The Year of Living Famously (19 page)

When Trista walked in a minute later, I was still jumping on the bed.

 

Declan and I went to Il Cielo in Beverly Hills for a celebratory dinner that night.

It was a small place fashioned like a sparkling Italian garden. We were seated at a table near the front and ordered a bottle of champagne.

“To Kyra,” Declan said, a raised glass of bubbly in his hand. “Soon to be L. A.'s most famous designer.”

“I don't want to be famous,” I said. “I just want to be the best.”

He cleared his throat and lifted his flute higher. “Right. Here's to Kyra, the goddamn best designer in the world.”

We clinked glasses. I leaned over the table to kiss him. And then I sensed it—a photographer outside who had caught our kiss on camera. It wasn't the first time, surely, and I knew that it wouldn't be the last, but even that one camera could color things. Eventually, the restaurant chased him away, but for the five minutes he was out there snapping shots, our dinner paled, at least for me. How can you be natural? How can you be a wife, a lover, in front of a camera, especially if you're not an actor?

It hadn't been all that long since
Normandy
came out, but I had already learned that every mistake, every triumph, every sullen look, every expression of joy, is amplified when you are in love with someone famous.

 

Soon, Alicia was also at the house every other day or so, to talk, to fill me in on details. And how could I tell her to back off? She had continued to sell my collection to others. Once Macy's was on board, three other department stores soon jumped on as well. I had to hire my own assistant then, a slight Japanese woman named Uki.

Tied Up,
the movie that Dec had shot the past summer in Manhattan, was released early because of his notoriety. What had been the role of “Fifth Waiter in White Tie played by D. McKenna” became “Special Guest Appearance by Declan McKenna.” Declan's publicist, Angela, a tall, excruciatingly thin and well-dressed woman with a beaklike face, stopped by the house a few times a week to discuss this PR angle and that, this promotion and that, this interview and that.

Bobby was at our house often, too. He was courting Declan for William Morris. Bobby tried to sell Dec on “the team” that would represent him at Morris, a different agent for voice-over, for TV, for “mo pic”(Bobby's lingo for “motion picture,” which always made me think of the Three Stooges). But Declan refused to leave his original agent, Max, who spent more and more time at our house as well. And so Bobby came for Declan and stayed for me.

I missed Emmie terribly. She'd been impossible to get ahold of lately, because she was nearly always with MacKenzie, and whenever they were together they had no time for anyone else. Emmie seemed to be falling in love, for only the second time in her life, but I knew so little about it.

Meanwhile, I missed Margaux, too. This newly formed desire to bear spawn had become an obsession with her, which was strange since she'd previously regarded having a child as fondly as having a colonoscopy. We were in our own, very distinct worlds right now.

So I was grateful for Bobby. But at night, after he left, after all the others left as well, and when Declan wasn't home for one reason or another, I was nervous in that big house. I am the type of girl who feels safer at 2:00 a.m. on Houston Street in Manhattan than I do at 2:00 p.m. on a Main Street in rural Iowa. And at our new house on Mulholland Drive, sometimes I didn't feel safe at all.

 

I'd thought that once our address wasn't public information, the mail would wane, but with
Tied Up
just released and the international premieres for
Normandy
coming up, Declan was only getting more well known, and his mail—now sent mostly to Max—grew by the bagful. Every few days, someone from Max's office dropped off sacks of it.

Declan's assistant took over my old job of reading through the mail and sending out autographed head shots
to people who requested them, but Berry was under strict orders to show us any menacing or otherwise odd correspondence.

After we moved into the new place, there were a few strange letters from a woman in Munich, who claimed to have had sex with Declan in the back room of the Hofbrau House and was now having his baby.

“Well, I hope I had a big draft in my hand,” Dec said.

We sent those letters to Declan's new entertainment lawyer, who would handle it at four hundred dollars an hour. There were other letters from people claiming to have met Declan before and wondering why he was ignoring them. There were two men who wrote frequently to say that they knew Declan was gay, and they were appalled by the way he refused to come out of the closet, when the gay movement had come so far.

Then the letters from Amy Rose started again. She sent them to Max's office. In the first one we received after Dublin, she said that she was sure it had been an oversight not telling her that Declan had moved.
I have my bags packed, Declan,
the letter said.
I know how busy you are, but you'll need to let me know our new address soon. I've canceled my lease, but I need that address. I love you with all my heart, Amy Rose.

As I looked over her letters, I wondered, had this girl actually canceled her lease? Did she honestly think she would be moving in with Declan, or was it just a ploy for attention? Graham told us to ignore her. “I know it's troubling,” he said, “but the worst thing you can do is give her any encouragement.”

We spoke to the police, but there was nothing threatening in the letters, they said, and from what they could tell, “Amy Rose” might be simply a first and middle name. They couldn't tell what her full name was, nor had she in
cluded a return address or a phone number. It was as if she assumed Declan knew precisely how to get ahold of her.

I tucked those letters in a box with the others from her, but they kept coming—usually at a rate of three a week—and Amy Rose was getting angry.

Declan, sweetie,
the next letter said,
this is getting ridiculous. I've told everyone that we've bought a new place, and I'm moving soon, but I need you to pick me up, or at least send me the address of the new house. You know how much I love you.

Declan's mom called one night from Dublin, saying that a nice woman named Amy Rose had called her, looking for Declan.

“I knew enough not to say anything specific,” Nell said proudly. “Sure, hasn't Declan told me over and over how we need to be careful now? But I might have let slip that the house was on Mulholland Drive.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “You didn't tell her the address, did you?”

“Of course not. Didn't I just get done saying that I know how to hold my tongue? She was a lovely woman, that's all. Seems very enamored with Declan's acting ability, and that's hard for a mother to resist, now, isn't it?”

I got off the phone and called the police detective. Again, he said that without a specific threat or obvious harassment, there was little to be done. I hung up the phone and tried to console myself with the fact that there were thousands of homes on Mulholland Drive.

N
early every other day, I left Uki in my office (in the south
wing,
that is) and drove to the fashion district in order to confer with Rosita or the cutter, or to beg the manufacturing plant to make the clothes for my line quicker. I liked the chance to escape the house, and I'd grown fond of the crowded streets of the fashion district with its packs of Hispanic teenagers, but the frequent trips pulled me away from other things I could have been working on at home. I mentioned this to Liz Morgan one day, who I still spoke to often, and she offered to help me out part-time.

“God knows I need some pocket change,” she said. “I'm not getting any parts. At least not the ones I want.”

Liz had just turned thirty, and she was starting to panic. If she didn't make it as an actor soon, she said, it would be too late.

“That's bullshit,” I always told her. “Declan is in his early thirties and look at him.”

“He's a man,” Liz said, sounding resigned. “It's much, much different.”

I hired Liz to come over a few times a week to pick up the slack. It was a balm to have her around. Between the ever chipper Berry, the sullen Trista and the overly deferential Uki, I needed someone I could truly talk to.

At first, I asked her to help Berry with Declan's mail, which was increasing exponentially by the day. The problem was, Liz spent way too much time on it.

“Listen to this,” she'd say, reading from a letter. “‘Declan, if you could just call my mother on her eighty-second birthday, it would mean the world to her. You remind her of my father who died thirty years ago.'” Liz would sigh and look at me. “Isn't that sweet?”

“It is,” I said. “Where does the mom live?”

She looked back at the letter for a moment. “Bari. I think that's in Italy. But that's okay, right? I mean, we just have to figure out the time change.”

“Head shot,” Berry would say authoritatively from the other corner. “Put it in that pile.” She gestured toward an already towering stack of letters.

Berry ran Declan's office like an army general, her sunny personality disappearing until she decided to bop through the house in search of food. (Peanut butter was her favorite, and so, just to tweak her, I often hid it in the back of the fridge behind gallons of milk and bottles of water.)

Another assistant was hired to help respond to all the mail. We now had people all over our house, all the time.

I've always liked being alone. Always. It's forever a source of amazement that so many people detest solitude. I suppose, on a clichéd level this means I'm comfortable with myself—and that surely was true for the few years before I met Declan—but that wasn't always the case. I've had many neurotic years. The post-college, I-am-such-a-fuckup stage;
the I'll-never-succeed-in-this-business stage; the why-am-I-dating-such-an-asshole stage. But even then, through all those years, I adored time alone. Maybe this has to do with being raised in Manhattan when one is so rarely by oneself.

But our lives required staff now, and so the new assistant came in, and Berry and I gave Liz other odd tasks to handle.

“Not a problem,” Liz said. “This is better than the job I was going to take at Ed Debevic's.”

Professionally, I was happy, too. The only exception was the fact that I had to drive in order to do my job, and I just couldn't get used to the whole driving thing. My license and my precious jade car from Declan hadn't changed that.

It was impossible to time anything accurately. If I gave myself lots of leeway to fight the gridlock, I might get lucky, but then I was thirty minutes early. More often than not, I wasn't so “lucky” and instead found myself calling Rosita or Victor on my cell phone and apologizing profusely for being late.

“It's this goddamn traffic!” I would say.

After my incessant complaints, Declan suggested I make a game of it.

“What?” I said, irritated to be pulled out of my rants about gridlock and asshole drivers who failed to give the thank-you wave.

“Look, love,” Declan said, pulling out a Thomas guide. “Try to find a different way to take, okay? Look for little side streets and shortcuts. Then time yourself and give yourself a prize when you beat your record.”

“A prize? Like what?”

“Well, I usually award myself a pint or two, but maybe you could give yourself a pair of earrings you've fancied.”

“Hmm,” I said. My competitive nature flared, even though it would be myself I would compete with.

The next day, instead of taking the 405 to Pico, I got off on Olympic and wound my way from 16
^th
to Santee to 14
^th
. I shaved off five minutes from the day prior. Another time, I tried taking Beverly Glen to Sunset to La Brea. A disaster—an extra twenty-five minutes. Once, when I tried to take a different route home at the end of the day, I made a wrong turn and came across a street seemingly in flames. I hit the brakes and leaned forward to peer through my windshield. The street was filled with trash cans, all ablaze and tended by homeless people, an eerie sight that could have been Manhattan during the depression.

Over the months, I awarded myself a Chanel bag and Yves Saint Laurent shoes and M. A. C lipsticks, all for good driving time. But it couldn't sway me. I still hated the driving.

 

Graham and Declan's PR agent asked if they could set up a few interviews for me. I told them I'd never been interviewed, and I didn't think I had anything particularly interesting to say. I wanted to dial down the media fracas, not crank it up. But Graham pointed out that this would help me as well as Declan. I could get my “message” out there about my designs. I didn't mention that there was no message, that I just designed clothes I liked, because I realized Graham had a point. Why turn down a chance to get my designs in the press?

I gave my first interview for a women's magazine called
Kate.
Just that one woman's name. I was never a big magazine reader, but the few times I'd seen
Kate,
I rather liked it. There was a certain irreverence about it because it didn't necessarily ass-kiss the makeup companies and the designers. Instead, it field-tested products and clothes and didn't hesitate to slam them.

“Normally, they have a three-month lag time,” Angela,
Dec's publicist said, “but some story fell through, so this will run soon. They just want to know what it's like to be married to a movie star. It'll be a short piece.”

What happened to my message? I wondered.

The reporter was young. When she arrived at the Starbucks in Santa Monica where we planned to meet, I mis-took her for a high-school student. She wore low, tight jeans and thong sandals. Her skin was as smooth and creamy as milk. Carrie was her name, and she clearly thought that all my nice, planned answers about Declan and my informational speeches about my designs were insufficient, because she kept digging for something more. She smiled blandly when I talked; she made a few notes, but the same questions kept coming in varying forms: “Are you jealous of the attention Declan gets from other women?” (No, I said. I'm really not the jealous type); “Isn't it hard to watch him fool around with someone on-screen?” (It's strange, I said, but not hard. I know it's his job. And did I tell you about my Kendall Gold dresses?); “Well, I'm not much interested in Kendall Gold, but what about Lauren Stapleton? I've heard she wants Declan back.” (I struggled not to make a disgusted face. Fact was, I'd been hearing the same thing when I snuck a glance at the tabloid clippings Max sent over. I affected an unconcerned shrug and told Carrie that Lauren had had her chance.)

The sun was beaming through the window at this point, right into my eyes. I was hot and cranky, and I wanted to be home, or at least inside my little green car.

Carrie asked me for the third time to describe what it was like to watch Declan kiss someone on-screen.

“Honestly,” I said, trying to shift away from the sun. My chair scraped on the floor. “It's weird but it doesn't upset me.”

Carrie sighed and ran a hand through her cropped black hair. “That's not exactly what I want,” she said.

Here's where I made my mistake. I was annoyed. I thought I could loosen her up with some humor. “Well, I've heard a lot of women want to fool around with Matt Damon, but we don't always get what we want, right?”

It was meant to be funny. It was meant to be a lighthearted comment. It was stupid. I'd never even met Matt Damon, but Margaux had a crush on him, and there he was, his name flying from my mouth. Carrie scribbled notes in earnest then. I tried to take it back, but I only made it worse. Carrie left shortly after with a smug look.

When the issue came out three weeks later, the headline for the story read,
Declan's Wife Craves Matt Damon
with the sub line,
Declan Was Second Choice.
The article said little about my designs and lots about how I pined for sex with Mr. Damon.

Declan's response surprised me. “How could you?” He was brandishing a copy of
Kate
magazine like a sword.

It was six o'clock at night, and he'd just gotten back from Graham's office, where he'd been given an advance copy of the issue. We were in our new living room with the ice-rink floor. We'd gotten a few pieces of furniture—some fat leather couches by the fireplace, a coffee table—but still the room was too big. It bore a slightly hollow quality.

Declan huffed and paced around the room. This was the first time I'd seen him truly pissed off, but instead of scaring me, it made me want to laugh.

“How could I what?” I said.

He flipped open the magazine and found the article. “How could you tell this woman that you wanted to sleep with Matt Damon?”

“I didn't say that! C'mon, Dec, you know how it is. They take what you say out of context.”

He sat on the couch and slammed the magazine on the coffee table for effect. The maple legs wobbled.

I flipped the magazine over, determined not to look inside at the picture of me. In the photo, which was taken during the interview, my mouth is wide open. I was in midsentence, but in the context of the story, it appears not only that I crave Matt Damon, but also I'm prepared to give him one hell of a blow job.

“Babe,” I said, starting to get a little pissed off myself. “I'm sorry, but I didn't want to do that interview to begin with.”

He stewed silently, the muscles in his jaw twitching a little.

“Hey,” I said more softly. “What happened to ‘Don't worry about it' and ‘It doesn't matter'?”

This is what he'd been telling me for weeks when I got upset about the crazy media coverage, the articles about his alleged romances with Lauren Stapleton, Cameron Diaz and Tara Reid.

“It matters because it's you.” He gripped my hand.

“What do you mean? They can say all sorts of things about you having a threesome with the Olsen twins, but they can't touch me?”

“That's right, love.” He squeezed my hand harder. “I signed up for this.
I'm
the actor, for fuck's sake. I wanted to be famous, and I have to put up with this, but I don't want anyone saying anything about
you.
”

I climbed into his lap. “Hey. I'm married to you for better or worse, right? I have to put up with it.”

At the time, I meant it a hundred percent.