“Could you pass me the butter please?”
“Of course.”
The tub of butter is past along to the recipient, who gives a nod of thanks before pulling the lid off and discarding it on the smooth kitchen surface.
A silences descends. The scraping of the knife across the toasted bread crackles through the still, accompanied by a cough.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I remain quiet for a second. “You?”
“Pretty good, pretty good,” she nods approvingly, picking up a slice of buttered toast and taking a small bite. “It was hot last night, wasn’t it?”
“Oh yeah, I had to get up at like, twelve to turn on the AC.”
“Mm,” she murmurs, taking another bite from her toast, just to have something to do. “I wasn’t expecting it to get so humid this quickly up here.”
“It has been rather sticky lately, yes.”
Silence. The clock slowly ticks in the background, striking half past ten.
“Have you heard from Trace?”
“Nah, he’s probably still at Tamela’s.”
“Pamela’s.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
Another silence. The clock hits twenty nine minutes to eleven.
“Um…going to the studio today?”
“No, Pharrell called to say he had a tummy bug, and Chad says we should just take the day off.”
“Oh, right.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, I just said yeah.”
“Okay.”
Now, you can call me Captain Obvious, but something tells me this atmosphere is slightly more strained than usual. Cat and I usually spend our time laughing, joking, playfully insulting each other, talking, everything that ensures some form of communication. But now, we’re acting like two strangers struggling to make idle chitchat.
I still don’t know how to respond to the whole…thing. Is that what this is? A ‘thing’? Something that’s going to be constantly plaguing us in the back of our minds whilst we pretend nothing’s wrong? I don’t know whether to turn my back on the entire incident and try to act as if it never happened, or face it head on and accept nothing is going to get better if I don’t make it better.
I don’t want to sound like a pussy, but…ignoring it sounds a whole lot easier.
“Oh, hey,” I exclaim suddenly, hearing the clock tick towards twenty eight to eleven. “There’s something I wanted to catch on TV at ten thirty.”
“What is it?” she asks, slowly stirring some milk into her hot chocolate.
“Some VH1 thingy; Hottest Young Stars, or something.”
“Didn’t we just watch that last week?”
I smile. “Yeah, but they always call their shows that.”
“Why do you want to watch it?” she asks innocently, taking a small sip.
I look at her blankly. “To check that I’m in it, of course.”
She stares at me for a moment, before a giggle escapes her throat, the girly sound chipping at the chilled environment. It’s funny how just a sweet little laugh can lift the mood of a room considerably.
“Can I watch it with you?” she asks timidly, running her finger over the rim of her cup and staring into the swirly brown whirlpool of her cup.
Staying angry at Cat is an option I never have. I may be moody with her for a few days, I may even quite-on-purposely drop my wet towel on the floor after showering because I know it pisses her off, but eventually I seem to forget why I’m mad at her in the first place and let things just slot back to normal. Is that bad? Have we just pushed too much stuff under the rug? Is our lack of real communication how we ended up in this huge mess in the first place?
Then again, there’s no point in adding fuel to the fire by trying to be snippy with Cat. Perhaps an afternoon of mindless TV-watching would do us good, put a temporary band aid on our problems, just for the moment. Cat will make sarcastic comments about the intelligence of every celebrity to grace the screen, I’ll try and defend them and recite an interesting anecdote about the time I met them at an awards show, and she’ll start to point out whose breast implants look weird.
I mean really, who has the energy to face every problem head on? Couples around the world can’t discuss everything that happens between them, can they? I can’t bear the thought of another heart-wrenching talk with Cat, which will inevitably end up with her in tears and me as confused as ever. She’s probably right, maybe we should just try our hardest to forget this ever happened, never speaking of it again.
But why does it feel as though there’s a brick of worries laying nicely in the pit of my stomach that won’t move unless I make it?
I think I’m just sick of it. Sick of analyzing everything that is said between us, sick of wondering whether we’ll ever get back the times where we were just plain silly and had actual fun together, sick of anxiously waiting for something else to go wrong. There are just some times where you have to shrug and let things go, and pray that they don’t come around to haunt you later on. These past few weeks have been cloudy with troubles, and maybe I’ve reached the stage where I’m simply ready to give them the finger and say, ‘fuck it’.
Why can’t we just get back to the old Cat and Justin, the ones that lived an easy, breezy life, and never fought? So we have a few unspoken issues; is it that big of a deal?
--------------------------------------
“Beyonce? Please!”
“And what is wrong with Beyonce?” he asks, laughing as the guy with a green polo shirt and a penchant for ass-kissing comes on the screen, singing Beyonce’s praises.
“Justin, she got famous by inventing a completely ridiculous, and might I mention utterly unnecessary, word. Bootylicious? What the hell is that?”
“It’s a good word! Very…creative,” he chuckles, throwing a kernel of popcorn at me.
“Anyone can add ‘licious’ to something to create another word; it doesn’t exactly take a stroke of genius. And why would we need a word for saying, ‘ample assed’ in the first place?”
He shrugs. “I’m sure Sir Mix-a-Lot would’ve really appreciated it.”
“And I’m sure the rest of the world would have really appreciated it if he hadn’t written that stupid rap song.”
“That’s a great song, baby; I like big butts and I cannot l--”
“Justin,” I interrupt quickly, “unless you want tomorrow’s headline to be, ‘Girlfriend Beats Boyfriend To Death With Cordless Phone’, I suggest you halt that rendition and admit booytilcious is booty-crap.”
“You’re just jealous you didn’t come up with it first,” he says simply, trickling popcorn into his mouth with his right hand.
I roll my eyes. “If I wanted to come up with a word that everyone would eventually grow to hate, than I would do it.”
“Go ahead, then.”
Folding my arms, I pause for a brief minute to produce an adequately stupid word, before replying, “Sud-alicious.”
“Sud-alicious?”
“Yeah, it’s the new word for ‘soapy’.”
Justin stares at me for a moment, as though to gauge the chances of me being serious, before erupting into another train of laughter. “You’re such a nerd, Cat.”
I turn my head back to the TV, catching a glimpse of her Crazy in Love video. “She is pretty, though.”
He nods, shaking the bowl to look for the unpopped pieces of corn. “Yeah, gorgeous in person.”
“How gorgeous?”
“Very,” he says simply, immersed in a completely black piece of burnt corn.
Trying to pretend I’m not in the least bit jealous of Beyonce’s perfect bone structure and Justin’s apparent recognition of this, I cross my legs haughtily. “Yeah, well, she’s got chunky thighs.”
“They look okay to me,” he replies, glancing up at the TV at a particularly flattering shot of her rolling her hips. “She’s really curvy, but toned at the same time. It’s great.”
Oh, so why doesn’t he just build a shrine to her? “I still think her thighs are a little big.”
“Nah,” he shrugs, shaking his bent head as he continues his search in the popcorn bowl. “Perfect proportion, very feminine. She’s a great girl too--so thoughtful and kind.”
“Did you date her or something?” I ask spitefully, unsuccessfully swatting away at my jealousy.
“I wouldn’t call it dating…” he murmurs cockily, before ending a proud smirk. “I’d call it more of an… ‘arrangement’.”
“An arrangement?”
“Yeah,” he shrugs casually. “We wouldn’t seek each other out but when we met at TV shows and stuff, we, you know…”
“No, I don’t know.”
He rolls his eyes exasperatedly. “We had sex, Cat.”
If anyone remembers why I pursued this subject in the first place, please come forth and remind me, because I don’t.
Actually, I’m lying--a habit I’m finding increasingly hard to break. Keeping lighthearted, funny conversation is crucial at this stage of post-argument. If we stop talking, a silence as thick as it is uncomfortable will settle between us, leaving a gap for potential uneasiness and, God forbid it, having to talk about the problems still lingering in the air. No, no, it’s far better to paste on a smile, spin out jokes like there’s no tomorrow, and maintain a bright mood in the room, even if it is a little strained. Whether Justin can sense this strain or not, I have no idea; he probably can, but for the sake of our situation, isn’t saying anything.
It’s sort of like…it’s sort of like when you’re running, and you have to really force yourself to keep on going, because you know that if you stop, that’s it: you won’t start again. Or, even worse, you collapse into a pile of bones on the sidewalk and can’t get up for ten minutes. That’s how conversation after any argument is. As long as I keep on joking, he keeps on laughing, and we keep pretending there’s nothing wrong, I’m sure we’ll be fine.
Trying to push any images of Justin and that slut Beyonce out of my head before I vomit from revulsion, I think about it rationally. “Well, I suppose if I had the chance to have sex with Beyonce, I’d probably take it too.”
He raises an eyebrow impressively. “Oh really? I would have never suspected you were a lesbian at heart, babe.”
Laughing, I stand up and pick up the popcorn bowl, heading toward the kitchen to rinse it out. “Just for Beyonce. And maybe Christina Aguilera--she seems like the type of woman who would have a thing or two to teach me.”
“I thought that was my job,” I hear his voice call from the living room.
Shaking my head with a smile, I splash some water into the bowl and lean heavily against the sink for a moment, catching my breath. Being constantly aware of what you’re saying at the tone that you’re saying it in sure can drain a person; that’s why I try to avoid situations where there are a lot of new people, because it just gets so tiring having to be on constant “funny” alert.
That’s sort of what it feels like. As though I have to perform to Justin, to prove that I’m still a good person; as though he’s some form of stranger who I must impress. I just want him to do something that makes me feel as though I’m succeeding. Sure, he’s laughing at my jokes, but something is still off, a piece of the puzzle isn’t quite slipping into place. When we go to bed tonight, the animosity between us will create a colossal gap between us in our bed, each person stuck to their respective side, just like it was last night. I clung to my half of the bed desperately, almost hoping that Justin would turn over subconsciously in his sleep and lie closer to me, just so I wouldn’t feel so bad.
Things will slip back to normal soon, I know they will. It just feels as though this is something that’s going to hang over our head for longer than I care to admit, ultimately creating a giant wedge of unspoken concerns between us. I don’t know…maybe I’m overreacting?
Or maybe I’ve got it exactly right.
“Cat! Come on in here and check this out! Fergie from Black Eyed Peas is totally humpin’ the floor!”
A burst of laughter escapes my lips before I can even have the time to think about it, and I hurry into the living room to see if Justin’s claims are true.
As I brush against the back of the wide, comfy black leather armchair Justin sits in, he reaches back and gently grasps my arm, pulling me towards him.
“Come sit here, baby,” he says softly, leading me to his lap and placing a soft kiss on the back of my hand.
Gazing at him as he laughs at the image on the screen, an overwhelming feeling of gratitude rushes through me. He would have been entirely in his right to never speak to me again after everything that happened, but he didn’t. His lips part to reveal his brilliantly white teeth (which to this day he still maintains he’s never had whitened) and my fingers idly run over his shorn head, relishing in the slightly stubby, yet still oddly soft texture of his short hair.
How could I even consider putting what we have on the line? I love him too much for anything to pull us apart. Feeling courageous, I lean forward slightly, gently pressing my lips to his forehead. He glances over, smiles, and squeezes my side slightly.
It was the simplest gesture, and yet it’s just enough to rest my aching worries. For the moment, at least.
---------------------------------------------
“What would I even wear?”
“Cat, it’s not a fashion show, it’s the gym.”
“Says the guy with the pristinely white Nikes that have never been worn before,” she snorts, gesturing to my shoes from her position in front of her wardrobe as she agonizes over what to wear.
“Well…” I mumble helplessly, lifting up one foot to inspect the sole of my shoe. “Sneakers are the most important part to any work-out outfit. They have to be in good shape.”
“I don’t think I even own a pair of sneakers.”
I roll my eyes and finally stride across the room to kneel down beside her, as she searches in the very depths of the closet for a pair of shoes. “Of course you do. Everyone has sneakers.”
“Well if I do, I haven’t worn them since gym class ‘98.”
“There,” I point in the corner at a pair of beat up Nikes. “And they’re Nikes too, so we match.”
She groans as she pulls herself out of the wardrobe and stands up. “Hooray.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” I reply happily, gently punching her on the shoulder.
Her stony glare makes me recoil slightly. “Justin, we’re going to the gym. If there’s anything it certainly won’t be, that’s it.”
A day in the gym: what could be better? I love the gym, the idea that I can sculpt my body into any shape I want is amazing. I can lose weight, gain weight, add muscle in places I would never dream. The gym seriously rocks.
Cat, however, does not share this opinion.
She works out every now and then, but not so much that it would make a difference. In fact, most of the time, she ends up finding a magazine or book that changes her mind and she reads that instead of doing half an hour on the treadmill. I was shocked when she asked if she could come with me; I mean really, it would be like the Pope saying, “Hey, can I come over to that orgy that you’re having?”.
I know what she’s doing, and it’s exactly what I would do in her position. By spending as much time with me as she can, she’s trying to paint over the events of the past few days, replacing all of the horrible memories with happy ones. It’s the common response to any mistake and sadly, the effect lasts for about twenty minutes before something serves as a reminder of the unpoken-of-yet-still-there bad feeling between us.
“You don’t have to come.”
“No, I want to,” she replies, cramming her feet into the sneakers. “After all, I did say I would try and get in better shape this year.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” I shrug, opening the bedroom door for her and watching her sashay her hips down the stairs. “You’ll really like Robb, that’s my instructor.”
“What’s he like?”
How can I describe a man who possesses roughly two hundred pounds of solid muscle? “Very…exercise-y.”
“Then I doubt we’ll get on all at all.”
I try to swallow the snort creeping up in my throat. The chances of them getting on well are right up there with the chance of someone saying Hell is a little bit chilly. Robb is the unfortunate breed of person who is perfectly primed for Cat’s merciless yet utterly hilarious teasing, and Robb may well shoot himself after meeting Cat and discovering that yes, there are actually people in the world who hate exercise.
It’s going to be hilarious.
-----------------------------------------
He can’t be serious. There’s no way. Absolutely not. I refuse to believe it.
What can only be described as a muscled engorged gorilla on steroids stands before me, clapping his hands together excitedly.
“Robb,” he says, seizing my hand in a bone-breaking grip and grinning widely at me, managing the inexplicably difficult task of showing both rows of teeth and gums at the same time. “And that’s Robb with two B’s.”
Really? I didn’t think it mattered, because last I checked gorillas didn’t know how to write. “I’m Cat. And that’s Cat with a C.”
“Not a K?”
“No,” I reply, desperate to add a sarcastic comment but feeling Justin’s ‘Be nice’ warning squeeze on my hips.
“You know this is great, it’s really great, seeing more people coming to the gym, because you know in this day and age, there are far too many people thinking it’s cool to stay at home, eating those chips and sitting on their asses and you know what? It’s not cool, it’s not cool at all.”
What? “Uh…yeah, I totally know what you mean.”
“That’s great, Cat, really great. I’m glad we’re the same, up here,” he jabs the side of his head angrily with his index finger.
And I’m glad Justin’s chosen a personal trainer who is so clearly on crack. “No prob, Robb.”
“Hey, you rhymed,” he says, flashing his teeth-slash-gum combo again.
“That I did.” Is it possible to send psychic messages to someone you love; you know, think of something in your head, and then let your significant other know without opening your mouth? If you can, Justin, get me the hell out of here.
“Okay Justin, I’m gonna chat…with Cat,” he pauses to turn to me and smirk, clearly very proud of his own rhyme, “so why don’t you get warmed up with a few minutes on the tread, and then hit those weights, starting with, say…fifty pounds?”
“Sure thing,” Justin answers, pulling the white towel he had on his shoulder and tossing it over his gym bag. “Have fun, Cat,” he says, his eyes laughing at me.
He’s leaving me on my own with him? Well, I’m glad he’s finding this so hilarious, because quite frankly the prospect “chatting” with Robb-with-two-B’s sounds about as appealing as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
“Come on Cat, let’s go,” Robb interrupts my thoughts, walking towards a quieter section of the pulsating fitness center with strides as wide as three of my steps.
As we walk through the gym, my eyes begin to linger over the stark white walls, marked with the outlines of giant black, flat screen televisions flashing various music videos mounted on them. Everywhere the eye wanders, figures dressed in skimpy, body-hugging sportswear run furiously on a treadmill, their ponytails swishing from side to side. People determinedly lift weights, their faces strained with resolve as they clearly battle with their instincts to just drop the heavy load in their hands. The smell of sweat and hard work linger in the air victoriously, as a final indicator that everyone in this gym takes it very, very seriously.
I do not belong here.
“Siddown, Cat,” Robb says, motioning next to him as he sits on a bench off to the side of the hysteria, allowing a perfect view of the perspiring bodies.
Did he say sit down? Seeing no other possible option of what he could have meant, I apprehensively slide in next to him, nervously running the palms of my hands over the top of my sweat-panted thighs.
“So, Cat.”
“Yes?”
“What I really like to do with all my clients is to have a real heart-to-heart with them,” he says, looking at me in a such a way that would suggest we were about to spill our darkest secrets to each other rather than discuss exercise.
“Right.” Sensing now would be an inappropriate time to laugh, I bite down on my quivering bottom lip.
“What made you realize it was time to get in shape?”
Probably the same thing that made you realize you weren’t one of those people who had a dazzling personality to fall back on. “Well, a bit of everything, I suppose. Vanity, of course, and I just felt as though I’d feel better about myself if I was a little…different.”
He nods encouragingly, as though expecting me to burst into emotional tears and admit that I had hated myself for years and thought my life would never be complete if I weren’t a size two. This guy has watched far too much Oprah.
“And my dad was ill a little while back, which I guess made me a little more health-conscious. I have a pretty good diet, except for chocolate, my favorite indulgence.” As I smile, he looks mildly disgusted by the mention of chocolate, as though it were a horrible swear word. “I just knew I needed to lead a more active lifestyle.”
“And what do you want to achieve by working out?”
Distracted by a flickering muscle in his arm despite the fact he’s not moving, I try to focus my attention on him. “Um…sorry, what did you say?”
“Do you want to lose weight, gain muscle mass, or just improve your cardio vascular?”
Is he speaking Sporty with me? I can understand a lot of languages, but Sporty is not one of them. “Um…” It’s multiple choice, at least one of the options must be right. “Lose weight?”
“Okay,” he claps his hands together abruptly, making me jump. “That’s cool, that’s great, that’s something we can do.”
“Mm,” I murmur unenthusiastically, trying to inconspicuously see whether the man in the corner lifting weights was Brad Pitt or whether my imagination was just running wild.
“How much do you weigh?”
My eyes snap back to his. “Excuse me?” What a bastard. You never ask a woman how old she is, how much she weighs, or how many men she’s slept with. Did they not teach him this in the zoo?
“I’m just trying to get a rough idea,” he says, laughing at my offended expression and somehow finding enough confidence to slap the side of my thigh jokingly.
Did he dare to touch me? “I have no idea,” I reply haughtily, crossing my legs pointedly. So don’t ask me.
“Guess.”
And why would I want to do that? “Maybe…one…forty? I honestly have no idea, it could be anywhere between zero to two hundred pounds.”
He laughs. “Well Cat, that’s quite a large estimate.”
Well gorilla, it’s a certain fact about myself that I’ve been trying to avoid for the past twenty two years. “Mm.”
“You know what I love about you, Cat?” Before I can mumble an unexcited, “what?”, he continues without taking a breath, “you represent the average American woman. Not skinny, not fat, just right in between.”
“Great.”
“And you know what I can do with that, Cat?”
“Wha--”
“I can mold you into this sexy, healthy, fitness machine! You’ll look, feel and be a different person, and all it takes is a little hard work and trust me when I say the benefits are real good and totally worth it.”
What do I have to do, slap punctuation into him? The man never breathes, I swear. “Well that’s…good.”
He starts speaking a nanosecond after the words leave my lips. “What’s you’re favorite form of exercise?”
“Well, I--”
“Let me guess. Running? Cycling? Kickboxing?”
Dear God, someone give him a valium. “I’m not really much of an exercise person.”
As easy as switching the lights off, his smile disappears. “What?”
I squirm uncomfortably under his scandalized gaze. You would have just thought I had called his mother a heifer. “Er…sorry.”
“You don’t like any of them?”
“Um…I was on the field hockey team for a year when I was eleven,” I offer helplessly.
“That’s…something.” I almost want to take it back, just to remove the hurt look on his face.
“Yeah. I had to quit though, because apparently I was a little too aggressive in defense.”
As my fake laughter rings uncomfortably, Robb makes an odd “humph” noise, and doesn’t question me further. “We’d better see how you’re fitness is, then,” he says, pointing towards a row of running machines.
“It’s non existent,” I laugh, pulling up the baggy sweatpants.
Robb-with-two-B’s turns to give me one more appalled look, before gesturing to a treadmill.
----------------------------------
“Justin, the man was trying to kill me!” she exclaims, throwing down her track jacket angrily. “Why are you laughing? It’s not funny!”
“I’m not laughing,” I snort, trying to stop the corners of my mouth from lifting. “I’m just a naturally happy person.”
She rolls her eyes and tugs at her damp tank top, pulling it off her tired body. “Honestly, he was pissed at me from the second I said I didn’t like stupid fucking shitty exercise! Do you know what he made me do? Forty five minutes. Forty five minutes of running!” she says shrilly. “And he called that a goddamn warm-up!”
“Well, baby, workouts are tough.”
“Yeah, but I would have thought the general idea would be that you were still living at the end of it.”
“You still have enough energy to bitch, so clearly you’re not that tired,” I point out, preparing myself for the slap that is sure to come.
“You know what, Justin? Be quiet,” she orders, pausing in front of the mirror and pulling the tie from her hair out roughly. “And, just to top it off, I look like crap.”
“You look fine,” I remark, tossing my wifebeater into the washing basket. “Kinda post-sex, actually. It’s hot.”
“I look like this after sex?” she says incredulously, motioning to her flushed cheeks and tousled, damp hair. “Why do you ever sleep with me?”
“It has its advantages,” I mutter quietly, trying to block out the thread of unhappy sex memories threatening to dull the happy mood between us. Our sex life is the last thing I want to be thinking about now.
She notices it too, and tenses momentarily. “I’d, er, better get this stuff down into the machine,” she says quietly, bending to pick up her discarded clothes.
“No, I’ll do it. You go take a shower,” I offer, eager to leave the room as quickly as possible.
“Okay, thanks,” she mumbles, turning away from me shyly to remove the rest of her clothing as I hurriedly leave the room.
Just as I thought, the gap between us is ever present. And we had been doing so well ignoring everything, too. It sort of makes me wonder whether we’ll ever get over this; every conversation we have seems to ultimately lead to an uncomfortable situation.
As the hum of the shower being turned on flows through the walls, the penetrating ring of the phone causes me to drop my bundle of washing and rush for the ringing dramatically.
“Hello?”
“Hey Justin, it’s mom.”
“Oh, hey momma.”
“How are you, baby?” she asks warmly, in that parental, soothing tone that sounds like honey.
“I’m great. Just back from working out.”
“That’s nice. How’s Cat?”
“She’s…good too,” I answer, not feeling in any way inclined to delve into the particulars. “She came to the gym with me.”
“Did she? I’ll have to talk with her about that.”
I laugh. “Yeah, her account of it is pretty funny.”
“Anyway, I was just callin’ to ask whether you’d been in touch with Johnny lately?”
“Um…I called him about a week ago because it was his son’s birthday, but not since then. Why?”
From the tone of her voice, I could hear a smile. “Oh baby, you’ll never guess what!”
“What is it?”
“A certain artist whom you have a whole lotta respect for has asked to work with you.”
“Who?” I ask, not getting my hopes up too soon. It’s probably someone like Nick Carter, and my mom’s just trying to be funny.
“Chris Martin!”
My breath catches in my throat, and a tidal wave of shock crashes down on me. “You gotta be shittin’ me!”
She giggles. “I promise I’m not. He heard along the grapevine that you were back in the studio and was trying to get in contact with you.”
“Mom, if you’re lying, I’ll be real pissed.”
She laughs again. “I swear, it’s true! He sounds really eager to get something done with the two of you.”
“It could be so fuckin’ awesome, couldn’t it?”
“Language,” she warns, before chuckling. “But yes, it could.”
“Well, I gotta call him, I gotta say yes!”
“Call Johnny first,” she says logically, “get the number from him, and then call Chris.”
“Wow…Chris Martin, mom.”
“I know,” she says excitedly, and I want to just reach right into the phone and kiss her senseless for being so encouraging.
“Right, I’m gonna phone Johnny. Thanks for telling me, ma.”
“No problem, baby.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too, honey.”
Quickly finding the red button so that I can hang up and call Johhny to get the number, my mind starts to reel out of control. How much would working with Chris Martin rock? I know I may have taken my Coldplay-appreciation a little far at times, but I truly think they’re a great band and listen to them all the time.
Now, note to self: do not act like a complete teenage bitch when talking to Chris Martin, and try not to use the phrase, “I totally respect your music, man”.
----------------------------
“Isn’t that great news?!”
“Three weeks?” I repeat breathlessly.
He nods, still grinning. “Yeah.”
“And you’re definitely going?”
He looks at me incredulously. “Of course. Would you turn down Chris Martin?”
It wouldn’t exactly take a lot of effort. ‘No’ is only one syllable, after all. “What are you going to do there?”
He shrugs happily. “Make music. Can you imagine anything better?”
Unable to respond, I make an odd peeping noise before finding myself wrapped in Justin’s tight embrace.
“I’m so excited, Cat!” he exclaims, his voice full of exhilaration. I can’t help my snaking my arms around his shoulders and hugging him back as he jumps up and down in hysterics.
“Aren’t you happy for me?” he says, pulling back and holding me at arm’s length with his smile still securely in place.
I try to swallow the lump firmly lodged in my throat and nod. “Of course, sweetie.”
“This is going to be my best album yet!” he proclaims, suddenly jumping away and picking up the phone. “I gotta call Trace. The guy must be finished now, right?”
I lean against the frame of the door, watching as he eagerly retells the wondrous tale of the conversation between him and Chris Martin, how there was mutual admiration exchanged, how Chris brought up the subject of them working with each other, which was unusual because generally it’s the artist who is doing the album who approaches another, how they discussed the best place to do it, tossing places like New York and London before finally settling on LA, how that’s where they’d be able to work with some other big shot, blah, blah…
Yeah, that’s right. L-fucking-A. Los Angeles. The other side of the fucking country. And for three weeks, or “maybe more, if we click real good”.
“I know, man! I know! Yeah…yeah, totally…well, I dunno, you wanna come?”
Trace is going? Does that mean Justin wants me to come too?
“Exactly, you can see that girl again. Come home, Short Stuff…naw, naw, me and her are cool now…. Yeah, really…. Of course we did.” He sends a cautious glance in my direction, doing little to disguise the topic of their conversation. “Anyway, this isn’t about that. When am I leaving? Real soon, hopefully.”
But I don’t want him to leave. I want him to stay here, with me. What if he’s in LA and finds some siliconed sex toy who makes him see he should dump my ass sooner than you can say ‘uh-oh’? What if he’s just using this as an excuse to get away from me and our occasionally awkward existence together? What if he’s not really over everything that’s happened, and is thanking his lucky stars he can finally leave? What if I’ve really fucked everything up?
God, I really have to stop worrying about Justin so much. This relationship is going to give me a coronary if I don’t calm down and stop fretting over the most insignificant things. Maybe a few weeks apart would do us good; bar that small trip home I made a little while ago, Justin and I have been permanently attached pretty much from the moment we met, so that adds up to well over a year of constant existence with another person.
A break of sorts might be a good idea, especially with everything that’s happened lately. I could sure use the time to just relax, not think about how well or badly my relationship is going, and have some fun outside of the little circle of me, Trace and Justin. In fact, I think I need that.
“Trace is on his way home,” Justin says, putting the phone down and snatching me from my reverie.
“Oh, okay.”
“Woo!” he screams happily, punching the air. “This is gonna be even better than Justified, I can feel it.”
I chuckle slightly. “I’m sure it will be.”
“So I’ll call Angela to get some flight tickets…we should keep it as secretive as possible, that way it’ll be a huge surprise when people hear Chris Martin helped me for my record!”
“They’ll never expect it.”
“You know, maybe I should ask my mom to come and house-sit for me,” he says suddenly, clearly in that excited state that jumbles his thoughts all over the place.
I glance at our surroundings. “Why do you need a house sitter? You left it empty for over a year.”
“Well now that all my personal shit’s here, I can’t take the chance that it’ll get broken into or something. And plus all my mails’ getting directed to here now, so I need someone in the apartment to pick it up in case I get something important.”
“Does Trace definitely want to go?”
“Oh yeah,” Justin nods, still smiling. “Trace loves LA, he has tons of friends there. He probably won’t even stay with me, he’ll stay at Laney’s place.”
“Who’s Laney?”
“This girl that Trace has been completely in love with since we were in eleventh grade,” Justin snorts, picking up the washing he has discarded after answering the phone. “Every time they see each other, it’s this whirlwind, passionate love affair for a few weeks and then suddenly it’s over.”
I trail after him as he heads into the washing room. “Why?”
He shrugs, piling the clothes into the machine. “I don’t know. They work really well together, but for a limited time only.”
“That’s a shame,” I comment, instinctively reaching down to pull out a white sock from the colored clothes.
“I can’t wait, Cat, I really can’t,” he says happily, putting in far too much powder. “Long days, long nights, going hours without seeing the outside world…recording is the greatest experience ever.”
“Aren’t you recording now?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, but at the moment I’m just kickin’ it with Chad and Pharrell. It’s different when you meet a new producer, because you have to connect with them before you start making music.”
“I see.”
“So you spend hours and days just having midnight talks, sharing secrets…”
“Sounds like a slumber party.”
“It is,” he laughs, fiddling with buttons on the machine before finally stepping aside and letting me do it. “Like with Chad and Pharrell, we became great friends whilst recording; that was the best summer ever. We just had so much fun together, partying, talking about girls, stuff like that.”
“How come you never did that with Amber Flower Power?”
He smirks. “We clicked musically, but we weren’t best buddies. And anyway, how much would you have liked it if I had locked myself in a studio with Amber for three days?”
I stand up, straightening my back. “So you’ll be a complete recluse for the whole visit?”
“Probably,” he shrugs.
“Maybe…” I stare at the washing machine as it slowly bumbles into actions, suddenly churning the clothes around in a circular motion. “Maybe I shouldn’t come.”
Justin stops, as though he was a balloon somebody had just stuck a pin into. He gives me a cautious look. “You don’t want to?”
“Well, it’s not that…” I trail off, uncomfortably. “I just don’t see the point in my being there. You and Trace will both be busy with your own thing; I‘ll have nothing to do.”
He remains silent, waiting for me to finish before he adds his opinion.
“I’m not saying that I don’t want to, it would just make more sense for me to stay home and take care of the house.”
His stare seems blank, as though he’s thinking things over in his mind. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t want it to seem as though I don’t want to go, it just--”
“No, no, I understand,” he nods genuinely. “And there’s more paparazzi in LA too, and neither of us want that.”
“Exactly,” I agree, nodding vehemently. “You’ll probably get more work done without me on your case,” I laugh uneasily.
“Yeah, probably,” he chuckles, tapping the top of the washing machine. “Wow, this will be our first separation. We’ve never had to be apart before.”
“It’s only three weeks.”
He snorts. “You know you’ll miss me,” he teases, poking me jokingly on my stomach.
“Of course I will,” I reply seriously, staring him in the eyes. “I do love you, after all.”
He stares at me, a faint smile lingering on his face. “And despite everything, I suppose I’ll have to love you too.” Oh, very comforting indeed.
I have a plan: why don't I use this time apart to my advantage? I could get a new haircut, splash out on some new clothes, work out as much as I can...I'm sure Robb-with-two-B's would be thrilled to hear I've come back for more of his satanic exercise regimes. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more appealing it becomes. Hopefully it'll make Justin magically forget about the horrible, deceitful things I've done recently, and fall in love with me all over again.
I know it's not a very "Cat" thing to do, but I'm doing this for Justin. I can't bear the halfway state things are in at the moment; by the time he comes back, I will have changed so much, he won't be able to stop himself loving me.
And if that doesn't work, Lord knows what will.
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