Be Mine

Chapter 4

It turns out to be work hours disguised as party hours; they walk through the carpet smiling for pictures and doing interviews. Roseanne carries the conversation most of the time, and often, Lisa’s job is to just look on and seem absolutely smitten for the cameras, a hand casual on the small of Roseanne’s back.

The fact is, Lisa doesn’t even have to try, at all – it comes to them so easily, and at one point an interviewer even has to call them out on it: “You are so into each other,” says the interviewer, teasing slightly, and Lisa hopes her nervous laugh merely comes off as a piece of intelligent acting.

They sit side-by-side at dinner – actors from the same shows have to share the same table, and perhaps it is Bam’s way of ensuring that, had they not arrived together, they would definitely be seen together, at one point or another. Roseanne takes a ton of photos at the table with their other co-stars – she’s an absolute darling, and really, how is it at all possible to not be charmed?

Not possible, Lisa thinks, watching Roseanne just go.

//

It is by no means an exclusive, network-only event; Bam likes inviting his other friends, too – media and advertisers, the whole lot of them, and so this is how Lisa comes across Felix for the first time. Roseanne disappears for what feels like a moment too long, and when Lisa goes around the party to come looking, she finds Roseanne at the advertisers table, laughing.

“Oh, speak of the devil,” says Roseanne, turning to her, bottle of wine in her hand. “Look Lis – they’ve got better wine at the sponsors’ table.”

“Roseanne,” says Lisa, throat tight. She’s all-too-conscious now about all these strangers looking at her and smiling.

“So you’re the one,” comes a voice from the table, as a man Bam’s age stands and extends a hand. “Jackson.”

Lisa receives the hand graciously, if a bit confusedly. What was Roseanne doing at the CEO’s table, anyway? “Pleased to meet you sir,” she says, surveying the table carefully before rounding back to Roseanne -- now talking with Felix.

Felix is a Wang. Lisa tries not to look so surprised when Roseanne turns to her to introduce him. “You know Felix?”

Damn right, I do. “I believe we haven’t met,” she says instead, smiling sweetly at him. “Hello.”

When Felix smiles back, Lisa feels herself somewhat warming to him. Is this what he does? “Finally, Ms Manoban,” he says. “Roseanne can’t stop talking about you.”

“Stop flustering the girl, Felix,” says Roseanne, smiling in kind. “She just got here.”

Talk is easy and pleasant and Lisa is surprised to be at ease so quickly. Felix is soft-spoken and attentive, and when Lisa speaks he actually turns his head to listen, eye on Lisa’s. It is quiet and unnerving, but only because she can tell this isn’t the wine, at all.

Fine, so Felix is a magnificent piece of a man, he’s practically business royalty, and he’s known Roseanne since they were children, because Felix's father, Bam's father and Roseanne’s father were once schoolboys together.