And my hair…
“This is the best haircut I’ve ever had,” I told him. I ran my fingers through it slowly. It had gone from a raggedy mouse-brown bob with a few haphazard highlights to a rich, shimmering tortoiseshell color, shot through with strands of gold and bronze and copper. He’d cut it short, the tendrils just brushing my cheeks, and let its natural wave remain in place, and he’d tucked it behind my ear on one side, giving me the look of a gamine. Sure, a pregnant gamine, but who was I to complain? “This may be the best haircut anyone’s ever had.”
The sound of applause came from the doorway. And there was Maxi, wearing a black slip dress with spaghetti straps and black sandals. She had diamond studs in her ears and a single diamond on a thin silver chain around her neck. The dress tied around her neck and left her back bare almost enough to display butt cleavage. I could see the tender buds of her shoulderblades, each marble-sized vertebra, the perfectly symmetrical sprinkling of freckles on her shoulders.
“Cannie! My God,” she said, studying first my hair, and then my belly. “You’re… wow.”
“Did you think I was kidding?” I said, and laughed at her awed expression.
She knelt down in front of me. “Can I…”
“Sure,” I said. She laid one hand flat on my belly, and, after a moment, the baby obligingly kicked.
“Ooh!” said Maxi, yanking her hand back as if she’d been burned.
“Don’t worry. You won’t hurt her. Or me.”
“So it’s a girl?” asked Garth.
“Nothing official. I just have a feeling,” I said.
Maxi, meanwhile, was circling me as if I were a piece of property she was thinking about buying. “What does Bruce have to say about this?” she inquired.
I shook my head. “Nothing, as far as I know. I haven’t heard from him.”
Maxi stopped circling and stared at me, her eyes wide. “Nothing? Still?”
“Not kidding,” I said.
“I could have him killed,” Maxi offered. “Or even just beaten up. I could send, say, half a dozen angry rugby players with baseball bats to break his legs…”
“Or his bong,” I suggested. “It’d probably hurt him worse.”
Maxi grinned. “Do you feel okay? Are you hungry? Or sleepy? Do you feel like going out, because if you don’t, that’s no problem at all”
I grinned at her, and tossed my fabulous hair. “Of course I want to go out! I’m in Hollywood! I’ve got makeup on! Let’s go!”
I offered Garth a credit card, but he shooed me away, telling me not to worry, it was all taken care of, and if I’d only promise to come back in six weeks to have my ends trimmed he’d consider that payment enough. I thanked him and thanked him until Maxi dragged me out the door. Her small silver car was pulled up to the curb. I got in carefully, aware of my shifting center of gravity… and aware that, next to Maxi, even with my fabulous new hair and gorgeous Garth-enhanced complexion, even in my semichic black matte tunic and skirt and not unhip black slides, I still felt like a dowdy dirigible. A gamine dirigible, at least, I thought, as Maxi zoomed across three lanes of honking cars and accelerated through a yellow light.
“I arranged for the doormen at the hotel to look in on Nifkin, in case we’re out late,” she shouted, as the warm night wind blew in our faces. “Also, I rented him a cabana.”
“Wow. Lucky Nifkin.”
It wasn’t until two traffic lights later that I thought to ask where we were going. Maxi perked up instantly. “The Star Bar! It’s one of my favorite places.”
“Is it a party?”
“Oh, it’s always a party there. Great sushi, too.”
I sighed. I couldn’t eat raw fish or drink alcohol. And even though I was excited to celebrate and see the stars, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the thing I wanted most was the bed in that big gorgeous hotel suite. I never liked late nights or loud parties much before I was pregnant, and I found myself liking them even less since. I’d stay for a little while, I told myself, and then plead pregnant lady exhaustion and make a break for home.
Maxi gave me the rundown on who might be there, as well as any pertinent back-story of which a newcomer such as myself should be aware. The famous actor and actress, married for seven years, I learned, were faking it. “He’s gay,” Maxi murmured, “and she’s been getting it on with her personal trainer for years.”
“How cliché!” I whispered back. Maxi laughed and leaned in closer. The ingenue, star of last summer’s second-biggest action picture, might offer me Ecstasy in the ladies’ room (“at least, she offered it to me,” said Maxi). The hip-hop princess who reportedly didn’t make a move without her Baptist, Bible-carrying mother was “a real wild one,” said Maxi. “Sleeps with boys, and girls, and both at the same time, while Maman’s off leading revivals in Virginia.” The fifty-ish director just got out of the Betty Ford Clinic; the fortysomething leading man had been diagnosed as a sex addict during his last stint at Hazelden; and the much-gossiped-about art-house director wasn’t actually a lesbian, although she was perfectly happy to feed the rumor mill. “Straight as an arrow,” said Maxi, sounding disgusted. “I think she’s even got a husband stashed in Michigan.”
“The horror!” I said. Maxi giggled, grabbing my arm. The elevator doors slid open, and two gorgeous guys wearing white shorts and white dress shirts swung open ten-foot-high glass doors, revealing a bar that looked like it was suspended in the night sky. Windows wrapped around the length of the room. There were dozens of small white-cloth-covered tables for two and for four, covered with dozens of flickering votive candles. The walls were hung with gossamer ivory curtains that billowed gently in the night breeze. The bar was backlit with blue neon, and the bartender was a six-foot-tall woman in a midnight-blue cat-suit, dispensing martinis with her face as gorgeous and still as a carved African mask. Maxi gave my arm a final squeeze, whispered, “I’ll be back in a jiff,” and darted off to air-kiss people I’d only seen in movies. I leaned against one of the pillars and tried not to stare.
There was the hip-hop princess, with tiny braids cascading from the crown of her head almost to her waist. There were the long-married superstars, looking for all the world like a devoted couple, and the non-lesbian art-house director, in a starched tuxedo shirt and a red bow tie. Dozens of waiters and waitresses zipped around. They all wore white— white pants, white shorts, white tank tops, and absolutely pristine white sneakers. It made the place look like the world’s most chic hospital, except the staff carried oversized martinis instead of bedpans, and everyone was beautiful. My hands itched for a pen and a notebook. I had no business being at a place like this, surrounded by people like these, unless I was taking notes for a future newspaper article in which I’d quite possibly be sarcastic. I didn’t belong here just as myself.
I walked to the windows, which overlooked a lit swimming pool in which nobody was swimming. There was a tiki bar with the requisite thatched roof and torches, thronged with people— all young, all gorgeous, most of them pierced and tattooed and looking like they were on their way to shoot a music video. Beyond that, smog, and Calvin Klein billboards, and the glittering lights of the city.
And there, with his back to the room, with a glass in his hand, staring off into the night, was… oh, God, was it? Yes. Adrian Stadt. I could recognize him from the shape of his shoulders, the set of his hips. Lord knows I’d spent enough time mooning over his pictures. His hair was cut short, and the back of his neck glimmered in the dim room.
Adrian wasn’t handsome in the classic rugged-leading-man mode, and he wasn’t one of the latest crop of androgynous pretty boys, either. He was more boy-next-door— medium height, regular features, unremarkable brown hair, and standard-issue brown eyes. What made him special, appearance-wise, was his smile— the sweet, crooked grin that exposed an ever-so-slightly chipped front tooth (he always told interviewers that he’d done it falling out of his treehouse at age nine). And those regular brown eyes could convey a thousand variations on bafflement, bewilderment, befuddlement— in short, all of the b words necessary to playing the lead in a romantic comedy. Taken by themselves, the pieces were nothing special, but put them together and you had a bona fide Hollywood hottie. At least, that’s what Moxie called him in the “Men We Crave!” issue.
I’d been thankfully immune to teenage crushes, had never papered my locker with pictures of New Edition or anything, but I had feelings for Adrian Stadt. Watching him on Saturday Night! as he cringed and whined his way through impressions of Kid Picked Last for Kickball Team or sang the faux-operatic “PTA Mother’s Lament,” I’d felt that if we’d known each other, we could have been friends… or more. Of course, judging from his popularity, millions of other women felt exactly the same way. But how many of them were standing in the Star Bar on a warm spring night in Los Angeles, with the object of their affection in front of them?
I shuffled back until I was leaning against a pillar, trying to hide so I could stare, uninterrupted, at Adrian Stadt’s back and trying to decide whether I’d call Lucy or Samantha first with the news. Things were going fine until a gaggle of skinny girls on stilettos surged into the room and planted themselves in front of, behind, and all around me. I felt like an elephant who’d blundered into a herd of sleek, fast, gorgeous antelope, and I couldn’t see an easy way to blunder my way back out.
“Hold this a sec?” the tallest, blondest, thinnest of the girls asked me, indicating her silvery pashmina shawl. I took the shawl, then stared at her, feeling my mouth gape open. It was Bettina Vance, lead singer of the chart-topping power punk band Screaming Ophelia— one of my late-night dancing favorites when I was in a bitter mood.
“I love your music,” I blurted, as Bettina snatched a martini.
She looked at me, bleary-eyed, and sighed. “If I had a nickel for every fat girl who said that to me…”
I felt as shocked as if she’d thrown ice water in my face. All this makeup, my great haircut, new clothes, all of my success, and all the Bettina Vances of the world would see was another fat girl, sitting alone in her room, listening to rock stars sing about lives they couldn’t even dream about, lives they would never know.
I felt the baby kick then, like a little fist rapping sternly at me from the inside, like a reminder. Suddenly, I thought, the hell with her. I thought, I’m someone, too.
“Why would you need donations? Aren’t you rich already?” I inquired. A few of the gazelles tittered. Bettina rolled her eyes at me. I reached into my purse and, thankfully, felt my fingers close around what I needed. “Here’s your nickel,” I said sweetly. “Maybe you can start saving for your next nose job.”
The titters turned to outright laughter. Bettina Vance was staring at me.
“Who are you?” she hissed.
A few answers occurred: A former fan? An angry fat girl? Your worst nightmare?
Instead, I went for the simple, understated, and, not coincidentally, true answer. “I’m a writer,” I said softly, forcing myself not to retreat or look away.
Bettina glared at me for what felt like an unbelievably long time. Then she snatched her shawl out of my hands and stalked off, taking her gaggle of size zeros with her. I leaned back against the pillar, shaking, and ran one hand over my belly. “Bitch,” I whispered to the baby. One of the men who’d been hanging at the edge of the crowd smiled at me, then walked away before his face could really register. In the instant it took me to figure out who he was, Maxi was back at my side.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Adrian Stadt,” I managed.
“Didn’t I tell you he was here?” asked Maxi impatiently. “Jesus, what’s with Bettina?”
“Never mind Bettina,” I burbled. “Adrian Stadt just smiled at me! Do you know him?”
“A little bit,” she said. “Do you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “He’s in my bowling league back in Philadelphia.”
Maxi looked puzzled. “Isn’t he from New York?”
“Kidding,” I told her. “Of course I don’t know him! But I’m a major fan.” I paused, debating whether to tell Maxi that Adrian Stadt had basically inspired my screenplay. Just as Josie Weiss was me, Avery Trace was Adrian, only with a different name, and without the annoying penchant for dating supermodels. Before I’d decided what to say, she connected the dots. “You know, he’d be a perfect Avery,” she murmured. “We should talk to him.”
She headed toward the window. I froze. She turned around.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t just walk up to him and start talking.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m…” I tried to think of a nice way to say, “in a completely different league than handsome, famous movie stars.” I arrived at “… pregnant.”
“I think,” said Maxi, “that pregnant people are still allowed to converse with nonpregnant people.”
I hung my head. “I’m shy.”
“Oh, you are not shy. You’re a reporter, for heaven’s sake!”
She had a point. It was true that, in my working life, I could, and have, routinely just walked up to people far more powerful or influen-tial or better-looking than me. But not Adrian Stadt. Not the guy I’d allowed myself a one-hundred-page daydream about. What if he didn’t like me? Or what if, in person, I didn’t like him? Wouldn’t it be better to just preserve the fantasy?
Maxi shifted from foot to foot. “Cannie…”
“I’m better on the phone,” I finally muttered. Maxi sighed, charmingly, the way she did everything. “Wait here,” she said, and hurried to the bar. When she came back there was a cell phone in her hand.
“Oh, no,” I said when I saw it. “I had bad luck with that phone.”
“It’s a different phone,” said Maxi, squinting at the numbers she’d drawn on her hand with what looked like lipliner. “Smaller. Lighter. More expensive.” The phone started ringing. She handed it to me. Across the room, in front of the room-length windows, Adrian Stadt flipped his own phone open. I could see his lips moving, reflected in the glass.
“Hello?”
“Don’t jump,” I said. It was the first thing I could think of. As I spoke, I moved so I was standing behind a pillar draped in white silk, hidden from his view, but in a spot where I could still see his reflection in the window. “Don’t jump,” I said again. “Nothing could be that bad.”