said. Tim nodded and I thanked my lucky stars when he didn’t push the subject anymore.

  He winked at me.

  “No problem babe.”

  It didn’t feel good when he called me babe. Nate called me babe too, but it wasn’t so bad when he said it. When Nate said it he played up the cheesiness of it and made me giggle. Tim said it way too earnestly. I didn’t like that. As the car pulled out of the driveway I looked back at the house, but Nate was now nowhere to be seen. I’d never seen him so annoyed. Was he really jealous? It seemed so silly. Tim was a decent looking guy who made good money and could just about form a sentence. True, that was better than what you could find on most dating apps but I wasn’t exactly falling head over heels for him. Couldn’t Nate see that a normal guy could never compete with him? He was gorgeous, in peak physical fitness with abs straight off of a men’s swimsuit calender. His bank account had more figures than a Victoria secret fashion show. On top of all that, the guy was pretty funny and intelligent when it came down to it. What woman wouldn’t want him? Obviously, I didn’t include myself in that pool of women. He had a bunch of great traits but his history canceled them all out for me. I was too smart to fall for that shit. That’s what I kept telling myself.

  “So, working on any articles?” I asked.

  “This and that.” said Tim. He stared straight ahead at the road, his hands clenched tightly at the wheel.

  “Sounds great. I’d love to be in your position someday. You have my dream job,” I said. It was only kind of a lie. Getting paid to write was a dream of mine. Writing about celebrity gossip, however, had never been in my fantasies. Even so, it was better than waiting tables or whatever I’d end up doing once this sweet deal with Nate was finished.

  “I’m sure you would.” said Tim. Then he turned up the radio so loud that I couldn’t respond. It was clear he didn’t want me to. So much for small talk. I hadn’t been on a real date before, perhaps this was the standard now. Exchange a few messages online, meet up, hook up, delete each others’ numbers. If that’s what I was missing out on maybe not dating in college wasn’t such a big mistake after all.

  After what seemed like an eternity of traffic we pulled up to the restaurant. Tim spent forever trying to find a parking space to suit him. He insisted that walking fifty feet was too far. I kind of wanted to throttle him.

  My phone vibrated.

  “Excuse me,” I said. I pulled it out of my purse and had a look, though I knew right away that it was Nate. He had only sent me four words.

  I don’t like him.

  Nate

  The moment I sent the text message I regretted it. It was sent out of anger and completely irrational. Darcy would really think I was an idiot now. I even called Sheila.

  “What do you want, Nate? I’m at Jake’s nephew’s piano recital!” Hissed Sheila. I could hear the vague noises of bad piano music in the background. Mozart he wasn’t. Only Sheila would be nuts enough to answer her phone in the middle of something like that.

  “Can I unsend a text?” I said. Sheila groaned.

  “Oh god, what did you do?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Enjoy the music Sheila.” I said. I hung up before she could say anything else. The last thing I needed was a lecture. I glanced back at my phone screen but Darcy hadn’t replied. Of course not. She was too good to deal with my shit.

  I took a deep breath. Fuck this I thought why the fuck do I care if she knows what I think? I was only telling the truth. If there was one thing that I did well it was telling shit like it was. I did not like this Tim guy. He was a god damn punk.

  Sheila had gotten me a punch bag to take out my frustration on. It was a good move on her part. My muscle tone had come on quite a bit since I’d had it. I got frustrated a lot.

  I pulled my shirt off and threw it to the side. This was going to be a good work out. I was imagining Tim’s ugly mug right at the front of the punch bag. I didn’t need gloves. I just needed to sock him.

  It started off nice and slow.

  One punch.

  I wonder if he bought her dinner.

  Two punches

  Does she laugh at his jokes? Like pretend to laugh just to be polite? Or is it her real laugh, with that cute little snort she does?

  Three, four punches. I picked up the pace now. The guy obviously had money. I could tell by the way he carried himself. You can always tell. He had always had money. Never wanted for a thing. The bank of mommy and daddy was always open, right? Not for me. It never had been. I’d pulled myself out of the gutter and I was never going back.

  Will he try to kiss her? Will she kiss him back?

  He would be crazy if he didn’t try. A girl like that didn’t come around all that often. I had never met one before. Darcy was beautiful, had a wicked sense off humor and didn’t tolerate any bullshit. She could rule the world if she wanted to. Just thinking about the soft skin of her thighs in her summer dress and the freckles on her nose made my stomach churn excitedly. I hated this. I hated what she did to me.

  The thought of her kissing him drove me to the edge. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I punched the bag so hard that it split down the middle and some of the stuffing
fell out onto the floor. Then I punched the wall for good measure.

  I hoped she was having a good time.

  Darcy

  The date didn’t improve once we got inside the restaurant. There was a lot more complaining about the price of the food. A lot. So much that I agreed to skip my appetizer if that made Tim fel better.

  “Good idea,” said Tim, “I guess it’s a win win for both of us. You girls are always watching your weight, right?”

  I stared and it him and he squirmed in his seat. My weight was fine the way it was.

  “I mean, not that you have to. You look great.” he said.

  “Thank you.” I said. Then I took a sip of my tap water so I wouldn’t have to say anything else. Tim didn’t mind ordering himself an appetizer. In fact, he couldn’t choose between the garlic bread and the goat’s cheese so he got both. I chose the cheapest thing on the menu, a Capri salad. It tasted good but it was gone in seconds and my stomach still growled. Tim insisted that we didn’t want dessert without consulting with me. I was a dessert girl, but whatever.

  He chugged back a lot of drinks. So many that I lost count. He got more generous as his sobriety fell.

  “You want a beer?” he asked. His eyes slipped south for a moment and oggled my cleavage.

  “No thanks.” I said. I had never felt so sober in my life.

  “No. Are you okay, baby? You should loosen up a little bit,” he said. He nudged me across the table, “I thought you’d be a little bit more fun now that you’re hanging out with Nate all the time.”

  “Yeah, well one of us has to be mature and boring or he would never get anything done.” I said. Tim’s eyes widened.

  “Oh yeah? So he really is wild, huh?” he said. I shook my head.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Tim sat back in his chair and smiled at me. He gave a low whistle.

  “You surprise me, Darcy. I thought you were this little Southern bimbo when you rocked up to the office, but you’re full of surprises.” he said. A bimbo? No man had ever called me a bimbo before. That was new.

  “I like to keep people on their toes.” I said quietly. Tim nodded.

  “Uh uh. Does Nate like that?”

  “Nate likes everything I do.” I said. All right, I was pushing it a bit now, but the attention I was getting was nice. Any girl in our office would kill for Nate to pay them attention. I had the guy practically begging to get into bed with me. It wasn’t often you got to turn a movie star down and I was savoring it. Tim didn’t need to know all that but I wouldn’t get in trouble if I just hinted, would I?

  “Yeah?” said Tim. He leaned forward again, “Have you screwed around?”

  I nearly spat out one of my sips of water. I choked it down and shook my head.

  “God, no. No, that’s not what I meant. I’m not that kind of girl!” I said.

  “But Nate’s that kind of guy.”

  I shook my head again.

  “He’s not.” He was. He so was, but I hated the look on Tim’s face.

  “Come on Darcy, we’ve all read the tabloids. No need to be coy. If you’ve fooled around I’m not gonna judge you,” he said, “Mixing work and pleasure isn’t so bad. I’ve messed around with half of the girls in the office, and I’d like to mess around with the other half. It’s no biggie.”

  “Right. It might be no biggie to you, but I’m telling you that the relationship Nate and I have is strictly professional!” I said. Maybe if I said it often enough it might come true.

  “All right, all right. I believe you, no need to get pissy with me. You’re not that kind of girl. You’ve got morals and you don’t just drop your panties for any guy, even if he’s a movie star. I admire that.”

  I pulled my phone out of my bag and looked at it in an attempt to distract from this shitty conversation. My heart sank when I saw that Nate hadn’t texted me since the last one. My fingers ached to text him ‘sos’ or ‘come save me’ or ‘please punch this bum in the face for me’, but I couldn’t do that. That would be admitting that he was right.

  “But you must see some crazy shit when you’re with him,” he said, “I bet he gets into all kinds of trouble.”

  “He does,” I said. Tim leaned forward eagerly, but I didn’t extrapolate. Nate’s behavior was none of his business.

  “Like what?” Tim eventually insisted.

  “I’m not comfortable sharing that,” I said. Tim sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “Darcy, don’t pull that crap with me. I’m not some shitty tabloid writer. I’m your friend and I’m curious,” he said, before adding, “Your friend who happens to be a tabloid writer. A good one, I might add. Can’t you tell me anything? Any weird fetishes or crazy shit that the other magazines haven’t reported?”

  “Tim, you’re making me uncomfortable.”

  “Shush babe, no I’m not. Have you signed a non disclosure or something?” he prodded.

  “No, but…”

  “Then why are you so loyal to the guy? He seemed like a fucking jerk when I met him,” he said. Then his eyes narrowed, “Ah. I should have realized. You love him, don’t you honey? That’s real cute.”

  “I don’t!” I insisted.

  “Sure you don’t, sweetheart. I bet there aren’t many boys as handsome as him back home in Alabama or Florida or wherever. He’s special, huh?”

  That was enough.

  “This is bullshit,” I said. I grabbed a fistful of cash from my purse, enough for my measly meal and half of Tim’s. I threw it on the table, “I’ll make my own way home. I don’t need your drunk ass getting me into an accident anyway!”

  “Wait, wait one second!”

  I turned around, expecting an apology. What I got was something else.

  “If you do come to your senses and realize that he will never love you, come to me. Tell me everything and anything you know and I’ll make it worth your while. I’ve got money,” he looked me up and down then, “And I may not look like him but I guarantee you, if you’re looking to release some stress just let me know and we can make it happen.”

  “Fuck you Tim!” I exclaimed.

  Nate

  Darcy had left me food. Even when she was mad at me she hated the idea of me going hungry. Little did she know that my childhood had gotten me quite used to the feeling.

  I pulled out the leftover cottage pie and plopped a generous serving onto a plate for myself. I didn’t bother heating it up and plopped down on the living room couch.

  The first forkful tasted like a home I’d never had.

  I couldn’t call her of course. That would make me look desperate. I was desperate, but she couldn’t know that. Besides, maybe that Tim guy wasn’t so bad. He was a complete asshole, sure, but he was normal. He could give her the kind of life I would never have again. A normal one.

  I could call Sheila, but I didn’t want to. There was only one other person to call.

  The sound of the phone dial echoed around the room as I put it on speaker and continued to eat my lukewarm cottage pie. It was answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello, Spring Meadow Rehabilitation and Meditation center, this is Stella speaking. How can I help you?” the receptionist’s voice was perky yet soothing. Reassuring, almost. Stella was one of the good ones.

  “Hi. Can you transfer me to Tanya McCoy?”

  “Can I just ask who’s calling?” she asked. It was crazy to me. No one else called in the six months she had been there. Who else could it be?

  “I’m her son, Nathan.” I said. If my mother heard me call myself ‘Nate’ she would kill me. There was already a Nathan McCoy registered in the Screen Actor’s Guild when I’d started acting, so it wasn’t like I had a choice.

  “Oh, of course. Look, I’ll try a transfer for you, but she may not pick up,” said Stella, kindly, “But it’s always worth a shot, right?”

  “Yeah. Thank you.”

  The phone began to ring again. It rang twelve times before the ringing stopped. Then Stella answered it again.


  “I’m sorry honey, not this time,” she said. She remembered me now. I was the sad case who called his mother every week without getting an answer, “Maybe she’s having a nap? It’s getting late.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You could always try visiting, Nathan. Tanya might be more receptive to seeing you in person. People often are.”

  “I doubt that,” I said. Visiting in person was a line I hadn’t quite crossed yet. Being frozen out on the phone was one thing. Stella chuckled.

  “Sweetheart it’s normal for our patients to be a little annoyed at first. You’ve given your mother an amazing gift by paying for her treatment. She just doesn’t see it, not just yet. Don’t give up!” she said. I thanked her and hung up.

  I’d never felt more like giving up in my life.

  Darcy

  I hopped into a cab and rifled through my clutch, hopeful that I’d have enough to cover the fare to Nate’s house. He would have no problem covering the cost if I didn’t have it, of course, but I hated that idea. I was starting to see that men thought doing good deeds meant you owed them something. Maybe it wasn’t just men. Maybe it was just people from the city. My heart ached for home more than it had that very first night in my cold apartment where I’d come off the skype call with Mama. My date had been an absolute bust. The thought of returning home to Nate’s smug, handsome face made me sick. Jesus, Nate was a regular Prince Charming when I compared him to Tim. It wasn’t like I had been on a million dates or anything, but I guess I still had the bar set a little too high. Maybe I needed to stop watching so many old romantic films in the middle of the night.

  Lipsticks. Nude delight, which was worn down to a nub and Seductive Plum, hardly touched. I’d kept it for the off chance I would feel seductive. It hadn’t happened recently. Chewing gum. Sugar free cotton candy flavor (now there was a contradiction). Throat lozenges, some loose aspirin, an ancient condom that I’d been given during college orientation all those years ago. My coin purse, thank god, had about sixty dollars in notes and another ten in coins. At least that should cover the cab, though the cabbie wouldn’t be getting much of a tip. That couldn’t be helped. There was something missing though. Something important.