Page 45 of How to Kiss a Movie Star
Her expression brightens. “Please tell me you tried one.”
I sink down into the water, letting it lap against my shoulders. “Only because I had to. It was in the script. But we just referred to them as big-ass spiders. I never knew the official name.”
She grins. “We should petition for an official name change.”
“Trust me. It fits.”
“What did it taste like?”
“The only thing I tasted was the whiskey I downed before and after every take. There was no way I was eating one of those things sober.”
She rolls her eyes and kicks a little water toward me. “Come on. Was it really that bad?”
I lift my foot and splash her right back. “It tasted like seafood. Like shrimp, maybe? But lighter. Crunchier.”
She nods, not at all disgusted. “Man, I need to travel more.”
I shake my head. Who evenisthis woman? And when is she going to stop surprising me?
“So what’s the movie about?” she asks.
I drop back into the water, and turn, leaning against the deck right beside her, enjoying the warm sun on my shoulders. “It’s about an American named Paul who grew up in Costa Rica with his ex-pat parents. He’s working as a lifeguard and a long-distance swimmer and has these crazy goals of competing in open-water swims all over the world.”
“That’s you? Paul?” Audrey asks.
I nod. “So then there’s this woman on vacation—that’s Claire—who gets sucked into a rip current, Paul saves her, and they fall in love. But the movie is about more than that, too. A hurricane hits and decimates the community where Paul has lived his whole life, and he has to make some tough decisions about where he truly belongs, whether he wants to leave Costa Rica, for swimming,orfor the woman who just turned his life upside down.”
“I’m assuming you spent a lot of time in the water,” Audrey says.
“Both before and after we started filming. Apparently, I swam like an erratic helicopter before.” I grin. “My stroke needed some work.”
“But it’s better now?”
I splash her the tiniest bit. “Come in and judge for yourself. Are you a swimmer?”
“Not a fast one, but I swam laps when I was in grad school to keep myself sane.” She moves like she’s about to get in the water, but then she pauses, looking back toward the lounge chair where she left her things. “That’s my phone,” she says, the ringing distant but audible. “Um, just give me one sec,” she says. “That’s the ringtone assigned to my parents.”
“Take your time.” She walks back to the chair, and I do my level best not to stare as she goes. I sink into the water, letting it cool my face, but it doesn’t come close to cooling my attraction. If this is the way things are going to be whenever I’m around Audrey, it’s going to be a long month of faking.
“Mom, I need you to calm down,” Audrey says, as soon as my head is out of the water, and I immediately stand up, a sense of alarm racing through me.
Audrey must see me, because she waves her hand and smiles, her expression saying there isn’t arealemergency going on. She listens for another moment, then bites her lip like she’s trying to control her laughter. “No, I understand,” she says. “But I promise it isn’t going to hurt you. It’s just as scared as you are.”
Slowly, she walks toward me, then lowers herself back to the pool deck, sitting like she was before with her feet in the water. She lifts her finger to her lips as if to shush me, then puts the call on speaker phone.
“…it just climbed right through the window!” her mom says. “Ohhhh, Audrey! It’s on the bed. It’s on our bed! We’re going to have squirrel poop on our bed!”
“Get out of the way and I’ll catch it,” a man’s voice says. This must be her dad. “I’ve got the oven mitts on.”
“Dad, please don’t try to catch the squirrel,” Audrey says. “Even with oven mitts on. The RV isn’t very big. If you both just calm down and leave the windows and doors open, I promise it’ll find its way out on its own.”
“Can squirrels give us rabies?” her mom asks. “This one has angry eyes. Oh! It’s on the curtains! It’s climbing the curtains!”
“Squirrels don’t carry rabies,” Audrey says, her voice unflappably calm. “Is the window open next to the curtains it’s climbing? I’m sure it’s looking for a way out.”
“Derek!” her mom whisper yells. “Take off the oven mitts and open that window.”
Several thumps and bumps sound, followed by a loud crash. “It’s just you and me now,” Audrey’s dad says, his voice low. “Now head on out that window, or else I’ll swap the oven mitts for a baseball bat, and we’ll have ourselves some nice squirrel stew for dinner.”
