Oh! You Pretty Things (31 page)

T
he ride to the
Live! with Kelly and Michael
show is mercifully short. Five of us are crammed into a blacked-out Lincoln Navigator, so I'm sitting up front with the driver. We usually don't travel so deep, but Kelly and Eva are friends from their soap opera days and Eva is comfortable enough with her that she's asked Minka and Todd to come along, as a treat for them. Although if you ask me, there's nothing rewarding about spending the morning in a green room watching the show on an oversize HDTV when it's happening live just forty feet away.

It's clearly just me, though, because Minka and Todd are effusive about the potential other guests.

“I hope it's Justin Timberlake,” Minka says. “Did you see him on
SNL
? He's dreamy.”

“Hopefully it's those girls from Scores,” Todd says.

“Right,” I say from my banished position up front. “Because strippers are such a mainstay on morning television.”

“Why don't you know this, Jess?” Scout says, frowning. “Didn't Janine tell you?”

“She did, as a matter of fact, but I didn't want to ruin anyone's fantasies.” I scroll through my phone for the information. “It's a basketball player from the Nets, that pet-psychic lady from Long Island, and a director who didn't even get name-checked on the call sheet. It literally just says ‘director.'”

Eva rolls her eyes and puts her head into Scout's lap. Scout is wearing a tie-dyed vintage silk nightgown over a pair of black leggings and she crosses her legs and pets Eva's head like she's soothing a crying child.

I'm grateful for the distraction. It's only about a mile from the hotel to ABC Studios, but it's a dog leg past the edge of Central Park and down Broadway, and it's taking forever, especially at the unreasonable hour of 8:00
A.M.
Also, Eva has not said one word to me this morning, except a curt request that I stop at the desk on the way out and extend her stay for two days. No details, just “I need to stay a couple of extra days. Can you make sure that's handled on our way out?”

If Minka and Todd hadn't been in the room, I would have asked her what was going on, even though I know better. I mean, I would have just gotten an innocent shrug anyway. Pointless.

When we arrive, a page whisks us into Eva's dressing room, which is half the size of our hotel room and is populated with the requisite loveseat and coffee table adorned with an amenity basket. There's a square vase of white peonies, and everything else is a tasteful, muted beige. The tiny sofa, the coffee table, the walls. It's like standing inside a three-dimensional graham cracker. The page stands awkwardly in the doorway, her hand pressed to her ear as she listens to a producer.

“They're ready for you in makeup,” she tells Eva, doing a New York version of the un-stare.

“I'm good,” Eva says. “I'll do a touch-up on my way to set.”

Normally, this is the part where I intervene so Eva doesn't have to make her needs known directly to a stranger, but everything is off-kilter with so many bodies in the small room.

Eva flops onto the sofa and props her feet up on the table next to the bulging basket from Zabar's. “Jess, it's a little close in here. Can you go see what the green room's all about and get me something for after?”

Most green rooms have a few sofas and chairs, a couple televisions, and a spread of food that's nothing as elaborate as a normal day at craft services, even on a weekly cable sitcom. But this green room is pretty swank. Fresh melon and berries arrayed on thick, white porcelain platters, baskets of bagels and croissants and pastries, crocks of butter and jams. There's a cheese board, a charcuterie plate with glistening rosettes of prosciutto and rows of thinly sliced salami, and a wire basket filled with hard-boiled eggs.

There are clusters of people huddled in two distinct groups in the room, but no one looks up when I enter.

“Will this be okay for you guys?” the blond page asks rhetorically.

“It's perfect,” I say. “What do you need from me?”

“Well,” she says, holding her hand to her earpiece like she's a Secret Service agent at a presidential press conference. “Kelly is on her way down and I need to get back to Ms. Carlton's room to facilitate that. Is there anything I can get you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Great,” she chirps, and beelines off down the hall. “On my way back to talent,” she says to the vapor.

I peel a plate of boiled eggs and head back to Eva's dressing room. The hallway is momentarily deserted, and I slow my pace and breathe for a moment. There are closed doors at evenly spaced intervals on both sides of the corridor. The guests have whiteboard nameplates in the shape of stars, with their names written in Sharpie, I'm guessing by the intern with the best handwriting.

I pass the doors for the basketball player and pet psychic. Then, at the end of the hall, a final door swings open and I catch a glimpse of the handwritten name.

I'm in a different hallway, in a different state, three thousand miles and fifteen years away, and then I'm back, my face flushed, my body cold and numb. I look down at the floor as a cluster of stilettos flanking a single pair of scuffed men's wingtips come to a halt in front of me.

“Let's give makeup a pass,” the man says, and his voice sparks a chill of recognition up my arms and into my neck.

I raise my gaze and there's Trent Whitford, close enough to touch. He's barely aged at all, and his face is as smooth and shallow as a wading pool. He's puffing on an e-cigarette and smiling at one of the women flanking him, a friendly, avuncular, untroubled smile.

“Whatever you want, Trent,” the woman says, her voice a silky purr.

He notices I'm staring. There's no hint of darkness in his eyes as his gaze flicks across my face without a glimmer of recognition.

“Is everything all right?” he asks.

I shake my head and take a step backward.

He steps forward, his eyes creasing in concern. “It's okay,” he says, and his voice is gentle and kind.

Everything goes blurry at the perimeter of my vision. I'm not a fainter, but I seriously feel like I might pass out or throw up if I don't lie down.

“You want an autograph?” Trent asks, and his unknowing politeness is more unsettling than if he'd leered and lunged.

I nod, almost imperceptibly.

“Wait here,” he says, and touches my arm. “I'll be right back.”

He slips back into his room and I stand there for a moment, feeling his fingers on my arm like a bruise.

Once he's out of sight, I stumble back to Eva's beige cubbyhole. Thankfully, a page has collected Minka and Todd for their tour, so it's just Eva and Scout, sitting on the half-size loveseat with their heads together, giggling about something. They fall silent when I enter.

“I brought you some food,” I say, then realize I don't have the plate anymore.

“Are you okay?” Scout asks.

I open my mouth to answer and a sob boils up in my throat. I hesitate for a second, then let it rip: the full-on ugly cry. It's easier to give in. Trying to stifle the ugly cry only makes it fester, like slapping a Band-Aid on a third-degree burn.

“What happened?” Eva says, pitching her voice into sudden warmth.

“In th-the hallway—” I'm all stuttery and hiccuppy, like a little kid who got scared at a haunted house. “I ran into Trent Whitford. I fucking physically ran right into him.”

Eva cocks her head, the picture of pretty bafflement. “Who? Is that the director who didn't make the call sheet?”

“Trent Whitford,” I repeat, because right now I can't think of another way to explain.

“Right,” Eva says. “So what's the deal with him?”

I scrub my face with a fistful of napkins. “He's the guy.”

Eva frowns. “I'm drawing a blank, Jess.”

“The guy I told you about from when I was a kid.” I falter at the emptiness in her face. “At the beach house in Malibu?”

She looks honestly confused, and I can't tell if she really doesn't remember or if she's pretending and is punishing me—and I suddenly don't care.

“I told you,” I say. “I fucking told you. We were sitting in your bedroom and I told you everything.”

“Take a breath, Jess,” Scout snaps. “Today isn't about you.”

She's such a fucking parrot.

“I'm sorry,” Eva says, sounding anything but, “if I don't have perfect recall of every little thing you ever told me.”

“It's not every little fucking thing. It's . . .” I take a shuddering breath. “You know what? It doesn't matter. It's a million years old.”

“And Eva's two minutes from going live,” Scout says.

I wipe my face again. “Sure. Of course. Let me get your food.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Eva says. “Why don't you go back to the hotel and make sure everything's okay there?”

“Already handled.” I toss the damp napkins into the trash. “You're welcome to stay as long as you like, and they'll even put you in a bigger room if you want.”

“No need,” Eva says, the blankness of her face shading into hardness. “I mean, it's just going to be me and Scout. I mean, unless you want to pony up ten grand for an hour of my time.”

From the doorway, the page says, “They're ready for you for a photo op.”

“Coming,” Eva says brightly, and she and Scout file out without another word.

“Talent is walking,” the page says as the door shuts behind them.

When I get outside, I head down Fifty-Seventh across Central Park West and into the park. It's one of those beautiful New York days that happen in May and September—seventy degrees, crisp and bright—and I sit down on a bench in the morning sun and sob. Fortunately, this being New York, no one gives me a second glance. When I'm done, I just stay there, watching thin, manicured women walking their purebred dogs while joggers expertly dodge them on the footpath.

It's 11:00
A.M.
when I get back to the hotel, and I'm feeling almost normal. Fuck Trent Whitford. And fuck Eva and Scout—especially Eva, because I know I told her about him, but I'm not sure I ever told Scout. The room is deserted when I enter, but there's a note on a hotel stationery envelope in Scout's writing.

Hope you're okay. Eva says you can head back to L.A. on an earlier flight if you want. XOXO Scout

T
here are five nonstop flights to L.A. on Virgin America and every single one is sold out, a possibility I wish I'd thought of before I flung myself into the smelliest taxi in New York. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say someone stuffed a half-eaten lobster roll under the backseat two days ago and the car has been parked in a sauna ever since. The balmy morning in the park has morphed into a humid eighty-five degrees, and I have both of the windows in the backseat rolled down as far as they will go.

We're in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Van Wyck heading toward JFK as I frantically try to wring a reasonable ticket out of Expedia.com. My Internet connection is shitty, and my phone goes dark over and over.

I finally find a ticket on a JetBlue flight for eight hundred dollars. The on-time record is a dismal 42 percent, and I wince about the charge to Eva's credit card—I try not to care, but I can't help myself.

By the time I get through security, my phone battery is perilously low. I look around for an available outlet, then I just think,
Fuck it. I'm hungry and miserable and I don't give a shit if anyone needs me right now.
I power my phone off and wander into the fanciest airport snack shop I've ever seen. There's a whole table of fancy chocolates and a refrigerated wall with fresh sushi to rival Whole Foods. There's a hot soup bar, for fuck's sake.

Fifty-two dollars later, I'm headed for my dreaded middle seat, toting a bag filled with marcona almonds, Parmesan crisps, a container of mixed olives, and a bar of salted-caramel dark chocolate. I breeze through the newsstand and grab all the tabloids that are too humiliating to read anywhere but in a middle coach seat on an airplane:
OK!, InTouch, Star, Life & Style.
The flight attendants are always happy to have them after I finish; I once even traded my castoffs for free drinks.

On board, my seatmates are a pair of elderly sisters who speak in voices so whispery I have to strain to hear them. One immediately offers me her window seat.

“We were hoping we wouldn't get someone between us,” she says. “I don't want to be leaning over you every five minutes.”

“Well, if you insist,” I say.

I give them my eleven-dollar artisanal Brooklyn chocolate bar, which isn't nearly enough to express my gratitude. I feel like I just got a row of sevens on a Vegas slot machine.
Jackpot.

Two hours later I've exhausted my supply of trash mags and almonds, and I've had two glasses of mediocre Chardonnay. I want to have a third, but I know it's the last thing I need right now, with the crying and the flying and the what-have-you.

I close my eyes and see Trent Whitford's blank smile. Gross. I wonder if from now on, instead of remembering him in the pool house, in the upstairs bedroom, I'll picture his polite disinterest instead. Ugh, it's like caring enough to hurt me is better than not caring about me at all. Which is maybe why Eva's reaction is an even bigger blow. Did she really not remember?

It's my own fucking fault. If there's a beautiful, neurotic woman within a ten-mile radius, I will be drawn to her like a pile of metal shavings to a magnet.

The seatbelt indicator dings about three seconds before I commit myself to another crying jag. A packed airplane is about the last place I want to unpack my psyche, so I take a breath and flick through the movie choices on the touchscreen in front of me. Tyler Perry.
Nope.
Screwball cop buddy movie.
Pass.
A-list musical period piece.
Seen it.

I stop at
Viva Lost Vegas!
It's just what I need: something familiar and comforting. Megan and I saw it in the theater before she even met JJ. It's cute and mindless, with JJ in the lead role as a down-on-his-luck James Dean impersonator at a seedy casino. There are worse ways to spend ninety minutes.

I slip in my earbuds and press Play. It's the perfect distraction, watching JJ and a girl blackjack dealer running from some stock Mafioso bad guys through a series of Vegas landmarks. Then they're alone in a motel, neon blinking in through the curtains. She pulls JJ onto the bed, tugging his grimy T-shirt from his back as the music swells, and he spreads himself across her body, his muscles expanding like the hood of a cobra before it strikes.

Wait, a hooded cobra.

My stomach twists, and I suddenly
know
. That morning I walked in on Eva fucking some guy: that was
JJ's
back. At the rooftop party at my house, Eva and JJ hadn't been looking for a lime. They'd been looking for some time alone.

How could I have not known that? Or maybe—and this hits me like a cartoon anvil on the top of my cartoon head—I've known for weeks, without ever admitting it to myself. It explains the sick feeling in my stomach, the way I've been half-assedly avoiding Megan. My growing resentment of Eva. And it's probably why Eva and Scout were having gigglefests in New York. There's been a constant whisper that I've shoved down into some dark place to fester because I haven't wanted to deal with it. It's official: I'm not just the worst assistant on the planet, I'm also the worst friend.