“You know what? Forget that bitch. You know she slept with our lead, right? No? How do you think he got the role in the first place? Well, I do know—and I’m this close to telling her husband right now. Fuck you too, Ralph. I couldn’t give two shits about your problems. If I don’t see my name in the first five minutes of the movie I’ll burn the whole house down and make sure you and Joanne are in it.”
Finally, once every single person within ten feet has noticed what a ranting lunatic Brett is, he ends the call and spins back around to me. I see a flash of hateful anger on his face, a scowl so deep it looks like he’s wearing a mask. In that instant I can almost believe I’m meeting the devil. And then he changes, in an instant, back to the charming, humble guy I was—or thought I was—getting to know.
“Sorry about that,” he says, in a voice and tone entirely different than the one he used on the phone. “It’s a tough business.”
“Um. So I’ve heard.” I nod and try my best to smile nicely. I look over at Owen, his date now opposite him, then turn back to Brett.
For the next hour, Brett genuinely convinces me that he’s a textbook psychopath. Funny, charming, and sensitive enough to make me genuinely start to like him; then his phone rings and for a few minutes he turns back into the most awful human being I’ve ever met in real life. If it weren’t for the fact that there are cameras on us, Tom and Mia hovering among the crowd, I would have already left for my own safety. But the show must go on.
Every once in a while, I glance over at Owen in his booth. He’s got his date-face on, wry, distant, mildly interested but incredibly focused. It’s a pretty good look for him. His date is hotter than Louise and I could even imagine from the pictures. A six-foot tall Amazonian with dusky skin straight from the pages of a seventies Playboy magazine, with a degree in epidemiology and a penchant for exotic, spicy food, classic Russian novels, and an interest in holistic therapy. I notice whenever I look that I’m not the only one whose attention seems diverted in that direction. I can’t imagine Owen’s not totally into her. I’d practically date her myself.
And she likes him, too. That much is obvious. Each time I look over, it seems like they’re getting a little closer. She’s playing with her hair, throwing her neck back, stroking her glass like a prelude of what she wants to do to him. Ten minutes later I look and she’s leaning over the table reading his palm, fingers tenderly stroking the inside of his hand, and when I look again a little later and she’s moved to the same side of the booth as him, his arm around her now, her hand on his thigh.
Meanwhile I’m on a date with the two-faced villain from Batman.
“Have you been to New York before?” he asks.
“Not really,” I say. “I know quite a few people there, though, and I just had an interview last week with—”
I stop myself as soon as I hear his phone ring, a sound which invokes the same reaction as an air-raid siren in me now.
“Damnit,” he says ruefully. “I’m really sorry. We’re in post-production and there are simply endless fires to put out. Last time, I promise.”
I watch him fish the phone from his pocket and shift in my stool.
“Sure,” I say, “I’m just gonna run to the restroom real quick.”
He nods, bringing the phone to his ear, face already twisting into that demonic expression.
“You better have a really fucking good reason for calling me or I’m gonna tear your…” I hear him snarl into the phone behind me as I walk to the bathroom rubbing my forehead.
I ask a waiter and he directs me to a long, sectioned off passage with exits to the bar at both ends. I’m at one end when I look up to see Owen at the other, walking to the middle where the bathroom door is.
“Wow,” he says, looking me up and down with that keen, focused smile as we draw nearer to each other. “You look even better the closer I get.”
Something about the way he says it sparks a brief fire in my mind, as if he’s implying he wants to get as close as possible…but I push the idea away as soon as I have it. I’m just having a really bad date—and considering that Owen has had his arm wrapped around a mesmerizingly beautiful woman for the past hour, right now is hardly the time to be worried about awkward sexual tension between us.
“Figured I would dress like the kind of person who goes to this kind of bar—even if I’m not,” I reply.
We stop short a few feet from each other, Owen making no secret of how much he likes my dress, scanning me from head to toe again and shaking his head in disbelief.
“Heels too. You look incredible, Margo,” he says, his voice low, almost a whisper.
I shyly push hair behind my ear, adjust my glasses, and turn to the door.
“Wait—where’s the ladies?”
Owen nods at the single sign on the door showing both male and female symbols. “Unisex bathroom.”
I sigh. “Perfect. As if bathroom etiquette wasn’t awkward enough.”
He pushes the door open for me and I step inside. There’s a girl fixing her make-up in the mirror, and then a toilet flushes and a man steps out. Owen and I hover just inside the door.
“So how’s your date going so far?” Owen asks.
“Great, whenever he talks to me. It’s the way he talks to other people that’s the problem.” Owen frowns in confusion, and I wave away the idea of explaining more. “What about you?”
Owen nods unconvincingly. “Good. She’s great.”
Now I’m the one who acts confused.
“Just ‘great’? She’s, like, the most beautiful girl in the bar,” I say, as the man from the cubicle finishes washing his hands and steps past me to the exit. “And she’s a genius, and her hobbies are the coolest! It looked to me like you two were getting pretty close.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Owen says, though again it sounds forced. “She’s nice, and she’s interesting, and she seems to be having fun. But the chemistry isn’t there.”
“What? How could it not be?” I ask skeptically.
Owen shrugs. “I don’t know. I suppose I’m just a little distracted tonight.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” I lie, unable to ignore the soaring in my heart that he hasn’t fallen head over heels in love with this girl like I’d thought he would. I pat him on the arm in what I hope is a friendly way as I move past the woman at the mirror and toward an empty stall.
I push open the door, step inside, and turn around to close it. But before I realize what’s happening, Owen moves in toward me, throws me up against the side of the tiled wall, slams the door shut behind him, and presses every part of his body against mine. Lips on my lips, chest on my chest. Hands on my hips, my ass, clawing with angry frustration as his tongue invades my mouth with swollen hunger.
My reaction is automatic, and beyond my control. I throw my arms around his neck, put a heel on the cubicle wall to press my hips against him, suck on his tongue and tangle it with my own, pulse racing and lungs gasping for air.
He moves those hot, demanding lips away from my mouth and I raise my neck to let him suck and bite at my softest parts, my hands gripping and scratching at his hair, elbows urging him to bury himself inside me.