Nine Women, One Dress by Jane L. Rosen Read Free Book Online

I’m nervous for as long as I can remember.
    He dropped it and went back to his phone. I was nervous about seeing her again, nervous because I liked her. She was sweet, and had that I’m-not-going-to-eat-you-up-and-spit-you-out smile. Plus she was normal, so normal, which was refreshing. She didn’t seem to care that I was famous. In fact, she spoke to me like I was one of her girlfriends or something. Suddenly it hit me. I hadn’t had this experience with a woman in a very long time: she didn’t like me. At least not in the way I liked her. This normal, pretty, sweet girl who acted like she didn’t care that I was a handsome movie star
actually didn’t care
that I was a handsome movie star. I would have to win her affections as Stanley Trenton. I felt anxious and awful. Maybe this was just some post-walking-in-on-your-fiancée-in-bed-with-her-trainer insecurity. Maybe I would realize that I didn’t like this girl so much after all.
    Hank shouted at me, “What the hell, Jeremy, you’re going to bite right through your lip! We’re here, let’s go.”
    We got out of the car. I wished it were Albert with me so I could ask for a little nibble of a Xanax. Hank slapped a baseball hat on my head and pulled it down low as we headed up the escalator to the third floor. I wanted to say something cute to her and ran through funny lines in my head, but I had nothing. My insecurity grew, and I wished I had brought a screenwriter with me instead of an agent.
    We approached, and as soon as she looked up and saw me I went with a quick-to-backfire joke. I held up a red dress and said, “Do you have this in my size?”
    She seemed not to get it and answered as if I was really asking. “Um, I don’t think that would fit you.”
    “I was joking,” I said, somewhat defensively.
    “Oh—sorry. I…didn’t want to be politically incorrect.”
    I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, but she followed it with her pretty smile so I chalked it up to awkward attempts at humor on both sides and moved on to explaining the situation. She agreed to the photo shoot, but there was one problem. Tomás, her associate, had just sent the very last Max Hammer small out for delivery to a customer. She called him over, and for some reason, which he refused to explain, he said he was almost certain the dress would be exchanged for a bigger size by Tuesday at the latest. Hank wasn’t happy about the delay but texted Albert to set up the shoot for Wednesday. He told Natalie and me that under no circumstances were we to be seen together before then, and left mumbling something about his three wasted years at Harvard Law.
    “I’m kind of disappointed,” I confessed to Natalie. “I thought maybe we could’ve had dinner together again.”
    She seemed thrilled by the invite. “We can—let’s go back to Queens! No one will be looking for you there. You could even hide out. I’m off work until Tuesday. We could be incognito till then—just in time to get the dress.”
    Tuesday!
I thought.
Maybe she does like me after all.
    I was in the suit for the photo shoot, so I went down to the men’s department to buy something more casual for my furlough in Queens while Natalie finished up her shift. She said that she would meet me down there and we could blend right in with the crowd on the subway. I kept my baseball cap on the whole time, and there was something exciting and clandestine about the whole thing. Plus I hadn’t been on the subway in such a long time, and never to Queens. When the tracks rose aboveground and I saw the outside world from the train, I felt like a kid. Natalie said I looked like one as well.
    We walked the few blocks from the Ditmars Boulevard stop to her garden apartment. It was so nice to be away from Manhattan again. I imagined the paparazzi camped outside my building and loved the idea that they would be waiting for me all night. I didn’t want to think about going home.
    Her apartment was tiny and charming.