Kamille
Kamille glanced at her watch: 1 A.M. Ten minutes after the last time she’d checked.
“I’m gonna let him stew for a little while longer,” she announced to Simone, who was on her third mojito.
“What are you guys fighting about, again?” Simone said, sounding bored.
“I told you, he got mad at me because I’m so crazed with work lately. We haven’t had a lot of time together. But then he goes out with his buddies like once or twice a week, so what is he talking about, right?”
Simone raised her eyebrows. “That’s all? I thought maybe he was cheating on you again.”
Kamille glared at her friend. “Seriously, stop saying that! I’ve told you before, it’s those awful magazines. They’re constantly making up stories about him. About us. I hate them!”
Kamille picked up her mojito and finished it off, including the sprig of mint, which tasted bitter in her mouth. She tried to remember if she’d had dinner tonight. She hadn’t. She and Chase had shared a pitcher of martinis at her place, then ordered in Chinese. But before they could sit down to eat, he had made a snide comment about her busy schedule, which had led to her snide comment about his “boys’ nights,” and the next thing she knew, they were yelling at each other. It had gotten so bad, she’d actually thrown the martini pitcher at him, which he’d dodged, and it had hit the wall and shattered into a million pieces.
And then she had stormed out. Outside the front door, she’d hesitated for a moment, to see if he might follow her like he sometimes did, begging for her forgiveness. He hadn’t. So she had called Simone and told her to meet her at Skybar, ASAP.
Fuck him. Let him come crawling back, which he would surely do after enduring her absence for hours and hours. Frankly, if she had to, she could discipline herself to ignore him for days, even a week. She’d already been so good tonight, not returning his numerous texts and voice mails. Although they’d stopped around midnight, which had confused her. Maybe he’d fallen asleep? Or his phone had died?
“Excuse me. You’re Kamille Romero, right?”
Kamille glanced up. A girl, probably around her age, was smiling and waving from the next table. She was with two identically cute guys.
“I love you!” the girl went on without waiting for a reply. “That ad you did? For that perfume? It rocks!”
“Thanks!” Kamille found herself smiling back. She wasn’t used to getting compliments from fans. Or even having fans. It was kind of cool. “I have a new ad coming out, for Flower Power jeans,” she volunteered.
“No fucking way.” The girl stood up and turned around, pointing to the hot-pink rose embroidered on her back pocket. “Is that awesome or what?”
“Yeah, thanks for showing us your ass,” Simone said under her breath.
“Simone!” Kamille hissed.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing yours,” one of the girl’s cute friends called out to Simone.
Simone giggled. “Yeah? It’ll cost you.”
“Not a problem.”
God, Simone was such a slut. But maybe she had it right. Maybe hooking up with randoms was better than having a boyfriend. Kamille seethed, thinking about Chase.
The cute guy bought Kamille and Simone a round of drinks. Then more people at the bar recognized Kamille and bought more rounds of drinks. At one point, some man in a fancy suit—the manager?—came over and whispered to Kamille that she could get a table and a comped bottle anytime she wanted, giving her his private contact info so she could bypass the formidable bouncers out front.
Many mojitos, and many autographs, and many cell-phone pictures later, Kamille was basking in the glow of celebrity adulation and in general feeling no pain. At one point, when some girl asked her about Chase, Kamille just burst out laughing and said, “Chase who?” Those words probably ended up being Tweeted all over cyberspace within seconds. But Kamille didn’t give a shit. She was on top of the world (or on the rooftop of the Mondrian Hotel, anyway), surrounded by adoring fans she didn’t even know she had, wearing a killer dress that she had actually been able to buy (versus rent) with her big, fat check from the Flower Power job. It was nice to have money after four years of struggling, wondering if she was ever going to be more than a waitress at her mother’s restaurant.
Kamille wasn’t sure, but after Skybar closed, the party moved to some club downtown. She had the vague, pleasantly surreal sense of being driven through the streets of the city in a limo filled with loud, drunk, happy people that maybe included Simone, maybe not. Had her friend gone home without her? Or checked into the Mondrian with the cute guy who joked about seeing her ass?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she, Kamille, was on her way to becoming seriously famous. Like rock-star famous. She had fans now—real fans who wanted their pictures taken with her and who bought her expensive drinks. The owner (or whatever) of Skybar had treated her like a VIP. And at the moment she was even reveling in the fact that the paparazzi and the tabloids paid attention to her. So what if they spun lies about her and Chase? At least they were writing about her.
Chase. She closed her eyes wearily and wondered where he was, what he was doing. She wondered, too, when he would start appreciating her again, the way her (new) fans and friends appreciated her. A strange poison had seeped into their relationship lately. He used to love her so passionately, so unconditionally. The passion was still there, in spades. But the “unconditional” part . . . well, she wasn’t so sure about that.
Was she not meant to be with him, after all?
Kamille’s eyes flickered open. Maybe that was it. Maybe she was meant to be with someone else—someone nicer who didn’t yell at her so much . . . who didn’t make her want to throw martini pitchers at his head . . . who didn’t get calls from people named Tiffani and Daria and Lise in the middle of the night. (Chase always had a legit-sounding excuse, but still.)
She reached for her velvet clutch and dug around for her cell. She checked to see if he had texted or called. He hadn’t.
“Fuck. You,” she said out loud.
“What?” A guy sitting across from her leaned over and put his hand on her knee, caressing it lightly. He was kind of hot, with curly dark brown hair and wide green eyes. Not Chase. Had he been at Skybar with the rest of the group? “You want to get out of here? I live close by, they could drop us off,” he said with a wink.
“Sure,” Kamille started to say. Why not? Maybe hooking up with this guy—whoever he was—would get Chase, get the poison, out of her system.
But instead, she picked up her cell again and composed a text. She typed: IM SORRY. I LUV U SO MUCH.
And then she hit send.