Page 91 of Twice
During this time, I got myself in better shape. I watched what I ate, lost some weight, and went to a gym five mornings a week to do weight work. I know it’s a cliché, Boss, that people take better care of themselvesaftera relationship ends. And it is strange that you’d rather make yourselfattractive for the possibility of a love, than for one you already have. I suppose all of it goes back to the grass is always greener. I looked up that phrase once. Did you know it dates to a Greek poet in the first century BC? That’s how long we’ve been making fools of ourselves.
As the premiere approached, I flew out to Los Angeles but this time with no return ticket. That night at the hotel, sitting on the bed, I realized the last time I had lived through this day, Gianna had told me she was pregnant. I’d gone to sleep thinking I was going to be a father and wore that idea through the next day’s festivities like a heavy gauze covering my eyes.
This time felt different. But not better. To be honest, I felt kind of empty. As I rode in the car that the studio had provided, I tried to convince myself that meeting up with Nicolette after the film was over—as I’d promised last time but never done—would ease the sting of my collapse with Gianna. I rubbed my arms through my sports coat, feeling my newly tightened muscles.
The crowd was the same as last time, as was Nicolette’s arrival in that silver lamé dress, parting the attendees like a speedboat through a lake. The cameras flashed incessantly. When we saw each other, we repeated what happened in the previous encounter.
She took my hand and gently rubbed her thumb across my palm.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi, Nicolette.”
“I’ve missed you. Are you good?”
“Yeah. And you?”
“Everything’s great.”
This time, I preempted her leaning in and did it first, offering her previous words back to her.
“Let’s go make someone happy,” I whispered.
She blinked, as if confused, then pushed up a smile.
“I’ll see you after?” she said.
I saw her after. But not the way I’d hoped.
?
The movie finished, there was wild applause, and Nicolette and a couple of the other actors went to the front of the theater and spoke a few words to the audience. Then they thanked Jaimie and Marisol, who sat up front and got a huge ovation, and “the real writer, Alfie Logan, who is also here.” I waved.
Afterward, there was the usual pandemonium of people pushing and cutting and greeting one another. I tried to see where Nicolette was going. I’d kind of hoped she’d find me, but with so much attention on her, I guess it was difficult. I wiggled through the crowd to the front of the theater, where they’d told me I’d have a car waiting to go to an after-party. But there were about fifty cars waiting. Valet parkers were racing back and forth with keys. I shuffled impatiently, reading the placards in the windshields, hoping to see my name.
Suddenly, I heard a small roar and saw more cameras flashing. I spotted Nicolette being ushered to her limo. Shewas waving with one arm, but the other was draped around the waist of a tall, bearded man whom I recognized as an actor, an action hero type, although I couldn’t remember his name. When they reached the curb, there was sudden yelling from photographers, and Nicolette turned, still arm in arm with her man, and they smiled and posed until someone yelled “A kiss! A kiss!” and Nicolette reached her hand across his cheek and planted a long, wet smooch on his lips while flashes illuminated their perfect coupling, as if their love created daylight.
I’ll spare you the embarrassing details of my being discarded, Boss—the canceled dinners, the unanswered phone calls, the personal assistant who eventually emailed me letting me know that Nicolette was “heavily involved in a new project but appreciated the invitation to get together and wishes you well.”
Eight months later, I read she was engaged to the action hero. They were making a big-budget “futuristic fantasy” film together. I laughed at the wordfuturisticbecause I had so badly estimated my future with her. Then again, I had only really turned to Nicolette after messing things up with Gianna. Maybe she never actually cared about me. Maybe I just misread everything.
Who knows? We invent all kinds of theories about how our hearts get broken, when we’re the ones who drop them on the floor.
?
Now, if you’re wondering if I ever contacted Gianna again, Boss, I did. A few times. I called her on the phone. I showed up at the camera store where she worked. She was never mean. But the spark was gone. Just like Yaya had experienced with George. I could see it in Gianna’s forced smile. Her glances out the window. Her sentences like “I know things will get better for you, Alfie.” Always “you.” Never “us.”
In time, I gave up. I moved down to Australia, which felt as far away as I could get, and I stayed there for many years. I took on physical jobs. I lived near a beach. I never married again.
Looking back, the story is pretty simple. I ignored my mother’s warnings that the second time won’t always be better, and I did the “something stupid” my Yaya had worried about. Somewhere in heaven, I broke both their hearts.
I walked away from my one true love, Boss. And the lone caveat of my unique gift—You cannot get someone to love you twice—meant I could never undo the biggest mistake of my life.
I have cursed this power ever since.
Nassau
“What do you mean,you’rehis boss?”
