Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
And… he’s wearing that face. That Steve Smith face. The one that makes it hard not to look at.
Upon hearing him speak, two women who happen to be scurrying the other direction giggle and say, “Taaaaaaaaaaannnnnnk,” all sing-songy and drawn out. Steve rolls his eyes.
“What was that?” Britney asks.
“Apparently, yesterday at her panel, Essie decided to go ahead and confirm to everyone there that I’m Tank Watson.”
“Oh. Why?”
“I dunno. Because she’s worried that I’m not doing enough to keep busy and she wants to get other authors to book me for… whatever. I don’t get it. Candidly, I think she’s just edging in the direction of…”
He stops short. Because it’s clear that what he wants to say is something like, “… edging in the direction of pulling the curtain back on this whole SS charade.”
“Anyway,” he finishes, “I just wanted to see how it’s been.”
“It’s been great! Hasn’t it been great, Cord?” Britney says. I nod, tightly, putting my smile back on. “Great!” she says a third time. It hangs in the air as Steve stares at me and I try to avoid his eyes. “Right. Well, it’s almost lunch. So I think I’ll just… Oh, is that Sylvia Montgomery over there? I’m such a fan. I’ll… You guys… Okay…” she mumbles as she not-so-smoothly takes her leave.
There is an obligatory awkward moment as Steve and I stand there alone. I glance down to avoid looking directly into his face and my eyeballs land on his hands. His big, strong, chokey hands. And now I don’t know where the hell to look.
“Hey,” he says, drawing my eyes back to his. “Listen, I—”
“No.” I stop him. “No. It’s me who should apologize. I’ve been… I haven’t been myself. Or, no, that’s not right. I have. I very much have. In fact, I’ve been myself at about a level twenty. I would say ‘eleven,’ but that’s a cliché and I want to sound clever. Also, most people don’t even think about why we say ‘eleven’ and unless you really grasp the etymology of a thing, I don’t think you should throw it around willy-nilly. But that’s not the point.
“The point is that I think I may have… No, I did overreact. I’ve been overreacting a lot lately. But it’s because I care. Like, I really, really care about this thing that I’m doing. And, also, not that this necessarily matters, but… it’s been a while since I’ve been with a guy. I mean, obviously we were just together. I was with you. And you’re a guy. But I mean before that. I’m sure that has something to do with it? And I haven’t left my house a lot in the last few months and there’s just so much stimulus here that…
“Anyway. So, no need to apologize. It’s not a huge deal and, obviously, you don’t get to the level of success you… or SS… whatever… has had—have had?—that has been had by you all without being really, really good. And you don’t steal talent. You can’t steal ability. Or skill. You either have it or you don’t, and then you tend it and cultivate it and you work hard to maintain it and that’s clearly what you’ve done. And you’ve been so nice to me and got me a room here and you read my book in one sitting and… and I guess I don’t think you did all that just to steal from me or get into my pants or up my skirt or wherever. I think you probably did it because you’re a nice person, like your sister says, and you were doing a nice thing, and I appreciate it. And if I’ve been kind of a crazy bitch, I’m sorry.”
I’m not sure I took a breath during that whole monologue because I feel myself struggling to catch it now.
Steve just stares at me, taking me in, nodding ever so slightly. Then he says, “I was just going to ask if you wanted to grab lunch.”
“… What?”
“I kind of figured we both just got a little emotional. I wasn’t really going to apologize, per se, just see if you’d let me buy you lunch.”
“Oh.” I bite at my thumbnail before pulling my hand out of my mouth and rubbing my thumb with my other hand. “Oh. Um. Sure. Let me just… Sure.”
I grab up my bag and approach Steve, standing right in front of him, looking up at his annoyingly and wonderfully handsome, sincere face.
“Spinal Tap,” he says.
“What?”
“That’s where ‘eleven’ comes from. The movie. This Is Spinal Tap. ‘These go to eleven.’”
“Yeah,” I say in response, unable to keep a smile from creeping in. “It is.”
The ‘about’ section on the back of the menu for Bardot Brasserie, which is tucked away inside the Aria Hotel and Casino, reads, ‘Every detail of Bardot Brasserie was designed to transport guests to a café along the Champs-Élysées in the 1920s.’ And they’ve really pulled it off, I have to be honest. Having not been alive in the 1920s to visit a café along the Champs-Élysées at that time, I can really only speculate, but based on pictures I’ve seen, they’ve nailed it.