All I could say after she was done talking was, “I’ve missed you so much. I’m chartering a jet to come get you.”
Now that she was in the city, I was finding it harder to lie.
“Mr. Sterling, do I need to contact Miss Ross to let her know you’ll be missing the party?” Joan raised her voice. “Your mother has called twice already.”
“No,” I walked towards the door. “I’ll call my mother in the car.”
Thousands of lights hung across the imported Arborvitae trees. White wooden benches sat every ten feet, bearing the “Mr. and Mrs. Sterling” label in red cursive. Past the trees and benches was a glass platform stage, a bar that extended across the width of the rooftop, and a rectangular pool with dancing fire.
Selena had invited almost all of young Hollywood, and to my surprise, most of them actually showed up. Even though I forced her to enforce a no-camera policy, numerous paparazzi were camped out across the street and I was pretty sure I saw a camera toting woman scaling the side of the building.
“I’d like to make a toast!” Selena tapped a spoon to her champagne flute.
The guests slowly ceased their conversations, and Selena pulled me onstage. “Thank you all so much for coming out to celebrate our engagement! It is great being in love and even greater when our friends are so supportive!”
I tuned her out and smiled. I looked around the room, hoping to find something else to focus on, anything else. I saw Joan scrolling away on her cell phone, a group of models staring at me, and Shelby giving me the “thumbs up.”
Is that Kristen Stewart? Jennifer Lawrence?
“And we have decided to have the wedding in October, Matt’s favorite month,” was the next thing I heard out of Selena’s mouth.
October? That’s five months from now! That’s not happening. I’m dumping her after this party.
Everyone cheered as Selena placed her lips on mine and wrapped her arms around my neck.
She’s still a good kisser…
“Can I talk to you in private for a minute?” she whispered in my ear.
“Sure. Let me check on my mom first.”
I walked around the rooftop, shaking hands with fellow stars every few seconds, and found my mom sitting at the bar. She pursed her lips as I approached.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
She turned away from me and crossed her arms.
“Mom? Tell me right now.”
She shook her head and pointed. Sure enough, paparazzi were hanging out of windows across the street. I took her hand and led her inside. We walked down two flights of steps and found a decorations closet.
“Are the paparazzi upsetting you?” I asked. “I get tired of them too. It would have been much worse if—”
“What are you doing Matt?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you marrying that girl?”
I couldn’t tell her the truth. “I’m in love.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know that mothers are the smartest women on the planet?”
“Yes.”
“And you think I can’t see that you don’t even like her? Did you do this to get my attention?”
Yours and everyone else’s…
“Mom, I—”
“You two almost had me. It was very believable until she said October was your favorite month and that you were the one who personally contacted the world class chef for tonight—the chef who specializes in seafood. You’ve always hated seafood, unless the high life has changed you even more than I thought.”
I couldn’t hold back my laughter. I hugged her. “I’m very much in love, Mom.”
“Just promise me there’s a pre-nup…real marriage or not.”
“Matt! There you are! Is your mom okay?” Selena pulled me into an isolated corner.
“Yeah. She…” I didn’t want to tell her that my mom was suspicious about our arrangement. “She wanted to make sure I was still taking her shopping tomorrow.”
“Aww! Make sure you take her to all the stores she’s missed since she moved to Pittsburgh.”
She lives in Miami…
“What exactly did you want to talk about? Have you discovered your conscience yet?”
“Funny. My publicist said that you and I should consider doing a reality show together.”
“Didn’t you tell me last week that only D-list celebrities do reality shows?”
“Okay you caught me,” she shrugged. “Oprah wants to air our wedding on her network!”
“I’m not lying to Oprah, Selena. I feel bad enough lying to my mom.”
“Just think about it okay? It’s Oprah! It doesn’t get much bigger than that!”
“I thought we agreed that there would be no actual wedding.”
“Please Matt! I’ve always wanted to get married!”
“To someone who can barely stand you?”
“To someone famous.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Why?”
“I was going to suggest they get you some therapy. You’ve got four weeks of me left.”
I turned to walk away but Selena grabbed my hand.
“Please,” she begged. “We can make up something about the marriage license. We can say we are having the ceremony first and are filing for the license the next day but never do that.”
“And TMZ won’t show up to double check that story? What about Us Weekly? And five hundred other press people?”