Chapter 55
JOSIE
We have dinner again on the terrace. Victor insists on cooking for us again as well, just like the other night. He serves oysters for us as a starter. They’re fresh, delivered this morning by a local fisherman. For the main dish, Victor has cooked up some Wagyu tenderloin, sourced from an expensive and rare Japanese breed. It practically melts in my mouth.
Delicious doesn’t do any of it justice.
I look at the man from across the table.
“You’ve done good,” I say.
“Yeah? What do you mean by that exactly?” he asks.
“The fireworks,” I reply. “This dinner. This villa. All of it. You’ve done good.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I have done good, haven’t I?”
“I’m really thankful for everything, Victor.”
“You really don’t have to say that,” the actor says.
“Really,” I repeat, “I’m so thankful. I know you were telling me that you are thankful, but I want to express how much I am. Hell, I would still be saving pennies back in Crystal River right now serving coffees.”
“It’s all for you, Josie.”
I pause.
“I want to ask you a question,” I say.
“Go ahead.”
“But I’m afraid you might take it personally,” I mumble.
Victor chuckles.
“I won’t,” he says.
“Okay...”
“I won’t,” he repeats. “You can ask me anything, Josie.”
I take another pause.
“Why do you really want to win the award?” I ask him.
Victor nods, taking it in. I hope this won’t lead to some outburst. He did say he wouldn’t take any questions personally.
“The best actor one?” he asks. He knows the answer.
“Yeah. Why do you care so much that you’ve gone to all this effort for it?”
Victor leans back in his chair and ponders again. He wants to take the time to answer me honestly, and I appreciate that.
“I guess because I’m super competitive,” he replies. “I have to reach the very top of my field. I have to prove to myself that I am fucking good at what I do.”
I nod.
“That’s a fair enough reason,” I reply.
“Yep.”
“And what were you like younger?” I ask. “As a teenager? Do you think you and I would’ve been friends if we had known each other?”
Victor laughs.
“You don’t want to know what I was like as a teenager,” he says.
“Oh, now I’m interested.”
“You really want to know? You will not think less of me?”
“Nope.”
“Okay,” Victor says, sighing. “If you must know, I was skinny and easily bullied. I was a kid who loved movies and nothing else. I was even beaten up a couple of times.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh.
“That can’t be true,” I remark. “Look at you, Victor. That really can’t be true.”
The actor shrugs and pulls out his phone. He experiments with it for a moment before he shows me the screen. He gestures at me to come over. I stand and stroll to him.
He’s thrusting the phone into my face.
It’s a photo of a teenage boy - a skinny, underdeveloped teenage boy. His eyes are blue, and his hair is black, but they are the only characteristics the boy shares with the man sitting opposite me.
“No way that’s you,” I whisper, taking the phone to have a proper look at the photo. “Wow, you really were skinny. I can see how you were bullied.”
Victor shrugs.
“See? I was a schmuck before I became cool.”
“Cool?”
“Hey...”
But before he can finish his sentence, I’m kissing him.