The Good Life

Chapter 5

She walked away from him, not saying a word. The event went off without a hitch. The charity raised nearly half a million dollars. Photos of Bruno and his siblings would be all over the internet with captions linking the event back to Marla’s internship. It was absolutely perfect.

Except for that kiss. Marla tried to put that behind her. It wasn’t like she hadn’t kissed cute boys before. She dated football players, rugby players, and most recently a Congressional intern. She had game. It wasn’t unlike her to make moves. But, she wasn’t ready to make that type of move – especially after grabbing her blackberry and researching Bruno Mars after the folded up note. She knew he had an ex-girlfriend and that he had a world tour planned. He kisses plenty of girls – all over the world. Please. “I’ll just tell my kids when they’re older that I got to make-out with Bruno Mars when I was in Grad school.” That’s it. Nothing more.

Angie and Marla picked up signs, labels and supplies as sound techs finished up cleaning up everything from the concert. It was incredibly quiet. Angie was away- on a trip to the car and the techs were all out in their vans. It was about midnight. Marla had switched the heels for the flip-flops and her hair had already been put up in a bun- not a pony-tail this time, but a bun. She had even gone to the car to put on her t-shirt and cotton skirt from early in the morning. Once she knew she was alone she stretched on the ground and closed her eyes for a few seconds and sighed. She repeated a Spanish poem about dreams by Federico Garcia Lorca that she read her Senior year of college to herself:

She heard quiet footsteps in the room, but since the person wasn’t talking to her she didn’t open her eyes.

“I have no idea what you just said, but you have a very beautiful accent…” she heard Bruno’s soft voice next to her ear.

She sat up, blinked and opened her tired eyes. She translated to poem for him and said, “It’s my favorite…” she stood up and started cleaning up the auction items.

“We’re going to go to this snazzy club tonight if you and Angie want to come. The sisters, Eric, everyone. I’d love to see you there.”

“Oh…umm..I’d really love to, but I’ve been up since 5 this morning and have a race tomorrow at 7am.”

“”A race?” he responded.

“Just a 5k…but I promised the organizer that I would go, it would be a bummer if I didn’t. “ she explained.

His brown eyes and brown hat made it incredibly hard for her to say no to his proposition, but she really did have plans for the next morning. She also returned to her previous thoughts of what this actually could end up being…disappointing. Very, very disappointing.

She picked up a big box of things, struggling. He took the box from her hands without asking.

“Thank you.” She said as her hair fell out of her make shift bun. She grabbed the final pieces of the auction and led him to her car. Angie was standing by her car on her cell phone.

“Marla…this was amazing! I will see you on Monday to go over everything…you have it all?”

“Yes ma’am! I am going to take all this to the office tomorrow morning, but I will see you on Monday at 9.”

“Do not work tomorrow, that is an order, Ms. Gonzales. It was fabulous meeting you Bruno!” Angie said as she jumped in her car.

“Is she always that perky?” He asked Marla.

“Yeah..I think she needs to go to perky rehab or something. It’s too much.” Marla said.

“Ha, jokes…again!” he said to her as she popped the trunk to her car.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come tonight?” he asked her.

“I’d have to change again..and I’m not changing.” she told him.

“Yeah..unless it’s a slumber party club I don’t think they’d let you in all sexy like that.”

“Oh…now you have jokes too, Mr. Mars?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I had no idea.” she smiled at him.

He raised his eyebrows at her. “I’m mostly jokes…jokes and music….and dancing…yeah..in that order.” He moved his hips a little toward her.

He bowed her head and shook it to express her embarrassment.

“So, since you’re not going to go out with us tonight…how about item number 455 tomorrow?”

“I don’t know…Bruno….I’m just so busy with school and work…I didn’t really plan on…”

“Okay…I guess I can wait for that one until I come back to LA in three weeks.” He said making a sad face.

“Oh…well. You make it sound like forever…like the world is going to end if I don’t say yes to you.”

“Well, it could.”

“Bruno, it’s not 2012 yet.”

“Oh. You’re right…so it won’t…but it will hurt my feelings if you say no.”

A car drove up behind hers and a head popped out. “Brunito…come on. We’re going to be late…hi Marla! Are you coming with us?” Jamie was dressed and ready to go out with her siblings.

“Not dressed like this.” she told her.

“Aww, well we did great tonight, didn’t we? Thank you so much!”

“I will meet you all there…” he announced to his siblings who were at this point watching him like 3rd graders. “You can go now…” he motioned at his older brother to start driving.

“I think you need to go and….” she started to yawn…”I’m really tired.

“But you haven’t said yes yet!” he prodded her.

“Okay, okay…okay. Yes. We can go on our date tomorrow.” she agreed.

“Yeees!” He kissed her forehead and turned around dancing.

“What are you doing?” She looked at him with a ridiculous face. She knew who he was but didn’t really know anything about him aside from the song that had ended up on her ipod and the songs he sang that evening. She was kind of worried about what she had signed up for at this point. But his eyes were mesmerizing and his ability to woo her was out of this world. He kissed her cheek, opened her car door and said, “Buenas noches, senorita Marla.”

“Good night Bruno,”

“I will call you tomorrow afternoon.” he said to her as the door closed.

“Wait…you don’t have…” he was gone by that time.