Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,24
and Chris Jensen. You should have told me. I need to know if you’re contemplating suicide or fuckacide.”
I could try to give her a snappy retort about needing to deal with my grief. But then Eva would just come back at me with an equally snappy retort about how it was time to stop using my grief to get out of telling her things.
I laugh instead, and the sound of my long, loose peals of laughter surprises even me. It also causes the driver to snap his head around to stare. I can’t blame him. It certainly sounds like the laughter of a madwoman.
“Hallie?” Eva’s voice is cautious.
She definitely thinks I’ve lost my mind. She may be right.
I manage to stop laughing. “No, I’m okay.”
She takes in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Hals, I didn’t mean to accuse you…”
“Yes, you did. I was laughing at the fuckacide comment and not losing my mind totally. I promise, if I decide to enter a never-ending descent into total madness, I’ll let you know first. I wouldn’t want the crazy to come out on any nationally televised talk shows.”
“Oh, Caldwell, tell me you didn’t commit fuckacide with Chris Jensen. Please, lord, just tell me this one thing and I promise I’ll never tease your ass again. I’ll never yell at you for keeping things from me.”
I can hear her holding her breath.
“So what if I did?”
“Hallie. I was joking about that getting back into the saddle comment. And the Chris Jensen comment. I didn’t mean for you to…I hope this is a joke. Please.”
“I don’t think you were joking when you said it yesterday. And I’m certainly not. Joking, that is.”
“You didn’t. No.”
“Yeah, I did. It’s done. And the seriously wacky thing is that I think I’m okay with it. Honestly. Come on, Eva. You’re the one who told me to go out and find myself a one-night stand. What were your exact words? ‘Hallie Viola Caldwell Ellison Caldwell, what you really need to do is to go down to Chelsea and find yourself an artist/playboy/model child and fuck his brains out.’ And in a matter of speaking, that’s what I did. So, I think I should actually blame this on you.”
“I never thought you’d actually take me up on it! Not Miss Wallows-Around all day.”
I laugh again, wishing I could reach through the phone to punch her arm. For the past year, everyone else had been whispering, soothing, touching, talking, their voices and faces and movements so careful that I had become fairly certain that I was surrounded by a field of landmines and broken glass. Everyone but Eva, who’s had faith this whole time that somehow I would return to myself.
“I have not been wallowing.” So, that isn’t true. “Not for the last three months or so.” Still not totally true.
“Mmmm hmmm. Tell that to someone who’s buying.” Her voice lowers again, and her next words are careful. “Hallie? Are you really okay?”
I think about it. I honestly have no idea of whether I’m okay or not.
“I don’t know. I feel better than I did this morning, and better this morning than I did yesterday, so I think that counts for something. Right?”
She starts to speak, but I hear the hesitation in her voice, and she asks a question instead. “Where are you right now?”
“On a cab on the way to Sam’s.”
She breathes a sigh of relief. “Good. Maybe he can talk some sense into you. But you need to know that we have to talk about this and about what it means for the movie. It definitely means something, but whether that’s keeping you away from Chris Jensen or throwing you directly in his path, I don’t know.”
“I don’t want to see him again.”
I don’t. I don’t want to see his electric green eyes or the way that he touches the top of his left ear when he’s nervous, or the way he rubs his fist against his eyes to keep the morning light away, or…
“Okay, Hallie. Okay. We still need to talk about the best way to make that happen.”
“Fine. We’ll talk soon, but I need to head home in the morning, so maybe you can come up to the cabin for a few days. I can try to explain it all to you.”
“That’s going to take a whole lot of explaining. You and Chris freaking Jensen? How did I not know about this? It’s my job to know things like this. As your agent and as your friend.”