Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (21 page)

Finally I got to the point where I couldn’t
stop the mental stream of fantasizing and the old familiar sick
twist of my stomach and polar emotions began creeping up on me. I
really wanted to believe that he was fond of me like I was fond of
him, but he was probably just fond of having an easy job. Could he
ever possibly be interested in me for reasons other than work?
Since he knew my life inside and out, and the complete lack of
anything remotely interesting associated there, the answer was
probably no. After all, nothing had changed since the last amazing
guy I fell for didn’t want me. I still wasn’t cool, gorgeous or
grown up.

My mind kept spinning back to the one and
only time I’d actually had him to myself, first at his house for
five minutes and then in my kitchen for five more. He was kind and
polite and smooth and divinely handsome. And then there was the Ash
of my dreams. Holding my hands, hugging me and telling me how much
I meant to him. I had to hand it to my subconscious, when it came
to pleasant mental concoctions featuring the men I loved, mine were
world class.

One day I was toying with the idea of
leaving a love letter behind for him. I wasn’t sure if I could
really go through with it, but I thought it might be therapeutic to
get my feelings out in the open, so I sat down at the computer and
began to type.

Please don’t be mad at me.
I’m not trying to get you in trouble or fired. I’m just frightened
that you’re going to disappear before I get the chance to tell you
how I feel about you. I know I’m too young for you. I know you’re
just doing your job. And I’m so sorry if you don’t want to hear
this…

But, I think I’m in love
with you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I dream about you all
the time. Sometimes I see you when you’re on duty and it makes my
day. When I don’t see you, I miss you, and I wonder where you are
and what you’re doing, wishing I was there too. I feel happy when I
think of you, more than that, actually, but then I turn around and
cry because I’m probably wasting my time hoping for something that
won’t happen.

It’s scary to confess all
of this, but dealing with the suspense is even worse. I can brave
the embarrassment. What I can’t brave is not knowing where I stand
in your eyes. If you don’t return my sentiments, then please don’t
worry. I won’t make things hard for you. I promise. I care about
you too much to be mean. Just please tell me either way so I can
breathe.

Normally, with any other creative endeavor,
I would make so many passes and edits that the end product was only
a vague evolutionary ancestor of the first draft. But with this
note, the apologies, the confession and the pleas keyed out
perfectly from my mind and onto the screen—no correction or
fine-tuning was necessary. I read it over one time, instead of a
hundred, saved it, and didn’t make a copy for myself. Desperation
had an unexpected side effect: efficiency.

My main concern was that he might not be the
one to find my note. Sometimes I’d see him and leave something
behind, but then another agent would collect it. A note like this
would be highly damaging if someone besides Ash were to discover
it. How could I get around that, short of handing it to him myself,
which would probably be even more damaging?

He looked to be the youngest person on the
team, which perhaps meant that he was also the most technologically
savvy. I decided to take a chance using a trick someone had played
on me in class once.

I had worked for the better part of a week
preparing a presentation for a Senior English project. My document
was up on one of the class computers and I had walked away to make
sure that the printer was on-line when an error had popped up.

When I came back, my file was still open,
but there was nothing there—nothing but blank pages. I clicked the
undo button from the Edit menu, but nothing had been deleted. I
nearly had a panic attack induced seizure and the freak-out must
have given the perpetrator exactly the sadistic pleasure they’d
been going for. Sam came to my rescue and wordlessly put my
document back the way it was by highlighting everything and
changing the font color from white back to black. Someone had done
the same thing to her recently.

I don’t think I would have figured that out.
But I had a feeling that in his group, if anyone could figure it
out, it would be the one person I’d want to. Just to provide a
slight hint, I named the file ‘Change_The_Color’. Then I left it
behind on a jump drive one afternoon at Panera just before Sam,
Trevor and I headed off to the movies.

As soon as we were on our way the second
guessing began. Was I insane? How could this not be a train-wreck
in the making? I had no business declaring my feelings for this
man. Yes, he was really, really handsome and he looked young, but I
knew very good and well that he was not a kid like me. So what if
he was handsome? So was Ted Bundy. And, okay, it was a long-shot,
but what if he liked me too? Then what? Exactly what did I believe
I had to offer him—besides the opportunity to get fired while at
the same time discovering how very strange and so not worth it I
actually was? I’d never dated or come close to it—I had no idea
what to say or how to act. Oh yeah, this was a runaway train headed
straight for disaster gulch.

I tried not to think about what was
happening while I watched the movie. But I knew it was either one
of two things: Ash was figuring it out and making his response…or
he wasn’t. I had a feeling that the little jump drive would end up
back in my purse somehow before the movie was over and I’d have to
wait until I was home to see if he had added any response inside.
And then it occurred to me that maybe his response would be a
detailed rejection; and having a written refusal that I could
review over and over again might be the makings of Heartbreak
Debacle two-point-o.

I decided to focus on the movie and skip the
negativity until I had something for sure to be negative about. I
also decided to leave my purse behind in the seat next to me to
give him an extra opportunity to place my response, since by the
end of the movie there was no jump drive inside.

It was a pretty decent sized audience for a
matinee and it took a while to merge into the exiting crowd pushing
out the main aisle. Sam and Trevor had no problems cutting into
traffic because of the invisible barrier they enjoyed as part of
their special Goth super powers. If they’d been holding me between
them I could have gotten in on that, but I was lagging behind and
had to wait for an opening like a mortal.

I was thinking about how it would feel go to
a movie with Ash and hold hands on the way out, and all during the
movie, for that matter. As if in answer to my fantasizing I felt a
warm firm grasp around my left hand as I was pulled slightly
backwards and into the last row. I wasn’t scared, or even
surprised. He got my note…and just maybe…he liked it! Whatever the
case, he felt a face-to-face response was in order, and that had to
be a good thing.

He pulled me back towards the center of the
row, searching my face to make sure I wasn’t alarmed. What I was
could best be described as euphoric. His gorgeous, magnificent face
was peering down at my own, and his expression was every bit as
euphoric as mine had to be. Then he spoke to me.

“I think this is yours,” he said in a
smooth, quiet voice.

He still had my hand and turned it up to
place something small and plastic inside: a jump drive, but it
didn’t feel like mine. It felt like a different kind, with edges
that were more rounded.

Huh.

He closed my fingers around it and pulled my
hand up to the spot over his heart, resting it gently on his chest,
adding, “and this,” he said through lips graced with a wonderful
warm smile.

Yes! He loves me too! I knew it!

My instincts had told me he loved me but I
didn’t believe them, fearing disappointment or delusion. Now I
swore I’d never doubt them again. I didn’t care that he was a
grown-up or that he was sort of a stranger or that I had zero
experience in romantic situations. It felt like I was on some kind
of emotional autopilot and also bulletproof.

This was like a dream come true and since
something I’d always dreamed about was what it would feel like
having his hand on my cheek, I took a chance and moved his free
hand to the prerequisite spot. It felt every bit as good as I’d
imagined—soft and warm. And just like before, facing him was like
standing in the sun. I could feel my skin glowing in response to
his warming presence. My instinct was to reach up and kiss him, but
I wasn’t remotely bold enough for that so instead I turned his hand
that I was holding to my cheek and kissed the top of that. I wasn’t
bold enough for that either, but this was a new version of me with
feelings that overruled and shoved my shyness aside. I was a little
embarrassed with myself, but it felt so good I didn’t care.

He must have really liked that little move
because his breathing picked up and suddenly I was in his arms in
the middle of a wonderful close embrace. I squeezed him back as
hard as I could.

“I knew it,” I said softly, my words finally
catching up with my mind.

I could have held on to him like that
forever. After so many months of imagining it, the real thing felt
exactly as good and perfect and right as I had expected it
would.

But much too soon he let go and said, “I
have to leave. And you need to go back and get your purse,” a
little smugly, it seemed.

I considered our very recent embrace and the
jump-drive in my hand and thought, No, not really. I’ve got exactly
what I need right here.

Then he pulled my hand up and kissed the
top, just like a gentlemen from a BBC period piece.

“They’re coming,” he said softly, looking
over my shoulder at the now empty aisle.

We were the last people in the theater. He
needed me to go now.

“Oh, Okay. Here. Call me,” I said as I
awkwardly fished for an item in my pocket and then handed it over.
“I knew it” and “Here, call me” were my brilliant first lines but
mercifully he looked very happy with no trace of disapproval or
disappointment.

I had decided that if somehow he’d want to
engage me further after my jump drive inquiry, I should give him a
way to do that. As part of that plan, I had recently dug out the
cell phone I’d been given in Iceland along with the instruction
card with its phone number printed on the top. Now I handed him
that card and wondered how quickly I might hear from him, knowing
I’d be in a high haze until I did. He took the card from my hand
and kissed it, laughing a quick, self-conscious sounding laugh,
which pulled an involuntary nervous laugh out of me as well.

He’s even cuter than I thought! How is that
possible?

I couldn’t stand it and I had to look down
and walk away. At the end of the row I knew I was supposed to go
back to my seat, but I was having trouble remembering why.

Oh! My purse. Right.

I turned back around to look at him one more
time but he was already gone.

Chapter 19
–
Introduction

I was living in the happiest moment of my
life. I felt high. I’d never been high before, but I knew this is
what it felt like. Good thing I’d been with Sam and Trevor the
entire movie or they might accuse me of substance abuse. I needed
to get myself normal before I had to explain anything. Sam was
heading back into the theater when I bumped into her as we collided
at the corner where the end of the aisle met the vestibule leading
back out to the main hallway of the Cineplex.

“Where’d you go?”

She was slightly concerned.

“I…uh…forgot my purse,” I responded
truthfully.

She looked down at my hands to see if I was
at the beginning or the end of the process of handling that
situation.

Eyeing my purse she said, “Are you
ready?”

I am so ready! In fact, I might die of
readiness tonight.

Our plan was to head over to Graeter’s for
ice cream after the movie. It wouldn’t go over well and I might be
forced into a lie if I tried to talk my way out of that, so I just
had to settle into patient mode until I could get home and pace
like a caged animal in the privacy of my bedroom, waiting for him
to call me. Thinking about Ash calling me made me lose focus and I
tripped over nothing, very nearly performing a face plant. But
Trevor was close and caught me just in time.

“Hey there space cadet! You all right?”

He was amused. But I was too out of it to
give him the full helping of embarrassment to go along with it.

“I’m…uh…I’m…ready.”

They sensed and saw I was not right and
silently took up posts on either side of me, each taking an arm as
they guided me to Trevor’s car.

I don’t remember ordering any ice cream but
once we were at our table I was eating some. I put the spoon down
after a couple of bites. I just couldn’t do it. All my energy, even
the involuntary motion of eating double chocolate mousse, was
redirected into analyzing the new and euphoric landscape in which I
now resided.

Someone loved me! Not just someone, but the
one I loved! The risk of writing a pathetic plea for his affection
had paid off! Something was actually going right—incredibly
right—for the first time in my life. The feel of his hand on mine,
the look on his face, the warmth of his chest when he had indicated
that his heart belonged to me—it was all too much. But I was greedy
for it and I worked hard to horde all these happy feelings and
reflections into myself, letting nothing escape as best I could
without being too obvious.

“What’s wrong with Ellery?” Trevor asked
Sam, like I couldn’t hear.