The Former Miss Cheddarworths Grandson – Ellena Espejo #6
“Oh, yeah. Being an author was always my dream, but it was kinda dormant until I got therapy. Ched—well, our…story was the first thing I published. Then, under a new pen name I got a couple poems in a magazine, and three short stories in some anthologies. Then I wrote a novel—a historical fantasy—and an agent here in LA took me on. The stand-alone turned into an optioned trilogy. I quit my day job, moved to Burbank, and found another day job. I’m an admin assistant at a year-round school.
Leaves some room for wrangling stories about ren faire folk transported back in time. ”
Xander sat back. “Is that what I just auditioned for?”
“Yup. My goal was to use a ridiculous situation to portray a serious take. Organic comedy with a pulse. Allison—the CD—requested the scene that gave a new perspective because the characters learn why people had the mindset they did five hundred years ago. You’re up for the role of Silas, the struggling Elizabethan farmer.
Tall, sweet peasant next door, destined to suffer romantic tension with Evangeline, the modern geek protagonist.”
As if downloading a script to her brain, she switched gears to a facetious accent.
“Thou dost happen upon a crowd of bewitched gentles in yon field of barley, from whence thine pot be stirred by a comely noblewoman in fine ‘clo-thiz’—small of stature, stout of heart, and yay, so clever a master of affairs of state. Indeed, no scholarly monk, nor elder tradesman may behold such a province as that of her wisdom spake with magnanimity and mercy for the plight of we wretched rustics. Lo, when for her surety thou dost steal her away from such marauders whom she did name as friend, and inquired of her knowledge, she doth offer thanks to her patroness, the Good Wife Eliza. Or so dost thou believe, given she spake of one by name of ‘Google’. Thereafter, hijinks ensue.”
“Now, I sincerely hope I get the part.” Delivery of their drinks interrupted Xander’s praise. They ordered, then the events of the day claimed him. He stared at the pearly Formica table. Jess woke him from reverie with a question.
“Do you forgive me?” she asked.
He blinked. “What?”
“Do you forgive me…for publishing an intimate account of…us?”
Xander chuckled. “Oh. It hadn’t occurred to me to see it that way.” Pondering a useful answer only produced more questions. “How many copies did you sell?”
Jess turned pink. “Like…twenty? Fifteen of them to supportive friends and family whom I hope will never read it. I chickened out after a few months and took it down.” She gulped soda.
“I remembered your first name, and your grandmother’s maiden name was unforgettable.
But for the life of me, your surname? Blank. ”
She pulled open the thick paper napkin wrapped around the silverware, arranged the utensils, then twisted the napkin in her fingers. “Searching for ‘Alexander Fancy Pants’ online didn’t work. Remember Sandy? Only person I kept in touch with; she also couldn’t remember your surname.”
Xander nodded. “I literally recalled yours while on stage. I meant to Google you when I left the building. Regarding that intimate account of the young man who resembles me possessing a tongue of inborn skill? It’s fine.
” He flicked his eyebrows up. “Though you might have altered my grandmother’s maiden name.
I’d have overlooked the book which would lead to you overlooking my audition, but?—”
“I wouldn’t overlook you.” Her response interrupted his words the way a stolen kiss would. Despite their proximity to each other and how solidly affixed his gaze was to hers, he could not have described the color of her eyes. He was lost.
As his breath resumed, he asked, “Can you forgive me for isolating you by joking about my family’s long legacy of arrogant colonizers?”
Her radiant beam in response teased Xander’s tongue with a warm, rich, potent flavor capable of transporting one through time and space to a beloved past.
“I can do that.” She said. “You know, I didn’t intend to write about you.
Certainly not as the main story. It was supposed to be for therapy.
Three weeks was the longest I had been away from my parents before I lived at the park, and a lotta crazy shit happened in those four months.
The more I wrote, the more I recognized how fucked up it was.
Innocence is a dearth of awareness that prevents wrapping your head around an event—possibly for years.
As well as the inability to recognize how insensitive or kind a comment or action is that someone makes or receives. ”
She covered her smile with her hand. “I knew we were being jerks to the guy in the neighboring tent cabin when he banged on the door five or six times, demanding quiet. What I didn’t think about until I wrote the book was that the only time it ever happened was that night.
You were effective in making me loud and inconsiderate.
We could both be locked up tight in happy, content marriages, and I would still want you to know…
” She leaned forward to whisper. “...no one else drove me that wild while also checking whether I was okay.”
A shy smile turned up one corner of Xander’s mouth.
Jess continued, “You saw in the book, most of them were not concerned about my feelings.”
“Not exactly,” he admitted. “The binding came apart on the bus. I only managed to hold on to thirty or forty pages.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “You’re not the first to complain about that printer’s shoddy binding. I’ll give you a copy so you can read all those chapters catalogued in the Content Warning. My point is you were not a selfish bastard like the rest of them.”
Xander absorbed her words. “Are you certain of that?”
“Are you thinking about that moment I kind of freaked out?”
He nodded.
“That was my fault. Sex is a powerful magnetic instinct that can cause a variety of damage. I felt vulnerable, and then it felt too good to be truly just your fingers and your tongue, so I panicked. I don’t know how much more experienced you were than me?—”
He cleared his throat, glanced down at the front of his jeans, murmuring, “ not much. ”
“—but hormones are vicious creatures yowling for freedom from inside that decaying cage they call the human teenager. Add to the equation my ignorance from being over-protected, and freedom is famine with only kumquats for sustenance. Imagine you’re starving and you never saw a kumquat before, and nobody told you not to peel them like an orange. ”
She stretched and glanced toward the kitchen before drinking more soda.
“Half the final draft was just made up because so much is missing from my recollection. I couldn’t even say who started kissing who.
Do you remember? What about that time we went to the general store, and you were searching through the gemstones for a flawless white agate. Was that a date?”
“I should have asked you out,” Xander said.
“Maybe you did, and I didn’t take it seriously.
Flirting, courting, or timid interest could only compute as joking or bullying to my oblivious brain.
We weren’t children, but mentally my adulthood was still forming—if that wasn’t clear.
When the young man just down at the Y tells you how sweet you taste, and you’re still not at the level to cope with seeing his bare cock, nobody teaches how to react to that. ”
She took a long swallow of soda, keeping her eyes on him.
“I haven’t forgotten what you did when I was skeptical about my body being a topic of gossip around the lodge.
You lifted the blanket and said, ‘look at this!’ in a tone affirming how absurd anyone’s failure to perceive my luminescence would be.
It was as if everything below my neck had been switched out with someone beautiful.
Imagine being accustomed to the blur, then someone gives you glasses.
That was a watershed moment for my self-esteem. ”
She leaned on the table with her elbows.
“The memory of that night will always be a diverting comfort. Even if my life has room to get even better, I’m more than content with it as it is.
So, if you’re not interested, just say it.
I promise I am fine. No strings or expectations, and however you respond will not affect your career or whether you get the part. I’ll make sure of that.”
She twisted her hair into one long black ringlet. “The only item on my bucket list about you was that you’re made aware that you were good and kind to me, and you deserve to know that just the thought of you is a blessing.”
Xander’s mouth quirked. “While I work on breaking into the business, I’m a part-time waiter living in my aunt’s attic.
Life’s not bad—progressing remarkably well today for example—but it’s a very dusty construction site.
I don’t have much beyond whatever the future brings.
So…with that out there…my aunt is out of town.
Would you object to getting our food to go? ”
Jess twisted her body like a growing flower in a time-lapse video, an arresting grin blossomed across her face. “That sounds… perfect.”
Xander woke to his alarm. Need to rush due to an early shift at work couldn’t silence the crackle of his splitting heart.
He was alone.
Though the previous night had to be a delicious dream for how Jessenia’s body responded to his, scanning the room revealed evidence it had been real: half-eaten dinner on the desk—untouched after the car ride—his lucky audition clothes strewn about the floor.
He burrowed into the mattress to relive the sensation of nuzzling into her warmth and sleeping, still fused to her.
Hungover from exertion, he took the to-go cartons downstairs where a handwritten note lay on the kitchen counter.
My Raleigh, my Silas, and at last, my Xander,
I hope to express myself well enough. Writing an authentic sex scene is an easy task when documenting anxiety. Analysis and work to get it right sharpens the memory while hindering release and liberation. Judgment and enjoyment are opposites; a literal act of ‘congress’ if you will (wink).
That is why yesterday’s shocking magic meant so much.
Words might articulate a burst of actions: teeth teases earlobe, tongue honors thigh.
However, words cannot convey the safety and rest in your arms. Clinging to you protects me—under siege, in dizzy euphoria, with all strength washed from my muscles.
Best of all, our ease hushes my inner drill sergeant from critiquing how tab inserts into slot.
No mental play-by-play, only spare stage direction akin to Shakespeare’s ‘exits and enters’ (ha ha).
Leaving your arms and your bed tested my resolve, but I’m late for the casting meeting.
Their texts claim my vote will be biased.
Ridiculous. The movie’s task of reconnecting us is complete, and I sincerely believe in your chances to get the part with or without my input.
Even if you work tonight, I’m free for breakfast tomorrow… and everything that goes with that.
XOXOXO Your Jess
Ellena Espejo wanted to be a writer before she could recite her ABCs.
She grew up in a coastal suburb of San Francisco, and in her twenties lived in Germany where she interviewed famous people like Reba McEntire for a short-lived magazine you’ve never heard of.
She again resides in her beloved Bay Area with her husband (souvenir of Germany) and son.
She swears she’s almost done editing her debut speculative fiction novel.