We said goodbye and ended the call.
I thought about bringing one of the wine bottles upstairs with me, but a car was coming to pick me up in the morning, early. My first official underwear modelling photo shoot would be challenging enough without a hangover.
Then again, a glass or two might help me sleep.
I selected a bottle from the middle of the wall, careful to leave the really dusty ones undisturbed. I was no wine aficionado, but I did know wine collectors loved the dust, and that those bottles were for special occasions only.
Back up in the master bedroom, I finished my glass of wine as I checked email and whatnot on my laptop, using the wireless password Jessica gave me during the tour. I was pleased to see Dalton’s network was named Paradise, because it really suited the home.
One of his neighbors had a network called Free Kittens and Candy in 218, and another had For The Love of Decency Please Draw Your Curtains. A third one, Big Guns Tight Buns, made me giggle.
After I’d exhausted my usual internet haunts, I shut everything down and snuggled into the enormous bed to get some sleep. Dalton had requested I sleep naked, so na**d I was.
Half an hour later, I still couldn’t sleep. I flicked on a light, poured another glass of wine, and pulled on a fluffy robe to go in search of the library.
I didn’t get to the books, though, because the fat yellow envelope on the coffee table called me with its siren lure. It wasn’t sealed or labeled, and I shook out a thick stack of paper.
A movie script.
The Post-It note on top read:
What a wonderful project! I can’t wait to come to the premiere. - Jessica
This had to be the script for the movie Dalton had been so tight-lipped about. The second page described the setting as a small town in Washington.
For all of about half a second, I worried Dalton would be cross at me for reading the script, but then my curiosity took over and said surely it was fine.
I padded back to the bedroom with the manuscript and settled in for a good read.
The title was We Are Made of Stardust, which made me laugh out loud. Dalton had said all those corny things to me when we first met, about us being…
Actually, there it was, right on page five. Word for word, exactly what he’d said to me. In the script, the main character’s name was David.
~
David: Let's just be two souls tonight. Two souls who are made of stardust, and found their way back to each other, the way they were destined to.
Harper: You left me here. You wouldn’t have had to find your way back if you hadn’t left in the first place.
David pulls Harper into a passionate embrace.
David: Kiss me like I’m dangerous.
Harper: Up to your old tricks?
David: Kiss me like I’m bad for you.
~
I put the script down and stared at the blotchy abstract art on the wall in Dalton’s palatial bedroom.
The second part was exactly what he’d said to me the night we had dinner at DeNirro’s. Our dates had been scripted. Well, his side had been.
This unsettled me, but not enough to stop reading.
I read on, and I lied to myself and said it was just a good story, and that was why.
The truth is, every page was cutting me. Deeply. My sorrow grew with every line I read, that I’d also heard come from Dalton’s lying lips.
Line after line he’d fed me, and I’d gobbled it down.
The character, David, had returned to his hometown and discovered the love of his life dating his estranged brother, and sporting an extra fifty pounds. He still felt something for her, but… it hurt so bad for me to read his dialog with his friend… he didn’t know if he could be physically attracted to Harper anymore. He was a wealthy tech company owner, and used to dating, in his words, “hotties.”
Later in the script, he told his friend that maybe f**king a fat girl wasn’t so bad after all. That if he closed his eyes, there was so much of her, that it was like having a threesome.
I read all the way to the end, which included the Happy Ending. Also known as the Fucking Stupidest Fucking Ending for Any Movie, Ever.
Harper hired a personal trainer and got her ass skinny enough to climb back into her prom dress, and she and Dalton—I mean, David—attended their high school reunion.
And they lived Happily Ever Fucking After like Fucking Douchebags.
If I’d had a knife nearby, I would have stabbed it through the manuscript, the way it had stabbed through my heart.
These were all the actions and words of fictional characters, but I read Dave's words as though every word was coming from Dalton's lips. I'd already heard so many of the lines.
I heard horrible sounds, like a woman howling in pain, and I realized it was me.
It was four in the morning.
The darkest hour for the human soul.
THE END