“Fine. I spy with my tired bloodshot eye something else blue.” He looked in the direction of a passing customer and I laughed.
“I see it,” I said. It was the head of one of those naturally gray-haired women who dye their own hair and don’t seem to notice that it’s blue—a little late in life for a punk-rock stage.
My turn. I looked out the window. “I spy with my little eye something…cracked.”
“Is it that little crack on Lexington that you used when we played last week?”
“Actually it is, but take a look—it’s huge. It nearly crosses the whole street!”
He looked. “Wow, someone should say something about that to someone.”
“Someone should. You’re up.”
He turned his attention back to the interior of the store. “Dios mio!” he cried. “I spy your short, shallow, and now shameless ex-boyfriend.”
I followed his line of sight. “I goddamn see it. Ugh. Game over.”
Flip Roberts walked directly toward us through the dress department. He had come in with the excuse of buying his wife a gift. It was the first time that I had seen him since Turks and Caicos and, more important, the first time the sight of him hadn’t rocked me to my core.
I called him right out on his reason for being there. “Really, Flip? There are like a thousand places to buy a gift in this city—”
He interrupted me with what he thought was a joke: “Out of all the dress joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.” It was just the kind of clever thing that I would have laughed at when I was dating him. Now it just seemed hopelessly unoriginal…like him.
“I really came to see you,” he said disingenuously. “I assume from the photo on Page Six this morning that you and your boyfriend broke up, and I just wanted to see if you were doing okay.”
What photo on Page Six? I couldn’t hide my shock, or the fact that the thought of a photo of Jeremy with another woman made me want to throw up, so I spun it.
“You’re a married man, Flip! Do you really think your wife would appreciate your checking in on your old girlfriend like this?”
“She doesn’t know I’m here.” His response was pathetic.
“I figured as much,” I said disapprovingly.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we bumped into each other, and when I saw the Post this morning, well, I thought maybe—”
I really didn’t care what he thought, and I wanted to make that clear. I interrupted him. “I’m glad you came in,” I said, rather cruelly. His face lit up. “I’ve been wanting to thank you.”
“Thank me?” he asked, confused but hopeful. I couldn’t believe I’d ever had it so bad for this guy—he was such a tool.
“Yes. If you hadn’t realized that something was lacking in our relationship, I might have spent my whole life with you—my whole life feeling less than, when really I am so much more than. Thanks to you, I didn’t settle for that.”
He jumped at the bait. “But you’re not less than, you’re incredible, and I was just too stuck on some snobby version of who I thought I deserved to marry.”
“Who you deserve to marry? I can tell you one thing, you don’t deserve me! Go home to your wife, Flip.” I walked away with tears in my eyes and made a beeline for the dressing room. But I wasn’t crying over Flip Roberts. I was crying over Jeremy.
After our parting in Turks and Caicos he had called nearly every day. At first his messages were about wanting to win the fight, wanting to be right. Then they turned apologetic. And the last one just said, “I will always miss you but won’t bother you anymore.” It had been a week since then. While I was drawing this out like some kind of Greek tragedy, he was playing the Hollywood version and moving on.
Tomás knocked on the dressing-room door. He was carrying the paper. “Sorry,” he said. “Do you want to see it for yourself?” There in black and white was Jeremy lip-locked to a woman on a ski lift in Vermont. The caption read, “Snowbound!”
I let out a spontaneous roar, unable to stop myself from laughing at the joke. “This is from his new movie, Snowbound!” I said, still smiling, tears of happiness filling my eyes. “That’s his costar, not his girlfriend!”
Tomás had tears in his eyes too. He’s such a good friend. And such a romantic! “Are you sure?” he whimpered.
“Of course I am—I read this script. I ran the lines in this scene with him.”
“You should go, Natalie—go get him!”
His energy was catching. I thought about it, running right up to Vermont and into Jeremy’s arms. But that stuff didn’t happen in real life. And I don’t even drive.
“I have no idea where this was taken, and I can’t just barge onto the set. I’ll wait for him to get back.”
But Tomás wasn’t having it. He looked at the picture again. “What if he falls for her? Look at her. Even I might fall for her.”
I looked at the picture. He did have a point. “Even I might fall for her!” We laughed as I considered my options.