Chapter Four
My invitation sends Anna’s expression into a frozen mask of consternation, and she blinks past me, eyes trained on the wall. I would have thought the real bombshell here would be the realization that we are not, in fact, divorced, but she appears to have weathered that one with relative calm. It seems to be the suggestion that I need her to act like my wife that’s sent her into a mental spiral.
Of course, that could be the gummy.
Regardless of what’s going on in that brain of hers, I don’t blame her for being upset. Yes, it was her responsibility to read through any legal documents before signing, and it would have been incredibly bad for both of us had she become seriously involved with someone, but we seem to have dodged that bullet. Now we just have the cannonball of Ray Weston to contend with, and I feel like a dick already knowing I won’t warn her about how bad it might be. I need her to say yes too desperately.
And so I wait, letting her think this through.
It’s surreal to be here with her after all this time. I was so close to being done with this, so near to the finish line, yet here I am, having to improvise an intricate plan B at the eleventh hour with a Muppet in human form as my co-conspirator. Don’t get me wrong, beneath the baked, unshowered disarray, Anna is still a beautiful woman, with enormous brown eyes, creamy skin, and long, willowy limbs. I’d always been fascinated with the perfect beauty mark just above her lip. Unfortunately, right now she looks like she’s fallen out of a tree and crawled through a field of tangly briers to get back to her apartment. This is probably the closest I’ve ever seen to her natural hair color because the pink has grown out a good inch, leaving a stripe of brown at her roots. Her makeup is, I presume, from yesterday; shadows of mascara carve dark circles beneath her eyes. Despite the old makeup and frazzled appearance, there’s still something striking about her. Her eyes are enormous and bright, framed with dark lashes, her steady gaze entirely without artifice.
Though I am nearly certain her mind has wandered to something other than the topic at hand, I let her stare at the wall a little longer so I can stare at her and reconcile this version of Anna with the one I lived with for two years.
Let’s start with the biggest surprise and, more importantly, a huge wrinkle in my already flimsy plan: Anna is not a medical student.
As roommates, we didn’t know each other well—that much is probably obvious—but there is an intimacy to sharing a space with someone, a certain kind of kinship that comes with daily proximity. Anna was reasonably tidy and paid her half of the rent when it was due, but she’d never struck me as the organized, driven, premed type. The one time we talked about it, she said something about medicine being the most palatable of the “real job” options, but she seemed overwhelmed a lot, studying late into the night and painting to decompress in what little free time she had. That she ultimately switched her major to fine art makes a certain amount of sense, but I want to punch myself for not realizing she wasn’t studying medicine at all anymore.
Especially after everything I’ve told my family to keep them out of my business. I haven’t quite wrapped my head around how this will work—how this messy, stoned, unemployed wreck of a woman will fit into the glossy stories I’ve carefully manicured over the past several years, but here I am. I’m committed. And I suppose the sooner she agrees to this, the sooner we can get started on all the work we have ahead of us.
“Anna?” I prompt.
Slowly, she turns her face back to me, blinking into focus. “Sorry. This was a lot to absorb.”
“I’m sure.”
“Indonesia?”
I nod. “The wedding will be on a small island called Pulau Jingga.”
Anna squints at me. “You said ‘small,’ but I think you meant ‘private.’ Your sister is getting married on a private island, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” I work to not let my gaze do another sweep of her apartment. I’ve never been to Pulau Jingga, but my mom has been sending me info that I’ve mostly ignored for months. I know the basic idea—a luxury resort and conservation area set in the Indonesian archipelago—and it’s about as far from this dark, cramped living room as I can imagine. Right now, I need Anna to believe she can do this. Yes, she may be at rock bottom, but I need her to think she is just one fairy godmother moment away from sliding gracefully into the world she’s imagining.
“Who will be there?” she asks, her voice a little wobbly.
“My family. You know Jake, of course. Family friends. Some of my sister Charlotte’s friends. Her fiancé’s family. Some business partners of my father’s. Some press.”
“Press?”
“Yes.”
“To cover…?”
“The wedding. And to write a profile on my father, I think. Just the standard Weston bullshit.”
She lifts her hands, making air quotes. “?‘The Standard Weston Bullshit.’?”
“Right.”
“So, lots of fancy people.”
I don’t sugarcoat it: “Very fancy people.”
Anna looks down at herself and I follow her attention to the front of her shirt, where a Froot Loop adheres to the cotton over her left breast. She plucks it off and pops it into her mouth. “Why not just find someone who can pretend to be me and who knows how to behave around societay?”
“Because my mother knows what you look like.”
She squints at me. “How? I’ve never even met her.”
I hesitate. “I’ve shared a few photos.”
Anna cocks her head. “Photos from when we were roommates? Did we ever take any together?”
“I have the one of you and Jake hiking the Hills in a frame in my living room. It looks enough like me from the back.” I pause, scratching my jaw. “And… I’ve had a few others digitally photoshopped.”
“That’s…” She whistles. “That’s weird, my dude.”
I blow out a breath. “It’s very weird. I concede that.”
“But I guess I’d do weird shit for a hundred mil, too.” She looks to the side, thinking. “Why can’t you hire a look-alike?”
“Five ten, pink hair, beauty mark, and oddball fashion sense? I seem to remember my mother saying something about your nose.”
Her hand moves to her face. “My nose?”
“That it’s small, upturned. She described it as ‘the nose Jenny Nelson wanted and didn’t get.’ She’d notice if it was someone else’s nose.”
“This sounds… I mean, that sounds crazy, West.”
“I know.” This isn’t only her rock bottom; it’s mine, too.
“In what universe am I your type?”
“You were present and willing. At the time, that’s all I required.”
She twirls a pretend mustache. “Ah, amour.”
“This isn’t about romance, Anna. I’m asking for a business arrangement.”
“A business arrangement where we’ll also have to canoodle to be convincing. This feels very Indecent Proposal.”
“I’m sure my family doesn’t expect me to be overly affectionate in public. It’s not really my style.”
She guffaws. “Really.”
“We’ll have to share a bungalow,” I say, ignoring her, “but I expect it will be large enough that we’ll have our own spaces when we’re alone.”
“When is all of this happening?”
“We’d have to leave on the first.”
A pause. “May first?” She slowly counts on her fingers. “That’s four days from now.”
“You’re unemployed and high before lunch,” I say carefully, fighting a laugh. “Can you squeeze this in?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Weston, not everyone gets to live off their grandparents’ money for the rest of their lives. Working for a living is hard. Sometimes we sullied masses will make mistakes and take a pack of gum!”
I don’t love the implication that I don’t work, that I’m trying to breeze through life on my inheritance, but I understand why she sees it that way. The truth behind everything isn’t important right now, and if this goes the way I hope it will, this will be an easy twelve days together and then we’ll never have to see each other again. “Anna, are you available to do this? Please. I will pay all your expenses. I will even give you some money if you need to buy clothes.”
She sits up, self-consciously straightening her ancient T-shirt with its frayed hem. “I have clothes.”
I’m skeptical that we mean the same thing. She’s removed the Froot Loop from her breast, but the ketchup stain on the collar remains.
Anna points at me again. “Okay, I see that look, and so let me ask: what manner of clothes are required on this trip?”
I sigh. “My mother keeps a pair of Gucci slides by the back door to wear to take the recycling out.”
“I’m proud of her for not making the butler do it.”
“He gets off work at six.”
Her expression deflates. “Oh.”
“So, an all-expenses-paid trip and a clothing allowance. Do we have a deal?”
Anna opens her mouth to respond and then closes it again, eyes narrowing shrewdly. “No way. That isn’t enough.”
It isn’t… enough? I look around her apartment like, Are you fucking kidding me?
“Ten thousand dollars after our divorce is fine,” she says, “but I think you should also pay me for my time. This is separate and I’m sure you didn’t think to put this in the contract. I won’t be able to search for a job while we’re on the private island.”
I consider this. “That’s fair. What’s your hourly wage? I’ll double it and pay you for two weeks of work.”
“No, no, no.” Anna sits up and runs her fingers under her eyes, clearing away much of the mascara there. She pulls her ponytail free and reties it. Both actions do wonders for how chaotic she looks. “This is much more demanding. I’ll have to act. I’ll have to learn about everyone I’ll be meeting. I’ll have to manage your complete lack of humor. I’ll have to hobnob. This is an entirely new skill set.”
“Name your price, then.”
She takes a deep breath through her nose, studying me. “Another ten thousand dollars.”
I gust out an involuntary laugh. “Done.”
Her eyes go wide. “That fast? Just”—she snaps—“like that?”
“Yes.”
“Then I want more.”
“Anna. You named a price, and I accepted it. This isn’t how negotiations work.”
“Says who? I could be perfectly happy spending those twelve days eating gummies and watching Conan the Barbarian. I have nothing to lose. Can you say the same?”
“What do you want, then?”
“What number would make you sweat a little?”
“I’m not—I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do,” she says, leaning forward. “Tell me an amount that would be just on the border of you saying no, but you’d still say yes. Is it twenty thousand?”
I try to sound very stressed-out by this. “Yes, that’s a lot of money.”
“You’re a fucking liar. Fifty.”
My jaw twitches. “I’d pay fifty.”
“Then pay me one hundred thousand dollars, West. Plus, a fancy clothing budget.” She holds out her hand for me to shake. “If you can agree to that, then we have a deal.”