14. Sophie
FOURTEEN
SOPHIE
To say that getting to know Foster’s friends is an education is an understatement. They all met while teaching English in Korea, which explains the wide range of ages. Nick explained that it was like being in university all over again. You make fast, strong friendships with people all in the same situation. In their case, expats living in a new country with a different language and customs.
“Dan and Maria were the senior teachers at the English academy I was at, then I met Miranda, Heather, and Nick in Korean class,” Foster explains. “One day I invited everyone out for dinner after class and asked if Dan and Maria wanted to join us.”
“The rest is, as they say, history.” Maria beams over at Foster. “We were simply happy to be included. People think once you hit a certain age, you don’t know how to have fun anymore. The reality is you start having more fun because you stop giving a cat’s caboose about what anyone else thinks of you.”
“Cat’s caboose?” I repeat, glancing over at Foster as things start to click.
“So, it turns out kids are really good at repeating things you say, and I learned very quickly that they were particularly proficient with curses.”
“Kid cursed like a sailor when he first arrived,” Dan guffaws.
“Yeah, and he was apparently unable to shake the cutesy cursing habit when he got home,” Heather teases.
“Well, I still work pretty closely with kids so...” His shoulders rise and fall with a sigh.
“I have kids and don’t censor myself,” Miranda says.
“Yeah, but you’re expected to teach your own kids bad words. No parent is going to walk into a school, shake my hand, and thank me for teaching their kid how to swear.”
“I don’t know,” I say, “I’d say your language is more colorful than the usual stuff. It’s definitely more interesting.” I reach over, threading my fingers through his. “I like it.”
“The question is, does that language come out in the bedroom?” Nick asks. I immediately feel heat rush to my face.
“Nick,” Foster warns, his hand tightening around mine. “Too far.”
I think of the way Foster touched and held me at the gala. How he helped sell the illusion that we were together. “All I’ll say is that in the bedroom, Foster’s vocabulary is the last thing I’m thinking about.” The room erupts in laughter and hoots, and Foster’s face goes nearly as red as his hair.
Lunch is delicious, and Maria pats herself on the back for keeping Dan from straying too far in the experimental direction. “He was going to grill absolutely everything, and that’s when I put my foot down, especially since the dessert is pudding-based.”
“How the hell do you grill pudding?” Heather queries.
“I found a recipe. I was willing to try it, but this one”—he gestures toward his wife—“said it was dumb.”
“But now I want to know,” Miranda whines.
“I’ll send you the recipe.” Dan grins over at her.
“Oh no, I don’t want to make the recipe, I just want to know if it’s possible.” She waves off his offer. “If you’re going to send it to anyone, send it to Foster.”
“Is the end result a hot pudding?” Foster asks, leaning forward, and I can’t tell if he’s actually interested or simply concerned.
“You serve it warm,” Dan says.
Now I can definitely tell that Foster is not, in fact, interested. “I think I’m good never knowing what it is,” he says confidently, leaning back into the couch and letting his hand rest on my thigh. It feels like a rogue firework, sparks going in every which way, and I have to consciously stop myself from squirming. Not because it doesn’t feel good, but because it feels too good and I’m not in the type of situation where I want to be feeling this good. Ultimately feeling good is making me uncomfortable.
Amazingly, Foster seems to pick up on my discomfort and moves his hand from my thigh, opting to take my hand instead. This has the same effect as a good hard hug, and the anxiety that was building begins to deflate.
“So you two have known each other since you were kids?” Maria asks, walking around with a pitcher of sangria and refilling half the glasses in the room.
“Yeah, since I was five and he was six,” I confirm.
“And it took you until now to realize you had feelings for each other?”
“We were…” I start to say as Foster says, “Oh no, I knew when we were kids.”
I look at him wide-eyed and then remember this is fake. He’s selling a backstory we had foolishly not planned out.
“I mean, I guess I had a crush, but I would have never guessed he did too,” I say bashfully.
“Took me a while to figure out why my heart didn’t turn into a jackhammer when my sister had other friends over. It was only when Soph was there.”
There are aww ’s from around the room and I’m stupidly allowing myself to be dragged into this alternate reality. “Well, you never let on.”
He looks at me, those amber eyes so intense I have to actively remind myself this isn’t real. “I’m a very good actor.” And there it is, the reminder of what this is.
“You are indeed. Fooled me completely.”
“Dan, why do you have a picture of Ray Romano on your wall?” Miranda asks, coming back into the room.
“Excuse me?” Dan asks, standing up and heading in the direction Miranda had come from. He stops in front of one of the framed pictures in the hall. “That’s my uncle Gabriel,” he says coyly.
“That’s Ray fucking Romano and you know it. And that’s Jennifer Aniston,” she says, pointing at another picture.
Foster stands and walks over to the framed pictures on the mantle and starts to laugh. “I had no idea you two were so close to this many famous people including”—he leans in—“Queen Elizabeth from like 1960. When were you born again, Danny Boy?”
“Nineteen sixty-nine.”
“Did you invent a time machine between then and now?” Nick asks, joining Foster at the mantle.
“If so, you should send Foster and Sophie back so they can share their feelings in a more timely manner,” Heather says absently while studying more pictures. “No one from your family is even in this one, it’s only the BeeGees. Wait, is it the BeeGees? I don’t know, I’m so young.”
Everyone is laughing, and I’m lost in a daydream of what it would have been like if Foster and I had actually confessed having feelings for one another long before Gregory. Would I have gone to Korea with him? Would we have made it until now? It’s silly to wonder—there are no time machines, and one of us is acting while the other is trying desperately not to fall for it.
By the time all the pictures are studied, thirty-two famous faces are discovered pressed between real family pictures and their glass covers. One of them has five versions of Jon Stewart, which throws the friends into a lighthearted argument about which expression correlates with which famous quote.
“That one is from the episode where he rants about deep-dish pizza,” Foster says before quoting him in a terrible New York accent. I struggle to hold in my laughter.
“Didn’t you say you were a good actor?” Alex scoffs.
“I never said I was good at accents, but I do have a fantastic memory. and that face is definitely the pizza rant face.”
“I’m not saying this because of the whole being with him thing, but he’s right, that’s pizza rant face. I must have rewatched that episode a hundred times in the Walshes’ basement.” I go on to quote the next part of the line.
“Now that is acting,” Alex exclaims, with a flourish of jazz hands.
I bow dramatically. “Thank you. I’ve been training my entire life to be a Jon Stewart impersonator.”
“Hate to break it to you, sunshine, but you’re way too beautiful for that,” Foster says.
I roll my eyes before looking up at him. “You have to say that.”
“I don’t have to say anything,” he says quietly, moving closer. He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me gently into his side. “When it comes to you, I want to say it, yell it from the rooftops actually.” And then he bends and plants a kiss on my forehead.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, Foster’s lips are on me. Sure, they aren’t on my lips, but they are on my face, and that’s a step in a direction I’ve only ever dreamed of.