My Cousin Skinny by E.J. Copperman

Author:E.J. Copperman [Copperman, E.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2023-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

‘This is it,’ Patrick said.

I was standing in the front room of Patrick’s soon-to-be-former house, the one he’d move out of when I moved out of the Burbank apartment as soon as our new place, which I’d bought from Riley Schoenberg (technically), now living with her father in Visalia, was ready. And I could hear Patrick’s voice echo through the halls. The place was almost devoid of furniture.

Patrick had packed up much of his clothing, all of his personal belongings and a few of his movie mementos – the ones he couldn’t bear to part with for an extended period of time – and shipped them off to the apartment The Scottish Play company had rented for him on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for the duration of the play’s run. The car that would take him to the airport was not yet idling in front of his entrance door, but it was reportedly on its way. Patrick was flying to New York to prepare, rehearse and open the play, a process that would take a minimum of three months.

This was, in fact, it. I wouldn’t be seeing him for three weeks until I arrived at the apartment to stay with Patrick while the trial was going on, and then to leave within a couple of weeks and stay in the Burbank apartment without Angie until the opening night of The Scottish Play. It was, I think it’s obvious, the longest separation we’d had since we started dating and I was doing my best to be supportive while wanting to grab on to his pants leg and beg him not to leave.

‘I guess so,’ I said. ‘Will Angie meet you at the airport?’ She’d left two days earlier to get all the details properly prepared, like having all of Patrick’s belongings placed correctly in the apartment so he’d walk in and believe everything had magically appeared there as though Captain Kirk’s transporter had simply sent them there digitally.

‘Yes. She’s already hard at work. But I’m more concerned about you. Is your cousin’s trial ready yet?’ Patrick doesn’t really get the law jargon and I don’t speak showbusiness, so we’re even.

‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘I’m not thinking about that right now.’ What was that moist feeling on my left cheek? It wasn’t that humid today. Especially in an air-conditioned house.

He pulled me toward him gently and kissed me and that was exactly what I wanted but didn’t want because it kept reminding me he was leaving. I’d never been this way about a boyfriend before (largely because I usually left them) but this was Patrick, and Patrick was special.

When we separated, I must have sniffled a bit, but Patrick’s eyes weren’t exactly bone dry either. ‘We’re going to get through this, love,’ he said softly.

‘I know. But that doesn’t make it easier.’

The damned car pulled up in front of the house as if some director Patrick had worked with had cued it from off-camera. ‘There it is,’ I said.

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