He's Come Undone (4 page)

~ Ellie ~

I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.

That’s what my T-shirt said as I pretend jogged along the Mississippi River. The T-shirt with the Holden Caulfield quote was part of Operation
Catcher in the Rye.
Luckily I’d read
Catcher in the Rye
maybe ten times, so it would be easy to talk about the book.

As my new jogging shoes slapped the surface of the trail made of a kind of blacktop that was supposed to be easy on a person’s knees, my brain wandered back to something I’d been struggling with—I didn’t like what I was doing. I wanted to quit.

But I’d signed a contract.

Yeah, but that was more just confidentiality. I could tell them it wasn’t working out, that he wasn’t attracted to me. A lie.

Bloody hell. What had I gotten myself into?

I stopped and leaned forward, both hands braced on my knees as I pulled air into my burning lungs. How far had I gone? Two blocks? Three? I’d been on the trail for a half hour, running a little, stopping to catch my breath, taking off again, all in hopes of meeting Julian face-to-face.

What I really wanted?

This was crazy, but what I really wanted was to undo all of this. Go back to the day outside the bar when my hair was my real hair, and my clothes were my real clothes. And when he asked if I needed help, not run. Stay and talk to him.

Oh, my God. So fast.

It had happened so fast.

I’d fallen for him.

Like all of those other girls.

And I wanted him to like the real me.

Pathetic.

Once I realized I couldn’t quit thinking about him, and once I realized I had a major crush on a guy who had sex with girls and then discarded them, I wanted out. I wanted to meet him with my real self so I could have sex and be discarded.

No, wait.

And anyway, he’d hate me. Hate me! Maybe hate was too strong a word. He wouldn’t be attracted to me. He’d never like the real me, and this was where my internal battle came from.

Now, as I fake jogged, my mind kept creating these scenarios where he really did fall for me. But not me. The blond bombshell me.

I decided I’d try to be myself, or as much myself as possible, given the situation. I thought this as I pretend jogged and kept my violet-contact-lens eyes peeled for Julian.

I’d remain true to my
core
self. That’s it. I might pretend to jog, but I’d try not to say stuff I wouldn’t really say, and my reactions would be
real.

But then I chided myself and asked why I was taking this position. What did it matter? The end result would be the same if things went according to plan. Wouldn’t it be better if he got dumped by a made-up girl who wasn’t at all like me?

Oh, God. There he is.

On the trail. Jogging toward me with his curly hair and bare chest.

The day wasn’t that warm, maybe sixty, but there was no wind and the sun was shining, and according to Charlotte he’d probably put in five miles at this point, and who needs a shirt when you have your own furnace? The idea of his endurance kind of made my knees go weak—unless that was a result of the fake jogging.

I took off, trying to look like a pro, imitating the posture and arm position of joggers who’d whooshed past me. As the distance between us closed, I pretended to be focused on something in my head, going for the burn or whatever. La, la, la.

There he was. Getting closer, looking, slowing.

I kept moving.

“Ellie?”

By this time we’d met and passed.

I stopped, turned, then acted surprised to see him.

“Oh, hi!” I said.

He smiled.

There in his gray shorts and bare chest and lovely legs and curly hair. “You run,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“That’s great.”

He walked over to me. “I’ll run with you.”

“That’s okay. Don’t turn around for me. I’m sure you have a certain route.”

“I do, but I’d rather run with you.” He took a few strides, paused, waited for me. I took off, falling into step beside him. I had to get out of this somehow.

We passed a park bench. I looked at it longingly.

By the time we passed another bench, my lungs were on fire and I was trying to hide my panting. I couldn’t continue.

So I began limping. I grimaced.

He stopped.

“Go ahead,” I motioned him on. “I’ve got a leg cramp. You keep going. I’ll be okay.” So much for the plan to keep my lying to a minimum.

He didn’t leave. He walked over to my side, taking me by the elbow, leading me to a grassy area. “Keep walking,” he said. “You have to walk it off, otherwise it’ll get worse.”

So I kind of limped around, then slowly began to walk normally. “I think I’m okay now,” I told him. “But I’m done for the day. You go on.”

“I’m done for the day too.”

This was not his normal pattern. His typical jog usually took him another few miles. I wasn’t the only liar here.

He tugged the T-shirt from the waistband of his shorts and slipped his arms in the sleeves, then with both hands he pulled the shirt over his head and down his ripped torso.

Sigh.

“Hey.” He pointed to my shirt. “
Catcher in the Rye
.”

I looked down at my boobs and the writing across my chest. “You’re the first person to point that out.”

Not a lie, since I’d only been wearing the shirt for an hour.

“I love that book.”

“Me too.”

Side-by-side, we walked to a park bench that overlooked the Mississippi and sat down. On the opposite bank, the leaves were a gorgeous red and orange, and the sunlight sparkled off the water. I could smell fall, and the moment felt like something profound, something that made my heart swell. And then I remembered my deceit, and the beauty of the day dimmed.

“So, have you been beating up any more drunks?” he asked, smiling at me in an almost shy way. Or was that part of his thing? This shy, kind of sweet guy? Was that an act? Were we both acting? Because the shy sweet guy didn’t match the creep I’d signed up to trick. The heart I’d signed up to break.

I couldn’t do this. I had to stop. I had to tell the girls.

“I have a confession to make,” I said.

“Oh?”

“I just started jogging.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re doing it. That’s the important thing. How many miles are you up to?”

“Five blocks.”

He burst out laughing. Like tossed his head back and let go. Then he looked at me with a smile and shake of his head. “I’ve never met anybody like you.”

“You don’t even know me,” I pointed out.

“I don’t know any female who’d jump on some guy’s back like you did the other night. And to rescue me.”

“I just saw the need.”

“That’s the thing. Most people would see the need and ignore the need. You never hesitated. You just dove in. That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. And you even did it in a dress. They say you never really know someone until you see how they respond in a crisis. That told me pretty much everything I need to know about you right there in the space of a few seconds. And not only that-—” He pointed to my chest.

“You like my boobs?”

“No, well, maybe. Yeah, but I’m talking about
Catcher in the Rye
. You like it enough to wear a quote on your chest. I’m taking a class on Salinger right now. Love it. I’m thinking of writing my term paper on fame and how it destroys some people.”

If he only knew.

“Do you think that’s why Salinger became a recluse and never published another novel?” I asked. “I sometimes wonder what would have happened if
Catcher in the Rye
hadn’t done very well. Would he have published more books?”

“I don’t know. Think about how different things were back then. No social media. No paparazzi, at least not the kind we have today. But at a time when people were used to a lot more privacy, he was put under a microscope. And not only that. Think about the praise that was lavished on him for years. For the rest of his life, really. How does a person cope with that? He vanishes.”

I nodded. Fame was a hard and weird thing. And it was another thing to have fame taken away. To go from being the center of everything, to being the center of nothing. You get used to the praise until it’s almost an addiction, until you need it more than food. “I think he became a recluse because he was smart. He knew he needed to remove himself from the adoration because that’s abnormal.”

“I think so too.”

I suddenly realized it was getting late. I needed to get back to where I’d stashed my bike before hitting the trail. “I’ve gotta go,” I said, getting to my feet.

“How’s the leg?”

I looked at him blankly, then remembered and took a few test steps. “Seems to be fine.”

“That’s good. Drink a lot of water when you get home.”

“I’ll do that.”

“I’d offer to give you a ride, but…” He smiled that smile again. “No car.”

“That’s okay. Thanks.” I was walking away when he called after me. I stopped and turned.

“Coffee? Sometime?”

He was persistent, but I remembered the script. Play it cool. Play hard-to-get. “I don’t think so, Julian—that’s your name, right?”

Small nod, mixed well with an expression of hope.

“I just got out of a relationship,” I lied, “And I’m kind of enjoying my freedom.”

“I don’t want to put you in a cage or anything. Just coffee.”

“Thanks, but…” My words trailed off. I gave him a smile, then turned and walked in the opposite direction. A bit later, I glanced over my shoulder to see him running down the trail, away from me.

~ Ellie ~

If this were a real script, we’d be at the montage of various “accidental” meets. Where
oops
, I almost crashed into him in the hallway outside his Salinger class, my books spilling to the ground, Julian helping me pick them up, finding more Salinger books.
Franny and Zooey
,
Raise the Roofbeam
, and
For Esme
. And oh, my—condoms.

This heavy-handed staging was Paige’s idea. I would have red-inked it as being too obvious, but once she put the idea out there the other girls applauded while I rolled my eyes.

And I have to admit it was interesting to see Julian’s reaction as he handed me the condoms. I’m pretty sure he blushed. Condoms and J.D. Salinger.

Instead of stuffing them in my backpack, I deliberately held them in my hand, the books and the condoms, as we talked. Then, without a ruffle, I slowly put it all away.

He asked if I liked movies.

The M word was getting too close to my own territory, and I might have accidentally displayed an unscripted reaction, which was a flinch.

Because of course I liked movies. Movies had once been my life, and deep down they were still my life. I continued to devour director autobiographies, especially the ones that dealt with craft, and I was a rabid fan of French New Wave and directors like François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. And oh, my God, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman had stolen my heart. But I couldn’t tell Julian that. It was all too close to this gig and the truth of who I was.

“Do you like David Lynch?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure how to play this.

“There’s a
Twin Peaks
marathon at the Oak Street this weekend,” he explained. “And there’s a Hitchcock thing at the Riverview. I think they’re screening
Rear Window
and
The Birds
.”

I was a huge fan of both Lynch and Hitchcock. “I might be going,” I said evasively.

“Which one? Hitchcock or Lynch?”

“That’s a tough one.” Absolute truth. “Maybe because it’s October, but I’m kinda in a Hitchcock mood, so I’ll probably go to that.” Before he could make his move, I blocked him. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Yeah.”

And then I left.

* * *

A
job. This was a job
, I kept reminding myself. And really, that’s the only way I could think about it. A job. An acting job with different scenes and different marks to hit. And in between those scenes, I either forced myself to not think about what I was doing, or I defaulted back to the guy needing to be taken down.

But of course doubts arose, this voice in the back of my head that I kept suppressed most of the time, but when it occasionally surfaced I had to beat it down with a Whac-A-Mole mallet. This was a
job
. A paying gig, and Julian Dye was a user, a manwhore.

* * *

The Riverview was one of those cool vintage theaters that had been in Minneapolis forever. They’d probably replaced the seats a few times, but everything else was like a time machine to the sixties. The pastel colors, the weird ceiling lights, the mint-green sinks in the bathroom, and the black-and-white tile.

I spotted Julian as soon as I stepped inside the lobby. Dressed in jeans and a gray sweater—plain clothes that made him shine, made me more aware of how beautiful he was with those long legs, firm chest, sharp jaw line, hair over his forehead and ears. He already had his ticket, but with hands in the front pockets of his jeans he talked to me while I waited in line, and then he walked to the refreshment counter where we both got popcorn and a drink.

“Mind if I sit with you?” he asked.

I tossed some popcorn in my mouth and shrugged. “Sure.”

Any real movie buff will tell you the middle of the theater is the prime spot. We sat in the back. The movie ended up being
Vertigo.
Vertigo! I thought it was going to be
Rear Window.
I’d probably seen
Vertigo
five times, but as the plot played out I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable.

Spoilers ahead, but
Vertigo
is about a woman who takes on a secret identity, gets Jimmy Stewart to fall in love with her, then she vanishes only to reappear with different colored hair and really new eyebrows. He finally realizes her deception, but is driven a little mad by the whole thing. A lot mad.

I stuck it out and tried not to squirm, and when it was over and we were in the bright lobby, Julian asked if I wanted to go somewhere for a beer.

This could be my chance to move directly to the last scene. A drink, then his place. But that wasn’t long enough to break someone’s heart.

I went for the drink, and after two beers I told him I had to go. I left him there. He looked startled, and I had to wonder if any girl had ever left him anywhere before. No.

After
Vertigo
, there were more movies and more drinks and more coffee shops, more jogging and accidental meets that weren’t accidental. One bowling gig where I finally gave him my phone number, and he began texting me at odd hours and I would text him back. We talked about stuff that interested us both, some silly, some serious.

He finally confessed that he was a fan of
Doctor Who
. I was too, and I didn’t have to lie about it. That led to text conversations about the best Doctor. Mine was David Tennant, because really? How could it not be? Julian was old-school
Who
, and preferred Tom Baker. Good choice.

I began to look forward to his texts. The ones that came early in the morning, and the ones that came late at night, the timing of the text telling me he wasn’t sleeping with anyone.

The deeper stuff we got into? This took me completely by surprise, but one day at a coffee shop I suddenly found myself talking about my mom’s cancer and how I’d taken care of her until she died. I don’t know how that personal revelation surfaced. I just started talking about death before I really knew what I was doing. And once I put it out there, it was too late. And once I got going, I had a hard time shutting up.

“Nobody gets it,” I said. “Death. They just don’t understand it. Sometimes I feel so alienated from people my own age, you know?” I was engrossed in finally sharing my story with someone, the mad pounding of my heart overriding logical thought. And maybe I felt kind of safe unloading on him since he’d never connect the dots, and he’d never know the whole story of Ellie Barlow.

I was so wrapped up in unloading the mother thing and the cancer thing that it took me a while to notice that he was staring at me with a stricken expression on his face. I can’t even describe it, because it was just so odd. Like he suddenly wanted to be anywhere but there, talking to me. Panic in his eyes, followed by a darkness that came over his face, his whole body language changing to that of someone I didn’t even remotely know.

This time he was the one who left. “I have to go,” he said woodenly.

He tossed some money on the table, got up, and almost ran from the café.

People sure didn’t like to talk about death. And then my next thought: Had I blown everything?

* * *

Back at the loft, Devon stopped me as I shot for my room to change clothes. He spun his laptop around on the kitchen island. “Have you seen this video?”

I joined him and he hit Play while we both hunkered down in front of the small screen. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on. A dark bar. Noise. Screaming and chaos. A girl with blond hair and a red dress. Jumping on a guy’s back while she bopped him in the side of the head.

Oh.

My.

God.

Devon paused the video so he could look at me with a huge grin. “Yeah.” Back to the laptop. “You haven’t seen the best part.” He hit Play again, and the noise and chaos continued, the final few seconds of me falling to the floor, my dress around my waist.

“That’s maybe the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen,” Devon said. “It’s already had 500,000 hits.”

And then I noticed the title:
Who’s That Girl
?

Several thoughts collided in my brain at the same time. Had Julian seen it? No, probably not, otherwise he’d have said something. But my biggest concern was my newly-minted anonymity. If this went viral—and it looked like that’s where it was heading-—somebody might figure out who that girl was.

Shit, shit, shit.

“You’re gonna be famous,” Devon said, playing the video again, giggling every damn time. “Maybe this’ll even get you an acting job. Maybe you’ll get interviewed on one of those lame morning shows. Yeah, that’s what’ll happen. They’ll fly you to New York and put you up in some fancy hotel, and the next morning you’ll go from one set to the other doing interviews. Hey, maybe you can even get on
Letterman
or
Fallon
. Or
Conan
. This is the kind of stuff Conan would really dig. That way you could go to Hollywood. Next thing you know, somebody will be offering you a sitcom or a movie role.”

“That’s not gonna happen.” I felt like throwing up. “None of that’s gonna happen.”

“Something’s gonna happen,” Devon said. “This has only been up about twelve hours. This’ll be big. Big.”

Time to come clean. “I have something to tell you. About me.”

When he saw how serious I was, his smile faded and he pulled up a stool and sat down, chin to hand. “I’m here for you.”

So I told him. “I’ve done Hollywood. Years ago. I used to be in a fairly popular TV show that a lot of pre-teen girls watched. It was called
Mad Maddy
.”

His eyes widened. “Oh, my God. You’re Mad Maddy! My sister watched that show all the time. She wouldn’t miss it!” Then he frowned. “I kind of remember some big stink about money and your mom. Like that typical shit where the mother steals it all and you took her to court.”

“Yeah. That happened. She was my manager, and she was supposed to be putting a big chunk of my earnings into a trust fund. Instead, she blew it all. Every cent.”

“That sucks so much. Do you have any contact with her?”

“She died two years ago. Turned up at my door in LA with nothing. Had cancer. I took her in.”

“Wow.” He looked stunned. “Just wow.”

“Yeah. I didn’t tell you earlier because… well, when I rented this place I didn’t even know you, and I wanted to start over. I wanted to leave all that behind.”

“I get it. I totally get it.”

“You can’t tell anybody.”

“My lips are sealed.” He stared at me in this thoughtful way, then got to his feet and pulled me toward the stool he’d just vacated. “Sit down.”

I sat.

“Relax and close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes, but I didn’t relax.

And then I felt something against my scalp. He was combing my hair. Very slowly dragging the plastic teeth of a comb against my scalp from the front to the nape of my neck.

“How’s that feel?” he asked.

I sighed. “Like heaven.” Why did it feel so good to have someone mess with your hair?

As he combed, he began to hum to himself, some soothing little tune. “I could give you a great updo.”

“I’d love that.”

Then he said, “That video is still funny as hell.”

I agreed.