Fanfare (2 page)

I closed my eyes and sighed. My love for my family and for my friends was all I had left.

“Fine!” I hissed through my teeth. The jumping up and down like little rabbits began anew with even more vigor.

Finally, we were next in line. My cousins were seriously unable to contain themselves. Now that we stood less than five feet away from him, I took a closer look. He was pale with stubble shading his face, and his hair did, in fact, look like he had forgotten to wash it for the past . . . week? It was long and hung in a pile of disarray on his head. His eyes were light grey with a hint of green, framed by unkempt eyebrows and a well-defined jaw. Altogether attractive, but I wasn’t entirely sure what all the fuss was about.

“Thomas! We love you!” gushed Steph disgustingly.

“You’re so cute!” chanted little Maria.

“Thank you so much,” he said good-naturedly.

If anything, he seemed extremely uncomfortable and a bit tired. I was surprised to discover he was not the pretty boy of my earlier musings. He looked like a guy who had just woken up a few minutes ago and was forced into a designer suit, when all he really wanted was a cup of coffee, the newspaper, and a moment of silence. Instead, he was thrown into a room full of screaming, pre-pubescent girls, and ordered to “dance monkey, dance!” or else. Visions of the Roman Coliseum in its heyday came to mind, and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing softly as I contemplated a den of hungry lions wearing Hannah Montana T-shirts.

He patiently signed all of the ridiculous paraphernalia my cousins handed to him and glanced up when he heard my laughter.

“Are you listening to something funny?” he asked quietly with a melodic British accent.

“No,” I said calmly.

“What are you listening to?” He smiled crookedly at me. I honestly felt bad for him. Poor guy needed a nice shot of whiskey and some earplugs. Hell, so did I.

“Rage Against the Machine,” I responded.

“Well! That’s decidedly unfunny and a bit surprising,” he said as he studied me with a look of quizzical amusement.

Irritation flared at his snap assessment. Years of being judged solely based on my ethnicity did not work in his favor. I didn’t struggle to make people expect more from me all my life to be stereotyped by a studio puppet.

“Yeah, I guess it would make more sense to you if I said I was listening to Daddy Yankee.” Man, I sounded like a bitter shrew.

His eyes widened, and he put his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. “I didn’t mean anything by it! I was just surprised, that’s all! I don’t have many occasions where I’m surprised whilst on these junkets. I’m sorry.” There was no mistaking his honesty.

Damn. I felt like a huge bitch. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve had an interesting day.” I tried to smile without showing my embarrassment, and he graciously smiled back.

“When are you starting your next movie?” Maria asked in an attempt to regain his attention. I could tell that both Maria and Stephanie were irritated that Thomas was talking to me instead of them.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said warmly. “But I really hope you go to see it.”

“We will!” they replied in unison.

Both of my cousins looked up at me with expressions of expectation. Crap, now that they were mad about the distraction, I definitely couldn’t get away with conveniently “forgetting” their earlier request.

“Um, Thomas?” I asked, wishing the floor would just swallow me and take me on an express train to the farthest reaches of hell.

“Tom,” he said automatically.

“Yeah, uh, Tom. Would you mind giving my cousins a hug?” I was going to give it to them in the car for making me do this.

“Sure.” He paused expectantly with raised eyebrows. I guess he wanted to know my name.

“Cris,” I replied ruefully.

I placed my iPod down on the table so I could collect their newly autographed treasures and knelt to put all of it back in their backpacks. They squealed and blushed. He actually kissed each of them on their cheeks. The screams of the girls behind us nearly deafened me.

I looked up and smiled earnestly at Tom. He was definitely not a douchebag.

“Thanks,” I said softly.

“Anytime,” he replied.

My face was beginning to burn again with unexpected embarrassment. I grabbed my cousins and made a beeline for the nearest exit.

“Did you see that, Cris? Did you? He kissed me!” Steph was beginning to freak out.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fabulous,” I said as I tried to control my frustration. My heart beat unusually fast, so I took a deep breath to calm my nerves.

We were just about to make it outside of the mall when Maria chirped, “Cris? I’m hungry. Can we get something to eat?”

I inhaled again slowly and closed my eyes. I shouldn’t be this irritated with my poor little cousins. It wasn’t fair. Smiling at them as patiently as I could, I said, “Sure! What do you want to eat?”

A snack turned into shopping around for a new pair of tennis shoes for Steph and earrings for Maria. Before I knew it, another two hours had gone by, and my Sunday was shot. The only redeeming factors were the huge smiles on their faces from an excellent day filled with memories they would probably cherish until the next It-Boy came into their lives.

I almost wished I could go back in time to when I was their age. I had been obsessed with Ricky Martin (haha!). I guess if I had spent the morning waiting in line to see Ricky and was then treated to junk food, tennis shoes, and earrings, I would say my weekend was pretty much made. One day, both Steph and Maria would realize how much more it took to make them happy than it used to, and a day like today would seem like a blissful epoch from their past.

We piled into my little black Civic, and I reached into my purse for my iPod so I could plug it into the adapter.

“Dammit!” I said angrily.

“What’s wrong?” Steph asked.

“I think I left my iPod in the mall. We have to go back in.” I groaned.

“Do you think someone stole it?” Maria guessed.

“I don’t know! Maybe I left it on that table from earlier. We’ll check at lost and found.” This was what I got for trying to be good.

We marched back into the mall and to the information counter. Of course, the meet-and-greet had ended an hour ago, so the table that was swamped earlier that day was no longer there. Information directed us to lost and found.

“Hi,” I said with chagrin as I walked over to speak with the individual who monitored the small room where my iPod hopefully waited for me.

“My name is Cris, and I think I lost my iPod earlier at that autograph signing in the center of the mall.”

“Yes, a number was left for you.”

What? Why wasn’t my iPod left for me?

“A number? Um, okay,” I said with frustration.

He wordlessly handed me a small piece of paper with a telephone number on it. Nothing else was written on the paper.

“Uh, did they say anything else?” I asked.

“They just asked that you call later on this evening.”

Man, I swear. If some stupid teenagers took my iPod and expected some sort of reward, I would hunt them down and tell their parents. I was seriously pissed, and once I got my hands on the junior racketeers, they were going to wish they hadn’t tried to make a quick buck.

What a perfect end to an excellent day. We walked back to the car in silence.

“I’m really sorry, Cris,” Maria said quietly as we took our seats.

“Don’t worry about it, chica. I’ll get my iPod back.”

I sure would. In fact, I would get it back today. Screw waiting until tonight to call this little hustler. I grabbed my cell phone and ruthlessly punched in the numbers written on the small piece of paper. It rang several times before it cycled to voicemail. I cleared my throat, intent on leaving a stern message. The final ring chirped before the recorded greeting.

“Hi, this is Tom’s cell. If you managed to wrangle this number, you’re either a close friend or family member or have otherwise managed to impress my agent greatly. In either case, I should respond shortly. Thanks.”

It beeped and waited for me while I sat there in shock. “Uh, um,” I stammered. I couldn’t just hang up! Caller ID had ruined that escape.

“Uh, this is Cris. Um, I think you might have my iPod. Could I, um, have it back, please? This is my cell. Uh, can you please call me back?”

I hurriedly pushed the End button to complete the worst voicemail message in the history of voicemail messages. I had asked a movie star to give me my iPod like a kid on the playground who wanted her ball back. Why the hell had he taken it anyway?

“Cris? Are you okay?” Steph asked me when she saw the look of utter disbelief on my face.

“Yeah, sweetie. I’ll be fine.” My mind swirled with thoughts, and most of them centered on my extreme curiosity. I could not fathom why he would take something he could simply leave with lost and found. If he gave the mall a number, why didn’t he just give them my iPod? Maybe he had forgotten about it and only remembered too late to leave it at the mall? Sure. That had to be it. But then why would he give me his cell number and not send some minion to take care of it? I was certain he had many people at his beck and call. The questions burned in my mind as I drove to Steph and Maria’s home to drop them off.

After stopping inside to say hello to my Aunt and Uncle, I began the half hour drive home to my mother. I had managed to conceal my heavily distracted mind from my Aunt by sticking to banalities, but I knew I would not get away with that at home. Mami missed nothing, and now that it was just the two of us, her eyes were even more watchful. What I wouldn’t give for a semblance of privacy. As much as I wanted to move out and live on my own, I knew I wasn’t ready to leave her. Too much had happened this year, and it was too soon for her to lose her daughter right after she watched her husband succumb to cancer.

It was time for another reality check. Lately, I had given myself lots of those. It was a major reason why I managed to maintain an air of sanity. Each time I wasted precious moments of my life dwelling on things I had no control over, I forced myself to review the facts.

Fact: This guy is a movie star.

Fact: You are nobody.

Fact: You don’t want anything to do with him.

Fact: Men make absolutely no sense.

Fact: Men lie.

That was it. I was done. There was no reason to continue obsessing about being given Thomas’s personal cell phone number. It didn’t matter. I would get my iPod soon, and then this would just be another funny story to file away for a rainy day.

Renewed by my reality check, I hummed quietly along with some tuneless song on the radio and let the music take over my thoughts. I’ve always had a love affair with music, and nearly all of my most consequential memories had rippling harmonies in the background. I associated almost everything important in my life with some form of music.

My Cuban-born father was a classical cellist. As a little girl, I would sit on the floor while he played. I would place my tiny hands on the base of the gleaming wood instrument and revel in the vibrations singing through my fingers with each resonating note he drew across the strings. He would smile down at me. Tu eres la luz de mi vida. I was the light of his life. He was the rock in mine—the only man I could ever trust. My mother was born and raised in Puerto Rico and walked to the silent beat of drums. When she was younger, when her knees didn’t give her trouble, she would dance in the kitchen while cooking us dinner, even when no music could be heard.

I couldn’t live without music. Now that my father’s quiet laugh and sparkling eyes were no longer in my life, the connection we shared through music was the closest thing I had to being with him.

I walked in the door of the little house I shared with my mother. “Mami?” I called out.

She sat in front of her TV, watching her soap operas on Univision. God help whatever schmuck owned Univision if anyone messed with Mami’s telenovelas.

I plopped down onto the sofa to dutifully tell her about my day. We spoke solely in Spanish at home and, even though I no longer considered it to be the language I conversed most adeptly in, there was always a sense of innate comfort to the Spanish words that rolled off of my tongue I didn’t necessarily feel when I spoke English.

I fixed dinner while she sat on the sofa and told me how much her knees had pained her that day. Mami was the quintessential martyr, and I didn’t know what she would do with her day, or talk about, if she were actually absent a slew of debilitating ailments. I listened patiently. She knew that my threshold was about twenty minutes, and she milked every moment of it. After we ate, I went through the mail and made sure there were no unpaid bills before I went upstairs to check my email and take a shower.

My phone began to ring as I made my way up the stairs. It was Gita.

“Hey babe! How was your Sunday?” she asked.

“Man, it was boring as hell.” I groaned. I proceeded to tell her about waiting in line forever to meet some tween idol.

“C, you’re such a good cousin. I don’t think I’d do that crap for my own sister!”

“You’re lying, Gita. I know you would, and then you’d call me at night to complain about it just like I’m doing right now.” I laughed.

“Well, at least let me try to make you feel good about sacrificing your entire Sunday for them. I spent mine at the library studying accounting crap. Seriously, remind me why I’m going to school while working full-time. Spout the lies about opportunity cost and whatnot so I can feel like I’m not killing myself for nothing,” replied Gita.

“You know that—” Beep. “Hey Gita? I have a call on the other line, give me a sec.”

“Hello? This is Cristina.”

“Hi. This is Tom.” I nearly dropped the phone when I heard his softly accented voice.

“Uh, hi?” I squeaked.

“Am I calling at a bad time?” He actually sounded a little nervous.

“Um, can you give me a second? I have a call on the other line.”

“Truly, I don’t want to be a bother. I can call later.”

“No, no. Just give me a sec.” My hand shook a little as I pressed the button to switch back over to the conversation I was having with Gita. Calm down, Cristina! You’re acting like an idiot.