Chapter Ten #2
“I’m really bad at timing,” I say. “It’s like my fatal flaw.
Well, hopefully not actually fatal, but you know what I mean.
It used to not be this bad, but I think my mom died and everything got worse and now I do stupid things like go out for auditions I have no business going to and calling people who have Wikipedia pages unsolicited on Sunday mornings and—”
“Juniper. Stop.”
But I don’t.
“And we have over a hundred thousand followers now. Isn’t that great? And if we put our heads together, we can—”
“It’s my father,” James interrupts. “And you should know that he might contact you, might try to tell you not to date me for reasons real and invented. But just know that whatever he threatens you with is most definitely fictitious.”
This is not how I envisioned my Sunday morning going, but James sounds so worked up, so stressed, I decide my questions can wait.
“Okay,” I say.
I can practically hear him blinking.
“Okay?” he asks. “I tell you my dad is insane and might try to get in touch with you like some sort of discount mob boss and you say Okay ?”
“It’s not on the list of priorities,” I say. “Unless you want to add it, that is.”
James’s laugh is incredulous.
“I don’t,” he says. “I really don’t.”
“Good,” I say. “So what should we talk about instead? Because my plan was to discuss the least flattering photo of me I just stumbled upon on—” I pause to check the website. “—HotGoss.com, but if you have something better…”
“I do, actually.”
—
It’s not a real date. I tell myself that at least twenty times when James picks me up for the second day in a row, drives me an hour to a huge shopping mall, and tells me we need to find “social media work-appropriate outfits.”
“Might as well start attacking your grand Internet plan now,” he says.
He’s trying to sound grumpy about it, but I think he’s actually relieved to focus on something other than the phone call with his dad.
“And I am not wearing a peacoat,” James says when I hold up one that is nearly identical to the coat William wears in the movies. “I have to draw the line somewhere, and it’s definitely at peacoat.”
“What’s wrong with peacoats?” I ask.
I manage to put the hanger back on the rack with only one hand as my other holds my phone. I’m hoping if I film the majority of this outing, I can splice the B-roll together into a mini vlog.
“Nothing if you’re a toddler born into the British royal family,” James says, holding up a—shocker—neutral Henley for inspection before putting it back with a sigh.
“It’s for our parts, ” I remind him, knowing I’ll have to cut this part out in editing. “Like costumes. You don’t have to like peacoats, but evidently William does.”
I hold up a plain white T-shirt. I’m not sure how it manages to look expensive, but it does. I flip over the price tag and try not to have a heart attack.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But who would pay nearly three hundred American dollars for a T-shirt ?”
James rolls his eyes as he makes his way toward me.
“Probably a vampire with more money than sense. Isn’t his sister Evelyn the one who presumably clothes them all because she’s into fashion?”
I cut my eyes to him.
“Is that a question or a fact?” I ask. “Did you not watch the movies with your mom?”
James looks down at me, his eyes fathomless.
“Turn off the camera for a second, will you?”
I do, of course, but I think it’s just so James can have a break or so we can discuss something boring and logistical like how much we really intend to spend on clothes for shooting purposes, but it’s not.
“I don’t want…” he pauses. “There are things I don’t want on camera. Ever. My mom is one of them.”
“Understood,” I say. “Of course you don’t.”
“It’s the great paradox,” James says. “That day you spilled coffee on your shirt…I don’t know,” he adds, shaking his head.
“It brought it all back. Of course I thought of her when I took the job—how could I not?—but it was different seeing you there representing your mother with such concreteness. It made it feel more actualized. As if maybe mine was orchestrating all of this. As if she was the one to drop this job into my lap.”
James moves a hanger back and forth on the rack, unseeing.
“So yes. I know all about The Meadow. Because just as your mother read the books for you and fell in love with them, I read the books for my mother and…well, I wouldn’t say I loved them. But I understood them. I could see the appeal, the cause for extreme devotion.”
He’s slipping me notes across the world’s longest table, clues to why he is acting this way now and maybe why he acted that way —raging and upset and determined—then, in college.
This is the long-awaited friendship full of honesty and shared emotions I thought could come of our night on the stage.
Here, finally, is the realization of all my daydreams.
My traitorous brain replays yesterday’s kiss, but I change the channel.
This is enough. A working friendship where we let each other in under the guise of improving our craft and our project.
And when it’s over and we go our separate ways, we will look back on happy memories rather than unpleasant ones.
“So what I’m hearing,” I say, “is that you, personally, are the world’s biggest Meadower?”
James narrows his eyes, but I can tell in the way he’s trying not to smile that he’s thankful to have told me and even more thankful to be moving on to another less emotionally treacherous topic.
“I believe that is the opposite of what—”
“The peacoat is all you’ve ever wanted,” I add. “Your mother’s final wish was for you to make enough money to—” I reach forward and flip the tag over. “—purchase a peacoat worth my old apartment’s entire month’s rent. Holy shit. What store is this?”
“The kind immortals with endless resources would frequent,” James says.
We try on the clothes anyway, even though my resources are very finite and our lack of immortality hangs thick in the air in the form of two deceased mothers.
I turn on the camera again to film as James comes out of the posh fitting room and poses in the three-way mirror, his jeans and peacoat bearing a more-than-eerie resemblance to William.
When I lean forward to muss his hair, I make sure to catch it on camera.
“Just trying to make it more authentic,” I say.
And James is a better actor than me, more skilled, more precise. I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or the camera when he catches my hand and plants the quickest of kisses on my wrist.
Probably the camera. Definitely the camera.
He holds my phone up to film as I come out in my own getup: a long denim skirt that feels impractical for anything but sitting, a scratchy sweater, and a headband that feels too tight on my head.
“I look ridiculous,” I tell the mirror.
“You look beautiful,” James says, coming to stand beside me on the raised platform before the mirrors.
“And you need an eye exam,” I tease, suddenly self-aware of the camera in a way I haven’t been up until now.
Maybe it’s because I’m looking at us, forced to see myself standing next to James Freakin’ Neely who has been on red carpets and next to famous talk-show hosts.
He’s otherworldly in his own way, and I know it’s only our agreement to boost numbers that led him to call me beautiful in the first place.
A fitting room attendant makes her way in as James lowers the camera. With thick blond hair and dressed in a long-sleeved black dress with pointy black stilettos and a model walk to match, she zeroes in on my phone as she clicks her way over to us.
“You can’t film in here,” she says, her voice cool and even. “I’m very sorry but—”
Her words fade when James turns around on the platform. She pauses a moment and then her face lights up in recognition.
“Oh!” she says. “You’re the guy from that movie! The one with Lily Newman-Smith!”
Whatever cool-girl persona she was wearing is gone, replaced by a bright-eyed, near-religious attention to James.
“The one with the superhero?” the woman continues. “It was stunning. Oh, shoot. What was it called? I feel like an idiot.”
I look over at James expecting him to be standoffish or at the very least uncomfortable, but instead he steps down from the platform and shakes the attendant’s hand.
“ Disassembled, ” he says, like he talks to fangirls every day. “Thank you for watching. It means a lot for an indie movie to have dedicated fans in the age of huge blockbusters.”
The woman somehow manages to both maintain eye contact with James and give me a once-over to size me up, to puzzle out why I am with him.
I’m certain the hideous skirt is throwing her off.
“Big fan,” she reiterates to James. “So sorry about the filming. It’s just policy, even for A-list customers. But I’d be happy to set you and your friend up with a private consultation and help you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
She has stepped microscopically closer to James, and if I wasn’t sure she was being flirtatious, I am now with the “friend” dig.
“Girlfriend,” James corrects smoothly. “And no, we have everything we need. Thank you and sorry for the phone. We’ll be sure to remember for next time.”
Her face falls at girlfriend but perks up at the next time, causing her to click to the side of the room and extract a business card from a holder next to a bowl of chocolate mints.
“My name is Giovanna. Please feel free to call or text to set up an appointment, and I’ll be glad to help you out.”
Each finger bears a ring that glints in the chandelier lighting, making her hand look like a disco ball as she hands the card to James.
“Thanks,” James says, taking the card and handing it directly to me. “My girlfriend is really the one you should be talking to. She’s in charge of my wardrobe and all that.” He shrugs as if to say, What are you going to do? “Better taste,” he adds.
Giovanna shoots a not-so-subtle dubious look at the skirt.