Page 23 of Forget About Me

Somehow, I’m back at the window. His lights are off. He’s probably out partying with whatever gorgeous model types live in Boston.

After spending fifteen minutes nagging my brothers, I return to my room and reach under the bed to pull out a box of stuff from high school. Digging through it, I unearth a photo. Me and Ben in his bed. He’d held the camera at arm’s length to capture our smiles as we snuggled together. It’s just as sexy as the one I saw hanging in his apartment, but in a different way. He gave it to me right before I left for my freshman year at UMass.

I’ll always be here for you, no matter what,he said.

Only a couple of months later, he broke that promise.

I grab theRolling Stoneagain and look back and forth between the pictures, unsure which image, which words, I want to believe.

The next morning, restocking supplies with Cindy before we open for the day, I can’t seem to stop yawning. I haven’t slept well lately.

“So, tell me what you know about Ben Porter,” I say as casually as I can.

She spins to face me, hugging a box of gauze to her chest. “Why?”

I shrug. “Just curious. I can’t believe that this guy I grew up with is famous.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Have you seen him again? Has he been back here? Was it on my day off? Why didn’t you tell me?” She closes her eyes and squeals. “Oh my god, if I were in an exam room alone with him, I would not be responsible for what happened.”

I’m not sure if I should tell her that I’m working with Ben. It might be something he wants to keep on the down low. But the theater did offer an ad in the program to give me credit for training Puck, so it’s probably okay. “Yeah, he hired me to help out with training the dog he brought in.”

“Oh my god! You are so lucky!” She grabs my forearm. “Do you need an assistant?”

I hate to disappoint her, but I don’t need help and I’m not sharing. Not very Christian of me, but it’s the truth. “Sorry, I don’t think that would work.”

She makes a pouty face and rips open another box. “I can’t believe somebody famous could be from Arlington either—that’s where you live, right? Or is it Medford?”

“Arlington,” I say. “But why is he so famous? Is it just the ads?”

“Well, he was part of this group of models that Callum Keen, like, adopted. Or kept, almost like pets.”

“What do you mean?”

“I forget how it all started, but he cast this group of men and women for this one campaign and put them all up in his compound up in the hills in Hollywood. The photos for the campaign were like, arty. Some famous guy took them.” She groans. “So sexy. Like nothing anyone had ever seen before in a fashion ad. There was this one where there were two guys and a girl, mostly naked, in bed with the sheets all rumpled. I had that one up on my wall for the longest time. Ben was one of those guys. Oh, that chest.” A shiver runs through her from head to toe. “Makes me feel all…you knowinside.”

“Wow.” I ease a box of hypodermic needles out of her hands so she doesn’t accidentally stab herself. “I’m not sure if I want to see that picture.”

“You’d never look at him the same way again.”

I wonder about that. Just being within five feet of him makesmefeel allyou knowinside. Seeing him in bed with another guy and a girl would probably drive me to violence. Or at least to ripping up the photo. “So. it was just that they were in these famous photos?”

“Well, yeah, and they lived this really… what’s the word where you, like, indulge in, like, pleasurable stuff all the time?”

“Hedonistic?” I suggest, all too aware of that kind of lifestyle myself.

“Yeah, that’s it. So it was like orgies all the time. There were also reports that they were starving themselves to stay thin. And taking drugs.” She holds out a hand and I feed her boxes of cotton padding as she continues. “There was a lot of drama. They all dated famous people, like actors and actresses in big movies and stuff. Ben is always in those red-carpet pictures at awards ceremonies. He looks just as good in a tux as he does in his underwear. I probably still have some of those magazines in my room somewhere. I can bring some in to show you if you want. There’s one where this sheet is draped and you can see almost everything.” She sighs. “Those pecs, those abs…”

“Uhhh…” It’s a little weird to parse Ben’s parts with Cindy, especially since I’ve seen Ben without any clothing more times than I can count. Of course, back then he wasn’t all muscle. “Too skinny,” Mama always said, heaping pasta on his plate. Of course, she said it when he was a pudgy twelve-year-old and when he’d grown like a weed to become a string bean.

“It must be kind of boring for him to live here with all the regular people,” Cindy continues. “No big movie openings or anything.”

I still can’t picture Ben on a red carpet. “It’s a different life here, for sure.”

“He’ll probably go back. I mean, the stuff I’ve read said that he’s taking a break for ‘family reasons.’” She closes a cabinet. “What do you know about that?”

I bend over, pretending to look through a big box of odds and ends. “I don’t know. We don’t really talk about anything except the dog. We’re not close anymore, obviously.”

I shrug and close the box, folding the flaps over each other carefully. It isn’t easy to hide my feelings or what I know about Ben’s life now. Which, admittedly, isn’t much. He’s doing plays, he’s staying with his dad. Driving the delivery truck like he did in high school and college.

---