Chapter 18 Main Character Syndrome
Main Character Syndrome
Jack was hiding.
From what, he wasn’t exactly sure. From the Christmas party he was, in theory, attending, sure.
But also from Blair.
Operation Jack Gets Out of His Own Head was working. There was no denying it. His book was getting done, and it wasn’t, he was fairly certain, going to expose him as a fraud, or a one-hit wonder.
But he was starting to feel uncomfortable with just how far out of his own head he was.
He was the proverbial frog in the pot. It had started with walks.
Everyone knows walks are good for the creative process.
And then TV. All right. Immersing himself in a narrative different from the one he was trying to create: it made sense.
But planning a sting to catch Mrs. Afonso? Mixing drinks for the occasion? Warming Blair’s hands up in his own?
And then, coming dangerously close to kissing her?
What the hell was wrong with him?
Maybe it was time to go home—home to Minneapolis, not to the pool house. The pool house—he hated that he needed to remind himself of this—was not home.
“Here you are.” Tiffany stuck her head around the doorway from the kitchen to the mudroom. “I was wondering where you were hiding.”
“I’m not hiding.” Yes, Jack was sitting on the floor in the mudroom where Blair was keeping her overflow booze and the party trays that didn’t need refrigeration, but he was still prepared to deny the charges.
“I’m hanging with Edward.” He looked down at the dog, who was definitely hiding. He gave an affirmative woof. “See?”
But also, another exhibit in how alarmingly far Jack had gotten out of his own head: he was enjoying the company of a domesticated animal.
Tiffany wasn’t having his deflections. She put her hands on her hips and leveled a withering look at him.
“All right. I’m hiding,” Jack said. “But she wants me to sing.”
“She wants everyone to sing.”
“She especially wants me to sing.”
“Main character syndrome much?”
Against his will, he smiled. He liked Tiffany. She was different from his idea of LA people. She was smart as they came, and she said what she meant.
Of course, Blair was different from his idea of LA people, too, so a logical person might conclude that his mental image of LA people needed some adjustment.
“I used to be big into singing—in choirs—and I made the mistake of telling Blair about it.”
Tiffany blinked several times. “You used to be big into singing? Why does that not compute?”
“Why does everyone say that?”
“Can I ask you a weird question?”
“Can I stop you?”
“When did you tell Blair about your singing career?”
“I don’t know, probably during one of our dinners, or walks.” He tried to remember. “No, we were having drinks by the pool. Why?”
“Do you and Blair often have drinks by the pool?”
“No,” he said reflexively, but that wasn’t true, was it? “Sometimes,” he amended. “The singing thing came up because we’d been to see the Watts Towers and we were having a discussion about art, and creativity.”
Tiffany nodded slowly. “This party is suddenly making a lot more sense.”
“What?”
“Nothing. But given that Blair is participating in ‘discussions about art and creativity’”—she made quotes with her fingers—“with you, not to mention putting you up rent-free, after you were a complete asshole to her, the least you can do is sing at her fucking Christmas party.”
Shit. And here Jack had just been thinking of Tiffany’s penchant for saying what she meant as a positive trait.
“What?” she asked. “What’s that face?”
He curled his lip. “It’s probably my you’re-right-but-I-don’t-like-it face.”
“Come on.” She took his drink out of his hand and set it on the counter. “Time to deck some fucking halls.”
“Only if you’ll sing with me.”
He expected that to shut things down, but she said, “Sure, but I get to pick the song.”
Next thing he knew, sheet music was being shoved into his hands and he was being shoved into the “stage” area in front of the pianist Blair had hired.
There was a lot of shoving going on. He comforted himself with the knowledge that even if he was bad, he wasn’t going to be as bad as some of the people he’d heard earlier.
In fact, his self-exile to the mudroom had been partly in response to a dirgelike, atonal rendition of “Jingle Bells” sung by none other than Mrs. Afonso, who was now apparently Blair’s best friend, judging not only by her presence here but also by the plethora of baked goods that had been exchanged between the two houses since the sting operation.
He clicked on the microphone as he surveyed the room, which looked like the Pottery Barn Christmas catalog had vomited all over it, looking for Blair among the guests, most of whom seemed to be her colleagues from work or Hollywood women she was friends with.
Ah, there she was.
Why was he watching her? Hard to say. Because he suspected she had thrown this entire party as an excuse to manipulate him into singing?
Perhaps. But maybe that was main character syndrome.
Maybe she’d simply wanted to have a party.
She’d seemed to enjoy hosting Thanksgiving. Except for the cleaning-up part.
He wondered if the cleanup tonight was going to be fraught. He didn’t want her to suffer. He hoped she understood that he understood. He hoped she understood that he understood? What kind of sentence was that?
Maybe he was watching her because that was how he had come to understand her, by watching.
He knew when something on one of their shows was going to make her snort with either laughter or derision, and he could distinguish between the two types of snorts.
He knew when a situation was going to lead her to her quiet, internal panic.
Or maybe he was watching her because she was so pretty.
She was wearing an emerald-green pleated minidress. It was tied in a big bow at the back of her neck, leaving her shoulders exposed, and then it fell down loosely. Was that an A-line? Anyway, she looked like a green lampshade. She should have looked ridiculous.
She did not look ridiculous.
She was huddled in a corner talking to an extremely tall blond man wearing a suit and tie, and the way she was tilting her head as she listened intently to whatever he was saying was…
Oh. Oh, no. The music had started up, and it was not good.
“We can’t sing this,” he whisper-hissed to Tiffany. He would admit to being functionally illiterate when it came to pop culture, but even he knew that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” had been canceled.
“Calm down. It’s fine. Blair made everyone hand in their phones when they arrived.”
“So you’re not saying the song is fine; you’re saying there won’t be a record of us singing it.”
“I’m saying you’re overthinking this. Just sing.”
“Why do I still have my phone?”
“Probably because you don’t have social media and the only person you text is Blair.”
“That’s…”
True. It was true.
“‘I really can’t stay!’”
Shit. Tiffany had belted out the first line of the song, and she had drawn the attention of the people closest to them.
He did a quick cost-benefit analysis. Sing and risk looking like an idiot. Walk off and abandon Tiffany midsong and look like a jerk.
Idiot won out over jerk—a new one for him.
If he kept the volume low, Blair might not notice. Here went nothing. “‘Baby, it’s cold outside.’”
She noticed. She whipped her head around. He was transported back to his first night here, when she’d done the same thing but in such close proximity to him that her hair had lashed his face.
The memory did something to him that the actual occurrence had not. He’d been annoyed then. Now he wanted it to happen again.
Somehow, he was having these thoughts while managing to keep the terrible song going.
Everyone was watching them now, including the besuited Nordic giant. He was wearing a very good-looking skinny red plaid tie. Very festive, very dapper.
Jack was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
Well, hell. He turned up the volume. He turned up the charm—or tried to. It was possible that his version of turning up the charm was making him look like a literal lunatic, but one did what one could.
Jack had never seen Blair this dumbstruck before, not even when Esme surprised her.
The speed with which she’d turned toward him on his first line of the song contrasted with the complete stillness that had subsequently taken over her body.
She looked like a statue. A statue with its mouth hanging open.
He didn’t know why she was so shocked; hadn’t the whole point of the party been to get him to sing?
He suspected the answer was yes, and that wasn’t main character syndrome.
He was pretty sure Blair was trying to… heal him, or some shit.
She had helped with his book, so even though she didn’t understand that there was nothing else wrong with him, he would give her this win.
So he kept singing his part, trading the creepy lines back and forth with Tiffany, watching Blair to see if her expression changed. He had to look at the sheet music occasionally to check on the lyrics, but he always looked back up to find her still staring at him.
When they got to the end of the song, which was the only line both parts sang in unison, he realized he probably should acknowledge Tiffany, his duet partner, and the one he was supposed to be flirting with via the story of the song.
He turned to find her grinning, looking almost like she was holding back laughter.
The room applauded enthusiastically. All eyes were on him. Or maybe—main character syndrome strikes again?—all eyes were on Tiffany. He gestured toward her and bowed his head. She had a good voice, and she’d been great at managing the pacing of what could be a tricky song in that regard.