Page 65 of Crash and Burn
"Guess what the first question is?" he asked, brandishing his phone. "Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?"
I snorted.
"Are you serious?" I asked. "That's supposed to make you fall in—" I snapped my jaw shut, nearly biting my tongue in my haste.
Grant was looking at his phone, scrolling through the list with a swipe of his thumb.
"I guess they start out easy." He looked at me expectantly. "So?"
"Who said I had to go first?" I pretended to complain. "I don't know. I haven't had any time to think about it."
"Just throw out the first name that comes to mind," Grant said.
"Madonna," I said.
"The singer?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"I like her songs," I said. "Maybe she would put on a one-woman show to entertain me at that dinner. Only her late eighties to early nineties hits, though," I added. "I'm not so much a fan of her later stuff."
"I remember you have a thing for eighties pop," Grant said.
"What about you?" I asked. "Going to have dinner with Andy Warhol?"
"Good guess, but no," Grant said. "I'd want to have dinner with my grandpa. He died when I was a kid. We were really close. If I could get one more dinner with him..." he trailed off, looking wistful.
Now I felt dumb for my Madonna quip. Grant was being sincere, taking these question things seriously. I resolved to think hard about my responses and not give joke answers.
"The next question is, would you like to be famous and in what way?" Grant looked up from his phone. "Can I guess? You want to be a famous fashion designer with everyone wearing your clothes, but you don't want to be so famous your name and face are splashed across newspapers."
"And you want to have your art hanging in galleries, and wouldn't mind a little notoriety," I said. "I don't know if this game is going to work. We already know this stuff about each other."
"Let's skip ahead," Grant suggested. "Move on to the harder stuff." He brought up the article on his phone again. “What is one of your most treasured memories?”
I had to think on it for a bit. Most of my treasured memories had to do with Grant. All those small moments, those snatches of time together — I cherished each and every one. Even before we had gotten together, every tiny gesture he had made settled deep in my heart, nestling down and making me fall for him just that much more.
Was it weird to use a memory of Grant, considering he was the one I was playing this game with? After all, this was supposed to be a way for us to get to know each other on a deeper, more intimate level than pure friendship allowed. Any memory I had of him would be something he’d already experienced too.
“Can I give an answer if it has something to do with you?” I asked. “I don’t know if that counts.”
“Go ahead,” Grant said. “We can make up the rules as we go along.”
“One of my most treasured memories will probably sound totally boring and normal to you,” I told him.
“Try me,” he said.
“Okay, so, my parents named me Elizabeth,” I started, wanting to explain. “They never shortened it, never called me Beth or anything. They always used my full name. When I was a kid my nickname among my friends became Lizzy and it stuck. So that’s what I go by now. But you...” I trailed off, taking a peek at Grant, wondering what he was going to think of this memory. “You always called me Liz. No one else did. It was like this special secret between the two of us.” I twisted my hands in my lap nervously. “To my parents I’ve always been Elizabeth, and I always felt like I needed to live up to their expectations of me. To my friends I was always Lizzy, the cheerful, energetic one, always with a smile on her face, never getting upset at anything. But I had just started working with you. You didn’t know me as Elizabeth. You didn’t know me as Lizzy. You called me Liz. It almost felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It felt like, for the first time, maybe I could just be myself for once. I didn’t have to be the person they all wanted me to be.”
Grant’s eyes were soft and warm as he took my twisted hands and covered them with his.
“I had no idea it means that much to you,” Grant said.
“It does,” I replied. “And I never knew why you called me that when no one else did.”
“Truthfully?” He lifted a shoulder. “I thought it was quicker to yell out over the bar to get drink orders. One less syllable.”
I let out a small laugh. He squeezed my hands.
“But I’m happy I was able to make you feel better, even if I didn’t know about it,” he continued.
