Accidental It Girl (22 page)

A
ll right, I know this is going to sound stupid, I know it sounds a bit immature and irrational, but I feel like I have to even the playing field with Ethan. I want to know something deep and dark and personal about him so that we're back on an equal footing. All that crap from my mother about the portraits, and lost talent, and “a few trials” in my life…and he's seen that sad, faraway look I apparently get sometimes. I feel so…exposed.

Okay, and there might be something else. A teeny-tiny, barely perceptible…almost
invisible
part of me might want to know a little more about him. Just for me.

I lie on my bed staring at the ceiling, with the phone to my ear. “You didn't find
anything
?” I say to Donna.

“Sadie, I'm not jerking you around here. He pays his taxes. He's a big tipper. He gives to charity and takes his mom to award shows.” Donna heaves a frustrated sigh. “I can't even find a speeding ticket, and the guy used to own an Aston Martin, for God's sake. About the only thing I did find out is that his agent wanted to set up a reality show for him and he turned it down.”

Okay, that might be something. “What was the angle?” I ask.

“The agent was a crackpot, if you ask me…wanted to call it
Wyatt Riot
and follow Ethan barhopping or something. Ethan got rid of the guy—switched agencies because of it.”

A little smile perks at the corners of my mouth. Yeah, he would have hated that idea. I clear my throat in an attempt to shake off the sudden rush of warm and fuzzy Ethan Wyatt feelings. “So, what you're telling me, then, is that he actually
is
a saint?” I ask Donna.

“Honey, I'm gay and
I
want to sleep with the guy.”

Part of me is disappointed by the dearth of juicy gossip. Another part of me sort of wants to turn on Jason Mraz and sing into a toothbrush.

 

“How many times has she done that so far this morning?” I ask Luke.

“Four,” he answers with a hint of concern in his voice.

“Yeah, she was doing it yesterday, too,” I say.

Brooke has recently become obsessed with our voice mail. She checks it about once an hour. Checking it when she gets home from work, I understand. After returning from the bodega, I get. But she's at home—if the phone rings she'll hear it.

“Brooke?” I ask, approaching her. “Who are you expecting a call from?”

“No one,” she says, doing a bad job of acting casual. I hear the voice on the line say, “Press two for saved messages…” before Brooke hangs up.

She grabs a magazine, sinks Indian style into a nearby chair, and begins reading an article on Ashlee Simpson with the same intensity a normal person would read, say, a road map to the Holy Grail.

I look to Luke, questioning him with my eyes. He just shrugs his shoulders at me—clueless.

“Where's your mom?” he asks, patting the seat next to him on the couch, inviting me to sit.

“Broomstick repairs…. Having her pointy hats polished…. Challenging Glenda the Good Witch to a duel…. How should I know?” I slump into the corner of the couch.

“Have you opened the box yet?” he asks.

“No! What does that have to do with anything?” Oops. Snapped a little bit there.

Luke gives me his classic “women are insane” expression—eyes wide and confused, one hand moving defensively to his crotch. “It was just a question—”

“I'm sorry,” I say sincerely. “Last night she said she wants to
know
me. It threw me a little.”

“Really? She said that?” asks Brooke, looking up from Ashlee.

“What does that mean?” asks Luke.

“It means that she's changing,” replies Brooke.

“No, it means that she's had a midlife crisis, and I'm going to pay for it,” I correct.

“You might want to consider the possibility that she's not after anything, Sadie,” Brooke says in a matter-of-fact sort of tone that makes my hands clench into fists.

“Let me set you straight there,” I say, desperately trying to keep my emotions in check. “My mother has never done anything that didn't benefit her in some way. Shit, she doesn't even give to charities that don't reward her with swag. Even if she is
changing,
as you call it, it's only because it'll get her something. She only does things that make her feel good. The thing that's important to remember is that someone is always—and I do mean
always
—hurt in the process.”

It's like Paige's life is inextricably linked to the universe's system of checks and balances. To keep the world from spinning off its axis, Paige's pleasure must be counteracted, in equal proportion, by someone else's displeasure. If Paige were to win the lottery, somewhere in the world a small, innocent village of happy people would have to be smited.

I turn back to Brooke, only to see her shifting uncomfortably in the chair, adjusting her shirt and pants in an odd way. As she yanks her pants up, I spot a black…
thing
attached to her left hip. Oh, my God. It couldn't be…

“What was that?” I ask, pointing at her waist.

“What was
what
?” she replies guiltily.

“That black thing on your waistband.”

“What black thing?” she asks, her green eyes scrunching up in mock confusion. Feigning innocence, she inspects the right side of her pants—ignores the left.

“Brooke,” I begin seriously—trying not to laugh. “Is that a cell phone belt clip that you have attached to your pajamas?”

“No,” she says, watching me, as her left hand twitches closer to her waist.

Luke locks eyes with me and barely—just barely—tips his head up and down. Good, he knows what has to be done.

I try, with all my might, to keep a smile from spreading across my face. “It's
not
?” I ask Brooke, taking one tiny step toward her.

“Noooo,”
she says slowly, while pressing her back farther into the chair.

Brooke's eyes flit between Luke and me—each of us creeping ever closer.

“What is it, then?” I ask.

“I don't even know what you're talking about,” she says, matching my tone.

Brooke drops her feet to the floor suddenly. They smack down on the hardwood with a splat.

Luke yells, “Now!”

We both pounce on her.

Brooke screams and falls into a fit of laughter. She wiggles and squirms, screams, “You guys!”

The chair is a knot of arms and legs as Brooke tries desperately to plaster her left side against the back of the chair.

Through my own laughing fit, I instruct Luke, “Get her hands!”

He complies, pinning her wrists to the arms of the chair, while the lower half of her body writhes to and fro.

I manage to spot the little black item attached to Brooke's pants and snatch it up before it disappears again into the downy fluff of the chair.

“Aha! I got it!” I say, raising my arms in victory.

Luke releases Brooke's arms.

“Give me that!” she demands as a shot of crimson rolls across her cheeks.

I take one look at it. “It
is
a cell phone belt clip! What is wrong with you?” I laugh.

She looks at me with a crooked smile, and no small amount of embarrassment flickering across her perfect features. “I have
clients
, okay? They wanna talk about…
things
.”

Luke is beside himself, face completely red—laughter echoing through the apartment.

“You have it clipped to your pajamas!” I say.

Brooke's eyes dart around the room nervously. She opens her mouth to speak, then closes it abruptly. Finally she huffs, “Important calls come in…and…and I can't always be near my purse, you know? So…”

“So you bought a cell phone belt clip when (
a
) you hate them, and (
b
) you don't wear belts.”

“Yes, okay? I did.”

Luke and I can do nothing but stare at each other, shaking our heads in complete and utter confusion.

Out of nowhere, Brooke lets out a squeal—loud, unbridled, seriously disturbing. She hops out of her seat, grabbing the remote control from the coffee table.

She turns to Luke and me and says, “Shhhhhhh!”

Luke, completely confused, shouts, “I didn't even say anything!”

Brooke shoots him a glare that shuts him up immediately. She racks up the volume on the television to roughly two hundred decibels and, fidgeting wildly, returns to her chair.

Duncan Stoke's face appears on the screen. Oh…it's a
True Hollywood Story
.

“Okay,” I whisper to Luke, “now do you see why I was worried about her?”

A loud harsh buzz suddenly blares from the little security panel by the front door.

Brooke jumps and frantically unhooks the cell phone from her waistband. She flips the phone open and says a remarkably calm and sultry hello. She tries again, “Hello?”

The buzzer echoes through the apartment again.

“Brooke, that's the front door,” I say.

She exclaims, “Damn!” before promptly returning her attention to the
True Hollywood Story.

Luke whispers to me, “Yep, now I'm with you.”

I head to the security panel and push the talk button. “Hello?”

Todd's voice blasts into the apartment. “Buzz me in. I've got something on Wyatt.”

I
wait at the elevator door for Todd, my stomach churning. This is good news. Isn't it? This could be the thing that gets Ethan off my back—the thing that gets my face out of the papers and Ethan out of my life.

My stomach lurches.

The elevator doors screech open.

Todd bounds out like a bull on a rampage, almost walking right by me.

“What is it?” I ask, startling him.

“Oh, hi. I got a tip that he's going to be meeting up with Lori Dunn tonight.”

My heart leaps into my throat. “Oh.” Whoops, that sounded a little like disappointment. I clear my throat. “I mean…
really
? Excellent.”

Todd's caterpillars begin one of their famous bouncing and wiggling routines. “This is what you wanted, right?” he asks.

“Absolutely. Yeah. Sure.” Although, I may be experiencing some minor—barely noticeable—form of slight…um…jealousy. I imagine the headlines in the next issue of
Celeb
: “Ethan Wyatt's Romantic Reunion with Former Flame,” “Wyatt and Dunn Do-Over,” “Cheeky Bastard Gets Back with His Ex.” I ask, “Is it a solid tip?” in a bit of a whimper. “I mean, you know, I don't want to waste my time on bad information.”

“As solid as they get,” Todd says. “Hey, you're not getting cold feet on me, are you?”

Okay, get it together, Sadie. “No, of course not. No, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you, Todd.”

“Don't sound so excited,” he says sardonically.

“Oh, I am excited!” I exclaim in a completely unintentional, and fairly creepy, falsetto.

Todd looks at me with an odd mixture of concern and amusement. “Are you all right?”

“Of course. I'm
great
!” I sound like Tony the Tiger. Maybe I should just stop talking altogether.

“Good,” Todd says, though clearly unconvinced.

“The thing is, Todd, I'm really going to need a car.”

I stare at him, my eyes blinking in what I think is a pity-inducing, alluring sort of way. I blink—and wait for him to get a clue.

He cocks his head at me like a confused puppy. Then slowly it dawns on him. “No!” He says gruffly. “Absolutely not. The Cayenne? No way.”

“Todd, it's just for one night. You know how I hate that thing. I promise if I didn't absolutely have to use it, I—”

“No way,” he repeats. “Can't the Hungarian give you a loaner, or…”

“You know that's not going to happen. And I don't know anybody else with a car, okay. No one.”

Todd runs his thick fingers through his already messy hair. He paces around in a little circle, staring at the elevator's down button with longing.

Suddenly his expression shifts from frustrated contemplation to clear, crisp relief. “Uh, Sadie, you do know someone else with a car….”

 

This was a bad,
bad
idea.

“Mother,” I say, doing my best not to grab the steering wheel as we careen ever closer to the Jersey barriers on the FDR Drive. “Why don't you let me drive? I know the city better.” And how to drive. “It's pretty dark out tonight.” Yeah, there's a brilliant one, Sadie.

“I only agreed to participate in this scheme to keep an eye on you. If I were you, darling, I wouldn't look this particular gift horse in the mouth.”

“Okay, fine.” I take a deep, cleansing breath. “Another quarter of a mile until our exit.”

“Good.”

I try, “You could go a little faster if you—”

“There is nothing wrong with going the speed limit.”

Unless everyone around you is going twenty miles an hour faster. Something tells me this argument will be lost on her.

“Sadie?” Paige's tone changes, softens. “You don't have to do this, you know.”

“Can we please not discuss this?” I plead.

“You're always going, always moving forward—like a…like a steamroller. Pushing through, when what you might need to do is step back, darling.”

“I'm fine,” I retort—a little more defensively than I'd intended. “I know what I'm doing.” Sort of.

“You're a strong woman, and that's a wonderful thing. But, Sadie, you're allowed to be confused. To have a time-out. Sometimes people need that time to gain perspective. Are you sure that you're ready for what might happen as a result of getting these pictures?”

“Absolutely,” I retort. “There's an excellent chance that I'll be able to ride the subway without being hit on by slimy investment bankers and go to work without being intentionally blinded by my co-workers.”

She looks at me. “You know that's not what I meant—”

“Ah, Mother! This is the exit. This is the exit!”

Paige turns her attention back to the road, and with screeching tires and no small amount of luck, we miss running straight into a street sign—or three.

After catching my breath and relaxing my grip on the dashboard, I say, “It should be right up here. A block up on the left.”

“I can turn around, you know—”

“No! This is a one-way street!”

“I mean, darling, that I can take you home and you can forget about this.”

Instinctively, I groan. “Just drop me off by that bodega up there, please.”

She double-parks outside the bodega. I gather my things and open the door.

“You find a place to park somewhere. I'll call you on the cell when I'm done, and we can figure out a place to meet up. All right?”

She nods her head yes, but there's a bit of a devious twinkle in her eye that worries me.

“I'm serious,” I say. “No funny business.”

She makes a crisscross motion over her chest with her bright red nails.

I slam the door and watch closely as my mother's Mercedes lumbers down the block and disappears around the corner.

Okay, this is it. Ethan and Lori should be seated at the restaurant by now. If my instincts are correct, they'll be seated in the little alfresco/smoking section in the back. I've eaten at this place before. It's low key and private, but not flashy enough to be the sort of place you'd expect to find two celebrities canoodling. The alfresco patio is softly lit and romantic, and on a warm night like this, the jasmine planted along the privacy fence will fill the air with a beautiful scent. I have to commend Ethan on his choice; it's the perfect place for a reconciliation.

Locating the narrow air shaft between the restaurant's three-story brownstone and a seven-floor apartment building, I march in.

I shimmy my way along the side of the building. To keep myself walking in a straight line down the dark pathway, I run my fingers along the wooden privacy fence.

I was right, the air is heavy with the smell of jasmine, intermingled with the aroma of countless steaks being grilled over an open flame. The many lanterns beyond the fence cause thin shafts of light to break through cracks and poorly patched holes. I sidle up to a particularly bright spot, a dislodged knot in one of the planks, and press my eye to it.

There he is.

He's wearing a lightweight chino blazer, but underneath I see the tiniest slip of his shirt with the little army figurines. If I'm not mistaken there's a smattering of pink by the collar. Lori Dunn is seated across from him with her arms crossed and her body sort of slumped forward—almost self-consciously. Her shoulders positively glisten under the warm lantern light. Her skin looks so perfectly pale and pristine it really borders on criminal.

Quietly, carefully, I ready my camera.

“How have you been?” comes Ethan's voice through the fence.

I look up startled—thinking he's found me out.

“Fine,” replies Lori.

“You look nice tonight,” he says.

“Thanks,” she coos. “So do you.”

Blahbeddy blah blah. Everybody's beautiful. Let's get this over with.

I lift the camera to my eye and point the lens through the hole. There's just enough of the fence in the frame to make it look really hidden-camera-ish; the editors will love that. They think it makes the pictures seem more
real
.

I put my finger on the button, ready myself to shoot…

…and then stop.

A sleek, ginger brown curtain of hair swishes into my frame.

I drop the camera from my eye and smash my face against the fence. Someone else has joined them.

Holy crap, it's Maya Dunn. In contrast to her sister, Maya's skin has a warm golden hue. Amazingly enough, it appears to be a real tan, not the spray-on kind. A thin wisp of a dress hangs off her shoulders, just barely clinging to her body in all the right places—bust, waist, hips. Her legs are so impossibly long, they seem to start somewhere near her chin. How could any mere mortal ever compete with that?

Maya plunks a Mojito on the table and sits down with Ethan and Lori.

“All right,” Maya says, a deeply bitter tone marring her voice. “We're both here. Together. What do you want?”

Oh, my God. All three of them. The infamous Wyatt-Dunn love triangle reunited. The editors will scratch each other's eyes out for this. The pictures will go for thousands—thousands upon thousands.

I pull the camera up and rest the very edge of the lens on the hole in the fence.

From my vantage, I can see Ethan's leg begin to thump up and down under the table. Oh, wow—he's nervous.

It makes him look so uncharacteristically…
vulnerable
.

He says, “I want to apologize for the misunderstanding that caused all this mess we got into in the press.”

Maya crosses her arms defiantly. She sits up a little straighter in her chair. Meanwhile, Lori has slumped so far down she's actually more under the table than over it; her eyes haven't left her place setting since Maya sat down.

Ethan takes a deep breath and a slow gulp of water.

Maya grumbles, “Go on.”

Ethan sets his water glass down carefully on the table. “Maya, I should've been more clear about…” He shakes his head, as though shaking off the thought he almost vocalized. “I was…I didn't want to hurt your feelings by telling you that I wasn't into you in that way. And, Lori, I shouldn't have asked you out knowing that Maya wasn't really, totally clued in.”

Lori finally looks up.

“Now look,” Ethan says stridently, his leg finally beginning to still. “You guys shouldn't let me get between you, all right? It was a stupid, fucked-up mistake. And my fault.”

Oh, God, that's sweet. It almost makes me want to gag. Can I really take a picture of this?

If this goes to the editors, they'll make it out to be some big drama. They'll probably say they ran into each other by accident and that Maya and Lori bitched him out. Or worse, they'll intimate that it was the beginning of some sleazy three-way thing.

Ethan continues, “You're sisters. You two were inseparable.” He smiles. “I feel guilty enough as it is—don't make me carry
that
around.”

“Oh, this is all about
you,
” Maya snaps.

Lori shakes her head and regains her posture. “It was a joke, Maya.”

“Oh,” Maya says meekly.

Ethan directs his gaze to Maya. “I really am sorry.” He shakes his head, his body language absolutely oozing regret. “It was a dumb move, and I think Lori agrees with me there.”

Man, he's so freaking
decent
.

I pull the camera from the fence, quietly open my bag, and slip the camera inside.

It's not that I can't get the shot—I totally could. There are no freaky emotions or strange stomach quivers impeding me. I
won't
get this shot. It would hurt him, and I don't want to do that.

“What a nice young man,” murmurs my mother's voice over my right shoulder.

I gasp—louder than you should ever gasp when hiding behind a fence in the dark—and somehow lose my footing. My body careens forward. Instinctively, I brace myself by splaying my hands against the fence.

The acres of jasmine are jarred out of a restful state and rustle disturbingly from one end of the fence to the other. With my hands plastered to the fence, my eye jumps to the hole.

Ethan, Maya, and Lori apprehensively look toward the fence. But it's only Ethan who spots the hole. His eyes lock onto mine.

I quickly push myself off the fence and, slinging my arm through one of Paige's, drag her off toward the sidewalk.

“Did you get what you needed, darling?” my mother clucks in that cloying, all-knowing, irritatingly sarcastic way she does.