Kitabı oku: «Who Wants To Marry a Heartthrob?», sayfa 2
The fact that she shouldn’t care so much what he thought didn’t enter into Bridget’s thought process at the moment. Instead she realized that making it to the second round of his stupid show might just prove to him and the world that she was, in fact, a woman.
A desirable woman, if not a spectacularly beautiful one.
Bridget’s mind raced with the possibilities. If she could somehow manage to get close to Brock and dazzle him with her keen wit and natural charm, maybe she could convince him to keep her around for a while. Maybe he might actually fall for her and then Richard would be forced to acknowledge that it was possible for other men to find her attractive.
The seeds of a plan sprung deep in her cortex. All she had to do was attract Brock’s attention.
Bridget turned her gaze to where he stood amongst five of the bevy of beauties. He was flexing his bicep. They giggled, he smiled, and Bridget wanted to puke. Okay, maybe he wasn’t her type. Still, all she had to do was get close enough to talk with him, maybe make him laugh, and she might have a shot.
If that didn’t work, she could always try bribing him. It would be worth anything, if for no other reason than to see Richard eat his words.
“I’ll do it,” she finally announced.
“Really?” he asked, clearly astonished. “I thought you were going to make me do a lot more begging and pleading. All of which, I have to admit, I was willing to do.”
“Not so fast,” she said. “My surrender comes at a price. There is a condition.”
“Damn, I knew that was too easy,” he cursed under his breath. “Okay, let me have it. What do you want?”
“Christmas is coming up in a few months…”
“Oh, no.”
“How many minutes before we go live?”
Her smile was sweet, albeit sinful, and his eyes narrowed as he pantomimed rolling up his sleeves. It’s not as if he didn’t know who he was messing with when he began this particular game. He knew exactly what she was playing for, and considering the stakes, he was willing to negotiate. “One day.”
“Two.”
“A day and a half.”
“Christmas Eve dinner, Midnight Mass and brunch the following morning, all in the presence of my family.”
She was going for the gusto. But so was he. “Fine.”
“And you have to buy me a present.”
“Evil,” he whispered.
“It’s a little game I like to play called hardball, Richard. You should know it, you’re the one who taught me how to play.”
“Agreed. Now, let’s try and do something with you.” Richard scanned the contestants. He remembered from their résumés that one of them was a makeup artist who worked in a salon. “Rachel,” he called to one of the girls and motioned her to come over.
A buxom, blue-eyed blonde stood and made her way toward them in a hip-swaying walk that drew the attention of every man in the room. “It’s Raquel,” the woman said in a perfect imitation of Marilyn Monroe’s breathy tones.
“Okay. You’re the makeup lady right?”
“I am an artist,” she replied, somewhat affronted.
Richard pushed Bridget in front of the woman’s face. “Can you do something with her?”
Raquel studied her face. “Well, first we would have to remove all that awful white powder.”
“I’m not wearing any makeup,” Bridget said.
“Ahh!” the woman gasped clearly horrified at such an announcement.
“Except for my Bobby Brown eyeliner,” Bridget conceded. “I mean a girl’s got to have something.”
“Look,” Richard snapped. “We’re running out of time. Just do something. Okay?”
“I can try,” the woman replied. “I’ll need my kit. Come with me.”
“Can’t you just get it and bring it here?” Bridget asked.
“Oh, I can’t carry it. It’s way too heavy. My boyfriend…I mean my ex-boyfriend…took it upstairs and left it in one of the bedrooms. Follow me.”
“Hurry,” Richard urged, only to have Bridget stick her tongue out at him as she walked by. “And while you’re at it, take off those glasses, too!”
BRIDGET FOLLOWED the voluptuous Raquel up the stairs, noting the makeup artist’s walk as she did. She tried to mimic the hip-swaying action, but each time she thrust her hip out to the left or to the right all she managed to do was throw her body off balance. Tripping her way up the stairs was nowhere near as sexy.
They reached the top hallway and turned into one of the bedrooms where a full-size trunk sat at the end of the bed. Raquel flipped the latches and opened the lid to reveal a treasure trove of color beneath it.
“Wow,” Bridget reacted. She hadn’t seen this much makeup in…she’d never seen this much makeup.
“I know. I’ve collected shades from all over the world.”
“Really?”
“No, I just think it sounds more exotic when I say that. But they’re definitely from all over the tri-state area. New York, New Jersey and Long Island.”
Bridget considered informing Raquel that Long Island wasn’t a state, but decided they really didn’t have enough time. Instead she grabbed a chair from a corner of the room and pulled it close to the trunk. She took off her glasses and tucked them into the pocket of her black capri pants.
“Okay,” Bridget said lifting her face. “Have at it. Just don’t make me look like a hooker.”
Again, Raquel appeared to be offended. “Do I look like a hooker?”
Bridget considered the body-hugging strapless red dress that clung to the woman’s figure like plastic wrap. “Uh…no?”
Moments later various brushes were running over her face as Raquel talked. “The truth is you have very smooth skin. If I had more time, and could do something with your hair, and your clothes and your breasts—”
“Hey, no messing with my breasts,” Bridget stated. But the idea did have merit. If she could stay on the show for another round, get a little professional help, maybe she could pull an ugly duck–beautiful swan transformation. That would mean Raquel would have to stick around, too. “So, do you think you’ll make the first cut?”
“Of course I do.”
Bridget envied the woman’s confidence.
“What makes you so sure? There are a lot of beautiful women downstairs.”
“I gave him a note that said I would be willing to perform multiple sexual acts on his body.”
“That’s cheating!”
“It is?”
Bridget shook her head trying to understand. “But you don’t even know him. And besides that you have a boyfriend.”
“Shh,” Raquel whispered. “Not so loud. The rules said you weren’t supposed to have a boyfriend.”
“For a very good reason,” Bridget told her. “If Brock picks you, it’s to be his wife.”
“Oh, silly, that’s not what this show is about.”
“It’s not?”
“No. I mean, of course that’s the end result, but really we’re all here for very different reasons. I’m here because I want to be a star. Maybe even do a cosmetics commercial one day.”
Bridget considered the women downstairs and didn’t imagine that their reasons were all that different. Except for hers, of course. Her reasons were perfectly legitimate. She was going to do the show to make her employer—who she secretly feared she was developing feelings for—eat crow for thinking she couldn’t make the cut, and to prove to him that she was more than just an assistant. What more noble reasons could there be than that?
“All done,” Raquel announced.
Bridget pulled back and took the hand mirror that Raquel handed her. Wow! She looked different. Not hooker-different, either. Raquel had just added subtle shades under her cheekbones, over her eyes and on her lips that seemed to make her features stand out in the best sort of way. And she did it all without adding any more eyeliner.
So much for Bridget’s great makeup rebellion. This actually looked good on her.
“You are an artist.”
“Told you.” Raquel closed her case and started for the door. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
Bridget agreed. She reached for the glasses in her pants pocket and put them on.
“Eeek!” Raquel screeched when she saw her. “You can’t wear those, you might smudge. Besides that, I don’t like to see my work go unnoticed. Call it the creative genius in me.”
Great, Bridget thought. Between Buzz, Richard and Raquel this show was going to have more geniuses than it knew what to do with. “But I can’t see. Seriously, after ten feet everything blurs.”
The blonde held her two hands palms up then shifted them back and forth as if weighing the choices. “Beauty. Sight. Beauty. Sight. Beauty.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Silly, beauty always wins.”
“Fine,” Bridget grumbled and put the glasses back into her pocket. She would just have to try really hard not to squint. She didn’t imagine that Brock had a secret desire for squinters.
Carefully, she followed Raquel down the stairs and knew that the foggy blur at the bottom was Richard.
“Hurry,” he urged the two women on.
“I can’t see,” Bridget hissed.
“And I can’t hurry in heels,” Raquel told him, pouting.
Finally, they made it to the bottom of the stairs. Richard took a hard look at Bridget, and up close, she could see that he nodded in satisfaction. “Okay, now let’s get you both on the set.”
Buzz directed them where to sit. He picked out a single hardback chair for Bridget and placed her in it. “Sit up, chin out, boobs…oh. Never mind.”
Bridget tried not to take offense. She saw Brock leaning against a wall in the foyer and tried to get his attention. At least she thought it was Brock. It could have been a coat rack for all she knew.
“Okay, this is it,” the host announced. “Smile, ladies, and remember you are trying to win the heart of America’s daytime heartthrob, so dirty tricks, cat fighting, name calling and tears are all perfectly acceptable. Good luck.”
Bridget saw one of the cameramen circle the room bringing the hulking piece of equipment with him. She tried to brace herself for the impact of knowing that in less than five, four, three…seconds, the camera was going to be on her.
She turned her head and saw Richard standing just out of range of the camera with his two thumbs in the air. Or were they two fingers?
Don’t think, she told herself. If she began to think she might begin to realize that she was going to be on TV and that might cause her to panic.
Too late.
Breathe, she ordered herself. She was doing this for a reason. She was doing this to prove something to her family, to Richard…maybe even to herself. She could compete for a man’s affection with gifts like intelligence and humor and she wasn’t completely unworthy of a man’s attention. She would show Richard that she could make the cut and then maybe he would stop taking her for granted.
That’s right. It wasn’t about any hidden feelings she had for him. It certainly wasn’t because she wanted to make him jealous. That would be ridiculous. She only wanted him to see how wrong he was about her.
“Hey, can you pull back a little,” she heard Richard say to Buzz, who now had the camera focused on her. “I think she’s got something in her nose.”
She was an idiot.
2
“SO BROCK,” Chuck, the show’s host began, as most hosts do, with a fake smile and an even faker-sounding voice. “Tell us what you are looking for in a woman.”
Brock, who sat next to Chuck in the center of a half arc of fawning women, seemed to ponder the question. He rubbed his chin for a moment, turned to the camera that was focused on him and gazed directly into it, as if letting the viewing audience in on his thoughts before he said anything aloud.
“So many things, Chuck,” he responded. “I’m not looking for someone who is just hot. You know what I mean?”
“I do, Brock. I do.”
Not just hot. Suddenly, Bridget perked up a little. She had to admit she’d been feeling somewhat disenchanted after she’d spent time conversing with the other contestants during the first commercial break. Apparently they were all as equally determined as her to land Brock’s affections and at least make the first cut. Only the most pathetic would be getting the boot tonight, and she sensed that most of the women she talked to counted her as being on that list.
Their reasons for wanting to stay did vary. Some wanted to continue because they thought he was a babe. Some because they wanted to be the wife of Dr. Noah Vanderhorn, the legendary thoracic surgeon with a troubled past and a vulnerability for dangerous women, from the daytime television show The Many Days of Life. Most of them, however, wanted their own career in daytime television and starring with Brock Brickman, even if it was on a game show, seemed to be the best approach.
When Bridget suggested training as an actress, preparing a headshot and a résumé and going on auditions, they looked at her as if she was crazy. What did she know about anything? they asked. She wasn’t even showing cleavage.
Well, now she knew that Brock wanted more than just someone who was attractive.
Take that, girls!
“I want someone with a soul, too,” he confessed to Chuck. Soul. Bridget glanced around the room and decided that most of these women had foregone soul for silicon. It was beginning to look as though she had a shot at him after all. She smiled and tried to flutter her eyelashes, but Raquel had gone a little thick on the mascara and they ended up sticking a little.
“Of course, hot doesn’t hurt,” Brock added, then nudged the host’s elbow with his own as if sharing a private joke.
The women, who had been slumping progressively throughout his little speech, suddenly came to life again. Shoulders were thrown back, chins were lifted and hair was flicked. The blonde next to Bridget caught her square in the mouth with a chunk of hair. Bridget turned her head away and the hair was gone, but the taste of hairspray lingered. She tried not to make a horrible scrunch face as she attempted to lick the spray from her teeth.
Please don’t let the camera see me doing this.
“WHAT IS that one woman doing?” the Breathe Better Mouthwash executive asked, pointing to the screen.
Richard stood next to Dan or Don—he really needed to learn which one was which—off camera watching the show on a television monitor. He didn’t have an answer for the CEO because he really didn’t know what Bridget was doing. First, her eyes had started blinking furiously. Now, she was doing something with her face. For a moment, he feared she was having some kind of seizure. He never should have forced her to do this, he realized. Bridget simply wasn’t cut out for this kind of attention. If he hadn’t known that from his three years of working with her, he’d certainly learned it at her sister’s wedding.
Bridget liked to blend. She was the kind of person who was always there, but was never seen. The ultimate assistant: always on hand, but never underfoot. It wasn’t until after the wedding that he began to understand where that quality came from.
Four sisters. Each of them more stunning than the next. Each one of them knowing it, too. Bridget was the worst kind of Cinderella in a family like that, situated between the two older and two younger stars, with a mother who prized beauty and landing a prince above smarts and success.
And Bridget had too much pride even to ask for a fairy godmother.
“Can you make her stop doing that?” Don or Dan asked.
Richard took his eyes away from the monitor and moved back toward the living room, standing just behind Pete, one of the cameramen. At least Bridget seemed to have cleared up her facial tic and once again was focused intently on Brock.
In this particular group of women, she stood out simply because she was so unremarkable. A bubble of annoyance gurgled in his gut and he suddenly had an irrational desire to walk onto the set, grab her arm and get her the hell out of there.
He didn’t want anyone sitting at home watching this show to wonder what she was doing on TV with those other gorgeous women. He didn’t want anyone thinking that she was desperate. She wasn’t. She was doing him a favor. And in some ways, she was one of the most beautiful women he knew.
Not to mention the kind of guts it took to sit alongside a panel of women who looked like that. But the audience couldn’t see guts.
This was his fault. He’d made her do this and now he regretted it. And the worst part was yet to come. Brock still had to reject her on television in front of everyone. The reality of that was sinking in now that the moment was fast approaching. Suddenly anxious, Richard wondered if she would ever forgive him for this…and why it mattered so much to him if she didn’t.
“OKAY, let’s hear from the ladies,” Chuck decided, still oozing his unique charm. “Tell me what you’re looking for in a potential mate. Raquel.”
“I’m looking for someone just like Brick Brockman.”
“You mean Brock Brickman,” the host corrected her quickly.
“That’s right.” She smiled and pulled her shoulders together a bit more to enhance her cleavage. “Brick Brockman. He’s my ideal man.”
“Okay, moving right along. You, Jenna?”
A sultry brunette with impossibly blue eyes stood and drew all eyes to her. Bridget had already determined that this woman was no fool. She had a goal, and Bridget assessed that Jenna would be undaunted in the pursuit of that goal. This woman was going to marry Brock or land a role in a soap opera.
Whichever came first.
She looked at Brock then shifted her head slightly, no doubt to give her best side to the camera, and told everyone in clear strong tones, “I’m looking for someone who completes me. Someone who fills my heart and is filled in return by all the love I have to give. I don’t want just a husband, but a life mate. A partner. Someone I can share my innermost feelings with, not to mention my innermost…desires.” She sat down again with a flick of her hair and a sultry glance that might have been aimed at Brock, or at the camera behind him.
Wow. That was some speech, Bridget silently applauded. She only hoped she didn’t have to follow that.
“And Bridget, tell us what are the pieces that make up your Mr. Perfect?”
There were times, she decided, that life could be entirely unfair.
“Uh…well, he…should…uh…I suppose I’m looking for…” The camera guy zoomed in on her and the blinking light above it forced her to turn her eyes away. The light also didn’t help with her stuttering.
“Ah,” Chuck extolled. “I see we have a shy one here. Please, don’t be scared. All of America wants to know what it is you’re looking for in a man.”
All of America. Bridget gulped. “I guess what I’m really searching for is…”
“I’m sorry.” Chuck stopped her with a raised hand and turned his back on her to speak directly to the camera. “But we’re out of time.”
“Why does that not surprise me,” she muttered under her breath.
“This is the part of the show where Brock must retire to his solitary space. In that space he will have to ask himself ‘Is she the right one for me?’ Fifteen women will receive an invitation, and in that invitation there will be either a green card or a red card. Green means she gets to go on to the next show to see if she can win the heart of our heartthrob. Red means that life has chosen another course for her. Tonight only eight cards will be green. We’ll be right back to watch our ladies open their invitations. As always Who Wants To Marry a Heartthrob? is brought to you by Breathe Better Mouthwash, the mouthwash choice of singles. Because at those critical moments it’s important to have good breath. Your future could depend on it.”
Bridget winced at the phrase that Richard had finally decided on as the tag line for the campaign.
Breathe Better Mouthwash—because your future could depend on it.
She’d told him it was too dramatic. But with Chuck saying it as if mouthwash were a life-or-death decision, she thought it superceded dramatic and launched directly into the melodramatic. Typical Richard, she thought to herself. Always pushing. Always going over the top.
The red lights on top of the cameras abruptly went dark and Bridget breathed a sigh of relief. During each of the intermissions some of the women had had a chance to speak with Brock one-on-one. Getting close to him, however, meant running a gauntlet of pointed elbows and spiky heels.
Fortunately, Bridget had an edge over the crowd since she wasn’t as afraid of bruising as some of the other women were. She had actually made it to his side during the last commercial, but had only managed, “Hi, my name is…” before someone—her money was on Jenna—had knocked her out of the way. Now would be her last chance to impress him if she had any hope of getting a green invitation.
She stood up, scanned the room for Brock and saw him being whisked away by Chuck down a hallway that led to one of the studies in the back of the house. She was about to follow in pursuit when, of all people, Richard moved in front of her path.
“Okay, I’ll say it. I was wrong and you were right. I never should have made you do this. I’m sorry.”
She knew she should have been thrilled with such a statement, especially coming from someone who hoarded apologies the way Scrooge hoarded coal on Christmas Eve. But hearing this from Richard at this particular moment wasn’t good news. No doubt after watching her on the monitor, it was obvious that she didn’t belong with the others. But she wasn’t going to let the fear that she might have made a fool out of herself on television stop her from getting what she wanted.
And what she wanted was Richard. No, no, no, she thought, shaking that idea completely out of her head. She wanted Brock. Well, not really Brock. Just another night with Brock to teach Richard a lesson.
“Richard, move out of the way.” Bridget attempted to move around him, but he stepped with her, continuing to block her path. And he was big. Sometimes she forgot how tall he was, but when she stood toe-to-toe with him she barely reached his chin. It was the lean, easy quality about him that made her forget sometimes that he was, in fact, a lot of man.
“No. I guilted you into it. I forced you in front of a camera, made you put on all that makeup, which I know goes against your whole inner-beauty-motto thing—although I have to say, it really does look nice on you—and now I’ve set you up for this failure.”
His last item had her stopping in her tracks. “Failure?”
“I know and I’m sorry. You’re going to have to open that stupid invitation, get that red card. It’s going to be horrible. But listen, I talked to Buzz and I specifically told him to keep you off camera as much as possible. It will be like the Oscars. As soon as he sees red, he’ll move the camera off you.”
It was stupid and not like her at all, but she actually felt tears welling up in her eyes. His lack of faith in her, well, womanhood, was crushing. Despite the makeup, despite taking off her glasses and despite her attempt at eye fluttering, he didn’t even consider the possibility that Brock might pick her. All he saw was a failure.
“I’m really sorry, Bridge.”
“Me, too,” she mumbled trying to contain an odd feeling of loss, as though she’d had something within her reach, but now it was fading from sight. Forcefully, she stopped the tears. The last thing she needed to do was actually cry and ruin Raquel’s artfully applied mascara.
“And if it means anything, I would have picked you.”
She lifted her face and met his hazel-green gaze. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
He cupped her face in his hands and leaned down to give her a quick kiss on the nose. “Look into my eyes.”
“You’re not going to hypnotize me, are you?”
“No,” he chuckled. “You know when I’m telling the truth. And you know when I’m lying, right?”
She did. She knew everything about him. His favorite foods, his weird allergy to all things sesame and his preference for tea over coffee. She also knew that often when he was in the middle of an important meeting, he was really zoned out creating cartoon characters in his head. Everything.
“Right.”
“I’m not lying now. I would pick you. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. And by the way, nice job getting rid of that booger.”
“It wasn’t a booger,” she hissed. “It was a piece of lint.”
“Whatever. The point is, you’re the only woman here I would want to get to know better.”
“Really?”
“I would want to know why you wear your hair all back in a bun like that. And I would want to know why you’re dressed all in black, and I would want to know why you keep squinting at the camera.”
“Because you made me take off my glasses, and I can’t see very far,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but I wouldn’t know that if I had just met you. Brock’s a fool. Here he’s got the most amazing woman right in front of him, and he doesn’t know it.”
A reply sprang to her lips, but before Bridget could open her mouth, Buzz interrupted her.
“Yo, chicks! Places.”
“Apparently Buzz doesn’t understand the basics of political correctness,” Richard murmured, turning his attention to the fact that they were about to start broadcasting again. “Go sit down, open your silly invitation and I’ll take you out for ice cream afterward.”
“Your treat,” she insisted. “And I’m ordering extra fudge.”
He smiled, bent down to kiss her cheek and headed back to the foyer where the monitor was.
Bridget sat down in the chair that Buzz had picked out for her and girded herself against the rejection that was to come. She smiled at Raquel who gave her a thumbs-up sign, and Bridget mimicked the gesture.
Chuck came back into the room with the fifteen envelopes in his hand. He waited until the cameramen were in place around the room and watched Buzz as he silently counted down to live with his fingers.
As soon as Buzz made a fist, the lights on the camera lit up, and so did Chuck’s smile. “Hello everybody, we’re back.” He turned to Brock who had come into the living room to stand next to him. “Brock, have you made your very difficult decision?”
“I have,” he nodded dramatically. He wrapped an arm around the host’s shoulders and shook him a bit. “And it was difficult. What man in his right mind could decide between all these lovely ladies? It was almost impossible.”
“I understand, Brock. But rest assured that each of the women not selected tonight will receive as a consolation gift a free year’s supply of Breathe Better Mouthwash. So you see, there is a light at the end of this particular tunnel.”
Brock smiled wistfully. “That does make me feel better.”
“Now to the moment we’ve been waiting for. I have in my hand fifteen invitations, ladies. Please wait until I’ve distributed them all, then when I give the word, go ahead and open them. Those with a green card will continue on, and those with a red card…Well, at least you’ll have fresh breath.”
Brock lifted his arm from around Chuck’s shoulders, and Chuck moved forward to present each of the invitations to the women. Some women tried to hold them up to the light to see the color of the card within it. Some blew kisses to Brock. Others tried to fan themselves with the invitation in an effort to calm their nerves.
Bridget dropped the invitation in her lap and tried to focus on the hot fudge sundae that she was going to order. She also was thinking that the idea of proving to Richard that there had to be some man out there…somewhere…who might find her desirable still had merit. Why it was important, she wasn’t quite willing to deal with, but that it was important couldn’t be denied.
First she would need to find someone who found her attractive enough to pursue her. Or pretend to pursue her.
Hey, that was an idea. Maybe she could hire an actor.
“Ladies, open your invitations,” Chuck announced.
Of course, she wouldn’t want an actor who looked like Brock. She would want someone more real looking. The type of man who Richard would believe she could attract. She wondered how much actors charged for a few hours of work.
“Wait, we’re missing one.”
If Richard and she did manage to steal Breathe Better Mouthwash from V.I.P. and Richard did open up his own ad agency, then no doubt times would be lean for a while until they got the business off the ground. She’d have to be frugal about this.
“I picked eight,” Brock said forcibly enough to jar Bridget out of her musings.
Realizing that she actually had forgotten she was on a television show, she glanced around the room to size up the situation. All of the women had their invitations open. Green and red cards abounded. That is, seven green cards and seven red cards. One card was missing.
Hers!
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to open mine,” Bridget muttered a little sheepishly digging into her invitation. She pulled the card from the envelope and held it up for the camera to see. There. Green. Just as she expected…
“Green!” she gasped.
“Green!” Richard shouted from off camera.
“Green!” fourteen women screeched simultaneously, turning their heads in unison to see this purported green card.
“Green,” Brock confirmed. He turned to Chuck to explain. “She was always making funny faces at me. I like a woman who can make me laugh.”
“And there you have it, everyone. Our heartthrob has chosen. Tune in next week to see how this particular plot thickens. Watch as some women will woo, and others will boo-hoo when they get the red card. Next time on Who Wants To Marry a Heartthrob? brought to you by Breathe Better Mouthwash, the mouthwash choice of singles. Because your future could depend on it.”
“And cut,” Buzz called. “Let’s clean it up, guys.”
Richard marched over to where Brock was chatting with Chuck and rudely tapped the actor on the shoulder.
“What in the hell was that?” Richard asked when Brock turned around.
Brock broke out into an all-white-tooth grin. “Great show, huh? Hey, man, thanks again for this opportunity. It’s only been a few weeks since I got canned from The Many Days of Life, but I’m really starting to worry about my career, you know. Last week at the mall I was only stopped twice for an autograph. Twice,” he repeated in low whisper. “That’s pathetic. But this is going to put me right back on top. I’m sure of it. The Many Days of Life will have to take me back.”
