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ith you and Beau?”
“Nina, stop. I just don’t want to do this play. Betray Me is for some other worthy actress, not me.”
She looked defeated. “I can’t believe this. I never thought it would end like this.” She wiped back a sliver of a tear. “Ok. Ok. If you think this is what is best for you, then you know I’m behind you, London, a hundred and ten percent. But I think you should tell Derek yourself. I’m not breaking this news to him.”
I wrapped my friends in a big circle hug.
“Sure. Whatever you need me to do, but this girl is not going to be in Betray Me.”
I walked out of the theater basement for possibly the last time as an actress. It felt good. I looked over at the planetarium building across the parking lot. I hid an inner giggle, thinking about the burning picnic basket on the roof. Since January, I had experienced more Carolina moments with Beau than I had in the previous three and a half years on my own. Sure, I had dated. I even had a few boyfriends over the semesters, but the artistic type are moody at times, and like me, they just wanted to go to the theater, film festivals, and rent classic movies. For the first time, I was a stereotypical, normal, everyday Carolina student—and it was awesome.
I texted Beau on my way to Hamilton Hall. Surely, he was finished with his drunken exam. I couldn’t wait to tell him about my decision.
Are you done?
Yep. Just waiting on a pretty girl.
He always had the best texts. I sighed.
He was leaning against the handrail when I walked into his view. My first instinct was to run and jump into his muscular arms, but this damn charade we had created for class kept me from doing anything that looked like a girl in love. In love?
“How was the exam?” I stayed a few feet away.
“Nailed it.” He was oozing with confidence or maybe some leftover drunkenness.
“Really?” I didn’t believe him.
“Why not. I know all the details about Pearl Harbor. I even wrote an essay about Japanese concentration camps in the U.S. I think I filled the entire blue book.”
“I’m impressed, but let’s see what your grade is before you declare drunk exam taking as your next best idea.”
“You just wait, London. I got an A on that exam.”
“What do you want to do now?” It was getting dark and campus was quiet.
“I’m not about to lose this buzz. Let’s go to He’s Not and get a blue cup.” He started walking toward Franklin Street.
“Blue cup?”
Even slightly tipsy, Beau stopped in his tracks and turned toward me in a perfect swivel. “Don’t tell me. You’ve never had a blue cup?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Nope.”
“All right, girl. You are lucky you met me. If you haven’t been indoctrinated into beer drinking at He’s Not Here, world famous Franklin Street bar, we have our work cut out for us tonight.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me down the brick sidewalk. I didn’t point out that we were in the middle of campus and shouldn’t be holding hands. His palm felt warm in my clasp. I let Beau lead me to one more experience I needed to check off my list. “He’s Not, here we come.”
11
My bed was littered with scraps of paper. I had easily written down twenty casting call opportunities in L.A. and then balled them up. Nothing felt right about any of the parts. I wasn’t so naïve to believe I would land a break out role in my first acting gig, but I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. It probably wasn’t helping that all I could think about was Beau and what he was doing right now. He still had a full semester of classes, exams to study for, and papers to write.
Beau let me plan this Saturday’s date. I felt so disconnected from Love Match and everything Victoria was going through on the show since my week away at spring break. The reality was, in some weird way, she and I were going through the same thing. While she was dating seven guys at a time, I was doing my best to date one and pretend to the world that what I was feeling wasn’t real. But everything about Beau and me was real.
When I saw her first date of the episode, I knew it would be perfect for us. Victoria and one of the unsuspecting bachelors were driven by limo to a recording studio, where they spent two hours receiving voice lessons with Victoria’s favorite singer. Once the quickie rehearsal was over, the bachelor sang his heart out in an attempt to get a rose at the end of the date. It was a date to the sudden death. If Victoria didn’t like the recording, he was sent packing. If she did, she would give him a rose and they would head on to the second part of the date.
Nina started throwing things at the TV when the bachelor didn’t make the cut. She might be a fan of the show, but she didn’t like Victoria’s decisions about doling out roses. “He could sing. That was totally unfair. I don’t know why she didn’t give him a rose. They had chemistry. Anyone could see it.”
I watched as my roommate huffed at our mini flat panel. “Nina, if it’s not there, you can’t force it. Victoria likes the other guys better. Don’t you think it was nice of her to send him home before things got any more serious?”
“Better? He was the cutest one on the show. It wasn’t nice at all.” My roommate was still appalled.
