Page 39 of My Lucky Star
“No!” he declared to my relief. “I, um... I dropped my pants and mooned at the paparazzi.”
My relief was replaced by exhilarated shock. “You what?”
Cem shook his head, his cheeks deepening in color. “I know. I was drunk and they were getting on my nerves, asking me to do this and do that. Nothing’s ever enough for them. You can chop yourself up and hand them the pieces and they’ll fight over the bones. Not that I was thinking all that when it... happened. It just happened. Then I found out one of them was hiding in the bushes on the other side of the terrace, and they got...”
“A dick pic?” I finished for him.
“I suppose.” Cem bit his lip. “Not the standard kind, though.”
“What’s a standard dick pic? Which official body standardized that?” I tried to keep from laughing but failed miserably.
Cem stared at me for a moment, then cracked a smile. “Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve never sent one.” His smile turned into a chuckle. “But I always thought they were meant to be... not flaccid. I mean—”
“Don’t ask me! I’ve never received one.” I took a deep breath, laughter still bubbling in my stomach. “It sounds like neither of us has lived a full life.”
“Well, when you measure it like that.” Cem shook his head, wiping his eyes, still shaking from silent laughter. “How did this conversation deteriorate so quickly?”
“I don’t know, but I swear I had a point, and it wasn’t about dick pics.” I tried to compose myself, backtracking to our last non-dick topic. “So, you’re worried about being a role model?”
“Yeah.” Cem sighed, staring off into the distance. “I’ve thought about it a lot and... what bothers me most is I don’t know why I did it. I’ve blamed it on the alcohol.” He lowered his voice. “But honestly, I wasn’tthatdrunk. I could have stopped myself, only I didn’t.”
I nodded. “And now you’re scared it might happen again, even if you never drank another drop.”
He bobbed his head silently, sucking on his lower lip. “What if I keep having these random lapses of judgment? What if something even worse happens? I mean, I kissed you, even though I decided I definitely shouldn’t.” He barked a humorless laugh. “It’s fun inside my head, I tell you.”
I leaned against the tree trunk, studying his conflicted face. A thought that had been brewing at the back of my mind finally surfaced. “What if it’s not totally random? Looking at your life, how your brother manages every second of it, how the press follows you around... you don’t get a lot of freedom, do you?”
He frowned. “Well, it’s not like I have a bedtime, but there are certain things you have to do to be successful, to have a career.”
He seemed a bit irritated, like I’d called him a baby, but I couldn’t help pushing it. “My life is nothing like yours, but I still feel those expectations – what my parents want, what my boss wants... Sometimes, I feel it drowns out my own voice and I don’t even know whatIwant.”
“I know the feeling, but it doesn’t excuse public nudity.” He gritted his teeth, drawing a reluctant breath, like he’d been scolded by someone I couldn’t see.
My laughter fizzled out. I couldn’t even imagine how it must have felt to have your one mistake amplified like that, staring back at you from hundreds of websites, and shared by millions. He probably couldn’t go anywhere in his country without being reminded of it.
I gathered my courage and made eye contact. “To me, it makes sense that you would struggle with those boundaries. I’m sure you’re living a charmed life and you have more than I ever even dreamed of, but you don’t have a lot of freedom to make mistakes. The rest of us can have a bad day, embarrass ourselves, and move on. For example, I might avoid the laundromat where I had a public meltdown, but it’s only one place—”
“Why did you have a meltdown at a laundromat?” His gaze drilled into mine and I swallowed.
Why did I have to use real-life examples?
“I... it was shortly after I moved to Napier and felt really out of place...“ I shook my head, forcing myself to return to that day. “I lost my laundry coin. It dropped between the slats of the steps outside and I couldn’t get to it.”
“O...kay.” He waited for more.
My eyes returned to my hands, keeping watch over the nails I was in danger of ripping off. “I mean, I’d had a hard day. This flat I was supposed to move into cancelled on me because someone they liked better happened to be available after all. I’d driven from Auckland with all my stuff with this amazing house in mind and then I had nothing. Nothing but laundry. So, I went to do my laundry, to have time to think.” I looked up, giving my ego the last stab of death. “I’m not saying I had a really good reason to ugly cry in public and I’m also not saying I don’t cry at a drop of a hat, because I do.”
It was better that he knew the truth. The real me.
He looked at me with a mix of amusement and tenderness. “There’s nothing shameful about crying, but are you seriously comparing you weeping in public to me showing my ass to the world?”
“That’s my point! I can’t make the world notice me do anything, embarrassing or not. I used to think it made me a failure, but maybe it’s a blessing.”
“Trust me, it is.” Cem’s hand came up to his beard, lightly brushing it like he couldn’t quite commit to a gesture of any kind. “So, you’re avoiding the laundromat now?”
I blushed, because my real-life example was both embarrassingly true and absolute bullshit. “No. I actually can’t avoid it much at all... See, I cried so hard that this old guy came to ask me what was wrong, and I told him about my day, and he said he owned the vacant apartment above the laundromat and the rent was almost the same as the flat I’d missed out on. So, I took him up on the offer. I don’t use the laundromat or sit outside it to relive that moment, but I’m not really avoiding it, either.”
“Wow! So, your embarrassing moment actually paid off?” He stared at me in disbelief. “That does seem a bit unfair.”
