“La Reina, did I already let him go?”
“Four marriages?” she asked, her eyebrow raised. “Girlfriend, you’re kidding me, right?”
25: Oh, Oh, Mexico
The Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico, hot as balls and the first AD had to tape Fin’s ankle after she sprained it in a motorcycle stunt. She’s limping around, squabbling with Sami over dialogue, which sounds suspiciously like rom-com foreplay, and I wonder if either knows they’re falling in love. Trevor’s lounging in his producer’s chair, consuming a plate of precisely cut apples delivered on Gucci china by a sparkly new assistant who has no idea what’s in store for her. The team is gathered around the shot, our eyes glued to the monitor, hands over our mouths as dust spins through the dry air. Gio paces and hovers, paces and hovers, a general in khaki shorts and Chuck Taylors. And that leather jacket.
Dad’s fussing over Shu, who fusses over him in return, spreading sunscreen on his dappled skin. She’s landed a role as a mystic. Dad was right. She’s a next-level talent.
Trev’s on chew number twenty-five.
“You happy, Trevor?” I ask.
“Tell Sid he’d better write something nice about me,” Trevor said. “Tell him I need top billing. It can’t come from me; talk to him—”
Sid Glitch wanders by, his moleskin hoisted, sweating in his black turtleneck, shorts, and Birkenstocks. His toes are albino and long, the toes of a nocturnal marsupial. He’s writing a story on Trevor and George and Sami the Uber driver and Fin and Gio and the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride of How This Movie Got Made.
I pull Sid aside.
“Are you using?” I ask.
“I’ve been clean for months.”
“My sister’s not selling you anything?”
“No,” he said, and he blushed crimson, a rose atop a white, thorny stem. “We just talk. Your sister, she’s a natural storyteller. Incredible woman, really.”
I recognize that faraway look. I’d seen it since fourth grade. Fin had bagged another one.
“Sid, aren’t you . . .”
“Aren’t I what?”
I wanted to break it to him gently. “Sid, you’re gay.”
“What would make you think that?” he said, adjusting his glasses.
“You check all the gay boxes, my dude,” I said.
“I’m from Brooklyn, Agnes,” he said as if that explained it before scooting off to Fin’s trailer to wait for her, heart in hand.
My phone beeps. Ulger sent me a picture, an oil rendering of a fawn from his cabin overlooking a Montana lake. He’s retired and taken up painting. He’s not terrible. Still not gonna fuck him, though.
In the distance, George revs his motorcycle (goldenrod version), circles the set slowly, then building, circles again, kicking up a sandstorm, a wall of 380cc sound, then the impossible—the man, the myth, the icon, stands up on his motorcycle.
The script supervisor gasps and flips through her pages. Standing on a motorcycle? No! She jabs at her script, her face a silent scream.
The extras, their faces covered in soot, heads wrapped in bandages, yell and gasp as he flies past—
“Cut!” Gio yells. “Cutcutcut!”
“Oh my God, George, you’re a genius!” Trevor hops up and claps wildly, his apple slices sliding off the plate. The assistant catches them and smiles at her boss.
“What the fuck?” Gio yells. “Who the fuck told you to do that?”
George grounds the motorcycle, laughing maniacally, then high-fives all the extras. Every single extra. Gio lunges toward George and grabs him around his shoulders, gesturing like Jackson Pollock painting a masterpiece.
A hyena’s laugh cuts through the dust, and Trevor’s waving his phone like a trophy, high above his head. “George, hey, George! George, look at this, dude! George!”
We’re all drawn in. We stare at his phone. Shaky TMZ video. Brentwood Country Mart. That Weaselly Fuck walks through the shot when suddenly his baseball cap blows off, revealing his head, his hair patchy as a newborn bird. Following on his heels is Petra, who scoops up the cap while wrangling sweet, normal-looking children. Braces, glasses, socks sliding down legs. Petra’s dressed in the same James Perse casual-yet-chic style as America’s Sweetheart; she’s even stolen her signature bangs.
“Jaysus!” George said. “What the heck happened to him?”
“Who cares? Motherfucker stole my Oscar,” Trevor said.
“What?” I ask. Stolen Oscar?
Pep is running in the dust and making friends while on school break. We have many school breaks; the more school costs, the less school. Behind her is Caster, whom Trevor is paying a bundle and who already has a few proposals—a cameraman, the second unit director, a local politician.
Fin steps away from the dialogue squabble with Sami and walks over.
“I’m suing that fuck,” Trevor is saying.
“Heck yeah, Trev,” George said. “Get your Oscar back!”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Fin. “Get your Oscar back, Trevor.”
Fin blinks. I see it, even under her Ray-Bans. She taps her fingers on her director’s chair, her rings shooting sparks in the relentless sun.
“He’s gonna lose the franchise!” Trevor said. “He’s bald as an egg!”
“What happened to his hair?” George asked, fingering his own rhapsodic strands.
“No one knows,” Trevor said. “Ari, David, Jeffrey, they all sent him to doctors; they can’t figure it out.”
“That’s weird,” Fin said, shifting her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose as she watches the tape. Rewind. Watch. Rewind.
“Yes, it is,” I said, glaring at her. “Very strange.”
“Oh, shit,” Fin said and laughed. “Oh, goddamn.”
“Looks like he’s going through chemo,” George said.
Fin laughed, slapping her lean thighs. “Oh, fuck! Oh, fuckity fuck!”
“Trevor.” Fin slapped his back, and he almost slipped off the chair. “That was meant for you!”
“What do you mean?” he asked, on the edge of horror.
“I put Nair in your shampoo bottle,” Fin said. “After you had me arrested. Oldie but a goodie, man; he must’ve used your shampoo!”
“I would’ve lost my hair?!” Trevor ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re a fucking monster!”
“Guys, let’s just stop,” I said.
“You deserved it,” Fin said. “You put cameras up, you spying bastard! You glued my sister’s keyboard!”
“Did you glue her sister’s keyboard, Trev?” George asked.
“Pep!” I called out, interrupting. “Let’s go for a walk! You and me.” I stopped and called back to Fin. “Fin!” I said. “A word with the coproducer?”
Pep and I and Fin trudged toward bottles of water. And doughnuts. And frozen yogurt. And cappuccinos. Craft fucking services. The promised land.
I grabbed ahold of Fin’s arm. “What happened to the Oscar, Fin?”
“What do you mean, what happened to the Oscar?” Fin wiped her nose.
“I mean, what happened to the Oscar? That Weaselly Fuck didn’t steal it. He has two of his own.”
“All I know is, I hope I get an Oscar someday; that little guy gets top dollar, which comes in handy when your sister’s been busted.”
“You didn’t.”
“I told you, you didn’t listen,” Fin said. “Making money’s easy.”
I closed my eyes. “Tell me you didn’t sell Oscar.”
“Remember I had a Russian cellmate a few trips back? The hooker-physicist? She taught me a few words. Right now, Oscar is probably sitting pretty on a yacht floating on the Crimean Sea.”
She painted a picture with her pianist fingers.
“All the Vlads want to get their hands on an Oscar,” Fin said. “If I run into trouble again, I know where I can get two more now.”
“No!”
“C’mon! Craft services!” Pep yelled, releasing my hand, zigzagging toward the tents.
�
��Craft services!” Fin yelled, chasing after her, dust plumes in her wake.
I strolled after them, brushing dust from my eyes, and readjusted my diaper.
Acknowledgments
Immense gratitude to my team for their support (and patience): Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s Press, my literary agent Victoria Sanders, Bernadette Baker, Shari Smiley, Andy Patman and Stephanie Davis (only for 26(?) years). Thank you to Bardonna café for your lattes and smiles and TheOFFICE in Santa Monica for your silence (and Wade Gasque!). Thank you to Jessie Martinez at the George Michael Salon for sanctuary under the dryer. Thank you to everyone who thinks they appear in this book. Thank you to Josh Sabarra, Mimi James, Stacy Title and Julie Jaffe for their enduring friendship. Thank you to my mother, Phillipa Brown, and my sisters, Suzy, Mimi and Julie, my brothers-in-law, Ron and Marc, my nephews Frankie and Jonathan and John Henry, my niece Angelina, and the many members of my extended family. Thank you to Josh Gilbert, with whom I started writing, and whom I miss every day.
Finally, thank you to Glock and Peanut for being the very best dogs and Enrique the Leopard Gecko for his low maintenance lifestyle.
Also by Gigi Levangie
Seven Deadlies
The After Wife
Queen Takes King
The Starter Wife
Maneater
Rescue Me
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1: Happy(?) Birthday!
2: The Last Book Party
3: Uber-Hyphenate
4: On the Job Failing
5: Marital Purgatory
6: Vanity Unfair
7: Mirage Counseling
8: Nuts
9: D-i-v-o-r-c-e: Tell Me What It Means to Me
10: Family Law 101
11: Your Life in Turnaround
12: Membership Revoked
13: Caveat Sister
14: Beyond a Reasonable Lout
15: The Spiral Slide
16: Deposing Made Simple
17: Arrested Development
18: It’s My Ex Parte and I’ll Cry If I Want To
19: You Can’t Go Home Again
20: Quid Pro Stole
21: Disorder in the Court
22: The Writer Gets a Sentence
23: Decent Proposal
24: Irreconcilable Similarities
25: Oh, Oh, Mexico
Acknowledgments
Also by Gigi Levangie
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of the St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
BEEN THERE, MARRIED THAT. Copyright © 2020 by Gigi Levangie. All rights reserved. For information address the St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10271.
www.stmartins.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover)
ISBN (ebook)
First Edition: February 2020
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
9781250166814
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Cover
Been There, Married That (ARC) Page 30