Jane had nursed a small hope that crashing the party, seeing Charlie again and getting to spend more time with him would cure Camilla of her obsession. Unfortunately, the opposite happened, and Camilla became even more obsessed than before. Jane had to endure daily updates on his movements around the city, and she had to quash Camilla's plan to camp out on 48th St. to try for SNL standby tickets on the grounds that they'd freeze to death.

"Jane, it'll be an adventure! Our last hurrah before college?" Cam cajoled.

"Hold on, I thought that crashing the wrap party was the adventure, the last hurrah?" Jane reminded her. "We've had our adventure, and we've hurrah-ed the hell out of our pre-college time, I think."

Camilla gave her a look.

"Why don't you ask Vivian?" Jane asked brightly. "She apparently has an 'in' with him, anyway. Maybe you won't even have to wait in line."

Cam stuck her tongue out at Jane. The girls were eating lunch in the science room. It was their first class after lunch, Mr. Sparks didn't mind, and it was quieter than the cafeteria.

"Have you forgotten how nice he was? He danced with you, remember? And he took you outside so you could barf?" Camilla reminded her.

Jane sighed. "I told you, Cam, I didn't barf! I just needed some fresh air, and he was nice, that's all."

"Well, you could've barfed, that's all I'm saying," Cam babbled on. "He's such a gentleman that he was willing to go out in the freezing cold, where it was possible, if not likely, that you'd puke on him, and he did it anyway."

Camilla tried a different tack. "He probably likes you," she said suggestively.

Jane rolled her eyes. "Yeah. There I was, standing next to you, and he told himself, 'Wow, there's a very beautiful girl, nice body, perfect hair and face, who's really, really into me. I think I'm going to go for the pale, skinny girl with the bug eyes who's standing next to her'." She rolled her eyes again.

Cam blinked her blue eyes at Jane, the subject of Charlie forgotten for the moment. "Why? Why do you insist on talking that way about yourself?" She sat down in disgust. "I really hate when you do that, Jane."

Her words were so much like Charlie's that Jane didn't know what to say at first. Cam, pressing her advantage, turned her phone on, asking, "And we haven't even talked about how fucking hot he is! Here are some pictures to remind you."

She was scrolling through her phone when she stopped to read something, eyes widening.

"Oh fuck, Jane, we've missed our chance, look!" And she turned her phone toward Jane, who leaned over to look.

"Who's Tessa Hardwick?" Jane asked, "and why do I care what's on her Twitter?"

"This says she saw the girl who was photobombing those selfies of Charles in Rockefeller Center at the wrap party!" Cam said excitedly, continuing to scroll. "She's one of the fans who asked for a picture with him when he was at the Christmas tree. So apparently she was outside the Oak Room, waiting for Charles to leave--remember that bunch of girls who were standing there when we came home? Well, this says she saw that girl leaving the same party! They must be a thing, right? I mean, what are the chances of that same, skinny girl being in all those pictures, then showing up at that party? It was very exclusive, they wouldn't let just anyone in."

"They let us in," Jane reminded her friend dourly. Inside she was cold with dismay. "Are there any pictures of this mystery girl leaving the party? Did she even leave with Charlie?"

"Charlie?" Cam asked quizzically.

Fuck.

Jane shrugged noncommittally.

Cam was scrolling madly through her phone, Jane's slip of the tongue already forgotten. She shook her head.

"No pics," she said disappointedly. "But still! He's seeing someone new! Oh fuck, this is exciting." She was scrutinizing the Rockefeller Center photographs, really focusing on the blurry images of Jane. "She doesn't look like much," Cam said dismissively. "I mean, he usually dates supermodels and stuff, like super hot women. This girl looks like a tall, skinny twelve year old."

Jane bit her lips together, looking down.

"Still, her legs are really long, and her hair looks like that super-fine kind? Like wispy thin? Some models look like that, right? They've got that whole, heroin-chic, mousey, starving waif thing going on?"

Again, Jane shrugged noncommittally. "Don't know, don't care," she said. She was not going to cry in front of her friend.

Was not.

The bell rang and Mr. Sparks came in, holding a Bill Nye DVD. Thank god for small favors.

Charlie was doing something called "looping" at a sound studio in SoHo for the next couple days. Apparently looping was something that normally occurred months after principal photography was finished, but because Charlie would be going back to England, the movie execs wanted to get as much mileage out of him as they could while they still had him.

Jane wouldn't see him for five more days. Then was SNL.

Then he was going home.

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

"Jane, are you okay?" her mother asked with concern. "It seems like I never see you anymore, and when I do, you're always rushing around and you look so preoccupied." She held her arms out to her daughter.

Jane smiled and stepped into them, hugging her mother, as usual being comforted by the smell of the lotion her mother was always putting on her hands, which smelled like almonds.

"I'm fine, mom," she reassured her. "You're the one who always worried about me when all I did was stay home, right? So? Here I am, a girl with a life at last. I can't win with you, can I?" she joked, giving her mother a gentle shake.

"I guess I'm just getting pre-empty nest jitters," her mom responded, smoothing Jane's hair down. "I mean, this time next year you'll already have been gone to school for an entire semester, you know?"

"You're not going to have an empty nest," Jane said with a laugh. "Have you seen that ginormous human sitting in the dining room, doing his French homework in the worst accent I ever heard?"

"That's true, I will still have Barrett," her mother said, patting Jane's shoulder. "I love him, but I'm going to let you in on a secret." She leaned forward, hugging Jane close. "A son is not a daughter."

Aww, mom.

"Hug your dad when you go upstairs, hm? He's been feeling a little blue about you, too." She raised her eyebrows at her daughter.

Jane went upstairs, going to her father's den.

"Hey, pops, what're you doing?" She laid an arm across his shoulders as he sat at his desk, squinting at a document on his computer screen.

"Trying to get this bleeping brief finished before tomorrow," he said. He sounded frustrated. "I can barely read the words, and I left my good reading glasses at the office. The ones I have at home give me a headache after a while, though trying to do this without them is giving me a headache, too," he admitted.

Jane leaned forward and pressed some buttons. The document suddenly expanded to fill the entire screen and became much larger.

"Dad, what's the point of having this huge monitor if you don't take advantage of it?" Jane ruffled his thinning hair affectionately.

"How did you do that?" Her father was amazed.

Jane just laughed and showed him, even writing down which buttons to push, and in what order, on a sticky note.

She bent over and kissed his cheek. "I'm going to my room, dad, good night."

"Good night, Jane, and thanks."

She put her pjs on and got in bed. This was the part of the day she looked forward to. She already had three unanswered texts from Charlie.

"I miss you, Janey-Bird."

"I said, I MISS YOU, JANEY-BIRD!!!"

"...JANE...?"

She texted back.

"I was waiting for the dots (:"

Charlie leaned back against the headboard, arm behind his head, smiling at his phone. They'd tried Face Timing at night, but Jane's family could hear what she was saying, not to mention the fact that they could hear Charlie. Her father had even teased her once, asking if she'd snuck James Bond into her room.

"What?" Jane had asked, laughing.

"I swear I heard an Englishman's voice coming from your room last night," he said, grinning at her. "Sounded like Sean Connery or something."

"First of all, Sean Connery is Scottish, dad," Jane responded. "And I was just watching a movie on my iPad," she'd explained.

So Charlie and Jane couldn't Face Time very much, unless Jane knew she was alone in the house.

"God, Jane, I haven't seen you in six days, do you realize that? And by the time I *do* see you, it will have been ELEVEN DAYS??!! I don't think we've gone eleven days, you know? Even when we first met at lunch, I saw you right after :("

"I know."

"Maybe we could just go out somewhere? Throw caution to the wind?"

"Did you see Twitter today?"

"No, what?"

"One of the fans who took your pic in front of the Xmas tree was waiting outside the Oak Room and saw me leave. She recognized me bombing some of your pics."

"Shit. That's bad. Did she get a snap of you leaving with C?"

"No. But it was just dumb luck, you know?"

"I know."

Charlie was silent for a while.

"Charlie? You still awake? Tired? Want to say good night?"

"No. No I don't. I want to be with you all the time. I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of living like an animal in a fucking zoo, of not being able to walk down the street with the girl I love and hold her fucking hand..."

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't be. This isn't your fault, none of it. You have no idea how bad it can get, you've never experienced it. And it would be different this time, it would be even worse than before."

"Why? Because you're more popular?"

"Everyone will be able to tell the first time we're seen together how I feel about you, Jane. I'm shit at hiding my feelings."

"Jane???"

"[Jane is currently busy having a good cry and melting into a puddle of soft goo, she'll be with you in a bit]"

"Jane."

"Charlie."

"We'll figure this out. I mean, things could be so much worse. Neither one of us has cancer, right?"

"Haha."

"And I'm rich. There are very few problems that money can't solve."

"You going to buy us a nice house in Ithaca??"

"Hey, don't scoff! Anything can happen."

"I miss you too much to talk to you like this tonight, Charlie."

"I'm sorry, Jane. I'm so sorry for all of this."

"Good night, Charlie, I love you. xxx"

"Good night, Jane. Love you, too. xxx"

Her phone rang moments later, just as she was setting it in the charger.

"Hi," she said, and Charlie could hear the tears in her voice, and the sniffling.

"Hi, darling," he said softly. "I just wanted to say 'dot dot dot', okay?"

More sniffling, then a deep sigh.

"Dot dot dot, Charlie, talk to you tomorrow."