15. Reach Out and Touch Someone
15
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE
O’CONNOR
My virtual assistant in Indonesia recited my schedule through my earbud.
“The car will come for you at six thirty. The press junket is at seven fifteen, and the movie premiere is at eight.”
It was an action movie, which I had no intention of staying for. It would just make me roll my eyes to see an otherwise handsome leading man resort to massive doses of steroids in order to get his shirt off and look manly to America and the studio heads.
Plus, the scrum of influencers would be impressive. Bright-eyed Bella Southdown, who was perpetually breathing down my neck, would be there, as would some flunky from The Scoop . Barry Slesinger thought it was stylish to equip his minions with actual film cameras, like digital wasn’t good enough for the endlessly hungry internet maw. The Scoop ’s teams were constantly getting in my way .
Jane went on. “There’s a launch party for that new mousse you liked. It’s on a yacht in Long Beach.”
“I have to get to Long Beach on a Saturday night? Pass.”
“Then there’s the new club on Sunset. They’ve been asking for weeks. They’ll comp you four bottles and VIP access for you and seven friends.”
Ah, but would they provide the seven friends?
“Anything else interesting?”
“There’s an urban raptor demonstration at the La Brea Tar Pits, but that’s not exactly the right place for your navy Mary McFadden.”
“Raptors? As in dinosaurs?”
“Um . . . no. Birds of prey.”
“Cool. But no. Who’s my escort tonight?”
“Darrek Sommerfeld.”
“The IT guy?” Blech. “He knows we uncouple as soon as we get inside the movie premiere?”
“He knows. He just wants a few minutes to talk to you about?—”
“—some new and exciting opportunity, I’m sure. All right, Jane. Thank you. Hey, I have a question.”
“Yes, Ms. O’Connor?”
I’d be taking our “relationship” personal if she answered, but nothing ventured, right? “Is your name really Jane?”
There was a pause. “Of course it is, ma’am.”
Invitation rejected. “So, you’re telling me that no matter when I call—any time of day—whoever answers the phone is going to answer to the name of Jane, huh?”
“This is the service we provide. You have twenty-four-hour access to your virtual assistant. We are all Jane.”
“Even the guys?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But what’s your name? ”
There was a silence and then, in a small voice, she replied, “Jane, ma’am.”
I sighed. “Okay. Thanks for this, Jane. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yes, you will. Enjoy your evening, Ms. O’Connor.”
The conversation was depressing. The evening ahead was depressing. My life was depressing.
I dialed Archer’s number while carefully ignoring any implications.
“O’Connor!” he shouted into the speaker in his truck. The Big Fucking Truck. I smiled to hear him. “How the hell are you? Say hi, guys!”
Mal and Ian shouted their hellos, and then there was a silly moment when Mal attempted to persuade Charlotte to speak, but the Great Dane was silent.
“Can you hear her tail thumping on the back of Archer’s seat?” Mal called. “That’s her version of hello for now.”
“Hello to you all,” I said, my mood already lightening. “I just called to say that it’s Saturday night and you’re all tremendous failures for not having a gig.”
To my delight, they all roared with laughter. “We are failures!” Archer agreed. “But we’ve heard about a great roadhouse outside of Dothan, Alabama, so we’re taking a slight detour. Because they have live music, and for once we get to enjoy it instead of performing it!”
“Yeah we do!” Mal crowed.
“Ever heard of Dothan, O’Connor?” Archer asked me.
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Neither has anyone else. It’s just a wide spot in the road, but they’ve got live music, we’re not playing, and we’re going to have beer and kick back. You should come with us!”
I wanted to come with them. Their option for a Saturday night seemed so much more fun than mine. “What will you do with Charlotte?”
“Unclear,” Archer said. “If she’s allowed in, we’ll take her with us. If not, it’s the day before Halloween. Even here in the South, the evenings are cool. She’d be good in the truck.”
“Especially if you leave the window open,” I said. “She could stick her head out and meet everyone.”
“Christ, the amount of drool I’d have to wipe up.”
“You could leave her a boot?”
They all shrieked in outrage at the thought; Charlotte picked that time to join in the pack’s howl. Her bark made me hold my phone away from my ears.
“You can give her one of your shoes when we see you on Monday,” Archer proclaimed. “It can be your gift of obeisance to the queen.” I’d find a shoe just to prove I was listening. Maybe the ankle straps I’d worn when I first met him. I hated those shoes. “What’s your evening plan, O’Connor? Are you hobnobbing with the stars tonight?”
I told them about the premiere of the action movie, and they were entirely too interested. They had dozens of questions for me to ask the newly ripped male lead, none of which I could or would ask him as Opinionated O’Connor.
On the other hand, wouldn’t it be funny if I did ask him a bunch of the questions that noninsiders wanted to know about? “Hang on,” I said. I found a pad of paper and scrabbled for an actual pen—okay, a discarded eyebrow pencil would do—and made notes. “You got it, guys. I’ll ask him all those, or as many as they’ll let me before I get the boot.” It had been ages since I’d been invited to leave for inappropriate behavior to a star. This would be fun.
“Hey, O’Connor.” Cheerful Mal called to me through the speakers. “We loved your podcast and your bit on friendship. We think we were the inspiration for that. Is that true?”
“In part.” I smiled. “It was surprising to hang out with you guys. Your language shortcuts, your bumped fists. Your apparently unproblematic co-ownership of a dog.”
“Well,” Mal said, “she’s pretty big. She needs three owners. ”
“Four,” Ian corrected.
“Right. Nicky’s the best with her. She’s just running her family’s company in Delaware, so I forget.”
“I never forget Nicky,” Ian said with such tenderness in his voice that it made me miss something I’d never had.
“Well, I’m glad you liked the podcast,” I said. “That was a good letter from the listener, huh? About how good you guys are live?”
“We are awesome live,” Archer said stoutly. How was it that his arrogance no longer annoyed me?
“I thought it tied in nicely with the piece on friendship,” I said. “It serves as an example of what the bonds of friendship can achieve.”
I really wanted to ask them if my closing segment sounded wistful. It had been years since I’d had anyone I could legitimately call a friend. Certainly not the cadre of virtual assistants, all of whom were improbably named Jane.
But it sounded too weak-spirited of Opinionated O’Connor to ask those guys if I sounded as pathetic as I felt when I considered their friendship and the strengths it provided them and compared it to my lone-wolf lifestyle. How had I drifted into this world?
Oh yeah. Everyone wanted something from me. That’s right. And now what I wanted was to be riding in a big fucking truck with guys who honestly seemed to like each other. To have a beer in a roadhouse, like a movie. Maybe to dance some more.
That would come on Monday.
“I’m looking forward to your show in Atlanta,” I said.
“We got you a VIP pass,” Archer said. “You won’t have to wait outside some security door.”
“Oh, thanks . . . but no thanks. I liked the anonymity of the show in Omaha. No one knew me, and I knew no one. ”
“Really? You liked that? Most people want to get into the greenroom, you know?”
“I’ve been to my share of greenrooms,” I said. “I’m good. And after, I’ll leave with the crowd and go back to my hotel, not get in your way of your meet-and-greet. Maybe you can text me when you’re loaded up and ready to go. Can I ride with you for a bit of your next leg? Maybe you could pick me up at my hotel after the gig?”
The silence filled me with the panic of awkwardness. They didn’t want me to join them. I’d overstepped. Somehow, it was high school all over again.
“You’d be welcome,” Archer said finally. I wasn’t so sure. “But you might want to rethink that.”
“Why’s that?” I could hear the iciness in my voice, even though I didn’t want to let them know that the rejection had affected me in the slightest.
“It’s my mom’s birthday,” Mal said, confusing me.
“Yeah?”
“The following Wednesday. I’m her only family. Ian and I are going to fly back to New York to be with her right after the Atlanta show, and then we’ll fly to Chicago to meet Archer and Charlotte. So . . . you’d be driving with him. And just him. It might change your intention to join the road trip.”
My brain froze in a panic. That did change things. Hours—dark nighttime hours—alone with Archer.
Maybe multiple days alone with Archer.
Did I want that?
Did he deserve that?
Did I hate him? Like him? Lust for him? Regret him? What?
Did I dare?
Even as I tried to organize my thoughts, I realized that my silence was as rude—as high school—as theirs had been. I needed to speak. “Well, I wouldn’t want to intrude on Archer’s, um, solitude, I guess? ”
The conversation had devolved into a series of awkward pauses. Ian’s deep voice broke this one. “You could record the next dating-school lesson,” he said.
We could! I seized on that gratefully. “That’s very efficient. We could. Up to you, Archer.”
“Well, I’m willing,” he said. “To record the lesson. Sure.”
“Sure,” I said. We said “sure” to each other for a while until I came to my senses. “Well. I’ll bring my car cameras, of course. I’ll see you on Monday, although you won’t see me. And you can find me at my hotel early Tuesday morning, once you’re packed up and ready to leave.”
“Good, good.” He sounded as stilted as I did. “We’ll do that, then. Okay, well, I guess we’re done?”
“Have fun at the roadhouse.”
“Right, right. You have fun at your premiere.”
Someone—probably the wiser mind of Ian—mercifully ended the call before it could get any worse.
One night alone with Archer. Maybe more than one night.
No, just one night. He could drive me to some airport in the middle of nowhere. I’d get out and go back to my regular non–pickup-driving life.
Just in case, I’d clear my schedule. For a few days.