Are You Going to Kiss Me Now? (21 page)

I’m not a catering service,” Ned snapped, looking up from his computer after I’d made my request for food and drinks. He was angry that I’d decided against throwing my friends under the bus for the thrill of his lofty authorship.

“Tell me what’s going on out there,” he demanded, licking his writerly chops.

I didn’t say anything.

“I honestly can’t imagine who you think you’re protecting, Francesca.”

“I just can’t do it.”

“You Americans with your simple sense of loyalty and camaraderie,” he mumbled. “It’s quite ridiculous, you know.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “English people don’t believe in loyalty and camaraderie?”

“We do,” he sneered. “We’re just better judges of character.”

“Right. Like the Massacre at Amritsar?” I asked.

Ned looked at me and burst out laughing. “Bravo, Francesca. Bravo.” His smile lit up his face like a candle in a jack-o’-lantern.

I smiled back, secretly thrilling that my passion for the History Channel finally had its moment. I could tell Ned was surprise and impressed.

“You’re obviously an extraordinary girl,” Ned started. “You’re educated, you can write, you’re funny.”

“You think so?” I asked. I was loving the compliments. It would take someone as eccentric as Ned Harrison to think that I was the special one in a group of marooned celebrities. Despite his being an evil plagiarist, I enjoyed the fact that he appreciated me.

“I do, I do,” he pressed, lighting a cigar and fingering some marbles and keys in a little bowl next to his computer. “Think of the larger picture, Francesca. Think of your career.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting down across from him. I’d never really given my career a lot of thought.

“I can help you along,” he suggested. “We could even write the book together,” he exhaled.

I shook my head.

“Or, if you don’t want to be involved,” he puffed casually, “I’ll write you a glowing reference for university? Whatever you like. Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge. You can write your own ticket. We can help each other out.”

A letter of recommendation? Was he kidding?

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said.

“What then? What do you want?” His face was pink with frustration.

I paused to think if there was actually anything worth trading my morality on.

“Just something for us to eat and drink,” I said.

“Tiresome,” he mumbled, looking back at his computer screen now. I was invisible.

I started to sweat. It was fine to have a sense of pride, but we couldn’t eat it for dinner, and the idea of going back to coconut juice was just depressing.

“Could I just have a few cans of soup?” I asked. “You can’t starve us.”

“I need you to tell me more about them, Francesca!” he shouted, pounding his fists on the table. “Fill in the blanks. What I have here is good, but it’s not enough. I’m frustrated. I feel cheated.”

“You feel cheated? How do you think I feel?”

“It’s not about you, little girl, don’t you see that?”

“I do. Very clearly.” I stopped to collect my thoughts. “So you’re going to hold us hostage until I cave in?”

“Enough with this hostage nonsense,” he quickly said, holding up his hands. “You’re all free to go. And as soon as I tune up the plane, I’ll fly you out. But that could take days…weeks even,” he said without a hint of irony.

“I don’t know anything else,” I pleaded, weakening at the prospect of a night without food. “Nothing happened last night. And do you honestly think they would tell me anything else at this point? It’s like you said, they don’t trust me,” I lied. “But I’ll try again, OK?”

He looked at me pointedly and looked back down at his laptop.

“If there’s a will, there’s a way, Francesca. If there’s a will, there’s a way.” He gestured to a bottle of water and a huge bag of nuts before looking back at his laptop. “Take them and go. Go.”

I grabbed the stuff and went back outside.

***

“For the love of God, shut up, Eve,” Milan finally said after a half hour of listening to her complain about her ruined career at the hands of Ned Harrison. “You have no career. So it really doesn’t matter about your yearnings for men with saggy balls.
Nobody
will care…and if they do, it will only serve to remind them that you still exist. Remember what Chaz said.”

“I just feel like I’m the only one who really has something at stake,” Eve whined.

“Hello, the guy knows Cisco can’t read,” Milan said, kissing Cisco sweetly on the cheek. “
That’s
embarrassing.”

“I can read,” Cisco sulked.

“Oh, he’ll end up being the poster boy for some literacy program. It’ll just make him more famous,” Eve sulked. “And the same is true for Jonah. I’m the only one who can’t parlay my dirty laundry into something,” she paused, searching for the right word, “something
more
.”

“So what? You think your secrets are more outrageous than ours?” Jonah asked.

“A little,” she admitted.

“OK,” Cisco finally said, “I can raise you.”

“Yes?” she asked, placing her hands together and pressing them to her lips in hopeful prayer.

Cisco paused to think. Thinking was a stressful verb for Cisco. One could almost hear the exercising of the limp brain muscles.

“I don’t
always
recycle,” he finally said.

“Oooooh,” she purred in mock revelation. “Scandalous!”

“All right,” he admitted. “I never do…unless someone is watching.”

“Whatever, Cisco.”

“I eat steak at home. Sometimes even veal.”

“While we appreciate your admissions of hypocrisy,” Eve said, shaking her head, “it just doesn’t feel on par with having an affair with the most famous man in England and then setting his pied-à-terre on fire. You know? Just not the same.”

“I wax my chest?” he threw at us like a fly ball at a Little League game.

“Again,” Eve said, “really unappealing but not entirely newsworthy.”

“It’s newsy-ish,” Chaz yawned, sucking lazily on the information guarantee.

“I had a nose job,” Cisco finally blurted out.

“Whaaaaaat?” Milan shrieked. “You are grossing me out, man.”

“Yes!” Chaz said, pumping a fat fist into the air. “I knew something about you was different after your Disney Possum days.”

“Well, there it is,” Cisco said, casually popping a nut into his mouth.

I knew once Cisco confessed, someone would try to top him. They were a competitive group, and they didn’t like being one-upped.

“I had a boob job,” Milan offered.

“That’s no secret, jingle bells,” Chaz said. “Try again.”

“I put Ex-Lax in Kirsten Dunst’s mojito so she’d miss her audition for
Naughty Corner
.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eve said.

“You did that?” Joe laughed.

Milan nodded. “I don’t regret it either. It’s the best role I ever had. And she would have gotten it back then. Oh, I also
accidentally
pushed Kristen Stewart off the set when we were filming.”

We all looked at her in disbelief.

“What?” she shrugged innocently. “She was upstaging me.”

“Aren’t you guys like best friends?” I asked.

“We were,” she sighed regretfully.

“All right,” Eve cleared her throat, “You know those naked pictures of Avery Printz? The ones that came out last year that she so passionately denied being her?”

We all nodded.

“They weren’t of her. They were of
me
.” She was smiling this perverted little half grin I’d never seen before.

“Nooooo!” Chaz gasped. I thought he might take off, he was so amped.

Eve nodded.

“How?” I asked.

“Peter’s son David was dating Avery at the time, so when the pictures he’d taken of me leaked to the press, he convinced David to lie and say they were of her. We kind of have the same complexion.”

“Poor li’l Ave,” Chaz laughed. “Her whole girl-next-door persona was destroyed after that. Why would David agree? It’s so wrong.”

“I think Peter kind of forced him into it,” she shrugged. “You know, he gets a
really
good allowance.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Chaz cried. “So Peter lets Avery take the fall to protect his own ass…and yours.” He swallowed a fistful of nuts. “Hmm, like father, like son, I guess.”

“I gather she dumped David shortly thereafter?” I asked.

“Yes,” Eve said, clearly enjoying her confession. “I guess it is pretty disgusting,” she admitted.

I knew this was my moment to come clean. I was fairly certain that Ned was the only one who had bothered reading
all
my texts. Milan and the others would have only read what I’d written about them. And besides, once we got out of here they would all know the truth. I took a deep breath.

“My dad isn’t dead,” I said. “He just had an affair. I lied about him dying. I lied to get here. I wanted to win the essay contest.”

They all stared at me with their mouths hanging open.

“What?”

“You lied about your dad dying?” Jonah asked, looking at me with horror.

“Yes. He left my mom and is having a baby with his girlfriend.” I paused. “I was really mad.”

“That’s cold, Francesca,” Cisco said.

“I know,” I stammered.

“Who would do that?” Milan looked at me like I was the one who pushed my best friend down the stairs. I mean, in the scheme of things, my crime didn’t seem
that
heinous.

“I never thought I would win the contest,” I admitted. “I entered on a whim. Once I’d won, I didn’t know how to get out of it. It was too embarrassing.”

“But why did you lie to me?” Cisco asked.

“And me?” Jonah added.

“I don’t know. I guess I liked being a part of something. Being fractured made me feel like I was more interesting.”

“Now
that’s
pathetic,” Eve grinned.

“I know,” I said.

It was quiet for a few seconds before Joe spoke.

“I was in a porn movie,” he said, hanging his head but raising his eyes with a sly grin. “A few actually.”

I was so grateful that he got the attention off me that the shock of his admission nearly didn’t register.

“Whaaaaaaaat?” We all gasped. Jonah looked like he might faint.

“It was 1974,” he said, taking a deep breath. “
The Double Dutch Bus
,
Double Dutch Two
, and
Little Head Riding Good
.”

We all burst out laughing. It was really hard to imagine Joe as a young person…let alone naked…let alone having sex.

“Impressive!” Chaz exclaimed. “But how is it possible that nobody ever discovered it?” Chaz continued in disbelief. “Nothing gets by me. I’m a Google god.”

“I had a nose job too,” Joe added without a beat.

We were on the ground hysterical now. Joe was all right looking, but he had a big nose. A really big nose.

“I hope you sued your doctor?” Milan chortled.

“No. I asked for this,” he smiled, touching his honker. “My agent suggested I might do better as a character actor. I used to look more like him,” he said, pointing at Jonah. “And once I got the part on
Small Secrets
, I was glad I’d done it, if for no other reason than that I knew nobody would ever recognize me from my
previous
career.”

“And what was your acting name?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

“Joe Jangles.”

Needless to say we were all laughing so hard by this time that we had to take about ten minutes to collect ourselves. Jonah was laughing hardest of all, so it came as a particular surprise when he cleared his throat to speak.

“I think I’m gay.”

“I
knew
it!” Chaz clapped immediately as he stood to do a little victory jig. “I
knew
it! There was no way I was buying that you were straight.”

Chaz looked around awkwardly before sitting back down trying to wipe the smile off his face and bury his less than polite reaction. “Sorry,” he bowed his head. “That was rude.”

“Wowza,” Cisco mused. “That’s some hypocrisy, man. Jesus won’t like that.”

I was stunned.

“You’re gay?” I finally said.

“I think so,” he nodded apologetically. “Yes.”

“And I’m the bad guy?” I said.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure. I’d hoped. I thought maybe…”

“You lied to me, Jonah. You told me you liked me! That you wanted to be with me!”

“It did seem like a bit of a stretch,” Chaz whispered to Milan, who nodded in agreement. I ignored them and kept talking.

“And then you made me feel guilty for betraying you because I kept a stupid diary? Are you kidding me?”

“I didn’t do it to hurt you, Francesca. I really didn’t.”

“I was just a convenient beard?” I asked. “Shack up with the virgin so you can continue being a big, Christian fraud? Who cares about my feelings, right? Very Jesus-like. Very nice.”

“At least it explains why he didn’t want to sleep with
me
,” Milan whispered to Cisco.

“I really am sorry, Francesca. It’s not what I want for myself. I just can’t pretend anymore. If I were straight, you’re the kind of girl I’d want to be with. I really thought it would be different with you, but it was the same. I’m just not, not attracted…to girls. But if I were, you’d be it.”

“Gee, thanks soooo much, Jonah,” I squawked. “I’m so honored that you’d like me
if
you liked girls! You’ll pardon me for not swooning over the flattery. Do you even believe in God? Is the whole Christian thing a fake too?”

“I love God,” Jonah said softly. “I just don’t know how he feels about me anymore.” Jonah’s voice was quivering.

“Unbelievable,” I said, glaring at him.

“That’s enough, Francesca,” Joe said, standing up and walking over to Jonah. “I know you’ve had a bad week, but this isn’t about you.”

“Well, there’s a surprise,” I snapped.

“Francesca!” Joe looked at me and gestured to Jonah, who had his head between his legs. He seemed to have shrunk about three inches.

“Well, don’t cry,” I said, finally recognizing how hard it was for him to have made that kind of confession. Still, though, I was getting tired of being treated like a used Kleenex. Joe walked over to Jonah.