I had thought about Mr. Ross a lot over the past year, and I was increasingly convinced that my separation from Jack was his fault. He was the one who had suggested I should go, acting all sympathetic and pretending it was the best for his son. Everyone had told me he didn’t care about Jack, so why had I convinced myself otherwise? Or was I just looking to cast blame elsewhere because I didn’t want to admit I’d hurt the man I loved? Maybe I was making too much out of it. Maybe Mr. Ross had tried to be sincere with me and really was looking out for his son’s future. I doubted it, though. Jack had warned me about him from the very beginning. I hadn’t listened too closely then. This time I would.
“No,” I responded, a little surprised at how blunt I’d managed to be. “I’m living here, but I’m not going tonight.”
It was almost funny how quickly his expression changed. Mary seemedhappy about the news, Agnes just grinned, and Mr. Ross nearly turned to stone. “Since when?” he asked.
“What do you care?” Jack asked.
The atmosphere turned uncomfortable, as it always did when father and son locked horns, and Mary took her husband’s arm to distract him, saying, “We should go. We don’t want to be late.”
Agnes must not have heard me, because she protested that we couldn’t leave until I was dressed, and when I repeated that I wasn’t going and she asked why, looking almost hurt, Naya informed her, “Ross didn’t invite her.”
His grandmother scolded him, and poor Jack found himself retreating. I was almost worried she’d thwack him over the head with her purse. I needed to step in before something terrible happened. I cried out loudly, “I’ve got a big exam tomorrow. I couldn’t go if I wanted to. I’ll be up cramming all night.”
That lowered the temperature a bit. With just an hour to go, the last thing we needed was another spat. Jack told them to leave without him, that he needed to organize a few things and he’d see them there. I could tell that was a lie, and I think everyone else could, too, but we collectively agreed to let it slide. Even Mr. Ross grunted in agreement on his way out the door. Mike reached out and mussed my hair, then dragged Sue out behind him.
Once we were alone, I asked Jack, “Why’d you stick around?”
“I just wanted a few seconds of peace and quiet. And I wanted to let you know I’ll be home early.” He came close, grabbed my chin, and gave me a peck on the corner of the lips before departing.
There was supposed to be something about the premiere on the news at nine, and I went ahead and turned the TV to the right channel. For the moment, it was just ads and some dumb sitcom I didn’t care about. Nervous, I started pacing the room and biting my nails, then I decided to distract myself by calling Spencer. That did the trick, but soon his droning on aboutthe exciting life of a track-and-field coach started to bore me, so I let him go and went to the kitchen to make something to eat. Flopping down in front of the TV again, I noticed Jack’s phone was on the counter. Maybe he’d left it on purpose? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t imagine it really mattered.
I tried to call Naya and Will just in case, but neither of them picked up. They probably had to turn their ringers off once they hit the red carpet. So I put my phone aside, stared at the TV in anticipation, then almost jumped out of my skin when someone called me. I looked at my screen, perplexed: it readUnknown Number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Jennifer?”
“Yes?” I responded, thrown off.
“Cool! This is Joey, Ross’s agent. You’re at home, right? Well, apparently Ross left his phone there. He’s panicking about it and things are crazy over here, so there’s really no one I can send to pick it up. Is there any way you could take down an address and bring it over for us?”
I said sure and looked around for a pen and paper. Joey told me just to ask for him once I arrived. In my sweatshirt and tights, I headed off for the light rail, totally underdressed for the social event of the season.
The festivities were taking place at a grand old movie palace that was now surrounded by security guards, with a thick black curtain over the door to protect the guests from prying eyes. There were still some stragglers walking up the red carpet, and the press snapped photos frantically while a detachment of muscly men in dark shades with earpieces kept away the shrieking and applauding fans.
If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I’d never have thought a movie Jack directed could cause such commotion. And I couldn’t help smiling. I was proud of him. As I approached one of the security guards, he thrust a fat hand in my face. He was obviously trained to know who was and wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Authorized persons only,” he warned me.
“I’m Jennifer. I’m supposed to talk to Joey.”
The man looked at his partner, disconcerted. The other guy spoke something into a small microphone on his collar. A few seconds later, they called over a colleague, a gruff guy with a neck tattoo peeking out of his shirt, and told him, “Take her around back.”
I guess they didn’t want me to be seen with the famous guests, but that was fine. My goal was to get in and get out. Holding my purse tight, I tried to dodge the few people running around frantically. There were people carrying what looked like posters, others with audio and video equipment…it was chaos. “Go through that door,” the guy said, and when I entered, I was almost knocked over by the flood of voices. It was the same energy as outside, but ten times worse, with people screaming into their cell phones, chasing each other around, an actress shouting to a makeup woman that her eyeliner wasn’t dark enough, a dark-haired diva scowling… Finally, a guy caught sight of me and hurried over. He had to be Joey.
“Jennifer?” he asked.
“Yeah, here’s the…”
Before I could get the words out, he shouted, “Thank you, you’re my savior, I’ll give it to him right now, gotta run!” And he vanished, screaming at a man pushing a trolley of speakers on his way out. I’d thought we’d exchange a few words, but I didn’t mind that we hadn’t. My mission accomplished, I was ready to get back home and stepped into the alley, where I found a young woman standing with her arms crossed, smoking a cigarette.
I didn’t need to ask who she was. With her perfectly sculpted platinum blond hair, her shiny gold dress, her fit body, those piercing eyes and delicate features—she was exactly like in the photos. This was Vivian in the flesh.
She grinned as she noticed me and said, “You know, you might want to throw on a gown if you’re thinking about staying.”
I hadn’t imagined our first meeting would be like this. Well, actually, I hadn’t imagined there ever would be a first meeting. “I know, right?” I said sarcastically, wondering where the slight accent I heard in her voice was from. Germany, maybe?
She continued: “I don’t know why we have to get so fancied up. No one here likes it. I’m sure they’d all rather be in sweatsuits.”
