Chapter 17 The Moment We Met
“Melinda.” Issac’s voice is breathy, so low I would’ve thought I was mistaken if it weren’t for how he’s looking at her. Who could blame him? She has perfectly square, perfectly white painted toes, and is wearing a nude silk dress that hugs her frame. A single diamond hangs around her slender neck. Issac blinks, glances at his manager, Bernie, then back to her. “Wait, you’re the model I’m working with?”
She crosses her arms over her chest, pouts a little but doesn’t look at him. “No one told him I was on the shoot? What’s wrong with you people?”
I slowly scoot back in the chair I’m sitting in, consider just how small I can make myself.
Bernie claps his hands together. “What’s the problem? You’re both adults here. This is an industry. Work. Nothing more.”
Issac gives him a warning look—right before Bernie pulls him to the side. I can hear bits and pieces: Issac asking why he wasn’t alerted, who thought it was a good idea, something about a Christian and my name and my name again and then Melinda agreed to this?
The coil in my gut grows tighter. Is Issac using our fake relationship as an excuse not to work with Melinda? Does he not want to see her? The articles questioning if I’m a gold digger pop into my mind again, and I sink farther into the cushion. Did Bernie set this up to show Issac he should be with someone like Melinda instead?
“Listen, it’s not a big deal. It was an honest slip of the mind,” he says, no longer whispering. “Just do the shoot. We’ll make sure you’re both alerted next time.”
Issac keeps his composure, turns, and walks over to Melinda, who isn’t doing as well holding hers. He says something to her that I wish I could hear and I’m happy I can’t. When Melinda no longer looks like she wants to take someone’s head off, there is audible relief from the crew. But I’m conscious of every bone in my body, every breath that I exhale, every muscle I try not to move. Maybe if I’m still enough, I’ll go without being noticed.
The director doesn’t need to give Melinda or Issac any instructions on how to be positioned. They know what they’re doing. This is how they met; this is how they found out they have chemistry. The position of their tangled bodies is so compromising, so damn sexy, that I can’t look away. They are striking together, matching the other’s moves with fluidity. And Issac doesn’t look like an accessory next to her the way most male models do.
It looks easy for them.
Last night, Issac traced his pencil over my forearm. It’s always easy, he whispered. Now my stomach clenches when he pulls Melinda closer to him, touches her cheek. I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I don’t like it at all. When Melinda runs her fingers through Issac’s hair, I wonder if she smells my products on him. I wonder if she thinks it’s soft. I wonder if being in a fake relationship with me is going to stop Issac from trying to commit to the relationship he should probably be in. Melinda’s tall enough that she doesn’t have to tiptoe to press her lips against the underside of Issac’s chin. It’s for a picture, but my mind says I’m interrupting a private moment of a reconciliation. Passion I’ve never witnessed in person before. Until Issac turns slightly and catches my eyes. His shoulders tense, and he puts the slightest distance between him and Melinda. I’m still small, still stiff, still trying to figure out why I’m feeling like this. Throughout the years, I’ve witnessed Issac kissing girls and holding hands while going on dates, but I’m not quite sure it’s ever made my heart race.
Melinda must notice Issac’s distraction because she finds me across the room. She seems perfectly poised, but the photographer says something to her twice before she hears it.
Issac tears his eyes away from me and pulls Melinda flush against him to finish the shoot.
I can’t watch anymore. I need to get up, to move, to not be in this space. I don’t know the whole story about what happened between them—Issac says it was casual and mutual—but I saw the look in Melinda’s eyes. The hurt that I caused by being here, and I’m not the type to want to hurt another woman on purpose.
This is the fanciest bathroom I’ve ever seen. The mirrors are oversized vanities, and there are lush couches and pink chairs in the corners. I splash water on my face, feeling silly. Issac and I’ve been close for over a decade, and one weekend of pretending can’t change that. I hear Lex’s voice in my head, teasing before I left Rhode Island, You’re going to fall for him, but I don’t want to fall for anyone, to feel like I’m being dropped into something without my control, and the last thing I want is to do is feel out of control with Issac. That’s not what’s happening here. This is because I’ve been celibate for too long. This is the body. A trick of the mind. My heart is still safe. And I’ll be okay. But will Issac? What if he realizes that he does want to make it work with Melinda and now he’s stuck with me for the summer?
Because fate is funny that way, the bathroom door swings open and there she is. Wide-eyed and gorgeous. We stare for a few seconds, the sink water still running. “I’m sorry, I was just…” I shake my head, shut off the water. Why would I apologize for using a bathroom she doesn’t own? “Excuse me,” I say.
She steps aside to let me through the door, and when my back is to her, she finally speaks. “You don’t have to worry about me, girl.”
I stop moving, but by the time I turn to ask what she means, she’s already walking toward the stalls.
Issac’s propped against the wall across from the bathroom when I come out. He’s changed back into the clothes he came with, and his lips are set in a straight line. “I’ve been looking for you,” he says. “Wondered if you were in there. I saw Melinda head in and…”
A smile starts to tease at the corners of my lips. I cock an eyebrow at him. “You thought I needed your protection? Even though I know jujitsu?”
He laughs, then nods his head for us to start walking toward the front of the building. I pretend like I don’t notice him glancing back to the bathroom door, checking for Melinda.
“I know you can fight,” he says. “Remember when you almost knocked me out in ninth grade after I put that glue in your hair by accident?”
“You claim it was an accident.”
“It was,” he says. Then: “For real, everything alright in there?”
“Actually, no, she pushed me into the sink, and I was about to rip out those pretty-ass eyelashes she’s wearing, but then she started to cry,” I say. “Her mascara was running, and I just couldn’t bring myself to give her a real black eye.”
“Woof. Saucy.” Issac clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The sun is bright above us when we make it to the parking lot. “So the two of you didn’t talk in there at all, then?”
“Not really,” I say. “Why, would that have been weird?”
“I mean, no but…” He stops on the sidewalk, rubs under his eye with his thumb. “Well, maybe a little.”
“I get it,” I say, and find a random car to stare at. Does everyone that works here own Cadillacs? “The could’ve been girlfriend you’re not over surprising you on a shoot while your pretend girlfriend is there. Plain weird. She’s really stunning too. I mean, damn…how’s someone that beautiful in real life?” When I finally turn back to Issac, his brows are almost touching. “What’d I say wrong?”
He shakes his head, a distant look in his eyes. “Yeah, she’s a beautiful woman.”
An awkward silence sets in after he says it, and I’m stricken by just how many of them we’ve had in the last few months. They’re becoming even more frequent now that we’re tied together in a lie.
Finally, Issac clears his throat. “Are you okay?”
I tilt my head to look up at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
His bottom lip flicks out, he licks it, I track the movement. Accidentally. “Well, I didn’t know if it was weird seeing me and Melinda together like that…. You left so abruptly.”
I blow out a breath, bite my own bottom lip because I’m annoyingly conscious of his right now. “Are you asking if I was jealous?”
“No, no.” He shakes his head, smiles. “I mean…Why would you be jealous? That’s crazy. Wait…were you jealous?”
The curiosity in his voice makes me laugh a little. But the truth is I was jealous. Because Issac and I aren’t romantic, but he had always felt like my Issac…until he told me he might be able to see himself with Melinda, and the little ways things were already changing between us became more noticeable. Seeing them together today reminded me of feelings I’ve tried to repress. It’s already enough that we live across the country and distance keeps us from being the way we once were. What if he decides to commit to a relationship with her, with anyone, and I lose him for real?
“I wasn’t prepared,” I tell him, so I don’t have to say any of the other stuff. “I didn’t know how to react as your public girlfriend, being put in that situation out of nowhere. Should I have been acting jealous? Or playing it cool? You know I’m not an actor and just…I’m sorry if it was embarrassing.” Before he can speak, I add, “But what about you? Have you realized you’re missing her more than you can handle?”
I see something shift in his eyes. He stares at me for a while, then says, “You’re infuriating sometimes. And oblivious. The most oblivious human on earth.”
“What?” I jerk my head back, surprised. “Why are you saying that?”
He laughs again, rubs his face with his hands, then slings his arm around my shoulder. “Never mind. Just know that you didn’t do anything wrong at the shoot. What’s embarrassing is Bernie putting us in that situation. Which is why we’re ditching him for the rest of the day.”
Issac wasn’t lying, he shoots Bernie a text then shuts off his phone. I hop in the front seat, a rush of excitement running through my body like we’re doing something we really shouldn’t be doing.
“Is Tom going to take an Uber?” I ask when we leave his driver out on the curb.
Concern passes over Issac’s face for no more than a second. “He’ll go find Bernie in the building and catch a ride with him. They both need a day off. And so do I,” he says.