Haze - By Andrea Wolfe Page 0,78

back and coaxed me in his desired direction.

I carefully walked with him toward a quieter corner of the bar, one with a couple of empty tables that had apparently been ignored by the numerous patrons. There was a woman sitting at one of the tables by herself, clad in sunglasses and a hoodie. We sat down at the table next to her.

"Okay, Effie, are you ready?" Jack asked.

I looked all around the restaurant, searching for whatever was about to surprise me; I could find nothing out of the ordinary. Was something about to mysteriously drop from the ceiling? I looked up, but couldn't find any incriminating evidence there either.

"I guess," I said. "Am I going to have a heart attack? I have insurance. Should I get out my insurance card?"

"Maybe." He turned toward the woman at the empty table, her expression distant and apathetic from what I could see behind the sunglasses. She started to look familiar the second I actually looked at her. "Ma'am?" he asked. "It's kind of dark in here, why are you wearing those?"

She pulled off the glasses, and my jaw-dropped—it was none other than Stacy Levons. The combination of her ponytail and large glasses totally threw me off since I was used to seeing her made up in red carpet photos and movies. In my defense, the bar wasn't that bright either. Even without all of the make-up, she looked beyond gorgeous.

They stood up together and shared a brief hug before Jack turned and introduced us. "Stacy, this is Effie. Effie, this is Stacy."

Dammit, Jack, I thought. Of course I already know who she is!

"Effie, it's cool to meet you." I took her hand and shook it, over-thinking the gesture and worrying that I had shaken her hand either too firmly or not firmly enough. They had talked about handshakes so much in my high school career courses that I had grown deathly afraid of them most of the time.

"Stacy, hi," I said awkwardly, desperately trying to sound cool and composed. When I realized this wasn't just a chance encounter and Jack was the one that made it happen, my guard fell. It all happened so fast. "You're actually my favorite actor," I admitted nervously. "I didn't know this was going to happen at all."

"Thanks, Effie," she said sincerely. My heart fluttered a little.

The thing was, although things were going incredibly with Jack, there was just one, glaring problem with everything—I'd get used to being on earth with him, and then he'd do some outlandish, dazzling thing like this and make me forget everything. I didn't even know how to respond. Stacy was just a normal person, and I knew I needed to treat her like that—but I wasn't kidding at all when I said she was my favorite actor.

I had spent years watching her on screen, loving her characters and her artistic, driven approach to filmmaking. She had gone beyond acting and had even directing credits to her name before turning thirty. In many ways, she was very similar to Jack. They had broken up, and maybe that was the reason why. Could two people that intense co-exist without problems, without constant antagonism?

Aside from our first date, I had never really mentioned her to Jack again. His memory was almost inhumanly good. Now I was really wishing that I had asked him for more information up front.

"What do you do, Effie? How'd you meet Jack?"

I cleared my throat and took a sip of that very rich drink. "I work at MCI Music Group in New York. Just accounting stuff. Nothing special."

"I came in for a meeting," Jack said, "and I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She almost made me sign with them right then and there."

"Shut up, Jack," Stacy said playfully. "Unless the deal was perfect, you'd never just sign with anyone."

"Yeah, you're right." He gave her a wry smile, an admission of defeat.

Oh, yeah, the deal. I had forgotten about it, but this was not the time or place to start remembering. The alcohol came to my rescue almost instantaneously, smoothing my troubles away and bringing me back to the very pressing matter at hand.

"Well, whatever. I don't really know these things," I said honestly.

"No, no. That's cool, Effie. I was actually an accounting major before I dropped out to go to acting school." She smiled and took a sip of what looked like a dry martini, apparently digging into her memories.

"Really? I didn't know that."

"Yeah, I don't think I was