Fanfare

  FANFARE

  Renee Ahdieh

  Revolution Publishing Inc.

  Lewisburg, KY

  Fanfare

  Copyright © 2009 by Renee Ahdieh

  Copyright © Revolution Publishing Incorporated

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  Because of the dynamic nature of the internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  FANFARE

  Front cover artwork by Laura Kreitzer

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011929213

  ISBN: 9780983353706

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Victor for always believing in me. Mere words are not enough.

  To Ela for everything that is beautiful about Cris . . . and so much more.

  The way of love is not

  a subtle argument.

  The door there

  is devastation.

  Birds make great sky-circles

  of their freedom.

  How do they learn it?

  They fall, and falling,

  they’re given wings.

  ~ Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi

  ONE

  It’s anti-capitalistic to love someone. I mean really and truly love someone. My theory on why the divorce rate is so high stems solely from this concept. Think about it: We go through life programmed to believe that success comes when you strive to be the best at something, whatever it is and no matter the cost. What is good for the individual will ultimately be good for the whole as “success” trickles downward.

  This selfish need for domination is the driving force behind any triumph of the free market. The profit margin is king, and the little man or woman is a means to an end.

  In our work, and in our daily lives, it becomes nearly impossible to free one’s mind from this winner-takes-all mentality. Then you come home, and you’re supposed to switch off this self-destructive mindset and love your family, your friends, your pets . . . whatever allegedly makes you happy. It’s impossible.

  Real love is selfless. Instead of putting your own needs first, you put yourself at the bottom of the list. You are no longer in control. See? It’s anti-capitalistic to love someone. I wonder if this is why love fails so often. Two dueling personalities in one individual: one trying to be a success in the world and another trying to be a success in the heart. Selfishness and selflessness . . . the ultimate death match.

  As Hawthorne wrote: “No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

  And . . . (drum roll please) . . . you’re now divorced. Or in my case, dumped.

  These were the thoughts I mused to myself as I stood in the mall surrounded by a hoard of teenyboppers accompanied by their enablers. This was hell, and real love had gotten me into this mess.

  In an attempt to be a selfless vessel for anti-capitalistic love, I had (idiotically) volunteered to take my young cousins, Stephanie and Maria, to a celebrity autograph signing. Who the hell would have thought it would take this long? Five hours later, we were still waiting in a line the likes of which I hadn’t seen since opening night of the last Batman flick. That was a good movie. I should probably watch it again.

  The day before, when I told Hana I was taking Steph and Maria to this promotional thing at the mall, she spoke incessantly about the ridiculous movie starring this celebrity. Hana was such a know-it-all, and (of course) she had read everything about this actor and the background behind the film. She had even inhaled the two books these movies were based on in less than four days over our trip to Cairo this past winter. Given the haze my life had existed in for the last six months, it was no surprise I had no idea what she was talking about. All I knew was that Steph and Maria were obsessed with these books about a ghost who fell in love with a teenage girl. We were in line to meet the sad excuse for an actor portraying the aforementioned ghost. He had inadvertently become the fantasy of every screaming tween around me. Thomas something-or-other.

  “Cris!” I heard behind me.

  Dammit. Now was not the time to have to deal with this.

  “Hey Becky! Hey Mariam! What’s up?” I said with a falsely bright smile.

  “What are you doing here? Are you in line meeting that guy from that ghost movie? God, he’s so cute! I wonder what Ryan has to say about that!” Becky teased.

  The sounds of hell amplified. “Hah-hah. Actually, Ryan wouldn’t have a whole heck-of-a-lot to say about it. We . . . broke up.” I grimaced reflexively. It would take a while before my face stopped reacting to the truth of my words so involuntarily.

  “Really? I thought you two were engaged!” Mariam gasped.

  Thanks a heap. I totally needed to hear that again.

  “We were. Now we’re not.” And don’t ask anything else. I plastered the biggest smile I could muster on my face to prevent the inevitable chorus of “Oh, you poor thing” from escaping their lips. I had dealt with enough pity, just to the point where I could stand it. No más, por favor.

  I hated the uncomfortable looks on their faces almost more than I despised their pity. There was never a better conversation killer amongst women than having to admit that you were this close to the dream and it was taken away from you. Hey, at least I wasn’t jilted at the altar. Then Ryan would probably be a dead man instead of just a selfish jackass.

  “Well, you seem to be taking it pretty well. I mean, you look great!” Becky said nervously.

  “Seriously, Cris. I had no idea. Don’t worry though. I know you’re probably tired of hearing this, but you’ll have no problem finding someone. I mean, you’re terrific,” Mariam said with a kind smile.

  Since Becky was engaged and Mariam had been dating the same guy for the past two years, I knew that the safest course of action was to pretend to believe her lie so she wouldn’t feel guilty or smug about being happily in love.

  “Definitely. Thanks so much!” I said and clutched onto my smile until I was sure they believed it.

  I had to love the awesome power of my big-ass smile. Even when I summoned it from a place of extreme anguish, the flash of teeth that dominated my small face could convince anyone of its veracity.

  “Well, see you around!” Mariam said as they began to walk away.

  “Let me know if you want to get some coffee sometime.” Becky smiled kindly at me.

  “Sure! Take care!” Thank God; they were leaving.

  Steph and Maria gabbed in excitement to the girls next to us, so they weren’t paying attention to the growing flush of red on my face from the newest encounter with my ugly reality—a reality that tore a fresh, albeit small, hole in my battered excuse for a heart. I yanked my iPod out of my purse and pulled out my In Style magazine. I wouldn’t talk to anyone else while I stood in hell. The blaring sounds of the band Rage Against the Machine echoed in my ears and successfully d
rowned out the ancillary din of the mall. We inched forward.

  My phone buzzed in my purse. I cursed under my breath while I fished around for it in the Black Hole. Have you ever noticed how your phone can turn into a friggin’ bar of wet soap whenever you needed to find it in your bag? Finally yanking it out successfully, I had two missed calls and a new text message. Only one person I knew was that annoyingly persistent: Hana.

  Sure enough, the text message read:

  Hana (3:37 pm): did u see him yet? he’s cute in a scruffy english kinda way.

  I typed out a response while music blared in my ears. The frenzied screams grew louder in front of me. Two more steps forward.

  Me (3:39 pm): No. Can’t see anything. Left my glasses in the car.

  Hana (3:41 pm): u idiot! u look like crap when u squint.

  Me (3:41 pm): And I should care b/c . . . ?

  Hana (3:42 pm): b/c u should always care. sight’s important u moron.

  Me (3:43 pm): Whatever. Call u later.

  Hana (3:45 pm): yeah. naz will kill me when he sees the txt msg bill. ttyl.

  I highly doubted Naz would say anything more than “Can you stop texting Cris?” to Hana whenever he saw the bill, much less kill her.

  Nazir Fateri was the most patient man I had ever met. As luck would have it, he had married my best friend. Even with my shitty string of bad luck, it was impossible to feel unhappy around Hana and Naz. They were meant to be together, and it showed in every aspect of their lives.

  I had met Hana when we were freshman at the University of North Carolina almost seven years ago. Initially, I thought she was one of the most pretentious girls I had ever met. Hana had been trained by her Korean mother to be a hyper-achieving little machine. As we began to spend more time together, I saw past her carefully constructed façade and found a girl with a wicked sense of humor and one of the biggest hearts I had ever encountered. Hana was also fiercely loyal. If people tried to mess with anyone she loved, she would chase them down like a rabid dog until they bled, cried, or did both . . . preferably both.

  I remembered the morning after that terrible night—the night my heart ceased to be anything more than a mechanism for pumping blood. I hadn’t slept at all, and my voice was cracked and dry. There were no tears left to shed. I picked up the phone to call her at an absurdly early hour.

  “Hana?” I cleared my throat.

  “Cris?” she whispered hoarsely, still half asleep. “What’s wrong?”

  After our phone conversation, she called Gita, and both of them drove three hours to help me move my things out of Ryan’s house; a house he had bought for us to live in together; a house I had decorated with the carefree heart of a person unable to fathom anything but champagne and sunshine in her immediate future. Love had made me into a disgusting, cautionary tale.

  Life sucks, and then you die. If my father could see me now, he would chuckle. I laughed blackly to myself.

  I focused back on my magazine and turned the music up even louder. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Steph and Maria. They were so excited as they clutched onto copies of their books, posters, and some random pictures of this guy. I couldn’t understand for the life of me what was so wonderful about meeting some actor who didn’t care one bit about them. He had probably met thousands of little girls just like Steph and Maria, and they all most likely annoyed the crap out of him. In my mind, I pictured a self-absorbed, perfectly coiffed douchebag with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas and an entourage Diddy (or whatever) would be proud of. I couldn’t really think of anyone I would wait hours in line to see for just a few impersonal moments. Okay, so I lied. I’d probably wait in line to see Brad Pitt. Honestly, I had never even heard of this actor dude until yesterday.

  Steph began to jump up and down, so I glanced up. We were almost to the table. I tried not to squint while I attempted to see this guy through the throng of squealing tweens as they pressed and shoved to get a better position. If anyone pushed me, I’d bring out the Puerto Rican inside with a vengeance. I may be short, but I sure knew how to yell and throw a good punch; it came with my heritage.

  One girl leaned over the table and started to scream as he reached over to hug her. There go his eardrums for the day. I had a glimpse of a shaggy mop of hair that appeared like it desperately needed to be washed. Man, maybe I should have brought my glasses. Squinting did make my small eyes look unusually beady. Damn Hana for being right again.

  “Cristina, can you do me a favor?” Steph asked quietly. She was barely able to contain her anticipation as we stepped ever closer to Junior High Heaven.

  “What’s up?” I said with a smile.

  “Can you ask Thomas to hug me too? I don’t want to ask him. It’s too embarrassing.”

  No, no, no! Why did I choose this particular occasion to be anti-capitalistic? “Stephie, it’s okay! He won’t mind. He just hugged that other girl. Have some balls! Ask him yourself!”

  “No, I can’t! Please?” begged Stephanie. She gave me an unforgivably pleading expression.

  “Me too, me too!” Maria whined.

  I gritted my teeth in extreme irritation. I desperately wanted to be selfish and refuse to help my little cousins. After all, I had already volunteered to spend my Sunday in a mall waiting in line with them to meet a silly actor from an even sillier movie. Wasn’t that enough?

  I closed my eyes and sighed. My love for my family and for my friends was all I had left.

  “Fine!” I hissed through my teeth. The jumping up and down like little rabbits began anew with even more vigor.

  Finally, we were next in line. My cousins were seriously unable to contain themselves. Now that we stood less than five feet away from him, I took a closer look. He was pale with stubble shading his face, and his hair did, in fact, look like he had forgotten to wash it for the past . . . week? It was long and hung in a pile of disarray on his head. His eyes were light grey with a hint of green, framed by unkempt eyebrows and a well-defined jaw. Altogether attractive, but I wasn’t entirely sure what all the fuss was about.

  “Thomas! We love you!” gushed Steph disgustingly.

  “You’re so cute!” chanted little Maria.

  “Thank you so much,” he said good-naturedly.

  If anything, he seemed extremely uncomfortable and a bit tired. I was surprised to discover he was not the pretty boy of my earlier musings. He looked like a guy who had just woken up a few minutes ago and was forced into a designer suit, when all he really wanted was a cup of coffee, the newspaper, and a moment of silence. Instead, he was thrown into a room full of screaming, pre-pubescent girls, and ordered to “dance monkey, dance!” or else. Visions of the Roman Coliseum in its heyday came to mind, and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing softly as I contemplated a den of hungry lions wearing Hannah Montana T-shirts.

  He patiently signed all of the ridiculous paraphernalia my cousins handed to him and glanced up when he heard my laughter.

  “Are you listening to something funny?” he asked quietly with a melodic British accent.

  “No,” I said calmly.

  “What are you listening to?” He smiled crookedly at me. I honestly felt bad for him. Poor guy needed a nice shot of whiskey and some earplugs. Hell, so did I.

  “Rage Against the Machine,” I responded.

  “Well! That’s decidedly unfunny and a bit surprising,” he said as he studied me with a look of quizzical amusement.

  Irritation flared at his snap assessment. Years of being judged solely based on my ethnicity did not work in his favor. I didn’t struggle to make people expect more from me all my life to be stereotyped by a studio puppet.

  “Yeah, I guess it would make more sense to you if I said I was listening to Daddy Yankee.” Man, I sounded like a bitter shrew.

  His eyes widened, and he put his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. “I didn’t mean anything by it! I was just surprised, that’s all! I don’t have many occasions where I’m surprised whilst on these junkets. I’m sorry.�
�� There was no mistaking his honesty.

  Damn. I felt like a huge bitch. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve had an interesting day.” I tried to smile without showing my embarrassment, and he graciously smiled back.

  “When are you starting your next movie?” Maria asked in an attempt to regain his attention. I could tell that both Maria and Stephanie were irritated that Thomas was talking to me instead of them.

  “I’m not sure yet,” he said warmly. “But I really hope you go to see it.”

  “We will!” they replied in unison.

  Both of my cousins looked up at me with expressions of expectation. Crap, now that they were mad about the distraction, I definitely couldn’t get away with conveniently “forgetting” their earlier request.

  “Um, Thomas?” I asked, wishing the floor would just swallow me and take me on an express train to the farthest reaches of hell.

  “Tom,” he said automatically.

  “Yeah, uh, Tom. Would you mind giving my cousins a hug?” I was going to give it to them in the car for making me do this.

  “Sure.” He paused expectantly with raised eyebrows. I guess he wanted to know my name.

  “Cris,” I replied ruefully.

  I placed my iPod down on the table so I could collect their newly autographed treasures and knelt to put all of it back in their backpacks. They squealed and blushed. He actually kissed each of them on their cheeks. The screams of the girls behind us nearly deafened me.

  I looked up and smiled earnestly at Tom. He was definitely not a douchebag.

  “Thanks,” I said softly.

  “Anytime,” he replied.

  My face was beginning to burn again with unexpected embarrassment. I grabbed my cousins and made a beeline for the nearest exit.

  “Did you see that, Cris? Did you? He kissed me!” Steph was beginning to freak out.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fabulous,” I said as I tried to control my frustration. My heart beat unusually fast, so I took a deep breath to calm my nerves.

  We were just about to make it outside of the mall when Maria chirped, “Cris? I’m hungry. Can we get something to eat?”

  I inhaled again slowly and closed my eyes. I shouldn’t be this irritated with my poor little cousins. It wasn’t fair. Smiling at them as patiently as I could, I said, “Sure! What do you want to eat?”