Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (4 page)

“Yeah,” she says hesitantly. “That’ll
work.”

“Great, I’ll see you then,” I tell her and
hang up.

Okay, so maybe I’m less indifferent toward
Emma than I let on.

I used to be really into that whole
doe-eyed-in-the-face-of-a-major-motion-picture-set look—yes, believe it or not,
that’s an actual, distinct look—and attitude, especially the way I could always
play the role of mentor to my generally young, often voluptuous pupil. Over the
years though, I don’t know if it’s cynicism or what, but I’ve grown tired of
all the naiveté.

I don’t know if Emma’s necessarily naïve,
but she’s close enough to it that I shouldn’t be interested in her, but what
can I tell you?

Still, with that naiveté comes an
increased possibility that she’s not down so much for the dressing room booty
call. She seems like a proponent of the phrase, “Let’s make it official.”

What
is
that phrase anyway? What does it mean?

Let’s make it official?

That’s when all the demands start and the
sniping and the interference with my personal and work lives and having to walk
by the newsstands that have pictures of me and whoever, making some claim that
we’ve just had a major fight—which may or may not be true—and might be breaking
up—which is almost never true until she, whoever “she” is, sees the headlines—and
that’s something I’d really like to avoid.

Regardless, I’m in a position where I may
finally be able to get Nick to forget my fucking phone number.

It’s a spiritual quest, really.

Maybe over dessert I can see how Emma
feels about a three-way. Nothing says noncommittal like proposing that your
first sexual act be one with a third person. Nothing says “Don’t date me unless
you’re into some casual, possibly freaky shit” like proposing it on the first
date, more so, I would think, when she doesn’t know that it’s a date.

Not that this is a date.

No, this certainly isn’t a date.

I’m just getting a couple of things signed
so Nick can take his autographed shit and go fuck himself with them.

There is a particular reason that I have a
bit of a sour taste behind whatever attraction I have toward Emma, but it’s not
worth mentioning here. It’s a personal tic and it really has nothing to do with
her.

Anyway, Kieran comes back into the
dressing room, saying, “Hey, I guess they’re going to need this room in a
couple of minutes. They’ve got another interview.”

“They don’t have two rooms?” I ask.

“If they do,” he says, “they’re going to
other people.”

“Did you get the reservations?”

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” he says.

“What’s the thing?” I ask.

“They don’t have anything until
nine-thirty,” he tells me.

“Call them back and drop my name,” I tell
him. “I already told my guest that we’d be dining at eight.”

“Yeah, I
did
drop your name,” Kieran says. “That’s why I was able to get
reservations for tonight. They were going to put me down for some time in
January before they knew I was calling for you. I really wouldn’t worry about
it.”

I scratch my chin.

“That was quite the ball of sympathy you
dropped in my lap right there,” I tell him.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Eight would be nice,” I tell him, “but
nine-thirty isn’t the end of the world. My ego is intact, Kieran.” I whisper,
“I’m going to be okay.”

Actually, I’m humiliated that I couldn’t
get a table exactly when I wanted it and I’m furious that someone other than me
and the waitress or whoever was on the phone knows about it. No lie, the
thought already crossed my mind how I would dispose of Kieran’s body should I
decide to make the secret that much easier to keep.

Fortunately for Kieran, though, I’m a
peaceful man.

“All right,” he says. “Did you already set
up the car? I can set that up for you.”

It’s a ploy.

“Two things,” I tell him. “One, I told you
that I’m really not upset. Two, I told you that I’m not telling you who I’m
going to dinner with because it’s none of your business. Is there anything else
you have to say that I haven’t already said no to today?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

“All right,” I tell him. “Go home. I’ll
call you if I need you.”

“Hey, would you mind if I’m maybe not on
call tonight?” he asks. “See, my mother’s in town, and I really haven’t been
able to spend that much time with her since she got here. And…” he goes on with
his sob story.

After a while spent acting like I’m
listening so that Kieran can feel like he’s being heard while I’m actually
trying to figure out the drum pattern for this song that’s been in my head
since I got in the car this morning, I interrupt him and say, “Have the night.”
I tell him, “Have tomorrow night, too. Spend some time with the family. That
sort of thing’s important, you know.”

“Thank you,” he says with his usual,
obviously manufactured look of humility and gratitude.

I really just keep him around to do the
jobs I’m too lazy to want to do and so I can occasionally make fun of his name.
He’s not actually a crucial member of team Damian.

I’ve let assistants get close before, but
I’d rather not talk about that right now.

Anyway, I really don’t know why he’s
laying it on so thick. The only times that I’ve ever called him at home have
been issues of absolute importance. Either that, or the occasional prank call,
but mostly it’s been in situations where it was of absolute necessity that I
disturb him.

I’m not sure he’s aware of the fact that I
have never once kept track of his hours. The way it actually works is that I
pay him on a sliding scale of how much he’s irritated me that week.

If he doesn’t wrap up the thank you parade
here pretty quick, I have a feeling he’s not going to end up with that many
hours this week.

He really should have gone for the salary
option. I’m not to be trusted accounting for someone else’s hours.

There’s a knock on the door and a woman
from the crew pokes her head in.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m sorry to bug you,
but we really do need the room, so is there any way I can help you with your
things, or—”

“We’re going,” I tell her.

I grab what I assume is a complimentary
bottle of twenty-one year old scotch from atop one of the tables. There’s a
little paper on a string wrapped around the neck of the bottle that says, “Mr.
Hansen.”

I don’t know who Mr. Hansen is, but I
thank him for the rather expensive bottle of scotch.

The woman halfway in the room looks like
she wants to tell me something, but can’t find the words with which to do it.

I’ll give her time to figure it out. If
it’s important, I’m sure it’ll come to her.

Out of the dressing room and on my way out
of the building, I come to a couple of doors with strips of glass in them. On
the other side is a big crowd of young women in their late teens and early
twenties.

When I was a kid growing up and I would
see videos of actors and musicians being rushed through crowds of adoring and
attractive female adulators, I would always get a little perturbed.

“Didn’t the fucking Beatles understand
that those women were ready and willing to screw their brains out?” I would ask
myself.

I didn’t get it.

Okay, I was a weird kid.

When you’re a kid, you watch a celebrity
being rushed through a crowd and wonder what the big deal is, but when people
get into crowds, they cease to be people. Once the group mentality kicks in, you’re
just as likely to get killed as you are to get your dick wet.

Since I started getting recognized, I’ve
learned not to trust any groups larger than two strangers.

The reality of the situation is that if
you don’t go through one of those gauntlets with some kind of escort or a good,
solid barrier between you and them, chances of making it out of the situation
uninjured drop substantially.

I’m looking through the glass section of
the door at the mob on the other side just waiting to tear me to shreds when I
notice that not one of them is looking in my direction. If they were, one of
them would have seen me through the glass, and I’d be making a run for it.

In fact, as I inch closer for a better
angle, they’re all looking toward the center of the group.

I open the door.

Nobody even looks over at me.

They’re all crowded around a man in his
early thirties wearing a suit that looks to be in its early sixties.

This is just a simple waiting room for
people with appointments with someone in one of the offices in the back, but
it’s packed almost full with women literally and figuratively throwing
themselves at the short and, from what I can tell from where I’m standing,
balding man in the middle.

I tap one of the women on the shoulder.

She turns around and, although it takes a
few seconds, she recognizes me.

“Oh hey, you’re that actor guy, right?”
she asks.

I think that counts as being recognized.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “Who’s that man you’re
all crowded around?”

“Oh, it’s Hershel Hansen,” she says. “Can
you believe it?”

Can I believe it?

Can
I
believe it?

I don’t mean to throw a celebrity fit, but
I’m Damian God-Damned Jones, for fuck’s sake.
I
should be the reason panties are wet in any given room, and I’m
not about to be upstaged by Hershel Fucking Hansen, whoever he is.

Now that I think about it…

I tap the woman on the shoulder again.

Yeah, my presence made such a little
impact that she got bored with the fact that I’m in the room and turned her
attention elsewhere.

She turns back around with annoyance
plastered across her face. “Yeah?” she asks.

“Who is Hershel Hansen?” I ask.

A couple of the women closest to my informant
turn and glare at me as if I’ve just insulted their holiest figure.

Maybe I have. How the fuck should I know?

“You’re kidding, right?” she asks.

“Can’t say that I am,” I answer.

It looks like she’s about to answer, but
as she’s standing in such a way that she can talk to me and still keep an eye
on Hansen, she sees him start to move toward the backstage area and she jumps
back into the pack.

I’ve been replaced in the hearts and
sexual organs of young, horny women.

This just might be the worst day of my
life.

As I walk the rest of the way out of the
building, I fail in my effort not to allow myself to think about the real
reason I’m not so thrilled about Emma.

The reason is very simple, though the
answer to alleviating the problem is impossible: She’s on her way up and I,
well, I just got the brush off from a whole group of women who even three years
ago would have been generally assaulting me with undergarments.

It’s not that I really miss having women
throwing their panties at me—I was always concerned about the hygiene involved—but
the fact that that time may be drawing to a close is a depressing one.

Emma: She’s twenty.

I’m not old by anyone’s standards, but at
twenty-nine, it’s starting to look like
my ”
young
actor” days might be behind me, not to mention my steamiest roles. There’s
always the late-thirties rebound that can last a long time—especially if you’re
Sean Connery—but I don’t know if my career can handle the in-between.

If this keeps up, I’m going to have to
start taking parts with a modicum of substance, and frankly, I’ve been doing
fluff shit for so long that I’m not even sure I could hack it in a substantive
film anymore.

The reason I’m fine with teasing Emma, but
not interested in her beyond the role of plaything, is that she’s my up-in-the-face
reminder that I’m not the new, exciting actor anymore—and I never will be
again.

There’s nothing left that I can do to
surprise anyone. I could get arrested with a rifle in a brothel and people
would just chalk it up to frustration over a flagging career or drugs or some
kind of midlife crisis or some combination of the three.

For Emma, everything’s in front of her. Me?
I’m feeling more and more like I should just write my memoirs and get out while
I’m still relevant.

I’m in actor limbo: I’m too young to be
beloved, and I’ve been in the business far too long to be considered a rising
star.

I probably shouldn’t hold Emma so
personally accountable for that, but I do.

It is what it is.

Chapter Three

Dinner for Two

Emma

So I’m here, sitting at the table that
Damian reserved and I’m checking my watch.

I would call him, but the number he used
to call me earlier came up as a private. I might do what he did and simply give
Dutch a call, but I don’t have
his
phone number, either.

I’m starting to wonder whether this is
some kind of prank.

“Hey, I’m sorry I’m late,” Damian says,
rushing around to the empty chair across from me. “I got a bit caught up
looking into something.”

“What were you looking into?” I ask.

“Hershel Hansen,” he says. “It’s nothing.
Don’t worry about it.”

“Hershel Hansen?” I ask. “You mean that
computer guy?”

He seems irritated by the question.

“Anyway, I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” he
says.

“I’m just glad that you came at all,” I
tell him and point toward the front of the restaurant. “You see the people
waiting for a table?”

“Yeah,” he answers.

“They could see me, too,” I tell him. “You
wouldn’t believe some of the gestures and mouthed words I’ve been getting from
those people, sitting at this table alone and eating nothing but the
breadsticks they keep bringing out. You know, I think the worst part is when
they’re refilling the basket and I’m stuck here with just my water to keep me
company. I was really starting to fear an uprising.”

“I’m really very sorry,” he says. “So,
before we get to dinner, I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I have a cousin who’s a big fan of
yours,” he says. “Would you mind signing a couple of things for him?”

I can feel my face growing warm. I can only
imagine how red it must be right now.

I’ve given autographs before, but it’s
always been as a cute, kitschy thing, like a headshot for one of my nieces or
something. This is the first time anyone’s seriously asked me for my autograph.

I guess I did give a lot of autographs to
the sci-fi crowd when I played a role with a particularly plunging neckline,
but I’d hardly call that a result of adulation. Most of them didn’t even know
my real name and just kept calling me Dr. Tchaikovsky or Mistress Death Head or
whoever I happened to be in that particular film.

“Sure,” I tell him.

As Damian reaches into his bag for the
items he wants me to sign for his cousin, the waiter arrives at our table.

“I’m glad to see that your companion is
here,” the waiter, Nolan, says. “Are you two ready to order?”

“Actually, I haven’t really had a chance
to peruse the menu,” Damian says. “Would you mind giving us a few more
minutes?”

“Well, we
have
already been holding this table for—wait,” the waiter stops.
“You’re Damian Jones, aren’t you?”

Damian smiles.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” he says. “Take as
much time as you need.”

Just to make sure that what I think is
happening is actually happening, I look toward the people in the front still
waiting for a table. They’re still looking over at my table, but now they’re
nudging each other and taking pictures on their cellphones.

Yep. Nobody recognized me.

To them, I was, at first, just a woman
sitting in a restaurant, keeping them from a table. Now, I’m the woman sitting
in a restaurant with Damian Jones, though, and everyone seems to be interested.

It takes about that long for me to look
down at the table at what Damian brought me to sign for his cousin.

“Let’s see,” I say, picking up each of the
three items, one at a time, “a partially-used tube of toothpaste, a pair of
scissors, and a condom.”

“Yeah,” he says. “My cousin collects all
sorts of things.”

“Your cousin collects tubes of
toothpaste?” I ask.

“Actually, no,” Damian says. “He doesn’t
actually collect any of those. I just picked these because I thought they would
be hilarious to give to him.”

“But you still want me to sign all of
this?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, “if you wouldn’t mind.”

I look down.

Okay, the little boost I was feeling a few
minutes ago is now completely gone and replacing it is the question of whether
or not I’m really so hard up when it comes to getting recognized that I’m
willing to sign the first three things Damian Jones happened to grab on his way
out of the house.

Maybe I could just use this moment as an
anecdote for when I’m on the Tonight Show, if they ever call. I don’t know. I
think I’d be too embarrassed.

I swallow any impression I had of my own
dignity and ask Damian if he has a pen.

He pulls a sharpie from the inside pocket
of his jacket and hands it over to me.

“Just walk around with that, do you?” I
ask.

“You never know when it’s going to come in
handy,” he says.

The thing about Damian Jones isn’t that I
dislike him for the little games he plays, or that I think he’s an ego-centric
jerk. No, there’s a much different reason why I’ve got this feeling in the pit
of my stomach and it’s only chance and proximity that it’s directed toward him
at all.

Still, that feeling remains.

I sign the scissors and the condom, but
the tube of toothpaste is giving me some problems.

I’m a person who prides herself on the
aesthetic quality of my signature, but with all the ripples and overall
unevenness of the tube, it’s difficult to do anything that’s even recognizable
as my autograph.

I muddle my way through, though and
finally get to the question that I’ve wanted to ask Damian since he invited me
to dinner.

“So, what am I doing here?” I ask.

“I just thought it would be nice to get to
know you a bit,” he says. “We’re going to be working closely for a while and I
thought it would be nice if we could be friends.”

“That’s a decent sentiment,” I tell him.

My problem with Damian, on the most basic
level, is that he’s got all of this fame and all of this freedom as one of the
most highly sought actors in Hollywood, and that he doesn’t seem to appreciate any
of it.

It was one thing before I met Damian when
I could pretend that he must be that down to Earth, personable kind of actor
who only uses his fame and fortune for good that people always project onto
their favorite actors or musicians. Back then, I could at least imagine that he
had enough poise and decency that I wouldn’t feel this need to see him fall in
the mud.

Ah, the fairy tales we make up for
ourselves.

Now, though, he’s said a couple of things
here and there that would almost point to a more mature and enlightened
perspective, I know better than to expect that as something intrinsic to his
character. It’s more like a glitch in the Matrix: chances are, they’re an
indication that something bad is about to happen.

We talk a while, but it becomes pretty
evident pretty quickly that there’s not much common experience between us other
than working on the set of this movie. At one point, he tried to tell me how he
had some profound experience on his way out of a remote interview, but he gave
up on the story before reaching any kind of point.

We have our dinner and it’s easy enough to
see why we’re having such a hard time speaking with one another.

I don’t think it’s that we’re really such
drastically different creatures that we’re never going to understand each
other. I think it’s more the fact that both of us are staying away from any
topic of conversation that could be considered even remotely personal or real.

I can’t prove it, but I kind of get the
feeling that he doesn’t really like me all that well. I guess that’s fair,
though, as I’m not sure that I like him that well right now, either.

“So, why are we here?” I ask after we’re
through the fourth, though surprisingly not final, course.

I don’t really get a satisfying answer.

*
                   
*
                   
*

I get home and I’m almost certain that Damian
just invited me to dinner so he could get me to sign that random bullshit that
may or may not go to one of his relatives. It’s hard to say why he wouldn’t
just do that on the set, but maybe he was worried it might weaken him in some
strange way to be seen receiving an autograph from me in front of the cast and
crew.

As for me, I’m hoping for a quiet night
where I can decompress and try to reconcile my dreams of being an actress in a
major film with the soul-crushing reality of it. Like everything else, though,
the night doesn’t go as planned.

My phone rings and, without bothering to
check the caller ID, I answer it.

“Is this Emma Roxy?” a man on the other
end asks.

Maybe Damian was right about the need for
walls.

“Yeah,” I answer. I was hoping I’d never
have to hear this voice again. “What do you want, Ben?”

“Hey, look at that,” he says. “You
do
remember me.”

Yeah, I remember Ben.

Ben is a guy I dated shortly after I
graduated high school and dated off-and-on for nearly a year. He’s also someone
who, during the entirety of our relationship, never once took me seriously.

To him, I was always the hot wannabe actor
that he was banging. He never believed that I would make anything of myself,
not just as an actress, but in general. He didn’t mind letting me know his
rather low opinion of me, either.

“It’s been almost a year since we’ve
talked, and if you’re wondering, I can tell you that it absolutely has not been
long enough,” I tell him.

“I’ve missed our little chats,” he says.

“What do you want, Ben?” I ask.

“No need to take that tone,” he says. “At
least not until after I actually tell you what it is that I want.”

“Is there any way we can do this in a way
that doesn’t take a lot of time or, you know, interaction?” I ask. “I’ve had a
long night, and I’d rather just get back to pretending that you don’t exist as
soon as possible. I find that I’m happier that way.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” he says. “I
just wanted to call you and let you know that I’m going to be releasing those
pictures that I took of you when we were dating. That is, unless you’d like to
pay for the privilege of having them disappear.”

“Pictures?” I ask. “What pictures?”

“I think you know exactly the ones I’m
talking about,” he says, and it’s not until he says that that I do.

“We had only been going out for a month or
two,” I tell him. “I had no idea what kind of slime you were when I agreed to
let you take those pictures of me. I’m not going to let you blackmail me with
them.”

Yeah, about those pictures…

The pictures are probably about what
you’re expecting them to be, though possibly not as graphic as what you’re
envisioning.

When Ben and I were first dating, we went
on a trip with one another. This was when he was still acting like a human
being, though that other shoe wouldn’t take too much longer to drop. At one
point, the two of us—well, we went skinny dipping.

I told Ben to leave the camera on the
shore, but he grabbed it anyway. After a few minutes spent convincing me that
nobody but he and I would ever see the pictures, I relented.

Ironic, huh?

He’s now blackmailing me by threatening to
publicize the pictures that wouldn’t have been taken in the first place if he
hadn’t assured me that we’d be the only two to ever see them.

“Do you really think some nude photos are
going to hurt my career?” I ask. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with the
world in which we live, but people love few things more than seeing a pair of
famous tits. If you’re threatening to take me from accomplished actress to
accomplished actress and sex symbol, go ahead,” I tell him. “Do it. See if I
care.”

He doesn’t fall for the bluff.

“No,” he says. “I know you well enough to
know that having these pictures made public would mortify you. I’m thinking
maybe we should start talking numbers.”

“What does it say about you that you’re
going through with this even though you claim to know that these pictures
coming out would make me miserable? I wonder why things didn’t work out with
us,” I tell him.

“Whatever,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll
remember that I’m a reasonable man. I think that five-thousand dollars a month
should be enough to keep your little secret for you.”

“Five thousand a month?” I ask. “You’re
asking me to pay you $60,000 a year just to keep you from showing off a few
blurry pictures?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Considering that you’re
in that new movie they’re making with Damian Jones, I’d say you should have
plenty of cash to spare.”