One More Time(8)

My excitement settles thinking of Tanner with other women. It’s been ten years—how many have there been?

I’ve tried not to read about him, and I’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding most gossip about him, even though I’ve watched every one of his films. Several times, if I’m honest. Now I’m overcome with a powerful need to know every detail of his life, compare it to the one I once shared with him. To trace his path away from me, pinpoint what his new women have that I hadn’t. Or was I just the first in a trail of broken hearts?

I pick up my phone to start a search but stop myself when his face comes back into my mind, unbidden, the slow confused blink he gave before accepting my handshake.

His t-shirt wasn’t quite long enough to tuck into his crisp, dark jeans so I caught a glimpse of the white ridge of his boxer briefs sticking out from the top of his waistline. Calvin Kleins, as always. Tanner had done a Calvin ad back when we were dating and they’d given him a lifetime supply of underwear in gratitude. He used to wear them around the condo with absolutely nothing else on top or bottom while doing his impression of Mark Wahlberg, the original king of the Calvins. I’d always catch him flexing in the kitchen while doing the world’s worst Boston accent.

The sight of that thin cotton stretched against his tight ass and large bulge is seared in my brain, so much so that it was one of the first images that popped up as I walked over to him today, ten years later. I wonder if he feels as good as I remember...

Focus, Jenna! And not on that.

Doing a Google search on his life isn’t going to be helpful either. I trade my phone for my script.

But I know these lines, I’ve been running them with Walter for six months and my mind goes back to marveling at the fact that I pulled off my speech without melting into a giant puddle. It was a win, and a first in many ways. I don’t do conflict. I never have.

One time I’d mustered enough courage to tell off a mean-girl model who’d been treating Hair and Makeup like her personal servants backstage at a Roberto Cavalli show, but then I stuttered my speech to her like a two-year-old and ran away in tears while every single model in the show stood staring. And that was basically the one time I ever tried. It’s not only that I hate confrontation, I’m just plain bad at it.

That speech to Tanner? It was not only my first successful confrontation, but it will likely be my last. I got it all out, and I’m proud of myself. But now I’m done.

You know playing it safe is the fastest way to the middle, Jenna.

I hear those words in my head as if Tanner was whispering them in my ear right here in the trailer. It makes the hair on my neck stand up. Tanner always wanted to push me outside my comfort zone. He believed that I could handle anything, even my greatest fears. When we were together, I believed him, too.

“I can’t read your mind, Jenna,” he’d say. “You have to tell me how you feel, even if you’re afraid it’s going to make me mad. You’re safe with me. We’ll figure it out.”

He made me feel like I could take risks because he would be there to pick me up if I fell. And he always was--right up until he wasn’t.

My thoughts wander back to the past, to days I haven’t let myself think about in a long time. I was seventeen and a virgin when we met. He was two years older and experienced. We had the spotlight in common—how many people could possibly know the loneliness of being a teenager in the public eye all day only to come home at night to an empty hotel room? His family was half a world away. My mother was too busy raising my three siblings. Our friends from before we’d become famous didn’t understand. We got each other when no one else did.

That summer, I was riding the high of my first Vogue cover, wearing a million-dollar dress I’d inspired my favorite designer to make. I was on my way to being a star. But Tanner? He was a comet, blazing fire. At first I was self-conscious, worried that my inexperience would turn him off, but it only seemed to intrigue him more.

I was the luckiest girl in California.

I was the luckiest girl in the world.

And one morning I woke up and realized I was in love. Funny how the biggest mistakes come wrapped in the most beautiful packaging.

That night, he’d been honored with a huge award by the Producer’s Guild – Best New Acting Talent. The critics had raved about his performance in The Jet, calling it a shockingly human portrayal of the superhero no one thought had a heart. He’d single-handedly taken Jet from obscure comic about a frankly problematic character to the hottest new franchise on-screen.

And he was being recognized for that. It was the award that all Tanner’s idols had won, and he was over the moon. All his dreams were coming true, and I wanted to give him a gift of my own. After the ceremony, we attended the official after-party at the Infinity Lounge at Hotel Nitro on Sunset – the hottest spot to open that summer. It was on the thirty-fifth floor of the building, so high that you could see straight from the beaches of Malibu to the fully lit Hollywood sign. All the hottest actors, producers and directors were swarming around him with congrats and promises of even bigger projects, but his eyes were only on me.

I’d worn red, and he’d told me I was devastating in it.

“Five more minutes and then we’re running away,” he’d breathed in my ear, the warmth sending delicious shivers down my spine. I felt drunk on him, on the realization of the depth of my feelings, on the secret I was keeping—that tonight was the night. I only wanted to be with him, beneath him, in a gorgeous hotel room below all the party madness. I kissed him and told him I’d be waiting in our bed.