Trent wanted to shoot pictures of me on the beach while the sun was setting.
“I promise, I’ll have her home early,” he said, and his teeth were tiny and white like Freshmint Tic Tacs.
As we walked to his car, a low-slung, silver Aston Martin that looked like it could fly over water, I started getting excited. I mean, sure, Trent’s hand lingered as he guided me into the passenger seat, but there was a pile of cameras and lights in the backseat, and I saw the twisted end of a joint poking out from the pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes sitting on the wood-grained console between us. Maybe my mother wasn’t completely full of shit. Maybe this was my big break after all. We drove down Wilshire Boulevard and the late-afternoon sun was hot and bright in my eyes.
Trent glanced at me, his eyes hidden behind a pair of black Ray-Bans. “Don’t you have sunglasses?”
I shrugged and sat up taller, trying to shield myself behind the sliver of a sun visor.
“Here,” he said, and offered me his.
“I’m okay.”
“Take them,” he said. “The last thing you need is to ruin that perfect forehead.”
“Okay, Grandma,” I said, and he scowled without looking at me, then laughed.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Fifteen.”
His gaze skimmed my bare legs, then crossed the folds of my circus-striped dress. “Really?”
There was something in his voice that sounded like an accusation, like my mom showed him a Photoshopped version of me and it turned out I wasn’t picture-worthy after all.
“Well, my birthday is next month,” I said.
The purr of the car engine vibrated through the floorboards and I crossed my legs, first one way, then the other, trying to find a position that didn’t make me look like a dork. We rode up the Pacific Coast Highway without speaking, the hum of the car and the ambient ocean noises our only soundtrack as we zoomed past Chautauqua, then Temescal Canyon, then out beyond Sunset and Topanga.
I started to wonder where we were going, but I was too intimidated to ask. If I blew this, my mother would be so pissed that her head would explode.
Finally, we pulled into the parking lot of a state beach I didn’t recognize. It was off-season, and there were only a couple cars in the lot. Trent slid the car to the edge of the bluff and killed the engine. We sat there for a minute, watching the sun shimmering on the water and the breaking waves on the crescent of sand and rocks fifty feet below us. A handful of surfers floated in the water by the rocky point, and a crumpled yellow beach towel and a Styrofoam cooler lay on the damp sand at the foot of the unpaved trail that led down from the parking lot. Other than that, the beach was deserted.
Trent climbed out of the car, exposing a sliver of skin between his jeans and his black cashmere sweater. “Come on, the light is going to be perfect in about fifteen minutes.”
He shouldered his camera bags and I grabbed my extra clothes and makeup as he headed toward the trail. When we got to the beach, he unfolded a tan Pratesi woven blanket and unpacked lenses and celluloid filters and a pile of film, even though he ended up choosing a normal Canon that didn’t use analog film.
“Is this dress okay?” I asked.
“You look like a clown.”
But he wasn’t interested in the other outfits I brought along, the jeans and T-shirts I packed in the bottom of my tote bag so my mother wouldn’t see.
“Should I put some makeup on?” I asked, sheepish that I was bringing it up when he seemed so uninterested in my appearance.
He eyed me for a moment, but didn’t answer. Clearly I was an afterthought, and he only came to capture the rugged beauty of this secluded little beach for a segment for National Geographic.
“Get over on those rocks.” Trent gestured to a steep formation of rocks above the high-water mark, where swarms of gnats and sea flies clouded the air. “We’re losing the light.”
“Like this?” I asked a minute later, trying to position myself gracefully on the jagged, bird-shit-encrusted rocks.
“You look like a mannequin.”
There was a flat set to his mouth, and his eyes told me I was already failing. This was just another exercise in futility, another of my mother’s setups that would end in humiliation.
He started clicking away, but he was frowning and gesturing for me to—what?—do something different? Be someone different? An offshore breeze ruffled my hair in what I hoped was a flattering way. Chin up, butt under, tits out. Whatever he wanted, I was doing it wrong. The hot, crayon-colored sunset melted into the Pacific horizon and I was sweating on a pile of slimy rocks.
Eventually the sun slipped away and the light faded into a gray dusk. I was cold and hungry, and already picturing the way that my mom’s face fractured into two pieces when she got really mad, as though the lower part of her jaw wanted to get as far away from the rest of her angry head as possible.
Trent started packing his camera body and lenses into black leather bags. I clambered off the rocks and looked down the beach. A family was walking toward the trail: a dad in sunglasses and a young-looking mom with a good boob job. They were swinging a blond boy between them, playing like they were going to throw him into the surf.
Back in the parking lot, Trent threw his camera stuff into the backseat of the Aston and slid into the driver’s seat and shut his door before he leaned over to unlock my side. He pulled a joint from his cigarette pack and lit it with the glowing coil of the cigarette lighter. He raised an eyebrow and extended the joint in my direction. I hesitated before shaking my head no. I didn’t want to disappoint him any more than I already had, but weed just made me worry that everyone was staring at me. Even more than I normally did.
Trent inhaled, exhaled. “You party, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, willing my voice to stay in its normal octave. “Of course.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Yeah.”
He stared at me.
“What?” I said. “Do I have something on my face?” My mom always said that when she caught me looking at her. It sounded better when she said it.
Trent smiled, and he looked kind of cute for a second. “I have a friend with a killer beach pad right up the street.”
“Oh. Is it far?”
“Up past the pier.” He started the car. “We can drink a little champagne, get some better pictures.”
I took a cigarette from his pack and pushed the lighter in. Trent shot me an amused look, like I was a kitten tangled in a ball of yarn, but when the lighter popped up he pulled it out and held it to my dangling cigarette.
I steadied his hand with mine and looked at him through my mascara-fringed lashes. My eyes were nothing special, but when I threw a couple coats of Maybelline Blackest Black on my lashes, I felt like something out of a Cosmopolitan article on how to get your man.
Sure enough, Trent left his hand there, hanging in the air, as I took another drag off my cigarette. Then he lowered his hand into my lap. I exhaled and didn’t know what to do. He was watching the road like he didn’t even know I was there. His hand was hot on my thighs through my clown dress, and I felt prickles of self-conscious shame.
He pulled from the lot and headed north on PCH. I stared out the window. I noticed my hand trembling a little when I took another drag.
“I just remembered,” I said, in someone else’s voice. “I told my grandmother I’d come straight home. After the beach.”
Three miles farther on, he edged the Aston into a turnoff and turned southward, heading for home. He didn’t say anything, so I told him how much fun I had.
When Trent dropped me at the apartment, my mother met us at the curb. First time for everything. She gave Trent those three Euro cheek kisses. Her laughter was as light and silvery as tinsel.
; I was rinsing sand from my hair when the bathroom door opened. Through the shower curtain, she said, “It wasn’t a total loss. Trent thinks he can get better pictures of you another time.”
“I don’t want to.”
“At least he hopes he can.”
“Mom. I don’t want to.”
The shower curtain opened and she eyed me. “This is your one fucking chance. Show a little gratitude.”
“He’s creepy.”
“If he were a nobody,” she said, “he’d be creepy. But he’s Trent-fucking-Whitford. How many Independent Spirit Awards have you won?”
“He just—” I turned off the shower. “I don’t want to.”
“You don’t have to want to,” she said.
Twenty-two
The morning after Scout’s birthday party, I wake feeling jumpy and I can’t immediately identify the cause. Then it comes into focus: Donna wants something from me, and my culinary audition for Eva ended without a job offer. Of course, Donna will probably just fade away—that’s her specialty—and Scout will probably come through in the end. Still, I’m rattled, my bones loose in their sockets, my skin clammy and cold, even though I’m sweating from the warm air.
Part of the problem is that I’m alone in the apartment, since Megan and JJ are shacked up at his sprawling Spanish compound. And it doesn’t help that we’re having a heat wave, the kind of blistering, late-summer swamp that seems to get worse every year. We’re usually immune down by the beach, but it’s so hot in our apartment right now that even lying naked on my bed, five minutes after a cold shower, the fan is blowing at me like a hair dryer.
Also, Donna’s been silent since that last text, which is freaking me out. Is she serious about coming to L.A.? Is she plotting something?
When the phone rings, I twitch before realizing it’s Megan. I answer despite myself, and she launches into a burbling monologue for two minutes until it dawns on her I’m hardly responding.
“Aw, Boof, are you bummed? Come stay here,” she says. “There are three bedrooms for you to choose from.”
“I have to be at Tyler’s first thing,” I tell her. “And I have a full day of bourgeois acquisition duty.”
“Air-conditioning and a pool,” she says. “Come when you’re done?”
I roll onto a less-sweaty patch on the bed. “I’ll call you,” I say, though I’m already feeling twitchy that she’ll be able to see my Donna-based shame if she looks me in the eye.
I’ve never told her the whole truth about my mother. And something else is keeping me from ditching my life and joining her. My job for Tyler? Not exactly. It’s more about his celebrity, I guess. His easy, low-key celebrity. He has all the fame among all the right people, with none of the hassle—no paparazzi or tell-alls or un-stares. But I’m not satisfied. It’s not enough. I always wanted to slip into this world, and now I have . . . barely. I’m still on the outskirts, though. I’m in the suburbs of celebrity, with picket fences and lawn ornaments.
So am I jealous of Megan, my best friend, because she’s gone all the way downtown—so to speak—with JJ? That’s a pretty ugly picture of myself, but I can hear my mother whispering in my ear: Megan’s dating a star. What are you doing?
“Are you okay?” Megan says. “You sound weird.”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Then why do you sound weird?”
“I’m weird but okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m just hot, Boof. Go jump in the pool.”
“Okaa-a-y,” she says, unconvinced, and I hang up before she can ask again.
A few hours later, I’m in the queue at Starbucks when my phone blows up with a rapid-fire string of texts, all from Tyler.
My cigs are stale. Pick me up a carton on your way back?
Tyler keeps his cigarettes in the freezer, which apparently doesn’t stop them from getting stale. I’ve replaced the carton twice this week.
TYLER: Zelda’s acting weird. Think she’s dehydrated. Can u call the vet and see if we can give her coconut water?
ME: Dude, she’s hot. We’re all hot. She’s fine. Sure.
TYLER: Can you stop and pick up some coconut water?
I tap out a grudging No problem and scoop my drinks from the counter. Halfway to the door, I feel a hand on my bare arm and I scowl.
What now?
When I turn, I find Kirk, for once not dressed in his Fleurs et Diables tee. Instead, he’s in a pair of perfectly worn green cargo pants and a faded orange T-shirt I want to bury my face in because it looks so soft.
By the way, he had been teasing about the whole kirK thing. When he came last week, he spent more time shooting the shit with me than on all the little snippy, clippy things he does to the plants and he copped to the fact that he was just fucking with me. And even though he spent most of his scheduled time chatting me up, when he left, the deck looked fantastic. And as long as I’m being honest, so did he.
And he’s even hotter standing here in his civilian clothes.
“Hey, Jess,” he says. “What’s up?”
I raise my coffees and quirk a brow. “I’m doing a coffee run and exploring the veterinary frontier of coconut water.”
He immediately says, “Zelda’s panting.”
“Not bad.”
“Give me another one,” he tells me. “Facts about Jess.”
“Um. I kill at Mediterranean food.”
He eyes me briefly. “A party. For friends. You cooked so you’d have an excuse to hide in the kitchen.”
“That’s not the only reason,” I tell him, impressed in spite of myself.
“C’mon, let’s see if I can go three for three.”
“My mother says she’s coming to L.A.,” pops out of my mouth.
“Is that . . . good?”
I look at him. “It’s like a box of Teuscher chocolates, wrapped in foil layers of shame and rage.”
He looks alarmed. “Oh. Are you okay?”
“I’ve gotta go,” I say, and shoulder through the crowd, my heart suddenly beating way too fast.
Why did I say anything about my mom? Why did I ruin a perfectly happy flirtation? I let my brain grind on the humiliation of the encounter for a few minutes, then I force a lid on it and drive to the liquor store for the cigarettes. I call the vet. I stop at Whole Foods and grab some more coconut water. By the time I get back to the house, I’ve fallen into the rhythm of doing my job, and my worries are more like the distant buzz of a wasp than the ululating siren of an ambulance. There’s something really soothing about taking care of Tyler, of anyone, really. You’d think I would have made an excellent wife.
Twenty-three
Scout calls the next evening, while I’m lying on my bed listening to old Fiona Apple on repeat and staring at the television flickering a tabloid show on mute. Even with no sound, Billy Bush irritates me, with his cheesy smirk and his carefully gelled hair.
“Dude,” I groan in lieu of a greeting. “Why is Billy Bush so smarmy?”
Scout laughs. “More important, why is your mother like one of those reality-show stage momagers?”
“For a thousand reasons, but I’m terrified to ask why this is coming up right now.”
“She just spent twenty minutes on the phone with me, not quite telling me to push you to meet Eva.”
You know how people say they see red when they’re angry? Not me. I get sparkly constellations of little white stars that cascade like fireworks when I close my eyes. “I’m going to need to call you back,” I say through clenched teeth. “After I track her down and murder her.”
“Okay, deep breaths, no sudden movements. It’s weird, but she’s not wrong. I happen to agree that you and Eva are a perfect fit. Put down the remote and come to dinner with us at the Ivy.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
&n
bsp; “I swear, this has nothing to do with Stagey McStage Mom. We can talk about that later. I’m on my way to get you right now. Be ready in ten.”
“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t spend a hundred bucks on a chopped salad and a gimlet.”
“You don’t have to spend a hundred bucks,” Scout says into my sudden silence. “Just pay what you can afford.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say. “I can’t let your best friend subsidize me. I don’t even know her.”
“Great,” Scout says. “See you outside in ten.”
She hangs up and I watch Billy Bush juggling eggs or lemons, I can’t tell which. Okay, fine. This is about me, not my mother. Dinner with Scout and Eva. Why not? So what? I mean, it’s not like I have anything else to do. It’s not like I care about having dinner at the Ivy with Eva Carlton. It’s not like I’m a fan or anything. I’m just curious about an employment possibility.
Twenty-four
We get to the Ivy thirty minutes late. Eva is already there, which makes Scout falter as we approach a table tucked into the back by the fireplace. Apparently we’re hiding out, because this part of the restaurant is the no-man’s land reserved for well-heeled tourists and below-the-line creatives who don’t get recognized by the laser-eyed hostess or her assistants.
Eva looks up with a winning smile, and Scout launches into an explanation of our tardiness with elaborate details about traffic. As Eva cranks up the wattage, Scout flops into the next chair, and her purse drops to the floor, spilling keys and a lipstick that rolls under the floor-length white tablecloth. I’ve never seen her off-center like this, not even with Weston, and I realize she’s sort of flustered and crushy. It’s pretty cute, really.
I smile to Eva, then to the pale, matronly woman beside her, who’s having a murmured conversation into her Bluetooth headset. She keeps her eyes focused on the colorful, hand-painted plates on the white tablecloth in front of her, but Eva fixes me with her open gaze and I can’t help but notice, even in the dim candlelight, that her eyelashes are spectacular. It looks like she has mink caterpillars fringing her impossibly huge brown eyes.