Authors: Callie Harper
“Be right back.”
Ash gave me a smile and a quick kiss on the cheek. Damn if it didn’t
feel so right.
“I do hope he’s
treating you well, dear.” Ash’s grandmother kept her attention on
her grandson as she spoke.
“Sure.” What would
she think of all of this, his elaborate ruse to rehab his image?
Something told me she wouldn’t approve.
“The trick is to
expect nothing less.”
“Oh.” I nodded. It
sounded easy when she said it.
“Never settle.” Now
the dazzling force of her sparkling blue eyes looked directly into my
soul. She tapped me lightly with something on my arm for emphasis. A
small fan, I realized, which she then folded up and discreetly tucked
into the end of her elbow-length glove. So that was where people kept
their fans. Not that I’d ever actually talked to anyone in a ball
gown with a fan before, but I’d seen my share of period films. I
liked my Jane Austen.
“All right, you guys
and dolls, we’ve got a crazy treat for you.” The leader spoke
into the mic. “Any of you out there ever heard of a cat named Ash
Black?”
A roar erupted from the
dance floor, along with a few high-pitched squeals. I guessed there
were a few people who were fans, though from what I’d seen they
weren’t his immediate family members. His older brother, in
particular, seemed to give him a frosty reception earlier.
“Hello, hello.” Ash
took the mic and strut front and center, clearly in his element. He
unbuttoned his jacket. I swallowed in anticipation. “This one goes
out to my favorite girls. You know who you are.” He pointed over to
his grandmother and me, and I think we both glowed a bit at the
dedication.
Turning to the band, he
snapped his fingers and gave them, “and a one, a two.” The band
magically came to life, playing out the opening chords. A brass
section set the tone, a few guys on trumpets swaying from side to
side. My toes set to tapping.
With an understated nod
of his head, Ash began. “I’ve got you under my skin.” He was
looking straight at me. “I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.”
Oh no. I loved this
song. I was pretty sure my older parents had played me Frank Sinatra
in utero, then over and over growing up until it was part of my DNA.
Ash closed his eyes,
getting into the music, moving to the swing beat. “I’ve tried so,
not to give in. I’ve said to myself this affair, it ain’t gonna
go so well. But why should I try to resist when, baby, I know so
well.” Looking at me again, he broke into a devastatingly sexy
smile. “That I’ve got you under my skin.”
“He’s quite good,
isn’t he?” his grandmother observed.
“Wow,” was all I
could manage. I knew if you looked up ‘star struck’ in the
dictionary you’d see a big old picture of me and I should pull
myself together and all that, but not now. Now when Ash Black
strutted around on stage in a tux crooning straight at me. What a
voice! His songs were much harder-driving, with much more snarl and
bite. He was famous for how he could belt it out, then pull it back
into a restrained whisper, but here he just let it all pour out of
him, honey gold and full, relishing every note. He had such presence,
such charisma and swagger up there, owning the spotlight with his
lean hips and long legs, his hand out to point at the crowd or
gesture to the band. Wow.
“I would sacrifice
anything come what might for the sake of having you near,” Ash sang
to me, the band crescendoing behind him.
Uh oh. I was in
trouble. Big trouble. I knew right then and there, I’d have to
avoid seeing him on stage. Like kryptonite with a mic in his hand,
his voice working magic, his whole persona larger than life and sexy
as hell. Those smoldering eyes, that lean, muscular frame, he was
already dangerous enough. But once he became the lead singer? Forget
about it.
I literally could not
shut my mouth. I had to bring my hand up to it, covering my parted
lips as I watched him perform. My heart beat, my hands shook, and my
panties practically melted right off of me. The only way I stood a
chance at keeping my cool this month was if I completely and totally
avoided seeing him on stage ever again.
§
“Tuesday, he’s got
a show in L.A. Thursday, Santa Clara.” The next day, 8 a.m., Lola
woke me with a call to discuss my itinerary. I’d made it back to my
apartment the night before. Ash had been surprisingly gentlemanly,
insisting on a limo taking me all the way home. Not back with him.
Slightly disappointed, I’d still slept like a rock.
“He’s flying out
today and you’re heading out Monday. You’ll have dinner in
Malibu.”
“Monday, Malibu.”
My head pounded in my hands. I hadn’t gotten super drunk last
night, but I did feel hung over. The fourth glass of bubbly that had
me feeling so light and giggly last night now sat like a lead weight
on the back of my skull. I needed some water.
“They went for it,
you know. They love you.”
“Good, good.” Who
was she talking about, exactly?
“Great job last
night. Lay low today. They’ll probably be outside your apartment.”
“Outside my
apartment?” I realized she meant paparazzi, waiting with cameras to
try to photograph me. That sounded creepy and implausible. “Are you
sure?”
“We released your
information to all interested parties, so, yes, I’m guessing
they’ve staked you out.”
“Like a press
release?” What would the headline on that be? Boring, average girl
exactly as boring and average as she looks?
“Something like that.
Now remember, you don’t want to talk to them.”
“I don’t.” I
didn’t need to be coached on that point. Those guys barreling in
after Ash into the library had resembled a pack of hyenas.
“You don’t want to
seem too eager or it’ll look fake. Today, Ana, the most important
thing is you’ve got to stick to the script. Everyone you’ve ever
met is going to get in touch and ask what’s going on.”
I sank down into the
bed. This was going to be complicated.
“You have to remember
to stick to the script. Keep it brief. You’ve met a great guy and
you’re falling hard for him. That’s all anyone gets from you.”
“OK.” Truthfully,
that storyline wouldn’t be too hard to manufacture. Ash had pretty
much knocked me over last night. I hadn’t had to fake a thing.
Every smile, every flutter had been real for me. That was the
problem. It wasn’t supposed to be.
“I’ll send a car
around for you tomorrow morning eight o’clock. Don’t worry about
packing anything, we’ll take care of all that.”
“When will I come
back?” I’d let my boss know I’d be gone this week and she’d
sounded relieved more than anything else due to the financial
squeeze, but I had to tell my roommates, my parents. Oh my, my
parents. They were going to be a challenge.
“Friday. You’ll
have the week of Christmas in the city, tons of opportunities for
exposure. This is off to a great start.”
I groaned, sinking back
into my pillows. She’d told me to lay low today. My head still
killed. That wouldn’t be a problem.
Several hours later, I
stirred again, this time due to Jillian’s knocking at my door.
“Ana!” Her voice
finally broke through my fog. “You’ve got to see this.” She
thrust her phone under my nose and snapped on my lamp. Wincing at the
intrusion, I blinked and tried to focus. On her screen, I saw a limo
and a glittering silver gown. Ash Black looked devastatingly handsome
as he took the hand of a lovely lady. Me.
“You’re
everywhere!” Jillian sounded hushed with awe. “There are photos
of you guys kissing under mistletoe. Video of him singing Frank
Sinatra.”
Oh man, that had been
staged as well? I mean, of course it was. It was my problem if I
listened to him sing Cole Porter’s lyrics and felt them deep in my
soul as a personal expression of affection just for me.
“Look at his face
when he sees you!” Jillian clicked replay and a video clip started
again, the blinding flash of camera bulbs, the jostling and calling
out. But someone had captured Ash at exactly the right angle. When he
first saw me stepping out of the limo, he looked gobsmacked, his eyes
wide with admiration and amazement at my beauty.
“God, I hope someday
some guy looks at me like that,” Jillian sighed.
I wanted to tell her it
was all an act. She shouldn’t feel bad. None of this was real. But
I couldn’t, I’d signed a NDA. And part of me wanted to believe
the fairy tale for a minute, too. She clicked play again and it was
like a drug, watching his reaction. He was so good at it, so
practiced and coached he really looked like he was honestly thrilled,
struck with wonderment at the sight of me. I was really going to have
to watch myself.
And stop watching Ash
fake it so good. I rolled over back under the covers. “I’m
hungover,” I groaned. “Let me sleep.”
I managed to spend most
of the rest of the day in bed, sipping water, heating up a can of
chicken noodle soup around four p.m. I ignored my phone and fielded
questions from Jillian and Liv with more ease than I’d feared. A
pounding headache and no good sense of what I could honestly say
helped me stay super evasive. And my parents, thank goodness, were
completely unplugged from social media or pop culture in general. I’d
already begged out of our weekly Sunday night dinner, guessing
correctly that I wouldn’t be up for it, so I got off easy with a
phone call. They’d never heard of Ash Black and at least when we
spoke late that afternoon they hadn’t heard a word about their
daughter dating a celebrity. But I had to lay some groundwork.
“I did have a nice
date last night.”
“You did? Tell me!
Was it that boy you just met? What kind of a family is he from?”
“I met his
grandmother at a family get-together last night.” That seemed a
good lead-in. “She was very friendly. She asked me to have tea with
her next week.”
“A boy who respects
his grandmother is a good boy.” Ash Black was not a good boy. “Is
he Russian?”
“No, his
grandmother’s British.” Royalty, at least it seemed to me.
“That’s too bad.
What does he do for a living?”
“He’s a musician.”
“Piano?” She
assumed he was a classical performer.
“He’s ah…He’s a
vocalist. And a string instrumentalist.” Translation:
leather-pants-wearing, shirtless, tattooed rock god. This was
complicated. I wanted my parents to like him enough to not panic, but
not like him enough to start working on the wedding invitations.
Russian Orthodox to the hilt, my mother had a full set of little
religious icons arranged in my honor, praying for love and fertility,
in that order of course. How was she going to react in two weeks when
we got engaged? And then two weeks after that when I broke it all
off? I supposed I could take a chance and not tell her any of it, but
with all the gossip magazines she was bound to see something. Ash
Black news wasn’t just on a few online fan sites. Ash Black news
made
People
magazine
headlines. My mother shopped at the grocery store, she went to the
dentist. She’d see
People
magazine.
I put it on the list of
things I’d manage when I had to. I’d just have to find a way of
not yanking my parents around too hard on this roller coaster ride
I’d signed up for. It was only one month, after all, and it wasn’t
as if they’d ever meet him.
I somehow made it
through the rest of the conversation without giving her a heart
attack, but it took a lot of evasion and half-truths. I had to tell
her I was leaving town for a few days and it made her apoplectic, as
anticipated, missing all that time from work and staying at a hotel
with a strange man though of course in separate rooms I promised her.
Would we be in separate rooms? There was so much of this that I had
no idea how it would play out. Last night I’d been a little
surprised when he’d packed me safely into a limo and sent me on my
way. But I should have been relieved that he was keeping his word,
honoring the terms of our agreement. But also pulling me into dark
hallways and giving me intense orgasms. I was confused already and
we’d only just begun.
§
“Smoky embers.” A
girl who couldn’t have been much older than 19 applied eye shadow
to my lids while another stylist gave me a blowout with a round brush
and a diffusion hairdryer.
“Are you sure about
the Hyacinth shimmer?”
“You think matte?”
“I mean, if you’re
going with glisten on her cheeks.”
It felt impolite to
just sit there, making no conversation, while these two ladies styled
me into L.A. perfection, but I had no idea how to enter into the flow
when they were speaking another language. They didn’t seem too
interested in chatting with me, anyway. They’d bustled into my
hotel room with boxes and bags of tools and products, unceremoniously
telling me to strip down so they could begin their work.
I’d arrived two hours
earlier, a car taking me from LAX to the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West
Hollywood. I’d never been to California before, and the palm trees
and bright sunlight in December looked gorgeous but disorienting.
Checking in, I thought I saw Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, a big
feather wound into his long hair poking out from underneath a
wide-brimmed white hat. But he’d been heading out of the lobby
while I’d been heading in, and I guessed if I was about to start
hanging out around celebrities it wouldn’t do to ask every one of
them for their autograph.
Ash was picking me up
at seven thirty. I knew because Lola had texted me. In my past
experience, getting picked up by a guy to take me out to dinner meant
he’d pull up in a Honda Civic and hastily brush off some old fast
food wrappers from the passenger seat so I had somewhere to sit. I
figured it might be different this night with Ash.
The stylist put me in a
glittery black top, sleeveless, held up by a mere string around my
neck. My skirt was short, black and streamlined, and my heels were
about a foot high. Nearly naked in the middle of winter, before I
headed out I reached for my New York coat.