Shooting Stars (29 page)

Like in his photos, David is, in person, undeniably one of the finest specimens of a human being who has ever walked the earth. Desiring to smell the rose that God put in my path this morning, I casually pass the two security cars and pull up in the adjacent freeway lane beside David.

I glance over and suck in my breath. No question, he is the David that Michelangelo sculpted.

I roll down my passenger window, and before long he looks over. I raise the cup of coffee I have in my hand and mouth “Coffee?” hoping he'll realize that I'm the photographer following him and that I'm asking him to stop for a picture. This morning is on his terms; I knew that going in.

David's head rolls back slightly as he smiles at me—and sends me spinning toward heaven.

I drop back behind security (who's swerving all around now and clearly in distress that I'm so close to his boss) and keep my distance until we hit the Long Beach exit where the Galaxy, DB's soccer team, practice.

Just after leaving the freeway, David pulls into Starbucks.

My heart skips a beat.
Is he doing that for me?

David goes directly to the drive-through lane, and both security cars pull into parking spaces to wait. I pull in behind David. The drive-through makes a tight curve, such that David's head and my head are less than ten feet apart even though we're both in our cars. Our windows are rolled down.

“Hi,” I say, feeling my face get flush.

He looks right at me, sunglass-less. His eyes twinkle and he flashes his signature smile, the one that looks like he's kind of bashful.

“Do you think I could have a picture?” I ask respectfully.

There's not a shot unless David allows it. He can easily tuck back into his car or put his hand up and avoid being photographed. And if I get out of my car, he will just turn his head and roll up his window until security escorts me out of the way.

“Ohhh…no, I don't think so,” he says gently, almost like he's sorry.

“OK. Are you sure?” I persist, though am conscious not to grovel. Usually I will sacrifice my dignity for a picture, but today is different. I prefer an angelic encounter with or without the shot.

“I'm sure you'll have another opportunity,” he says politely. David seems to be enjoying the interaction too, leaving his window down, his body language giving no indication he doesn't want to converse.

Good-looking Security has finally noticed us talking and rushes over. Casually, David waves him away.

“Hmmm…” I start. “Well, how about tickets? I'm dying to see you play.”

“Yeah? You should come to a game.”

“Yeah, I should.” I pause. “
Good
tickets would be nice. You know, like, your box.”

“Well, I generally give my tickets to my family.” He puts me down softly. It even looks like he's blushing.

“Oh, of course you do. That makes sense.”

Pause. He keeps his head a bit out the window. We're both
engaged
in this conversation.

“You know, David, maybe it's best I can't photograph you. I'm shaking so much I don't think I could hold the camera.”

Another award-winning David Beckham smile, dead into my eyes mere feet away.

I love you.

I try to think of something clever to say, but can't.

“Sooooo. What now? No pictures, no tickets. I'm just a nice American girl. You're sure, yeah?”

He smiles again. Then, he slowly reaches into his car, grasps his aviators, and slides them over his perfect nose.

Is he doing that for me
?

“Yeah?” I question. Putting his sunglasses on, I think, means that I can have a picture, but I want to be sure. “I…I can have a picture?”

Ever so slightly, he nods. I bring my camera up—shaking as fiercely as I suspected—and fire away for about fifteen seconds while David takes his cup of coffee from the girl at the window and glances back at me.

He pulls his Porsche forward into the street. I wave at the Starbucks employee with the jaw-dropped expression as I pass the drive-through window without ordering. Then David turns right toward soccer practice and I turn left to get back on the freeway. I “thank-you” honk my horn, and he sticks his hand out the window and waves.

If I died now, my life would be perfect.

* * *

Bartlet is the first call I make on my drive back to town. He thinks I'm joking. It doesn't happen that way, not with a star like David Beckham.

Claudia had stayed at the Beckhams' house, but since we'd committed the day together we'll split the sales. I'll get 30 percent, Claudia will get half her staff cut, and CXN's three owners will make over 50 percent. David's shot often—not by paps, but by official sports photographers—and as no real story is associated with my pictures, they aren't super valuable. (To anyone other than me, that is.) I'll get respect points in the pap world, but I'll be lucky to make more than a couple grand from the set.

Still, today wasn't about the money. (Although, I will be disappointed if
they don't sell—
what's pleasure if it can't be shared?
) And, David's random act of kindness
will
take a little skin off his back. He's an experienced enough celebrity to know that by giving it up, more paparazzi action will perpetuate. Paps will see these shots and may choose to work on him because they will wonder
will he give it up again?
But, despite the inconvenience, David did it anyway.

He made my day and will make my tomorrow and my weekend. I won't kid myself and think that I made his day, but I do wonder if his random act of kindness for little ole me maybe, possibly, made his morning. We all know it feels
beckham
to give than to receive.

14
. These rules apply to women. Very few men get famous via the tabloids. If you're a beautiful Hollywood
man
under forty (or maybe forty-five, if you get better with age), generally no one cares. The exceptions: men will sell with babies, bathing suits, and balloons, or if they are young, stylish pretty boys like Zac Efron. But the general rule is
Men Don't Sell
. The reason is that women mostly read tabloids, and women like to look at other women. We want to see what female celebrities are wearing, how they've done their hair, who they're dating, what their bodies look like, and how they compare to
us
.

15
. Madonna, “My Worst Outfits Ever,”
Us Weekly
, April 28, 2008.

Back to reality. I've often wondered what makes some of us desire kids so strongly and others not want them at all. For me, there wasn't a time when I didn't want kids. Even in my twenties, I knew I'd have three. And with them, of course, a healthy husband.

Conversely: I always knew I didn't want them early. I had too much to
do
—travel, play, work. I was in no rush. Besides, guys were everywhere. At least a few years ago they were. No one told me they would go away.

Since I moved to L.A.—and aged—there's been only one short-lived boyfriend. Sure, I had prospects. OK, so maybe Adrian wasn't a
realistic
prospect. And OK, OK, maybe Aaron was a dream too. But without my Aaron dream, I would have lacked hope—hope for romance, hope for a family. So I let it stay alive longer than it should have.

But now, with no viable male and having vowed that this year, my thirty-seventh, would be the Year of the Baby, I have decided to consider the completely unnatural and awkward twenty-first-century alternative to sex: the sperm bank. Not that this idea is sitting easily with me. Sure, I am thankful that I have the option, but to be honest, I find it
very
disturbing. I mean, what will people think? “She can't even find somebody to sleep with her?” More than that, what will my “potential” kid have to deal with? “Your dad was A Sperm?” How will that affect him?

But the more I think about it, the more I warm up to it. My other option, using a friend—who at this point would have to be Aaron or Simon, the only two men with whom I feel remotely comfortable enough to sleep with but neither of whom I want to involve in the rest of my
life—is not attractive to me. And since I don't sleep around (I don't even know
how
to sleep around), if I want a kid, what option do I have?

So swallowing that heavy pill of reality, I took two action steps. First, I said what I was going to do out loud. I told my mom, my sisters, and a few close friends including “the girls” that if I didn't meet a guy in the next year I would try to get pregnant with a sperm donor. Some were skeptical, some were supportive, some were judgmental, and some were empowering. The backing of my traditionally conservative mom was particularly meaningful. Second, I did some research. 'Cause in the end, if I do decide to get “artificially inseminated” (I hate this term), I want everything to be in place so that when I am ready, I can just make the appointment and say, “
Go
. Let's do it.
Now
.”

Los Angeles has a huge sperm bank. Each sperm is assigned a number, about which you may see basic genetic information. But the bank offers no pictures of donors. To me, the idea of blindly picking a donor number based on height and hair color alone seems too much like driving down La Cienega, pointing my finger out the window, and picking the first XY chromosomes I land on. So I spend a big part of April on the Internet and on the phone. I research sperm banks in Scandinavia—I figure if one race is consistently beautiful, it's the Nordics! And I find a bank in Denmark, which much like
Match.com
, has copious personal information about each donor online. Like the L.A. bank I checked into, it has no pictures, but what it does include is personal feedback on each guy from the sperm bank staff. Since every donor is screened for physical and mental health, and hobbies and educational level are irrelevant to me, I am looking for one thing: Who's attractive? “Dane” and “Atle” (pseudonyms, not numbers—so much more personal) were clearly the staff picks for “best looking.”

Next, I called the bank to see how it worked. They told me that the United States had recently instituted new restrictions which did not allow for the importation of “human tissue,” so if I were serious about Dane or Atle, I could either come pick up their sperm myself (and smuggle it back into the States or spend months in Denmark till “it took”), or I could go to Mexico where they could FedEx it to me. A long trip to Denmark
sounded pricey, so I got on the phone. After leaving many messages—I don't speak Spanish—a competent-sounding, English-speaking doctor in Tijuana called me back. He told me that if I could get my fallopian tubes checked out in the States, and they were passable, he would squirt me full of Viking material during each ovulation cycle.

It felt like an episode of
Sex and the City
except without the humor.
Should having a kid really entail crossing the Mexican border for Danish sperm applications? Was using a sperm donor the moral solution, or was I going against nature? Would I ever find a real daddy?
I didn't know the answer to these questions. The only thing I knew was that, for me,
not
having a child was
not
an option. I was born to be a mother.

* * *

Justified or not, lately, it felt like I was always getting the short end of the stick.

“Officer, can you tell us what happened, please?”

Officer Cregg walked up to the white board and drew a diagram. “This was Ms. Buhl's car,” he said, pointing to a car he had drawn. “These were the three cars behind Ms. Buhl that she was blocking,” he said, pointing to the three cars he had drawn directly behind my car.

He walked back to the podium. “Your Honor, Ms. Buhl pulled up in front of me on Beverly Boulevard to view the set of
Entourage
. I asked her three times to please move along—she was blocking traffic—or I would have to ticket her. I did not want to ticket her, Your Honor, but she refused to move, and the cars behind her couldn't move. I had no choice. She was impeding traffic.”

“Thank you, Officer. You may be seated. Ms. Buhl, you may approach the podium.”

I walked up.

“Would you like to ask the officer any questions about his testimony?” the judge asked.

“Yes, I would.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why are you lying? Why did—,” I began only to be interrupted by the judge.

“Ms. Buhl, you may only ask questions to
clarify
the testimony. Would you like to do that?”

“Yes, I would.”

I tried again. “Did you see my camera—”

“Ms. Buhl, you're testifying. This time is only for questions. Do you have any questions?”

“I guess not.”
Damn. How is this gonna uncover truth? I need a lawyer.

“OK. Then please tell us what happened,” the judge said.

I went to the diagram and erased the three cars that Officer Cregg had drawn. “There were no cars between the traffic light and me,” I said. “When I pulled to the side of Beverly, there was no one behind me within several hundred feet. And no one came up behind me for at least three minutes because the traffic light here [I pointed] was red.”