Carter
THE BLACK SEDAN that will take me to the Westwood Village Theatre for the Hard Times premiere arrives promptly at six in the evening.
“Good evening, Mr. Stone. I’m Elijah. Will you be traveling alone?”
I shake Elijah’s hand. “Yes.”
I’m ignoring Julian’s advice and attending on my own, for one reason only: Tori.
The possibility that we won’t be together devastates me. Even the news that I didn’t get the part in Swan Song didn’t affect me as much as Tori’s absence from my life.
I don’t care about projecting confidence in the face of the brutal reviews Hard Times continues to receive. I couldn’t care less about speculation concerning my relationship status. And I don’t give a rat’s ass about what people might be whispering behind my back.
I just want Tori to know that she’s irreplaceable, that if she were willing, she is the only person I’d want by my side. Does attending a premiere without a date communicate all that? Probably not. But in the end, I don’t want to go with anyone else anyway, so I’m sticking with this plan.
As I climb into the car, my cell phone rings. Jewel’s name and image appear on the screen. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Carter,” she says in a hushed voice. “Glad I caught you. Julian just called and asked me to tell you that Dana’s approved a red-carpet interview with Hollywood Insider Live, so don’t be antisocial, and answer the reporter’s questions, all right?”
Huh. That’s bizarre. Dana hates live interviews because they’re unpredictable. And I don’t want to talk to reporters, period.” I sigh into the phone. “Jewel, are you sure Dana cleared it?”
“What, Carter?” Jewel shouts. “I can’t hear you. There’s something—”
Our call is disconnected. Great. Now I’ll have to suffer through a live interview that might end in disaster depending on the correspondent’s questions.
When the sedan pulls up to the Westwood Village Theatre, a few of the film’s stars are being interviewed on the red carpet, and several others stand in front of the media wall while photographers behind the velvet ropes take their photos. A small crowd assembles near the media wall, but otherwise it’s a low-key event.
The display includes an oversized official movie poster, and I get a small thrill seeing my name on the sign. Elijah opens the passenger door, and I exit the vehicle. A few bright pops of light cause me to dip my head as I wave.
The small crowd applauds my arrival, but I suspect some of them are tourists who stumbled by the premiere and have no idea who I am.
A woman in a sleek black dress and flats calls me by name and ushers me along the red carpet. I don’t have a starring role in the film, so there’s no need to coordinate my appearance with other actors in the film. I stop at the media wall for a few photographs and then look around for the correspondent from Hollywood Insider Live.
Failing to see anyone interested in what I have to say, I fuss with my cuffs and then wave at the crowd. Impatient to get inside, I scan the area in front of the photo backdrop. My heart explodes like confetti in my chest when I see her.
Tori’s here.
She’s wearing a stunning gold-and-white gown that emphasizes her athletic figure. Her hair is swept up in an elegant hairstyle with a single sparkly hair clip at her right temple. And she’s holding a microphone.
I swallow several times before I find my voice. “What’s going on?”
She winks at me and gives me a saucy smile, but the microphone in her hand is shaking. “Go big or go home, right?”
She doesn’t wait for my response, which is a good thing, because I have none. Instead, she points at the cameraperson behind her. “Ready?”
He nods and counts down with his fingers. “Three . . . two . . . one.”
She takes a deep breath and blows it out before she begins. “This is Tori Alvarez filling in for Laura Beck for a super special edition of Hollywood Insider Live. I’m here with Carter Stone, who we all know and love from Man on Third and My Life in Shambles. Carter appears in a supporting actor role in Hard Times. It’s, um, great to have you with us, Carter.”
“Uh, thanks . . . thanks for having me.”
“So is this your first premiere?”
“It’s my first premiere for a movie I’m in, yes.”
“Awesome. Congrats on the accomplishment. Can you tell us what audiences can expect from your performance in this film?”
“It’s gritty, I think. I’m stripped bare, figuratively and literally. And I think audiences will be surprised by the rawness of the film as a whole.”
“Well, I, for one, cannot wait to see it. Now, Mr. Stone, your appearance on The Actor’s Couch was inspired, but I’d like to dig deeper on some of the issues you touched on. Would that be okay?”
“Sure.”
“Before we go any further, I just wanted to point out that you look fantastic in that tuxedo, which probably can be attributed to the amazing physique underneath those clothes, am I right?”
Tori nudges me with her shoulder and waggles her eyebrows. Who is this woman? This is Tori 2.0, and I’m having a hard time processing that she’s doing this in front of a camera.
“Mr. Stone?” she prompts.
“Oh, my physique—yes, I’d say that’s right.”
“And did you work with a trainer?”
“I did. Her name’s Tori Alvarez.”
“Was she effective?”
I give her “the eyes,” and then I say, “Very.”
The cameraperson chuckles. “I have no idea what’s going on.”
Tori widens her eyes and mouths “be quiet” to the cameraman.
Turning to me, she asks, “Are you still working with Ms. Alvarez?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I let her go.”
Tori clutches her necklace. “Goodness. Why’d you do that?”
“She’d completed the task I hired her for. It opened us up to new opportunities.”
“Ah,” she says, giving me a knowing smile. “And is there anyone special in your life now?”
“I want there to be, but it’s really up to her.”
“You didn’t share this person’s name on The Actor’s Couch, but would you be willing to share her name now?”
“Absolutely.”
Her hands tremble as she holds the microphone in front of my mouth. “Go ahead, Mr. Stone.”
I position my body flush against hers and cup the nape of her neck. “It’s you, Tori. It’s always been you.”
Her breath hitches and her lips part, and since I’m an opportunist, I sweep in for a tender kiss. She wraps her arms around my neck, and the kiss intensifies within seconds. Cameras flash, and the crowd cheers.
Drawing back, I catalog her appearance—the flushed cheeks, the sparkling eyes, the incredible dress—because I want to remember every second of this moment. “I love you. I want to be the person you wake up with, the person who holds your hand when you need it, the person who kisses you sweetly, the person who makes love to you, the person who listens to your dreams, the person who laughs with you. The person you yell at on the rare occasion when I do something to make you mad. I want all of it.”
“I love you, too,” she says.
I narrow my eyes. “And?”
She purses her lips and shrugs as if the declaration’s no big deal “That about covers it.” Her intense gaze tells a different story, though. Staring into her eyes, I have no doubt she wants everything that I want.
I pull her close and kiss her forehead. “You’re right. Our love is all that matters. But what just happened?”
“I figured if we put it all out there, anything else would be boring, and they’d leave us alone.”
“It could backfire.”
“I don’t care,” she says as she rests her head in the crook of my neck. “Whatever happens, we’ll work through it, okay?”
I squeeze her hand. “One thing we won’t have to work through is my trust. I won’t doubt you ever again. We’re in this together.”
And I’m so sure of that fact that all the other issues fade away.
Someday Tori will be my wife, and God willing, the mother of my children. And it all started with a flight to Aruba. I smile at the memory of that little girl wailing at my terrible impression of a bear.
Okay, so maybe I will tell our kids the real story of how I met their mother. After all, it’s a good one.