Collision

  I buried my head in my hands as she spoke. Hearing it come from her, it was even more ridiculous than I’d imagined.

  “I could order a supper box with your picture on it if I wanted to, or a pillowcase. Honestly, I don’t even want to know what people do to pillowcases with your face on them.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “Or a life-sized cutout. Did you know there are life-sized cutouts of you? Thousands of girls have life-sized cardboard pictures of you standing in their rooms right this very minute. They probably practice snogging with it. Who knows what in the world they do with them. Do you know?”

  “Well—”

  “Water bottles. We can’t even get water in some places in Africa, but here, not only can you get water, but you can get a bottle of water with your mug on the front.”

  “Technically, it’s a thermos. You have to add your own water.”

  “There’s one website that I visited, and they took a live interview that you did for a film and they turned it in to hundreds of still photographs. And then they went and analyzed every facial expression you made, every gesture. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean you’re a nice-looking bloke, but come on. You’re not that good looking.”

  I looked back up at her. “Hey now. Let’s not get carried away—”

  “And here I was, telling you about what it’s like to have hundreds of people staring at me.”

  Unbeknownst to Kei, she was pointing the knife in her direction when she referenced herself, and every time it swung her direction, I about jumped out of my skin.

  “Good God! Will you just put the knife down? I’m afraid you’re going to stab yourself. You’re scaring me to death.”

  She threw the knife onto the counter and then paced back and forth in front of the stove. It was obvious that she had some sort of inner dialogue going on in her head, because her face contorted in various ways, as if she were reacting to a conversation.

  I stayed silent for several minutes until her pacing finally slowed. “Will you sit down and let me explain?”

  She stopped and scowled my direction. Her hazel eyes practically shot fireballs through my skull.

  “Please?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not certain I like you anymore.”

  “Give me a chance to explain. Isn’t forgiveness part of your job description?”

  Her eyes rolled before she jerked the chair out from the table and sat with a thud. “Why did you do that to me? Were you attempting to humiliate me?”

  “No.”

  “Was it a test you were wanting to see if I’d pass?”

  “Of course not.”

  She crossed her arms across her chest, growled, and rolled her eyes again. I was starting to wonder if I was witnessing a demon possession right there in the kitchen but ignored the fear and kept right on talking.

  “Honestly, Kei. I was interested in what you were saying, and it actually felt good to know that someone else in this world understood what it’s like to be me.”

  Her hand slammed onto the table. “I have no bloody idea what it’s like to be you. The two don’t even compare.”

  “Sure they do.”

  “Here I thought I had you figured out. I wasn’t even close. I’m a moron.”

  She jumped out of her seat and walked to the sink.

  “Whatever you do, spare me a heart attack and don’t pick up the knife again. As a matter of fact, do me the favor of avoiding cutlery altogether.”

  Her eyes rested on the knife, and for a brief second, I pictured her picking it up and stabbing me in the chest with it over and over again. Luckily, before my imagination got too carried away, she crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Look.” I got up, stood next to her, and slid the knife out of her reach. “You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Other than growing up in a wealthy family, you got everything else right.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “It felt good to have a person talk to me as Cabot instead of Cab. I wanted to feel like a normal person for a while. That’s all. I would’ve eventually told you if we kept hanging out.”

  “Would you have told me because you wanted to or because I would have found out once Oliver informed me?”

  “I wanna think I would’ve told you because I wanted to and because I would’ve come to find out that I could trust you enough to be honest.”

  “Trust?”

  “Most people would sell me out, get information, or tell the paparazzi where I’m hiding out.” Her face began to soften, so I knew I was making progress. I went right on trying to justify my failure in being honest with her. “I can’t trust very many people. Actually, now that I think about it, I can’t trust anyone but my family, and even some of them are questionable.”

  “Your own family would sell you out?”

  “Some of my own family already have sold me out. My family’s far from perfect.”

  “I understand.” She finally turned and looked at me. Her eyes were sympathetic and showed concern. “You’re forgiven. Truth be told, if I were in your situation, I’d do the same thing. Sometimes people not knowing who you are is the only chance you’ve got at a good life.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She reached up and started to touch my cheek but stopped herself. “And now I feel bad,” she said, lowering her hand and covering her eyes.

  “Why?”

  “Because I feel like I should be really impressed or something as such.” She looked back up at me and grimaced. “What am I to do, ask for your autograph?”

  “Please don’t.”

  Reaching over, she picked a magazine up off the table and held it up in front of my face. “Does it hurt your feelings or damage your ego that I don’t know who this person is?”

  “Not in the least.”

  She dropped the magazine, sat back in her chair, and stared at me while she drummed her fingers on the table.

  “Why are you sad?” I asked as I sat back down.

  “How do you know I’m sad?”

  I’m an actor. I study facial expressions for a living. “Your face is wearing a pout.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why are you sad?” I repeated.

  “Because I’ve been walking around thinking I’d made a new pal.”

  “Why does that have to change because I’m on a few magazines?”

  Her left eyebrow cocked.

  “A lot of magazines,” I corrected.

  “I’m not certain.”

  “Can’t we just be friends and forget the other part of my life exists, for a while anyway?”

  “This is huge, Cabot. How can you ignore it? Why on earth would you want to?”

  “It’s like you said when we first met. You get tired of having to put on the show for everyone all the time. I want to be normal just like everyone else. Here, in this little space, I can do that if you’ll let me.”

  She leaned forward in her seat, and I did the same. We stared at each other for a long time. The more I stared at her, the more time I wanted to spend sitting right there, doing nothing more than just that, looking at her, memorizing her face and searching her eyes for more of who she was.

  She was perfection.

  Eventually, she broke the trance and spoke. “I’m not going to fetch your water or such. As long as we’re here we’re on equal footing.”

  “Good.”

  “And I’m not going to stroke your ego or tell you what you want to hear. I’m not that kind of person.”

  “It took me less than twenty-four hours to figure that out.”

  She sat back again. “I’m probably morally against a lot of what you promote in your films.”

  “If I had any morals, I probably would be too.”

  “And I may never see one of them,” she threatened.

  “They aren’t that good anyway.” I could feel the table vibrate as she shook her foot in agitation. “Have you not noticed that we can barely see each o
ther through the smoke?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The bacon’s burning.”

  “Bollocks!” She jumped up out of her chair, grabbed the pan off the stove, opened the back door, and threw the entire thing into the backyard. “It’s all gone to pot. Cooking is not my strong point.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Cabot?” she asked, leaning against the sink. “You’re a massive celebrity. Why would you want to be pals with a girl like me?”

  “I think we’ve had some great conversation and a lot of fun. Isn’t that what friends do?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have very many friends. At least not my age anyway.”

  “I don’t either. We’re two individuals who are surrounded by hundreds of people all the time, but when it comes right down to it, we’re alone.”

  She sighed.

  “And there’s one more reason I want to be friends with you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You call me Cabot.”

  “And why is that important?”

  “To everyone out there, I’m Cab, ‘The Eighth Wonder of the World.’ To you, I’m just Cabot. It feels good to get to be Cabot every once in a while. It would be nice to have a friend and not have to worry that the person wants more from me.”

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  “Oh, and one more reason.”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t get enough of the way you talk. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I can’t help myself.”

  “Well, it’s kind of cute.”

  “Rubbish,” she said with a swat.

  “Yeah, it’s definitely cute.”

  The remark got a small smile out of her, which made my morning.

  “So we’re still friends?” I asked.

  “We’re pals. But only if you cook me breakfast.”

  “Deal.”

  “Every morning you’re here.”

  “Deal.”

  She extended her hand to me. “Pals then.”

  I grabbed it and gave it a shake. “Friends.”

  C H A P T E R

  10

  We stood over the kitchen table with two piles of magazines stacked on top.

  “I’m confused,” she said. “I’m looking at this handsome film actor named Cab. And yes, he looks like you, but this person on the magazine appears much more self-confident.”

  “I’m an actor. It’s called acting.”

  “And you dress much better in your other life. Do you have a person back home who chooses your clothing for events?” she asked.

  “A stylist?”

  She nodded.

  “Why do you ask?”

  She looked me up and down and pursed her lips.

  “Never mind. Don’t say a word. I don’t like to think about it all. It just takes too much effort.”

  “Too much effort? Too much effort to look at colors and determine if they match?”

  I shrugged.

  “Honestly, Cabot, I’ve spent much of our time together pondering whether or not you are, in fact, colorblind. Your color matching is atrocious.”

  “It’s not that I can’t match clothes, Kei. It’s that I don’t care.”

  “Well, you should.”

  “I should worry about what I look like when I’m walking around here and nobody’s going to see me?”

  “I’m going to see you.”

  “I didn’t think you noticed.”

  “I notice.”

  I grinned but quickly hid it behind my hand. “Glad to hear it. I’ll try harder then, okay?”

  “You don’t have to dress to the nines or anything. I know I don’t. But at least try to match colors. It’s bothersome to look at someone whose color palette is so offensive to the eye.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I laughed. “Now that I know you’re looking, I’ll pay closer attention to what I look like.”

  “I’m not looking at you in the way in which you’re implying,” she pointed out.

  “Sure you’re not.”

  “I’m not. You don’t impress me. Not one bit.”

  “Whatever.” I looked down at myself on the magazines. “Can we get to work please?”

  “As long as you’re clear that I am not looking at you with anything more than a friends lens.”

  “Fine.”

  “Yes then, we can continue.”

  “Okay. You have two groups here,” I explained. “The first stack, which is by far the biggest, are the weekly magazines. Because they come out every single week, they have to come up with new stories to get people’s attention. There’s a huge business in celebrity gossip, and there are a lot of these magazines, so they have some serious competition. The better the headline, the more they sell.”

  “Understood.”

  I flipped through the largest stack and pulled out two and held them up. “Look at these. They’re from the exact same week. This one”—I held one higher than the other—“says that Caroline and I are moving in together, while this one”—I lowered the first and held up the second—“says we’ve broken up and I’m sleeping with a waitress from Seattle.”

  She examined the covers and then peeked around them. “So which one was correct?”

  “Neither.” I dropped them back onto the table. “Caroline has a boyfriend, and I’ve never even been to Seattle. At least not that I remember. We don’t do press junkets there, and I don’t really have the free time just to go for the sake of going. Although, if the waitresses there are that easy, I might go check it out.”

  “You just insulted waitresses throughout the greater Seattle metropolitan area.”

  “Then don’t quote me on it.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me. But really, how can they say that? If they’re lying, isn’t that illegal?”

  “What am I going to do, sue every single magazine every time they lie? I’d be broke from attorney’s fees.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  “As a general rule, if they’re telling a story and quoting their information from a ‘source’ or a ‘close acquaintance’ or a ‘friend who wishes to remain anonymous,’ it’s a bunch of hogwash. You can’t believe ninety percent of what they say in these things.”

  “So it’s rubbish?”

  “Yep. The only things you can believe are direct quotes from me, and even then, they’re iffy.”

  “How is that? I mean, if you said it, then wouldn’t it be true?”

  “It’s all about context. They take a statement I made in the middle of a press junket and put it in a story about something totally different.”

  She crossed her arms across her chest and shifted her weight to one side. “Example, please?”

  “Like one time I was asked a question about how I got myself ready for kissing scenes with Caroline. I said something like, ‘There’s such a strong bond there between the characters that the passion is undeniable.’ Then the magazine took the quote and cut it apart, and the headline the next week was: ‘Cab’s Confession: He and Caroline’s Passion for Each Other Is Undeniable.’ It’s crazy.”

  “Sounds like a nightmare.”

  “You learn to ignore it. People are going to believe what they want to believe. In Sofie’s and my world right now, that means that everyone wants to believe that we’re together in real life because they love us together in the movie. So even when we deny it, they try to say we’re lying. They want that chemistry on set to be true off set.”

  “And it isn’t?”

  I shrugged and shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

  “So there is chemistry,” she said.

  “I don’t know what it is. We understand each other. Neither one of us wants anything serious.”

  “Oh, I understand. You nob but don’t particularly fancy each other.”

  “Nob?”

  “Sex.”

  I closed my eyes, and shook my head but didn’t deny it.

  “I get it. No
need to elaborate.”

  “We aren’t each other’s type. We—”

  “Apparently, you’re enough each other’s type for that type of activity.”

  “It’s just easy.”

  “I’d say,” she said with a single nod.

  “That’s not what I meant. We…we understand each other. We—”

  “It’s not my business, Cabot. Really, I don’t want to hear any more about it. You’re a grown man. You can do what you want…or who you want.”

  “I don’t think you understand how difficult it is to find

  someone—”

  “I said I didn’t want to hear any more.”

  “I just don’t want you to get the wrong impression about me.”

  “And what impression would that be, and how would it be different than the reality of it all?”

  I shrugged.

  “We come from different worlds, Cabot. You don’t understand mine. I don’t understand yours.” She looked down at the magazines and then back at me. “What about the other stack?”

  I sighed, lowered my head, and looked down at the magazines. She was right. I was pretty much unrecognizable—even to myself.

  “Cabot? The other stack. What about those?”

  “Umm…okay. These are monthly magazines. These are your Vanity Fairs, Rolling Stones, etc. Most of the time, I do a spread, which means I get the front cover and several pages of photos inside. We do these before a new movie comes out. It builds up the interest in me again, and for these, I usually give a sit-down interview somewhere. They’re real journalists and they tape-record everything. These interviews are usually true, at least in terms of direct quotes. Sometimes the writer will give his opinion on how I act or the way I live, but the quotes are correct and aren’t usually taken out of context.”

  “Where do you do the interviews? At your home?”

  “I don’t really have anyplace I’d call home. I travel too much for that.”

  “Is anything off limits? Any questions you won’t answer?”

  “I pick and choose what I want to share about myself. I give information about the stuff that doesn’t really matter. The rest I keep to myself, or I just make crap up.”