Playing Pretend

futures

Chloe woke up in her room a little unsure how she got in there; she was still in her clothes from last night. Wondering would do her no good; it didn’t matter anyway, so she just got up and got dressed to start the day.

Chloe came out to find Evan on his phone again, typing away while the news played on the TV. She decided to get herself a coke before sitting down with Evan to find out the plan for the day. “Good morning,” said Chloe.

“Morning,” replied Evan still look at his phone. Chloe could tell he was very concentrated on something on his phone so she decided to just watch the news. Suddenly, Evan’s phone rang. “Hello?” he asked into the phone. Chloe could see out of the corner of her eye Evan suddenly grimaces. “Yeah, I know, I’ll be there, and I’ll figure out what to do,” said Evan after listening for a little bit and then hanging up.

Evan sat pondering for a moment staring at the TV with Chloe. “So I have a dinner I have to go to tonight because I’m presenting an award,” started Evan still staring at the TV, “the thing is that I paid $10,000 a plate to attend as well, and well, I had planned on Erica attending with me, so I paid for two plates.”

Chloe turned to look at him, “You paid $10,000 for a plate of food?”

“Actually I paid $20,000,” said Evan giving her a sideways smile.

“Anyway, why are you telling me? You can go do what you want,” replied Chloe.

“Well I don’t want to waste that second plate,” said Evan shyly and quietly.

Chloe paused for a moment, “You want me to go? With you?”

“Well yeah,” said Evan, “I know it’s a little short notice but I’m sure we can get you something to wear, and I can get someone to do your makeup and hair, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“But I thought we were supposed to be lying low?”

“It’ll be fine, we can just make sure that we tell the press that we are going as friends, nothing more,” said Evan dismissively.

“Why do I need to go? You have tons of money, $10,000 is like a $10 to me,” argued Chloe.

“It’s still a lot of money, even to me, and I don’t want to waste it. And I never said you needed to go, I just want you to go,” said Evan, the last part being said quietly under his breath.

Chloe softened, hearing what he had said. “Okay, I’ll go with you; it’ll be nice to go out.”

Evan smiled widely at her before he hugged her, “Thank you Chloe, I have to warn you now that this will be extremely boring at the dinner with lots of speeches but there will be dancing after; and just to remind you there will be a lot of press there so if you want to back out now, I would totally understand.”

“No, it’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,” said Chloe, trying to reassure herself more than Evan.

“Great, I’ll make a few calls to get you a dress and some people over to help you get ready. It’s at 7 PM tonight but since the press will be there and we should get there for the cocktail hour, we need to leave here by 6 PM, luckily it’s not too far away,” said Evan, smiling widely.

Chloe nodded while she watched him walking away, already dialing on his phone. She had no idea what she had just roped herself into, fearing that this was a big mistake. She needed to do something to pass the time so she decided a nice hot bubble bath would be the perfect thing to calm her nerves.

* * *

The bath made her so relaxed that she got sleepy so she decided to take a short nap before the people arrived. She knew Denise would be arriving first with a few gowns for her to try on. But she didn’t expect a few to be almost a hundred! “Denise, how are we going to find a dress if you brought over too many choices?” asked Chloe.