Chapter 4
Alex
Cameron and Judd were his two best friends, and all he had done all day was avoid contact with both of them.
They were back home in L.A., continuing their own work, plus work on production of the series.
Alex had known since breakfast that things were off with the movie, but it was such a shock to him that he refused to believe it enough to repeat the news to them.
Cameron and Judd had put almost as much time and effort into this project as Alex had, and that was saying a lot.
The three of them had worked together on other film projects as well.
They had been inseparable during their senior year of college, and that had continued for a couple of years afterward.
He could never pay them enough for how much they had helped him.
And now he wouldn't be able to pay them at all. He wouldn’t be able to pay anyone.
The deal was off. The money was gone. His grandfather had left it at 'maybe we can revisit it in the future, after you've matured'.
He was cold and immovable, and Alex had been scrambling in his mind all day, thinking about how to proceed.
He wasn't drunk. He didn't have anything to drink.
He was just that tormented and drained. He had been royally let down, and now he had to turn around and royally let down a whole string of other people.
Alex dreaded it. He didn't want to go back to his hotel, so he went to a restaurant and sat at the bar.
That was where he saw the girl from the restaurant that morning.
He offered her some of his food, and she sat there and ate all of it like an adorable little hungry kid.
She was not trying to impress him, and he was not trying to impress her, and watching her scarf that burger and fries with a side of eggrolls was a surprising little nugget of joy in his otherwise horrible day.
She never asked, but he could tell she thought he had been drinking.
Alex didn't bother to clarify. It was embarrassing enough, her seeing him in this state.
He instinctively wanted her to think there was something to blame besides his own humiliating circumstance.
They hadn't talked much while she ate, and the bartender came over as she was finishing.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" Patrick asked Alex, thinking he needed it. "I'm just making a fresh pot."
"Sure," Alex said. He looked at the girl. There didn't seem to be a stitch of makeup on her face, and she didn't need it. She was beautiful.
"Do you want some coffee?" he asked.
She looked at him and then at Patrick. "Sure. Half a cup."
Alex hadn't said much to her while she was eating. She seemed so content to quietly sit next to him that he just sat there. Finally, he felt compelled to start talking.
"I don't know what you heard this morning…" he said, feeling awkward about bringing it up. It was the first thing on his mind, and he couldn’t help it.
"I tried not to listen," she said diplomatically.
"A few years ago, my grandfather casually told a story at the table during a family gathering.
It seemed like my dad had heard it before, but it was the first time a lot of us had ever heard it.
It was about my great, great, great-grandmother.
There was a human switcheroo. It was pioneer days.
Her look-alike was going out West with her family, and that girl was scared to death.
She met my grandmother in Missouri and realized it was her doppelganger.
They literally switched places. That girl stayed in Missouri, and my grandma went out West. They took over each other's lives. "
She gasped in amazement.
"Yeah. My grandpa told the story, and he said his grandma was certain of the story.
She swore it happened. He told us this whole story as if it were something that was ingrained in him about his heritage.
Anyway, long story short, I became obsessed.
I researched and wrote. I interviewed people and had a compelling, well-written script based on those events.
I had help, and Cameron and Judd are both…
the project's great. I honestly felt like it was my magnum opus—like I was supposed to make it.
It's an amazing story, and it's about my family.
My grandfather has personal ties to it. I can't believe he's refusing to…
" Alex shook his head and trailed off, lost in thought.
She didn't care about his lack of conversation skills. She just ate the last bits of food off the plates as she listened without judgment.
Patrick brought over the coffee, and she added cream and sugar to hers before asking Alex if he wanted any. He shook his head and took a drink of it as it was.
"I feel like your great, great, great grandmother," she said.
He chuckled, thinking she was talking about being old. "Do you mean from working all day?" he asked, which caused her to laugh.
"No, well, that too. I feel like I'm a hundred years old in my feet and back. But, no, I mean switching places. I've been living my sister's life for the last month. That's what I'm doing here."
"What do you mean?"
"People go to that restaurant to get eggs that my sister cooks.
She learned how to do it from a chef in France.
She's the passionate type, a gypsy, and I'm still in Denver, going to school and mooching rent off my parents.
I'm in grad school to get a job at a church where I've been going for eight years.
I'm a homebody. I'm reluctantly taking over her life, and it's short-term.
She's way cooler than I am. She was way cooler. She's sort of a shell right now."
"What happened to her?"
"She met a guy in France—an American on vacation.
Kai. He had family in Montana, and they had money.
He was an artsy type with a stable family, and we all thought my sister had found the one.
They fell in love, had a baby, and he helped her open the restaurant.
They were really doing great. Up until a few months ago, I would have traded lives with my sister any day.
But now her husband's not with us anymore.
He ended his own life, and hers just fell off right along with it.
It seems that way, anyway. There's always hope.
That's why I'm here. I'm taking care of Luna, and trying to help her out.
I don't know how effective I'm being. I barely keep my head above water with her breakfast place.
Her husband's parents pay her mortgage. But they think she's still working at the restaurant.
I told my sister that Lu's going to tell them, but she doesn't care.
A lot of the customers think it's her, too.
A few regulars know it's me back there, but I am basically working on behalf of my sister—taking over her identity like you said with your story. "
"How long are you going to be here?"
She laughed. "That's a good question. I honestly thought I would be gone by now. I assumed I would come and help my sister for a week or two."
"But she's not getting better?"
"No, she's not."
"Where's the little girl?"
"Right now? She's with a friend—spending the night with a friend. I got this job so that my sister would be forced to hang out with her, and all she does is send her to a friend's house when I'm working."
Alex was silent for a long minute. "I'm glad you told me that," he said finally.
"Why?"
"Your sister has it worse than I do. I'm sitting here thinking it's the end of the world, and all I need is a giant sum of money to fix all my problems."
"I didn't mean for you to take it like that," she said.
"No, but it's true. You're having to switch lives with your actual sister, and it puts things into perspective. You had to pick up her life and come here to help her out. All I have is a Hollywood version of that and about twenty people that I have to let down."
"Letting down one person is never easy, so I can imagine it feels bad letting down twenty of them."
"Still. Your story gives me perspective. I hate to put it that way, but it does. How long are you going to stay? What are you going to do if your sister doesn't get better?"
"Those are two questions I ask myself all the time.
I could help her out for the rest of the summer, but I have one more year of my master's program starting this fall back in Denver.
" She stayed quiet for a few long seconds before she continued.
"I see those eggs in my sleep. Worse yet, I see them when I'm awake.
I have nightmares about letting them go too long or popping them all over the dish. "
"How did you learn to do them like your sister?"
"She taught me," she said. "She showed me how to do it on the stove at her house when I first got here."
"If she showed you how to do it, then she can do it herself," he said, feeling oddly protective of her.
She let out a little laugh. "You would think," she said. "I don't know what will happen with her." She paused and pointed at her coffee. "I shouldn't have any more of that. It will keep me up," she said.
Alex looked at her cup, noticing that she drank half of it already. He had hardly touched his. "Can we get the check?" he asked, looking at her instead of the bartender.
"I'm actually going to pay for all this," she said. "I've got a tab that comes out of my paycheck, and I'm going to tell Patrick to take it out of that."
"No," he insisted, shaking his head.
"Yeah, I get a discount, and I ate this whole meal, anyway."
He shook his head. "I'm not letting you pay for food I ordered."
"Not only am I paying, I'm giving you this back." She reached into her purse and came up with the wad of cash Alex had given her earlier that morning. She set it on the table between them. "Can I call you a ride?" she asked.
Alex knew she thought he had been drinking, and he didn't deny it.
In that moment, he said what he needed to say to arrange a stay in her presence.
"Could you just give me a ride?" he asked.
As soon as he asked the question, he knew his desire was to be next to her.
One minute, he was thinking of what a nightmare the day had been, and the next minute, all he could think about was a way to stay next to this woman.
She was a comforting person, and he needed comforting.
"Where's your car?" she asked.
"Here."
"You drove here?"
He shrugged. "My hotel's right down the street. I can just walk."
"I can give you a ride and you can walk back for your car tomorrow."
"That sounds great, thank you."
Within minutes, the two of them had paid the tab and took off for his hotel.
Alex didn't let her pay, nor did he take back the money he had given her that morning.
He was exhausted, and he had a dazed feeling from all the thoughts and emotions his day had brought.
He had already been planning and strategizing about where and how to obtain the money.
And now he found himself attracted to a woman.
It was an odd day with odd feelings, and now there was a woman involved, which made it even weirder.
Alex rode in the passenger's seat of her car, contemplating everything.
He wasn't acting drunk, but he was quiet, and she still assumed he was.
They made it to the hotel, and she tried to leave him in the parking lot, but Alex told her he wanted to walk her back to the restaurant so they could get his rental. She went for it. They walked back to the restaurant together, got in his rental, and drove back to his hotel.
"I'm happy we ran into each other," he said when she parked for the second time. "Thank you for this."
"Me too, and you're welcome," she said, turning off his car. She didn’t get out right away.
"Do you want to come inside?" he asked, gesturing to the hotel.
"No, that's okay. It looks like a nice place, but I'll be heading home. It was so nice getting to know you. I'm so sorry your grandpa told you he would pay for the story, and now he's leaving you hanging."
"Thank you. It's okay."
"Can you get the money somewhere else?"
"I'm already cooking up ideas. I'll be able to eventually, just not this summer. I have a good job, and I'm a bulldog when I want something. I'll be able to make it happen."
"What's your job?"
"Investing. I trade and help others trade.
My grandfather—that same grandfather—was in the market, too.
He made hundreds of millions. He gives us grandkids cash every year on our birthday, and I've been investing.
The number corresponds with our birthday each year—when I was nine, I got nine thousand, ten, I got ten thousand, and so on and so forth.
Anyway, I invested as much as I could of those gifts, and I've built that into a job.
I do trading as my job now. I'm pretty good at it, but I take losses, too.
I don't make the kind of money my grandfather did.
Not yet, anyway. I make enough to support myself and grind away at my real job, which was making this movie. "