Over Her Dead Body(26)
“So far I’ve only just gotten mostly guest-star roles on shows,” Ashley said brightly. “I was ‘Hot Mom’ on Modern Family, a bailiff on Law & Order, a woman with an inflamed gall bladder on Grey’s Anatomy.”
“That sounds like so much fun!” Reina gushed, but I could tell by Ashley’s thin smile that it felt like a dig. Reina was a litigator—she had already established that—and to call someone else’s career “fun” was akin to saying it was trivial.
“Those jobs are super hard to get,” I said, remembering what Ashley had said last night at Louisa’s, how she never knew what to say when people asked, “What have I seen you in?” because “there hadn’t been that much.” I knew her business was hard. My aunt had told me about the hordes of actors who came out for auditions, and how only a lucky few would ever be able to support themselves on their acting.
“Are you constantly going on auditions?” Reina asked, and I felt a rise of irritation. Why was she grilling her?
“I had an audition just this morning,” Ashley said. “That Nathan’s aunt got me.”
“Oh! What for?” Reina asked. And I was curious, too. But I didn’t want to put her on the spot.
“It’s bad luck to talk about auditions,” I cut in, parroting what Ashley had told me on the phone when I spontaneously, accidentally asked her on a date. I didn’t bring her here to answer a bunch of obnoxious questions and wanted to give her a graceful way out.
“That’s true,” she said, then rewarded me with that smile again. “Can you excuse me? I have to go to the ladies’.”
I stood as she got up. “I’ll show you where it is,” I offered.
“It’s OK, I see it,” she said, then went up on tippy-toes and planted a warm, lingering kiss on my lips. It caught me completely off guard, and I silently cursed the stinky blue cheese–dipped buffalo wing I’d just eaten. “Be right back.”
Emboldened by that kiss, I paid for our drinks and intercepted her coming out of the bathroom. She was so crazy sexy in her jeans and boots that I couldn’t stop myself from kissing her again. “Want to get out of here?” I asked, and she responded by giving me her address. I followed her most of the way, but as we exited the freeway, my optimism got the best of me (I don’t have a condom!), so I made a pit stop quick enough to blame on a wrong turn, because you don’t want to be presumptuous about these things, but I’d be a fool if I wasn’t prepared.
I double-checked the address as I strode up her front walk, then knocked lightly on her front door. I figured she’d be waiting for me right on the other side of it, but after thirty seconds, when she didn’t come, I knocked a little harder.
Just as I was starting to panic that I had the wrong house, or she had changed her mind, the door creaked open. But instead of inviting me in, she slipped out to join me on the porch, closing the door behind her.
“Sorry,” she said, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. She looked rattled, and I was suddenly second-guessing my pit stop.
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s my roommate,” she started, then stopped, and I wondered if she was embarrassed to reveal she had a roommate, or if something had just transpired between them. “I thought we’d be alone.”
The solution seemed simple enough. “Do you want to go to my place?”
She took my hand and put it on her bare chest, just above her breast. I could feel her heart, thumping in time with mine. Just as I was about to lean in and kiss her, the door opened. I quickly retracted my hand.
“Hey, I’m the roommate,” the roommate said, without stopping to chat or shake hands. “Have a good night.”
His taillights lit up and a moment later he was gone. I wanted to jump her bones, but she seemed upset, and I didn’t want to push. What would Nathan 2.0 do?
“Why don’t I call you tomorrow?” I suggested. A strand of hair had fallen in front of her eye. As I reached down to sweep it off her face, she tilted her chin up, and Nathan 2.0 be damned, I couldn’t stop myself from stealing that kiss.
“I want to,” she said, disentangling herself from my eager hands. “But I can’t tonight. I’m so sorry.”
If I hadn’t been so wild with desire, I might have remembered to ask about that audition Louisa had gotten for her. Because the notion that Louisa had offered to help someone—a stranger, no less—was indisputably strange . . . the third strange thing in a night that included announcing she wanted to change her will and showing me her death folder.
I had an opportunity to be suspicious when I was driving home, but I was too busy singing along with the Beastie Boys and fantasizing about what I would do the next time we saw each other, which I hoped would be tomorrow, at my place, with no roommate to muck it up.
I had yet another opportunity to feel suspicious the next morning, when I woke up to see a missed call from an unknown number. When did that come in? I was too distracted to consider that something might be amiss, so I left the message unplayed while I took a shower. I think I might have even sung (“Cum On Feel the Noize,” probably). I foolishly thought nothing could spoil my good mood, that’s how clueless I was.
I toweled off, threw on some boxers, then picked up my phone. The voice mail had come in at 6:52 a.m. On any other day that might have concerned me, but this morning I felt impervious to bad news. But that invincible feeling vanished as soon as I pressed “Play.”