Page 18 of The Moon Also Rises
“I’m so sorry to interrupt but I see you’ve finished now—” he asks.
“Yes, we’d like the bill when you’re ready,” I say and move to gather my belongings, but the server keeps talking, looking at Rami.
“Could I get a photo?” he asks.
“You want to take a photo of us?” I say, confused.
The server looks at me as if I’ve just grown an extra head. “No, I want a photo of—”
“It’s fine, let’s do a selfie, shall we?” Rami pushes up to stand beside the server and their faces both adopt wide smiles as the server holds his phone out and takes the photo.
I’m still slack-jawed and blinking as Rami sits back down.
“What on God’s green Earth was that?”
Rami smiles but doesn’t meet my eyes. “Oh, it’s the funniest thing… I sometimes get mistaken for this famous Persian actor. I don’t have the heart to tell people I’m not who they think I am.”
“Really?” I tilt my head to the side as I study him. “What’s his name?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t know him. Iranian guy. Very talented. Super sexy too, obviously.” Rami waves a hand up and down his torso and boasts a smile that I haven’t seen before. A smile I quite like.
My laughter stalls in my throat for a second before it blasts out of me. “That was almost amusing, Mr Events.”
“Almost?”
“Still room for improvement, but you know, maybe I’ll rub off on you. Maybe by the end of this fake wedding date you’ll have a sense of humour.”
And maybe Rami’s right. Maybe it will be a fun day together.
Chapter Six
Rami
My apartment is too big for me. With 160 square metres spread over one large living space, one master bedroom, one guest room and two bathrooms, whenever I’m here alone it feels too big. Too empty. And I’m always here alone.
Before I moved in four months ago, I was living at my mom’s house – my childhood home – for nearly two years while I got a grip on my life again, and prior to that I was in LA for ten years. Ten long years where I was hardly ever alone.
Initially, that was because I was living the bachelor lifestyle that meant I had staff to take on my domestic chores, a team to help me manage my schedule and workload, and a rotating door of loose acquaintances wanting to be in my company… or rather dine out or party at my expense. Then I met Michelle and within a year we were living together in a beautiful mid-century Santa Monica bungalow we bought and turned into a home over three years, and then… Then there were four years of living somewhere very different. Somewhere I try not to let myself return to mentally.
That’s why it’s Friday night and rather than sit at home completely alone with my memories in a too big, too empty apartment, I’m playing MarioKart virtually with my two sisters.
“Oh no, you didn’t!” Roxana squeals in my headphones when I throw an ink bomb in her direction.
“Ha! Gotcha!” I laugh gleefully.
“That’s not playing fair,” Roxie bemoans but I check the map and see her fast on the approach behind me regardless.
“His days are numbered, Rox, I’m coming at him from the front,” Radia says over our shared call.
“I don’t know why I agreed for you both to be on the same team,” I tut as I try to loop back and head in a new direction away from them both.
“Because you owe us,” Radia replies. “You abandoned us for a giant sandpit and a white woman with a kaftan problem.”
“Pah! He didn’t abandon us for RemiX and Michelle,” Roxie is quicker than I am to respond. “He abandoned us way before that, for international superstardom.”
“Well, at least he occasionally answered text messages and called us while he was busy being famous and touring the world. RemiX was what cut him off completely,” Radia adds. “Must have been all that beige linen. Earth shades do look good on our skin tone.”
“It can’t have been the raw vegan food,” Roxie adds. “I tried some beetroot carpaccio the other day. Yuk. Gross.”
