Thirty-One
I’m not sure how I make it through the rest of the Chanel party. Angular women strut in front of me in thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes and I react with smiles and appreciative nods for the cameras and eyes trained on my face. All this happens on the periphery of my mind because all I can think about is Sam’s leg brushing me when he moves and thanking every god in existence that the lipstick I wore tonight is layered with a varnish that would withstand a hurricane. Our balcony make-out session didn’t even smudge it, let alone leave the two of us with clown mouths. That’s a quality product worthy of a five-star Amazon review.
I can’t tell if the show ends too soon or too late, but at some point, we clap politely, stand, and go. Sam ushers me silently into our waiting car and sits beside me. Very close beside me.
He takes off the wig and brushes his hand over my short hair, which is sweaty and mussed from being under the equivalent of an insulated winter hat. “Gracie,” he says, his fingers tracing along my ear and pushing the wisps back.
I want this. How could I not? The man who’s burrowed himself in my mind is about to kiss me again. Luckily, there is no moment too romantic and no experience too wondrous that my brain cannot ruin.
“We need to talk about this,” I say, pushing him back.
The slashed brows almost meet in the middle. “About me kissing you?”
“More about why.”
He blinks. “Did you want the entire thought process or shall I summarize the highlights? I can probably manage a quick slide deck on my phone if you give me a few minutes. There’s a template I like.”
“There’s no need to be a jerk.”
He captures my hand in his and kisses my fingers, his lips warm on my skin. “I want to kiss you because I want to kiss you. I don’t know how to break it down. I can’t tell you that it’s twenty percent the way you smile at me when I help you out of the car, or sixteen percent the way you laugh at your own jokes.”
“Not that I look like Fangli?”
Sam grimaces. “I’ve had to kiss Fangli for weeks onstage and it’s like kissing my sister. You are not Fangli and I want you.”
His conviction is a bit ruinous to my self-restraint. “It’s that this is a very strange situation,” I explain.
“I like to think we’ve grown on each other.”
“Like a moss?”
“Or a mold.”
“You tell me you’re a good actor. I don’t know what to believe, if this is real or not.”
He thinks about this. “What would be the point of acting like I want you if I don’t? If I didn’t, there would be no need to fake that I did.”
This makes sense when he lays it out like that. “You could be pretending to like me because you want to get laid.”
His entire face creases in disgust. “Please. If meaningless sex was the only thing on my mind, I wouldn’t have a problem acquiring it.”
True enough. Sexiest Man in the World and all that.
“However,” he adds, “I’m excited to know you’re considering the possibility.”
“Sam.”
He sighs. “We agreed that we started off on the wrong foot, correct?”
“Correct.”
“We agreed we would begin fresh. We signed a contract.”
“We agreed, yes.”
He opens his hands wide as if that says it all.
“I’m a nobody.”
Sam glares at me. “Enough with that.”
“It’s true, though. Look at you. Rich, famous, and so on.”
He moves a bit away. “Is that all I am? That’s it?”
Shit, I put my foot in it. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Sure sounds like it.” His voice is wry.
“All I’m saying is that, given the society in which we live, which prioritizes fame and wealth and makes that desirable, being born in that perfect Punnett square of life means you can get whoever you want.”
“Why do you talk like this is a competition? I don’t want to get anyone. I like you, Gracie Reed. I like the Gracie who stood up for Fangli and made sure she got help when the rest of us were tiptoeing around it. I like the woman who is obsessed with time management techniques and whose towels fall off on a recurring basis.”
My face heats. “I was hoping you’d forget that happened.”
He snorts. “Me be able to forget you standing there with no towel? Never.”
“It was an accident.”
“That’s what made it great.” He smiles. “That’s the woman I want, the one who picks up the towel like it’s no big deal and doesn’t fuss about it. I want the one who, when asked to take part in the most idiotic plan I’d ever heard, decides to give it a go because she has enough confidence to pull off being Wei Fangli.”
No one has ever described me as confident but hearing it from Sam makes me realize maybe I am more than I thought. I mull this over as I try to tamp down the fireworks going off in my chest. “This is a short-term contract,” I say. “I’m going to be out of your life in a month.”
“A lot can happen in a month.” He moves back. “Gracie, you have no idea of the risks I take to be with you. Going for walks? Visiting your mom?”
“Those are not high-stakes activities. Lots of people walk around.”
“I am not lots of people. I know this plays into your need to see me as shallow and egotistical but my image is important. I’m cautious.”
I wiggle my eyebrows at him. “Making out on a balcony when anyone could have come around the corner?”
“This is exactly what I mean. You make me…” He throws himself back in the seat and runs his hands through his hair. “It’s like everything I thought was serious becomes less so when you’re around.”
“Am I offended at that? I think I might be.”
“I’m saying, obviously poorly, that you give me perspective. I’m grateful. I like it.” He shrugs, looking at the roof. “I like you.”
I want to quiz him on this a bit. Like as in the way I like hot showers? Like as in appreciates my company? Or, he like likes me? But I chicken out because I’m not sure I’m ready for the answer. It’s an emotional roller coaster of a night, to be frank, and part of me just wants to put off all talk of feelings until tomorrow.
Sam straightens up and looks at me, hands pressed flat against the seat. “Gracie, I’ve never forced a moment. I’m going to sit here. What happens next is up to you.”
He doesn’t even have time to finish before I’m on him. His hands come up to catch me around the waist, turning us to lean against the back of the seats. Kissing Sam is like nothing I’ve experienced. When Riley kissed me, it was always as if it was preparation for the main event. Sam kisses me as if it’s the destination, not the journey. He’s teasing, layering tiny kisses on the corners of my mouth before he captures my lower lip with his. Then he lets me go.
“Gracie?”
“Yes?” I give my head a shake to get my brain back in order. “What’s wrong?”
“You seem a little… Ahh.” He wriggles and I slowly grasp that I’ve been stiff-arming his shoulders.
“Sorry.” This time, he lets me take the lead and I can feel how his mouth melts under mine. Releasing his shoulders, I card my fingers through his hair and he groans against me. “Keep doing that,” he says.
A minute later, we push apart and he grins. “By the way, you looked to the left again,” he says.
“Should we stop?”
He runs his hand over my leg. “No, I think maybe we should practice.”
We do for the rest of the drive.
* * *
I don’t have sex with Sam, but only because I’m not that spontaneous and I want to shave above my knees first. Not even passion can get past my mental gatekeeper, the Dread Lady Overthinker.
The moment we arrive at the hotel, I rearrange my wig so we look like we’ve done nothing in the car but chat platonically and check our phones. My lipstick continues to be tonight’s real MVP, and I don’t need to touch it up at all.
Conscious of the security cameras, we don’t make out in the elevator, although Sam’s hair is disheveled and his lips are even fuller from kissing in the car. He leaves me chastely outside my suite, where I manage to lock the door and take a single step before I sink down on the wooden floor and curl up in a rictus of unbelieving happiness.
Which immediately turns to total terror. What have I done? We had a good thing going, a collegial thing, and I’ve blown that right out the window. What if he regrets this in the morning and it’s weird? What if Fangli is mad? What if I turn into a jealous shrew of a woman, furious this has to be kept secret from the world?
What if I get hurt? I haven’t been with a man since Riley. I should have at least taken a ride on the merry-go-round before I buckled in for the roller coaster.
There’s no one I can talk to. Fangli is asleep and so is Anjali. I don’t know what to say because I don’t know how I feel, exactly. It’s almost like the first time I had sex, where I wanted to tell everyone and also hug the secret to myself to savor it.
Too wired to do anything as banal as sleep, I putter around my suite tidying and thinking. Fretting. Sam put Todd out of my mind but now that I’m alone, I’m worried about what he’s going to do. My severance from work is safe but what if he comes looking for me? What if he tries to contact me or threaten us? He’s vindictive; I know that from how he treated people at work, how he treated me. I hate that the amount of real estate he should take up in my head should be the size of a hovel, a subcloset, but instead he’s living rent-free in a sprawling mansion.
A knock comes at the connecting door that leads to Fangli’s room. “Are you awake?” she asks through the door.
I open it. “Yeah.”
“I can’t sleep and I saw the light under your door.” Fangli rubs her eyes. “Can I come in for a bit?”
“Let’s sit on the balcony.” It would be nice to have the company and take my mind off worrying about Todd. But now that there’s another human near me, I’m almost bursting with my Sam news. That gets diverted almost immediately when Fangli touches my hand.
“You were the one who had Sam make me agree to talk to someone,” she says. “Thank you.”
“The decision was yours,” I say. “I think you were ready.”
“Sam’s been trying to get me help for years.” She takes her hand back, and the chair leg scratches as she shifts it along the concrete balcony. “I didn’t realize how heavily it weighed on him.”
“He was worried about you.”
“I know, but I didn’t want to admit it.” Fangli raises her face to watch the full moon flooding the sky. “I thought it would be death for my career. That’s what my manager said. He told me to cure myself because it wasn’t that bad.”
“Cure yourself?”
She glances at me out of the corner of her eye and gives me a small smile. “It didn’t work.”
“No, I imagine not. It didn’t for me.”
“You tried, too?”
“Failed the same way I wouldn’t be able to cure my own pneumonia or cancer through willpower.”
“I never thought of it like that.”
I think over what I want to say. “You said it would be bad for your career.”
“My manager said if it was known I had problems, no one would hire me. They would think I was unpredictable.”
“When was this?”
She thinks. “Five or six years ago.”
I make up my mind. “You’re more established now. Other people feel like us. It might help them to know they’re not alone, if you think that’s something you can do.”
The long silence makes me worry I’ve gone too far. Then her soft voice rises. “I think so, too. But I don’t have the courage.”
“You?” I twist in my chair. “Did you know one of the most common fears is speaking in public? You do it all the time. You put yourself out there with your art in front of a critical world. I could never do what you do. I don’t have the guts.”
She bursts out laughing and grabs my shoulder. “You don’t? What do you think you’ve been doing for a month? You’re the one who took a chance when I asked you to pretend to be me. Do you think most people would have the courage to do that?”
“I think it was the money.”
“No, you’re braver than you want to believe,” she says. She eyes me. “You like to pretend you’re not bold because it’s an excuse to not stretch yourself.”
I wince. “Harsh.”
“You helped me. This is me helping you. Sam told me about Eppy and how well you did filming with him. You can do whatever you set your mind to, Gracie. I’ve seen this in you but you need to see it in yourself. I believe in you.”
Have I ever had a pep talk like this? Mom loves me but she was more about setting realistic expectations to avoid disappointment and failure. I never had anyone tell me to dream. I’m not even sure I’ve ever had a talk with a friend like this before, at least not sober.
Fangli fetches a blanket from inside. “Cashmere or wool?” she asks as she spreads it over our knees.
“For what?”
She twitches the corner of the blanket. “What material do you prefer?”
“Neither. I like that synthetic stuff they make into stuffed animals. It’s so soft you can barely feel it on your fingertips.”
“I like cashmere,” she says in the comfortable tone of a woman who owns a lot of it. “Yak is good, too.”
“Yak?” I turn to see her face, pale in the moonlight. “Isn’t that, you know…yakky? Coarse?”
“Oh, no. The inner coat is very soft.”
I file that information away and we sit in the dark for a while longer, idly quizzing each other.
Pasta or rice?
Train or plane?
Dramas or comedies?
Despite our disagreement about the best blanket fiber, we are eerily in sync for the rest of our choices. Finally we both yawn in unison.
“Back to bed,” I say, happy to have distracted myself back to exhaustion.
Fangli leans over to give me a hug before she stands up to go. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I drag myself into the bathroom to shower. The water washes away some of my unease and after towel-drying my hair, I collapse into bed. Todd crosses my mind and I force his nasty face away with a physical gesture.
Tomorrow I can worry about this.
Tonight, I’m going to dream about what I want. Eppy. A job. Freedom. Mom safe and happy.
And maybe a bit about kissing Sam.