Keili stayed for rehearsal, and we spent a little more time together over lunch. She promised to email and keep me updated on the baby. She was due right before the show went up, so it was doubtful she’d make it back to the city before she gave birth.
I was very glad to have seen her, but she’d planted a seed.
She’d planted several.
Chapter 8
Jack had started his trek around the world. He was truly amazed at how many fans turned up to see him everywhere he went—and he was more than a little freaked out by it.
“Grace, I mean, it was just this blast of screaming. I could barely tell which end was up. I couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. And then the outside doors opened while I was going through the hotel, and there they all were,” he explained late one night, calling from his hotel in Chicago.
He was basically living out of a suitcase at this point, on the promotional tour for Time.
“I’m not surprised, love. You’re their Joshua. They love you.” I sighed into the phone, wishing I were there with him.
“It’s just so weird. I mean, literally last year I could barely get into a casting director’s office, and now?” He laughed mournfully.
“Hey, you’re about to have that town by the balls. When this movie opens you’ll be bankable. Everyone’s gonna want to work with you. Wait and see.”
“I know, I just…Jesus, if they only knew—” he started to say.
“If they only knew what? If they only knew you were an amazing musician? If they only knew you’re the funniest motherfucker this side of London? If they only knew how much you love your Fatburger?”
“Grace, please. No one cares that I like Fatburger.” He chuckled.
“Oh, really? I know teen girls, and I know how their minds operate. New Kids fan, remember? I guarantee if you mention your favorite fast food, at some point it will be mentioned again. Us girls? We love that stuff. I still remember who Joey McIntyre’s favorite singer was, and I haven’t read anything about him since 1991.” I laughed, thinking of the issues of BOP and Teen Beat I used to read cover to cover.
“Girls are weird,” he muttered.
“I heard that,” I warned.
“Good, I ruddy well meant you to. You’re all mental, and somehow I ended up with the craziest one of all,” he said, teasing me now.
“Tread carefully there, or I’ll make you watch my Hangin’ Tough Live tape.”
“Tape? Like an actual videotape? Wow, like, from the eighties?”
“You’re on thin ice, fucko,” I said, lowering my voice to let him know I was serious. I tried to stifle a yawn, but he caught it.
“You need to get some sleep, love. You sound exhausted. How are the rehearsals going?”
“Good. They’re good. Everything is pretty well set. No more rewrites so it’s getting easier.” I snuggled under the covers. This was the time of night I missed him most.
“You’ll be ready to open?” he asked, covering his own yawn.
“Yes, I think so. Sweet Nuts, you sound tired too. Why don’t we go to sleep?”
“That sounds good. If I were there, what do you think we’d be doing now?” he asked. I could hear his covers rustling. Somehow, knowing we were both doing the same thing made me feel better.
“Hmm, right about now you’d be turning me on my side.”
“Yes?”
“And sneaking your hands under my shirt.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And now you’d probably be surrounding my boobies with your hands.”
“Definitely.”
“And now you’d be groaning.”
“Because your boobies feel so fantastic?”
“No, because I just turned on Golden Girls, and it’s the episode where Rose tells Dorothy and Blanche about the Great Herring War.”
“And on that note, I will say goodnight. Say goodnight, Gracie.”
“Good night, Gracie.”
He paused, and I could hear him turn out the light.
“I love you, Jack.”
“I love you too, Grace.”
***
The next week was hell for both of us. I was in rehearsal all day, every day, and usually well into the night. He was on his monster promo tour, all over the country. I checked in on him each day via the internet, and my Sweet Nuts just looked exhausted. But he was having fun too. As a great tie-in to the time-traveling aspect of the film, the studio had booked personal appearances for Jack in the science centers and museums across the country. These places had never seen such giddy crowds! This was truly the most exciting thing he’d ever gone through, and when he told me how nervous he was, or how much it freaked him out when everyone screamed at him, I simply reminded him this was awesome.
He was experiencing something hardly anyone in the world could appreciate, and the more he gave to his fans, the more they loved him. They loved that he said whatever he wanted, that he was self-deprecating, that he was funny and silly—and, boy, did they love that he was British.
“I’m just about to get in the shower. What’s your schedule like today?” I asked one day when he called to check in. He was somewhere in the Midwest, although he wasn’t sure exactly where. Different city, different hotel every day.
“Mmm, taking a shower are you?”
“Yes, George, settle down. Although I do miss showering with you,” I said, knowing the reaction I’d get.
“Stop it. Killing me!”
“You know how much I love to wash your hair. It makes me a little crazy,” I purred into the phone, grinning like a cat. “That’s something only I get to do.”
“Maybe I should include that in the interview I have this afternoon. I can tell them all about this nuts girl that gets off washing my hair while I hold on to her boobies—for balancing purposes only,” he said.
“You wouldn’t dare. That hair and those coconuts are mine and mine alone,” I laughed.
“Mmm, don’t remind me, Grace. Not right now. I have a meet-and-greet in twenty minutes, and I don’t think I could explain away my current state of excitement.”
“Easy there, trigger. Only two more days and you can channel your excitement my way.”
He was going to be in town for literally twenty-four hours, at least sixteen of which were taken up by promotional and press obligations. I would be in rehearsals. The only time we’d have together would be night. Which was fine by me. I’d take what I could get.
I’d watched daily as his confidence grew, and the mobs increased. He’d had to start traveling with security, and each night his hotel was crawling with Joshua-lovers. He used aliases at each hotel, never checking in under Jack Hamilton. Once he used my name—a dangerous little game. A few times he used a combination of Holly’s name and my name, and then? Then he really starting having fun with it.
In the same week, in different cities across the country, if you were looking for Jack Hamilton, you could have found him under the names:
George McHair
Johnny Nuts
Sheridan McGeorge
And, my personal favorite:
Sophia Patrillo
Finally, he was in New York. I was on pins and needles all day, not only because he was here, but because I didn’t know when exactly I was going to get to see him. Rebecca was in town as well, having joined him for part of the movie tour, and we’d tentatively planned to meet at an Italian restaurant for dinner. He was once again in a hotel, this time the Plaza.
Nice.
We texted most of the day. He was all over town—on The Today Show, at Seventeen magazine, MTV Studios, radio stations—you name it and he was there, ending the day with a Super Sexy Scientist Guy event at the Museum of Natural History. One of his last texts made me blush…a lot.
Grace
I’m going to fuck you until you can’t see straight tonight.