16
PARKER WAS RIGHT. THE NEWS IS EVERYWHERE.
“Billionaire Bachelor No Longer a Bachelor! Mystery Woman Wearing His $50 Million Purchase!”
Penelope is the first to call. Of course, her first words are “So, when can I borrow it?”
I snort. “The necklace? It’s not mine. It was just for the photos.”
“No,” she says, not missing a beat. “The hot billionaire boyfriend.”
I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see it. “You mean the fake boyfriend?”
“Even better,” she says. “Real relationships can be such a drag.” She isn’t wrong. “Besides . . .” she continues. “I saw those pictures. There doesn’t seem to be anything fake about it.”
I hadn’t pressed any of the links. I do now and see the photos Penelope’s talking about. I swallow. She’s right. Parker and I might be better at this fake-relationship thing than we thought.
We’re looking at each other like there isn’t fifty million dollars between us. We’re looking at each other like we’re not surrounded by dozens of cameras and rude questions.
This specific article has decided to comment on how different I am from the women he’s been photographed with before. It includes a list, and I click out of it without looking. The idea of seeing Parker with those other women sends a tearing through my chest that I don’t want to examine too closely.
“Little is known about Parker Warren’s mystery woman,” a caption of us says. Good. It better stay that way.
“There’s something else,” I tell Penelope. “He—he says he remembers.”
“What?”
“The night in the stairwell.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I squeak.
“Oh my god. Maybe he has a photographic memory?”
“Maybe,” I say, not telling Penelope about the other stuff he’d said, about watching me for a while or trying to look me up afterward. Those were probably embellishments. I’m sure he says that to all the women he hooks up with.
I definitely don’t tell her what happened afterward.
It was nothing, I tell myself. We didn’t even kiss.
“This just made everything more fun,” Penelope says, sounding delighted.
“I’m glad my misery is amusing to you.”
“Whatever keeps you writing,” she says. “It sounds like you’re making good progress, Elle, but CAA will probably kidnap me and demand your screenplay for ransom if you don’t turn it in the day after Labor Day.”
Sarah has left me two voicemails in the last week, checking on its status. Penelope’s not wrong.
“You’re right,” I say, even though part of me never wants to see him again. Something has shifted between us, a wall crumbling, bit by bit. I need to fortify it.
I manage to avoid Parker Warren for three days. The press might think we’re living together and “on our way to the altar” (yeah, okay), but the time apart is only proof that all of this is very much fake.
He doesn’t knock on my door. I don’t knock on his. We don’t go on our daily runs. Instead, I walk, listening to music. Luke and his crew are finishing up with the second powder room, and I head down to the coffee shop, mourning the memory of that perfect scone.
I write. A lot. Writing has always been the best distraction, and it works like a charm. I write well into the night, then sleep in. Walk. Write. Rinse, repeat.
By the fourth day, there’s no denying it. I’ve written everything I need to and have gone over the rest twice. I need to go to my next location.
I tell myself he isn’t mad at me when I knock on the door. Being mad would mean he cares, which he doesn’t. As he very clearly pointed out, this is pretend .
That’s how I find myself in the back of a taxi with him, both of us pretending like he didn’t have his hands all over me a few days ago. It’s a long drive. Thirty minutes, at least. Still, we sit in silence, as if neither of us really knows what to say. That’s fine, because the radio and a talk show host on the tiny screen in the back seat are happy to fill the quiet. I see the same segment so many times, I memorize it.
When we arrive, Parker helps me out onto the worn cobblestone.
There’s a castle looming above. Fine, not a real castle. But it looks like one.
“Have you ever been to the Cloisters?” he asks, as we make the trek up to the entrance. He’s serious. Guarded. All business.
I shake my head. “No. Never.”
We arrive right at opening. It’s mostly empty, just the way I like it. Our tickets get scanned, then we walk right into the first room. The ceiling is high and vaulted, and a tapestry eats up almost the entire left wall.
Parker stays by my side as I go piece by piece, reading each of the little plaques, taking notes in my notebook, trying to get inspiration. Would the characters stop to admire this piece? Would it spark a conversation?
One depicts a fourth-century hermit. I look up “hermit” on my phone to get more historical information and find a group that lived on an island in the middle of Lake Como.
I kind of want to be a hermit in the middle of Lake Como.
“They’re like you,” he says.
“Hermits?”
I look up and he’s not staring at the hermit statue. He’s looking around the room. He frowns. “No. I mean, a little bit. But, I meant . . . they’re storytellers.”
I take in the statues. The tapestry, the source of what must have been endless cataracts and carpal tunnel. All of it must have taken years. Decades, maybe. All just to tell stories.
“I never really thought of it that way,” I say, though it seems obvious. I feel a surge of gratitude that I live in the time of Final Draft, and my laptop, and hand yoga (yes, it’s a thing, and I should probably do it more).
Especially when I see a giant illuminated manuscript open to a page with a floral border. It must be thousands of pages long, and each letter is painstakingly drawn.
There are stories everywhere: on the borders of the walls, on the stained glass, on the enormous dressers. Every few minutes, a high-pitched alarm screams when someone gets too close to one of the works of art. Everyone in every painting seems to be wearing a crown. Entire doorways have been carved out and put here. I wonder where they used to lead. There are little faces on everything, even on the sides of laughably small chairs.
“Oh my god, there’s a unicorn room,” I say, because that is really the only acceptable response to a medieval unicorn room .
That is, until I realize the room is dedicated to depicting the hunt of a unicorn.
A set of massive tapestries adorn each wall. They each tell a piece of a story, a different chapter. One shows the hunters gathered around, wearing a perplexing mix of blue vests over red long sleeves and caps with feathers in them. A guide tells a tour that’s just started that historians know almost exactly when the tapestries were created, because fashion trends moved nearly as quickly as they do now. I wonder if the men in the tapestries looked at them years later and cringed at their past fashion choices, the way Penelope and I do when we look at our college photos. Two large initials are woven into the corners of each piece, leading some to believe they were made as a wedding gift.
“Imagine putting a four-piece hand-woven tapestry on your registry,” I mumble to Parker.
“I’ve seen worse.”
I look up at him, intrigued.
“I’ve seen private islands.”
“No.”
“I swear.”
I burst out laughing, and the guide gives me a scathing look.
We back toward the corner, where a high pitch screams into my ear, because I’ve nearly bumped into a massive unicorn horn.
No, apparently it’s a narwhal tusk.
A narwhal tusk?!
The guide’s look is withering.
I can’t get over the narwhal tusk and the fact that they thought it was proof unicorns existed. “How are whales with majestic horns more realistic than horses with horns?” I whisper to Parker.
He lifts a shoulder. “I thought Elf made up narwhals until five seconds ago.”
I put a hand on his arm. With mock seriousness, I say, “Am I going to have to tell you unicorns aren’t real too?”
He puts a hand over his heart, feigning crushing shock and disappointment.
We both start laughing, then leave the room, right behind a guy telling the person next to him, “No wonder there’s no unicorns left. They killed them all!”
We make our way out to a courtyard lined with what are labeled, very clearly, “Poisonous Plants.” Then into a room filled with large frescoes.
“Is that . . . a dragon?” I say.
It looks more like a cobra with a spiral tail, wings, chicken feet, and horns. Right across from it is a depiction of a camel. As if they were both just as likely to exist.
Across from that is a concerning depiction of a lion from someone who had clearly never seen a lion before.
I feel a stutter in my chest, thinking of my mom. She used to call Cali and me her little lions . She used to tell us we were strong enough to face anything.
“Why did the studio clear all these places?” Parker asks. “It doesn’t really seem like there’s a theme.”
“They wanted a New York movie. Something that showcased some of its biggest draws. I don’t know.”
“So, all of the locations are in the city?”
“All but one.”
He looks intrigued.
“The last one is in Paris.”
At that, he looks even more interested. “We should go,” he says.
I laugh. He must be joking. “That’s about the last thing we should do,” I say, as we wait at the curb for our car. It’s taking a while.
“We could walk home,” he says, and he only half sounds like he’s kidding.
I snort. “I wouldn’t even make it to Central Park.”
“No, you would. You’ve gotten better. Haven’t you noticed?”
Yes, begrudgingly, I have. We were running every weekday up until a few days ago. And, even on my own walks, I found that I could go for over an hour without much strain at all.
“That should be our goal,” Parker says. “Before the end of the summer, we’re going to walk the length of Manhattan.”
I look at him like he just suggested we streak through the museum. “What?”
“People do it. They walk down Broadway. We could end at Battery Park, watch the sunset, and tend to our blisters.”
Speaking of blisters—the ones from the heels and my brilliant idea of running home in the rain have only barely started recovering. I’m wearing a mosaic of different Band-Aid shapes and designs beneath these weather-inappropriate booties.
I shake my head just as our car pulls up. “You’ve said a lot of unbelievable things in our time together,” I say. “But that has to be the worst.”
“Believe in yourself, Elle,” he says, in a way I can feel in my bones. “I do.”
I STOP IN MY TRACKS, THE SMELL OF FRESHLY BAKED BUTTERY sugar filling the space. I blink a few times, wondering if I’m imagining it, but no. Right there, in the bakery case, are three scones, like ghosts from my best memories.
“That’s—is that—” I say to the barista behind the iPad, like I’ve encountered a mythical being behind the counter.
“Yeah, it’s back on the menu,” he says, like he couldn’t really care less. “And we carry them every day now. Want one?”
“One?” I say, nearly choking on the word. “I’ll take all of them.” Then I think. “No, that’s too selfish. I’ll take two.”
“All right then,” he says, using the tongs to place them on my plate. “Hot latte, whole milk?”
I nod. “Thanks, Jeremy.”
“No problem, Elle,” he says, and the fact that he remembers my name, my preferred (first) coffee, and my unnatural love of these blueberry scones makes me feel warm inside. Like maybe it can be nice to talk to strangers and become friendly with them.
I hold the plate of scones with a reverence usually reserved only for my laptop. I walk toward my favorite table, only to find it occupied.
Then, miraculously, just as I’m about to consider another option, the cups on the table are swept away, like they were never there at all. My table is right there, waiting.
Strange. Mornings aren’t usually this nice to me.
I take the seat, lean back, and think that if I could write here every day of my life, I would be happy. As much as I enjoy being a goblin in my apartment, hunched over the keys, alone, and mumbling to myself in between shoving dry snacks into my mouth, being among people . . . is better.
Parker walks in and finds me immediately. He grins as I wave dramatically in the air. “You’ll never guess what happened,” I say, surprised by how much I want to tell him something that has made me happy.
“They recontinued the scone,” Parker says, very clearly seeing them on my plate.
I nod enthusiastically. “This might be the best day of my life.”
Parker laughs. “Challenge accepted to somehow dethrone return of the blueberry scone .”
I shake my head. “Impossible.” I take a bite and groan. It’s even better than I remembered. I look down at my plate and make the ultimate sacrifice.
“Here,” I say, motioning toward the second scone.
Parker’s lips twitch. “How generous of you.”
I take another bite. He watches me, transfixed, like he somehow is getting happiness by watching me be happy.
“This day has just been perfect,” I say. “You know this is my favorite table, right?”
“It’s the only table you ever sit at,” he says.
I nod. “I get here at opening most days, just so I can have it.”
“And?”
“When I got here, it was taken. But right when I was walking by it, it was suddenly free. It was so . . .”
Lucky.
Now that I think about it . . . was it an employee who moved the cups, freeing up the table? Was it strange for there to still be three scones left, when it’s late enough in the morning that they should all be gone?
“Parker,” I say very slowly, trying to remain calm, “did you buy the coffee shop?”
He’s leaning back casually in his chair, not a care in the world. “No,” he says.
I melt in relief. “Oh, good, I thought—”
“I bought the chain.” He looks at me earnestly. “They have a location in Brooklyn and one in the Hamptons. Did you know?”
I don’t move. For a few seconds, I’m stunned. I don’t know why. It’s not like he doesn’t have the money. It’s not like he hasn’t done outrageous stuff like this before.
“Why?” I ask. He leans forward, a tad less casual, when he hears my tone. “And don’t tell me it’s because your financial adviser told you to diversify your portfolio .”
He rests his arms on the table, looks me right in the eyes. “I bought the coffee shop because you love it. I bought it so that you can have your favorite scone, with your favorite latte, at your favorite table, every morning.” He leans forward. “I bought it because it makes you happy, and that, to me, Elle, is priceless.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t even really know how I feel.
“Is there . . . going to be an article about this?”
His eyes flash with something. Anger, maybe. Or hurt. “No, Elle,” he says.
That doesn’t make sense then. Not when this is pretend.
Unless . . .
“Parker, this could never be anything. You know that, right? We— we can never be anything. I told you that I—”
“I know,” he says, serious as ever. “I understand. I just want to make you happy, Elle. That’s all.”
I rear back, feeling a sudden bite of hurt. “You think buying things for me is the way to make me happy?” I remember the night in the stairwell, the one he remembers . The type of person he assumed I was. Clearly, that hasn’t changed much.
He thought he could buy my affection then, and he thinks he can buy it now.
I stand. “You can’t buy me, Parker,” I say. “You can’t buy my happiness. And if you think you can, then you don’t know me at all.”
I leave him and the pastries behind as I leave the coffee shop.