Funny how you can fit a whole 21 years of existence into a single suitcase.
I sigh grimly.
"What now?" Leyla grunts. My sister knows me too well.
"What if Enrique sees me and thinks I over-packed like a high-maintenance diva because the bag has wheels that squeak like it's haunted?" I lie, cause I can't tell her that I'm worried about the deal I've made. No one knows about the deal. Just him and me.
Leyla just blinks. Her eyes are enhanced by her glasses. "You are a high-maintenance diva."
Shit.
Now I am sweating through my cute, cream jacket, while trying to appear like a composed young woman ... who has it all together ... and definitely isn't selling her dignity to a hot stranger for money.
Okay. He isn't a stranger. Technically.
He knows my brother. We've Zoomed ... once. Emailed a lot. WhatsApped. Chatted most days.
And he is now my boyfriend.
Well, for all public appearances, social interactions, and everyone's information, at least.
For the umpteenth time since we boarded the plane, my morning coffee pushes up my throat. I swallow the searing sensation and fake a smile at the nine-year-old ball of sarcastic sunshine with the Hello Kitty suitcase and green backpack.
I receive a goofy, toothless one in return from the pale face under the bright pink bandanna, sprouting white daisies.
The colorful garment, color-coordinated to fit the pink frame of her glasses, conceals her bald head, her hair loss a side-effect of the chemo treatments she started.
But typical Leyla ... she simply takes it in her stride.
Me ... I'm the mess.
It feels like I've been hit in the gut a few too many times. I don't like this chaos. Not one bit.
I've Googled Enrique Blackburn for 18 hours straight ... and I've realized that he's not my type. Quite the opposite, in fact. I don't like playboys. I like safe men. Predictable ones.
I sigh unintentionally. That should be a good thing.
And I've been fervently praying for a miracle ... and this is it. Six feet of emotional unavailability and red flags, all wrapped up in a neat little bow.
And along with that perfect package comes everything I can't provide. From the best medical treatment to no more worries about child services knocking on my shabby apartment door with the thin walls.
What more can I ask for?
Maybe a REAL relationship, a future, chasing my own dreams ... or at the very least knowing the person I'm moving in with is not secretly a serial killer ...
I shake my head.
I must not be greedy. This is more important than anything else. And all I have to do is act a little ... stand about and appear in love ... how hard can it be?
So why do I feel like a pig stuck in a fence? Getting squashed from all sides? Backside vulnerable?
I sigh deeply, but quietly. Not to upset Leyla.
I have an idea of what's pressing down on me ― the rashness. The uncertainty. I'm not an impulsive person. I don't do spontaneous. I like to calculate every step.
To narrow it down, I am a rational, calculated, spreadsheet-making, three-backup-options kind of woman.
And I need to know what I'm stepping into. And right now I don't know shit. And I have no backup.
"This is a mistake," I start to hyperventilate. "I don't know anything. I don't know this city, I don't know him, or his exes, or his friends, or what he likes, or what he dislikes ... I know nothing." It feels as if I'm walking blindly into the darkness.
Leyla pats my back like I am the one in chemo. "You've officially lost it."
"And look," she waves her hand. I look around. Everyone is dressed like they're either in Vogue or lost in a Pinterest mood board. "San Francisco is not that bad."
It smells like salt, tech startups, and disappointment. But also new beginnings and fake love.
"And I'm sure his exes are awful, his friends wonderful, and at least Enrique is hot," she snips, pushing her glasses up her nose.
Perfect jaw. Perfect teeth. Probably uses shampoo that costs more than my monthly rent. And I'm guessing he smells like sandalwood and mystery.
But I sense some serious commitment-phobe vibes going on. Hence, the reason he needs a contract for a fictitious relationship. And for that reason, I'm getting a chance later today to sign that contract agreeing to hold hands in public with someone whose Instagram followers outnumber the population of Botswana.
As for his exes ... he dated someone from Italy who has a ferret. And a girl from Japan with three boobs. Four girls claim they're his fiancées, he has three wives, two are in labor right now with his child, and one kid's at four years and counting.
None of it true.
Crazy. It's worse than a soap opera with a badly written plot. But I'm not here for him, or love. As bad as it may sound ... I'm here for the money.
And I admit I'm excited. But I'm nervous. Usually (in my experience at least), if something this good happens, something bad follows to counteract it ― the scales of life.
And I'm not sure I can handle another bad happening. I've had my fair share.
I lean my head against the cold, hard column, gazing out at the sea of people that flows through San Francisco International Airport, like rivers, not even stopping for obstacles, but swirling around them. The crowd moves as if unseen hands are dragging them from the check-in desks, to the cafés, and through the gates.
Each one heading for a destination of their own, following their own story.
How will my story end, I wonder? Will I get out of this thing better or worse?
That coffee shoots up again, and I place my hand on my throat. I slurp in some air and move my hand to my chest, hoping it may help me breathe easier.
"Aria." Leyla squints. "You're breathing weird again. That's your overthinking wheeze."
I gasp. "I don't wheeze!"
"Only when you're catastrophizing." Her voice is sullen, something I got used to since she got sick.
She's tired. She fixes her glasses. I need to get a grip. This is not about me. It's about her.
"How long must we wait?" The little voice drifts away in the cacophony of sounds and the loud interruption of an announcement over the intercom system.
'Good afternoon, passengers. This is the pre-boarding announcement for flight 89B to Chicago. Please have your boarding pass and identification documents ready. Regular boarding will begin in approximately ten minutes. Thank you.'
I pray for our suitcase to materialize on the conveyor so we can get the hell out of here. I'm starting to feel slightly claustrophobic. The imminent encounter with my fake boyfriend is suffocating me bit by bit with every sluggish second.
Two young guys swagger past like they own the world, or at least the airport, backpacks casually thrown over their broad shoulders. One - a hot black dude with Oakleys perched on his forehead like a confused hawk - eyes me up and down with what he clearly thinks is suave coolness.
It's not. It's more the facial expression of a person trying to solve algebra while sneezing.
"Bro, bro, check out the girl," he mutters too loudly. "That's a whole meal."
His 'bro' turns on his heels. Walking backwards, he brazenly checks me out with an egocentric, stylish grin on his tanned mug. He's handsome, alright, and he knows it.
Leyla waves innocently at him, and he winks, his expression playfully flirtatious.
I smile, not at him, but foreseeing the unavoidable jam about to happen, due to him not looking where he's going.
"WATCH -" Leyla shouts, lifting her arm to point out the disaster. He turns, but it's too late.
Inevitably, he bumps into a woman who's easily just as wide as she is tall. She's carrying a packed handbag and a caramel frappuccino the size of a toddler. He bounces from her body like a tennis ball from a mattress and lands awkwardly on the floor - legs in the air, dignity somewhere in Terminal B.
"... out," my sister finishes with laughter in her voice.
"Boys are soooo stupid," she sneers and shakes her head. The woman doesn't budge.
The look on his face is surreal, and I can't help the titter leaking through my nose. His friend is not as civil, and his laughter reverberates through the building. Leyla is not very courteous either, giggling her little fragile ass off.
The woman stops arguing with her boyfriend and glares down at the frat boy like a mountain goddess summoned to smite him. I'm sure he dislocated his pride.
The flustered young man jumps up, dusts off his trousers, and then playfully punches his friend on the shoulder, trying to hide the slight dent in his overbearing ego.
"Punk!" He gets hammered with the square lady's handbag, and shielding his head with his arms, the duo makes a gawky attempt to escape. They get sucked into the meandering crowd of chaotic travelers, chunky lady in hot pursuit, leaving me straight in the viewpoint of her scanty boyfriend.
His face morphs from mild panic to that open-mouthed, cartoon-wolf-in-love look - as if he's gonna swallow me whole, spit me out to chew me up again.
Great. As if my raw nerves aren't raw enough.
The guy looks like your typical nerd – thick glasses, a simple crew sweater over a button-up shirt. To make the look even more official, his mouse-brown hair is combed back in a sleek, wet-look style that went out in the sixties.
Not exactly the double-take hunky bloke girls would give a second glance at.
Not to be rude, just stating a fact.
He winks. WINKS.
Leyla whispers, "You just got winked at by a man in Crocs. I got winked at by a pretty boy."
"Don't talk about it."
"Are you gonna put that in your journal?" she smirks, chuffed with herself.
"Leyla, I swear."
I give the man a faint, awkward smile, and suddenly it's as if the nerd gets full X-ray vision, and judging by the focus point of his gaze, I'm sure he's trying to count my pubic hair. His hands are stuck deep in his pockets, cupping his junk.
"Dipshit," I mouth to myself just as his girlfriend storms back, panting for breath from her chase.
"EXCUSE ME?" She focuses her 400-pound attention directly on me.
I blink. "Uh -"
"Are you FLIRTING with my MAN?" Her flabby cheeks are red, probably from not taking enough breaths between her caustic remarks. She moves closer, now standing an arm's length away from me.
Leyla starts laughing. At this very moment, a flood of thoughts races through my mind - is she serious? What man? Male, maybe ... pervert, definitely ... but not man.
I flail. I don't want her to hit me with her bag. "No! No, no, no. No flirting. Zero flirt. I'm not even - he was -" I look from her to her boyfriend, trying to find the correct, most polite answer.
The little guy looks as if he's undressing me from behind his bifocals. Is he licking his lips?
"ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY MAN?" it comes again, more angry this time. But my mind is still lingering on why she acts the way she does. Yes, she's obese. But rudeness is not a side effect of obesity. Must be childhood trauma.
Claire, the chef at the restaurant where I worked, weighed an astounding 381 pounds, and she was the friendliest, most well-cared lady I know. Attractive and loved by many men. She scored more dates than anyone. Nothing at all like the potbelly in front of me.
I inhale one ... two ... three times.
I swear, fate put this couple in my way to test my anger management skills, cause right now I feel like ripping his scrawny little head off and stuffing it into his girlfriend's ginormous ass.
However, I can't afford to make a scene and get into trouble on my first day on the 'job'. If I have any common sense left, I must close my mouth, turn my back on them, and ignore the situation.
But I don't.
Feeling uncomfortable under his beady eyes, I try to hide Leyla behind me and turn my gaze back to his girlfriend. Screw that, I'm saying something!
"Eh ... technically ... BUT girl, I really don't want your boyfriend ... NO ONE wants your boyfriend ... that's why he's with you." I try to be as polite as possible while wiping my hands against my pants, metaphorically wiping away the dirty feeling that fell over me.
The streaming flow stops, and a crowd starts to form around us.
Nevertheless, I can't worry about that now, cause the woman gasps in a whistling breath. Her eyes bulge dangerously close to popping out. Her face is flushing dark red ... leaning to purple, and her hands ball into fists along her side.
She doesn't move, except for her jaw, which pushes back and forward as if she's grinding her teeth. Maybe I wasn't polite enough. Or she has serious mental issues.
That's a real option.
I swear she's going to pop an artery. So, to avoid becoming a murderer, I tap her softly on her nose with my index finger to calm her down.
"Lady, take a deep breath, you're starting to look like a purple cucumber," I mention carefully, but it appears this lady doesn't appreciate caring behavior. No, instead, she seems even more pissed off.
"You mean an eggplant, Aria," my sister corrects me calmly, and now the boxy lady looks to be a real candidate for a seizure. She comes off blue, like the genie from Aladdin.
Leyla grabs the woman by her arms and shakes her, "Snap out of it, Aunty. Statistically, a blue face is a sign of rising blood pressure." Her specs hop up and down on her nose. "And combined with obesity, you could have a heart attack!" Aw, my sister is such a caring person. And so clever.
The shaking seems to work, cause the woman starts breathing again. Enough for her to shout at me and make even more people notice us. Many are filming us on their phones.
My gut feels like liquid cement. This can't be good.
The woman steps closer, jabbing her finger in the air like she is about to summon a demon. "I knew it. As soon as I saw your smug little face. Thinking you're all cute and mysterious with your messy bun and don't-talk-to-me airport fashion."
Yep, she's a bitch, and now back to looking like a violet veggie. To think I worried about her for a moment. Blood rushes to my brain, and my cheeks flare up.
"Oh, grow up, lady, and get a life!" I throw my hair back over my shoulder, not in the nursing mood anymore. What do I care if her ugly heart stops? And that degenerated, sicko of a boyfriend doesn't even try to intervene - instead, he sticks out his tongue as if he wants to lick me, making me feel rather nauseated. I pull my cream suit-type jacket close to cover up, suddenly regretting wearing a sexy green crop top and fitted jeans.
"Maybe some personality, too, while you're at it." I'm done being nice.
"Do you think you're the first girl who tries to steal him away from me?"
Unsure if that's a trick question or not, I leave it unanswered. And I still can't believe this lady is seriously fighting with me over that horny piece of shit. In a fully packed airport terminal, to boot.
We've already attracted more than enough attention. Shit. What if this scandal reaches the news? Clause four - no public humiliation. I can already see my fake love life going up in flames before it even starts.
My sole advantage is that, fortunately, no one is aware that I am allegedly Enrique Blackburn's girlfriend at this time.
"Look at my lips ― I DON'T WANT YOUR MAN," I pull out the words, hoping that she would get it through her thick head, pun intended.
"Is that so?" Nope, the message didn't seem to pass to her peanut-sized brain. I need to exit the conversation, so I open my mouth to tell her I'm done.
But Leyla jumps between us like a tiny courtroom lawyer. "Ma'am," she says, raising a hand with the solemnity of a judge, "My sister has her own boyfriend. He's famous and his name is Enrique Blackburn."
Silence.
Someone gasps behind us.
Another person whispers, "The actor? That Enrique?"
A third person, holding a dog in a sling, audibly says, "No freaking way."
The fat woman blinks, "Wait - what? Your boyfriend is ENRIQUE ... BLACKBURN!" She shouts out the name, and the sound echoes through the airport to boomerang back and slap me on the chest. For a moment, I can't breathe. And I think I'm gonna faint. Or die.
Fuckit, I'm fired. She pulls a constipated face. "BULLSHIT!"
Yeah, not. Although at this very moment I really, really, really wish it was.
And it's also at this exact moment that I realize my sister's mistake.
Everybody in a 100-meter radius seems to freeze in place and focus their eyes on me. I feel like the last peanut in the circus, surrounded by a herd of hungry elephants.
Breathe, I think to myself. Just breathe. The freak steps forward as if he's getting ready to grope me, and I shield my sister behind me again.
Then luck throws me a little bone, and my apple green suitcase comes traveling around the corner, rocking like a boat on the conveyor. I let out the breath I didn't even know I was holding, and lean unladylike over the carousel, my thick-soled converses barely touching the ground, as I reach for our luggage. I feel uncomfortable, infiltrated, violated, as if the whole world is eating up my behind. Or worse ... taking pictures of it.
I feel sick, and nearly throw out my back just to get the bloody suitcase on the ground.
For a beat, it's like the entire terminal has been struck by some spell - everyone suspended mid-breath, mid-step, mid-eye-roll. The air itself feels frozen, thick with judgment. Only Leyla and I seem to move, and even she's dragging her feet like she's in slow motion, her little huffs the only sound breaking the eerie stillness.
The stupid green case - with a 'NOT YOUR BAG, KAREN' sticker slapped across the front - lurches forward with me, wheels squeaking like a chorus of rubber ducks being strangled, broadcasting my humiliation with every step.
I swallow down the burning sensation in my throat. Throwing up right here would top off the already existing humiliation.
"Dignity people, just get some dignity," I mumble under my breath, though the words taste bitter. Clearly, the shrieking woman I've finally left behind has never met the concept. Her personal dictionary must've tossed out essentials like judgment, grace, tact, and maybe even shame. In their place, she's written bold chapters on loudness, volume, and theatrics.
As Leyla and I march forward, the spell breaks. People swivel in our direction like sunflowers turning toward light, except their faces are sharp, not soft - hungry for drama, desperate to soak up every ounce of humiliation bleeding off me. I can feel their stares pricking the back of my neck, burning hotter than the artificial airport heat.
The whispers begin. Low, muffled, but sharp enough to cut. A hiss of gossip here. A click of a tongue there. It's like being in the center of a hive, buzzing with judgment. Every squeak of my bag wheels seems to punctuate the murmurs, dragging my shame louder, longer, harder into the world.
I keep walking. Head high. Shoulders back. Pretending I'm not seconds away from combusting.
A woman with a baby tries to shove it toward me like it is some kind of celebrity offering. Another pokes my boob as if expecting it to pop. A hand touches my hair. Another wave awkwardly. Some glitter-eyed teen hands Leyla a chicken nugget.
There are so many phones in the air that it looks like a Taylor Swift concert. Well, Enrique wanted us to go public as soon as I arrived ... I'm sure we can tick that off the list now.
Gripping my green suitcase like it contains the nuclear codes, I lower my head and try to concentrate on each step. Eyes on the brown floor tiles, I try to walk as dignified but quickly as possible to the exit, forcing Leyla to keep up with me. Her tiny Hello Kitty bag hops along like a bunny on a mission.
It's her fault this is happening in the first place, so she'd better move those little legs.
"Is it true?" "How long have you been together?" "What's your name?" "Are you pregnant?"
Yells vibrate from the crowd, but I just keep my head down, as if the floor is the most interesting thing I've seen for a very long time. The brown tiles have a wooden effect, and then I start feeling sorry for the poor person whose job it is to keep all this clean.
"What's your skincare routine?" "Do you think you're going to change him?" "Where do you come from?" "Is the girl your kid?" "What's wrong with her?"
People start invading our space, and some even follow us, openly taking photos and asking questions that I don't even know the answers to. But should.
"Is he big?" "Does he prefer showers or baths?" "What's his favorite color?" "What size socks does he wear?" "Is he really allergic to latex?"
It's discerning to think that Enrique Blackburn's unknown girlfriend can cause such disorder in a busy airport.
But just before I'm thrown into some sort of panic attack, I notice my brother's towering physique protruding near the exit. Enrique decided it would be best if he came to fetch us, not him. A decision I now very much understand.
So I take a deep breath to re-oxygenate my lungs - I physically stopped breathing when Leyla namedropped my fake boyfriend - and increase my steps.
Tears flood my eyes, but I refuse to cry ... I just won't. I disallow a photo of me with droopy mascara looking like a rabid raccoon, centered on all the front page news outlets tomorrow.
And I'm pretty sure centered I will be.
"Hey, Aria," Leyla halts like her brakes got stuck. I look down. "What if this choice you made turns out to be a bad one? What if he hurts us? Or he locks us in a basement with no windows?"
It wasn't my choice exactly. But that's not the point.
"God help him then." I try to sound brave.
"Still. We should have a backup plan." She's right. But right now I don't have any in mind.
"Oh, we do," I grin. "Run. Fast." A slow smile spreads on her face, and she fist-bumps me.
I calm down. We're gonna be okay.
/0/46420/coverbig.jpg?v=27a79c1f29d5ba6db95ff48422c0df0c)
The Actor's Contract 
/0/84280/coverbig.jpg?v=7ab3d4e325b62580d5d5e99edbc32c81)
/0/91917/coverbig.jpg?v=8810f373605dacb25a4c8b5ae1141c82)
/0/91991/coverbig.jpg?v=e43057f41f9d536ffca04571bb0cb204)
/0/88330/coverbig.jpg?v=b480a5f3b58d6094f6494d7328f2bb8e)
/0/74501/coverbig.jpg?v=6919276a7855d49ee2b7a8b3e0282bec)