XVII CJ
XVII
CJ
As the princess waits to be rescued from a dragon, she races through the hallway of our home screaming “You’ll never get me!!!” The dragon roars and wonders at what point she can explain to the princess that it’s on her to save herself.
Staying in character as the dragon is an uphill battle today. As Agnes bolts away from me, my thoughts drift back to Jack and our conversation around Brent Chase’s kitchen island. I have a date with Jack Felgate! I really try to sell it to myself. Which makes me feel like I’m starring in my own adaptation of Bye Bye Birdie , where I’ve won the chance to spend time with the Swoony Celebrity and not an actual man I have actual feelings for.
It’s one date, crammed into a sea full of other commitments, for both of us, and the logistical reality of it turning into something more feels... impossible. After Thursday, I’ll be here, and he’ll be back on set, sucked into another world, another summer camp experience. I can’t picture how we even communicate meaningfully across the chasm. Something I immediately liked about Jack, even when we first met at that bar, is that he focuses on what’s in front of him. He takes his work seriously but not himself, a rare combination for someone in front of the camera. His eyes lock on whoever he’s speaking with, never scanning past for someone more important. If I’m not in front of Jack, I’m not sure how to hold his attention.
We only guaranteed each other one date, but I’ve gotten ahead of myself, already imagining the corners of LA that I’ll show him or what it would be like to watch a movie while physically together. I need to level with myself: Our one-night stand from five years ago won’t have a second chapter, so much as a brief epilogue.
My heart feels leaden in my chest. Coming down from the adrenaline of weeks of shooting capped by last night is its own kind of hangover. I try to focus on where I am right now , in my perfect little bungalow, in my favorite pair of cutoffs and my timeworn LA Dodgers T-shirt, but images of Jack and I flash into my head, like my brain is flipping channels against my will.
There is a part of me that wants to text my high-school friends group chat—the one that occasionally lives vicariously through me, as its last remaining single member—to dish about my steamy night and try to bring back the frothy high of being with him. But there would be two warring factions: one side that would say, “A movie star?! This is the most exciting thing to happen to us in years!” and the other that would question, just as I had, “What are you doing getting involved with a famous actor? It’s so unlike you.”
But the version of events that would come through over text would be an oversimplification, and my disappointment with the incompatibility of our lives is just as much about me as him. I like my life. I chose it. And it’s not as if Jack didn’t choose his. It isn’t my place to tell him, “You’re working too hard, you shouldn’t say yes to everything, you’re overexposing yourself.” I’m not his agent, manager, or life coach. These are realizations he has to come to himself. “A man,” my mother used to say, “can only meet you where he is. You can’t go on a date with Stef from Pretty in Pink and expect him to be Blaine.”
“ Mommy! You were supposed to catch me!”
Agnes is back, and she’s right. I crouch down to grab her, flipping her upside down. “Give me your jewels!” I roar, and she squeals. How much longer will I have this? If I can take any page from Jack’s book, it’s to be present, to treasure the beautiful uncertainty of parenting while it’s right in front of me.
The doorbell rings—the burgers, fries, and extravagantly melty milkshakes I ordered have arrived.
“Hey, sweetie, why don’t you get changed so you don’t get ketchup on your princess dress?” I say, twirling Agnes toward her room.
I open the door to a young guy with a fuzzy mustache holding a big brown paper bag filled with our food. And, just behind him, Jack.
“What are you doing here?”
“This is 2078 Norwalk Avenue?”
“Sorry, yes.” I look past him toward Jack. “I was talking to him.”
Mustache boy twists to look over his shoulder and then spins his entire body to face Jack. “Oh shit, you’re that guy from Flames Flicker Eternal . Can I get a picture? My girlfriend loves you.”
Jack searches my face for approval. I shrug. “Just don’t get my house in the background.”
Jack smiles good-naturedly as they snap a selfie. The only evidence of his discomfort is in his eyes. The guy is already sharing the photo as he walks back to his car, if his urgent thumbing at his phone is any indication.
“How do you know where I live?” I ask Jack, as if that’s what matters.
“I told Manny I needed it to send a thank-you gift.” He waves this detail away like it’s a gnat.
Then, he looks at me, eyes shining with sincerity, and says, “I’m drinking the fat.”
“Is that a Britishism?”
“Do you know the television show Friends ?”
“ Jack. ”
“Right, sorry,” he says quickly, propping his hand on the doorframe as if to steady himself. “Do you know the episode where Ross drinks the fat? To convince Rachel to go to the dorky science party with him?”
“I guess...” I shift the bag of food in my arms. What are we doing here?
“Well, I realized this morning, that’s what I need to do. I need to drink the fat. I need to do the thing I’m afraid of. Well, Ross doesn’t ultimately drink the fat, but he was willing to, and I think that’s the mindset I need to be in.”
“So... drinking the fat is a metaphor?”
“I’m going to take six months away from acting. From my press commitments. All of it. I told Delia I’m off everything until it’s time to promote Gatsby . I’ve been saying yes to anything and everything, and I don’t know how I can’t expect other people to take me seriously if I don’t start to take myself a little more seriously.”
“So no acting? Really?”
“Not unless Cecily Close comes calling.”
This earns him a laugh. The odds of the notoriously reclusive director taking on a new project, let alone calling up Jack for it, are about as high as Peter Bogdanovich directing another movie from beyond the grave.
“Can you afford to do that? Financially?”
“I’m fine. I have money saved,” Jack says, running a hand through his hair. “Saying yes to everything has been good for my bank account.”
I set the delivery order down. “Jack, if you’re doing this for me...” I start.
“No,” he says firmly. “This is for me. I know why I got into acting, and it wasn’t to be the British ambassador for Nespresso.” He pauses. “But one of the things I’d like to do with my newfound time is spend it with you. And go on real dates, but also just—and tell me if I’m being presumptuous here—be with you. On a couch, in a bed, those sorts of places.”
Hookups on a bar be damned: This is the sexiest Jack has ever been to me.
“But I should tell you—” His face grows more serious, and my smile sags.
“I am still going on Hot Ones .”
I laugh, and like it’s a full-body release. “Oh yeah, of course. You gotta go on Hot Ones . It would be career suicide to pass that up.”