Page 75 of Holiday Star
I almost choke on my cookie. Alvina’s been great so far, never outright mentioning my panic attack in the doctor’s lounge. I guess that changes today.
“It’s the hospital…and other stuff, too.” I’m mostly lying. The long hours at the hospital are brutal, but I continue to love medicine. I find it rewarding to care for my patients, to be there when they are scared or hurt.
It’s Caleb that’s bothering me. Still, after two months, I can’t totally shake him.
He doesn’t have the same problem, based on the celebrity gossip magazines at the grocery store. He’s gone back to acting, picking up a leading role in some police drama on one of the major networks. “Lawson’s triumphant return!”the magazine had exclaimed. I looked away as quickly as I could, fighting the lead ball in my chest.
“Hmmm.” Alvina seems doubtful. “About that other stuff. Maybe you should call him. Say all the things you need to so you can get it out of your system.”
I wish she wouldn’t bring it up. Now I’m thinking about Caleb, his hand on my cheek, his eyes sparking with something that I had mistaken for love. The memory hurts, sharp and piercing.
How could I have been so stupid? I should have known he was a liar. It’s his literal job, convincing people he’s someone he’s not. Playing the role. Speaking his lines.
But he was such a pretty liar and so, so good at it that he had me convinced. I had closed my eyes, not looking at our reality. Let him sweep me away. Let him cast me as his leading lady. Let him play my Prince Charming. It had been easy to accept his whispered falsehoods, to trust in the story he spun.
So easy to fall for him.
But now, as the time I’ve spent apart from him becomes longer than the time we spent together, my doubt grows, tainting all of my memories.
What was real? Any of it?
“Never,” I vow. “There’s nothing I didn’t already say.” I mentally dig in my heels, determined that I’m not the one who should call. I’m not the one who walked away, after all.
“You know, Gwen. Sometimes people need to hear something more than once before it sinks in,” she says with the wisdom of a veteran ICU nurse. “Even more,youmight need to say it again, so you’ll actually believe it yourself.”
“Believe what?” I gruff, gripping my cookies so tightly that I’ve crushed them into tiny crumbs that rattle around in the bottom of the bag.
“That you two are finished.”
46
Smoking Man’s name turns out to be Wayne, but I still like to call him Smoking Man in my mind. I Google him and find out that in the world of sleazy underdog reporters he’s kind of a big deal. He’s gotten the scoop on many celebrity dramas, everything from divorces and drugs to infidelities. Lots of articles from him about Caleb.
Interesting guy, this Wayne. He has a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
We’re not friends, like Alvina and I are, but I don’t hate him as much as I used to. Sometimes we have mundane conversations about the weather or how my shift at the hospital went as we walk together.
One day, curiosity wins out. It’s twilight, colors bleeding out of the sky into shades of gray. We’re standing on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. I’d just gotten home from a dinner out with Alvina where I hadn’t felt normal, but I had been a little less unhappy.
“Why are you still here?” I ask him. There had been hundreds of reporters initially, now whittled down to this single slim man.
Wayne takes a puff of his cigarette. His answer comes out along with the smoke. “Same as you. Waiting for Caleb.”
A harsh laugh from me. I can’t believe he just said that. It may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. “Well, you’re going to be waiting a hell of a long time. Forever, probably.”
His gaze pins me, sharp with foxlike cunning. “I don’t think so.”
I snort in disbelief. “Why not?”
Another puff of smoke before he answers. “I’ve been covering Caleb Lawson since he was nine years old. Know him better than my own son. Never seen him look like this.”
He pulls out his cell phone and flashes the picture of Caleb and me at Shooter’s, passionately embracing.
“That’s over,” I tell him definitively, barely glancing at the photo. I’ve looked at it enough. Have every inch of it memorized. I analyzed it a million times in the days right after we broke up, searching for what went wrong. How those two lovers, so intertwined in the picture, could be torn apart.
“No. A man looking like that.” He glances down at the image, takes another drag. “That’s not something he’s going to give up. I’m good at this job because I play the long game. That’s you, Dr. Wright. You’re Caleb’s long game. I want the exclusive when he comes crawling back.”
“He won’t,” I scoff. “He doesn’t care. I was just a distraction from his problems. A chance to pretend to be someone else for a change.”
