Forty
Josie hated to fly anywhere, especially watching a few episodes of the television show “Lost” a few times with Claire who was obsessed with it. Knowing that she would be on a plane for longer than normal as she and Peter trekked to Los Angeles the next afternoon, she was having much difficulty sleeping. She thought about going up to the restaurant on the roof of the Peninsula because she knew Viggo always hung out up there at night to try to see the stars through the smog of the city, but just seeing Josh reminded her how much she missed Toby and she felt that she would somehow be betraying him if she went to sit with Viggo. After accepting that there was nothing to watch on television and she was too distracted to get into a movie, she went into the library in the hopes of finding something on the internet.
After checking her email and looking through the update Josh had made to the Lost Boys website, she decided to check out Claire’s on-line journal. They had only spoken a handful of times since Josie left on her press tour and she was very interested to see what Claire was doing with her time; since she was Josie’s personal secretary and Josie was going to be gone for two months, Claire had been given a paid vacation for the duration of Josie’s absence.
Since Claire was usually very consistent in updating her journal every day, Josie was surprised to find that her last entry had been made on New Year’s Day, four days previous. It was a very amusing read, Claire’s general excitement about life coming through in her colorful words describing the panic she felt when getting ready for the Cherries concert and house party where she rang in the New Year. Josie was only mildly surprised to find out that it had been Toby who invited her to the party, considering that they had formed a bond of sorts through Josie; the part that most surprised Josie was that Toby actually went to a New Year’s party when Peter and Josh had been painting the picture that it was an effort for him to even get out of bed.
Knowing that a close friend of her had such a school-girl crush on her boyfriend was still highly amusing to Josie who was reading the entry with great amusement. Even when Claire was gushing over the memory of kissing Toby when the clock struck midnight was funny to Josie because in the picture that accompanied it, taken by Toby’s best friend Benny, not only was Toby missing her mouth, but he had an enormous, partially-drained champagne flute in one hand. So he was drunk and gave one of her friends a sloppy kiss on New Years. It was not a big deal to her.
Or, it wouldn’t have been a big deal if she’d stopped reading there. When the party started to die down, Toby went home with Claire. When she left for work in the morning-she was temporarily taking the place of another sick receptionist at Soothing Arts-he was still tangled in her sheets, and she mused for many sentences about how she spent her bus-ride trying to convince herself that the night before had actually happened. Suddenly, all of the cute and funny things Claire had always said to Josie in jest about her long-standing crush on Toby came back to haunt her, and they no longer seemed very cute or funny. Josie was so infuriated that her hands were shaking violently and her eyes were quickly filling with burning tears.
The only mention of her was at the end of the entry, after Claire finished talking about how exciting it was to come home and find that Toby was still there, having cleaned up her kitchen and living room to thank her for her hospitality. It was after this that Claire confessed to feeling as though she were betraying Josie, it being only a week since she and Toby broke up, but the fact was that they were broken up. Claire said that she thought that once Josie came back to Florida in March, she would be completely cool with the relationship and would probably have someone new as well. She hoped that they would still be friends, but also said that for Toby it would be almost worth damaging a friendship.
Feeling very much like Scarlett O’Hara, Josie picked up the Wedgewood vase sitting on the edge of the desk and threw it against the opposite wall, feeling somewhat better after watching the shattered mess fall to the ground. Suddenly, she heard a whistle coming from the doorway before Peter’s groggy voice said, “Has the war started?”
“You knew about this, didn’t you?” she asked with fire behind her words. “You and Josh, you both knew and you didn’t say anything to me!”
Peter’s shoulders slumped and with a nervous look on his face, he asked, “Claire?”
The fact that Peter knew exactly what she was upset about intensified her anger. “Yes, Peter. Claire. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s one-sided,” Peter said, taking a few cautious steps towards her, stopping in his tracks when he saw the growing fury in her eyes. “Claire has been to the house a couple of times since you left because she heard how upset Toby was. And the whole New Years thing, Toby came home that afternoon and told Josh that even though all he did was sleep in the same bed with her, he felt completely horrible about it. That’s when his PTSD got so bad, and that night was when he went into the hospital. It’s not anything, Josie, so calm down.”
“If it’s not anything, why didn’t anyone tell me about it?”
Peter sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “You see the way you’re reacting! I knew this would happen.”
“But it wouldn’t have happened if I’d known about this stuff when it was happening, and if I’d heard it from a friend,” she pointed out, astounded that Peter and Josh hadn’t taken that factor into consideration.
“Well, now you know,” he said, slowly letting his guard down, “so it’s okay. And, I mean, they’ve only been out once, aside from the party, so it’s not like-”
“Excuse me? They’ve been out?”
Peter’s eyes widened and he quickly averted his stare to the broken vase lying on the floor near his feet. “I guess you didn’t know that.” Without responding, Josie pushed passed him, picking up her coat on her way towards the door. “Where are you going?” Peter called, scampering after her.
“To look at the stars,” she snapped before slamming the door shut behind her.
_____________
The Pen-Top Bar had been closed to the public since midnight, but at fifteen minutes till two, Viggo was still sitting at a corner table, his bare feet propped up on the building’s ledge. Josie quietly thanked the one remaining bartender who let her in before tip-toeing towards the corner table. “For some reason, I thought I’d see you up here tonight,” Viggo said without turning around, a puff of cigar smoke accompanying his words. He reached over and pulled out the chair next to his.
“Well, I had fully intended on not pestering you anymore,” she said as she sat beside him, her confession meriting a laugh, “but then I stumbled across the most maddening thing I’ve read in awhile and thought I’d come up and let you talk me out of my rage.”
Before then, she hadn’t noticed the extra wine glass sitting on the table. Viggo picked up the bottle of red wine sitting in front of him on the table and poured some of its contents into the glass before handing it to Josie with a wink. “So, what new turn of events in your telenovela have you so irate?”
“Claire, my receptionist, who I’d actually gotten to be pretty good friends with, has always had this colossal crush on Toby,” she started after taking a few sips of wine. “I’m not sure if I told you, but he’s been an actor with a community theater for years now, and that’s how she’s known who he is for, like, however many years it’s been. Well, since I’ve been gone, she’s apparently been trying to start dating him. She even said in her little online journal that she knows I might be mad at her when I find out, but it would be worth losing a friendship over Toby.”
Viggo was quiet for a long time but eventually starting laughing, a short, quiet laugh that somehow made Josie feel a little bit better about the situation. “I don’t miss or envy the dramas of young love,” he said before draining what was left of the wine in his glass and licking his lips. "I’ve been thinking a lot about your situation tonight, actually, and after putting together all the pieces you’ve given me, I think the best thing for both of you would be to completely and officially end your relationship.”
Josie’s shocked silence consumed several seconds of their conversation before she finally sputtered out, “Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t have to be anything permanent,” he continued, “but I think that at least until you go back home and can actual spend time working through things with him face-to-face, you should put the whole thing aside and try to live your life without him. Right now, with the two of you being so distant both physically and mentally, all this is doing is adding unnecessary stress to both of your lives. And I don’t know much about him, but I know that what you’re doing right now is stressful enough as it is.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” she said monotonously, her unfocused eyes looking past the cityscape in front of her.
Viggo poured both of them more wine and watched her mind work for awhile. “Josie, can I tell you something?” She nodded. “I know that your relationship with Toby meant a lot to you, but there’s honestly something wrong with him and I’m not so sure as that’s something you’ll need in your life at any point.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he started, pausing to puff on his cigar, “you’ve said yourself that when you first met, he was so intense that it scared you, and that he bought you a ring after a week of dating, begged you to move in even before that, wanted you to give up your career future to spend all of your time with him. I mean, that’s all a little much on his own, but for him to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because you broke up when you’d only been dating for a month to begin with... Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
“Very strange,” she admitted, “but that’s just who he is, I guess. I mean, maybe it would be easier for you to understand if you knew him.”
“I don’t mean this in a harsh way, but I think right now he needs a good psychiatrist much more than he needs you.” He swirled around the wine in his glass for a few seconds before taking a sip of it and setting the glass back on the table.
Eventually, Josie nodded, her eyes still unseeing until she blinked and looked over at him with a grateful smile. “I’m going to miss you, Viggo.”
“Your flight leaves tomorrow afternoon, right?” She nodded. “I’m sorry to see you go. It’s been wonderful getting to know you. Hopefully, we’ll have another chance encounter someday.”
Josie stood up and pushed her chair under, finished the remainder of her drink before leaning down and kissing him quickly on his wine-soaked lips. “Thanks for all your help,” she said before heading towards the stairs.
He watched her leave before up-turning his glass and saying, “No, thank you.”