Daniele rolls her eyes and mimics me mockingly: “I’ll be right back, it’s Alex.”
“Hey, neighbor.” I open the door and find her in formal attire.
“You said you were going to take me to the meeting with Victor, remember?”
“Of course I remember.” I quickly scan the room and spot my leather jacket and cargo pants. “Let me just get dressed.”
“It’s unbearable that you’re always in your underwear, you know? Not everyone wants to see you naked.”
“Afraid you’ll fall into temptation?” The voice comes from my tablet, in Portuguese.
I may not speak perfectly, but the time with these two has made me understand most things, and I slip into the pants wanting to punch Daniele.
“Stay out of this, Dani,” Alex yells from the doorframe, doing justice for both of us.
“Well, since the couple has a date, I’ll hang up…” my best friend says in English. Which makes me widen my eyes and feel awkward, but when Alexandra just holds back a laugh, I know everything’s fine.
“We were talking about the news…” I start carefully, throwing the jacket on my body and pulling my hair out from under it, but Alexandra passes by me and interrupts.
“You know, from yesterday…”
“I don’t know why you look at that stuff if it affects you so much, seriously.”
“So, you’re good?”
“I wasn’t really cheated on, A.J., of course I’m good.” She laughs, crossing the room with a lightness that annoys and fascinates me at the same time. Before I can say anything, she grabs the cap thrown on the couch and tosses it at me. “Now let’s go, I don’t want to be late.”
The way Alexandra casually ignores the tabloids makes me feel like an idiot, because every gossip that comes out sends a chill down my spine. I’m scared she’ll decide to distance herself, ignore me, or something like that, because our friendship is the lightest thing I have right now. And probably my desperation is also because of this “right now,” since in a month, Alexandra will go back to Brazil and follow her own path. I’ll follow mine too, but far from her, and I don’t feel even remotely ready to lose my partner.
“Nervous?” I ask, shaking the thought out of my mind as she turns my cap backwards.
“I’m not nervous, just confused,” she assures, leaving the suite. “What does he want with me, I wonder?”
“I don’t know, Alex.” I pull the door open and sigh, meeting her eyes. “But I’m dying to find out.”
Chapter Twelve - Alex
Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do?
Show you a thing or two 'cause you ain’t seen nothing
Life is good on the other side of Hollywood
The Other Side Of Hollywood - Julie And The Phantoms feat. Cheyenne Jackson
Dreams don’t pay bills.
That’s the only thing I can think of while Victor, the world’s biggest music producer, raises his finger and answers an important call – important enough for him to interrupt our meeting, but not important enough to take it to a private space.
I cross my legs, watching the tall, gray-haired man murmur “uh-huns” and “no way” on the other side of the table, and ponder the recent events.
When Guilherme Almeida invited me to open for Vicious Bonds’ shows, I wasn’t just excited, I felt a delicious flutter in my stomach. Opening for a famous band across the country could really take my career to the next level.
Yesterday, Victor called me in for a meeting at the hotel restaurant where he’s staying to talk about my next steps. I thought it was funny, but I got here ready to pitch myself to his label. As soon as he asked what I was going to do when I got back to Brazil, I replied that I’d be living my dreams.
“Dreams don’t pay bills.” Was his answer.
As if I wasn’t drinking a bad orange juice, but with a view of the Eiffel Tower because of it.