14

Standing on the edge of the boat the mottled grey of the North Pacific seemed to extend as far as the eye could see. To my left, the water took on a green shimmer that ran along the length of the Santa Monica Pier Harbor, its intensity the brightest around the leisure attractions and bucolic Ferris wheel rides. I swirled the Margherita glass in my hand in gentle circles before draining it and handing it over to the nearest empty tray.

Behind me, there was a party going on. One which I'd been partaking in for most of the night – doling out the dry-eyed friendly smiles and the idyllic greetings of 'Hello, how are you?' to strangers, and the mind-numbingly dull forays into which famous person had done what on their trip to the Bahamas – all general fare when it came to events like this. It would have been tiring were it not also outright boring to the point of oddly nauseating. It was no wonder that amidst the deafening blasts of the music pounding into my skull, I had ended up feeling a bit locked out of the settings, and a tad indifferent to everything surrounding the blind euphoria.

"MJ!" said a voice behind me.

I turned around and felt the shivers of familiarity run down my spine. From the huddle of the dancing and jostling crowd emerged a face from the past.

It had been years since I'd seen Peter Parker, and longer still since I'd seen that wide lopsided smile greet me from a distance.

"Jesus Christ, Peter!" I said, ignoring the hammering of my blood against my ears. "I swear you scared the life out of me"

"Sorry, my bad. Hey, I didn't know you smoked"

I glanced at the burning cigarette in my hand and gave it an insignificant twitch. "I'm not as regular as I used to be. Though, once or twice I get an itch for it"

"I see."

He drew up next to where I stood, placing his hands on the boat's railing as he faced the North Pacific. I had my back turned to the view, the cold metal of the railing piercing through my thin silver dress, and in such a way that we both happened to be mirroring each other in opposite directions.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Away from New York?"

"You know, work. Jameson wanted me here for a whole week to get some pictures" he said pointing at the press badge hanging around his neck.

"Why you? I mean… you're not the kind of person who leaves New York just on a job assignment"

"You're not wrong there" he sighed while crossing his arms over the railings. "But Jameson was in a pinch. His high society photographer passed away last week. Nothing abnormal. Just old age. So, I had no choice."

"Oh, I see"

"Plus, New York can take care of itself for a week without me. Can't it?"

"You think?"

He grinned, "Well, according to Jameson, I'm the root of all evil. So, they should be glad I'm gone."

I bit the cigarette stump, dragging the last smoke out of it before dropping it to the floor. "Not you. The other half of you, you mean"

I felt his eyes bore into the side of my face. "Yeah. Not wrong there."

The music stopped, allowing me a moment of respite before another one took its place.

"How have you been?" he asked leaning over the railings even further.

"Good. You?"

"Good"

"That's good to hear." I turned my gaze to the wood paneling of the boat's deck, precariously driving the sharp heel of my shoes into the minor cracks.

"You look nice," he said after a while.

I turned to look at him and then went back to scraping the ground with my foot. "Thanks"

"I'm not looking to make things awkward."

"No, no. I get that. It was a nice compliment"

"Then why did you scowl all of a sudden? It was almost like you just had a poisonous urge to murder me"

I turned and let out a small chuckle. "It's just something I hear a lot"

"Oh," he said. Then after a while, "No need to brag about it though."

"Oh, shut up."

"Good to see I can still get a giggle out of you"

I turned towards him, this time meeting his eyes for the briefest of seconds. "Yeah, I suppose so"

He sighed, acquiring this faraway look in his eyes that he always seemed to get when he was thinking about something distant. "Sometimes I wish there were more things in my life like that"

"Like what?"

"Unchangeable. Unalterable. I don't know. Have your pick."

"Maybe"

"Like you and me, for example. It's been a long time but you still know me, don't you?"

"I did once, yeah"

"Right." He said rubbing the back of his neck and then looking over to the boat's prow where the silvery moon hung like a glowing orb. In the time it took him to do so, someone else called out my name from amidst the crowd. I got myself off of the railings and searched around for who it was.

"You said you'd be here for a week?" I asked turning towards Peter.

"Yeah"

"Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you around then."

"Where can I see you?" he asked, digging both his hands into his pockets like he was trying to hide there.

"I live by the edge of West Hollywood. My number's still the same"

"Isn't that like a security risk?"

"Only if I hand it out frivolously"

"And you don't?"

"You know me"

He smiled and then turned away from me again. "I did once"

"Not bad for a reversal, Mister Parker"

"I try my best, Miss Watson"

I returned his smile. "Seriously, come see me. I'll be looking forward to it"

When I left New York, things between me and Peter had ended pretty abruptly. Not that it was any of his doing. He was, for the most part, blameless in the reasoning behind my decisions. Although once taken I remember genuinely wishing that he wouldn't try and contact me. I felt I would be too busy or astray whilst traveling the road on the greyhound bus to Los Angeles. I had no idea just how far or how long the trip would take other than for the merest inkling in the back of my head that I was traversing the States from one extended arm to another. But judging distances off a map is far different than actually living it. It was just after two days of sitting on the bus, watching gas stations and derelict motels and lifeless towns pass by the window, that it struck me just how vast America was and how sparsely populated the areas outside the main cities happened to be. The scenery outside almost contained a kind of static dull imprint to it. Like it had been painted by someone and stuck against the highway as replacements for the real towns and motels. Though, that might have been just a dream I saw while nodding off in my seat. I spent an awful lot of time either sightseeing, or sleeping, or watching some tv show on Netflix whenever the network wasn't a problem. The mundane activities were all part of the repertoire of keeping my mind away from the sheer audacity of the journey I was on. I was trading one seaboard for another, the Atlantic for the Pacific, all in the hopes of chasing some long-lost dream of making it in the big leagues, which had as much chance of succeeding as it had of failing horribly. No, if I had stopped for a second to think about it, I would have lost my nerve almost instantly.

It was somewhere in Ohio, whilst crossing over to Cincinnati when the phone call from Peter finally arrived.

Peter visited me at my home near West Hollywood. It was about as informal an occasion as I'd hoped it would turn out to be. With other people it was never like this. I told him that and he said, "Well, we've known each other longer than other people." The waning evening sunlight cast an odd mixture of yellow and purple light over us as we sat in the patio of my garden drinking coffee like we were still somehow in college preparing for an exam. That's how normal it felt that I was getting a bit drunk on the sentimentality of the moment. The topics we discussed were also congenially structured to the point that the illusion of the spell could be cast with even more sincerity. I laughed at his accounts of Jameson's office antics. The idea that a famed editor of his repute could be a belligerent character with such low regard for what came out of his mouth was astonishingly hilarious to me, and the way Peter recounted it made it even more so. Someday you'll have to introduce me, I told him.

"Well, I sincerely hope not. I'd rather die."

In return for his amusing stories, I offered a few tidbits of my own. Though, I was a lot more reluctant than he was because anything I said about my life, which was now shrouded in the intricacies of Hollywood, had the definite possibility of shattering the spell we'd worked so hard to construct. Not that it mattered terribly in the end.

The allusions to my social standing were always hanging in the air despite my desperate need to pretend like we could ignore it and enjoy an evening in the delight of each other's company like we used to once upon a time.

"I see your face on the billboards on my way to work," he said.

I grimaced. "I'm sorry"

"No, what the hell are you apologizing for? It's great. It's lovely to see at least one of us made it."

"No, don't say that."

"I'm not being facetious. You have no idea how proud I am that you're this famous now."

"It isn't all about fame, Peter"

"No, no," he said shaking his hands. "I didn't mean it like that. Believe me, I was just-"

"It's alright. You don't have to explain yourself. If anyone understands it's you."

"Why? What makes you say that?"

"Because of your other life."

He pursed his lips, "How do you mean?"

"What you do wearing a mask. Saving people. It comes at a cost. I understand that now, even if I didn't back then. It's all about doing the best you can no matter what."

"And then you hope for the best with everything else," he said with a slight grin.

"Exactly"

"Even if things never turn out that way."

"Exactly"

The minutes seemed to eat by us after that.

"Although," he said looking up. "Just so you know, it is a bit weird seeing your face enlarged like that on every avenue wall"

"I can imagine. It's weird for me too."

"I mean, if people didn't know better, they would think you've got a big head or something."

I threw my empty cup at him, which he deftly plucked out of the air with the widest possible smile.

"One of these days, those horrible jokes are going to be the end of you," I said crossing my arms.

"That may be true. Until then, you'll just have to tolerate my bad humor, Miss Watson" he said placing the cup back on the table.

And despite myself, I found that I was smiling.