“Thank you, but that’s not it.”

  “What is it?”

  She shook her head, as if voicing her concerns would pain her. She took a deep breath then spoke. “French fries are my downfall. They’re more dangerous than you. I haven’t thrown up food I’ve eaten in more than two years, so I’m just trying to stay on the healthy-eating wagon.”

  “I didn’t realize it was hard for you,” I said, reaching across the table and lacing my fingers through hers.

  She let me, her fingers curling around mine. “I don’t usually talk about it. It was a while ago anyway.”

  “You don’t talk about it because you try so hard to be so tough. But that’s a tough thing, dealing with an eating disorder. And that’s a huge thing to be able to move beyond it.”

  “The last time I did it,” she said in a small voice, “it was over French fries.” Then she stopped talking, dropped her face into her hands. “Ugh. I can’t believe I’m talking about barfing while you’re eating.” For one of the first times, Jess was fragile. All that armor she wore cracked with a small fissure, and in those tiny breaks, she was letting parts of herself be shown.

  I joined her on the other side of the booth, wrapping an arm around her. “Hey, it’s totally okay. I swear you can’t gross me out about food or anything. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad by suggesting you eat a fry,” I said, squeezing her shoulder gently.

  “You didn’t make me feel bad,” she whispered in a barren voice, her face still covered with her fingers. She wasn’t crying. Rather, she was embarrassed and I hated that she felt that way.

  “I never should have said anything about the French fry,” I said, rubbing her shoulder now with my palm.

  She snorted, and it was a self-deprecating sound. Lifting her fingers from her face and raising her head, she composed herself. “You know what? It’s fine. It’s just a French fry. I can handle it. I’m not going to be a big baby about a French fry,” she said and reached across the table to my plate to grab a fry. She bit into it as if to prove she could do it. Then she finished it, and held her arms out wide.

  “There. Did it,” she said, clearly mocking the momentousness of eating something that had once been far too tempting.

  “And it didn’t even bite back,” I said, and she laughed, then looked at me.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “For not mocking me.”

  “For being human? Never,” I said, then turned serious again. “How long were you bulimic?”

  “Through most of high school. I never told anyone, but Anaka figured it out and was pretty supportive. She even took me to a support group, and that helped me to really deal with it. It was never about food. It was always about control, and I felt so out of control starting in high school when my dad’s company went under and my college fund went kaput. So, controlling food felt like the only thing I could manage. But then I stopped, and I was pretty good until I relapsed my second year of college.”

  “What happened that made you relapse?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily and her face flushed for the first time. I’d never seen her ashamed before, and it made me want to hold her close.

  “I was going out with this guy, and the whole relationship was so distracting that my grades suffered. When I saw my progress report, I wanted to die. We broke up pretty quickly, but it just felt like everything was unraveling, and I fell off the wagon for a week or so. Anaka, once again, was the one who helped me. I wouldn’t have been able to change without her,” she said softly. She stared at the jukebox, and her jaw twitched, then seemed to harden as she turned her focus back to me. “But then I got it all sorted out, and I’ve been fine ever since.”

  The last words came out too quickly, too crisply. I knew there was something more to it. Something she was afraid of sharing, but Jess wasn’t prone to oversharing, and I sensed she’d somehow reached her limit for the afternoon. I took her cue and shifted gears, too.

  “You know, Jess, I’m a pretty good cook. I can make salads, and pasta with vegetables, and eggs without the yolk,” I said, since I was starting to figure out she wanted someone to understand and respect her food choices, not push pizza and ice cream on her if she didn’t want it.

  She arched an eyebrow. “Now you’re just talking dirty to me when you use words like eggs, hold the yolk.”

  There we were, back to the jokes, our familiar territory. “I knew the way to your heart was through healthy food. You’re so California.”

  She held up a hand and shook her head. “Did I say it was the way to my heart? I believe I said talking dirty, which means it’s the way to my”—she dropped her voice lower—“pants.”

  A small groan escaped my lips. I bent my head to her neck, pressing a light kiss near her earlobe, then whispered, “Lettuce. Grapefruit. Whole wheat bread.”

  She inhaled and moaned quietly, as if I were turning her on with my food talk. Naturally, I had to continue. Even if she was playing pretend, she was so damn sexy when her eyes floated closed and her lips parted.

  “Broccoli. Carrot sticks,” I said in a low, growly tone. She ran a hand across her thigh as if I were driving her wild. “Yogurt.”

  She turned to me, grabbed a fistful of my T-shirt, and tugged me close. “Now you’re just turning me on way too much.”

  She might have been teasing, but I wasn’t. Not one bit and I had the hard-on to prove it. This was getting to be the usual state around her. “Jess, believe me when I say there’s nothing I’d rather do than turn you on,” I said.

  This time when her breath caught, it seemed for real. No more pretending. “You do,” she said quietly, but she quickly returned to safer ground. “Will you tail Keats and Wordsworth as well as you tailed me?”

  “No. I’ll do a much better job.”

  “You didn’t do a good job tailing me?” she asked as she speared a pineapple chunk.

  “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to get to know you. I noticed you the second you walked into J.P.’s office that first day.”

  She held her fork in the air. She didn’t bring it to her mouth. She didn’t put it down. It just hovered in her hand. “From the first day?”

  “Of course. You were coming through the same door.”

  “That’s the only reason I noticed you, too. It had nothing to do with your fantastic ass,” she said, then wiggled the fork with the pineapple chunk in my direction. “You know you want this pineapple, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I’m dying for it. Bring it here,” I said, and held my mouth open. She fed me the pineapple, and I smacked my lips, declaring it delicious. I was no shrink, but I had a hunch she needed to return to her way of controlling her world, and if that was by giving me a piece of fruit, I’d let her do that. “Now, tell me more about how much you wanted me the second you laid eyes on me.”

  She threw her head back and laughed and it felt good to both comfort her and to make her laugh. Hell, it felt good to spend time with her. So good, in fact, that it occurred to me how much I’d miss her if the State Department sent me packing in less than two months. In a few short days, she’d somehow become one more thing I found immensely appealing about America. The thought should have scared me that I liked her this much already. But it didn’t. Instead, it made me even more certain that I needed to find a way to stay.

  She nodded. “So did J.P. He likes boys, too. He called you Criminally Handsome,” she blurted out as if making a confession.

  “I’m flattered that you checked out my ass and that your boss thought I was hot,” I said, as I pulled my plate to her side of the table and took another bite of my sandwich.

  When I finished chewing, she placed her hand on my arm, wrapping her fingers around me in a way that felt almost possessive, and I liked that from her. “Wait. Turns out, I transposed the order of events. I was the one who called you Criminally Handsome. I was the one who thought you were hot first. And I’m the one who’s inviting you to come over tonight after I run some errands. You can make me a salad.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was asking literally or if it was some new code word for dirty talk. Didn’t matter. There was only one answer.

  But before I could give her my yes, she continued, her eyes truthful as she caught my gaze. “And you can talk to me about salad, too.”

  Another groan escaped me and all I could manage was a one-word answer.

  “Yes.”

  4

  Jess

  * * *

  This would be the scene in the movie with the shopping montage, if I were indecisive and liked to try on and model wigs. But I was decisive.

  I selected a brunette model quickly from the dozen or so the sales clerk with yellowed teeth showed me. There was the long, shampoo-model look. Then the slightly wavy style. Then the housewife shoulder-length bob. Then the crazy curls. Then the boyish wig, which I vetoed because I didn’t want to look like a boy at all. Finally, there was the just-long-enough-to-tuck-behind-the-ears-but-just-short-enough-to-show-off-my-neck one.

  “That one,” William said.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Why not?” he said with affront in his voice.

  “It’s cute, but it’s just too obviously a wig. I think I have to go with slightly wavy. It’s the most…” I paused, noodling on the right words. “It’s the most normal. And, to be honest, the most boring. I don’t want to stand out.”

  “Right, right,” he said, refocusing on the vital mission—not getting caught on Saturday.

  “May I try this on?” I asked the clerk.

  “Of course. Here’s a cover for your hair,” the clerk said, and I took the stocking cap and the wig.

  I turned to William. “You are so not seeing this part. Look the other way.”

  He swiveled around so he was facing the door. His back was to me. The store was tiny, with wigs on styrofoam heads stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling.

  “Now, put your hands on your eyes, too.”

  He did as told. “Do you want to blindfold me as well?”

  “I have a scarf if you want,” the clerk offered. “It’s behind the counter.”

  “Oh, please, bring it on.”

  “I think we’ll be fine without. I’m fast.” I tugged the cover over my hair, tucking my blond ponytail beneath the edge of the panty hose–like material, then pulled on the wig. I adjusted the fake hair, centering the bangless-look and tucking a strand behind my ear, to look as natural as possible.

  “This one is it,” I said, as I checked it out in the mirror.

  “Can I look now?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I’m getting this one.”

  I didn’t wait for his reaction. I simply paid for the wig, chalking up the fifty-six dollar cost as a necessary expense for what would likely be a one hundred thousand dollar payoff.

  “Can you take a picture of me in my wig?” I gestured to the white door that must have led to the back of the store. It would make a good background for a fake ID. “Is it okay to take a picture?” I asked the clerk.

  “Go ahead.”

  I gave William my camera, and I stood against the door.

  “Look mad,” he teased.

  I furrowed my brow.

  “Perfect.”

  “No! Don’t use that. Let’s do a half smile,” I said, and I knew I looked awkward because I didn’t have a very good smile, but awkward would probably be appropriate for this purpose.

  He took a few more shots, then showed them to me. “You approve?”

  “You are a good photographer. Even though the subject is ornery.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? My specialty is ornery subjects.”

  “No wonder we get along so fine,” I said and put my camera away, dropping the wig in the zippered compartment, too. I slung my backpack on my shoulder, and walked out to Melrose. The sun was strong in the sky even in the early evening, and the rays felt good on my bare arms.

  “We do get along fine, don’t we?” he said, picking up the thread of the conversation.

  “Yeah, it’s weird but it’s true.”

  Then I spotted a flash of blond hair up ahead, and the fresh-faced smile of an actress I loved. A Broadway ingénue, and my brother’s wife Kat’s best friend. “That’s Jill McCormick,” I whispered reverently to William.

  “Who’s she?”

  “She won a Tony last year for her first ever Broadway show Crash the Moon. I saw her in it. My brother flew me out to New York one weekend because Jill is best friends with Kat—she was the maid of honor at my brother’s wedding. We all went out after the show. Oh my God, she has the voice of an angel. And that’s her husband. He was her director and they fell in love during rehearsals.”

  “A proper love story for that business,” William said.

  As Jill and Davis neared us, Jill raised her hand to wave. “Jess, is that you?”

  I stopped in my tracks, as something like shock and utter delight flowed through me. “I can’t believe she remembers me,” I said to William.

  “You’re hard to forget.”

  Then Jill closed the gap between us and wrapped her arms around me. “How are you? So good to see you again. How’s everything? Are you almost done with school?”

  “Soon. I graduate in a few months,” I said with a huge grin. She was so genuine. “What brings you to Los Angeles?”

  She pointed her thumb at her husband, the dreamy, broody, blue-eyed Davis Milo, a legend on the Great White Way and in Hollywood, too. He’d already won an Oscar for a film he directed, along with three Tonys. “We’re shooting the movie adaptation of Crash the Moon. Davis is directing me again.”

  “It seems we enjoy working together,” he said, chiming in, then he extended a hand and officially introduced himself to me and to William.

  We chatted more, and as we were about to say goodbye, Jill glanced down at my camera. “Are you working right now?”

  “I was this afternoon,” I said, because she knew I was a photographer, but I didn’t want her to feel like I’d been angling for a shot.

  “Want to take our picture?”

  I beamed. I’d never turn down a shot. “Sure.”

  “Candid is better, right?” Jill asked with a wink.

  “Usually, but you don’t have to stage something. I can just snap a picture of the two of you.”

  “Oh, this won’t be staged,” she said, then turned to her husband, cupped his cheeks in her hands, and brushed her lips against his in a gorgeously unstaged kiss in the afternoon. They lingered on each other, and his hand skated down to her hips, as if he couldn’t resist tugging her closer.

  When they separated, I showed it to them on the back of the camera. “I love it,” Jill said, then hugged me once more and said to keep in touch before they headed in the other direction.

  “This will be great. J.P. loves a great kissing shot. Especially when they’re so in love.”

  “They did seem to be on somewhat decent terms,” William said in a dry voice.

  “Yeah, just a little.”

  “Jess,” he said as we started to walk towards our respective sets of wheels.

  “Yeah?”

  “I had fun with you today.”

  “I had fun with you, too, William.”

  “But I have something really important to ask about tonight.”

  I tensed momentarily. I had no idea what he’d want to ask or talk about. Or if he was assuming things were going in a particular direction, when I honestly wasn’t sure of a thing. “What is it?”

  He dropped a hand to the small of my back, then dipped his thumb under the hem of my shirt, tracing the skin on my back. “Is your roommate going to be home tonight?”

  I reined in a naughty grin. “No. She has screenwriting class tonight. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to…” I couldn’t finish.

  “I know,” he said, and stopped walking, pulling me against him on the sidewalk. “But even if I’m only kissing you, I’d really like to be alone with you,” he said, and my stomach cartwheeled. “Would you like that?”

  It was my turn now to breathe out a barely audible yes. A single syllable constructed from hope and hormones and the wish for more with him. Then other words tumbled free. Words I’d wanted to say earlier. Words I could only say now as I started to relinquish another sliver of my carefully constructed control. “I adore kissing you.”

  Too bad I wasn’t a makeup hound. I could have cleaned up in my mom’s bathroom cabinets. Inside the white cupboard underneath the double sink was a makeup archaeologist’s field day. There were eyeshadows in sky blue, electric blue, and sea green; eyeliners in black, cobalt, and chocolate brown; lipsticks in coral, rose, and scarlet; not to mention endless tubs of foundation and powder in every possible shade of skin. To top it off, the makeup here wasn’t even in rotation. In her makeup suitcase—three cases tall with its own set of wheels—were the colors and cover-ups she brought with her on her jobs. I grabbed several tubs of foundation, as well as a handful of powder puffs, then left her room.

  The scent of couscous emanating from the kitchen was strong and tasty. “Smells good, Mom,” I called out.

  “Tastes even better,” she shouted in return. “You should stay.”

  “Can’t. I have a date.”

  “Ooh. Tell me more.”

  “Ha. As if I’m going to share details of the Hot British Guy with you.”

  “Fine. Then just make sure you don’t fall behind on homework,” she said as I popped into the kitchen to give her a peck on the cheek.

  “Mom, I’m ahead on homework. By the way, I told Bryan your new favorite names for twins are Bert and Ernie for boys,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes and pretended to swat me with a kitchen towel.

  Shrugging playfully, I egged her on. “But Kat loves those names. I’ll tell her you don’t and that you prefer Cagney & Lacey. That work?”

  “Did you say you needed my Hollywood insider intel? Hmm. I’ll have to reconsider feeding you the bits and pieces of juicy gossip I pick up,” my mom said as she stirred the dish, a clever lilt in her voice.