“When he gives you your own ringtone or in six months, whichever comes first,” I answered. Again. They’d only been dating two months, but somehow Chloe and me had already managed to have this conversation about a hundred times.
“But how am I suppose to know if he’s given me my own ringtone if I can’t ask him if he’s given me my own ringtone? That doesn’t make any sense. Hold on.”
She answered the phone. “Hi, Corey. How are you?”
She listened. Then she frowned. “Can you hold on?”
She muted the RAZR, pressing it to the front of her chest. “He says that he needs to cancel our big dinner.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he’s worried that he’s going to have bags under his eyes if he stays up late. The game he’s hosting tomorrow is in HD.”
“You have a show tomorrow. Are you afraid that you won’t be able to sing if you stay out late?” Then before she could answer that, I added, “More importantly, would you cancel a date two hours before it was supposed to happen?”
Chloe looked torn, but then she brought the phone back to her ear and said, “Corey, I bought a new dress and got a new haircut for tonight’s date, which you asked me on. I was really looking forward to it. But canceling at the last minute with an excuse like that is just disrespectful. Obviously you don’t value my time the way I value yours.” The next words seemed harder for her to squeeze out, but she did it: “And if that’s the case, you should just lose my number. Good-bye.”
Then she hung up. “Oh my God,” she gasped.
“Lose my number?”
“I saw it in a movie once.” She sat down and clutched her chest. “I can’t believe I did that. He’s Corey Mays.”
I was so proud of her, I didn’t know what to do. I was also relieved that I wouldn’t have to do anything nefarious to sabotage the relationship, which was my plan B if I saw that Chloe was letting herself be taken advantage of again. Obviously I was pretty good at 86ing relationships, and I figured I might as well use my questionable talent to teach Chloe again and again until she learned.
But luckily it hadn’t come down to that.
“Yes, he’s Corey Mays. And you’re Chloe Anderson, one of the best people I’ve ever known. He needs to recognize. So put on your makeup and get dressed. You’ve got a show in thirty minutes.”
She turned back to the mirror and perked up a little when she saw her new haircut again. “Yes, I’m Chloe Anderson,” she said with conviction. Then she picked up a foam triangle, put on her brave face, and started applying her foundation.
. . .
“What if he doesn’t ever call me again,” she all but wailed an hour later during the set break. She had turned off her phone before going onstage, but checked it as soon as the first half of the set had ended and found no messages from Corey. Then she came to find me, hunting me down at the bar as I rushed to fill drink orders during the break.
“You don’t want the kind of guy who won’t call you after you make a perfectly reasonable demand. If Corey shows his ass like that, then he’s doing you a favor by not calling,” I said.
Chloe just stared at me. “Tell me again why I should take your advice? You’re still single. And you’re crazy.”
She made such a good point that I immediately switched to underhanded tactics. I let my face go soft and sad. “Please don’t remind me that I’m single, because I lost James.”
That brought Chloe out of her crisis. The one thing she still couldn’t resist was lending a helping hand, when she saw that one was needed. “I’m sorry, I was just being mean. You’ll find somebody else, girl,” she assured me, drawing me into her arms.
But I didn’t want anybody else. Just James. It had always been Just James, even when I was with other people.
However, even I could tell that wasn’t a healthy thought, so I didn’t say it out loud.
I just let her hold me—even though I could feel Nicky’s eyes boring a hole in my back because I wasn’t serving drinks and taking more orders.