A Total Waste of Makeup (32 page)

Okay—so back to the door. I stand in front of the door: makeup on, cute miniskirt on, Chanel No. 5 wafting about my neck, legs shaved, smile plastered on my face.

I am ready for my close-up!

I knock on the door, and wait.

No answer.

I knock again.

Damn it! He couldn’t have gone to breakfast alone. I look around the hall nervously. Now what?

Finally, being the discreet girl I am, I pound on the door and yell, “Jordan! Are you in there?! It’s Charlie!”

“Sorry! Hold on!” I hear from the other side of the door.

Whew.

Jordan opens the door, wearing nothing but a hotel robe, and he looks perfectly dreadful.

I mean, I didn’t know people could really turn a shade of green—I always thought that was just an expression. The only pink in his entire face is in his eyes.

I force a smile and pretend nothing is wrong. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Jordan says, then covers his mouth to burp. “I’m sorry I took so long. I was asleep.”

“Oh,” I say, at a loss. I stand in the doorway, stupidly waiting for him to let me in.

He doesn’t.

I look down the hallway nervously, buying myself some time. Nope, he’s really not going to ask me in. Finally I eke out, “I’m sorry I bothered you. I was just going to ask if you wanted to have breakfast with me.”

Jordan shakes his head as though trying to clear out the cobwebs. “Hmm? Oh…yeah. Breakfast. Okay. Do you want to come in?”

He opens the door for me, and takes a few steps backward as I walk in.

This is a bad idea. “You know what?” I say, taking a quick peek around to see how the other half lives. “You look wiped. Maybe I should come back later.”

“No, no. I just need to get changed,” Jordan says, taking my arm and gently leading me into the full-size living room area of the suite. “I’m afraid I’m a bit hungover this morning. Food would be good for me. Have a seat. I’ll be ready in a minute.”

He sits me down on the sectional sofa. “Can I get you anything?”

“No,” I say, forcing another smile. I watch as he walks over to the minibar, pulls out a bottle of Evian water, and downs it in one gulp. He looks miserable. He leans on the minibar for support, and rubs his temple.

I wince just watching him. “Can I get
you
anything?” I ask.

“Do you have any aspirin?” Jordan asks, furrowing his brow and rubbing his head.

“No,” I say apologetically. “But they probably sell some downstairs.”

Jordan nods, then walks silently to his bedroom and closes the door.

Feeling awkward, I take a look around the suite. There’s a dining room with a highly polished table for six. The living room could easily fit twenty. And they have an even more magnificent view of the Strip than we have in our room.

Plus two full bedrooms.

I wanna be rich.

Anyway, I look over at Jordan’s closed door. Feeling awkward, I yell to him, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come back later?”

“No,” he yells through the door. “Give me one more minute.”

Feeling uncomfortable, I grab a magazine from the coffee table and start leafing through it. There’s an article about Hawaii I turn to.

Hawaii. That sounds good. Pretty much anywhere but right here sounds good. Michigan—I hear it’s lovely this time of year. Or Pittsburgh.

Okay, think. All right. So he’s hungover. Which means, right now, according to my brother Jamie, that’s bad because…shit! Why is it bad? I need to get ahold of Jamie and find out how to act around a hungover man you have a desperate crush on.

Which means I need to get out of here for a minute. Now, how to do that?

I look over at the closed door and yell, “How about if I go down to the lobby and get you some aspirin?”

“No. Just give me one more minute,” Jordan yells back.

Damn it. All right, I know I’m obsessing, but I need to figure out how to handle a hungover man. Where would Jamie be right now?

Okay, he saw Kate this morning. He’s had a crush on her since he was thirteen. She is now available for the first time since he became legal, therefore, he is saying and doing anything he can right now to get past the velvet rope. And he’s known her for so many years, he should know exactly what to say and do.

What the hell? I’ll give it a shot. I pick up the phone and press the button for the front desk. “Can I have Kate Lopez’s room, please?” I ask in a whisper.

Kate’s phone rings. And rings. I start to put down the phone. Darn, I was sure they would have…“Hello,” Kate says.

“Hi!” I say, putting the phone back to my ear. “It’s Charlie. Um, I hate to bother you, but I was wondering if you knew where Jamie was. See, I’m with Jordan right now, and I—”

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s up?” Jamie says.

Sweetheart. You know he’s with a girl when he starts sounding like Sam Malone to his own sister. “I need some dating advice,” I whisper into the phone, hoping to God Jordan doesn’t open the door and hear me obsessing. “What do you do when you’re with a guy who’s hungover, but he won’t let you leave?”

“Whisper the name Kobe Bryant into his ear,” Jamie responds.

“That’s not funny. Besides, I didn’t sleep with him. What was that thing you said guys have when they’re hungover, and it makes them depressed?”

“Dopamine,” Jamie says. “But when they’re hungover, they don’t have it anymore. That’s why they’re depressed. That’s why you should never sleep with a man the first time when he’s drunk.”

“Oh my God, I totally read about that,” I overhear Kate say to Jamie. “That is so cool you know about stuff like that.”

“Well, I have two sisters. It makes me very sensitive to a woman’s feelings,” Jamie lies to her.

I can hear him starting to kiss her. And her kiss back. Now they’re making out, and I’m just the idiot on the other end of the phone listening to it.

“Hello?” I yell into the phone. “A little advice here.”

“Oh, sorry,” Jamie says. “Okay, it’s Jordan, right?”

“Duh.”

“Okay, well, right now he’s hating himself, not you. So go have breakfast with him, then let him sleep it off. Tonight, I’ll make sure we all do something together, and you can try hitting on him then.”

“Okay. That sounds like a plan,” I say, nodding my head even though he can’t see me. “Now make sure when you talk me up to him tonight you tell him…”

And I stop talking, realizing Jamie has already hung up.

I hang up the phone just as Jordan opens his door.

All I can think is—damn. Even sick as a dog, and just wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the man looks good.

Jordan runs his fingers through his damp hair. “So, where do you want to go?”

“Well,” I begin. “Caesar’s Palace has an all-you-can-eat buffet….”

Jordan clutches his stomach. I stop talking. He takes a deep breath (presumably to stop from dry heaving) and says, “I’m sorry. Right now, all-you-can-eat sounds a bit…overwhelming.”

“Fair enough,” I begin again. “Then we could go to a regular restaurant. There’s a nice restaurant at the MGM Grand we could walk to that has—”

“Walk?” Jordan interrupts with a tone of voice that adds,
Please, God, no.

“Or,” I say brightly, “we could go somewhere in the hotel, so we don’t have to walk.”

“Better!” Jordan says, and it’s the first time he’s sounded happy since I got to the room.

Our trip down to the lobby was pretty much silent, save one “You look very nice today” from Jordan on our way to the elevator, and one “Thank you” from me.

Once in the lobby, we go to a gift shop that sells aspirin in packages of two tablets per pack. Jordan buys three packs, and some Alka-Selzer for good measure.

I keep trying to start up a conversation. I go everywhere from politics to photography, from Aristotle to Christina Aguilera. I get nothing back.

We head to the hotel café for breakfast. The hostess leads us to a table, hands us menus, asks us if she can get us coffee (we both answer with a resounding “Yes!”), and leaves us to our nonexistent conversation.

“So,” I begin awkwardly, “Andy called Hunter last night after you left. He drove out here with all his bachelor party guys, including my brother.”

“I know,” Jordan says as he opens his packets of aspirin. “Your brother’s going to be camping out with us in our room tonight.”

“Oh,” I say, quelling the urge to say,
No, he won’t. He’ll be camping out with Kate.

Jordan puts all six aspirin in the palm of his hand and drowns them with the glass of ice water already set on our table. “So,” he says pleasantly, “what’s your story?”

He hasn’t asked it in a belligerent way—more like he’s making conversation. I try to craft a good response as a waitress with the nametag
MARCIA
puts down our coffees.

“You guys know what you want?” Marcia asks cheerfully, pulling out a pad and a ballpoint pen.

“Oh,” I say, quickly glancing at the menu even though I know exactly what I want. “I’ll take the ham and cheese omelet with extra cheese, and a side of bacon.”

“What kind of toast?”

“Wheat. Lots of butter.”

“Hashed browns?”

“Definitely.”

“Great. And you, sir?”

Jordan coughs into his fist, looking like he’s going to throw up. “Wow,” he says to me. “That’s a lot of food.” He turns to Marcia. “I think I’ll just have a bagel.”

By the way she looks at him, I can tell Marcia sees this all the time, and can feel his pain. She leans in and whispers, “Can I make a recommendation?”

“Sure.”

“Bloody Mary. A little hair of the dog, plus the tomato juice has something in it that helps the dehydration.”

Jordan smiles, embarrassed. “That sounds perfect. Does it come in a supersize?”

Marcia laughs politely, takes our menus, and leaves.

And we’re back to our awkward silence. Jordan rubs his eyes. I’m afraid he might go back to sleep right on our table.

“In what sense?” I ask, trying to get some sort of ball rolling.

“Hmm?” Jordan asks, sounding like I just woke him.

“You asked me about my story. In what sense?”

“Oh,” Jordan says, as if he just remembered the question. “Well, your younger sister’s getting married next week, you’ve just turned thirty…some women would be overthinking their life right now.”

Ouch. I take a moment to wince internally, then give what he’s saying some thought. He’s right, of course. I have been overthinking my life. “Truthfully?” I begin. “Yeah, I’m a little sad that I’m thirty, and I’m alone, and that I haven’t figured out everything in my life yet. But I’m not that sad. Most days, I’m pretty happy with my life. I like my job, I like my friends, I like the direction my life is going in. So I try not to dwell on the bad stuff.”

Okay, not completely true. But it sounded good, didn’t it?

Jordan eyes me suspiciously. “So, when you say ‘alone,’ what do you mean by that? I mean, obviously you have a lot of dates. A lot of guys interested.”

“Getting dates is never the problem,” I say, and I mean it. “Finding someone to love for the rest of your life—that’s the tricky part.”

“Hmm. Are you still seeing Dave?”

Again, very pleasant. No accusatory tone.

“No,” I answer back just as pleasantly, but emphatically. “I haven’t dated him since well before the wrap party. His phone call the night you were over was just an unfortunate coincidence.”

Jordan smiles. “Glad to hear it. What about Doug?”

Shit! I had forgotten all about Doug. “Hmmm. Doug,” I say, stalling for time.

When all else fails, try the truth.

“Well, honestly, I was interested, and then I wasn’t.”

“Why the sudden loss of interest?” Jordan asks, stirring some cream into his coffee.

I smile. “There was someone I liked more. And I just can’t seem to get him out of my head.”

I swear, he blushes.

“So what about you?” I ask. “Tell me about this ex-fiancée.”

Jordan fidgets in his seat. “Okay. What do you want to know about her?”

Everything and not a damn thing at once. Of course, I don’t say that.

And before I can ask anything, he interrupts my thoughts. “You know what, I’m having a really good time this weekend, and I’d prefer not to talk about her. Is that okay?”

“Okay,” I lie.

And we don’t talk about her for the rest of breakfast.

We do talk about colleges, art, Paris, the Mets (okay, no, I don’t talk about the Mets, but I’m a very good listener), Drew, other stars we’ve worked with,
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,
politics, Chinese food, and
Jeopardy!

The conversation wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either. Jordan was pleasant, but the look on his face let me know that he’d rather be anywhere but here.

We finish breakfast, Jordan pays the bill, and we head out to the lobby and casino floor.

“Did the Bloody Mary and aspirin help at all?” I ask weakly, ready to give up on my hot new romance.

“Yeah, it did, actually,” Jordan says. “Although I could really use a nap. Particularly if we’re going out again tonight.”

Phooey. Well, maybe I can find someone to hang out with at the pool.

And then out of the blue Jordan asks, “Do you want to come up with me? You look like you could use a nap yourself.”

“What, are you saying I look as bad as you right now?” I joke.

Jordan smiles bashfully, looks down at the carpet, and shakes his head. “No. I’m saying I came all the way to Vegas to hang out with you, and that’s what I want to do. But I’m not feeling well, and if I don’t take a nap, I won’t be any fun tonight. So, I figured if you joined me, I could do both.”

He looks up at me. I smile. “I would love to go take a nap with you.”

Jordan smiles the most beautiful smile, takes my hand, and walks with me toward the elevators. “You know how to spoon?” he asks.

“I do,” I say in a voice that’s a little too high and cute.

And we head up to his suite.

Twenty-Seven

Take lots of naps.

I wake up from my nap to see Jordan staring at me from his pillow.

Suddenly I am self-conscious. “What?” I ask.

He smiles. “Nothing.”