The More You Chase It

James and Daisy had crossed the threshold of being mere acquaintances, hurtled into the bonds of friendship. They were closer with each other than with a lot of their other friends. Sometimes it felt to the two as if they were completely on the same page. Other times they couldn’t be more different, but that worked for them rather than hindered them. Whenever James had a gap in his schedule he’d come home and see Daisy, often not telling her how much running around he had to do to make it home for just a few days.

***

July 29th, 2010
{Daisy}

James’s apartment was quiet as I sat spread out on the couch. James was sitting on the floor at my feet, typing away on his laptop. Beside him he had a pile of books with dog-eared pages that he’d stop typing to reference.

The TV was on but muted, I hadn’t chosen a channel yet. I got distracted by watching the rain hitting the windows. Outside it was such a soft solid grey. Something about rainy days always felt comforting. “How’s the paper coming?”

The sound of typing didn’t pause, “I just want to finish a few more pages today, and then I should be fine.”

“No rush,” I began looking through the menu again. I didn’t mind that he was working; I just liked the fact that he was there.

I gave up on finding something on TV and went to look at what James had recorded on his box. There was a huge list of movies I went through before finding a familiar title, Before Sunrise. I was surprised to see it.

“You recorded Before Sunrise?” I laughed, clicking on the title.

James looked up from his laptop to the TV and read the description. “I don’t remember recording that. It might have been Dave.”

“Nice try.”

“What? Honestly!” He laughed as he defended himself.

“Uh-huh, I believe you.” I pressed play and watched as the opening credits came up.

“I’ve never even seen this movie.”

I smiled, “well then you’re in for a treat.” It is one of my favourite movies even though I’m not really into romantic stories. It wasn’t cheesy and it didn’t pretend to be perfect. IT just was and that’s what made it so believable.

As the movie played and the quick dialogue of the two main characters, Jesse and Celine, started I saw James focussing on the TV rather than his paper. Every once in a while he would try to write but he’d get distracted again by the movie. I felt bad for distracting him but at the same time couldn’t help but find it adorable how into the movie he kept getting. It got to the point about half way in that he closed his laptop and came up on the couch.

“No more paper?” I asked, looking over at him as he stared at the screen. He only quickly glimpsed over at me.

“After the movie.”

I laughed and settled my feet on his lap and got comfortable again. As Jesse and Celine walked around Vienna and talked about everything from love to childhood memories I got distracted by James’s hand on my foot. I didn’t look away from the screen, and neither did he, but I could feel his hand rubbing the top of my foot where it met my leg. It seemed as though he was doing it subconsciously but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. His touch was the most comforting touch I had ever felt. Innocent moments like this made me feel even closer with him; I loved the way our friendship had become.

By the time Celine got on the train and the movie finished I had barely paid attention to the movie at all.

“That was a really good movie,” James finally looked over at me as the credits began to roll.

He didn’t move his hand from its resting spot on my leg.

“It’s one of my favourites.”

“I like how most of it was in real-time. Those takes would have been really hard to do.”

When James had returned home a few days ago his hair was darker again, and it was short. He had even grown a fuller moustache but shaved the scruff around his chin. It was quite difficult to figure out how any look suited him so well.

“Yeah, but I think that’s part of what makes it so intimate.”

James gestured me to come over to his side of the couch so I turned around and let my head rest where my feet had been in his lap. His hand felt familiar in my hair. From here his face was sideways as he looked down at me.

“There must have been a lot of improvisation with 15 minute takes like that. I’d really like to do a movie like that.”

I shrugged, “so write a movie like that and then do it.”

James smiled at my suggestion, “I should,”

A silence fell over us as my eyes slowly shut. It wasn’t out of tiredness as much as peace and comfort. With the TV now off the only sound was the patter of raindrops against the glass windows. His fingers in my hair moved only slightly, he seemed to be deep in thought. Knowing him, he was probably already cooking up some idea for a movie in real-time.

“Have you ever been to Vienna? Or anywhere in Austria?” I didn’t open my eyes as I asked.

“No.”

I paused and in my head I pictured the scenes from the movie, “I’ve always wanted to see Austria. I don’t know why.”

“We’ll go sometime.”

My eyes opened, checking the seriousness of his expression. It looked like he meant it.

“Which reminds me,” he continued, “Have you ever been to a film festival?”

“What? No. Random topic change.”

“Do you think you could take a couple days off in September?”

“I’ll have classes in September.”

His dark brown eyes pleaded with me, “You’ll only miss a couple of classes.”

I couldn’t say no to those eyes.

“I guess I could take a couple days off. Where is this film festival?”

“Telluride.”

“No way. What are you going to be doing there?”

A smile rested on James lips, he was sitting tall, “premiering 127 Hours.”

“Well then, I can’t pass up that,” I said sitting up and looking at him. He looked happy. I know he had put a lot of work into that movie and he had high hopes for it. “It’s not going to make me squeamish is it?”

I knew there was a scene where he had to cut off his arm, and I had a feeling watching James do that over anyone else might be hard to watch.

“You’ll be fine.”

“How long are you going to be in Telluride?”

“A couple of nights.”

“Mostly press right?”

“We can check out the town, hit up some restaurants, have some drinks but I will have to do some press.”

I was suddenly looking forward to September. Especially because I knew August I wasn’t really going to get to see him with his schedule. “Sounds great.”

I looked over at the clock on the wall and noticed it was already 3 in the afternoon. We hadn’t really any plans we were just spending time together while we could.

“Aren’t you going to get back to your paper?”

“Nah. I’ll do it later.”

“Okay, then what do you want to do?”

“Dave wanted me to meet up with him for drinks tonight. He started dating someone he wants me to meet her.”

“Oh.”

“Of course you’re coming. I don’t want to be a third wheel.”

“When’s that?”

He shrugged and got up from the couch, heading towards the kitchen. “8 or 9?”

I stared at the empty spot on the couch where he had been, “and until then?”

“What do you want to do?” He continued the conversation from the kitchen. I could seem him over the bar, looking in the fridge for something.

I thought about it for a moment. The unpleasant weather outside wouldn’t allow for much. I pondered as James grabbed a bottle of water and leaned on his elbows at the bar, watching me think.

“I have an idea. Grab a jacket.”

He looked at me sceptically but did as I asked. It was a short taxi ride in the miserable weather and within a half an hour we were at the large stone building I had in mind.

“Really Daize?” James whined. I don’t think he was looking for a laugh in response but I couldn’t help it.

I turned to him, I could feel my messy bun of hair move with the gesture, “It’ll be fun!”

The museum was pretty empty as I dragged him around the Greek exhibit, Africa, modern Britain. It didn’t take long for him to become interested in the strange artefacts and useless trivia. Every era we looked at he was drawn to the paintings and military gear. I’d tell him random things about how the Crimean war gave us sanitized hospitals and nursing. I had stories of how certain tribes in Africa the title husband wasn’t gendered so you could have female husbands. He liked that. One thing about James was that he was always curious. Not many people would have put up with my incessant nattering about things on display, yet he not only listened, he would ask questions too. But I wasn’t the only one who knew my history. James would sometimes come out with stuff I never knew. He said sometimes when he was working on a movie from a different time period he’d do his research. That’s how he knew all about fighter planes and American intervention in the First World War. After hours of wandering around we were on the only exhibit we hadn’t seen: water animals.

“That is like the Daddy long legs of the crab world,” James said looking at a strange looking crab with legs as long as my own.

“Wow. That’s so strange.”

James looked over the little description on the glass, “Anthropod?”

“It means it has joints in its legs,” I didn’t look away from examining the pink creature.

“But it doesn’t say why they’re so long.”

“Yeah that’s weird.”

“And why is there a picture of a whale behind it?”

We both laughed, “I have no idea, but I do know that there was a guy who used the penis of a sperm whale to make an apron.”

James looked at me with puzzlement on his face. I loved how his eyebrows jumped when he was surprised.

“Yeah, a sperm whales penis is like 9 feet long so all he had to do was cut some holes in the skin.” I shuddered at the thought.

“How do you know all these things?” James seemed amused more than put off by my rather odd trivia.

“You get to know everything about literature and movies, of which I am ignorant, and I get to be the random history nerd, deal?”

He nodded, “deal.”

It was a pleasant moment but short lived. Some girls I had noticed before came up to James and I.

“Excuse me?” One of them said shakily. She was holding an iPhone in front of her as if she were about to take a picture. The girl beside her seemed shy, half hiding behind her friend. They couldn’t have been more than 17.

“Hi,” James greeted with a smile. There wasn’t hesitation or annoyance.

“I know this is wildly inappropriate,” The first girl spoke again, pausing to look at me then back at him, “but do you mind if we get a picture with you? We’re both big fans.”

The girl beside her nodded without a word. James’s smile never faltered. “Sure.”

The girl held out the phone to me, “would you mind taking it?”

“Not at all.”

It was weird seeing James like this. I was very much removed from the life of James Franco the movie star. I was just the friend he came home to hang out at coffee shops with and ask about art. This James, this perfectly charming, smooth James was all new to me.

“Alright ready?” I asked watching the girls nod in the screen of the phone. Their smiles were infectious. It was so nice of him to be so cool about it.

I snapped the picture. It was a good one. The girls thanked him, well the one who talked did, before praising his work in Spider-man. Somewhere I heard “you totally could have played Spider-man” and “I believed you as that bad guy but you’re so nice”.

James was gracious with the girls. He thanked them, and listened. I honestly can’t describe how cute I thought it was or how surreal it was. When they left he turned back to me and apologized.

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s nothing to be sorry about. So, should we go meet up with your brother for those drinks?”

He glanced at his silver watch, “Yeah it’s 7:30, I’ll give him a call.”

James pulled out his phone and called his brother. I tried to be polite and concentrate on other things as we walked back through the exhibits to the exit. James’s voice became a murmur beside me. I could still hear the sound of it but I wasn’t paying attention to the words. As I looked over some of the artefacts we had already passed I thought about the time periods they came from. I wondered what life would have been like in Ancient Greece, or China. I wondered if during the Victorian period in England James and I would have been friends. He probably would have been some prince or a poor poet… I laughed at the thought of him in the Victorian clothing on display.

“What are you laughing at?” James said as he hung up his phone and put it back in his pocket.

“Nothing. What did Dave say?”

The lobby was completely quiet as we crossed through it, the lady at the ticket counter waved us good-bye with an over enthused smile.

“He wants us to meet him at this place down the street. It’s one of our spots in the city. He and Marissa are already there.”

I nodded, “Okay, sounds good.”

For something that was just friends hanging out it sure felt like a double date. Perhaps that was impossible to avoid when having drinks with a guy friend and a couple but that’s how I was introduced. “This is My brother James and his friend Daisy.” I wasn’t surprised. Or disappointed.

Okay, maybe I was a little disappointed. It seemed that since James and I had been getting close I had been having disconcerting thoughts for someone who didn’t want a relationship. But perhaps it isn’t being in a relationship that holds you back really, but who you’re in a relationship with. James’s friendship hadn’t hindered me from doing the things I loved. His busy schedule gave me time to myself; my whole life didn’t revolve around him. Maybe relationships weren’t always bad. But why was I even thinking that?

Because I’m falling for James. Fuck.
I felt like Celine in my very own version of Before Sunrise, trying to be some strong independent icon of womanhood and then falling for a guy with whom any relationship would be doomed.