Chapter 6 ZACHERY’S ROM-COM-A-THON
Chapter 6
Z ACHERY ’ S R OM -C OM - A -T HON
Kelsey goes home to pack, but I’m in no mood to return to the office.
I do a second workout for the day in my home gym, and open the fridge to grab one of my meal preps, noting that the fight between the chef and the trainer rages on inside.
One stack of boxes reads, “To maintain body composition.”
Those are from Armond, the trainer.
Another stack has a rebuttal, one word per box: “To enjoy life like he should.”
That’s John Luke, the chef.
I chuckle, pulling one box from each stack. John Luke’s is significantly heavier than Armond’s.
I kick the fridge closed and open them both.
John Luke has prepared lobster fettuccini.
Armond has made grilled chicken on a bed of asparagus.
I shove the chicken back in the fridge.
Today is a pasta day.
I stick the box in the microwave, tapping my foot as I lean on the kitchen island. My condo is immaculate, gleaming, and modern.
Some would say it’s not a home, but it’s what I know. My family comes from banking money, and their palatial house in Beverly Hills looks exactly like this inside, only with more help.
John Luke is their personal chef, but he makes seven meals a week for me. I hired my own trainer, who consults with a nutritionist and a sports chef they employ for clients. He brings me the other extreme in my diet.
I also have a housekeeper, the sister of the woman who runs my parents’ house. She works over there five days a week, and two for me.
I don’t need a showy mansion. I generally don’t seek attention, and I don’t tip off paparazzi to my whereabouts, unless Desdemona requires it to get my date some press.
I’m not famous anymore. Ten years will age you out of getting recognized on the street. I haven’t done a talk show or so much as a commercial since my twenties.
When I washed up, I landed on an entirely different shore. No-man’s-land. And anonymity is where I’ll remain, unless they ever invite me to an anniversary show or reunion piece. That will be short-lived, too.
It doesn’t matter.
The microwave dings.
I take the box to the island, not bothering to plate it. Mother would have a fit if she saw me eating out of cardboard like a commoner. But I’m almost twenty years beyond their influence.
Kelsey texts me, and I’m grateful for the diversion.
Kelsey: I’m doing research for my trip. Want to come?
Hell yeah, I do.
Me: Be there in thirty.
Kelsey: Bring pizza. The good one from Mod’s.
Me: As you wish.
I can see her smile when she reads it. She’s always amused when I quote romantic lines from leading men. She’s such a sucker for a good bit of dialogue.
Once, she asked me for something from one of my movies, but given they were mostly ribald comedies, the best I could do was “Lady, I’m here to take your cherry.”
She did laugh at that, though.
My whole career was a joke. One big hit comedy. Two mediocre ones. Then a string of increasingly ridiculous low-budget flicks that ultimately petered out into junk that didn’t even get distributed.
But the hit keeps me in residuals, and since it has a rather hilarious Thanksgiving scene, it sometimes comes up on lists of movies to watch in November.
It’s more than a lot of actors get. I’m not bitter. I played my cards for as long as the people in charge let me.
When I arrive at Kelsey’s apartment, pizza box in hand, she has laid a dozen outfits all over her living room.
There are sundresses, denim shorts, tank tops, and flowy skirts. Nothing she would wear to work or a party. Half of these things I’ve never seen.
“You go shopping?”
She shakes her head. “Alabama stuff. It feels right for a love story, right? No reds, no blacks, nothing flashy. I want to be the girl next door, not the siren.”
I like her in siren mode, but I see her point.
“You’re going all in.”
“No reason not to.” She picks up a flowery peach dress with a square neckline. “Is this too much for a barn dance?”
I choke on a laugh. “Barn dance?”
“I’m going across Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas in the summer. There better be a barn dance somewhere.”
“That’s pretty north for an endgame in Alabama.”
“It’s not the destination; it’s the journey.” She leans across her ottoman to grab the remote. “I’ve been looking at all the sweet made-for-TV romances, and they’re literally all Midwest. Cornfields. Hayrides. Barn dances.”
“I see.”
She powers on the television. Her watch list is filled with romantic films.
I set the pizza box on her coffee table. “Is this what we’re doing tonight?”
“Yes. I want to list every meet-cute.”
“How are movie meet-cutes going to help?”
“That woman who fell in the pool at the party Saturday night—she did it on purpose. She was trying to get that guy to rescue her. It gave me an idea. I’ll create a list of viable meet-cutes, then make them happen. You know, trip and fall in the guy’s arms. Spill a drink on someone’s shirt. We need to watch more and get ideas.”
It’s probably better if I don’t say anything about this wild idea. I head to her kitchen. “I’ll grab plates. You cue the first movie.”
When I return, she’s cleared her sofa of clothes.
I open the pizza box and stack three narrow slices on Kelsey’s plate. She likes to eat them in a pile. I have to get our orders cut into twice the usual slices.
“So first up is A Meadow Wedding ?” I ask.
“Isn’t it already dreamy? I can picture the final scene, the breeze blowing the bride’s dress, ribbons flying.” She sits back with her plate.
And we watch, mostly beginnings and ends. Kelsey has no patience for the sagging middles. She makes a list in a spiral notebook. “Okay, we have eight meet-cutes.”
“What’s the top one?”
“Trip and fall.”
“Classic. Next?”
“Get rescued or saved.”
I nod. “Like Pool Girl. And?”
She taps her pencil against her cheek. “Be a runaway.”
“Which you are.”
She looks up. “Should I create a good runaway story? Brides are the most popular.”
“Do you really want to start a lifelong commitment with a lie?”
She frowns. “Okay, fine.”
“Next.”
“Get caught doing something embarrassing.”
“That will be no problem for you,” I tell her.
Her leg shoots to the side to knock my foot off her ottoman. “Hush.”
“Okay, what are the rest?”
“Get the wrong luggage or food order.”
“That’s an easy one to pull off.”
“Right?” She’s got that happy gleam going. “Then bumping together in elevators.” She makes a note on her list.
“Might be fewer of those in small towns.”
“Oh, right. Hmmm.” She frowns and crosses that one out. “Intervening in a confrontation.”
We saw one of those. “That seems risky.”
“I better be careful who I do that with.”
I elbow her. “I thought you used to move hay bales with pitchforks.”
“Point taken. And the last one is reaching for the same item in the store.”
“That’s a good one,” I say. “Easy to force, with the bonus that it establishes that you like the same things.”
She tilts sideways to lay her head on my shoulder. “See, this is what I love about you. You get me. You’re on my side.”
“Team Kelsey all the way.”
She feels good there, even if we’re talking about all the ways she’ll meet someone else, surrounded by the clothes she’ll wear to impress him.
This is good. It’s what I wanted for her when I took the fortune teller aside. She only needed a little shove.
“I should pull a card before I go,” she says, jumping up to search her bookshelf.
“Pull a card?”
“Tarot card. The things that tell me what I already know, remember?”
Oh, that. “Sure.”
She brings a small box to the table and tugs off the lid. Inside is a stack of cards, larger than playing cards, and each with an illustration in luminous color.
She shuffles the deck in her hand. “I’m going to do a single pull for this one. A message from the universe.”
This is overly woo-woo for me, so I sit back against the cushions to watch.
She closes her eyes, shuffling through the cards until she suddenly stops, sets the deck on the table, and cuts it in half.
She takes the top card from the lower half and opens her eyes.
“This is it,” she says. “My message from the universe as I plan for my great journey.” She flips it over and lets out a gasp.
I lunge forward, imagining the Grim Reaper or some other harbinger of death. “What is it?”
She shows me a card with two people, each holding a yellow goblet. A lion head with wings floats above them. “It’s the Two of Cups.”
That doesn’t seem bad. “What does it mean?” I ask.
“It’s the card of commitment, of relationships. It can stand for true love.” She clasps it to her chest like a treasured gift. “That means the fortune teller was right. My faith will never wither.”
Her happiness at getting that card should have silenced the alarm bells in my head. She’s clearly doing what she wants.
But my sense of unease only grows as she tucks the card, face up, at the top of her box and packs it into the suitcase at her feet.
I hope I haven’t inadvertently set her up to believe in something that might bring her nothing but disappointment and misery.