When we get there, I throw open the main doors with the flourish it deserves. It’s a suite meant for a princess, after all, impeccably decorated in silks and velvets, laces and tulles. I’d be embarrassed at the ridiculously excessive femininity of it all, except this is so totally the image I want him to have of me that I almost can’t contain my glee. Especially at the look on his face, the war between amusement and alarm playing out so plainly on his features as he takes his first steps into Wonderland, where nothing is quite what it seems.
“Wow,” he says after several long seconds. “It’s…wow. I mean, it’s beautiful. But, wow.” He turns around, his face turned up to the ceiling, which is painted a deep, dark, midnight blue. I walk over to the panel of light switches and flip the middle one. The ceiling comes alive with a series of inlaid lights in the patterns of my favorite constellations.
“Wow,” he says again, but for the first time it sounds like a compliment.
“My father had that done for me years ago. It was my sixteenth birthday present. Or, one of them, anyway.”
“You like to stargaze?”
It seems innocuous enough, so I answer it. “I do. Though the lights and the smog make it hard to see them most nights.”
If that’s not a metaphor for my life, then I don’t know what is.
He doesn’t pick it up and run with it, though, and I can’t help being grateful…at least until I realize it’s not sensitivity holding him back. It’s lack of attention.
He’s gone from studying my ceiling to studying my bookshelves, which line two of the sitting room’s walls. I should be uneasy—Ian may think it’s the room that tells a person’s secrets but I tend to think it’s their entertainment choices that do that. What they read, what they watch, who they listen to…you can learn a lot about people by the art they surround themselves with.
But the books here are old, read for the most part, in another lifetime. There’s nothing on those shelves that will spill my secrets to Ian. I’d culled those books out a long, long time ago.
“Do you mind?” he asks as he reaches for one of the books. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, it looks like.
“Not at all. Help yourself.”
“I will.” He shoots a grin over his shoulder. “I never have any control when I’m around someone’s personal library. I want to see and touch and hold every single book. It’s…”
He trails off and I’m more than happy to pick up where he left off. “Another one of your passions?” I ask, brow raised.
“Maybe. But it’s more intellectual curiosity than passion, I think. Side effect of being a writer.”
He picks out another book, his eyes going wide. “Is this what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s a first edition from the very first print run ever of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, then yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.”
“Amazing.” He shakes his head in awe as he flips through it. “So are you a big fan or just a collector?”
“I may or may not own numerous props from the different Harry Potter movies.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the flying car and the pensieve. Hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course.” He replaces the book and moves on to another shelf where he picks out a copy of the collected poems of Allen Ginsberg in one hand and a copy of Alice in Wonderland in the other. “Your reading tastes are eclectic.”
“Yes. But those two fit together better than you might think. Especially”—I pull out a copy of The Bell Jar and hand it to him—“if you look at Sylvia Plath as a bridge between the two.”
“Is that what this feels like to you sometimes? Like you’re in the bell jar?”
“More like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. I have a couple of the props from that movie as well out in my garden.”
“So you are a collector.”
“Only of things that matter to me.” I take the books from him, set them gently back on the shelf.
He watches my every move, head tilted and eyes narrowed. I expect him to reach for another book, but instead he asks, “What does matter to you?”
“World peace. Climate change. Immunizations and healthcare in developing nations.”
“You sound flippant when you say that, like it’s a pat answer. But the truth is, you fund and speak on behalf of organizations all the time that are working to combat those problems.”
“They’re important issues. Children die every day from conditions that are completely treatable. I’m not okay with that.”
“Is that why you started the Salvatore Romero Memorial Foundation?”
“Ending childhood hunger—in both developing and developed nations—was a cause close to my father’s heart. I started the foundation to continue his work, and to add to it.”
“You do a nice job of it.”
“Thank you.” I shift away from him, suddenly nervous with all this talk of philanthropy. I give back because I can, and because the world we live in needs as much help as it can get. And yes, sometimes I do use my name and my face to raise awareness and open doors for whatever cause I’m championing. But to be singled out for it in an interview…that’s not why I do it and I really, really wish he could just drop it.
Before I can say anything else or attempt to drive the conversation in a different direction, my phone beeps with a series of texts. I pull it out, barely succeed in not wincing when I see my mother’s name slide across the screen.