I didn't know who Darren Le Gallo was when I first met him. Not many people would know him at first glance, probably. At least not without knowing what he's best known for.
I just knew him as an actor and artist who I befriended. I just saw him as a fellow artist who could lend support as I tried to make my way in the business. I didn't know who else he knew in any other business.
He didn't even mention he had a fiancée right away. Perhaps I should have suspected that a bit more.
At the time, I just took him at face value when he said he'd been together with a woman for over a decade, had a little daughter together, and were just now preparing to get married. He also said she was an actress, but he didn't say who it was.
I could have easily Googled Darren's name the first day we met to find out more about him, and who he was attached to. But of course, I didn't actually do more research on him until that night. And of course, it turned out he was hiding...that.
Given the laugh he had the next time he saw me, it was clear he knew I hadn't figured it out until now. Maybe he was messing with me or testing me that way.
But I really failed the test when his fiancée actually showed up.
A fiancée I was now aware of as the very famous, multi Oscar-nominated, gorgeous Amy Adams.
It was one thing to be a fan and ardent admirer of hers for years. It was another to actually meet her and be newfound friends with her husband. But it was my own fault for not using Google faster, I supposed.
Then again, decisively proving I wasn't getting close to Darren for his...connections may have gotten me some extra credibility. So there was that. If that helped explain why Darren and Amy kept hanging around me anyway, even when Amy was on rare breaks.
I was caught up too much to really question it. Even when their anniversary arrived, and they invited me over to help them celebrate.
I was probably past being star struck at this point. I was less in awe of these people themselves, and more in awe that they kept wanting to be around a hopefully up-and-coming, mid-20s guy like me. Even on a special day like this, apparently.
Not thinking about it would probably help me more than it would hurt. So I went to their place, where there were no other guests around. Their kid was staying somewhere else, leaving the three of us alone to fill up the house with talk, laughs, and enough drinks to keep us just shy of being drunk.
I felt just clear headed enough by the time we were sitting together on the living room couch. Amy was right between me and Darren, wearing a light blue dress that was a perfect fit with her eyes. She had the tiniest bit of cleavage showing, although the sides of her boobs were covered up, unlike for most of American Hustle.
I prided myself on never actually bringing that up in front of them, and I hoped to continue that now. There were other things I shouldn't have been thinking about right now too, but they were harder to forget about. Especially when Amy turned the full weight of her bright eyes, face and smile on me.
Amy had the initial outward appearance of a mousey, demure, innocent redhead. That may not do it for some, but to me, it made her all the more alluring. Especially when she showed what a formidable, fiery cookie she was beneath that surface, which made her even more alluring and enchanting.
It was the key to her success in her recent tougher film roles, and I found it seemed to define her just as much off screen as well. And she was actually fucking 40...actually 15 years older than me. The things she must have known...
To me, it made her modest, unassuming, seemingly innocent surface all the more seductive and irresistible. Knowing and suspecting what kind of passion was underneath that surface...was chief among the things I shouldn't think about now. Especially about the wife of a friend on their anniversary.
If Amy saw me wrestling with that, I really wasn't doing a good job. And yet she soon stopped looking so much at me, which was probably for the best. Her attention was focused on her fiancée, as it should be, as she got closer to him and drew him in like a tractor - which I could relate to and feel envy for all at once.
Darren got to be drawn in enough to actually kiss her. And Amy liked it enough that she actually slid herself into Darren's lap, right in front of me. There was that passion I really couldn't think about in detail until I left - which I may have had to soon anyway.
As I started figuring out how to take my leave and say goodnight, Amy broke off of Darren and focused on me again. "Sorry, should have given you a heads up, right?" she asked, for some reason.
"No, no," I said graciously. "If ever there was a night for PDA, this is it, right?"
"Yeah," Amy agreed. "It's a hell of a thing, huh?
"Uh huh," Darren answered for her. "All these years and we still do stuff like this. For over a decade...not many people like us in this town can say that anymore. It hasn't been easy, but we can."
"And we haven't had to do it like other people," Amy chimed in. "We haven't needed to rush to get married to prove we're in it for the long haul. Or prove we can be good parents. We know no matter what our marital status is, or what our relationship is like, we can trust each other to get through it. Even when we prove it in...unique ways."
"Like after Amy gave birth, for instance," Darren stated. "I know I haven't told you this before. We've only told a few people. But we wanted to save telling you for tonight."
"Why did you need to do that?" I asked, if only to say something.
"You'll see," Amy half-answered. "You see, between being new parents, our schedule and my...insecurities, we were pretty dodgy for a while. So about two anniversaries ago, we got really desperate. Desperate enough to try getting our spark back...with another guy there."