It’s as though everything in the world is just trying to piss me off. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and an particularly chirpy song by Aaron Carter seems to have been on the radio for at least ten minutes.
I thought things were supposed to match my mood. The sky should be overcast with dark, gray clouds ready to unleash a horrific storm, the birds should have flown away to escape the wrath of the downpour, and gloomy classical music should be droning on in the background. That’s how it always is in the movies. But of course, the day couldn’t be brighter. Nor could the tension in the car thicker.
Trace looks at Cat, Cat looks at me, I look out of the window blankly. Cat looks at Trace, Trace looks at me, I look out of the window blankly. Trace looks at Cat--well yes, you get the idea. The uneasy silence in the car has grown thicker by the second as Tiny swerved the car out of the airport’s parking lot and onto the road, taking a series of razor-sharp turns and speeding quite a bit until there was no sign of any goddamn, mother fucker, paparazzi.
So it’s begun. The moment my foot touched the ground, someone tipped some idiot with a camera off, and they got a picture of Cat. What makes it worse is it wasn’t even me that they caught, it was a girlfriend the world is utterly oblivious to, who in addition, has no idea how to deal with a photographer. I can only pray Tiny got there on time before the creep got any good pictures. As much as I’m sure Cat would just love to have her name slandered in a new city, I can appreciate it might make the situation a little more difficult.
I’m just so pissed off. It makes everything I promised Cat about the press not being that bad and keeping her out of the headlines, her welcome committee to New York had a camera strapped to his face. She couldn’t have had a worse introduction to this new part of our life. She was petrified when she came back into the car; I thought she’d been mugged or something.
She doesn’t look so much sad as nervous now, as her and Trace involve themselves in an intricate eye dance without ever bringing their eyes into direct contact. They seem to be aware that with my less than chipper mood simmering on the horizon, speaking to me is never a good idea. It is most likely I’ll explode at the poor person who attempted contact with me, and go into a three hour sulk with them.
Cat clears her throat nervously, clearly revving up her courage to speak. “Look, the Chrysler building.”
Trace gives a “hmm,”, Tiny nods, I grunt in response and continue to stare blankly out of the window, counting how many tourists are holding cameras. Wouldn’t it be really funny if all the camera spontaneously combusted?
Cat continues, apparently unperturbed by the unenthusiastic response. “The Chrysler building is three hundred and nineteen meters of steel and brick, with seventy seven stories to it. It was the tallest building in the world for a few months in 1930, before it was surpassed by The Empire State Building, which was two hundred and four feet taller.”
My head slowly turns to Cat, torn between disbelief at her disturbingly wide knowledge of New York structural design and the temptation to just kiss her senseless for being so adorable.
“How do you spell Chrysler?” asks Trace, peering out of his window at the building looming over us, squinting at the sun’s rays.
“C-H-R--”
“I was kidding,” he interrupts, rolling his eyes at her.
“Oh,” she slumps back into her seat as silence envelops the car again. “Hey,” she begins again, straightening up, “did you know that The Chrysler Building is considered one of New York’s finest displays of Art Deco, because of its sharp angular design?” I shrug halfheartedly. “Well, the spire at the top was probably there solely for the purpose of making it taller than the Bank of Manhattan’s skyscraper, so originally--”
“Cat!” I interrupt loudly, halting her flow of architectural riddles. “It’s a wonder. We get it.”
“Don’t act like some premenstrual bitch with me, Justin,” she snaps.
“I’m just not prepared to spend the next ten minutes listening to list of facts about some stupid building that barely even serves a purpose.”
“No, you’re just not prepared to do anything except brood in a little funk for a while, and then make pissy remarks at me.” She looks at me for a moment, casting a critical gaze over my frown. “It’s not as though I was the one boogieing around the car trying to get a photo.”
“I’m not angry with you. I’m just not in the best of moods.”
“And why are you taking that out on the rest of us?” she asks, folding her arms across her chest defiantly.
I sigh and rub my head vigorously, trying to pull myself from my grumpy disposition. “I’m sorry, but that wasn’t the best welcome.”
“So?” she shrugs. “I’m over it, and so should you be.”
“You’re not in the slightest bit irritated?”
“Of course I am. I was just thinking about how hellish it’s going to be ‘getting used to it’, as Trace put it. But I’m mature enough to realize I will find a while to deal with it,” she shrugs.
“Well having to ‘deal with it’ for ten years makes it somewhat tiresome eventually!” I retort, regretting the words even as they left my mouth. “Excuse me for not saluting the paparazzi like old friends.”
“There’s no need to dramatize this, Justin. You’re acting like a temperamental teenager,” she says, her words become more calm and thoughtful as mine get increasingly more hysterical and frantic.
“But I thought you’d be furious. This is the one thing you said you were worried about, remember? ‘Justin, I don’t want to deal with a bunch of unwashed forty year olds clamoring to get a highly unattractive picture of me’,” I impersonate in a falsetto voice, trying to capture Cat’s pitch.
She chews on her lips, biting back a smile. Trace lets out a snort beside her, and she finally cracks and giggles, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle the sound.
“It’s not funny!” I exclaim, smashing my fist on the cream leather exterior. “You did say that!”
“I know, I know,” she says breathlessly, still laughing slightly. “But you sounded incredibly funny there. That high little voice over yours was just reaching whole new levels!”
I roll my eyes and push my back into the seat, crossing my arms over my chest. I hate it when people laugh at me, it always makes me feel stupid. Especially when it’s Cat and Trace ganging up on me.
“Oh Justin, I’m sorry. Things just got far too serious there,” Cat says, reaching over to pat my knee. “We were arguing over nothing. Let’s just forget about it.”
“But I’m pissed, Cat!” I complain, shaking my head at the bright yellow taxi beside us.
“I know. Your pout really does leave little to the imagination.” I open my mouth to reply, but she swiftly continues. “Justin, why are we letting one tiny photographer ruin our first day here, huh? I’m in a big city for the first time in at least a year. I don’t want to dwell on something as ridiculous as this.”
I begrudgingly nod, and take Cat’s hand in my own. I let out a small chuckle. “Your hands are tiny.”
She scrunches up her nose the way she always does when she doesn’t like something. “I know. It sort of look like a scarecrow where they ran out of material for my hands because they put so much of it on my thighs.”
I roll my eyes and tap her leg, still examining her hands. “Your thighs are just fine.”
“No, seriously, I think one’s bigger than the other!” she exclaims, pulling her pants tightly so that I can see the apparent difference in size. “See?”
“Cat, they’re exactly the same. And anyway, I spent half of my time in between those thighs, don’t you think I’d notice if they were different sizes?”
A deep red blush creeps into Cat’s cheeks as her mouth drops open in shock. My mood immediately notches up to relatively happy at her embarrassed reaction as Trace recoils in his seat.
“Oh yeah, thanks for that Justin. That mental image was just beautifully…vivid.”
Tiny lets out a throaty chuckle from the front seat and suddenly overtakes the tiny car in front of us, making a Mexican wave of movement as the seatbelts try to keep us in our seats despite the swerve. Apart from Cat’s rigid figure, which remains stationary as she continues to stare at me in shock.
“I cannot believe you just said that,” she says, slowly sinking back into her seat as Trace casts an amused eye over her.
“You know it’s true,” I tease, “so you can put those eyeballs back in their sockets. You know, you haven’t looked this shocked since we were browsing through AP and I suggested that I fu--”
The moment she realizes which certain lingerie shop ‘AP’ stands for, her hand flies over my mouth, clearly remembering that lovely shopping trip just a few months ago and exactly how I was going to finish that sentence.
“Stop right there,” she says, her tiny fingers tightly clamped over my mouth as her blush deepens. “Hey-guess-what-I-met-a-fan-of-yours,” she says quickly, clutching at straws to change the direction of the conversation.
“A fan?” I question, tugging her hand from my mouth after giving her palm the slightest bite.
She nods, scowling as she rubs at her hand. “Yup. Called Samantha.”
“How did she know you had anything to do with me?”
She shrugs. “She said something about seeing me out of the window.”
I smirk and recline in my seat. “Did she gauge your eyes out? Pull your hair? Insult you with a procession of unflattering remarks?”
“Oh no, of course not,” Cat shakes her head. “She was really nice. Actually,” she frowns, looking slightly guilty, “I was the one not being very nice.”
“What did you say?”
“Well I thought she was just some random girl coming up to me, and then she started talking about you and she said she knew you were in New York--”
“How on earth did she know that?” I ask incredulously.
“Exactly!” Cat exclaims. “Anyway,” she shrugs, “I was just saying the first thing that came to my head. I admitted I was with you before I even thought about it, but then had sense enough to say I wasn’t your girlfriend.”
“What did you say?”
She blushes sheepishly. “That I was your personal assistant.”
I laugh, the very thought of Cat catering to my every whim just seeming so preposterous in a ‘never going to happen’ way. I can’t even ask for a glass of milk without Cat telling me she won’t give up her independence for me. “I wish,” I snort, unbuckling my seatbelt.
She smiles and shrugs. “Well, I feel sort of guilty now. I mean, I wasn’t so much rude as just…not welcoming. Do you think she hates me?” she asks, biting her lip nervously.
I hop out of the car and hold out my hand to help her out. “No, of course not. She probably just thinks you’re a bit of a bitch.”
“Really?” she whines in an upset tone, taking my hand and gracefully stepping out of the car.
“Of course not,” I shake my head, smiling at her. I place a kiss on her head. “Hey, what shampoo did you use today?”
She runs a hand through her hair self-consciously. “I don’t remember. Why?”
I press my nose to her head again. “You smell of strawberries today. You normally smell of coconuts.” I shrug and steal a quick kiss. “It’s nice.”
She smiles coyly and opens her mouth to say something, but is swiftly cut of by a, “Jesus Christ Justin, you’re so gay!”
Trace jumps out of the car and smirks at both of us. I was about to retort with a fiery comment about his height, but Tiny got out of the car and turned to us, his frown telling us he was not interested in our verbal bashings.
“Okay, I’m going to tell Johnny you’ve arrived and then I got a few errands to run. Justin,” his stern gaze settles on me. “If you plan to go out, even for a walk, call me. Trace, don’t let his white ass think he can go gallivanting around the city with no form of protection. Cat, don’t let him entice you into taking a stroll into Central Park. You’ll be crucified.”
I don’t miss the amusement flashing in his eyes as Cat gasps and instinctively grips onto my hand a little tighter. I simply roll my eyes. “Already beginning with the dramatics, Tiny?” I turn to Cat. “He’s just kidding.”
“I’m not. And let’s not forget I can kick your ass, so just watch what you say white boy,” Tiny smirks, before getting back into the car. “Nice to meet you Cat, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few months,” he calls through the open window.
Cat nods and lets out a timid, “Good to meet you too.”
Tiny gives us a wave and drives off, and I give her hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry about him. He loves to tease people who are intimidated by him.”
“How can I not be intimidated? He’s huge,” Cat complains, turning the building. “And so is this.”
The towering apartment block looms over our rather pathetic looking figures with its colossal stature. It’s the same as every other uptown place in New York; ridiculously expensive and simply there for showing off purposes alone. I tug on Cat’s hand, pulling her towards the building. I nod at the vaguely recognizable doorman who graciously opens the door and greets us with a, “Sirs, Madam,” before entering the foyer.
Cat’s heels tap on the rigorously polished marble floor, and the varnished mahogany on the walls literally winks at us as the sun hits it. Upkeep in this place is tip top.
Stepping into the elevator, Trace pressed the button for our floor and we hurtle towards the top floor. “Justin bought the penthouse,” Trace explains to Cat, who was staring wide eyed at the number of buttons on the keyboard.
“Thank god there’s an elevator, then,” she mutters. “There was not way I’d drag myself up and down twenty stories worth of staircases every day.”
We slowly crawl to my floor, and the doors open. I happily pull Cat along to my door, fumble with the keys for a moment, before holding the door open for her and letting her in.
As emotionless as Cat can sometimes appear to be, she certainly does react to things interestingly. If you show her something truly amazing, she’ll shrug and call it cliché. If you show her something truly mundane and boring, she’ll rant on about how amazing it is. And, of course, it you talk about her sex life she goes as red as traffic light and threatens to kill you.
She steps into the apartment, her eyes darting in different directions as she gets used to her surroundings. The house in Tennessee was slightly routine and vaguely lacking in personality; yes, yes, my mother decorated it. Perhaps it wasn’t my most masculine moment, but I was eighteen or something, interior design meant as much as spoons to me.
However, the place in New York is one of my homes I actually took great time and aggravation decorating. I was going through an ever so slightly cocky, ‘I’m young and hot and sleeping with everyone’ phase at the time, so traces of a typical bachelor pad can be found in the black leather of the living room couches or the glazed worktops in the kitchen. As time progressed and I calmed down a bit, it’s a little softer around the edges, with rugs and pictures of my family dotted around the house.
“Justin, this is wonderful!” Cat exclaims, going into the kitchen and running her hands over the counters. “This looks just like an episode of Cribs!”
I laugh and wrap my arms around her waist, giving her a little hug. “I’m glad you like it, babe.”
“Because I love these faucets so much, I’ll let you off for that Freudian slip,” she says, grinning as she turns on the faucet to let a jet of water stream out.
I chuckle and place a kiss on her shoulder. “You’ll like my bedroom.”
“Where is it?” she asks, looking around. I point a finger upwards. “There are two floors?” she exclaims, grinning.
I nod, laughing at her enthusiasm. The normally so cool, calm Cat is actually a complete nerd. “Yup. The bedrooms, music room and another TV room are up there.”
She squeals and runs off in search of the staircase, and Trace and I hear her footsteps above our heads a moment later.
“She’s easily pleased,” he comments, laughing at the various squeals of enthusiasm. “It’s good to see her happy again. She’s been a bit rundown these past few days.”
“I know,” I reply, leaning against the counter. “I think we’re going to be okay here. Even with all the drama we’ve had leading up to it.”
“I hope so,” Trace says, hopping onto the worktop. “She dealt quite well with that camera guy.”
I frown, thinking back to the airport. “I suppose she didn’t run off screaming, which is a good sign,” I comment. “But she was shaken up.”
He shrugs. “She’ll get used to it. She was too busy worrying about your grumpy ass to be pissed off about it.”
“Oh my god…look at this closet space!” a cry from upstairs floats downstairs into the kitchen.
I smile and nod. “That’s my Cat. Always putting other people before herself.”
“That’s true. But…” he trails off and sighs. “Unfortunately, you’re being gay again.”
“Shut up,” I retort, reaching out to punch his arm.
“Justin, you didn’t tell me you had a TV that came out of the freaking ceiling!” calls out Cat, before she rushes into the kitchen. “It’s like being in an episode of Star Trek!” she says, leaning against the island in the middle of the kitchen, breathing quickly from running about.
“Cat,” I laugh, “you do realize you’re acting like a teenager, right?”
She grins and nods. “I think it was that caffeine-free coke. It’s made me go crazy from lack of sugar.”
“Here you go, Cat,” says Trace, pulling out a packet of peanuts from his pocket. “Stock up on salt instead.”
She takes the bag from him and opens it up, quickly putting a few nuts into her mouth. “Think of all the places we can go…Central Park, Times Square, Knicks Games…”
“And we’re in the same city that Friends was based in.”
“Exactly,” she agrees, putting the peanuts down.
“Oh, and on Friday I’m meeting my new producer. Want to come with me?”
“Sure. Who is it?”
I shrug. “This relatively unheard of woman that Johnny says is amazing. She used to be a model, but now she’s in music.”
An uncertain look passes over Cat’s face at the word ‘model’, but she doesn’t say anything. “What’s her name?”
“Amber Sunflower.”
Cat snorts slightly. “She sounds delightful. I can’t wait to meet the inspiration of Van Gogh.”
“What?” say Trace and I in unison, frowning at Cat.
“You know, sunflower…as in his most famous painting? And her name…never mind,” she waves off. She checks her watch. “So, what are we going to do for the rest of the day?”
“Well, we’re pretty much stuck without Tiny, so we’ll have to amuse ourselves here.”
“Great!” she exclaims, grabbing our hands. “Me or Trace can go out and get a pizza, we can put in a good film, and christen the new super-cool TV that, oh my god, comes out of the ceiling!” she says happily, rushing off into the living room.
“Seriously, something must be very wrong for her to act this happy,” remarks Trace, clambering off the counter and leafing through a drawer for the pizza place’s flyer.
I shrug. “I think she’s just keyed up from being in a new place. It does make a refreshing difference to the cynicism though.”
Trace laughs. “Oh don’t get too comfy, that’ll be back as soon as she meets that producer of yours.”
“What do you mean?”
“Justin, a model? She’s going to freak out.”
“No she won’t,” I scoff, shaking my head at him. “Cat’s totally cool about that kind of thing. And for all we know, Amber could just be one of those elongated, stick thin models that aren‘t really pretty after all. She’ll be fine.”
He raises an eyebrow and lifts the phone from wall to punch in the number. “We’ll see.”
I shake my head at him and open a drawer in search of my hidden stash of Twinkies. And Trace calls Cat the pessimistic one.
So far, bar the airport incident, New York has treated us pretty well. Me and Cat have nothing to worry about.
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