Page 74 of Anyone But the Superstar

My phone never stops buzzing in my pocket.

Groceries loaded and air conditioning blasting, I use Bluetooth to accept Jack’s next call.

‘Explain.’

And, as promised, I do. I tell my friend and manager everything that’s happened from the moment he left me in the condo lobby up until this morning’s grocery run. I leave out the part about us sleeping together, but I can tell from Jack’s tone that he knows exactly what I’ve left out.

The conversation takes a while. Because with each moment I recount since he left, Jack follows with twenty questions.

Questions about my sanity. Questions about Anne. Questions I don’t have answers for.

‘Let me get this straight.’ Anne, palms pressed down on the kitchen countertop, stares wide-eyed at me from her seat on the other side of the island. ‘You want to leave my brother’s cat, the cat who attacked your director’s ass before skinny-dipping in NASA’s pool, home,alone, in someone else’s condo?’

My hair, no doubt smashed awkwardly from wearing a cowboy hat earlier when I went to the store, falls forward as I slice strawberries on the cutting board. ‘You got a better idea?’

The ten-minute ride home felt oppressive after Jack’s call, and yet, entering the condo to Anne practicing yoga while Mike played on his back with a strip of curled drawing paper, eased the heavy weight of apprehension from my shoulders.

The yoga pants may have helped.

Anne, looking far less pleased than she had in downward dog when I arrived back with all the ingredients to make pancakes – from scratch – and fruit salad, shakes her head at me in disbelief. ‘I’m telling you—’ she points at Mike sunbathing innocently in front of the living-room windows ‘—that demonnearly crumbled the Bellagio in Vegas with nothing more than a blow job shot and a penis candle.’

I nearly slice my finger off.

Anne leans forward, her narrowed eyes eerily similar to Mike’s before he pounces. ‘You donotwant to leave that pussy to his own devices.’

Finishing with the strawberries, I toss them in the bowl with the grapes I plucked off the vine and grab an orange. ‘You sound like Mrs Slocombe fromAre You Being Served?when you say pussy.’

If I needed any more proof for how gone I am over Anne, the semi that sprouts just from peeling an orange would do it. I wonder if all citrus fruits will get me hard in the future now that I associate the smell with Anne and sex.

‘OMG.’ Anne’s arms and jaw drop.

I look down, wondering if she noticed my hard-on.

‘You know the television showAre You Being Served??’

Stepping closer to the island, I shrug. ‘Unfortunately.’ I manage to make a few small digs in the peel before remembering a citrus hack I saw on a cooking show once.

‘What do you meanunfortunately?’ Anne snags a grape from the bowl between us.

Bracing my thumbs at the rounded top of the orange half, and my fingers along the sliced edge, I turn the orange inside out, the halved, segmented pieces falling into the bowl.

‘Cool.’ Anne nods appreciatively.

I smile at the compliment, embarrassed by how much her praise affects me.

Shaking her head, Anne regroups. ‘Anyway,Are You Being Served?was like, thebestshow.’

Out of all the interesting tidbits I’ve accumulated about Anne, which according to Jack aren’tnearenough, her familiaritywith an obscure and dated British comedy show may be the most intriguing yet.

Well, beside her love of drawing pornographic images ofme.

I grab the other orange half. ‘My mother watched TV after work to improve her English. And since we couldn’t afford cable at the time, television meant the local PBS station which aired a whole lot of older British sitcoms.’ Dropping the rest of the orange pieces in the bowl, I toss the orange peel and reach for the pineapple and watermelon chunks that I bought pre-sliced at the store. ‘What’s your excuse?’

‘Our chef was British.’ Anne shrugs, her eyes fixated on my hands. ‘Always had the TV on in the kitchen.’

I stand corrected.Thatis the most intriguing bit of information yet.

Forcing myself not to react, seeing as Anne has yet to realize what she just gave away, I select a few chunks of fruit from each container to cut into smaller pieces. ‘Your chef was British?’