Fanfare (7 page)

I decided about halfway through the drive to Atlanta that I would use this opportunity to cement in both our minds that we were destined to be passing friends. Of course, I was still pretty sure he didn’t want anything more than that anyway, so that conversation was probably not going to be too difficult. Surprisingly fascinating or not, I was newly damaged . . . definitely more of a project than anyone should willingly take on for the moment. I hoped I didn’t have to tell him what had happened to me. I’d avoid it at all cost if I could help it, as it was excruciatingly embarrassing to tell anyone that I’d been cast aside for some bimbo my fiancé had known for all of two minutes. Four years of solidarity thrown away for two minutes of spontaneity. Men were such a pain in the ass to understand.

I called when I was sixty miles away from Atlanta.

“Cris?”

“Hey. I’m about an hour away. Where should I go?”

“Do you know how to get to Peachtree Street? I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton,” he said quietly. I assumed he was in a room with other people who might be listening to his conversation. I heard the slight din of voices in the background.

“Swanky.”

“Hah. Just check-in under your name and then call my cell once you’re settled. I’ll send my agent Melissa to get you.”

“Okay. Um, is there something you want to do?”

“Well, I’m actually getting ready to leave a press conference. I’m free for the rest of the evening.”

“I guess we can figure it out whenever I get there,” I said with a slight sound of unease. I still had no idea why he wanted to hang out with me.

“Sure. See you soon.”

“Bye.” After I hung up the phone, I spent the rest of the car ride trying to quell the confusion and focused on being myself. I was sure to have a better time if I didn’t feel so completely bewildered and uncertain by this situation. Cris Pereira was not a girl who suffered from a lack of confidence . . . I just suffered from an apparent inability to maintain control of my life.

The life that I had sought to create for myself with a careful precision akin to delicately constructing a house of cards had been decimated by an errant blonde breeze named Amber . . . seriously, her freaking name was Amber. Wasn’t that the quintessential stripper name? Now, anytime I heard the name “Amber,” I became irrationally angry, as though it were my trigger word. For a moment I thought of that scene in the movie Zoolander where Ben Stiller’s character was brainwashed into killing a Prime Minister by the song Relax. Hah! If only. . . .

I pulled into a space in the parking deck of the Ritz and checked in. Whoever had made the reservation spelled my name correctly. Pretty shocking. I walked into my room and took the requisite look around before calling Tom’s cell phone. He told me that Melissa would be downstairs in ten minutes to bring me to his suite, so I took the time to brush my teeth and run a comb through my hair.

I had decided not to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over what to wear. This wasn’t a date, and I wasn’t interested in having him walk away with any impression about my appearance other than boring normalcy. If it looked like I tried too hard, it wouldn’t serve me well on that account. I opted to wear some of my comfortable jeans and a long-sleeved, fitted black top. It was my favorite shirt because a multi-colored, Warhol-esque depiction of Che Guevara was emblazoned on the front. It was a screaming shout-out to my heritage, and my father had loved to see me in it. I wore simple black flats even though heels would have better served to hide the fact that I was a vertically challenged five-foot-two. My people were not celebrated for their height. Instead of growing upwards, God blessed us with the burgeoning backsides that gave rise to Jennifer Lopez’s infamous insurance policy. No matter how much I worked out, I could never hide that part of my genetic inheritance. My hair was slightly wavy in spite of all the torturous attempts to flatten it, and I wore a bit of powder and mascara. Clean and neat . . . nothing that appeared to have taken any extra effort.

A knock at the door startled me from the studious glance of my appearance in the bathroom mirror. I walked to the door and slowly pulled it open. The woman in front of me appeared to be around forty, and her dark blonde hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail that looked like it might be giving her a tension headache. She was pale, and her visage appeared to be utterly no-nonsense. Her clothes were perfectly pressed and tailored to her extremely thin frame.

In ten words or less: this lady did not take shit from anybody.

“My name is Melissa Nash. I’m Thomas’s agent. He asked me to bring you upstairs to the suite.”

She didn’t blink or look me in the eyes once. In fact, it appeared as though she had chosen to introduce herself to a spot on the wall behind me. If I had to venture a guess, she was not a member of my fan club.

“Hi Melissa. I’m Cris,” I said as cheerfully as possible. I threw her a sunny smile in an attempt to defrost her icy demeanor. I failed.

She raised her eyebrows at me as she stared at my face for the first time. She probably thought the same thing I did: Why does he want to spend time with her?

“Follow me.” She turned. I had to quickly grab my purse and jacket from the bed in order to keep up with her.

Following her down the hall reminded me of being in grammar school in Puerto Rico. I had always been an innately curious child and easily distracted by things around me. As a result, I usually fought to catch up with the person in front of me. We walked down the hall in linear formation because I could barely keep up with Melissa Nash. I felt utterly ridiculous running behind her to match her long strides—the preying mantis and the tiny ant.

When we stepped into the elevator, she turned to look at me again with her frosty grey eyes. “Thomas wouldn’t want me to say this to you, but I feel that it’s incumbent upon me to state that discretion is key when socializing with him. If you attempt to abuse this situation in any way, it will not work out to your advantage in the end.”

“Damn, and I thought I was blunt,” I responded caustically. If she was going to a bitch, she had better be able to take what she could dish.

The eyebrows arched again. “It’s my job to sift through the bullshit and get to the point.”

“And I’m sure you do your job very well. I have no intention of abusing anything. I know you don’t have to trust me, but I also don’t have to like you.” Awesome, Cris . . . off to a rip-roaring good start in the world of Hollywood.

“Fair enough. Don’t do anything stupid and we’ll get along passably.” She looked away from me again with dismissive arrogance.

I pursed my lips in irritation. This evil preying mantis thought I was a gold-digging skank out to capture as many moments as I could sell to the highest bidding paparazzo. I wasn’t even going to go through the trouble of trying to prove her wrong. I was certain that she believed unfailingly in her ability to accurately judge others. She was not going to let a tiny Puerto Rican girl prove her wrong. After years of fighting to make everyone like me, I’d realized that sometimes it was just impossible. You can’t fight a war with a psycho and expect to win anything but battle scars. Win the battle, lose the war kind of stuff.

As the elevator doors opened onto the highest floor, I gazed about, and the nervousness returned with a vengeance. Two burly-looking security guards dressed in black stood on either side of large double-doors directly in front of me. I felt like a kid in my Che shirt and jeans. They nodded to Melissa and opened one of the doors. I shot the security guard on my right a look that must have made him feel bad for me because he winked and smiled kindly. I returned the gesture. At least now he might hesitate before dragging me out of the suite at the first mistake I made and tossing me unceremoniously onto Peachtree Street.

Thomas was deep in amused conversation with another man whose appearance almost made me laugh out loud. He looked like an absurd cartoon character who wore tight, black pants and a grey turtleneck sweater that hugged his small body. He had dark brown facial hair on his pointed chin that was cut in zigzag patterns up his jaw line. He wore many rings on his fingers and a large watch that sparkled even from halfway across the room. Zorro meets Liberace. Excellent.

Tom turned when he heard the tapping of Melissa’s heels on the marble in front of me.

“Cris!” There was no way to ignore the broad smile on his face when he saw me. I grinned back at him in an effort to hide my awkwardness and discomfort.

“Che?” Zorro asked with puzzlement as he stared at my shirt. “¿De donde sos?”

“Puerto Rico. My father’s originally from Cuba.” It was a lame explanation for why I wore a shirt with an Argentinean Marxist’s face emblazoned on it, but he asked.

“Well, I certainly didn’t think you were from my homeland, not with that ass . . . it’s good to know I can still tell the difference,” Zorro said with the flamboyant air I had come to expect from an incredibly secure gay man. I’d bet money on it. His accent was cultivated in a manner that was especially meant to impress exoticism on anyone foolish enough to believe in its full authenticity. He most likely spoke English better than many people born and raised in the States. In spite of all his affectations, I was going to like this guy who smiled at me while scrutinizing every last detail of my appearance.

“Cris, this is Esteban Alvarez. He’s in charge of making me look decent,” Thomas said with a comfortable grin in Zorro’s direction.

“And it’s incredibly fucking hard. He’s impossible to work with. Such a man. Jeans and T-shirt type . . . no taste at all. Well, at least you’re not a disaster. He wasn’t lying about that. We are going to need to work on your wardrobe, though.” Esteban drawled and gesticulated the entire time he spoke. I could not help the smile that grew on my face.

“Thanks?” I said pseudo-sarcastically as I arched my eyebrows with amusement.

“Oh, you are cute. You’re welcome.” He smirked back at me with a look of begrudging acceptance. Esteban and I would get along well. Thank God. After dealing with the Preying Mantis, it was nice to know I had one kindred spirit amongst Tom’s entourage.

“So,” Tom said as he put his hands together in a staid gesture while looking at me expectantly. “What should we do?”

“Well, that depends on what you’d like to do. I’ve only been to Atlanta a few times, and I’m most familiar with a rather unconventional part of it.” I smiled in memory as I said the words.

“And what part would that be?” he queried.

“Koreatown.”

“Ah, K-pop took you there,” he said with a grin.

“Yup. There are some killer Korean barbeque joints out there.”

“Well, I’ve never actually tried Korean barbeque, so maybe we should check it out!”

His enthusiasm made him even more charming. I had been so focused on his face when I first walked in that I hadn’t really taken much time to observe what he wore. His leisurely dark jeans and a long-sleeved knit shirt in a chocolate brown color made him look completely normal and unobtrusive. It was almost as though we had been precisely in sync with regards to keeping things simple. I found it immensely reassuring.

“Well, we’re going to need to drive. It’s about half an hour away from here in Duluth.”

“Thomas,” Melissa interrupted. She stood beside me and listened to our planning with the look of a hawk circling above, waiting for her prey’s misstep. “I don’t think it’s advisable to just go off on your own to God-knows-where with someone you hardly know.”

Honestly, I agreed with her . . . though my eyes still narrowed in irritation at her insinuation. Preying Mantis was going to be a major pain in the ass.

“Melissa, you’ve made your objections clear . . . several times. I’ll be fine. I’m also not interested in taking Jim or Marcus with me. I don’t think it will be necessary.”

She pursed her lips and shot me an excellent go-to-hell look. Not to be outdone, I responded in kind. Man, she had at least eight inches on me. Zorro covered his mouth to stifle a small burst of laughter, and Tom smiled crookedly at me with barely-concealed amusement.

“So, where’s your car?” Tom asked as he moved around the sofa between us to stand closer to me. I felt a small adrenaline rush pulse through my body to see his face so clearly for the first time since the day I met him. As I attempted to quell my quaking nerves, my mind digested his words.

“You want me to drive?” The surprise in my voice was unmistakable.

“Well, you won’t want me to drive. The whole left-side of the road thing has really mucked up my eye-hand coordination. Plus, I was never a very good driver to begin with.”

“Okay. No complaining about my driving, though,” I said firmly.

Preying Mantis let out an overtly audible huff of frustration as we passed her to walk towards the door. She probably was not used to having her concerns left so unaddressed. One of the bodyguards rode down the elevator with us to the parking area and walked to my car to make sure we were both safely situated before he silently turned around to return to his post.

As I put my key in the ignition, I realized with a sudden jolt that this was the first time we had ever been alone. He must have come to the same conclusion as I had because we just sat there for a moment and stared at one another. The smile on his face spread slowly and made its way over to me with infectious effect until we both grinned widely. My cheeks flushed with pleasure at the warm look in his eyes.

“So, in case I forget to tell you later, I’m really glad you came.” His soft voice held a note of shyness that further emphasized the surprising normality of the man sitting next to me.

“Well, in case I forget to tell you later, it’s still shitty that I had to come and get my own iPod.”

“I’ll try to make it up to you. Shall we?” He gazed pointedly at the wheel with a smile.

I backed out of the spot and peeled onto Peachtree Street. We drove in silence for a few minutes until we reached the freeway.

“Holy shit!” he sputtered as I merged into traffic. “You drive like an absolute lunatic!” He grasped the handle above the window so tightly his knuckles turned white.