Chapter Six Check, Please #2
I glance up at her now to find her studying my hands. For all the teasing, she was never shy about watching my technique.
She said it was just because she loved to watch my fingers work, but . . . come on. I carefully loop the two ends of the wrapper together, pulling oh so gently so it doesn’t tear. I leave the knot loose, glancing
up to make sure she’s watching, and then pull the ends of the wrapper in opposite directions, hard and fast. The knot unfurls
between us, and I smile as I drop the wrapper to the table.
I get my wish. Now I just need to decide what to use it for.
Across from me, Nikki lets out a relieved sigh, like she had been holding her breath. “That has to be a good sign, right?”
she asks.
“For me, yes. For you? Questionable. What if I wished you would spontaneously combust?”
“Then I guess”—she reaches forward, scooping up the pieces of the wrapper and slipping them into her pocket—“ka freakin’ boom,
baby.”
I look away, fighting the heat inexplicably rising to my cheeks at the tenor of her voice slipping down. I hate her, please gods, remember I hate her. Maybe remembering that forever should be my wish.
“Nikki . . .” I say. Her mouth pulls up into a little half smile, and I know I have to shut this down. Immediately.
“What is it that you need from me? You mentioned lawyers and wanting help with your book? Let’s focus on that, unless you
really are just here to ruin my life.”
“No,” she says softly. “I don’t want to ruin anything for you. I’m so proud of you.”
I roll my eyes. “Could you be any more patronizing?”
“I’m not being patronizing,” she says. “I mean it. I’m proud. Your flowers are—”
“I live in a shitty one-bedroom apartment over the place that I work, okay? In a town that’s dead nine months of the year.
Meanwhile, you’re doing my signature wink on the set of E! wearing Versace. What’s to be—”
“You seem happy, though.” She cuts me off. “Not when you’re around me, of course, but in general. That portfolio you have
is admirable—incredible, even. You built something entirely new. I would never be brave enough to do something like that.”
“It didn’t feel brave, it felt necessary,” I say.
“They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.” She shrugs. “I don’t know how you did it. I can barely go out into the world without
my agents and managers smoothing all the rough edges. These days, I’m more of a shy house cat hiding from people than anything
else.”
“Really? You want to play it like that? Because you don’t seem particularly shy about writing a book about our life story and inviting all those people to have a peek behind the curtain.”
She bites her lip as the waitress sets our plates down in front of us. Cobb salad for her, chicken and waffles for me. I reach
for a syrup package at the same time she moves to pass it to me. Our fingers brushing for a split second, just long enough
for me to register the heat, the softness, and then I yank my hand back.
It’s wild to think that there was ever a time I sought her skin out. That those casual touches and little smiles ever kept
me fed during all the long, lonely nights while she was out networking or filming. Now her skin is a flashing neon sign warning
me away—poison dripping from every pore.
Keep your wits, girl. She is not for you. She wasn’t then, not really, and she certainly isn’t now.
I make sure her hands are back on her side of the table before pointedly reaching for the syrup again and drizzling it over
my plate. Nikki watches me with big, sad eyes. It makes me feel like a little bit of a monster, but I’m not the one who broke us.
I notice a laptop and papers on the booth beside her and gesture toward them. “Is that the book? Let me see it.”
“Really?” she asks, setting everything up on the table with a wary look.
“Yeah, might as well see how bad it’s gonna hurt.”
“I have a lot of reasons for wanting to write this book, Andy,” she says, leaning forward to slide some papers over to me.
“None of them are to hurt you.”
“Anne,” I correct, desperately trying not to get drunk on the way her familiar perfume mixes with the scent of her shampoo. I practically yank the papers out of her hand. She gives me a peculiar look as she drops back into her side of the booth and opens her MacBook.
“Chapter Four,” it reads at the top of the page.
I swallow hard as I realize what scene she’s handed me. It was our first time meeting. They called me last minute, asking
for a final chemistry read. Nikki had already signed on for her role, but apparently it was still between me and one other
actress for the final spot. This audition would be the deciding force.
I spent the night googling Nikki, trying to get a feel for who she was. She had done some bit parts as a kid in Hallmark movies
or in soap opera flashbacks. A few commercials, like me. Small stuff in general, but bigger than mine. I’d have to bring my
A game.
I needed to nail it—I was living with my aunt then in her tiny LA apartment. She was an on-set makeup artist, and it was her
fault I got into acting. She took one look at me when I was born and said I was going to be a star. My parents thought it
was cute at first. They would send me out to stay with her every summer and she’d get me bit parts in commercials or store
ads that my parents would hang on the fridge. They were less than enthused when I moved out there permanently to make a go
of it, sleeping on my aunt’s couch like a real struggling actor, but we made it work.
On that day, the day I met Nikki, my mom had come to visit. She sat in the waiting room with my aunt while I walked in to
meet the casting director. I was so nervous my hands were shaking. Mom and I had gotten into an argument the night before,
with her saying that if I didn’t get this role, then I needed to go back to Vermont with her.
It was all riding on that. My very own path diverging in the woods, and I had kicked things off with shaking hands and nausea. Maybe it was foreshadowing. A gun on the mantel set to go off when I least expected.
I sigh and skim more of the chapter—pausing to glance up at her when I get to the part where I walked in for the read. Nikki’s
peeking at me over the top of her laptop, biting her lip. It would be endearing if I let it. I don’t.
“This isn’t right,” I say, setting down the papers.
Nikki looks startled. “What do you mean?”
“You wrote that I was cast and they called you in for a chemistry read. That’s the opposite of what really happened.” I shake my head. “You were cast. I was the one fighting
for my life that day.”
“Uh, absolutely not,” she says. “Eliza was going nuts over them making me do a third audition. She thought being on Days of Our Lives for a week should have counted for something. I was so stressed by the time I got there. If I didn’t get that role, I don’t
know what would have happened. My parents could not afford to keep me out there.”
I scrunch up my face. “Okay, no, when I said I was worried you were going to tell my story, I meant, like, metaphorically.
You’re literally jacking my story in this chapter and pretending it’s yours. You were cast, you were completely relaxed! We were only there to decide if they were going to pick me or the other girl.”
“What other girl? What are you talking about?”
“The other girl who was reading for my role. They didn’t say who. It could have been the Nikki and, I don’t know, Clara show. You were cast first—that’s why your name came first in the show.”
Nikki runs her thumb over her lip. “Huh,” she says, tipping her head. “The casting director told me the same thing. They said
you had been cast and it was down to me and one other girl. I wasn’t relaxed at all, I was freaking out!”
I lean back in the booth, not buying it. “Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not lying! Maybe they just liked screwing with us or maybe there really were two other girls who did
a completely different read together. Maybe it could have been the Clara and Gertrude show for all we know.”
I smile. “Yes, of course, because there’s so many tweens and teens named Gertrude these days.”
“You never know,” she says, her eyes going soft as she keeps looking at me . . . and . . .
Okay, this is getting a little uncomfortable.
“What?” I finally ask, dabbing at my face with a napkin. “Do I have syrup on my face or something? Why aren’t you blinking?”
“No, you’re good,” she says, jerking her head back to her computer like she hadn’t realized she was staring.
“Nikki, if I have chicken in my teeth or something, just tell me.”
“You don’t,” she says, flicking her eyes to mine for a second, a blush dusting across her face. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?” I fidget with my hair, feeling more and more insecure.
“It’s just . . . you’re going to be pissed.”
“What?” I snap. “I’m already pissed!”
She winces, squeezing her eyes shut for a second. “It was just good to see you smile. I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She glances at me. “You haven’t looked at me like that in a really long time. It was . . . nice.”
“Um,” I say, my eyes already stinging at her words. The butterflies thrum and throb. I hate her, I have to hate her. I squeeze my eyes shut. Contain, contain, contain. Picture a jar. Good, got it. Now I’m putting my feelings for her in the jar and sealing it shut.
Excellent. There we go, deep breaths . . . shit, why are there hearts on the jar? I needed an angry jar. Oh god now I’m picturing
even more hearts on it! I open my eyes to grab my bag and then stand up. “I need to go.”
“Stay, really. I’m sorry. Look, I’m typing,” she says, tapping her hands along the keyboard comically loud. “Business, this
is just a business meeting. See!” she says, going back to frantically typing. “I’m adding in that they lied to both of us,
right now. This is good stuff. This is all it has to be between us. This was what I meant when I asked for your help. We don’t have to talk. I take it back. Just business.”
“That’s not what really happened, though! They didn’t tell you that!”
“They did!” she says. Her hands go still as she looks up like she’s trying to remember something. “I doubt I have emails or
anything that old to prove it. Do you? What was your email from back then? Do you ever check it?”
“No, why would I? I made that when I was like twelve. I have Gmail now like every other real adult.”
“Okay fine, fair . . . um . . . oh. Oh! Do you remember what I said when we walked out of the audition together?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, because it was obnoxious. You said it should be you instead of them, like you wanted to be the one to decide if I got the role and not the producers and stuff. I thought you kind of sucked for that, but I couldn’t tell if you meant it like you were gonna pick me or—”
“No! I didn’t say that!” she yelps, clearly horrified. “Well, technically yes, I did say ‘It should be me, not them,’ but I didn’t mean all that. I meant that I wanted it to be me with you, not whoever else was reading. I thought you had someone else coming in after
me.” She sighs. “We had done one single chemistry read, and I was already jealous at the thought of you reading with someone
else. I didn’t know yet what that feeling meant. I thought we would just be best friends forever,” she says, laughing. “But
from the second I met you, Andy—Anne—I knew I wanted it to be me by your side, not anyone else.”
My mouth falls open as I struggle to find a word, any word, in the face of this revelation. It’s too much. It’s too much.
I’d like to think I’m not a coward, but I am. I throw down some cash for the bill and then rush toward the door.
“Wait, please!” Nikki gets up like she’s going to follow.
“I can’t do this right now,” I call back, holding my hand up over my shoulder to gesture for her to stop.
Luckily, her pursuit is cut short by our waitress calling out, “Hey, you gonna pay the rest of this or what?” Good, let the diner have a turn with her AmEx, just let me make my escape.
I’m peeling out of the parking lot before Nikki’s even out the door.