Between You and Me (18 page)

I laugh.

“No, seriously. It swivels, it tilts, and it ejects you on the spot if it senses you’re typing drunk.”

“Genius. I need one of those.” I help myself to another egg.

“So, who are you meeting with?” he asks.

“Oh, I can’t remember, they all have the same names. At Your Service, Your Big Event, the Main Event,” I riff. “You know.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?” He leans in.

“That depends.” I match him, so close to letting our lips meet, so close to just letting the off-kilter nose be enough.

“What are you drinking?” he asks with mock gravity, pulling away.

“Ginger champagne cocktail,” I confess.

“On Cinco de Mayo?” he balks, flagging the bartender once again. “A Corona in honor of the holiday and another ginger champagne for my friend.”

For the next hour, we don’t talk so much as shuttle words back and forth like a loom while I wonder how many it’ll take until we’ve woven a link from his mouth to mine. Until finally, spun out, I put my hand on his and just say, “Do you want to go upstairs?”

“Definitely.” He pays, and I swing my heels to the floor.

“Whoa, there.” He catches my elbow and then slides his arm around my waist.

“Oh, I’m just tired,” I say as he helps me out of the bar, through the silver-leafed lobby. He presses the elevator button.

“Too tired?” he asks.

“Oh, no, not
too
tired, just tired.” The door opens, and lest he misunderstand, I tug him inside. He pins me against the far wall and plants his mouth hard against mine. In the not-Finn-ness of it all, I pull away. But I still press nine, because if I get run over in the driveway by Bill Maher getting a blow job, I cannot let the last guy I had sex with be Finn. “It’s so embarrassing.” The car whirs up.

“Why?”

“I shouldn’t be tired,” I admonish myself. “I work alongside legitimately tired people.”

“Any bride will tell you.” He holds up his finger like the Tin Man. “Planning a wedding is tiring.”

My buzz falls to the floor like a discarded towel.

“I never said wedding.” I pull my scarf up my bare arms.

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.” To anyone. I’m pricing out a graduation, an anniversary, and a bar mitzvah. “Who do you work for? You have to tell me.”

He just shrugs, his charm gone. The doors open on nine, and, staring him down, I press lobby. We descend, while I keep my hand above the emergency button.

“We’re going to find out everything, and you want us to. Those pictures are currency, and if Kelsey didn’t feel that way, she’d be bussing tables in Oklahoma City and singing karaoke.”

The doors open, and I stride, shaking, to the concierge. I point to Mark, standing nonchalantly by the elevator. “You need to remove
that
man from
this
building.” And God bless my credit card’s billing address, because they do.

An hour later, a knock
forces me to get up from my paralyzed ball. “Room service.”

I open the door to Finn holding two In-N-Out bags.

“Thank you,” I say, so grateful that he answered my call, that he just asked for my location, not an explanation.

He takes one look at my tear-streaked face and wraps me in his arms. I allow myself to sink into the comfort of his embrace for a brief moment, before I take a bag from him. “I need to talk.”

“So, talk.”

“No, I mean, in the larger sense, like, dusk till dawn, I need to talk. In life. When I used to watch
Sex and the City,
it wasn’t the size of their apartments or their couture that filled me with jealousy, it was that they still had brunch every Sunday in their thirties.” I tug out a chair against the thick pile carpet and slump down at the table. “We didn’t even make it to twenty-five! Who has time for brunch when you’re asleep with your fiancé or studying for the MCATs? And now I can’t believe it, but I feel that same raw envy when I watch
Entourage.
I need an entourage! Kelsey needs to get an entourage. No one back home can relate. All they want is information I can’t give them and free shit. So pretty much, now she’s the only person I talk to, and it’s my job to keep her reassured.”

“She sent you back to plan the wedding,” he says matter-of-factly.

“No.
Yes
.” I reach into the bag and shove a fistful of fries into my mouth in relief at finally admitting it. Finn pulls out a chocolate shake, and hands it over. “Thank you.” I take a big swig. “Who wants to be responsible for ruining the biggest day of someone else’s life? Kelsey leaves me all these one-word voice mails: Fireworks! Balloons! Candy! Is this a wedding or a county fair? Okay, now you tell me something I shouldn’t know,” I say.

He sits and takes a deep draw from his own shake as he considers. “Travis has a polyp in his sinus cavity.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

“No. It’s basically a wart. But it has to be removed. The downside is, if we go public, A, they’ll say he’s covering a nose job, which makes him sound gay, or B, they’ll say he has a coke problem, or C, they just obsess about how gross a polyp is, and that kills his career right there. Hey, Bonnie, want to go see the guy with the polyp take his shirt off? Eh, I’ll pass.”

“Can you just not tell anyone?”

“What wakes me up in the middle of the night is the fear that Travis has used up his nine lives. He hired me to transition him out of these shit rom-coms. His clock’s ticking. They’re already talking about dad roles.” Finn spills the fries onto the marble and squeezes the ketchup packets on the side of the bag. “So, what happened tonight?” he asks gently.

I struggle to phrase it without kicking my white knight in the groin. “This guy chatting me up at the bar turned out to be some tabloid reporter,” I say casually.

“Did you sleep with him?” he asks with equal casualness.

“What? No!” I hollowly protest. “Travis did tell you I called to say I’m an asshole?”

“Oh,
you
were the asshole—that got lost.”

“And yet you bought me a burger. Why are you like this?” I ask.

“I have three older sisters. You?”

“Why am I like this, or do I have siblings?”

He smiles. “Let’s start with siblings and take some time to figure out why you’re like this.”

I draw another long sip. “I was dropped from the mother ship. I mean, it’s not like my parents aren’t good people.” I graciously lump my dad in with my mom. “I think, actually, if I hadn’t had Michelle as a comparison, it might have been easier. She was always super into the girlie glamour of us, which is why it’s . . . kind of ouchie that she’s not really interested in this particular event.”

“Really?”

I shake my head.

“That’s tough,” he says in a way that lets me know he gets it. I can’t ask for sympathy for Kelsey from anyone else.

“So, uh, thanks for coming and for the food. Do you want to watch
The Change-Up
?” I ask.

He stands, leaning down to kiss me. “Not even remotely.”

I’m woken some time before
eight by my phone vibrating across the table, cutting a path through the abandoned fries. I hop up quickly so
it doesn’t wake Finn, grab my robe off the floor, and take both with me onto the balcony, hoping that neither of my neighbors is already eating breakfast alfresco. “Hello?” I whisper, my voice raking its ginger claws down the backs of my eyes.

“Logan?”

“Mom?” I ask, belting the robe.

“I know we haven’t talked in a while—but a man called here last night, said he was from your office, and—I think he was a paparazzi.” Oh, God.

“What did you tell him?” I rub my temples, the sound of the traffic from Sunset loud below.

“I don’t know anything, Logan. I just have this accordion of a wedding invitation sitting here.”

“Okay.”

“I told him that must have cost a pretty penny.”

“Mom, I sent an e-mail about being super-cautious to everyone, all the cousins, everyone,”

“So now Andy’s expecting the entire family to screen our calls.”

“It’s necessary, unfortunately.” I push back. “This is an unusual situation.”

“I’ll say.”

“Mom.”

“He’s unstable,” she says. “You don’t remember—”

“I remember him throwing up at Kelsey’s recital. I remember him punching Dad at Grandma’s funeral. It’s not like I was unconscious for thirteen years—”

“I had to look at you lying there with tubes coming out of your thin arm, while Michelle went back to her Bedazzler. Whisking her daughter off. Trotting her around some strange city. I judge her, and I judge him. Frankly, I judge Kelsey and the lifestyle she’s living, and I judge—” She catches herself. “I wish I could just forbid it.”

I look down and see one of the producer’s prey crossing the driveway on wobbly legs, her hair and dress askew. I watch her reach shaking hands into her purse to tip the valet.

“He’s sober now, Mom.” I hear myself defend him. “He’s not like that anymore. He doesn’t get high, doesn’t even drink beer.”

“What am I supposed to do with this invitation?” she asks quietly.

“Come to the wedding?” I step back from the edge, where the concrete has already heated past being tolerable. “I mean, she’s getting married. By a real minister. I’d think you could at least approve of that.”

Silence.

“Look, it’s three months away. You have time—”

“Your father and I have no intention of visiting with them. Ever.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Well, I should probably go,” I say, staring at the gray cement.

“We pray for you, Logan.”

“So you’ve said.”

She hangs up.

I know that what I need to do is start calling everyone in Oklahoma to see who else this guy got to, who else he’s posing as. Maybe it’s Mark, but it’s probably someone else, one of legions. I can feel Mark’s rough kiss, how his aftershave bled into my mouth, and my stomach sours. I look at the sliding door, but can’t reach for it. Instead, I find myself crouching against the stucco between the door frame and the railing. I sit and stare as the sun thins the smog. Unable to move. Forbidden.

Minutes pass.

If Finn wakes up and comes out here looking for me, it’s a sign.

If Finn thinks I’ve left, it’s a sign.

I have no idea how much time has elapsed before I hear him moving around inside, calling for me, opening the bathroom door, then putting his clothes on. There’s another long pause.

Come on, find me find me find me.

Logan
, get up get up get up.

But I can’t.

The door to my room swings shut.

Have you ever been in
an exercise class and you don’t remember starting the situps? No one is staring at you, so you must have been following along, but a moment ago, you were upright, and now
you’re on the mat, the last few minutes lost to a daydream. Similarly, I don’t know how I got off the Chichester’s balcony, or into the cab, to the airport, or to the gate. The next moment that I’m fully, sickeningly inside myself is when I’m reading my mother’s direct quote in a tabloid: “I don’t like yellow myself, and I don’t understand all these inserts with phone numbers on them.” She seems to have read the guy the entire invitation verbatim, from the location to the phone number for the travel agent who will book the guests’ flights and charge Kelsey. I’m just thankful my mother doesn’t know how to text a photo.

I wheel my suitcase through
the revolving doors of the Little Rock Omni and directly to the ladies’ room to powder my glistening face. Knowing the pending meeting couldn’t be faced with dulled wits, I denied myself the Valium I now require at take-off and instead spent the flight gripping the orange prescription bottle as if it could calm me through osmosis.

Back out, I spot GM in the lobby’s Starbucks. “Hey, Princess.”

“Hey!” I love being hugged by GM—it’s like pulling the covers over your head. “How’s it going?” I mumble into his wall of a chest.

“Well,” he says as I stand back, “we’ve had better days.” He breaks the tip off his banana. “They’re gonna be on speaker with Terrance in a few. You should hustle.”

I nod, my nerves like a twisted Slinky as I scurry past a faded life-size cutout of Bill Clinton. On the top floor the Presidential Suite opens to Andy, looking grim.

“I’m so sorry,” I greet him. “I did everything in my power to keep this locked down. I sent out e-mails, I called—”

“You knew about this?” He squints at me, the sleeves of his sweatshirt pushed above his elbows.

“The guy who talked to my mom was a total sleazeball—”

“Your mom?”

“She feels terrible,” I lie. “We both feel terrible. Is Kelsey totally crushed?” I bite my lip.

“Andy, she doesn’t know,” Michelle says, referring to me, and I’m
confused. “Come on, Logan. We just got an order of nachos.” She waves me in from a brown leather couch. “Andy, let the girl inside already.”

He closes the door, staring at it for a moment before turning. “Your mother’s talking to reporters?”

“No! I mean, yes, she got a call from some asshole pretending to be on our staff. But she won’t make the mistake again, believe me.”

“Is that what she told you?” he asks. “She said she will not talk to reporters?”

“Okay!” Michelle says as she pops a loaded chip in her mouth and reaches for a napkin. “Water under the bridge, Andy. Have a seat, Lo.” Michelle pats the couch.

Aaron emerges from one of the bedrooms, eyes downcast, and grabs a soda in the kitchenette. “I’m sorry about my mom—”

“It’s cool.” He stares into the aluminum like he’s playing through how to dive inside.

“Lo!” Kelsey comes out in her postshow sweats. “Welcome back! Did you bring the stuff?”

“I am. So sorry.” I jump up. “I left you about thirty messages and am totally ready to commit hari-kari with that.” I point to an antler candlestick.

“Whatever.” She shrugs me off.

“Kelsey?” I push.

“Lo, I said it’s fine,” she says firmly. Andy scowls at the maroon carpet. “So, where’re the goods?” Kelsey lifts her hands under her chin for a series of little claps. Munching, Michelle returns to her Nora Roberts.