What was I supposed to do with a pampered movie star? I’d been planning on going grocery shopping this afternoon, but that was out of the question. I couldn’t bring her with me – theWikipediaarticle had noted that she got mobbed everywhere she went – and I was not comfortable leaving a total stranger in my house, famous or not.
Then I remembered something.
“How would you feel about going grocery shopping with me?” I asked. “I have the perfect disguise.”
She looked both skeptical and intrigued. “What did you have in mind?”
A little while later she emerged from the bedroom, wearing the long black wig I’d gotten the year that my mom and I went to a Halloween party dressed as Sonny and Cher.
Tori was taller than me, but my mom always kept clothes here for when she stayed over. With her thin frame in a broomstick skirt and aGrateful Deadtee shirt, and her long, dark wig, Tori looked like the quintessential Seattle hippie.
I added a pair of glasses that I’d bought at an estate sale, intending to change out the clear lenses for my prescription at my next eye doctor appointment.
Tori slipped them on and looked in the mirror, smiling at me in the glass. She had a beautiful smile.
“I don’t even recognize myself,” she said. “For a civilian you’re surprisingly good with a costume.”
“Halloween is my favorite holiday,” I told her. “Let’s go.”
I wasn’t sure where this bossy side of me came from, but Tori seemed to like it.
I led her downstairs and into my fifteen year old Toyota Corolla. It was a little beat up, but it still ran like a dream. Tori looked around like she’d never been inside an economy priced sedan before. She probably hadn’t. TheWikipediapage said that she’d started acting as a toddler.
“Sorry about the car,” I said sarcastically. “My limo is getting detailed.”
“No judgement,” she said, holding up her hands. “I’ve just never been inside a car like this before. There aren’t any seat warmers.”
“Why do you need seat warmers in LA?” I asked. “Isn’t it warm all the time?”
“Yeah, but sometimes you drive into the mountains or something.”
I gave her the side eye. She really was one of a kind.
“Do you want me to call you Victoria now?” I asked as we made our way to the co-op. “Is that what your friends call you? Or what’s your preference?”
“I don’t really have friends,” she said. “I mean, I have industry friends, and they all call me Victoria, which I hate. I also hate Vicky. Tori is what I prefer, although you’re the only one who’s ever asked me.”
I glanced over to see that she had a sad look on her face. I’d only known the woman for a couple of hours and already I felt protective of her. It was weird. We were nothing alike, and literally from different worlds. Yet somehow I felt connected to her in a way I didn’t remember feeling with anyone.
It’s because you’re attracted to her,I told myself sternly. But I knew it was more than that.
Grocery shopping with Tori was an adventure. It was like she’d never been in a store before. At first she seemed nervous, but after she realized no one recognized her, she calmed down and got surprisingly excited about the mundane task. She looked at everything and asked a ton of questions. I wound up buying more than I usually would have, in part because there were so many things that seemed new to her.
“Ooh, Kit Kats. I was in a commercial for them once, but I’ve never had them before.”
Tori took two bars and stuck them in our cart.
“You advertised something you hadn’t tried?” I asked. “What if you hate them? You could have been advertising something that sucked.”
She shrugged. “I just did whatever commercials my mom booked for me. I knew better than to question her. Besides, chocolate wasn’t allowed.”
Her words were light but there was something underneath the surface. Something that sounded like sadness and maybe something else.
I stopped dead. “Your mom wouldn’t let you eat chocolate?” I asked in shock. “Like ever? What about on your birthday?”
She shook her head.
“That’s child abuse!” I grabbed a few different candy bars and added them to the pile.
