THIS WAS WHERE she lived?
On Thursday evening, Tristan parked his car on the street in front of Nora’s house. For an actress who had seen such recent success, he’d expected Nora Jumelle to live in a mansion. Instead, she resided in a standard-size home in the Valley, albeit on a semi-isolated cul-de-sac. Nora had few neighbors.
Peering at his rearview mirror, he noticed the silhouette of a hefty man sitting behind him in an ordinary Chevy. Security, he assumed. She must have kept someone there around the clock.
Sure enough, as Tristan climbed out of his car, he heard the Chevy’s door slam shut and footsteps approach him.
“Help you with something?”
“I’m here to see Nora.”
“Name?”
“Tristan Albrecht. She’s expecting me.” Though tempted to try to engage the man in a verbal joust of wit for fun, Tristan noticed the man packed heat. He decided to play nice instead.
The man had a bushy mustache and huge hands, each one large enough to grip Tristan by the balls and, if provoked, squeeze them till he squealed for mercy. With a nod, the guy gestured toward the driveway, then ambled back toward his car. Leaning against his vehicle, his glare glued to Tristan, as he muttered something into his cell phone. Even when Tristan turned his back, he could sense the dude’s eyes piercing him. Daring him to flinch.
Before Tristan made it to the front door, it opened, and out walked Nora. With a wave to the security guy, she met Tristan on the front porch.
At just past dinnertime—they had decided to avoid attention if possible—twilight had already set in.
Tristan held out a red rose. He’d intended to hide it behind his back and surprise her with it, but when he saw the security guy, he’d decided to keep his hands visible at all times. He wouldn’t put it past the dude to tackle him and kick his ass, right there on Nora’s lawn, before their first date.
“It’s beautiful,” Nora purred as she took the rose, lifted it to her nose, and inhaled. “Thank you.”
Tristan nodded toward the Chevy. “Is your friend coming along?”
“No, I’ll be fine, as long as we go someplace subdued.”
They climbed into Tristan’s car, and he steered through some local streets until they wound up on the State Route 118.
“You’re full of surprises,” Tristan said.
“How so?”
“The security guard didn’t shock me, but the house did.”
“You anticipated something bigger?”
“Can you blame me?”
She chuckled. “I rented the place when the roles began to look steady. Three roommates at first, and one of them had a dog. The roommates and dog are long gone, but I never got around to finding another place.”
“You got busy faster than you expected?”
“This month is the first breather I’ve had since Faces was released.”
“Doesn’t the paparazzi track you down?”
“I’ve developed a talent for disappearing into obscurity.”
As they passed streetlights on the freeway, their beams added a subtle glow to Nora’s gray eyes. They looked like smoldering ashes.
They opted for a Mongolian barbecue restaurant, a tiny dive which had emptied of patrons by this hour during the workweek. They agreed she wouldn’t attract attention here. Tristan felt like an undercover agent trying to duck a handful of foreign spies. Fun for him, but he wondered how long it had taken Nora to feel trapped. At times, she must have felt like a convict on the run, yet she’d done nothing wrong. Her sin? She had excelled.
He inhaled the savory aroma of his pork entrée, and once Nora had taken her first bite, he started on his own. Sweet, spicy flavors tingled on his tongue. Nora had opted for a vegetarian meal, which didn’t appeal to Tristan at all, but she appeared to enjoy it.
With nobody else in the restaurant except the married couple who owned the joint and spoke broken English, Nora looked at ease and chatted at a normal volume. No one would overhear their conversation and turn their heads at the first detail that intrigued them.
“So why aren’t you working on a movie right now?” Tristan asked.
“I needed a break. The next shoot starts in April. In the meantime, I’ve been reading scripts.”
“Anything good?”
She laid down her fork, her eyes on her bowl. “Would you mind if we talk about something else?”
“Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“Anything. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my work, it’s just that sometimes…”
“You need a break from it?”
“Something like that.”
“Not the aspect of the career you dreamed about as a kid, huh?”
Nora regarded him a moment, then swallowed her bite. “Fatigue wasn’t part of my childhood dream.”
“And her mysterious side emerges.” He grinned at her, and the way she caught his eye in response swept away all doubt that she was interested in him. “So tell me, what was your childhood dream?”
“You first.”
“Fine,” Tristan said with a shrug. “I wanted to be Sammy Sosa.”
“The baseball player?”
“Don’t judge. What kid doesn’t want to be a superstar?”
“Fair enough.”
“What about you? Wait, that’s a stupid question. You always wanted to be an actress, didn’t you!”
With a roll of her eyes, Nora giggled and covered her face with one hand. Was she blushing?
“You don’t want to know,” she said.
“When you put it that way, I do!”
“It’s silly.”
“Come on,” Tristan teased, reaching over to nudge her arm.
“Fine,” she sighed. Peeking through the opening between her index finger and middle finger, she cringed. “I wanted to be an archaeologist.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I told you it was silly.”
“Not silly, just unexpected.”
Nora removed her hand and poked at her entrée with her fork. “I always did well in science. Plus, other cultures fascinate me.”
“So, why archaeology?”
“Structures captivate me. It wasn’t so much the architecture, but the logic that went into why they chose to build a particular type of architecture. The physical representation of the philosophies that guided them.”
“And the scientific part of it?”
“I’d love to dig an artifact out of the ground, something that looks thousands of years old, and determine its age using history and chemical testing.”
“Chemicals? You’re starting to sound dangerous,” Tristan winked.
“I set fire to the chemistry lab in high school once.”
Tristan almost choked on his beer. “Remind me not to let you play with matches.”
Nora laughed, and Tristan could tell she had grown comfortable around him. He enjoyed her company and, for a few minutes, had forgotten about her fame.
“What can I say?” she said. “I have a tendency to push things to their limits. If one drop of a chemical turns a blue liquid clear, what would five drops do?”
“Hypothetical question: If I were to run to the restroom, would my food be safe to eat when I return? Or would I need to poke around it first to see if it starts to glow?”
“Very funny. I’m not that bad.”
“You admitted to causing a fire in the chemistry lab.”
She spread her arms in a defensive gesture which Tristan found endearing.
“It was an accident! Besides, that’s what fire extinguishers are for,” she quipped. “It was just a spark.”
“You said it was a fire.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She chuckled under her breath, a smoky rasp.
Nora’s simplicity grew on you. She wore minimal makeup and had no need for it. Her skin resembled porcelain. Stunning, in Tristan’s opinion.
This must be the true Nora, he figured. The Nora you get when she can be herself. When she doesn’t need to look over her shoulder or protect her privacy.
The gleam in her gray eyes drew him in, and they locked gazes. He reduced his voice to a murmur.
“You’re full of surprises indeed, Nora Jumelle.”
She pursed her lips into a cunning little rosebud, then shot him a wink.
“And that’s with my clothes on.”
Tristan rearranged the napkin on his lap to hide his arousal.