Chapter 36 - Scott
I’m up before the alarm. Today is the final day of filming. The closing is tomorrow. I made a really nice profit on this project. If things were different I wouldn’t hesitate to hire Chelsea for my next renovation, and the one after that.
I send a sarcastic ‘Thanks’ to the area below my waist. Last time I let sex get in the way of business. So stupid.
Chelsea is waiting for me at the bottom of the stoop. We were told to dress business casual today, but I’m still wearing my work boots. We’ll take our shoes off in the house anyway. Chelsea is wearing the sundress she wore the first night we met. The night I hatched this stupid plan.
She’s smiling. We didn’t see each other all weekend. I got up early on Saturday and dragged myself to a bunch of properties. At each one I kept looking over, expecting to see her there, her face shining with excitement as all the ideas hatched in her head. Finally, I told Marta I felt like I was coming down with something and went home.
“Good weekend?” I ask her.
“Great, you?”
“Great. Really great.”
I don’t ask her what she did. Since it didn’t involve me, I don’t want to know.
“The timing worked out just about perfect,” she says as we walk down the block. “I have orientation on Friday.”
“Well, that should be…nice.” God, I sound like an idiot. “What classes are you taking?”
She rattles off a bunch of words. I manage to ask some semi-intelligent sounding questions.
If anyone saw us right now, they’d probably think we were two amicable coworkers. I guess that’s as good as it gets. Amicable being better than animosity. But oh so far away from where I thought we were headed.
At the house Chelsea leads me around. I haven’t seen it furnished. Usually, I let the stagers do everything, my only request is to keep it as neutral as possible. Chelsea’s design is better. It looks more homey.
I think about my own house. I was kind of looking forward to having her Chelseafying it. Now that won’t happen.
Marta shows up right on time with the ‘prospective’ buyers. The ones who signed the PS weeks ago and are closing on all three units tomorrow.
They love everything. The stagers even have empty shells of washers, dryers and refrigerators. When you take out the compressors and, in the case of the dryers, the concrete blocks, they are surprisingly light. Chelsea Instagrammed a picture of one. That was about the forty-secondth time I broke my pledge not to look at her account.
When Vivien gives us a five-minute break I unfollow Chelsea.
The secret door to the pantry gets us applause. But I can’t look at it without remembering how excited Chelsea was to tell me the idea. And now I’m going to have to think about her if I ever use it again on a project? Which I will, it’s great. Ugh.
Towards the end of the filming Ken appears. Chelsea and I exchange a worried glance, but he is only there to congratulate us. At least that’s what I think until he presses an envelope into my hands.
I open it. It’s an invitation to a watch party for the first episode in the network offices. Everyone on the crew gets one. Vivien shoves hers in a folder and I wonder if she will bother.
“Your guys are welcome too, Scott,” Ken tells me, handing me a pile of invites. “Plus ones. Wives, girlfriends, whatever. No kids though, for the love of God.”
“I’ll tell them,” I promise.
When we leave for the day, we get halfway down the block before we say a word to each other.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
My heart doesn’t leap with some vague hope that this is meaningful. I take that as a sign that I’m heading in the right direction. On the other hand, that might be because it’s stopped beating—metaphorically, that is—but still progress.
“Okay.”
Okay as in whatever. I don’t care. Someday that will be true. I’ll just pretend until that happens. I am an actor, after all.
“What’s a watch party?”
“Well, the first episode is airing that night, so I assume that’s what we’ll be watching. And probably food and drinks before and after.”
“So, it’s like a premiere.”
“No.”
It’s nothing like a premiere. It’s just a crappy office party that I have to go to and pretend to be, I guess now married, and in love with Chelsea one more time. This better be it.
“I thought I heard Ken say something about plus one. And my invitation says plus one.”
Is she fucking planning on flying fucking Wisconsin Guy out here for the fucking watch party? Is some of my half of the network money buying that lug nut a plane ticket? Is he going to be staying with her in Myles’s apartment, right downstairs from me? Am I going to have to talk to him? About what? Cheese? Chelsea? Both?
“You know I think we really have to pretend to still be engaged slash married for this,” I say dryly. “It will look bad if we show up with dates.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize I actually like the idea. I’ve got the weekend to try to meet someone. It could happen.
“I wasn’t planning on bringing a date,” she says. “I was, just, wait, were you?”
“The thought crossed my mind.” Thirty seconds ago, but I don’t clarify that. “But I decided it wasn’t a good idea.”
“It’s probably not,” she says quietly.
Now she seems sad, really sad. My first instinct is to try to cheer her up, fix it. And if I can’t fix it make her forget anything that is bothering her. But that’s not my job. Never was.
So we ride home in non-amicable, definitely uncomfortable silence. Walk the blocks from the subway station as far apart from each other as we can get on the sidewalk.
“Well, good night, I guess,” she says when we get to the front of the house.
“See you next week.” She looks confused. “The watch party, remember?”
“Oh. Yes.”
“We should leave around five.”
“I’ll check my schedule. I haven’t memorized it yet.”
“Well, if you are running late we can meet there.”
“Sure.”
She heads towards her door. I can’t do this for the next two years. It’s going to be horrible. Maybe I should move into one of the units that I own that hasn’t been demoed yet. I don’t want to do that. I’ve worked plenty hard to get where I am. I can live in my own, nice, house, for fucks sake.
I glare at the back of her head as she walks towards her door and I hate myself for it. I can’t change what happened. I can’t fix what we did, but I decide I’m not going to let this turn me into a world class asshole. At the very least, if I run into her and WG someday I’ll be…cordial.
“Hey, Chels.”
“What?”
She turns around and looks at me. I see something in her eyes. I don’t know what it means. I guess she wants to be friends. Ugh. I’ll be friendly. Not friends. But she’ll never know the difference.
“Have a great first week. In your classes.”
She smiles widely. Operation fake friends off to a good start. Yay.