My Life With The Movie Star (4 page)

That night I was unpacking my bag and found Grays phone number. I took it out, looked at it and smiled.  I actually wanted to pick up the phone and call him; instead I put the slip back in my purse. I looked over at Thor he was al
ready dozing off on the couch.
“Just us again”

.

Chapter 4

On Monday morning, my alarm went off, and my normal routine started again. I got up, got ready for work and let Thor out. My drive in was slow. There
was
a wreck on 43 South. I watched the cars slowly move toward the city and finally I was at my exit.

When I reached my cube, there was something waiting for me in the middle of my desk. Someone had sent me
a
dozen roses. I could hardly believe it; my birthday was months away. This had to be a mistake.

I quickly opened the card. To my surprise, the roses were for me. The note was short and sweet:

“Wish I could have stayed longer in Dallas. I have been thinking about you. Grayson Edwards.”

Grayson ... Oh, Gray had sent me the flowers. I laughed quietly to myself, thinking it was funny that I hadn’t even known what his last name was. Quickly I picked up my phone and called Lisa.

“Guess what?” I chirped as a fell back into my office chair and spun around, giggling.

“What?” she asked sleepily.

I could tell that once
again I had woken her up. Lisa
worked at a local department store, and she normally wasn’t up as early as I had to be. The downside of her job was that she had to work nights and weekends.

“I got roses from the Dallas guy!” I gushed doing a little happy dance in my chair.

“Wow, Abby, that’s great!” Lisa said. “Where does this guy live again?”

“Well, that’s the bad part. He lives in LA.”

“You just have bad luck with guys, don’t you,” Lisa stated.

“I guess I do
. Maybe he will come and see me,
” I said with a hopeful tone.

“You can always inv
ite him to Fish Day,
” Lisa said sarcastically. Lisa knew that I would never invite some hot guy from LA to come to our small town’s fish celebration.

“
Sure
, some guy from LA would really want to come to Po
rt Washington’s famous Fish Day,
” I said with a sarcastic tone.

“Well, you
will never know unless you ask,
” Lisa pointed out. “Hey, I have to go now. Let’s get drinks later tonight.”

“OK, thanks,” I said. A girls night out was just what I needed. I was staring at the roses when the thought crossed my mind that I should call him to thank him for the flowers. I took the paper he had given me out of my wallet and dialed his number.

One ring, two rings … I was hoping that I would get his voicemail, but no luck; he picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” he said sleepily.

What a dummy I was; I had forgotten about the time difference: it must be 6 a.m. in LA. “Oh hi, Gray. This is Abby from Dallas.”

“Hi, Abby,” he said. I could tell that I had, in fact, woken him up.

“Sorry to call you this early, but I wanted to say thank you for
the flowers. They are beautiful.
” I said.

“I’m glad you liked them. I wish I could have delivered them to you in person.”

“That would have been nice,
” I chirped. I could not believe the effect this guy had over me. I must sound like a stammering idiot to him. Then it hit me what d
id
I have to lose by inviting him to Fish Day? Nothing.  I would have plenty to gain if he actually said yes.  I gathered up all the courage I had
.

“This may seem really strange, but do you have any plans for the third Saturday in July?” I asked hopefully.

“No, I think I’m free,
” he said. “Are you coming out to LA?”

“No. I was wondering if you would like to com
e to Port Washington’s Fish Day?
” I bravely asked. Lisa was right. I would never know unless I asked.

“Fish Day?” Gray said. He sounded confused.

“Fish Day is the w
orld’s largest outdoor fish fry,
” I said. “It’s a huge party on Lake Michigan. I thought since you were from England you might like a good fish fry.”

“Well, that does sound good,” he said. “I don’t get any of that here.”

“No, I g
uess you wouldn’t in California,
” I said.

“Let me check my schedule and get back to you,” Gray said.

“OK, just let me know. I will guarantee that you will have fun. Oh, before you go, did everything work out with your poster?”

“My poster?” Gray asked confused.

“T
he marketing problem with your poster. The reason why you had to leave Dallas early.”

“Oh that worked out fine. Sorry Abby its 6am here I’m just half asleep at the moment.  I’ll call you latter on tonight and
tell you about it. Bye, Abby.” H
e said.

“Bye, Grayson.”

I could not believe how brave I had been to invite him. Normally I would be practical and say to myself that there
is
no way he would buy a plane ticket to come and see me and go to Fish Day, but there was something about him that made me want to go outside my comfort zone. I could not wait to see Lisa tonight.

My day crawled by slower than any other day. It seemed like all my customers had problems that I didn’t have the answers too. We had just released a new version of Mercury and support was always flooded with calls the day after. This normally left me extremely frustrated, but that d
ay it just annoyed me. I also had a ton of leads to enter into our sales
system and draw up a report about the trip to Dallas.  I had hoped for a quiet day, so I could daydream about Gray and our  date, but obviously this was not going to happen today. Once the clock hit five, I bolted out of my cube before another customer could call me. I made it home, changed into jeans, a cute tank top, and ran out the door to go meet Lisa.

Lisa was already at the bar waiting for me. We decided to meet up at a dive bar in Port that was famous for its beer selection. Lisa and I enjoyed sampling all the different craft and microbrew beers that they would get in.  She was wearing a cute pair of jeans and a cotton blouse. This bar always attracted more of a male crowd, and several guys sat around Lisa at the bar, obviously waiting to see who she was waiting for. Lisa was doing a terrific job of ignoring them and saving me a seat.

“Did you call him and thank him for the flowers?”

“Yes mom!” I replied. “Even I know that you should call a guy to thank him.”

“Just checking,” she said. “I know it’s been a long while for you. It’s my job to make sure you remember all the rules and protocol.”

“I was glad to have an excuse to call him and make s
ure he gave me the right number.
” I said.

“Did you talk long?” Lisa asked. “I want all the details.”

“We talked for about twenty minutes. I took your a
dvice and asked him to Fish Day,
” I said proudly.

“No you didn’t!” Lisa shrieked. “Abby I was joking about inviting him!”

“Yes, I did! And he said maybe!
” I said, very proud.

“Congrats, Abby! Maybe you finally found a guy.”

“Too bad he lives so far away.”

“What does he do?
”
Lisa asked.

“He works for a marketing company in LA.  He had to leave early due to a p
oster being printed incorrectly,” I said.
“He also said something about sales so maybe he’s salesman or something. He
has
a great sales person name: Grayson Edwards.” I let his smooth name roll off my tongue.

I looked at over at Lisa, who suddenly seemed to be in deep thought.

“Grayson Edwards?” She asked. “Are you sure that’s his name?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Here’s the card.” I took the card from the flowers out of my purse and let Lisa examine it. She then pulled out her iPhone and began a Google search.

“Abby, I can’t believe how ou
t of touch with reality you are,” S
he said. “Is this what Grayson looks like?”

I took Lisa’s phone and saw that the picture she had pulled up was Gray. I couldn’t believe she had found a picture of him so fast.

“How did you do that?” I asked. “Is that off his Facebook account or something?”

“Abby, get serious,
” Lisa said. “Grayson Edwards is the star of
Texas High
!” Lisa rolled her eyes and took a long swig of her beer. I knew from her expression that she would have recognized him in a second on any given day sunglasses or no sunglasses.

“The what?” I asked and looked at her phone again in shock. How could I not know that Gray was a movie star?

“He’s the actor from the movie I saw on Friday night!” Lisa exclaimed she was still in disbelief that I had no idea who Grayson Edwards was. The movie was terrible, but I enjoyed watching him.”

“No, there has to
be a misunderstanding,” I said.
“Nobody famous asks me out.” I took out my iPhone and Googled his name. The search brought up almost 100 sites right away. I click on images, and my screen was filled with pictures of
Grayson.  Some were staged, others were candid’s.  I did a Google searched for Grayson
Edwards
poster typo and a news story came up about the movie poster for
Texas High
had a consistency problem and needed to be re-shot over the weekend and rushed out to movie theaters.

“I can’t believe you went
on a date with Grayson Edwards,
” Lisa said excitedly and then ran all her questions together. “What is he like? What did he order? What does he smell like? Did he have the Scott hair? You have to tell me
!”

“Well, he was very nice and charming,” I said. “But I really didn’t get to know him that well. We only had lunch. Why do you want to know what he smells like?” I wrinkled my nose. I had no idea what her question about the Scott hair meant.

“You only had lunch with Grayson Edwards!” Lisa was almost shrieking at this point.

“Hey, Lisa, calm down a bi
t. People are starting to stare,
” I said, trying to get her to breathe again. She was practically dancing up and down on her barstool.

“I’m sorry,
” she said “This is unreal. Like Pretty Woman or something.” Lisa took a deep breath and repositioned herself on her chair.

“Be ca
reful who you call a prostitute,
” I joked.

“I’m sorry
Abby, you know what I mean. This is just unreal.”

“What did you mean about the Scott hair comment?”

“Grayson’s character in
Texas High
is named Scott. The way he wears his hair in the movie makes him look so HOT, but in real life he never does his hair that way. I guess I should have known you would have no idea what I was talking about.” She sighed.

“I will have to go check out the movie, but to be
honest he looked hot regardless,
” I said, and a smile crept across my face as I remembered our brief lunch date.

Lisa and I finished our drinks, and it wasn’t until I was driving home that it hit me: I had invited a movie star to the middle of
nowhere Wisconsin to go to a fish-fry festival. He must think I’m crazy. What would I do if he came? I suddenly had many questions running through my head.

I had just walked through my door when my cell phone rang. I looked down and saw it was Gray. Shoot, I could barely pick up the phone.

“Hello?” I said timidly, wondering if I could contain myself and not start screaming at him.

“Hey, Abby! It’s Gray,” he said.

“Oh, hi.” I was doing my best to sound casual. My heart was racing, and I was trying think ahead to what I would ask him next.

“Good news. I am free for the fish thing you were talking about.”

Oh My God! I could not believe that he was coming to here to Wisconsin. I had to think fast. Should I ask him what he does? Could it just be luck that he looked exactly like Grayson Edwards the actor?

“That’s great,” I said. I was fighting to keep my tone calm and collected. I just wanted to scream into the phone, “Are you the star from
Texas High
?”

“I’m planning on flying into Milwaukee on the Thursday before Fish Day and then leave on Sunday evening.”

My mind was spinning. He was coming for three whole days! I would have to make sure to take Thursday and Friday off work. What was I going to do with him? I was sure he was used to fancy diners, going out to night clubs, and being entertained by adoring fans.