Engaging Men (44 page)

“Love?” I echoed. I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t. I was, in fact, completely and wholeheartedly in love with my sofa-hoarding, career-jumping, green-eyed roommate.

And there was nothing I could do about it. Trust me, if there was, I would have. Because I was scared shitless. I felt like I had been swallowed whole by a tornado—because that’s the only way I can describe the way Justin loved—fully, completely, recklessly.

During those terrifying weeks, I found myself reduced to a shivering mess when he came home late—believing he had been killed in some random mugging (the way he was always cheerfully opening his wallet midstreet to give some homeless guy some money, he was a veritable robbed-at-knifepoint waiting to happen), or worse, seduced by one of those endless females who admired him wherever we went. I know, I know—killed at knifepoint should have seemed worse, but somehow I was in this kind of crazy state of mind where his demise seemed preferable to his abduction by some random leggy blonde.

I was, in short, a mess. So much so that I flew into a fury one night while we were lying in bed and one of those infamous husky-voiced females purred into our answering machine (we had resorted to chronic screening—we didn’t want to be disturbed). When Justin saw the state that phone call put me in, he must have called every woman he knew the very next day and told them to stay away, because suddenly the phone hardly even rang.

Oh, wait, it did ring, but it was usually my mother, whom I had promptly told that I had broken up with Kirk (as you can imagine, she was delighted). But she was suspicious of my newfound cheerfulness, as I was afraid to reveal the cause. Afraid to admit the truth for fear it might somehow make it…untrue.

Yes, you could say I was in love. And it was terrible.

And wonderful.

Because I suddenly had a new energy in me that sent me pounding the pavement with an awesome fervor, especially now that my Rise and Shine days were over. In fact, I had al-

ready been replaced by an even more limber and somewhat perkier version of myself. Or Marisa Tomei. Because this girl looked just like me, except she was Hispanic. According to Rena, who was none too happy when I bowed out at the last moment, the only thing the network had liked about me was the ethnic component I added to the show. I’ll give her ethnic. Right up her skinny little gluteus maximus.

At least someone noticed my new energy—Viveca Withers, who took my rejection of the Rise and Shine contract a bit better than I expected. In fact, my newfound vigor might have rein-vigorated her. I think I even saw those sewn-up features move into a genuine smile when I told her (with much greater force this time) that I couldn’t do Rise and Shine if it meant I never got the chance to shine again as an actor. And so, with little argument, she added me to her considerable roster of actors. I realized then that people will believe whatever you project to them. When I had first met Viveca, I was likely looking for someone to tell me to give up before it was too late. But it wasn’t too late. In fact, I immediately impressed Viveca after I went to an audition she sent me on for a daytime soap. I hadn’t gotten the role, but I had gotten great feedback. I impressed her even further when she had been contacted by none other than Robert Foley, who happened to be the casting director for whom I auditioned for All for Love. I had taken the liberty of sending him my resume, updated with my agent info, along with a note saying that I hoped he’d keep me in mind for future opportunities. He not only kept me in mind, he called Viveca almost immediately, saying he had just heard from a producer he’d been waiting on. Seems the show Robert Foley thought I had potential for was a pilot being proposed for next fall on Lifetime. Get this—Robert Foley thought I had expressed what he called an “edgy mixture of desperation and vulnerability” during my audition (he should only know). So much edgy desperation and vulnerability that he wanted me to try out for a new nighttime drama series featuring a tough-talking single mother of two who joins the NYPD after her husband is mysteriously killed in the line of duty. Me, tough! (I think it was my muscular arms that made that convincing) And a mother! If you think that’s amazing, what was even more amazing was how I aced the audition, with the help of Justin, who was a taskmaster when it came to helping me prepare. I was still waiting to hear a week later, but I felt hopeful.

“Hey, sweetie,” Justin said when I came home from my seven-hour shift at Lee and Laurie. I found him in the kitchen, where he was making a marinara sauce. You know how I said he was a killer in the kitchen? Now I got a fresh, hot meal when I came home, followed by a fresh, hot man. What was I thinking?

Okay, that’s three times I asked myself that question.

Justin leaned away from the pot he was stirring, then kissed me as though he hadn’t seen me in seven weeks rather than seven hours.

“So how was work?” he asked, replacing the lid on the pot.

“The usual drudgery. But at least Michelle is speaking to me again.” Oh yeah, get this—Michelle had been giving me the silent treatment ever since I returned from my little shopping spree with Kirk sans engagement ring—and boyfriend. But she was over it now. Probably because Justin had stopped by the office on the way home from a production gig he’d been working on, to say hello. Michelle took one look at him and reset her sights. Or, rather, my sights. “You know what you gotta do, Ange,” she said, once he left .Yeah, sure. There was no room for games in my relationship with Justin. I didn’t need them. All I needed was him. And I had him, night after night after night.

In fact, I had him again after a candlelit Italian dinner, Justin-style. Afterward, I lay beside him in his bed, feeling utterly satisfied. So secure…so loved. And I knew Justin was feeling the same way. I could see it in the way he looked at me. The way he was looking at me right now.

“So I talked to my friend, Sammy, today,” he said, smoothing the hair away from my cheek as he spoke softly in the flickering candlelight. “You remember, Sammy, right? He was taking classes at HB Studios with us. He came to see me at the Back Fence that night, but he had to leave right after the set, so I didn’t really get a chance to catch up with him.”

“Oh yeah, I think I do remember him,” I said. “Little guy, right? And funny as hell. Whatever happened to him?”

“Well, he just got back about a month ago from Vegas, where he’s been doing the stand-up comedy circuit for the past year— you know, casinos, night clubs, that type of thing. He thought the Bernadette stuff was hilarious. He thinks I could be the next Adam Sandier. So I’m thinking about working up some more material and giving it a try.“

“Giving what a try?” I asked, baffled as to what new course Justin was about to set his life on.

“Well, stand-up comedy.”

“Stand-up comedy?” I said with disbelief. I mean, yeah, some of those Bernadette songs were pretty funny, but I didn’t think the humor was intentional.

“But what about music? You were just getting somewhere with that,” I said, exasperated at this latest career maneuver.

“Yeah, well, you know music was never my first love anyway.”

Now we were getting to the heart of the matter. “And what, may I ask, is your first love?”

He sighed. “Well, film, of course.”

It was a relief to realize that I had, at least, been right all along about where Justin’s true happiness lay. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been pursuing much of anything since his success at the Back Fence. But I was even more baffled now that he had confirmed it. Because it seemed to me that ever since I’d known him Justin had been doing everything but following that dream. “So why aren’t you making a film?” I asked.

“I made a film, Angie,” he said, an underlying anger in his tone that I had never heard before. gave everything I had to it, and look where it got me.“

“It got you an award. It got the industry interested in you. It might have gotten even further if you hadn’t jumped ship and gone into acting.”

“If I hadn’t jumped ship,” he said, wouldn’t have met you.“

A warmth curled inside me at his words. Followed by a new determination. I couldn’t let the man I loved lead an unfulfilled life. “Justin, you can’t leave your life to chance. If you want something, you have to make a commitment to it.”

“I made a commitment once, to the movie. Of time, of money—”

“If it’s money you’re worried about, then you can get investors. All you have to do is show your reel to the right people-”

“It’s not money,” he insisted, then laughed mirthlessly.“I have more damn money than I know what to do with. Between all the residuals on those crazy commercials I did, and my trust fund—”

“Trust fund?” I asked, confused.

“From my parents,” he explained, his voice softer. “They had considerable assets when they…when they died. A couple of properties, life insurance. My uncle put it all in trust for when I turned twenty-one. Though I haven’t really touched it yet. It’s really all I…all I have left of them.”

Suddenly I understood Justin in a way I never had. The trust fund he hoarded. All that French provincial furniture that cluttered up our apartment from his aunt and uncle, along with the new acquisitions he brought in on a regular basis. It was as if all that… stuff was some kind of crazy security blanket. It was like he attached himself to things rather than people. Maybe because he had lost so many of the people he loved the most.

“Justin, what are you afraid—”

“I’m not afraid, Angie. I’m just trying to be happy.”

“But you have to make choices if you want to be happy! And if film is what you truly want, then that’s what you should pursue.”

“I can’t go through that again, Ange. Seeing that film get shelved after all that work was heartbreaking. I gotta move on. And I have a good feeling about this comedy thing. Once I get to Vegas—”

“Vegas?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna fly out there with Sammy when he goes back in a month. He says I can even stay with him while he shows me the ropes.”

“I don’t understand—New York has comedy clubs. Why can’t you pursue it here?”

“Sammy’s got contacts. Besides, you know how tough the New York crowds are. I’m gonna try and make a name for myself out there and then I’ll come back.”

“But what about your…job?”

“Pete’s got plenty of grips he can use while I’m out of town. He only offers jobs to me first because we’re friends.”

“But what about me?” I asked now, the question that had been clawing at my gut finally rising up.

He looked at me then. “We can still be together. There’s the telephone. E-mail. And I’ll be back eventually. I figure it’ll only take me six months, maybe a year…”

A year! “Justin!”

“What?”

“Don’t you see what you’re doing?”

“What am I doing?” he asked, bewildered.

“You’re running. From your dreams. From...from me!”

“Angie, I’m not running from you.We’ll still be together…”

“Together like you were with Lauren? Or Denise?” I said. “Let me ask you something, Justin, when exactly did you fall in love with either one of those women, huh? Right after you found yourself hundreds of miles away from them?”

“This isn’t the same as that, Angie—”

“Why isn’t it?” I said, sitting up and looking fiercely into his eyes. “Because if you stay in this apartment with me another month, another year, you might just—God forbid—really start to care for me?”

“Oh, I see what this is about,” he said, shaking his head. “You think if I stay here and…and marry you, that will make us happy?” He shook his head. “I don’t understand why women think marriage is the answer to everything.”

“You think this is about me wanting to get married?” I asked, incredulous. “I’m in love with you, you idiot! And you know what, if you proposed, I’d probably be stupid enough to say yes, that’s how much I want to be with you. But do you think I want to spend my life with a man with a larger sofa collection than Levitz warehouse? No, I don’t. You scare the shit out of me, Justin. You have ever since I met you. But as soon as this—” I gestured to the tangle of sheets at the end of the bed“—started happening, I couldn’t control what I felt for you anymore. I couldn’t stop myself from loving you, sofas and all!”

“Well I love you, too, dammit!” he yelled, as if the very admission made him…angry. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life, Angie. Nothing can change that. Just like my going to Vegas won’t change what we feel. That’s why I know we can make this work.”

“It can’t work, Justin. It can’t.” I was so sure of that now. We couldn’t work, not as long as Justin kept running from everything he professed to love.

So I did the only thing I could do. I ran. And no amount of arguing could stop me (and we did a lot of that). I packed whatever I could grab during the sad, mystifying squabble that followed, and left.

I finally understood why I had kept myself a safe distance for so long from the one man I could truly love.

Because I had known, probably from the very beginning, he was the only man who had the power to break my heart.

I hailed a cab, not even sure where I was going. But the moment the driver asked me for an address, I gave him Grace’s. I only prayed she was home. And alone.

Thankfully, she was both. “Angie, what’s wrong?” she said when she answered the door and saw what must have been pure grief in my eyes.

“It’s over, Grace. Me and Justin. He’s going to Vegas. To be a fucking stand-up comic. Isn’t that a laugh?”

“Come in, let me make you a drink.”

Once we were seated on the couch, Bacardi O Cosmos in hand, I told her the whole story. And when I was done, Grace said, “To tell you the truth, Ange, I’m surprised. This doesn’t sound like Justin. I mean, the career-jumping thing, yeah. But I thought if nothing else, Justin was pretty devoted to you. He always had been as a friend.”

“That’s just it, Grace. The minute we went beyond that, he got scared. I mean, I was scared, too, but at least I was willing to take a chance on it.”

“Yeah, well. That’s men for you,” she said, a weariness coming into her eyes. “When it comes down to it, you really can’t count on them for anything.”