Page 6 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

“It was just a summer,” I say, googling Benny. “My thirty-four-month contract with Nevada Met had ended, and I had my sights set on Gotham and some of the other companies out here, but auditions weren’t until winter, so I had a summer to work and save up money. Beau Cirque Fantastique was hiring and they paid really well.”

“Is that like Cirque Du Soleil?” she asks.

“Yeah. A ballet-heavy version of Cirque. More leaping, less trapeze. Super glam with elaborate lighting.” I scroll through the endless Benjamin Stearneses. “This is bad. There are a lot of Ben Stearneses out there! How is that name so common?”

“There are 365 million people in the US,” she says. “Pretty much every name is common that’s not Podunk Kurtzweiler.”

“Who would name their kid that?” I ask.

“You don’t wanna know.” As a mail carrier, Noelle knows these things.

“Maybe he’s still in Vegas. Maybe if I try Facebook…” I google Ben Stearnes and Las Vegas on Facebook. I find a few, but the pictures are wrong. A lot of the accounts have no pictures. What if one of them is Benny? He’d be just the kind of guy to not have his picture on Facebook. Maybe he’s not even on Facebook. He was never big on social interaction.

“Isn’t his Social Security number on the marriage license?” she asks.

“Oh, right,” I say. “How do I search with that?”

“We’ll get Willow on it,” Noelle says. “Or even Lizzie. Cookie Madness hires people all the time. She probably has a service that does background checks.”

“How could this happen? It’s probably my fault. I was super crazy then.”

“We’re all crazy when we’re twenty-one,” she says. “But, dude! You were in a big glam Vegas show? That is unbelievably cool!”

“I was just a backup dancer. Benny had the big job—he ran the technical stuff. There’s a crazy amount of robotics and computerization involved in a massive light show like what we had at Beau Cirque.”

“Do you think he could still be in the theater world?” Noelle asks. “Maybe he moved out to Los Angeles or something.”

“I don’t know. He hated being told what to do, hated working for other people. Most people hate bosses, but Benny…” I find myself smiling at his surly awkwardness. “Benny hated people in general.”

Even the idea of touching him seemed strangely forbidden, as though he had an intense force field all around him. A force field that I could never breach. Until that night I acted like a sex-addled asshole.

“All I know for sure is that he probably ended up doing something totally technical. And I definitely can’t imagine him married with a family or anything like that.”

“Well, Francine, according to the piece of paper you have, he’s married to you.”

“No, that’s not real.”

“It’s real, and what’s more, a current marriage is the sort of thing that would have gotten caught if he’d applied for a marriage license. Just like with your visa. He’ll probably be as surprised as you are.”

I hang on for dear life as she rounds a corner.

“Don’t you think?” she shouts over nearby jackhammers. “Maybe he’ll be surprised. Maybe he’ll even think it’s funny!”

I sit there, watching the buildings go by. “He won’t think it’s funny.”

Three

Francine

Tabitha standsover me with a pitcher filled to the brim with sparkling pink liquid. She gestures for me to hold out my glass. “Come on, Francine,” she says.

“Yeah, you’re drinking for two,” Mia says. “This is your bachelorette partyandyour wedding shower.”

“And your pre-divorce party!” Tabitha says. “And the congrats on your one-night-stand Vegas wedding that you totally don’t remember.”

“Ummm, thanks?” I say. I hold out my glass. I only let her pour an inch, and then I fill the rest with bubbly water. Hot Pink Barbie, her signature cocktail, has lord knows what in it, and it tastes like candy. I avoid alcohol when I’m in rehearsal mode. I like to stay sharp.

There’s a knock at the door and Noelle pops up to answer. News of my nuptials has traveled quickly around the building and even beyond to our friends who have since moved out. I’m kind of glad. It’s taking my mind off the possibility of my dream being utterly crushed.

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