Chapter 18
Main Character Syndrome
Jack was hiding.
From what, he wasn’t exactly sure. From the Christmas party he was, in theory, attending, sure.
But also from Blair.
Operation Jack Gets Out of His Own Head was working. There was no denying it. His book was getting done, and it wasn’t, he was fairly certain, going to expose him as a fraud, or a one-hit wonder.
But he was starting to feel uncomfortable with just howfarout of his own head he was. He was the proverbial frog in the pot. It had started with walks. Everyone knows walks are good for the creative process. And then TV. All right. Immersing himself in a narrative different from the one he was trying to create: it made sense.
But planning a sting to catch Mrs. Afonso? Mixing drinks for the occasion? Warming Blair’s hands up in his own?
And then, coming dangerously close tokissingher?
What the hell was wrong with him?
Maybe it was time to go home—home to Minneapolis, not to the pool house. The pool house—he hated that he needed to remind himself of this—was not home.
“Here you are.” Tiffany stuck her head around the doorway from the kitchen to the mudroom. “I was wondering where you were hiding.”
“I’m not hiding.” Yes, Jack was sitting on the floor in the mudroomwhere Blair was keeping her overflow booze and the party trays that didn’t need refrigeration, but he was still prepared to deny the charges. “I’m hanging with Edward.” He looked down at the dog, who wasdefinitelyhiding. He gave an affirmative woof. “See?”
But also, another exhibit in how alarmingly far Jack had gotten out of his own head: he was enjoying the company of a domesticated animal.
Tiffany wasn’t having his deflections. She put her hands on her hips and leveled a withering look at him.
“All right. I’m hiding,” Jack said. “But she wants me to sing.”
“She wants everyone to sing.”
“She especially wants me to sing.”
“Main character syndrome much?”
Against his will, he smiled. He liked Tiffany. She was different from his idea of LA people. She was smart as they came, and she said what she meant.
Of course, Blair was different from his idea of LA people, too, so a logical person might conclude that his mental image of LA people needed some adjustment.
“I used to be big into singing—in choirs—and I made the mistake of telling Blair about it.”
Tiffany blinked several times. “You used to be big into singing? Why does that not compute?”
“Why does everyone say that?”
“Can I ask you a weird question?”
“Can I stop you?”
“When did you tell Blair about your singing career?”
“I don’t know, probably during one of our dinners, or walks.” He tried to remember. “No, we were having drinks by the pool. Why?”
“Do you and Blair often have drinks by the pool?”
“No,” he said reflexively, but that wasn’t true, was it? “Sometimes,” he amended. “The singing thing came up because we’d beento see the Watts Towers and we were having a discussion about art, and creativity.”
