Electric Moonlight Shuffle

7. Act Naturally

At 7 p.m., me and Jamie (finally) roll up to his McMansion.

I have been (completely uncharacteristically) obsessing over my brief Jason-Moon experience, for the past 5 hours (while I filled out contracts for Tanner and did other important but boring music-video-related preparations). I can't get Jason out of my head. I keep replaying the way he leaned in to light my cigarette, the way he smiled at me in the hall, over and over again. Is he really into me, or is this just a game for him? Does he do this with everyone? And, most importantly, is this what it feels like to be Jamie? Obsessing over every little move? Literally jumping when someone says your lover's name? (How does Jamie function like this every day? I'm exhausted!)

Now, me and Jamie walk up the flower-lined path to his house.

The front door opens before we knock.

"Congratulations, my little stars!" says Jamie's mom Ella, in the doorway, pulling us each into a fragile, bony hug. "Sushi's out by the pool. You can tell me everything about it while we eat."

We weave through the house, down a totally extra, dimly-lit hallway lined with original uber-expensive paintings (mostly of tragic lovers), and go out the back door. The back door opens to a soft-edged in-ground pool, softly lit, surrounded by a romantic garden: so many rose bushes and trellises dripping with waxy flowers, heart-shaped ivy, looping vines.

(And you wonder why Jamie is the way he is!)

By the pool, on a glass table with a rose-printed umbrella, two huge trays of sushi beckon. We all head over to the table, sit down, arrange rainbows of sushi on hand-painted plates.

Ella takes four pieces of salmon sashimi and two of white tuna, which is a lot for her. Ella is, quite possibly, the skinniest woman I've ever met. She's been heartbroken since forever ago. Most of the time she stays in her room and forgets to eat, though she's been slightly better recently. (I think she might have finally met a new manz.)

Jamie's mom is Ella Verona—like, the Ella Verona, the one who wrote Nine. You know, that super successful book-turned-classic-movie from the early 90s about the man and woman who were both engaged to two other people when their plane went down on a deserted island and only they survived. In the nine days they spent on the Island together, catching each other fish, drinking coconut milk, bending trees into makeshift shelters, running from wolves, peeling each other's sunburns, they fell madly in love. On the ninth day, the man fell gravely ill. He died within an hour of their being rescued by a Carnival cruise ship, in a tragic twist of fate. Mostly everyone has seen that movie, and it made like a trillion dollars, which is why Jamie has such a nice house. But what most people don't know (as Ella is notoriously private) is that that movie is a true story, and it's called Ella Verona's actual life. (Me and Jamie both made a pact never to watch it because there are some wild sex scenes which would be awkward for us all, but I've seen clips of some of the sweeter moments on YouTube.)

Ella's been heartbroken ever since that happened. The one silver lining: she got Jamie out of it all. But even Jamie can't unheartbreak her heart completely. She's so sad. And for a while she was Miss Havisham sad. She was the kind of woman who would let her house fall into dilapidation and wear a wedding dress for twelve years out of pure heartbreak. The kind of woman that absolutely terrifies me. Because: how could you lose your own self so completely in someone else?! I feel like she would have been so cool if it wasn't for the whole tragic-romance thing, and that makes me sad. Yeah, Ella Verona is a lot better now than she was even a few years ago. 

I think she was so sad for so long she forgot how to be totally happy.

Tonight, in the garden, in the soft blue light of the pool, with her silver-blonde hair down her back, her body withered into almost nothing, Ella looks like a ghost.