Seven
THE NEXT MORNING, I drove west out Interstate 10 with Jack Stapleton in his shiny black Range Rover to meet his parents—fully in character as his pretend girlfriend.
Glenn had sent over a pretend wardrobe for the pretend girlfriend, courtesy of a personal-shopper lady friend of his. No pantsuits allowed.
Fair enough.
That’s how I wound up wearing an embroidered sundress with sandals, my hair wrapped in a messy bun.
I guess it’s hard to feel professional in a sundress with puffy cap sleeves. It was late October, I should mention, but that can mean anything in Texas, weather-wise—and it was a solid eighty degrees outside. Even so, I felt underprepared, a little bit chilly, weirdly naked, and uncharacteristically vulnerable.
I missed my pantsuit, is what I’m saying.
And yet.
I could see why Jack would want to do it this way. When my mom was sick, I’d been all about bolstering her spirits, and keeping her hopes alive, and protecting her from despair. I got it. The idea that Jack might be in danger could be very stressful. It’s hard enough being sick.
I’d thought about it last night as I’d driven the freeway—doing a quick route assessment out to the ranch and back—and I decided I was fine with it.
In theory, at least.
Now, today, as it was actually happening, I was less fine.
I sat primly in the passenger seat with my knees pressed together, feeling not myself.
Jack Stapleton, in contrast, positively lounged in the driver’s seat, steering with one hand and manspreading like a champion. Hair unbrushed defiantly. Chewing gum. Wearing aviator sunglasses like he’d been born in them.
We were going to a ranch, so I guess I’d expected a cowboy look from him. But he seemed more like we were heading for a weekend at the Cape—a snug blue polo and stone-colored khakis with loafers and no socks.
True, I grew up in Houston. You might guess I’d been to a ranch before. But, honestly, no. I’d been to the Eiffel Tower, the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal, and the Forbidden City in Beijing, but I’d never been to a Texas ranch.
I guess I was always too busy escaping.
Until now.
I touched the skin of my knees and worried about how naked they were. Should I have worn jeans? Did I need to worry about rattlesnakes? Fire ants? Cacti?
I had a pair of stop-sign-red cowboy boots that my mom had given me for my eighteenth birthday, saying every Texas girl should own a pair of boots. I’d never had a good reason to wear them until now. They weren’t part of my official girlfriend wardrobe, but I’d packed them on principle. Right? If I wouldn’t wear them on a ranch, I’d never wear them anywhere.
Maybe I should put them on. For tarantula protection, if not for style.
Behind his shades, I saw Jack glance over at my hands. “Are you nervous?” he asked.
Yes. “No.”
“Good. This won’t last long. My parents will be glad to see us, but my brother hates me, so he’ll get rid of us pretty fast.”
“We’re probably going to need to talk about that.”
“My brother?”
“Yep.”
“Nope.”
“I’m just saying, the more I know, the better I can help you.”
“So therapy is included?”
“Sometimes.”
“You signed the nondisclosure agreement, right?”
“Of course.”
Jack thought about it. “Yeah. I’m still not talking about it.”
“Your call,” I said. I’d been so flustered the first time we met that I’d forgotten to run through the Very Personal Questionnaire, and now seemed like as good a time as any. I pulled my “J.S.” file out of my bag. “Let’s do some other questions, though.” We still had thirty minutes on the freeway.
Jack didn’t agree to answer, but he didn’t refuse, either.
I pulled out a ballpoint pen. “Are you on any drugs that we need to be aware of?”
“Nope.”
“Any vices? Gambling? Hookers? Shoplifting?”
“Nope.”
“Obsessions? Secret lovers?”
“Not at the moment.”
“You sound awfully monkish for a world-famous actor.”
“I’m taking a break.”
Noted. I went on. “Anger management problems? Deep dark secrets?”
“No more than anybody else.”
Mental note: a tad evasive there.
I turned back to the list. “Medical concerns?”
“Picture of health.”
“Markings?”
He frowned. “Markings?”
“On your body,” I clarified. “Tattoos. Birthmarks. Moles—remarkable or otherwise.”
“I have a freckle shaped like Australia,” he said, pulling to untuck his shirt.
“Stop!” I said. “I know what Australia looks like.” I wrote down “Australia freckle” and then went on. “Scars?”
“A few. Nothing to write home about.”
“At some point, I’ll need to get pictures of everything.”
“Why?”
I refused to hesitate. “In case we need to identify your body.”
“My dead body?”
“Your live body. Like in a ransom photo. Not that it would ever come to that.”
“That’s disturbing.”
I kept going. “Other physical abnormalities?”
“Like?”
Most people just answered the questions. “I don’t know. Crooked toes? Extra tooth? Vestigial tail? Get creative.”
“Nothing’s coming to mind.”
Okay. Next. “Sleeping difficulties?”
I waited for him to demand examples, but instead, after a pause, he just said, “Nightmares.”
I nodded, like Got it. “Frequency?”
“A couple of times a month.”
A couple of times a month? “Recurrent?”
“What?”
“Is it the same nightmare every time?”
“Yep.”
“Can you tell me what it’s about?”
“Do you need to know?”
“I mean, kind of.”
He worked the steering wheel like he was considering his options. Finally, he said, “Drowning.”
“Okay,” I said. It was only one word, but it felt like a lot. Next question. “Any phobias?”
A pause.
Then a curt nod. “Also drowning.”
I noted that in the file and was about to move on when he added:
“And bridges.”
“You have a phobia of bridges?”
He kept his voice tight and matter-of-fact. “I do.”
“The idea of bridges or actual bridges?”
“Actual bridges.”
Huh. Okay. “How does that manifest?”
He chewed on the inside of his lip as he weighed his options, deciding how much to share. “Well, in about twenty minutes, we’re going to come to part of the highway that goes over the Brazos River. And when that happens, I’m going to pull over, stop the car, get out, and walk across the bridge on foot.”
“What about the car?”
“You’re going to drive it over the bridge and wait for me on the other side.”
“Is that how you always cross bridges?”
“It’s how I prefer to cross them.”
“But what if you’re by yourself?”
“I try not to be by myself.”
“But if you are?”
“If I am, I hold my breath and keep going. But then I have to pull off the road for a while.”
“Why do you pull off the road?”
“To throw up.”
I took that in. Then I asked, “Why are you afraid of bridges?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“No.”
“Then let’s just say that America’s infrastructure isn’t nearly as sturdy as we’d all like to think. And leave it at that.”
WE NEVER DID finish the questions.
When we got close to the Brazos bridge, Jack really did pull over on the shoulder just before the bridge, get out of the Range Rover, and walk across on foot.
I did my part and drove to meet him on the other side.
I waited for him, leaning against the bumper of his car, rocking from the blasts of 18-wheelers zooming by, watching the tension in his face and the focus of his eyes as he made a straight line from one shore to the other.
Wow. How many people have driven past a random pedestrian walking across a highway bridge, never realizing it was megastar Jack Stapleton?
When he reached me, his face was pale and there was sweat on his forehead. “You weren’t joking,” I said.
“I never joke about bridges.”
He got back in the driver’s seat and rolled down the windows, and, with that, he shifted back into character as a relaxed, carefree guy who had it all.
“You’ve asked me a lot of questions today,” Jack said then. “I haven’t asked you even one.”
“And we should keep it that way.”
“I can’t ask you questions?”
“You can ask…” I said with a little I-don’t-make-the-rules shrug.
But the question he asked wasn’t what I was expecting.
He turned and looked me up and down. “Have you done any acting?”
Given where we were headed at that very moment and the collaboration I’d just signed up for, this was one I probably needed to answer.
A first.
I thought about it. “I’ve portrayed a few barnyard animals in a few Christmas pageants.”
“So that’s a full no.”
I tried to give him something. “There are elements of acting to my job. Sometimes I have to play a kind of role in a situation. But it’s mostly about blending into the background, or vaguely seeming like a personal assistant.”
Jack nodded, thinking.
“Never anything so … detailed, though.”
“Okay,” he said, still thinking. “I’m going to tell them that you’re my girlfriend, and that should do a lot of the heavy lifting. Once that’s established, I’ll do most of the work. I mean, who lies about having a girlfriend? All you really have to do is just be pleasant.”
“Be pleasant,” I said, like I was writing it down.
“Yeah, like, you don’t have to memorize lines, or deliver a soliloquy. This isn’t Shakespeare. Just be normal, and the context should do the rest.”
“So I don’t have to act like I’m madly in love with you?”
He gave a little sideways glance. “Not unless you want to.”
“What if they don’t believe you? That I’m your girlfriend?” I hadn’t realized how vulnerable it would feel to ask this question until I was doing it.
But Jack gave a confident nod. “They’ll believe me.”
“Why?”
“You’re totally my type.”
I couldn’t resist. “Cleaning ladies are your type?”
He pointed at me. “That was an honest mistake.”
I actually had no idea how I was going to pass for Jack Stapleton’s girlfriend. I did not buy for a second that I was his type. I’d done a thorough Google search on him and I’d seen enough Barbie dolls to last me a lifetime. One of them had clearly had so much cosmetic surgery, I couldn’t help but wonder if her mother missed her face.
Not to mention Kennedy Monroe.
“Hey—” I said then. “What about your real girlfriend?”
“What do you mean—‘real girlfriend’?”
I gave a sharp sigh. “I think your parents might notice that I am not Kennedy Monroe.”
Jack puffed out a laugh. Then he said, “My parents don’t pay attention to that stuff.”
“Are you saying your parents don’t know you’re dating Kennedy Monroe? You were on the cover of People! In matching sweaters!”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s really not. Nobody doesn’t know that.”
Jack thought about it. Then he shrugged. “If they ask, I’ll just tell them we broke up. But they won’t ask. They know nothing in Hollywood is real.”
Was Kennedy Monroe not real? Suddenly, I felt too shy to ask.
I tried to imagine anyone believing that Jack would downshift from Kennedy Monroe to me. Just how gullible were these parents? Were they in comas?
The sound of Robby saying there was no way I could pass echoed through my mind, and I so hated that I agreed with him.
But here we were.
Jack was still noodling on it. “I think our best option is just for you to smile a lot.”
That didn’t sound too hard.
“Just smile. At them. At me. Just smile until your cheeks hurt.”
“Got it.”
“How do you feel about me touching you?”
How did I feel about Jack Stapleton touching me? “What kind of touching are we talking about?”
“Well, the way I am around girlfriends … I’d say that I tend to touch them a lot. You know. If you’re into someone, you just want to be touching them.”
“Sure,” I said.
“So, that could add some authenticity.”
“Agreed.”
“Would it be okay for me to hold your hand?”
Not a hard question. “Yes.”
“Can I … drape my arm over your shoulders?”
Another nod. “That sounds acceptable.”
“Can I whisper things in your ear?”
“That might depend on what you’re whispering.”
“Maybe it’s better to ask: Is there anything you don’t want me to do?”
“Well, I prefer you to keep your clothes on.”
“That’s a given,” he said, “while hanging out with my parents.”
“But just broadly,” I said. “In general. No surprise nakedness.”
“Agreed. And right back at ya.”
“And I can’t imagine that you’d need to kiss me…”
“I’ve already thought about that.”
He’d already thought about that?
“We can use stage kissing,” he said. “If we get in a pinch.”
“What is stage kissing?”
“It’s what you do in a play. It looks like a kiss, but your mouths don’t actually touch. Like I could cup your face and then kiss my thumb.” He lifted his hand off the steering wheel and kissed his thumb for demonstration.
Ah. “Okay.”
“Probably shouldn’t try that today.”
“No.”
“Those take some practice.”
Practicing fake kissing with Jack Stapleton … “Got it.” Then I added, “And obviously, of course, if you need to do a real kiss for some reason—that’s fine. I mean, I’m fine with it, if it’s necessary. I mean, I won’t be mad.”
Good God. I sounded like a loony bird.
“Noted,” Jack said, moving right along as if he encountered this particular brand of looniness all the time. Which he probably did. He went on: “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I appreciate what you’re doing for me—and my mom—and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll try not to make any wrong moves, but if I mess up, just tell me.”
“Same,” I said.
And with that, he cranked up the radio, rolled back the sunroof, and found himself a fresh piece of cinnamon gum.