Oh! You Pretty Things (20 page)

C
ountry Floors is an insanely priced tile showroom on Melrose. And of course, Kirk gets the reference. We're not so very different, Kirk and I, with our jobs that grease the wheels of celebrity fabulousness. And yet, there's something about him I shy away from. Maybe I'd rather live vicariously through Eva—and even Megan—than settle for my own life. Except this
is
my life now. Finally.

Of course, it's not like Kirk made any offers to sweep me off my feet.

Still, I'm up at sunrise, jerking into wakefulness while most of the people in the building have just sluiced off their pancake makeup and are moisturizing their aging knees and elbows. Or whatever drag queens do at five in the morning. Honestly, I have no idea.

I paw through my clothing choices and decide on black, boot-cut fitted pants and a kitten-soft, long-sleeved T-shirt that I snagged during one of the round-robin returns to the Ralph Lauren store when I worked for Tyler. It's good. Sleek, sexy, but not trying too hard. Trying too hard is the biggest offense a girl can commit in this town.

I stroll into Urth at the perfectly serviceable time of 10:10
A.M.
and find a dozen boys and girls in line, including Avril Lavigne in a giant hoodie and her Frankenstein-y husband, who can't decide what they want and are having a bit of a standoff with an exasperated barista.

Kirk is sitting by the window in a patch of sunlight, the table already littered with glasses and plates: a big green bottle of Pellegrino with two squat glasses flanking it, juicy chunks of lime glistening between shards of ice; a glass of pulpy, red blood-orange juice; a couple dog-bowl-size lattes; a pecan sticky bun as big as my head; and—this is the part where I fall a little bit in love—a plate with a few different pieces of pie, including the crazy, mile-high pumpkin pie that is an Urth Caffe signature, as fluffy as a layer cake. How can you not fall in love with a man who orders three kinds of pie for a coffee date? I mean, especially in L.A., but I'm pretty sure it would hold true in Anchorage, Alaska, or Marrakech, Morocco. A three-pie breakfast date is a hands-down, global winner.

Normally when I find myself patronizing Urth, it's for Eva's decaf chai almond-milk latte or one of their off-menu juices—pomegranate, celery, and ginger is her usual combo. When I succumb to their insane pastry case, it's in a shameful, surreptitious, to-go kind of way. I'll plow through a lemon bar or a cup of double-dark hot chocolate in my car on the sly as I wait for the long red lights to turn green in crosstown traffic.

But Kirk has created a banquet for us in a place where people look at you funny if you ask for your salad dressing any way but
on the side
.

I slide into the chair and pick up an oversize latte. “You read my mind.”

“I didn't,” he says, clinking his bowl with mine. “It's all completely selfish.”

“Except for the part where I said I was paying.”

“Did you?” he says innocently. Except then he smiles and says, “I'm happier if you still owe me a meal.”

I'm afraid I'm blushing, so I lower my face to sip my coffee. It's a perfect Urth Spanish latte: one part condensed milk, two parts espresso, a layer of thick milk foam. I know, I know, I'm veering into Tyler territory, but seriously, it's like drinking a bucket of sex.

“Wow,” Kirk says, watching my face. “You like your coffee.”

“I'm easy to please.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” I say. “Well, no. Actually, fuck, I don't know. I don't ever know what I want until I get it.”

“We'll do an experiment,” he says. He loads a forkful of pumpkin pie and offers it to me.

For a moment, I hesitate. Are we really going to do this? Pie-based public flirting? Part of me wants to say something snotty and superior, but the rest of me wants the pie. And the flirting.

I take a bite, then swoon as the layers of cream and sugar and nutmeg hit my tongue. “Yeah, I'm easy.”

“The product of three generations in Hollywood,” he says.

I'm way too flattered that he remembers all the crap I say. I'm still afraid that I'll start blushing, so I grab my fork and inspect the pies. There's a chunk of something with whipped-cream topping that I can't identify. Banana cream? Coconut? Doesn't matter. He had me at pastry.

“Three failed generations,” I say. “But that's boring. How about you? Where are you from?”

“Guess.”

“San Diego,” I say. “You're a military brat.”

“Columbus, Ohio,” he tells me. “My mom's an accountant, my dad's a schoolteacher.”

“Wow. Now, that is middle America.”

I'm not sure what I mean, but he doesn't take offense. He tells me about his family. He's the youngest of four kids, and the only one who left Ohio. His sisters are both married, both with two kids. He doesn't tell me that each has one boy and one girl, but that's how I see them. His brother works at the corporate headquarters of White Castle and probably coaches Little League.

“Did you have golden retrievers growing up?” I ask. “A lemonade stand?”

He laughs. “Well, that's how I tell it.”

“But the truth is different?”

“It's too early for the truth. I'm trying to impress you.”

Which is sweet enough that I feel an inappropriate flush creeping through my torso and across the gossamer fabric of my favorite La Perla bra, which I hand-washed in the sink last night so I could wear it as my stealthy first-date armor.

“You make everything sound so . . . intentional.”

“Isn't it?” he says.

“God, no. With me, it's all impulse and overreaction.”

He laughs again. “Yeah, well, that's why you're such a—”

“I'm such a what?” I interrupt.

“You're so going to take this the wrong way.”

“Still waiting.”

He takes a sip of his twelve-dollar orange juice. “You know what's a weird phrase?”

“Right now? I'm thinking ‘that's why you're such a . . .' is pretty weird.”

“‘Flight risk.' That's a weird phrase.”

I frown. “Like a criminal you're afraid is going to run away?”

“Yeah, because when you hear ‘flight risk,' you picture someone all skittish and furtive and—” He gropes for the word. “Nefarious.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, not sure I'm liking where this is going.

“But it's not ‘escape risk' or ‘fugitive risk,' it's
flight
risk. Like you might suddenly sprout wings and take to the sky.”

“That's me? I'm a flight risk?”

“Such a flight risk,” he says.

Then he asks about my job, and when I stonewall he tells me about his. It turns out that he owns Fleurs et Diables, and he's thinking about expanding. He asks my advice about building on his home service versus opening a nursery, he asks about shop fronts and neighborhoods and he listens to my answers. Apparently he took “third-generation Hollywood” to heart—good thing it's true—and he gets opinions out of me that I didn't know I had.

We're so engaged in the conversation that I barely notice the yoga sylph sitting four inches from us, dressed head-to-toe in Lululemon, flicking her cat-eyed gaze at Kirk. I barely notice her interest in his voice and his laugh, and I barely notice her dismissive shrug when she inspects me. I barely feel a happy flicker of triumph.

Then Kirk says, “How solid is your eleven
A.M.
call time? Can you come with me to Pasadena?”

“What? Now?”

“Yeah. You know where Hortus Nursery used to be? There's a lot for sale. I want you to look at it.”

That's when my phone bleeps. It's Eva:
Got a call from Soap Opera Digest this morning. There are paparazzi photos of me and Dave and they're not good. I'm a mess. Don't care about Bella and Country Floors. Can you come here ASAP? I need a friend.

The weird thing about fame, I'm slowly learning, is that it doesn't always protect you from the peccadillos of human relationships. In fact, it tends to exacerbate them.

“I can't,” I tell Kirk. “I have to go.”

“Already?” he says. “What's up?”

I hesitate. Dave is Eva's co-star boyfriend, but she's got at least two other high-profile boys on the side. I don't know what I can say, so I mumble, “Eva's having a thing.”

What I don't say is,
a friend. She needs a friend. Me. I'm her friend. I'm friends with Eva Carlton.

“No problem,” he says. “It was good to see you, Jess.”

I forget to say good-bye. I forget to pay for breakfast. I blink twice and I'm gunning my beater Mazda uphill toward Eva's house. She needs me. I blush at my assumption. But there it is. So not pretty. The truth is that by the time I hit the front door, I've forgotten Kirk completely.

M
egan finally crawls out of her honeymoon suite and calls me. I feel like I've left her a thousand messages over the past few days, but as much as I want to be petulant, I'm just glad to hear her voice. “Boof,” I say. “I thought you were dead.”

“Sorry. We went to Telluride and I left my fucking phone at the house.”

“Total technology fail,” I say, even though I'm only 42 percent sure she's telling the truth. I mean, Megan's not a pathological liar or anything, but she'll stretch the truth to spare my feelings, and if she's been too lazy or blissed-out to call me back, I know better than to take it personally. “It doesn't matter.”

“Tell me everything,” she says, and I can hear the whir and click of a lighter, the crackle of burning tobacco, and her smooth exhale.

“I'm having a moment about Kirk. He took me to breakfast this morning and I bailed on him because Eva was having tabloid drama, and—”

“Hold on, hold on.
Imma let you finish,
but can we talk for one second about those pics? I mean,
what
is happening there?”

“Some asshole up the hill must've let a photographer into their yard. That's the only way you could get pictures by her pool, even with a long lens.”

“Of that guy's hairy butt crack.”

“That's her boyfriend. Well, her ‘alleged' boyfriend. There are some side dishes being served around here, but I'm not privy to the details.”

“Already bored with her,” Megan says. “Back to Kirk, please.”

“I don't know. We had this amazing breakfast. He ordered three kinds of pie at Urth. Then Eva called and I dropped everything to go to her and now I feel like an asshole.”

“Don't beat yourself up, Boof. You went to do your
job
, not to—what did you call it?—pick up a side dish. And boys like to chase. It's in their Cro-Magnon brain stems.”

“They like to chase
you
,” I say. “But it's not that. I feel like an asshole because I was . . . y'know.”

“Eating three kinds of pie?”

“Excited about Eva wanting
me
to commiserate with her. I sound so gross, Boof. Tell me I'm not gross.”

“You're not gross. You're human. Maybe a little more codependent than the average bear. But I can't really talk.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm the asshole who's getting on a plane to follow her boyfriend to Vancouver tomorrow. He's doing a cameo for the new Judd Apatow movie.”

I smile at the phone. “Next thing you know, you're wearing a dirndl and baking cookies while he's watching the Super Bowl.”

“Ouch,” Megan says. “I promise, promise, promise that we'll get together as soon as I get back.”

“You're kind of overselling it with the triple promise.”

“And I want updates on the Kirk front,” she says. “I'm guessing he'll be asking for a replay within the next twenty hours.”

“A replay?” I say. “You're already adopting sports vernacular. You know you have to throw a Silpat liner on that cookie sheet before you start scooping your perfect little dough balls onto it, right?”

“I'm hanging up. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Boof.”