“Well ... he’s taken me to Flamers a few times, but he always calls first and makes the arrangements. And my understanding is that Flamers encourages that, that they like to be known as a place where celebrities eat.”
“And so does this place,” Celia told her. “It’s just not as formalized here. That snooty-ass maître d might not even like me, might detest the very ground I walk on, but he’ll let me in because he knows that having me in here is good for business.”
“But he scratched out someone else’s reservation to seat us,” she said. “That’s not right.”
Celia simply shrugged. “They were probably some pretentious rich pricks he scratched out,” she said. “The odds are pretty good.”
“I suppose,” she said, though she still looked doubtful.
Celia picked up a piece of the bread and shoveled a slice of the pate onto it. “Look,” she said. “I don’t do stuff like that very often—I don’t mean to give that impression—but it’s okay to play the celebrity card every once in a while. Embrace it. Like I said, it’s the good part of being who we are, and it offsets a whole lot of bad parts.”
Laura seemed to think this over for a moment and then she smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’ll embrace it—at least for today. How is the pate?”
“Excellent. Fatty liver never tasted so good.”
Their waiter was named Jacque and he spoke with a heavy French accent. Celia suspected that he was actually an American actor wannabe named Jack and that he had probably never even been to France before, but he was good enough at his craft that the suspension of disbelief held. She ordered a ninety-dollar bottle of chenin Blanc and a plate of garlic simmered escargot from him.
“I’ll have it out to you immediately, Ms. Valdez,” he promised.
“Merci beaucoup,” Celia replied.
They drank the entire bottle of wine and ate all of the garlic tasting snails before ordering their main courses. They ordered another bottle of wine to go with it and by the time their plates arrived, Celia was feeling quite tipsy once again and could tell that Laura was feeling the effects as well. Her words were slurring just the tiniest bit and her lips began to get a little loose.
“Jake told me about what happened,” she said after the waiter made his retreat.
Celia looked up at her sharply. “What ... what happened?” she asked. He wouldn’t have told her that, would he? And if he had, she wouldn’t be sitting there talking so casually to me, would she?
He hadn’t and she wouldn’t. She wasn’t talking about that at all. “About ... you know ... what Greg did up in Alaska.”
“Ohhhh, that,” Celia said, unmistakable relief in her voice.
“What did you think I was talking about?” Laura asked her.
Celia shook her head rapidly. “Nothing,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what you were referring to at all.”
“I hope you’re not mad that he told me,” she said. “Or that I’m bringing it up now.”
“It is a rather sore subject with me,” Celia said. “But I understand him telling you. After all, I told Greg that Jake knew. Couples share things with each other.”
“I was shocked when I heard about it,” Laura said.
Celia snorted. “Imagine it from my end,” she said, though in her mind she was thinking, you don’t have to experience it because Jake and I both had the common fucking courtesy not to confess what we did.
“I can imagine it,” Laura said softly. “It seems like you and Greg are not doing so well because of this?”
“No, we’re really not,” she agreed. “Although in truth, it’s not just the infidelity that led us to where we are now. That was just what got the ball rolling. There are other factors in the equation.”
“Like what?” Laura asked.
Like the fact that I’m in love with your boyfriend, know that he is in love with me, yet he plans to ask you to marry him soon and I can’t get this out of my fucking head. “It’s very convoluted,” she said aloud. “It’s also deeply personal.”
“I get you,” Laura said with a nod. “None of my business.”
Oh, but it’s very much your business, Celia thought. You just don’t know it. “It’s just complicated,” she said. “And a little too much to go into here, in a pretentious French restaurant.”
“I understand,” Laura said. “Anyway, I hope you and Greg can work this out.”
Celia shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see on that one. I’m hitting the road very soon. I’ll have lots of time to think about what comes next. In truth, that was the primary reason I jumped so fast when Aristocrat offered up this tour. I knew it would get me away from Greg and from...” She slammed her mouth shut, then shuddered a little as she realized she’d almost said, ‘from Jake’. “ ... from, you know, everything, and give me a chance to bury myself in my music and let me try to find perspective.”
Laura nodded slowly. “It gets lonely out on the road though,” she said.
“Yeah,” she agreed solemnly. “Incredibly lonely at times. Maybe that’s a good thing for me to experience just now.”
“Do you really think so?”
Another shrug. “Who knows? I’m just a simple singer who doesn’t even have a college degree. It could be I’m making a bad mistake here. It could be that I’m being unreasonable in how I’ve been treating Greg since he told me. I just don’t know. Getting away seems the right thing to do though.”
“I think that trusting your instincts is a good thing,” Laura said. “Jake taught me that.”
“Jake is a wise man,” Celia said. “He has impressive insight into things.”
“I love him a lot,” Laura said. “I really do.”
“I know you do,” she said, fighting to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “You two make a cute...”
“Can I talk to you about something?” Laura interrupted. “Something ... very personal? Very private?”
Celia looked at Laura’s face. She saw it was anxious, nervous, perhaps a bit ashamed, but also determined. “Uh ... sure, of course,” she said slowly. “I’m here for you.”
“I’m not sure talking to you about this is the greatest idea I’ve ever had—you and Jake are so close, such good friends—but ... well, I’ve got to talk to someone. This is tearing me apart inside. And you’re the closest thing I’ve got to a friend, other than Jake himself that is, and I can’t very well talk about this to him.”
“Talk about what, Laura?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“Something ... well ... happened between me and Squiggle down there in South America.”
“Squiggle?” Celia asked, confused. “Who or what is a Squiggle?”
Laura sighed. “Squiggle is Eric ... Eric Bland. He’s the trumpet player for Bobby Z. He was out on the tour with me for the entire thing, North America and South America. We grew kind of close to each other. There was a certain chemistry between us.”
Holy shit! Celia thought. Is she talking about ... about what I think she’s talking about? “And ... something happened between you and this Squiggy guy?”
“Squiggle,” Laura corrected. “They call him that because of his handwriting ... but that’s not important. And it’s not what you’re thinking ... well ... not really anyway. We didn’t ... you know... do it or anything like that.”
“You didn’t do it?” Celia asked. “You mean you didn’t have sex with him?”
“Not ... uh ... in the conventional sense of the word,” she said.
“What do you mean, Laura? I’m not quite following you here.”
Another sigh. Another miserable look. “I got used to having sex regularly since Jake and I got together,” she said. “Good sex, incredible sex even. Jake is very good in bed.”
I know, Celia thought bitterly. “Uh ... I imagine he probably is,” she said. “He’s certainly had a lot of practice in his time.”