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Playing Hooky	By : rainey Category: Individual Celebrities > Orlando Bloom Views: 3069 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know Orlando Bloom. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter two: Hop in.
It was snowing, barley, the last sort of icy sleet at the end of a bitter March. As I strode out into the grocery parking lot my hand reached involuntarily to my breast pocket for a smoke.
None left.
Damn, I’ll need to pick some up on the way home.
I walked purposefully to the only vehicle in the lot… mine…. A forest green rental SUV.
When I stopped by the driver’s door to fish out my keys, the grocery store girl nearly crashed right into the back of me. I’d forgotten she was behind me. I unlocked the trunk.
“Uh… just pop them in the boot.”
I said, unsure of what the typical procedure would be.
She looked at me as though I’d just suggested we hop the next flying carpet to never land.
“Where?” She asked meekly.
“Oh! The…er…trunk.”
“Sure!” She gushed, carefully setting down the small bag as though it were made of glass.
“Thanks”
I slammed the hatch door.
She paused, staring at me.
I, in turn, surveyed her.
She looked about sixteen, though she was probably older…. Frizzy red hair, an abundance of freckles, and about two grand worth of orthodontia…nice kid. She didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I didn’t know what to do, should I be tipping her? I reached into my wallet and pulled out a couple bills.
“Here – uh- I’m not sure how much…”
The girl blushed, cheeks as red as the roots of her flaming locks.
“Oh no… I can accept - I mean… I don’t want-normally…normally I don’t take tips.”
“Oh… alright”
I replaced the money, rocking back a little on my heels.
“I really like- I mean… I think your work is-well your work is-it’s just…. I think that it’s great-you’re great-I just…. I mean… I think that what you do is really, really…. neat.” She trailed off.
“Thanks a lot Jean”
She blushed with pride at my using her name, but stayed put. I’d hoped that she would have taken it as a sort of dismissal. I waved a little, and then hopped into the front of my car. What else could I do? When I looked back, she’d gone. I exhaled, leaning back into the seat. I t had been a long week. I rubbed my temples. What I needed was…well, I didn’t really know what I needed. It’d been almost a month since Kate left me, and I still felt like I was in a rut. Today, the ominous steely grey frosted sky, and my personal complete lack of ambition left life more hollow than usual. I was actually physically starting to feel a gnawing emptiness…. Oh no wait, that was my stomach. When did I eat last? I couldn’t remember. I popped the ‘trunk’ and hopped out the driver’s side of the vehicle. As I was rifling through the grocery bag in the back, I could see a striped pinafore hovering just out of the corner of my eye. Christ! What else does she want? I snapped my head up and nearly concussed myself on the hatch back door.
“Mr. Bloom, you forgot your blueberries.”
It wasn’t Jean, it was the other one… what was her name? Brandy? No, wait… Bradie.
“Oh… thank you….it’s ‘Orli’”
“Ok Orli”
She smiled warmly, tucking some stray wisps of soft hair behind her left ear. I almost laughed a loud. Was this girl for real? If she’d tried, I don’t think she could possibly have come closer to the classic image of “The Girl Next Door.” She had sort big blue eyes, windswept, loosely tied back brown hair, and pink curved lips….a very natural, classically pretty face. Everything from the dimples on her cheeks to the stripes on her ridiculous grocery smock spelled out “I am the kind of girl your mother wanted you to marry.” Maybe I’d spent too long in the fictional and jaded world of Hollywood cynicism, but I was finding it incredulous that people like this actually exist outside of bad screen writing. WHOLESOME. That was the word I was looking for. I guess I forgot that the world genuinely contained people this wholesome. Or at least, people who gave off the appearance of being this wholesome. Maybe she was secretly a drug lord or something….I grinned at the mental image. She took this as an invitation, stepping closer to pass me my blueberries…three feet…two feet…blueberries in my hand. She was very, very close now. For all that I’d mentally tried to dismiss it…I think she was for real… an authentic “Girl Next Door”… like a rare, collector’s edition or something. Part of me wanted to seal her away in an air tight plastic bag….I don’t know… preserve this… preserve this time in a person’s life where they genuinely believe that the world is a predominantly good place….but not a very big part, the dominating instinct I was trying to quash was the intense desire to fuck her brains out. God… she really was…I searched my mind for a good word. Hot? No… no not really… I mean, yes, I suppose she was hot… but in my own head, that word calls to mind bikini clad, surgically enhanced blond Hollywood bombshells. Cute? Again… I suppose she was, in her own way, but that wasn’t really and all encompassing term. Maybe… beautiful. That seemed a little more fitting…kind of an understated beauty. Wallflower pretty… like Audrey Hepburn compared to Marilynn Monroe.
Again, I quirked a smile involuntarily.
She returned it with a shiver which reminded me how damned cold it was… and I had a jacket…the girl; Bradie… was only in, what? A pinafore and a white blouse…a relatively thin white blouse I noticed…uh oh… Shouldn’t be looking there.
I averted my eyes, and they landed on the fruit in my hands, which reminded me that I was starving.
I opened the carton.
“Blueberry?”
She took one gratefully. “Thanks.”
We stood there, chewing thoughtfully for a couple moments.
“So, what are you doing in Montreal?” She finally asked, somewhat tentatively.
“Work.”
I said with a grin, leaning back against the side of the green monstrosity.
“And pleasure.”
She laughed “That was evasive… Well done.”
“I try…and what about you…local?” I guessed.
She shook her head, allowing more curls to escape their tie and whip around in the sharp breeze.
“No….born back west…I’m just out here for….well…I don’t really know…work too…I guess.”
“You came all the way to Montreal to work at a grocery store?”
“No…well…not that kind of work…I’m in theatre.”
“Ah, lovely. In what capacity?”
“Well…I write…and act a bit…in the summer mostly…I just finished an apprenticeship with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford…now I’m basically between paychecks.” She tipped her head back to the neon ‘McEwen’s grocery sign. “Thus the glamorous approach to rent money.”
I smiled, remembering being in that position myself. “You know… I almost miss that.”
“What?”
“Trying to get paying acting work….you don’t realize how much this makes you appreciate the times you are working….everything is more of a triumph, every role is a success, and every paycheck is important…I don’t mean to sound pedantic, but try and hold on to that…it’s so easy to loose sight of…take for granted…even resent.”
“Words of the wise?”
“No…words of one trying to convince himself to go to work today like he’s supposed to.”
“Filming?”
“Oh no, that I enjoy.”
“Then what? The backbreaking labor of a photo shoot?”
“Cute, love… press conference.”
“Oh…you mean like an interview?”
“Yes…well sort of.” I said, with a bit of a wink.
“ More like 200 interviews conducted simultaneously.”
“So they grill you about what? Work?”
“Not usually…that would be moderately refreshing…as of late the topic of choice tends to be Kate.”
She blinked, “Who?”
“Kate. Kate Bosworth…my fiancé – well – ex-fiancé…”
She shrugged, looking blank.
I guess maybe the entire free world doesn’t know my business.
“And you can’t just…defer comment or something?”
“Well…no…I try, but it can be…” I searched for an adjective that could accurately convey the impossibility of keeping one’s personal life…well…personal, in a small room filled with literally hundreds of reporters asking you very private questions. “…difficult.” I finally finished.
She laughed. “And by ‘difficult’…” she said, mimicking my accent, “…you actually mean ‘impossible’.”
I grinned warmly. “Caught me.”
“Well…” Her face froze as if in thought, “You could play hooky.”
“Hooky? Forgive me for not following, but I can’t see how joining a team sport would allow me to evade prying journalists.”
“No! Not ‘hockey’….hooky…it means like ‘skipping’…er…skiving…blowing off something you don’t want to do in favor of doing something better.”
I seriously pondered this, an idea slowly dawning on me…
“I don’t really have anything better to do…” I said ruefully.
Bradie bit her lip, thinking.
“Go to the zoo.” She finally said decisively.
I couldn’t tell whether or not she was serious.
“Alright…how do I get there?”
“Just take 9^th until-”
“Better yet, love….” I walked passed her, deliberately brushing sides, and swung open the front passenger door. “Show me…you can be my guide to Montreal today.”
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Playing Hooky