She shook her head and looked at me like I was crazy. “What? Why? No.”
“I just made a huge ass out of myself, and I need you. Please.”
Ellen sighed. She was a nice girl. I went over to my new table and tried to forget how embarrassed I was.
An hour later, I felt someone behind me. When I turned, I almost bumped right into Kyle.
“Hey,” he said.
Now I was nervous. I didn’t want him to think that I was some slutty waitress he could pick up and take home. “I’m going to Limelight to get a drink,” he’d said. “Just me. I’d love it if I saw you there. If not, I understand.”
I shook my head. “I’m so embarrassed. I’m not like that at all.”
He smiled at me warmly. “Like I said, I’ll be there. If you want to come, I’d really like to get to know you.”
It was a tempting offer, but I already knew I wouldn’t go. Two hours later, though, as I was walking home, I realized that I was passing right by Limelight. I could just stop in.
I could use a drink, I told myself. With what I was living off of, I could also use someone to buy it for me.
Plus, a little voice inside my head said,you never know when you might meet someone who could help your love life or your career.
I smiled to myself, thinking about the call I had gotten from my agent earlier. My agent! I had an agent! I had gotten a callback. I felt it again, the sense that this was my moment, that I would look back on this time and realize that everything in my life that mattered was happening right here, right now. I had left Mark behind months earlier, and although it had broken something inside me to let him go, I knew I’d never be whole if I didn’t pursue my dream. And I was doing it.
That gave me the courage to open the door to Limelight and walk through it. True to his word, Kyle was sitting alone at the bar, his back to me, sipping something from a rocks glass. When he turned to look toward the front door and smiled at me, I knew it wasn’t the first time he had checked to see if I was coming in. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, which was ridiculous. He didn’t even know my name.
“You made it,” he said.
I decided to get it out in the open, erase the embarrassment. “But you have your shirt on, so I’m leaving.” We both laughed.
He patted the stool beside him, and I slid onto it. He looked into my eyes and stared at me long and hard. Then he turned back to the bartender and said, “Champagne with a splash of bourbon, muddled mint, and one sugar cube for my friend.” Then he looked back at me, smiled, turned to the bartender, and said, “And two strawberries, please.”
I laughed. “That’s not what I order.”
Kyle smiled confidently. “It’s what you’ll order from now on,” he said. “Trust me. It will change your life.” I smiled back at him. “I’m Kyle, by the way.” He held his hand out to me, and I shook it, holding it longer than necessary.
“Emerson Murphy,” I said as the bartender set the drink down in front of me.
I took a sip.
“Well?” Kyle asked.
I smiled. “It’s fabulous.”
“Perfect drink for a starlet.”
I could feel my eyes widening, that familiar sense of pride I got when thinking of my hometown welling up in me.
“What did you say?”
“Perfect drink for a starlet?”
I laughed. “Oh! I thought you said Starlite. It’s this little island across from my house where I grew up. My sisters and I spent our summers playing there every day. It’s kind of... heaven on earth.”
Kyle smiled. “Then that’s your drink. The Starlite Starlet.”
The bartender came over. “Anybody need another?”
“We’ll have another Starlite Starlet,” Kyle said.
