Oh! You Pretty Things, Page 23

  Finally, she caved and I drove down the hill and got her a couple. But when I brought them back, still warm, they weren’t right.

  “I wanted that red onion stuff they put on top,” she said.

  “I asked, but they didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  She heaved a sigh, then brightened. “I’m dying to get out of here. Let’s just go down there.”

  “Really?”

  “My treat,” she said. “You know you want to. C’mon, I’ll drive.”

  At Pink’s, the line was blissfully short. We got to the front without incident, until the high school girls behind us—who didn’t have the slightest idea who Eva was—overheard her veggie-dog order and wanted them too. Veggie dogs are an off-menu item, and they won’t dig them out unless you’re at least a tiny blip on the Hollywood radar screen. Which, of course, makes them that much more desirable.

  On the bright side, they don’t taste good. Keeping them off the menu is like a public service.

  Anyway, that’s when I saw the prison dude cutting in Eva’s direction. There’s a gleam in the eye of a TV fan that is easy to spot once you’ve seen it a few times, an unlikely mix of apprehension, excitement, and entitlement.

  Prison Dude had skulls tattooed across his freckled biceps, and there was a rapey-looking white van parked nearby. My pulse spiked and I intercepted him. Okay, so it turned out he was the CEO of a graphic-design company and he asked, very politely, for Eva’s autograph for his mother. But the fear was real, and so are the letters talking about people chopping off her feet, so I can’t complain about the personal gate-code thing. I’m still struck, sometimes, that Eva trusts me.

  Anyway, I’m still tossing supplements into the blender when the executive assistant finally transfers me to speak directly with Eva’s manager. And she says that the subcontractors who Eva’s jerkoff uncle hired to redo the floors never got paid.

  “Really?” I say. “This is why you’re calling nine times in a row at seven in the morning?”

  As far as I can tell, it would be alarming news if Eva’s uncle hadn’t stiffed them.

  “Just relay the message,” she tells me.

  So, at exactly eight, I creep into Eva’s bedroom with her shake and a vitally unimportant message, and, oh, look, she’s having sex.

  Here’s my question: if you know your assistant will arrive at 8:00 A.M. and she’s never, not once, been even a microsecond late, wouldn’t you make it a point to, I don’t know, not be having balls-out, naked, full-frontal intercourse?

  Yet, on this specific day, when I unlock the door with my Medeco key, balancing the Sonne shake in one hand and the most recent pink-paged sides from the production company in the other, outlining the changes to her manuscript for her shoot tomorrow, and with a stack of the magazines she denies reading—National Enquirer and Star and OK! and People and Us and InStyle—under my arms with the sheaf of messages I transcribed from the extra phone number, the voice mail she uses for people she’s never going to interact with, I find Eva and some boy stacked on the bed in a tangle of smooth limbs.

  The boy’s back is broad and V-shaped, a hooded cobra spread across Eva’s slim torso. They’re as motionless as Renaissance statues.

  Renaissance statues of people fucking.

  I freeze. I wait for the sound of breath, a bead of sweat trickling down a muscled arm. Nothing. We are an Annie Leibovitz photograph.

  And I’m trapped in a loop: I must deliver the shake to the bedside table, but I must not remain in the room, I must deliver the shake to the bedside table, but I must not remain in the room.

  Finally, I whisper, “I brought your shake,” and I set it on the table and turn and scamper away.

  In the kitchen, it hits me: that back is familiar. Maybe I’ve seen it on TV, maybe in a music video or a superhero movie, but I know that back. For some reason, almost recognizing the back makes everything worse. I lean against the cool silver fridge and take a big, disgusting sip of the dregs of Eva’s mud-shake from the VitaMix.

  Fifty

  A knock wakes me at seven thirty a few mornings later. I crawl from my bed, looking exactly as bedraggled as you’d imagine, and when I open the door I find Kirk smiling at me, holding two venti Starbucks cups.

  “I thought you were an early-morning-hike sort of girl,” he says.

  “Muh,” I croak.

  He extends a cup. “Triple-shot, bone dry, nonfat cappuccino?”

  Holy shit. He remembers a drink I bought in Starbucks months ago. Tyler’s drink, but still. Big points for trying.

  “Thanks,” I say as I take it from his outstretched hand. It’s heavy, way too milk-laden to have ever passed muster with Tyler.

  “I, uh, came by to check the hydrangea,” he says, smiling.

  I take a sip of the tepid drink. “Still alive. That Miracle-Gro is the shit.”

  “And . . .” He looks at his coffee, then my face, then behind me into my apartment. “Uh.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to give you.”

  And very slowly, like he’s afraid I’m going to shy away, he touches my chin and tilts my head upward. He gives me a soft, sweet, almost-chaste kiss. I feel his lips move into a smile on mine, and then I’m smiling back.

  “There,” he says, straightening.

  Of course, a chorus of voices in my head threaten to drown out the sweetness of the moment. Oh, Jesus, my breath. My face is probably as shiny as a headlight. Holy fuck I just kissed Kirk. Uh-oh. Cinnamon and peat moss. Delicious.

  “Well, come in.” I open the door wide and lead him into my relatively clean little space. “Let me just . . .” I pull the duvet up over my rumpled sheets and toss a pile of tabloid mags under the nightstand. “Here, sit.”

  Kirk sits on the edge of the bed and there’s something really cute about his obvious discomfort at being in my apartment, which is really just a glorified bedroom, and finding himself perched on my bed with me in my pajamas.

  “Your place is cute,” he says, taking in the wrought-iron bed and the wall of random, unframed oil paintings of dogs I’ve been collecting from garage sales for years.

  I sit beside him, both of us with our feet on the floor like we’re shy teenagers, and we sit in companionable silence for a long moment, slurping our coffees.

  Which, of course, is when Eva texts: Where are you? I have an audition in Burbank at 9:30 and I desperately need one of your magical protein elixirs! Want to take you shopping after. Can you come nownownow?

  On my way, I text back, and tell Kirk, “She just booked an early audition.”

  He looks crestfallen. “Well, give me a call when you’ve got the time.”

  That’s what happens when you’re a personal assistant—your life gets absorbed into the bigger, shinier life of your boss. For me, right now, that’s a perfect fit. There’s nothing that I’m not willing to drop on a moment’s notice in service of Eva’s needs. I’m a big, dry sponge absorbing everything she pours onto me.

  “We’ll figure something out,” I tell Kirk, but I’m not sure if either of us believes me.

  Fifty-one

  I want you to come with me to New York,” Eva tells me on the phone a few days later. “I’m doing a bunch of press, but we’ll have plenty of time to do fun shit too. It will be a mini vacation.”

  “That sounds awesome,” I say.

  “Call Janine and she’ll give you the details. Then why don’t you run by Pressed Juicery and grab me the usual and come up to the house? We’ll figure out what needs to get FedExed, and you can pack me.”

  “On my way,” I say.

  It’s cute the way Eva phrases her requests like they’re up to me. “Do you want to?” she’ll say. Or, “You know what would be great?” I’m not being facetious. It’s really charming.

  Janine, Eva’s publ
icist, is not so charming. I guess she uses up all her charm kissing her clients’ asses. She’s a major pain, but Eva loves her, so I’m always sweet as pie, even when I have to spend the first five minutes of every phone call listening to staticky hold music and then reexplaining who I am.

  Today, Janine picks up the phone as soon as her assistant clicks me onto hold.

  “Hey, Julie,” she says. Calling me by something other than my name is always her opener. It’s such a common diss it hardly even bothers me. Hardly.

  “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,” she says. “The studio has Eva booked on the Virgin America flight into JFK at one forty on Wednesday, returning Monday at one.”

  “Sounds great,” I say. I used to try to engage Janine in banter, but it always felt like shouting into a pile of wet laundry, so I finally just gave up.

  “I’ll e-mail her itinerary this afternoon. I’m still waiting for a call time from Jon Stewart.”

  “Holy shit,” I say. “She’s doing Jon Stewart?”

  “Please tell me you’ll be able to contain your enthusiasm when you’re on set,” she says drily.

  “Of course,” I say, and I’m grateful she can’t see me, because I’m grinning like an idiot, unable to contain my leprotic enthusiasm.

  “The only other thing I need is the name of her traveling companion.”

  “Oh, that’s me.”

  “No,” she says, in that mock-patient way people do when they aren’t willing to say what they mean. “I mean who is the person who will be flying in first class with her?”

  “Still me.”

  “Really?” she says. “That’s . . . unnecessary. If she’s not going to use it, I’ll have the studio move you to coach.”

  First of all, it’s not the fucking PR hack’s business what Eva does with her extra studio ticket, and, second, well, there is no second. She’s a bitch. I struggle to not call her out, but there’s something about her smarmy pause that pushes me past the bounds of personal-assistant decorum.

  “You know what?” I ask. “Why don’t I tell Eva what you suggested, and I’ll have her let you know how to handle it?”

  She launches into an indignant, spluttery rant.

  “Oops,” I say. “There’s my other line.”

  I click off while she’s still yammering about there being no need to involve Eva at this juncture. It’s a risk, but I tap out a text to Eva, choosing my words as carefully as the opening sentence of an SAT essay.

  Janine wants to tell the studio I don’t need a first class ticket. Also, and I haven’t wanted to tell you this, she is really strident for a PR person. I’d hate to think she’s as abusive to anyone else while she’s representing you. Yikes.

  I hit Send, then reread the message a half dozen times, reviewing each of my word choices. Fortunately, I don’t have long to wait, as my phone buzzes with a string of texts from Eva almost immediately.

  Ugh, yeah, she’s a leftover from my first manager. Sorry she was a bitch. Of COURSE you are flying with me. Please call her assistant and tell her to call me immediately.

  Use the word immediately.

  I feel a frisson of vindictive pleasure in my chest.

  Also tell her assistant we want orchestra tickets to Lion King while we’re there. It’s cheesy, but you will die. It’s such a spectacle. You need to see it on Broadway.

  I’m basking in the glow when the phone buzzes again.

  Also—that poet I met at M Cafe a while back? I promised I wouldn’t Google him. But you can. Will u work your Internet voodoo and find out about him? His name is Antonio Cavalucci.

  She actually met him at the Newsroom, but I know exactly who she means. And it turns out that he’s the reason we’re going to New York. Of course, big surprise, he doesn’t look like a poet, he looks like an actor playing a poet. Floppy blond hair, three-day stubble, vintage concert T-shirt. He’s in Brooklyn for three months, shooting a movie with an A-list cast on par with Al Pacino and Julia Roberts. No big shocker that Eva’s suddenly willing to do TV press. She hates doing press. She says she feels like someone’s going to push her off a cliff when she’s on live TV, which I’m sure is true, but you’d never know it from watching her.

  Are you on your way? her next text reads. I’m lonely.

  Coming right now, I tap back immediately.

  Fifty-two

  I’m driving down Santa Monica Boulevard toward Pressed Juicery, inordinately pleased about the phone call I’m making.

  “Hey, it’s Jess for Eva Carlton,” I tell Janine’s assistant.

  “Oh, yes, hi,” she says, and I can tell from her tone that Janine has been ranting about me since I hung up on her.

  I make the Lion King request, then I say, “Also, can you please tell Janine to call Eva immediately about the travel situation? I just got off the phone with her and she’s waiting for Janine’s call.”

  There’s a millisecond of silence before she tells me she’ll relay the request directly.

  “Wish I could be a fly on the wall for that conversation,” I say, and the assistant whispers, “Me too,” before we say our good-byes.

  Here’s a tip: don’t mistreat the fucking assistant. Only owners are allowed to beat their slaves in Hollywood.

  I’m not even past Doheny when Janine calls. “I’m so-o-o sorry about our misunderstanding,” she says, oozing syrupy contrition. “I just got off the phone with Eva. I’ll have the itinerary to you within the hour, and the Lion King tickets are no problem, of course. Third row, center. And they’d love to have you backstage after the performance for a meet-and-greet.”

  “Great,” I say. I’m not willing to give her a single extra syllable.

  Janine says—in entirely too many words—that if there’s anything else we need, she’s here to help.

  “You’re a peach,” I say. “I’m sure Eva hasn’t even remotely considered what she’d do without you.”

  Janine laughs, a reedy, high-pitched giggle that probably has all the dogs in a three-block radius howling. “Perish the thought,” she says. “I’m here for you guys.”

  “We love that about you,” I say, and end the call.

  I crank the stereo and light a cigarette, rolling down all the windows in Eva’s Jaguar and opening a half-empty Fiji water bottle and jamming it between my legs to use as an ashtray. I get a thready, jacked-up adrenaline rush when I stand up for myself, even if I don’t do it graciously, and now I need someone to talk me down.

  I call Megan and get voice mail.

  “Boof, hasn’t your visa to New Guyland expired yet? You’re pathetic. In the best way. Call me.”

  It’s a testament to my adrenaline rush that when my phone rings, I answer before the ringtone registers. I’m that coked-up girl sitting at the end of the bar with bright eyes and a clacking jaw, willing to have a conversation with any warm body in the immediate vicinity.

  “Cupcake,” my mother says. “There you are! I was starting to get worried.”

  “Sorry,” I say, and immediately regret leading with an apology. “I’ve been slammed.”

  “Tell me everything. How’s your new arrangement?”

  “It’s really good, actually.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Let’s see,” I say, like I’m racking my brain to think of what it is I want to tell her. “I’m going to New York to do press for Eva’s new show.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “The Today show, whatever that Kelly Ripa thing is now, and Jon Stewart.”

  “You know who I love?” she says. “David Letterman. I mean, so smart.”

  “Yeah, not this time.”

  “That’s too bad,” she says. “So where are you staying?”

  “Le Parker Meridien, midtown.”

  “Lovely,” she says. “Does the assistant need an assistant?”

  “She does n
ot,” I say, and I’m more than slightly skeeved out by her question and my response in the third person, but I continue unburdening myself anyway. “I just got into a whole thing with my boss’s PR person about how I didn’t need to fly first class, being as I’m the hired help and all.”

  There’s a small whoosh of release in my chest. Sometimes I need to say things out loud, even if it’s into a vacuum.

  “Darling, that’s awful. There’s no accounting for some people. What did Eva say?”

  “She totally has my back. She told her PR girl that I travel like talent.”

  There’s a beat of silence, beneath which I can hear my mother’s gears turning.

  “Anyway,” I say. “I’m going to be out of town for a few days.”

  “That’s a shame. I was hoping we could go out to Malibu and have lunch, maybe take a drive past Winbrook Stables.”

  It’s so out of left field that I actually look at my phone, like there’s going to be a clue to her intentions in the glowing screen. “What?”

  “You know, Winbrook,” she says. “Riding lessons? What were you, eight?”

  Manipulator. I was ten, and of course I remember. That summer was one of the happiest memories of my childhood. There was a girl at school, the shy daughter of an uber-famous acting couple, and she kept her show horse at Winbrook, out at the end of Cross Creek Road in Malibu. It’s been gone for years now, but back then Donna would drive me out every Saturday for a private lesson. Sometimes the girl and her parents would be there, which, in hindsight, probably had something to do with Donna’s willingness, but I just remember week after magical week of cantering around the ring while Donna whooped encouragement from the bleachers.

  “You took me every Saturday for a whole summer,” I say. Well, she’d forgotten me a week or two, but there’s no reason to mention that now. “You threatened to get into the ring and wrestle Daisy to the ground that day I got thrown. Fucking Daisy—that horse hated me.”