"You thought I was someone else?" I ask. "Baby, that hurts."
"I know." Jamie reaches into a Gucci leather clutch envelope and pulls out a small gift-wrapped box. "So I thought this might ease your pain.
I reach out and hesitantly take the box. "What is it?"
"Cigars. Montecristos," she says, standing up, stretching. "I mean, I'm assuming you're still as trendy as you used to be." She takes a drag off the cigarette, makes a face, stubs it out in an ashtray. "I really don't think times have changed that much." She starts moving around the suite, not impressed but not unimpressed, just bizarrely neutral, fingering the curtains, studying various knickknacks of mine taking up space on a desk.
The phone suddenly rings. When I pick it up no one's there. I slowly place the phone back down.
"That keeps happening," I mutter.
Jamie continues to move around the room, runs her hands beneath desktops, inspects a lamp, then another, opens an armoire, gazes at the space behind the TV-Beck on a donkey, a Spice Girl swinging a lasso-then she lifts a remote control and seems on the verge of taking it apart when I interrupt.
"Baby, why don't you sit down?" I ask.
"I've been lounging around all day." She stretches again, resumes a more casual pose. "I can't stay still."
"Um, baby?" I begin awkwardly. "How did you find me?"
"Hey-" She looks back at me. "How did you find me?"
Pause. "You go first."
"I had my assistant call all the places I thought you'd be staying at." She sighs, continues. "The Connaught, the Stafford, Claridge's, the Dorchester, the Berkeley, the Halcyon, then-boom-the Four Seasons.
A long pause, during which I just stare at her, dumbfounded.
"What?" she asks. "What is it?"
"How about the f**king Hempel? Why didn't you check the f**king Hempel? Jesus, baby."
A smile creeps up but she stops it when she realizes something and this causes her to groan, flopping back into the swivel chair.
"Don't make me put my sunglasses back on, Victor," she warns.
The phone rings again. I sigh, reach over to the nightstand, pick the phone up, listen. Silence, a series of beeps unevenly spaced, two clicks, a patch of far-off static, another beep, then silence. I look back at Jamie in the swivel chair, playing thoughtfully with her sunglasses, legs dangling over an armrest, before I slowly place the phone back down.
"I asked for Victor Johnson's room but then I remembered-or read somewhere-that you changed your name. To Victor Ward." She pauses, smiles playfully. "Why?"
"Various committees assumed it was a smart PR move to jump-start my career." I shrug. "It made me semi-famous."
"A misconception made you semi-famous," she corrects.
"I've traveled quite well on that misconception."
"It was a suit that got you the gig."
"It was also an inordinate amount of sheer cool."
"Why do I have the feeling your father made you change the name?" She smiles playfully again. "Huh? Did Daddy make a request?"
"I don't talk about my father-"
"Oh god, whatever." She stands up again, then flops down in the chair again, sighs a number of times. "Listen, I'm just here to tell you I'm sorry about freaking out and, y'know, have a good time in London and all that and, um, I'll see you in another eight years."
"So are you gonna freak out again?" I ask, playing it cool, moving across the bed so that I'm closer to her.
"I'm feeling, um, reformed."
"Oh, that's good."
Pause. "That depends on your definition of good," she says.
"What's the story, baby?" I sigh mock-wearily. "What are you doing? Where are you going?"
"Today was the last day of the shoot," she says. "We finished the interiors last week in Pinewood." Pause. "So I'm basically free, free, free."
"Well, then I'm glad I caught you."
"Caught me?" she asks, stiffening, vaguely annoyed. "Why are you glad you caught me, Victor?"
Suddenly her cell phone rings. She pulls it out of a Lulu Guinness handbag I hadn't noticed before and answers it. While staring directly at me, she says, "Yes?... It's fine... Right... No, I'm at the Four Seasons... Is that the buzzword for the day?... Let's see a show of hands... Yes... Sounds delicious... Right... Later." She clicks off, stares blankly at me.
