You know how people say that if you see a celebrity before they’ve been in the makeup chair for hours or backlit or Photoshopped, they look exactly like everyone else? Yeah, it’s bullshit. Eva looks like a Vargas painting of a Gauguin Tahitian princess. She glows like a spotlight is brushing the tops of her perfect cheeks and pooling shadows into the deep spaces where her collarbone pushes away from her neck. And I can see from where I’m sitting that she’s not wearing any makeup. Okay, maybe a little Benetint and some lip gloss, but seriously. This isn’t a smoke-and-mirrors situation. Eva has the luminous, unlined skin of a well-hydrated six-year-old.
“I’m so excited you’re here,” she says, and her enthusiasm feels so authentic that I get as flustered and blushy as Scout, and am suddenly grateful for the low lighting.
The pale woman ends her phone call and squints in my direction. “Who are you?”
The muted disdain in her voice makes me feel like I just got caught committing a felony. Who am I? Oh, you know. Just your run-of-the-mill famewhore whose mother tried to arrange this dinner like a playdate.
“Melanie,” Scout says, like she’s reproaching a naughty toddler. “Jess is my friend from Venice. I told you she was coming.”
“Mel,” Eva says, smoothly. “Will you do me a huge favor? Run next door to Indigo Seas and see if they’ve gotten any more of the serving plates in?”
Indigo Seas is the heinously expensive store attached to the Ivy that sells their signature, hand-painted tableware plus a variety of overpriced flea-market finds. It’s the kind of place where you can spend seventy-five-dollars on a vintage (read: used) tea towel. Celebrities eat that shit up.
“Uh . . . right now?” Melanie says, frowning.
Eva squeezes Melanie’s forearm. “That would be great. I think they’re getting ready to close.”
Melanie fakes a smile and pushes away from the table as the waiter approaches. “Sure. No problem.”
The waiter is so used to working the un-stare that there’s no indication that he recognizes Eva or appreciates her little wisp of a black tank top, the spaghetti straps drooping dangerously from her tanned shoulders. She hands him the oversize menu, smiles at him with her minky eyes, and rattles off a special order that is pure truck driver with a splash of foodie: “Can we get the onion rings and an order of fries to start and”—she tips the menu back from his hand to peer at it briefly—“a couple of artichokes and—ooh, for the onion rings, can you ask them to make me some of that yogurt ranch stuff they do with the fresh herbs?—and a Caesar salad, with absolutely no anchovies, but a ton of shaved Parm; in fact, can you bring a plate of just shaved Parmesan on the side, and definitely some of the garlic bread, but, wait, on the Caesar, can you add a whole bunch of those oven-roasted tomatoes?” She looks up fetchingly at him. “You’re getting all this?”
He assures her that he is, so she keeps going as I surreptitiously look around the room.
Having dinner at the Ivy with a celebrity is completely different from being part of the civilian population, no matter how much you tipped the host for that table on the patio, the one everyone has to pass on the way to the bathroom. For what it’s worth, even if you slide the hostess a couple one-hundred-dollar bills, you’re not getting that table unless no one of Kathy Griffin–level celebrity or higher is in the house.
I’m just saying. There’s a caste system in play, and money doesn’t override it. Though it helps.
Ten minutes later, I’m watching Eva Carlton eat onion rings like she’s auditioning for webcam porn, her fingertips and lips glistening with grease as she dangles the dripping shreds above her glossy lips. She licks a droplet of ranch from the corner of her mouth, then sticks her forefinger into her mouth up to the second knuckle and licks it clean.
The part of me that isn’t falling a little bit in love with her thinks, I bet that’s the only onion ring she’ll eat all night.
I’m more than content to listen to her and Scout catch up, until we hear the unmistakable sound of an iPhone camera shutter nearby. I turn in time to see our waiter descend on a table of women with Elizabeth Taylor hairdos—circa her bloated wheelchair period, not National Velvet.
They look chastened as the waiter wags his finger like a stern father, then launches into a speech he’s clearly given a thousand times about the sanctity of protecting the guests of their establishment. Which is kind of comical when you consider the double layer of paparazzi out front—the A-list paps getting the prime sidewalk frontage while the B-team settles for long-lensing it from across the street in front of the Newsroom Café—but it’s a nice touch.
Eva relaxes as the women huddle around their table, suddenly very intently not looking in our direction, their own version of the Midwest un-stare, not nearly as subtle.
We’re half done with dinner when Melanie returns, laden with oversize white paper shopping bags from Indigo Seas. “They had everything,” she tells Eva. “I got you eight place settings.”
Eva lights up. “You’re like a fairy godmother.”
They chat about the dishes while Melanie eats the remaining artichoke, and I’m already exhausted. When you go out in public with a celebrity, it’s like everyone’s watching every move you make, always. The walls are breathing, listening. On the other hand, it’s intoxicating. It’s gauche to say that, I know, and I can see how it would get old fast. Especially if you had a cold sore and PMS. But right now, my exhaustion is almost postcoital, basking in Eva’s reflected heat.
So I’m feeling sort of replete and triumphant when the women at the next table stand to leave—then suddenly stampede closer and surround Eva in a tight half-circle.
“I’m so sorry!” the boldest one gushes. “But I just have to tell you that I’m such a huge fan of yours!” She rattles off the name of Eva’s soap opera, and one of her favorite plots, which means nothing to me. For all my pop-culture obsession, I managed to completely miss the boat on soap operas.
“I’ve been watching you since your very first day, back when you were just a baby,” she continues.
Eva flashes a megawatt smile that doesn’t extend to her eyes. “Thank you so much. That means a lot to me.”
Scout and Melanie scowl so fiercely that I’m a little intimidated, and I haven’t even done anything.
“We’re eating,” Scout says, icily. “Do you mind?”
They launch into stammering apologies, but make no move to leave. Then the ringleader clears her throat. “Do you think we could get one quick picture?” She brandishes her iPhone. “It’ll only take a second.”
“Of course you can,” Eva says, and the women pack themselves around her chair.
“Excuse me!” Melanie barks to the blond hostess, who is nervously scanning the room for our missing waiter. “Do you see this?”
The ringleader knows her window is closing, and shoves her phone at me. “Can you take our picture?”
“Of course.” I take the phone, frame them in the viewfinder, and slip my forefinger over the lens. “Say cheese, ladies.”
They smile and I click the shutter, pleased with the flat, red square it records.
“Got it,” I say, and instead of handing the phone back to them, I head toward the front door, looking over my shoulder. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”
“You shouldn’t have intervened,” Melanie tells me when I return, her voice sharp as an ice pick.
“Mel, stop,” Eva says reproachfully, and turns to me. “I’m sure I have grease all over my face. The thing with your finger was inspired.”
“It totally was,” Scout says.
“Do me a favor, Mel,” Eva says, and Melanie immediately stiffens. “Jesus, don’t freak—I just want you to switch places with Jess.”
Melanie drops her gaze and mutters something about putting the bags in the car. Eva seems unfazed by her passive tantrum and pats the empty seat as Melanie slouches toward t
he valet, laden with her purchases.
“Maybe I should go?” I say, which is completely impractical, since I came with Scout in her car, but I’m grasping for something to defuse the tension.
“Don’t be a dork,” Scout says.
“Mel’s been my manager since the beginning,” Eva tells me, leaning in conspiratorially. “She’s kind of a handful.”
I’m not sure how to respond, and before I blurt out anything inappropriate, the waiter sets heaping plates of ice cream and bowls of confections onto the table.
“Melanie and I are about to part ways,” Eva continues when he leaves. “She just doesn’t know it yet. Her weirdness has nothing to do with you.”
I wonder why Eva is entrusting me with this information. I mean, we’re only meeting for the second time. Still, Scout is nodding along and making encouraging eye contact with me, so I get a warm, fuzzy feeling that makes me think Eva might actually really like me. And it doesn’t hurt that she wants to know everything about me. She curls into the chair and tucks her bare feet under her butt like she’s settling in at a pajama party and finds me the most fascinating girl in the room.
It makes me feel a little dizzy, with a happy drunken buzz like a contact high from being in her presence. And the dessert. If you’ve never been to the Ivy, it’s worth the trip for the fifteen-dollar banana split, which isn’t a banana split at all, but a dinner plate piled with ice cream and fresh fruit—raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and, yes, token chunks of banana. A separate, full-size plate holds a cluster of pitchers and tiny bowls—toasted, chopped almonds, freshly whipped cream, buttery house-made caramel, and thick, bittersweet hot fudge. It’s a travesty. It’s heaven. I’ve been to the Ivy dozens of times and I’ve never seen anyone order it, except for a birthday, where it melts on the table as people drink coffee and smoke e-cigarettes. It’s a dessert for women who star in their own movies. No one else in Los Angeles would dare order it, at least no one with a vagina.
For once, Eva really digs in. She takes big, showy bites, pouring caramel onto a spoonful of ice cream and banana and jamming the whole thing into the pot of almonds before bringing it to her lips. Just watching her eat is making me split my pants.
“Eat this,” she says, shoving the plate in my direction. “It’s sick.”
I’m supposed to say no, but, c’mon. Of course I eat the ice cream. I always eat the ice cream. And this time, the remarkable thing is that I don’t feel guilty about it. Eva’s enjoyment is contagious. No, not contagious. It’s empowering.
When I was a little kid, my mom would pick me up from Gloria’s every few months and take me out for ice cream, just the two of us. It always felt like a big deal. I’d kick my foot against the passenger door in her old GTO (so much cooler than the RAV4 that came afterward) and try not to show too much enthusiasm, because she always told me that a lady never shows emotions. Which was patently ridiculous, coming from her.
So now I mumble something about how eating ice cream reminds me of my mother, and Eva perks up. She wants to know all about my mother. I can tell from her tone that Scout already filled her in but told her not to say anything.
I give her the short version, and I see her realizing that I’m holding back.
“Did you grow up around here?” she asks.
“In Santa Monica, mostly. But all over the place when I was living with my mom.”
“Oh, did you live with your dad in Santa Monica?”
I shoot a glance at Scout, who is feigning fascination with her phone. “My dad wasn’t around. I grew up with my grandmother, really.”
Eva’s face softens into a genuine smile. “That’s awesome. I loved my abuelita.”
“Are you Mexican?” I say. “I read that you’re Portuguese and French.”
Scout snorks.
“What?” Eva asks innocently.
Scout sets her oversize cup on its oversize saucer. “Please. Your grandmother was a train wreck. And the Portuguese thing is going to haunt you forever.”
A tiny furrow ripples across Eva’s smooth forehead, then disappears when she bursts into delighted laughter and throws her arms around Scout’s neck. “That is why you’re my best friend,” she says affectionately. “You always speak your truth.”
Scout leans back as Eva crawls onto her lap and crosses her legs like she’s about to bust a yoga move. I’m not uptight about public displays of affection, but it’s a little weird that we’re sitting in the middle of the Ivy and Eva’s acting like she’s in her pajamas in her living room.
“Are you okay?” she asks, catching something in my expression. “Am I freaking you out?”
“Not at all,” I say.
“Bullshit,” she says, but she keeps smiling.
The waiter materializes at Eva’s elbow. “Can I get you anything else? More tea?”
Eva stands and stretches her arms over her head like she’s just crawled out of bed. Her shirt rides up to expose her stomach and we all stare at it for a moment, flicking our glances away as she straightens.
“Just the check, please,” she says.
“Oh, no Miss Carlton, your friend”—he gestures to Melanie’s empty chair—“took care of the bill on her way out.”
“Wait,” I say. “Did she leave?”
Eva digs into her Marc Jacobs handbag, then scrolls through the texts on her phone. “Apparently. Which is good, because I want to talk to you about something.”
“Uh, okay.”
“I mean, not that I wouldn’t have talked to you with Melanie here, but . . . well, let’s just say that she’s been complicating things for me lately.”
“Right,” I say, deadpan. “Because that’s not cryptic.”
“I figured you’d get that all by yourself,” Scout says.
“We like funny,” Eva says. “Hot is fleeting, but funny lasts forever.”
“Next you’ll say I have a good personality,” I tell her.
Eva laughs loudly, her head back and her teeth as white and even as a toothpaste ad. “Okay, A, you’re gorgeous. B, I’m straight.”
She pauses and looks at me intently. I guess she needs to clarify that.
“Right on,” I say. “What’s C?”
“C is, I want you to work for me.”
Twenty-five
When I was in high school, I was always in awe of the girls who flirted with everyone and had a different date every weekend, but I’m a serial monogamist. With everything, really. Not just boys. I do it with friends, with food, even with clothing. When I find a pair of pants that make my ass look like Italian sculpture, I buy six pairs and wear them constantly. When I fell in love with kale, I ate it three times a day for months. Then came an equivalent pork phase, to balance it out.
My point is, I’m not good at juggling. And I have to say, after Eva’s offer I find myself kind of wrecked. She said she’d call, so now I’m spending every moment waiting for the phone to ring. But at the same time, I’m still working for Tyler, and it certainly doesn’t suck. I mean, he’s a pain in the ass, but he’s my pain in the ass. Plus, without him, Eva would never have asked me to work for her. Staff poaching could be a Celebrity Olympics event. I’m not a fan. I owe Tyler. Plus, I like him—though I still haven’t learned to negotiate the roiling waters of his management team. Maybe if I didn’t have Eva’s offer lurking in the periphery of my mind—oh, who am I kidding, it’s all I’m thinking about—I’d be a little more conciliatory when Cassidy calls two mornings later to bitch that I’ve fucked up the ratio of kibble to wet food for Zelda.
There’s something about the way she launches into her grievance without any of the niceties that boots up a few angry, self-protective synapses in my brain.
“I don’t know what to tell you, sweetheart,” I say, when she pauses for breat
h. I’m on my bike, as per usual, stopped on the side of the road at San Vicente and Seventh Street. I can’t ride and talk at the same time, especially not to her. I’d drive right into oncoming traffic.
“What did you just call me?” Cassidy says.
“I’m doing the best I can. If I’m not living up to your expectations, maybe it’s time to throw a flag on the play.”
I actually say that, “throw a flag on the play.” I think I’m channeling the high school quarterback I had an unrequited crush on, because I barely know what it means.
As expected, Cassidy clicks off without another word. That’s another Olympic event in these parts: the upper-hand, end-of-conversation decathlon, featuring severed connections, slammed doors, ignored texts, and deleted e-mails. Cassidy is a gold medalist. By the time I walk into Tyler’s house, a scant five minutes later, she’s already brought the hammer down.
Tyler’s standing in the immaculate kitchen in a pair of gray boxer briefs, holding an empty coffee cup and looking forlorn. “Jessie, I just got off the phone with Cass. What the fuck happened?”
“What have you heard?”
“She said you were completely out of line.” He knocks a cigarette out of one of the packs on the counter and flicks on the burner of the stove, dipping in to light it. “She actually used the word ‘insubordinate.’”
“Did she also mention that she called to rag on me for a dog-food issue?”
“No way,” he says. “I had no idea.”
I’m no psychic, but I’m clear he knows exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve broken one of the cardinal rules of Hollywood: don’t breach the wall of the entourage. Managers, agents, business managers, and even assistants all earn their keep by being the emotional buffer between the talent and the outside world.
“Come on, Tyler, that’s bullshit. You just don’t want to get dragged down by the help.”