Last Night at Chateau Marmont (15 page)

“Hey!” Brooke said, sliding into a little wooden chair next to Heather. “I didn’t even see you here. How are you?”

Heather smiled. “I’m good! Thrilled it’s the weekend, I’ll tell you that much. Can you believe we only have two more weeks of school before being off for three months?”

“I know,” Brooke said, and decided not to mention that she would still be working full-time at the hospital.

Heather remembered anyway. “Yeah, I’ll be doing a lot of private tutoring this summer, but at least I can determine those hours. I don’t know if it was the horrible winter or I’m just getting burned out, but I can’t
wait.
”

“I hear you,” Brooke said, feeling a little bit awkward that they didn’t really have much else to talk about.

Heather seemed to read her mind. “It’s weird to see each other outside school, isn’t it?”

“It is! I am constantly paranoid I’m going to run into some of the girls on the street or in a restaurant. Remember what it was like when we were kids and you’d run into your teacher at the mall, and
there was this stunning realization that they had a life outside your classroom?”

Heather laughed. “It’s so true. Luckily we don’t tend to travel in the same circles.”

Brooke sighed. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” And then: “I had a really productive meeting with Kaylie at the end of last week. I still don’t feel comfortable allowing her to lose any weight, but I agreed that we could start her on a food journal to see where she could be eating healthier, more wholesome foods. She seemed pleased with that.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I think we both know that weight isn’t her problem; it’s the very understandable feeling of not fitting in with classmates who are from another socioeconomic universe. We see it frequently with the scholarship students, unfortunately, but they almost always find their niche.”

Brooke disagreed to an extent—she’d worked with a fair number of teenage girls at this point, and in her opinion Kaylie was overly preoccupied with her weight—but she didn’t want to start that conversation now. Instead, she smiled and said, “Look at us, talking about work on a Saturday. Shame on us!”

Heather sipped her coffee. “I know, it’s all I can think about. I’m actually thinking of switching back to the lower schools in the next year or two. Just a better fit for me. What about you? Any thoughts on how long you’ll stay?”

Brooke searched Heather’s face for any sign that she was indirectly asking about Julian. Was the girl somehow implying that Brooke could quit now that Julian was making money as a musician? Had Brooke ever told her that was why she had accepted the job in the first place? She decided she was being way too paranoid, that if she didn’t talk about Julian in a regular, normal way, how could she expect anyone else to?

“I don’t know, actually. Things are, uh, kind of up in the air right now.”

Heather looked at her sympathetically but was kind enough not to press. Brooke realized this was the very first time in three or four weeks that someone—anyone—had not immediately asked about Julian. She was grateful to Heather and eager to steer the conversation back to something less awkward. She glanced around, her mind searching for something to say, and then settled on, “So what are you up to today?” She quickly took a bite of her biscotti so she wouldn’t have to talk for a few more seconds.

“Not much, really. My boyfriend’s away with his family this weekend, so I’m on my own. Just hanging out, I guess.”

“Nice. Love those weekends,” Brooke lied. She managed to keep herself from announcing that she was quickly becoming the resident expert on how to best spend a weekend when your significant other is somewhere else. “What are you reading?”

“Oh, this?” Heather said, motioning toward the facedown magazine near her elbow without picking it up. “It’s nothing. Some dumb gossip rag. Nothing interesting.”

Brooke knew immediately it was
that
issue of
Last Night.
She wondered if Heather knew she was two weeks behind the ball.

“Ahh,” she said with forced cheer that she knew didn’t sound remotely believable. “The infamous photo.”

Heather clasped her hands together and stared down at her lap as though she’d just been caught in some horrible lie. She opened her mouth to say something, reconsidered, and then said, “Yeah, it’s kind of a weird picture.”

“Weird? What do you mean?”

“Oh, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t mean anything by it. Julian looks great!”

“No, I know what you mean. There is something off about it.” Brooke wasn’t sure why she was grilling this girl she barely knew, but it suddenly felt crucially important to know what Heather thought.

“It’s not that. I think it was just taken in a weird split second when he’s, like,
gazing
at her in that way.”

So that was it. Other people had made similar comments. Words like “enraptured” and “worshipful” had been thrown around. Which was all utterly ridiculous.

“Yeah, my husband thinks Layla Lawson is hot. Which makes him exactly like one hundred percent of other red-blooded American men.” Brooke laughed, trying her best to sound casual.

“Totally!” Heather nodded in overenthusiastic agreement. “I bet it’s just great for his career in terms of raising his profile.”

Brooke smiled. “You could definitely say that. In one single night, that picture changed, well, everything.”

Heather seemed sobered by this admission. She looked up at Brooke and said, “I know it’s all so exciting, but I can’t even imagine how hard it’s been for you. I bet it’s all anyone can talk about. Every second of every day must be all about Julian.”

Brooke was caught off guard. No one—not Randy, or her parents, or even Nola—had assumed that Julian’s newfound fame was anything but absolutely wonderful. She looked at Heather gratefully. “Yeah, but I’m sure it’ll all blow over. Slow couple news weeks, you know? We’ll be onto the next thing soon enough.”

“You have to be ruthless about your privacy. My friend from college, Amber? One day she’s getting married in a proper church wedding to her high school sweetheart, and less than a year later her brand-new husband wins
American Idol.
Talk about total and complete upheaval.”

“Is your friend married to Tommy? From one of the earlier seasons?”

Heather nodded.

Brooke whistled. “Wow, I don’t think I ever even knew he was married.”

“Yeah, well, you sure wouldn’t. It’s literally a new girl every week, has been since the day he won. Poor Amber was so young—only twenty-two—and so naive that she wouldn’t leave him, no matter how many girls he was linked to. She thought if she could just give it
time, he would settle down and everything could go back to the way it was.”

“So what happened?”

“Uch, it was horrible. He kept screwing around and was getting more and more blatant about it. Do you remember those pictures of him skinny-dipping with that model, the ones where they blurred out their genitals but you could see everything else?”

Brooke nodded. Even among the constant influx of paparazzi photos, she remembered those as particularly scandalous.

“Well, it went on that way for over a year with no signs of letting up. It got so bad that her father flew to meet Tommy on tour, showed up in his hotel room. He told him he had twenty-four hours to file divorce papers or else. He knew Amber would never do it herself—she was a good girl and still couldn’t really wrap her mind around everything that was happening—and Tommy did it. I’m not sure he was a super stand-up guy before he was famous, but he is undoubtedly a colossal asshole now.”

Brooke tried to keep a neutral expression, but she wanted to reach over and slap Heather. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked in as calm a voice as she could manage. “Julian is nothing like that.”

Heather clamped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to imply that Julian is
anything
like Tommy. Of course he’s absolutely not at all. The only reason I started this whole story was that a little while after their divorce, Amber sent out an e-mail to all her friends and family, requesting that they stop e-mailing her pictures or links, snail-mailing clippings, or calling her with updates on what was happening with Tommy. I remember thinking it was a little weird at the time—like, are that many people really sending her interviews they’d read on her ex-husband?—but after she showed me her e-mail inbox one day, I totally got it. No one was trying to hurt her; they were just highly insensitive. They somehow thought she’d want to know. Anyway, since then, she’s totally reclaimed her life and probably understands
better than anyone out there how, uh, overwhelming all this fame stuff can be.”

“Yeah, that part isn’t great.” Brooke drained the last of her latte and wiped the foam from her lips. “I probably wouldn’t have believed it if you told me that a few weeks ago, but my god . . . I just spent the morning getting blackout shades installed. A few nights ago I walked from the bathroom to the fridge wearing a towel, and all of a sudden there were crazy flashbulbs going off. There was a photographer sitting on top of a car right below our window, obviously hoping to catch a picture of Julian. It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, how awful! What did you do?”

“I called the nonemergency number of the local police station and said there was a man outside trying to take pictures of me undressed. They said something along the lines of ‘Welcome to New York’ and told me to lower the shades.” She deliberately left out the part about first calling Julian, only to have him tell her that she was overreacting and she needed to deal with these kinds of things without “always” calling him in a panic about “everything.”

Heather visibly shuddered. “That is so creepy. I hope you have an alarm or something?”

“Yeah, that’s coming next.” Brooke was secretly hoping they’d move before that was necessary—just last night on the phone, Julian had obliquely mentioned something about “upgrading” to a new apartment—but she wasn’t sure that was really going to happen.

“Excuse me for a second. I’m just going to run to the restroom,” Heather said, taking her purse from the back of her chair.

She watched as Heather disappeared behind the ladies’ room door. The moment she heard the lock click into place, she grabbed the magazine. It had been an hour, maybe less, since she’d last seen the photo, but she couldn’t stop herself from turning directly to page fourteen. Her eyes moved automatically to the lower left of the page, where the picture was wedged innocently between a photo of Ashton
grabbing Demi’s highly toned backside and another of Suri perched atop Tom’s shoulders while Katie and Posh looked on.

Brooke flattened the magazine open on the table and leaned over it to get a better look. It was every bit as disturbing as it had been sixty minutes earlier. If she had just glanced at it quickly, and it didn’t happen to feature her husband and a world-famous starlet, she would have found nothing noteworthy about it. You could see the raised arms of the first couple rows in the lower part of the frame. Julian’s right arm was thrust victoriously into the air, and his hand clutched the microphone like it was a saber with special powers. Brooke got chills every time she looked at Julian in that pose, could barely believe how much he looked like a real rock star.

Layla wore a shockingly short floral sundress that may have been a romper and a pair of studded white leather cowboy boots. She was tanned, made-up, accessorized, and extensioned to within an inch of her life, and her expression as she gazed up at Julian was one of sheer joy. It was nauseating, but far more upsetting was Julian’s expression. The adoration, the worship, the
ohmigod you’re the most amazing creature I’ve ever laid eyes on
look was undeniable, plastered across his face in blazing color thanks to the professional Nikon. It was the kind of look a wife would hope to see a couple times in her life, on her wedding day, maybe the day her first child is born. It was exactly the kind of look you never wanted your husband to give another woman on the pages of a national magazine.

Brooke heard the sink run behind the wooden door. She quickly closed the copy of
Last Night
and placed it facedown in front of Heather’s chair. When Heather returned she looked at Brooke and glanced at the magazine; her eyes seemed to say,
I probably shouldn’t have left that there.
Brooke wanted to tell her that it was fine, that she was slowly getting used to all of it, but of course she said nothing. Instead, she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind to smooth over the awkwardness.

“It was so great
seeing
you. It’s such a shame that we spend so
many hours each week at that school and we never see each other outside. We’ll have to work on that! Maybe make a plan for brunch on the weekend, or even a dinner. . . .”

“Sounds great. Have fun tonight, okay?” Heather gave a little wave as she walked out. “See you next week at Huntley.”

Brooke waved back, but Heather had already stepped onto the sidewalk. She was getting ready to leave herself, trying not to wonder if she’d overshared or not shared enough or done something else to freak out Heather, when her phone rang. The caller ID showed it was her friend from grad school, Neha.

“Hey!” Brooke said as she tossed a couple dollars on the counter and walked outside. “How are you?”

“Brooke! I’m just calling to say hello. It seems like forever since we’ve talked.”

“Yeah, it really has been. How’s Boston? Are you liking the clinic you’re working for? And when the hell are you coming to visit?”

It had probably been six months since the girls had last seen each other when Neha and her husband, Rohan, were in New York over Christmas. They’d been close friends in graduate school, living only a few blocks from each other in Brooklyn, but it had been harder to keep in touch since Neha and Rohan had moved to Boston two years earlier.

“Yeah, I like the clinic just fine—it’s actually way better than I expected—but I’m so ready to move back to New York. Boston’s nice, but it’s just not the same.”

“Are you really thinking of coming back? When? Oh, tell me everything!”

Neha laughed. “Not for a little while. We’d both need to find jobs, and it’ll probably be easier for me than Rohan. But we’re coming to visit over Thanksgiving since we both have off. Will you and Julian be around?”