The Return of the Natalie Incident

Small town life can be pretty boring. I made this observation to my buddy Jim late one afternoon as we sat on a bench drinking sodas. We'd spent the last hour shooting basketballs and a combination of heat and my increasing lack of fitness had ensured that Jim had quite literally run rings around me. Or maybe he was just a better on a court than I was.

'I thought boring was what you wanted,' said Jim.

'Maybe. I just feel a little restless,' I replied, taking a long hit of Sprite and finally getting my breath back.

'Do something about it then.'

'Not that easy. I'm approaching Thirty, I'm-'

He interrupted me with a laugh. 'So, it's an age thing?'

I shook my head. 'It's not just that. I live in the same town I was born in. I know just about everybody here and I'm doing a job that is never going to make me rich.'

'Thought you liked the job?'

For the last year I'd been working for the local newspaper, and I had my own column where I reviewed music and movies, talked a little about whatever took my interest. If I'm honest, it really was an easy position. Companies sent me the latest CD's and I either said good or bad things about them, and I got to see most of the latest movies before they came out, and for free. Each week I did my best to add a little humour to what I wrote, and generally the readership of the paper seemed to like what I offered. Occasionally I received an e-mail telling me what an asshole I was, but those occasions were rare. When I did get one, it brightened the day.

'I do like it. But like I say, I'm never gonna make my fortune at it. Just feels like I'm going nowhere.'

'So go back to the city. See if you can take your work to one of the big papers or magazines out there.'

'Maybe.'

He stood and clapped me on the shoulder. 'Small town living ain't so bad pal. Good air, clean streets, very little crime. Plus, you can take the afternoons off and let me whip your ass at sports.'

I grinned. 'Well, that gives my life a whole new purpose.'

Jim was rarely serious, but he was now. 'You make your own luck in this world, Rich. If you want something, then you have to go for it. I know that I'm not exactly a role-model for today's youth, being the slacker that I am, but I do know that things don't just fall in your lap.'

He tossed the ball to me and I caught it, bounced it a couple of times. 'I just wish something good would come along,' I said.

'My old Dad used to say, wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up faster.' He took the ball away from me with ridiculous ease.

'You have such a way with words, Jim.'

'Maybe I should become an English teacher,' he said, as the basketball slapped through the hoop and rattled the chain netting. 'What's the score now?'

I turned my back and started to walk off the court. 'Fuck the score. Let's go and get a beer.'

'Good deal.'

***************

The next day I was playing hoops again, this time sitting at my desk and scrunching up paper and launching it towards the wastebin. True to form, there were more white balls around the bin than inside it. I'd been trying to think of an angle for that week's column, but my mind wasn't on the job. In truth, I'd been thinking about what Jim had said. Maybe I did need to take myself back to the big city.

I'd lived in Los Angeles for two years, running the usual route of minimum wage jobs while waiting for the big break in the acting business that predictably never arrived. I wasn't alone in failure; every year thousands of young hopefuls like myself had their dreams of stardom dashed by unscrupulous casting agents. There always seemed to be an average of a thousand people competing for the same role, and with that ratio agents could afford to pick and choose. The only way to get noticed was to have either exceptional talent or be able to give a blowjob that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. My acting, while acceptable, was never going to trouble the Acadamy, and nothing was ever going to persuade me to get down on my knees. So one morning I cut my losses and returned to my little backwoods town, which is where I'd remained ever since. Old friends, my parent's farm, the coffee shops and bars I knew like the back of my hand. Decent and stable job for possibly the first time. Life was okay. Life was normal. Life was...dull.

I'd run out of sheets to screw-up, and content with having wasted a small part of the planet's natural resources I decided that a unhealthy dose of caffeine was the required kick-start my brain required. My editor's secretary had a pot of coffee brewing near her desk, but the smell that hung around the room as I approached was all the convincing I needed to get myself to the deli across the street. I asked a couple of my colleagues if they needed anything but they both replied to the negative, so I took the stairs two at a time and crashed out of the front doors onto the sidewalk.

It was nearing six and the street had taken on it's usual quietness that always approached at the end of the working day. A few cars dotted the kerb, and two kids shot past me on skateboards, one of them performing an impressive kick-flip and grind along the concrete flowerbox that lined the front of the newspaper office. I watched the two of them traverse around the block before trotting across the street, raising my hand to Pete Jameson as he cruised past sedately in his old Plymouth Fury, the fire-red body work and acres of chrome immaculate as always.

A searing blast of air-con hit me as I pushed Gino's door open, and by the time I'd walked over to the marbled counter my teeth were chattering. Gino himself; fat, red-faced and sporting his trademark stubble, grinned as I approached.

'You expecting a busload of Eskimos?' I said.

His grin widened. 'You listen to me. This climate is good for your body.' His accent was heavy with his Little Italy, New York roots. Talking to Gino was like re-enacting a scene from Goodfellas.

'The only thing it's doing is causing my balls to climb up inside my ass.'

'It's good to learn new skills,' he shot back. 'You want coffee?'

I confirmed I did and watched as he poured jet-black java into a tall beaker and added a generous amount of cream. There were a fine selection of bagels under the counter, and I chose a creamcheese and tomato, left five dollars and said my goodbyes. I'd always liked Gino's place; as a kid some of my first dates had taken place in the booths towards the back of the store.

Back on the street I stood for a moment, letting my body adjust back to a regular temperature. The late September sun hung low in the sky like a huge orange blister, and although the day was cooling off I could feel the heat of the hot tar through my shoes as I crossed back towards the office. Shadows were lengthening and the colours had taken on that almost sepia tone that was so distinctive of the approaching fall.

I swopped the coffee to my left hand and reached for the office door, intending to get back to my desk and force myself to get at least two hundred words done before I took one bite of the bagel. What I really needed was-

'Hey, country boy.'

The voice that called me was soft, distinctive and instantly recognisable to my ears, even though I hadn't heard it for almost a year. I span on my heel and looked directly into the eyes of a friend I thought I'd lost, a brief lover, and if I'm honest, the real reason that I left Los Angeles. Natalie.

With the sun bathing her in hot light she looked as beautiful as I could ever recall. She was wearing a simple white dress, her hair falling loose across her face and shoulders and her eyes shielded by a pair of small, blue lensed sunglasses. She removed the shades and looked up at me, her eyes creasing shut against the bright glare, her tiny nose wrinkling as she did so. When she smiled it was as bright as snow.

'You've dropped your coffee,' she said, and I looked down at the sidewalk to see streams of dark trickling toward the drain. When I looked back up she had taken a step closer towards me. I didn't move, and it was then that her smile faltered, her brow creased.

'Say something to me,' she said quietly.

Finally I found my voice. 'I... what are you doing here?'

'You could say it's good to see me?'

I took a step forward and then we met, her arms sliding around my back and her head pressing into my shoulder as we embraced. I hugged her tightly, pulling her slim body to mine, letting her soft hair tickle my cheek. It was good to see her. The only time I thought I'd look at her again was in my dreams.

***************

I'd met her when I was in LA, and somehow, don't ask me how, we became friends. I tried to pick her up at a party, she quite obviously gave me the brush-off, I gave her a burst of rare honesty, she smiled and bought me a beer. That was how it started. My roommate Keith thought it was incredible; a no-name, bum actor and superhot moviestar Natalie Portman becoming friends. But she didn't judge me and I never treated her like the celebrity she was. She had stark honesty and a brilliant sense of humour, and I was as attracted to that as I was her beauty. Friends were hard to come by in the City of Angels, and I felt lucky to know her.

Our friendship continued for several months, until one fateful Friday when I got a call from her, stuck in the desert with a broken rental. I'd gone to pick her up, my own car also died, and we ended up in a roadside motel that owed much to the memory of Norman Bates. A storm hit hard, we ended up sharing the same bed, and eventually we made love that was sweet and sensual and everything that I had ever wanted. Truthfully, it was one of the best nights of my life.

Next morning, I returned to the city, and Natalie returned to the picture she was filming. Sure, we spoke again, even went out again, but the magic that we shared in that scruffy roadhouse could never be repeated, and we both knew it. Gradually I saw less and less of her, and when she went overseas to film I knew that the great distance between us was more than just miles. Not long after, I packed up and came home. The rest you know.

I still thought about her all the time. You don't encounter people like her that often in your life, she'd left a lasting impression upon me. There had been many times I'd thought about dialling her number, but something always stopped me. Fear, I guess. Fear of wanting something I knew I could never have again.

Do I regret the night we had? Do I wish we had stayed friends, and not crossed the line? I couldn't even answer that one myself...

***************

The bar was quiet, populated by a few casual after-office drinkers nursing a quiet one before they took off home for dinner. Natalie slid behind a table towards the back of the room and I ordered a couple of beers and went over to join her. I could smell steak frying in the small kitchen, and the sounds of a nine-ball game competed with The Doors flowing from the stereo. The place was relaxed, but I felt nervous.

We touched bottlenecks and I drank deeply, Natalie less so. There was a silence between us for a moment, and I broke it.

'What are you doing here, Nat?'

'Just passing through, I guess.'

I chuckled and shook my head. 'No you're not. No one passes through this town unless they're lost, and I know you better than that.'

She smiled again, and my heart did the same little double-beat it always did. Her fingers curled around my hand on the table and squeezed gently. 'I'm sorry that we didn't keep in touch. I meant to.'

'Don't apologise. It's just how things work out,' I said. 'People drift apart.'

'Is that what happened, we drifted apart?' She asked sincerely.

'I think it was inevitable. We're from different ends of the spectrum. You're everything, I'm nothing.'

She squeezed my hand tighter. 'Don't say that. You're not nothing.'

'I am, but I don't mean in a bad way. I'm just a regular joe, and you're something special.' I returned her level gaze as I spoke, while Riders On The Storm dripped from the speakers in Morrison's deep baritone.

'I'm no-one special,' she said.

'You are to me.'

This time the silence that fell between us was comfortable, before Natalie broke it by leaning across the table and kissing me lightly on the mouth, her lips as soft as peach skin.

'Are we still friends?' She asked.

I nodded. 'Definitely. But only if,' I paused and took another swallow of beer, 'you tell me what brings you to this one-horse town.' I replaced the empty bottle on the table.

Natalie relaxed back into her seat, but still held onto my hand. 'Two reasons. First, I wanted to get things straight between us. We were close in LA, and when I got back from Australia and looked you up Keith told me you'd gone home. I wanted to make sure that wasn't because of me.'

'Not really,' I lied. 'It just wasn't working out for me there.'

'It was him that told me you were working for the paper here.'

I'd kept in touch with Keith since my return, and he often asked me If I'd heard from Natalie when we spoke over the phone.

'So he gave me the number of your office,' Nat continued, 'and the other morning I called up, confirmed that you were still here, and then bought myself a roadmap. I set out this morning, and here I am.'

'You drove all day? It must be nearly four hundred miles.'

In reply she stifled a yawn on the back of her hand. 'Tell me about it. I'm bushed.'

For the first time since I'd seen her I could see the fatigue on her face. I lifted my hand from her's and brushed my thumb against the shadow under her eye, and as I did so she leant her cheek into my palm and yawned again.

'You said there were two reasons you came here, Nat?' I said.

She nodded. 'If we were still friends I was hoping I could hang out with you for a few days. For the past couple of months I've been dragged so far back and forth by press for the new film that I think I've forgotten who I am. Do you understand what I mean?'

I grinned. 'Hey, that was the life I went to the city to seek out, remember?'

'Now the thing has finally come out, I'd just love to relax for a while.'

Her tired eyes seemed full of expectation, and the thought of Natalie wanting to renew our friendship and then stay with me was a thought that filled my stomach with nervous little snakes of excitement. But instantly my cynical mind was filled with a dark thought; did she really want to see me again, for the right reasons, or was she just looking for a quiet place to escape the glare of publicity she was in at the moment? I didn't want us to get close again only to have things blown apart as they had before. But had that been the fault of either of us? No. I'd answered my own question only minutes previously when I'd explained to her about our differences. And looking at her now, I remembered one reason why I'd been so crazy about her; pure and simple honesty. She'd never deceived me before, and I didn't believe she was now.

This took a moment to go through my mind, and doubt must have crossed my face. 'Maybe it was a bad idea,' she said, taking her hand away from mine. 'I can always head-'

'It's the best idea I've heard all week,' I interrupted, standing quickly and pulling her up with me. 'C'mon, let's get out of this dump.'

She clasped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek, letting out a little squeal as she did so. 'Thankyou Rich, so much. You can show me all the things you used to tell me about, all the country around here. We can go hiking, and fishing, and-'

I put a finger to her lips, cutting her off. 'If we're gonna get that energetic, we'd better make sure you've had some decent sleep.'

A couple of guys looked at us as we left the bar, and an old acquaintance from high school by the name of Ben Hicks, who back then was a well-built jock who always stomped me on the football field for kicks, did a double-take when he saw who I was with. At twenty-eight Hicks sported a fine beer-gut, dug ditches for the town and had a wife who must have tipped the scales at over three hundred pounds. I could see my feet when I looked down and was walking hand-in-hand with Natalie Portman. That made me feel pretty good.

The sun had virtually disappeared behind the horizon as we stepped out onto a street that burnt in a deep glow, and our shadows were long and chased us across the road to where Natalie had parked. Aside for ourselves the street was deserted of vehicles. Not quite seven, and already the town was closing up for the night.

'Want me to drive?' I said, and she tossed me the keys deftly as a reply. I caught them and worked the lock, and we both climbed into the car. After I'd fired the ignition I turned to looked at Natalie.

'Remember the last time we were in a rental?'

'I remember where it led us to,' she said, and after a moment we both burst out laughing. I checked the mirrors for traffic I knew wouldn't be there, and swung the Lexus in a U-turn across the street, heading into the sun and towards the weekend.

***************

I drove out of town and towards my parents farm, where I had been staying for the past week and would continue to stay until they returned from a visit to Europe at the end of the month. Although my Father was heavily security conscious all the fancy alarm systems in the world couldn't settle his mind when they took their annual pilgrimage abroad, and as a consequence I was usually roped in to tend the place. I never protested that much. The house was large and set in around thirty acres, none of which Dad worked since he'd retired after a slight heart-attack. He rented some of the land locally to a fellow farmer who kept cattle, and the rest he kept loose for himself, never really doing much more than playing with it. Truth was, he didn't need to. My folks had some respectable savings thanks to shrewd investments, and the land-rental kept them in some decent ready cash.

'I think you'll like the place,' I told Natalie as we reached the track that wound through some light woodland up to the farm. 'It's much better than my apartment.'

'Seems like I came at the right time.'

'Winter or Summer, it's good that you're here,' I said, and she shifted in the seat towards me, rested her head on my shoulder as I drove. I glanced down as she did so, as was rewarded with a view down the front of her dress, tanned skin merging into shadow, and the faintest glimmer of small, bra-encased breasts. I quickly looked back out the windshield as I felt the familiar pressure in my crotch.

I guided the car through the gate into the small yard that surrounded the back of the farmhouse and crunched the gravel as I came to a stop. In a moment Natalie was out of the car, leaving the door swinging wide as she trotted across the path and around the house, and I watched her for a moment before reaching her case from the backseat. I secured the Lexus and then walked around to find her.

She was standing at the front of the house, looking down the hill that swept away from the farm. It was mostly this land that was my Father's, and the house afforded a perfect view of the countryside that led back towards the town, which was around two miles away. The sun had now disappeared into the earth, and the sky was a myriad of colour, shades of red and purple that ran across the horizon in hazardous streaks. The woods were clumps of blackness in the far distance, and the river that ran the length of the valley resembled a grey ribbon. There was silence except for the call of crickets and the low honking of geese flying in an arrow formation towards the rainbow skies.

'God, it's so beautiful,' said Natalie quietly, and when I turned to look at her her eyes were wide. 'Is this really where you grew up?'

I nodded. 'I was lucky, that I do know. You can see why I don't mind looking after the farm for them.'