I feel the blood drain out of my face, imagining just how well that’d go over.
Jessie goes on, “Thank you again for bailing me out, but I’m gonna have to say no on the whole ‘pretending to be your devoted wife while you sweet-talk a bunch of old dudes into promoting you’ thing. Sorry.”
She turns quickly and starts making for the exit.
“Jessie!” I call out.
She waves behind her, and a second later is gone. I slump over the bar in defeat.
“She seemed sparky,” Will says, sympathetically. “Probably could have even pulled it off with her.”
“Yeah,” I say, raising my head and narrowing my eyes.
“Sorry, buddy.”
“Don’t be,” I reply, “I’m not giving up on her that easily.”
6
Jessie
You can tell the pecking order on a set by the order in which people leave. Terry, Dominique, and Pablo – the lead actors on the show – pretty much disappear the second the director yells cut on their final scheduled scene. Soon after that, the director, script supervisor, and camera operators finish up and head home. An hour after that, the grips, sound, and electric departments go. Then it’s down to just the costume department and assistant director trailer full of exhausted PAs collecting the last of the day’s walkie-talkies and time sheets – all of us left behind to hustle for however long it takes to tidy the mess everyone else made and set things up for the next day’s shoot.
It’s dark by the time I hang the last business suit on the rack, pick up my bag and leave the studio lot, waving goodbye to the workmen smoking a joint before they finish up themselves. I pull out my phone as I walk towards the bus station – I gave up taking my car to work when the days got so long that I was half-asleep every time I got behind the wheel. Working too hard might end up killing me, but I’d prefer it didn’t happen when I was driving home.
The second I look at my phone I almost stop walking – it’s packed with missed calls and messages. The ones from my ex-boyfriend I delete without even reading, but there are still plenty left from Nate. I read the texts until I get to the bus stop, then board a bus and occupy myself by listening to his voicemail messages – each plea more desperate than the last.
Even after what feels like thirty minutes’ worth of begging (I can almost hear him falling to his knees) the whole idea still feels like a bad sitcom script. I quickly type back.
You’re deluded. How would that even work? There’s no
The bus pulls in at my stop and I delete the message, get up, and storm down the aisle and out the door. Then I walk the few blocks to my apartment, and as the sheer craziness of Nate’s plan begins to fade, it leaves behind a strange sad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Ten years ago I would have chewed my own arm off to have Nate begging me for…well, anything. I had a crush on him the size of the moon – and about as difficult to try and hide. How could I not? Between the ages of twelve and eighteen every girl I met was obsessed with him. I’m sure half of them were only talking to me in the first place as a stepping stone.
It happened in an instant, a flash of lightning that changed everything. I was thirteen, Kyle and Nate were both almost eighteen. We were heading to the beach for the first time that summer, desperate for a little sun and sea after the stuffiness of school. Nate was his usual self on the way there; funny, kind, upbeat – but the second he took his shirt off something exploded inside of me, and I spent the rest of my teenage years picking up the pieces. Maybe it was just my way of hitting puberty, or maybe it was the fact that he’d developed the rock-hard abs and sleek biceps that would haunt my dreams for years afterwards.
It didn’t help that he was always around, hanging out with us and unafraid to pick me up and throw me around the room for a laugh. It’s hard enough to get by when you’re obsessed with someone, but it’s fucking torture when you spend almost every day with them. The first time I kissed a guy I imagined it was Nate, and I’d discreetly judge the dates and boyfriends I had afterwards by his standards.
Then life happened, and I learned (the hard way) that it takes more than some sculpted muscles to make a good boyfriend. Nate went off and started womanizing, I went off and spent so much time worrying about my career that even having a pathetic secret crush felt like a luxury. Nate’s still sexy as fuck, of course, and we did hook up that one time on The Night That Shall Not Be Mentioned, but at this point in my life, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather get into a relationship less than with him. I may have made a lot of mistakes when it comes to men, but Nate’s so obviously not boyfriend material that it wouldn’t be a mistake – it would be signing up for trouble.