“You’re not actually going to do this, are you?”

I couldn’t look her in the eye: my gaze remained focused on my cup of black coffee that had, by that point, grown cold.

“He told me that if it was something I felt like doing then I could meet him at his place around eight.”

“That’s less than an hour from now.”

I nodded and offered nothing more.

“Natty!”

God I hated it when she called me Natty. It was always when she was assuming the role of the mother figure, something she believed herself to be since she was a whopping three months my senior. And it was always when she felt that she had to rescue me from making yet another irreparable mistake. As if I had made many of them. Which I hadn't.

“Natty, you’re not really thinking about doing this. You don’t know him from Adam! I’d say that with having dinner and meeting his mom you went above and beyond the call of duty! He’s a grown man and should be able to fix his own messes without getting a complete stranger involved. And what kind of a lunatic would ask a complete stranger to pretend to be his girlfriend for a weekend at his mom’s condo in San Diego? I don’t understand how you even finished dinner with him rambling off this nonsense!”

“Monica, you don’t understand. Last night. . . I. . .”

“Oh Christ. Tell me you’re not in love with the psychopath. . .”

“No. Honestly Monica, why do you always have to complicate situations by involving the “L” word. Last night, I saw this guy for what he really was. He’s a gentle, very considerate guy who’s just asking for a favor. I’ve got nothing else to do this weekend—I don’t start my summer job until Wednesday! Besides, I met his mom last night and she honestly thinks that we’re for real . . .”

“So she is expecting you to spend the weekend with them in San Diego.”

My silence affirmed everything and Monica leaned back in her chair, folded her arms and kept her scowl on me. “I wish you wouldn’t. I’m worried about this, Natalia. Anything could happen and I love you too much to. . .”

“Oh Monica, I know, and you have to realize that if I felt unsure about this, even slightest inkling of a doubt, I’d have left last night running and screaming. . .” I paused, remembering his voice, that soft gaze and the earnest words he bestowed upon me. Never before had I ever felt so . . . comfortable with anyone, man or woman. In fact, I would have felt more comfortable if Tobey was the one now sitting across from me instead of jittery Monica. “But this man . . . there is something completely different about him . . .”

“Jee-zus. Here we go . . .”

“I’m serious Monica.” And then. . . I let out a smile. An unexpected one, but a smile that I couldn’t suppress for the life of me. “I want to help him. This is something. . . I want to do.” I took a breath and attempted to make her feel better. “I promise I’ll check in every hour on the hour like a good little girl.”

Monica was not impressed. She simply leaned forward, across the table and in a low, hushed voice said, “Well if you’re going to make it out to his place, you better run like hell. You haven’t even packed yet.”

I beamed.

Thirty minutes, a cold shower, one suitcase and ninety-one miles per hour later I found myself at his address. I parked the car in front of one of the neighbor’s houses and stepped out onto the sun-dappled pavement. My knuckles were turning white as I gripped the handle of my suitcase. Okay, Natalia. This is it. Here we go.

I sighed and stood at his door. I just stared at it wondering what was going to happen over the weekend. What type of mess could I get myself into? But this time I was going to make sure that I didn't get emotionally involved. We were pretending to be together, that's all he wanted ... wasn't it?

I shook off the thoughts and placed my suitcase next to me. I put on a brave face and knocked on his door. I stood there for a while until I heard 'Just a minute'.

He smiled eagerly at me. "You look great!"

"You do too ..." I faltered.

His face flickered from excitement to amusement, and he arched his brow. I decided to retract the statement.

"I mean, you look hot! God, I mean you look ..." Shut up, Natalia, shut uuuup..."Sorry, I've had the worst morning. Can we start over?"

"Sure." His face was scrunched up in laughther as he closed his front door behind me. "Hi, how are you?"

"I'm okay, how are you?" I asked him with a deep sigh.

"I'm great now that you're here," Tobey smiled then quickly darted his eyes to the ground, no doubt realizing what he'd said.

I averted my gaze too, hoping to brush the awkward moment away.

"Umm, I'm gonna go and get dressed. You just make yourself at home, okay? I won't be more than five minutes!" Tobey told me as he started down the hall.

"Sure," I said.

This is going to be one LONG weekend .

While Tobey was in the other room, I took in my surroundings and realized that I had been standing in a fantastic bachelor pad. I quickly came to the conclusion that, somehow, it seemed to just fit him so well. It was all very tidy, if sparsely furnished. There was a lot of white, and bold daubs of black in the form of couches and framed pictures on walls.

"You have nice taste in home decor," I said once he returned, trying to shake the nervousness that would not leave me. It was a stretch, but I could not think of a thing to say! "Everything is so clean," I added, just for good measure.

"Thanks," he said scanning my face as if he was trying to read my thoughts."Are you hungry?" he asked.

"To be honest, I am a little too nervous to eat right now," I said honestly.

"Well I make really good blueberry pancakes, if I do say so myself. I bet once you smell them cooking, you'll want some." He smiled at me and led me into the kitchen.

"A man who can cook, this ought to be interesting." I said teasingly.

"My father is a chef and I picked up a few things."

I smiled at him while he prepared our breakfast. He was right - the smell of his blueberry pancakes was heavenly. I could not resist eating the delicious breakfast he had prepared. After we ate, he cleared the dishes and methodically loaded them very carefully into the dishwasher. His attention to detail did not escape me.

"My mom called me this morning," he said.

"Really?" I asked nervously.

"She seemed really taken with you, she couldn't stop talking about how sweet and wholesome you seemed."

I could feel myself blushing.

He turned and grinned at me then.

"Will we get away with this?" I asked, a bit nervous. His mother had seemed so warm and friendly. I was already feeling a bit badly about deceiving her.

"Sure. Why wouldn't we?"

Personally, I could have thought of a million reasons why it wouldn’t work, but Tobey’s casual, fearless response quieted any intervention on my part. He knew I was nervous, so he playfully made a fist and tapped my chin.

“Smile, kiddo. It’ll be fine,” he reassured me.

Fifteen minutes later I was buckling myself into a sinfully comfortable silver Mercedes and we were making our way towards the freeway. I was trying my damnedest to remain unimpressed with the world I’d found myself into. Luxury and Natalia Bowman hadn’t really ever meshed before. I grew up in a small house in the outskirts of LA, and had spent the better part of three years in a two-bedroom apartment with Monica, as I worked my way through college. And here I was, just having left a gorgeous spread in a neighborhood I would never have been in before. I was riding in a car only my university professors drove, sitting next to an absolute cherub - if cherubs wore blue jeans and a T-shirt, that is.

I have to say, my case of the jitters was all but consuming.

I couldn’t get over how confident he seemed, driving with one hand on the steering wheel, the other on his knee, his fingers deftly tapping along to the music playing in the background. And I couldn’t get over how beautiful he looked there in the early morning sun with his soft, floppy dark hair that every so often fell oh so innocently into the most amazing deep blue eyes I’d ever seen in my life. He seemed to be the sole inhabitant of his own universe, and I was dying to be let in. To know what was going on inside that mysterious mind of his, to know what he really wanted to be saying at the moment instead of tapping the beat of the song playing on the radio as he drove.

In an effort to keep my sanity, I had to break the conversation lull.

“You know . . .its not often I meet guys who can cook. Let alone cook blueberry pancakes better than my Grandma.”

That seemed to draw him out, and he turned to me, smiling. It was a contagious smile if there ever was one and I immediately beamed also.

“Yeah, actually, growing up I wanted to be a cook,” he said.

“Hmm. Most boys want to be astronauts or firemen and you wanted to be a cook. Interesting.”

“Yes. . . well. . .” his smile slowly vanished and with it, his normal, carefree demeanor. “Most boys didn’t have the sort of childhood I did.”

It wasn’t the answer I was expecting and all I could manage was a quiet, “Really?”

He turned the volume down on the radio and kept his gaze straight ahead on the highway. “It was kinda hard. My family. . .if you want to call it that. . . spent more time moving than we did living. I’m sure I attended every school south of Sacramento. I guess it was just because my parents were so young when they had me. . . it was a struggle for them. But. . . well. . .it was a struggle for me too. You know how it is when you’re a kid, and the only thing in the world you want is to have a sense of . . . belonging. I was never around long enough to really ever feel that.”

It was a startling revelation. I was absorbed in ever word coming from those soft lips of his and became unnerved when he stopped his story short, probably thinking he was unleashing too much information on someone he hardly knew. There was something strange that came over his face that suddenly made me wish we hadn’t started talking about this.

I found myself desparate for something to say that would make him smile again. “Big change from wanting to be a cook to wanting to be an actor.”

He laughed. “True. Then again. . . maybe it’s not so different after all. They’re both about creativity and you have to get the ingredients right in both fields.”

“Yeah. . . and if you don’t impress your customers, they won’t come back.”

“Bingo. I knew there was a bigger fish to be caught in acting, so I went for it. That, and the fact that Mom really didn’t like the idea of having a chef for a son. She was an aspiring actress herself, before she had me. . .”

“And now here you are,” I said, attempting to keep the conversation somewhat up-tempo. “Didn’t you say you were doing a job or just starting a job. . .”

“Oh. . .just finished shooting, actually.”

“Really?” This was good. I could see a glimmer in his eye and knew I’d treaded off the thin ice. “Um. . . well, what’s it about?”

“Well, it’s not due out until next summer. . . 2002. One of those summer movie action flicks.”

“Uh oh,” I said, jokingly.

“No, it’s actually not that bad at all.”

“What’s it about?”

He paused for a moment, visibly trying to think of how to answer the question. “Well, they’ve finally decided to turn the Spider-Man comic into a movie.”

“Really?” I said, and then remembered hearing or reading about it somewhere recently. “That’s right, I heard about that. Took ‘em long enough.”

“Well, it’s been in the planning for ages. But it’ll be out next May, I think.”

“Those superhero movies are always a lot of fun. Was it fun being in it?”

“It was enormous fun,” he said enthusiastically.

“Good. That’s contagious to the audience.” I smiled, “So, who do you play?”

Once again, another strange pause from Tobey. “I play Peter Parker,” he said quietly.

“Oh. . .” I hadn’t the faintest idea as to anything remotely related to that comic. “Who is he?”

Tobey smiled this time—he tried to fight it, but it was just too strong an urge. He turned and stared at me strangely and then said, “He’s Spider-Man.”

Holy crap. Up to that point, I’d thought that he’d been a bit player, or at most, a supporting sidekick or something. But him playing the lead in a big time Hollywood film had not once come into mind, even in the slightest form. He could see that I’d been totally thrown by the announcement, but I vied desperately to remain calm and mature.

“Wow. . .” I said, unable to resist it. “That’s. . . quite an achievement.”

“It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure.”

“I mean. . . that’s incredible, Tobey, really. I’m sure you’re fantastic.” As long as you’re just as wonderful as you are in person . . .

“We’ll see . . .” he said quietly.

“Well . . .” I was uncomfortable and felt the need to keep talking, when I should have known all I had to do was keep my mouth shut. “Well, what’s the general feel? The director’s happy with everything, right?”

He smirked. “The director’s just beginning the nightmare. Postproduction is always hell. But everyone likes the film. . . Sam just loves it.”

Oh, so that’s who the elusive Sam was. The man who was directing the Spider-Man film. “He must really be an admirer of yours to put you in such a coveted role.”

He thought about that. “The studio wanted that we-will-rock-you guy, you know, that Heath Ledger dude? Sam wanted me for some strange reason. Said he loved me in The Cider House Rules and wanted me in the film. I wasn’t gonna argue with the guy. . .”

His words sort of faded away to nothing. The Cider House Rules? I’d seen that film twice in the theater because I’d loved it so much! And the man sitting next to me was in it? Impossible, the actor in Cider House Rules was named… Tobey…

“I’m sure, if you’re working your way through college.” He shook his head. “OK, enough. Let’s stop all this about me. What about you Natalia? Please, we’ve got three hours until we get there and I still don’t even know your last name!”

"Bowman," I said meekly. What could I possibly tell him about myself that wouldn't put him to sleep? Here I was in this $90,000 car with this guy who was on the verge of becoming Hollywood's next biggest star, and . . .

"Natalia Bowman," he was saying. "Nice." He smiled a simple sweet smile at me then turned his attention back to the freeway. Traffic was beginning to back up.

"So what are you studying in college, Natalia Bowman?" he asked me as he slowly approached the heavy traffic. He reached behind his seat and pulled out a bottle of water, handing it to me.

"Thanks," I said, taking the bottle of Desani from him. He reached back and got another for himself. "You got a fridge back there?" I asked him.

Tobey laughed out loud. "No!" he said. "I stashed these before we left. So.......?"

"Oh," I said - that's right, he was wanting to talk about me. "Education," I said. "I want to be a teacher." God, I sounded like a loser.

"Good for you," he said. "That's really admirable."

"It is?" I asked.

"Yeah, of course. Good teachers are very important," he said. "I had a couple of really great teachers when I was in school. If it hadn't been for them, I dunno...."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, I was always the new kid, right? Luckily, I had a couple of teachers who sort of helped me out, took me under their wing."

I smiled. I wouldn't mind having Tobey under my wing, that's for sure.

“What grade then?”

“I actually want to teach Kindergarten . . .”

“That’s something I don’t hear too much of these days.”

“Exactly why I want to do it. Young children are so impressionable, and it’s so important that they get a good start in school, and have good role models . . .”

"Like you . . .” Tobey smiled.

“Well . . .” I blushed.

Tobey was smiling, turning over my words in his head. “It’s an under appreciated profession. Right up there with fireman and policeman. . . I mean, what I get paid is a crime and I’m not saving lives, you know? I’m not running into burning buildings and rescuing infants, or telling a kid that they’ve got the goods to go places in their lives like teachers do. . .”

It was a point that I had been vocal about for years. But now, sitting next to a successful actor, listening to him agree with those very sentiments, I found myself saying something I never had really believed, nor understood, until that moment.

“Yes. . . that’s all reality. . . but if it weren’t for films then where would we go to escape all that? And it’s not just entertainment. . . movies have an uncanny ability to make us forget about our problems, or at least make them seem somehow easier to deal with. They even, sometimes, can change a person’s view of . . . life. They can inspire and teach and in them we see ourselves— whether it’s the very best of who we are or the worst of who we are, we see us. . .” Tobey was listening, but I was starting to feel silly for rambling so much. “Besides, firemen, policemen and teachers alike—what would we do on Friday nights if it weren’t for all you grossly overpaid actors? We’d have nothing to laugh at Monday morning!”

Tobey let out a loud, hearty laugh that sent a wave of relief throughout me. I was laughing too, just at seeing the funny expression on his face—his mouth wide open, eyes squinting, practically gasping for air.

“Or gossip about for that matter,” he added through his gasps. I threw my head back, laughing, knowing how perfectly right he was.

His foot slammed on the brake, and both of us lunged forward coming inches from ramming the Ford in front of us. We sat there in stunned silence for a moment, looked at each other, the horrific realization that we’d almost tasted death slowly sinking in and. . . we both started laughing again.

The traffic didn’t bother us anymore. We had each other’s company, that’s what mattered. He’d flipped off the radio hours ago, and we’d talked incessantly. The water bottles in the back of the car had long since been depleted by the time Interstate 5 turned into a lush paradise of green and palm trees and sparkling, crystalline waters. I’d been to San Diego several times throughout my life, but never like this; never with its teasing wind lapping through my hair, never with an enticing stranger at my side whose spell I had long since succumbed to. And never had the world seemed full of such vast possibilities as it did at that moment.