The Christmas Orphans Club(29)
Clementine reaches out to put her hand on his arm to console him, but she’s too far away and her hand swats at air before coming to rest on the white tablecloth in the vast space between them.
Over her shoulder, I notice another framed photo of Theo, sandwiched between Phillip Benson and an older woman with frosted blond Farrah Fawcett hair and a face frozen into a startled expression with injectables.
“Wow, you must be a major fan of Phillip Benson,” I remark for lack of anything better to say. “If you start quoting from his book, I may have to excuse myself.”
Tyler, the other assistant on the morning show, is constantly quoting business catchphrases from Benson’s book. “Most ‘necessary evils’ are far more evil than necessary,” he likes to remind us whenever he wants to weasel out of grunt work. It would be laughably nerdy, except our boss loves Benson, too.
“Oh, trust me, I’d be the last person you’d catch quoting from his book,” Theo assures me. “The ego of that man writing a self-help book with all his issues is appalling. I’m shocked people aren’t demanding refunds.”
“Exactly!” Then I remember the other photo of him in the hallway. “Wait, I thought you were a fan?”
Theo gives a harsh laugh. “Hardly.”
“But the other photo in the hallway?” I look around the table to see if everyone is as confused as I am.
“Phillip’s his father, darling,” Clementine says. “Didn’t you know?”
I certainly did not know, and by the look on Finn’s face—his eyebrows basically in his hairline—he didn’t know either. I’m peeved we already burned our group bathroom trip, because there’s suddenly a lot more to discuss.
“Who would be your dream celebrity threesome?” Priya asks out of nowhere. I’m grateful for the distraction.
Clementine turns her whole body to face Priya and claps her hands together. “Ooh, this is fun! That I’ve had? Or I want to have?”
“Um, either?” Priya tells her.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s actually the same. Chris Evans and Rita Ora. You think he’d be the star, but she knows her way around a clitoris.”
Finn’s jaw drops. Literally drops. I imagine my face must be doing something similar. We’re at dinner with the son of a billionaire and someone who’s fucked Captain America. Meanwhile, here we are: an assistant, a struggling actor, and an internet columnist. I can only imagine how much they’re regretting their choice of dinner guests.
“What about you?” Clementine asks Theo.
“Celebrities are too high-maintenance for me.” He looks over at Clementine and adds, “Sorry, darling.”
She shrugs, unbothered by his assessment, before turning all her attention to Priya. “Same question back to you.”
“Maybe Dominic Broughan—”
“No,” Clementine interrupts, “he’s an awful kisser. Too much tongue. You know the type.” She makes a sour lemon face and darts her tongue in and out like a lizard. The table collapses into giggles, which just eggs her on. She starts groping the air in front of her. “Proper handsy, too,” she adds, “and he’s pocket-sized. Only came up to my collarbone.”
* * *
? ? ?
?After dinner, Theo switches the record, and a melancholy Irish ballad pours from the speakers. “The Pogues, really?” Clementine asks from where she’s sprawled on her back on the living room carpet. The pen holding her topknot in place was lost some time during dinner and her silvery blond hair is fanned around her like a lion’s mane.
“?‘Fairytale of New York’ is Britain’s favorite Christmas song,” he says defensively.
“Let’s play a game,” she says as the song’s tempo picks up. “Theo, do you have any cards? We could play strip poker.”
We’re all a bit drunk. After the initial tension receded, Clementine managed to win us over. Me with her music taste, Finn with her encyclopedic knowledge of musicals (turns out I wasn’t wrong about the former theater nerd assessment), and Priya with tidbits of celebrity gossip. It’s not hard to see why she’s famous. There’s something magnetic about her. Something sparkly and indescribable.
She’s also a terrible influence. She appointed herself in charge of refilling our glasses with more of Theo’s never-ending supply of red wine and topped us up with liberal pours whenever our glasses dipped below half full. “I’m an optimist, darling,” she said as she refilled mine almost to the brim. “I like full glasses.”
I have no idea how much I drank, but my wineglass never emptied over the course of our two-hour dinner.
“No cards, I’m afraid,” Theo says.
“I have a game we can play,” Priya offers. “Do you have a bedsheet?”
“Yes?” Theo answers. He looks confused but leaves in search of the sheet Priya requested.
Clementine hauls herself up to sitting with a giddy expression on her face. “Tell me, tell me. What game are we playing?”
“Sheet game,” Priya says.
“Sheet game?” With Clementine’s accent it comes out sounding more like “shit game.” I giggle. I’m drunker than I realized.
“Tell us how it works,” Finn says and moves himself from his chair down to the floor with Clementine.