Famous

by Todd Strasser

  Instead you will find a memory stick attached to a green and yellow lanyard. Curious, you will plug it into your MacBook and discover that it holds only one file, a video. The thought of playing it will frighten you. Your fingers will tremble and your heart will thump against your sternum. What if this video is something you really don’t want to see?

  But you will play it. A picture will come on the screen—an unrecognizable blur. It’s someone very close to the camera, moving, probably setting up the shot. As the person backs away, you will see that it’s Avy in a room with an unmade bed and posters taped crookedly to the walls. He will sit in a chair, brush his dyed straightened black hair back with his fingertips, look at the camera, and ask, “What was the biggest surprise you faced after moving to LA from New York?”

  You will watch as he settles back in the chair, gazes up at the ceiling as if pondering his own question, then looks back at the camera. “Probably discovering that there were already hundreds of guys just like me out here trying to get the same acting jobs I was auditioning for. I mean, I’m not stupid. I knew before I left New York that there’d be competition. But I never expected to be sent to an audition and find two dozen other slightly chubby guys with curly brown hair and freckles. It was like ever since Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, every chubby curly-haired guy in the world thought he could be a star.”

  Avy will nod and smile, obviously pleased with his answer. You will imagine that he must have been practicing for an interview he was going to give. Now he leans forward and asks, “Did you always know you wanted to become an actor?”

  He will cross ankle over knee and answer. “Not really. It wasn’t like I was born totally focused on acting. When I was younger I was into sports and music and video games like every other kid. But going to private school in New York City makes it hard to excel in sports. You don’t get the playing time or access to fields. I remember in summer camp they said I had a good arm, but the rest of the year I hardly even saw a baseball diamond, unless we went to a Yankees game. Who knows? Maybe if I’d gone to one of the suburban schools I’d be throwing for the Yankees today.”

  The fog of sadness will thicken around you. No hint of irony accompanies your friend’s assertion that he could have been good enough to play for the greatest professional baseball team ever. This was Avy, who stood barely five feet nine inches tall and, as far as you knew, never displayed an ounce of athletic talent. Yes, you’d always known that the chances of him actually becoming a big star were slim. But doesn’t everyone who wants to be famous have to be slightly unrealistic? When did Avy’s dreams become delusions of grandeur?

  Dear Willow,

  I dont understand why you have not written back to me. I know you know who I am because you smiled at me that day outside Sheen I was the only one wearing an Angels baseball cap. Do you know why I wear it? It is not because I am a baseball fan it is because I am your guardian angel.

  I dont understand why you are not more careful. In the magazines and on the computer I see photos of you shopping and coming out of restaurants. Dont you understand how easy it would be for someone to hurt you? Is it that you dont think anyone would want to hurt you? That is wrong! You dont know what kind of people there are in this world. They know that if they hurt you everyone will know who they are. He could become famous just for hurting you. There are people like that. You have to believe me because I know.

  You should write back to me. You know who I am. You should be more careful. I could protect you. I would always be at your side and never let anything bad happen to you.

  Your guardian angel

  Richard

  OCTOBER OF NINTH GRADE, NYC

  I KNOW IT’S LAME THAT I CARED ABOUT SHELBY WINSTON’S OPINION, but at least give me credit for being honest and keeping it in perspective. I mean, welcome to high school, right?

  There in the Herrin hallway on that Monday morning after the New York Weekly article came out in the fall of my freshman year, Shelby Winston clamped her eyes on me. There was a time, back in sixth or seventh grade, when her gaze alone would have caused my pulse to race and my face to burn. But that was then. Now I managed a friendly smile. Shelby smiled back and said, “Can I have your autograph?”

  I felt myself stiffen. Was she making fun of me, or was this just a cute way of saying that maybe she was just an eensy weensy bit impressed? The only thing I knew for certain was that she didn’t really want my autograph.

  “Seriously,” she said. “Congratulations.” And the girls who’d collected around her like iron shavings clinging to a magnet all nodded in agreement. Shelby glanced at Nasim beside me and raised a curious eyebrow.

  “This is Nasim Pahlavi,” I said, and turned to him. “You know Shelby, don’t you?”

  “I’ve never actually had the pleasure.” Nasim extended his hand. “Hello.”

  Shelby smiled and shook his hand. “The pleasure is mine.”

  Shelby’s compliment may have been a highlight of what I’ve come to refer to as “my first minute of fame,” but that didn’t mean it was over. All day long kids, teachers, and administrators stopped to say that they were impressed, that they never knew.

  And it didn’t stop when the school day ended, either.

  “What makes you think they’ll let us in?” I asked Dad later that night. It was ten o’clock, and we were standing on line in the dark outside Club Gaia with Raigh, Dad’s tall, blond squeeze du jour.

  “You’ll see,” he replied. Ever since he divorced Mom he seemed happy living by himself while now and then dipping into an apparently bottomless well of stylish single career women in their early forties who wanted to get married and have children before the biological clock stopped ticking. They never stayed with Dad for long; as soon as they realized he had no interest in settling down, they were gone. I once asked him why he didn’t find someone—and settle down. His answer: “What fun would that be?”

  The line inched forward. It was a cool, breezy fall evening, and people wore light jackets and scarves. The entrance had no identifying marks—just a bare lightbulb over a plain green metal door. You’d never suspect there was a hot club there were it not for the enormous man with the twin earrings and sloping forehead guarding the door.

  With only one couple ahead of us, I tugged Dad’s sleeve and stood on my tiptoes so I could whisper in his ear without Raigh hearing. “Let’s just go. There’s no way they’re going to let us in. This is going to be really embarrassing.”

  “I think we have a shot,” he whispered back.

  I knew what his plan was, and I knew it wouldn’t work. Club Gaia was for the Famous. Not the “high school famous,” not even the “child prodigy famous,” but the Famous with a capital F as in movie and TV stars, best-selling authors, rock-’n-roll survivors from the sixties and seventies, and artists whose works hung in museums. If any mere mortals knew what the interior looked like, it was from photos that had appeared in New York magazine and Vanity Fair.

  “It’s fine if you want to humiliate yourself,” I whispered. “But why bring me into it?”

  “Just chill, honey.” (I love my father, but I wish he wouldn’t say that.)

  After the couple ahead of us were rejected and had slunk away, we stepped forward into the glare of the lightbulb. Mr. Double Earrings pursed his lips and frowned the frown of nonrecognition. He was just beginning to shake his head when Dad pulled out a copy of New York Weekly, opened it to the story, then pointed from the magazine to me.

  Not a word was spoken.

  I groaned inwardly. My own father was trying to use me as social currency, only he was about to find out that his money was no good here.

  The big man’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the magazine, then at me. This was where the butterfly of fantasy went splat on the windshield of reality. Feeling the heat of humiliation begin to warm my face, I stared down at the sidewalk.

  Dad’s hand closed on my arm and gave it a little tug.

  Next thing I knew, we were inside seated at a s
emicircular ottoman around a low table, with martinis for Dad and Raigh, a Diet Coke for me, and the scent of incense in the air. I was pretty sure the guy in the suit standing at the bar was one of the Marsalis brothers and that the blonde a few tables over once had a recurring role on CSI. Meanwhile, Dad was leaning toward the glamorous young couple to our right and showing them the New York Weekly article.

  Was I being übersensitive, or was this totally bizarre?

  “You’re not going to the professional children’s school,” Mom said the next morning. The inspiration for this idea had come from Raigh the night before. A neighbor on her floor had a ballet dancer daughter who went to that school.

  “Why not?” I asked with a yawn. “It would be perfect for me. And ninth grade’s the perfect year to transfer.”

  “Herrin is perfect for you.” Dressed in her work clothes, she was standing at the kitchen counter, waiting impatiently for her chai tea to steep. I was sitting at the kitchen table, head propped in my hands, watching a bowl of Cheerios go soggy.

  “Herrin can’t make the time accommodations I need for my career,” I said.

  The facial tic Mom sometimes got around her left eye fired involuntarily.

  “Why do you hate it so much when I use that word?” I asked.

  “I don’t hate it.”

  “You soooo hate it. It’s like in your opinion no one who’s fifteen can have a career. But there are Olympic skaters, gymnasts, tennis players, actors, and singers who do it all the time.”

  “That’s different,” she said.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really. Most of them are seizing a moment that may be the only opportunity they’ll ever have. Young athletes have to take advantage of a youthful agility and flexibility they won’t have when they’re in their twenties. The actors and singers are capitalizing on being cute and adorable in a way that might very well change dramatically by the end of puberty.”

  “And you don’t think I’m doing the same thing?” I asked.

  Mom leveled her gaze at me. “I think you’re talented and you’ve worked hard. I’m proud of you, Jamie, but honestly, just because you’ve sold some photographs and New York Weekly ran that story about you because you’re so young does not mean this is a career. I’m not sure how you can call hanging around with a disreputable bunch of freelance photographers who make money by invading other people’s privacy a career. No one ever mistook a paparazzo for an Olympic gymnast.”

  “They might if they saw some of the moves my ‘disreputable’ friends make to get a picture,” I quipped with another yawn. “Why shouldn’t car-dodging be an Olympic sport?”

  I’d hoped Mom would smile, but she didn’t. The skin around her eyes wrinkled. “What time did you get home last night?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” I said.

  A healthy dose of motherly stink-eye followed as she fumed, “Today is a school day and you need to be awake. Your father is the most irresponsible excuse for an adult that ever—”

  “We were celebrating.”

  The tooth puller looked blank. “Sorry?”

  “The New York Weekly article? Hello? The one all about your daughter and the career she’s not allowed to have?”

  The kitchen door swung open, and Elena wheeled in Alex. My brother cannot speak or control his actions, and yet he is incredibly aware and astute. He took one look at my mother and me, and I could see in his eyes that he knew we’d been arguing.

  He made a grunting sound and a jerky motion with his head. It was his way of saying, “What’s going on?”

  My mother and I locked eyes. “You’ll have to forgive me if your career is not foremost on my mind,” she said. “I have a few other things to attend to.”

  MARCH OF TENTH GRADE, SEVENTH DAY OF SPRING VACATION IN LA

  I KNOW IT SOUNDS LIKE A CLICHÉ, BUT I FEEL NAKED WITHOUT MY CAMERA. Or even worse than naked, since these days who cares if you’re naked? The camera represents who I am. It’s my identity. With it, I’m a sixteen-year-old celebrity photographer. (And maybe something of a celebrity myself?) Without it, who am I?

  What am I?

  The answers to these questions will have to wait. Right now I just need to find my Nikon. I try to remember last night. Not that it should be difficult; it’s just that out here, day and night, and day after day, blend together into a sort of nonstop repetition of the same thing over and over again. Last night was a party. But even on nights when there’s no “official” party there’s a loose semiparty atmosphere. People come and go, appear and disappear—Willow’s friends, gofers, security guard, personal assistant, therapist, masseur, agents, magazine photographer (me!), pool guy, gardeners, cook—in an unending looping parade.

  As best as I can remember, I had my camera with me early this morning when I came upstairs to find a place to sleep. Before that I’d gone out to the guesthouse—where I’d been “assigned” when I first arrived earlier this week—but the door was locked, so I’d wandered back to the main house and found this room. Normally I would have put the camera on a night table or dresser, but since there is no furniture in the room, I left it on the floor beside the mattress, and close to the wall so I wouldn’t accidentally step on it if I got up in the middle of the night, or day, or whatever.

  So where is it? I check the bathroom. Not there either. I walk barefoot out into the hallway with the straps of the Manolos hooked through my fingers, then downstairs and out across the grassy lawn to the guesthouse (whoever locked me out last night has now left, leaving beer cans, cigarette butts, and an unmade bed) to put on a pair of sneakers. Leaving the guesthouse, I’m once again struck by the clarity of the air this morning. Perhaps I just didn’t realize before how much the famous LA smog filtered and softened the light. But today every detail—every leaf, blade of grass, and ripple in the pool—feels extra crisp. If only I had my camera! I head toward the pool, where Zach, the house boy, and Daphne, the house techie, are straightening up from last night’s frolic.

  “Either of you see a camera?” I ask.

  “Think I saw one on the kitchen counter,” Zach says.

  The kitchen counter? That’s weird. I don’t recall even being in the kitchen last night. I was mostly out around the pool.

  Passing through the French doors, the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee is in the air, and there on the marble kitchen counter, where I swear I wouldn’t—couldn’t—have left it, is my Nikon.

  “Buenos dìas, Miss Jamie. You like some breakfast?” Maria, the Mexican cook, hands me the mug of coffee she knows I crave. “Fresh fruit maybe? Eggs over easy?”

  “Fresh fruit sounds great, thanks.” I sit down at the counter and gaze out past the shimmering crystal blue pool to the unused tennis court, the perfect lawn, and the tall green hedge that hides the twelve-foot-high wall around the property.

  Maria slides a bowl of fresh strawberries, pineapple, melon, and orange slices in front of me. I thank her and wonder if today will be any different from the previous days. To an easterner, the weather out here has an uncanny consistency, which only adds to the endless sameness.

  The camera rests on the marble counter beside me while I sip my coffee. Now that it’s back in my sight, my anxiety has evaporated. I didn’t take many shots at the party last night. Willow asked me not to. Does that sound crazy? After all, I’m here on assignment, right? Document a week in Willow’s life, they said.

  But “they” are Willow’s management, and “they” have made it clear that my assignment is to show the world the Willow Twine “they” want it to see—the sweet, girlish pop star (her true age, twenty-one, is a more closely guarded secret than the president’s personal cell phone number) whose recent stint in rehab was due to an “accidental,” “once in a lifetime” blunder, the “innocent mistake” of falling under the toxic spell of the rakishly handsome, extremely ne’er-do-well breaker of hearts, destroyer of hotel rooms, and wrecker of fast cars, Rex Dobro.

  All I’d taken the previous night were a
few innocent party shots—nothing that wouldn’t fit comfortably on the Christian Science Monitor’s website—and had intentionally not taken the shots that editors everywhere would have paid major league money for. As a result, this morning I’m in no rush to review what’s in the camera’s memory. I finish the fruit, take another long sip of coffee, and wonder if I can really make this idea of staying here in California work. It’s not that crazy, is it? After all, Avy’s done it. He’s been out here for almost eight months trying to make it as an actor. (But where is he, anyway? I’ve been texting him all week and he hasn’t answered.)

  Most important, I’ve now got this huge opportunity. I’ve earned the trust of Willow Twine, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. She’s already introduced me to a bunch of her actor friends and has promised to hook me up with even more. If I stay, I have a chance to become the Annie Leibovitz of the LA young actor scene. I could grow with them. I could be their favorite go-to photographer for decades to come.

  But what about Nasim? My insides clench and my heart corkscrews when I think of him and the fight we had before I left New York. I would so hate to lose him, but I know what my father would say: You’re young, you can’t let a guy influence the direction of your career. Back in New York, all I’ve got is this weird sort of slowly diminishing quasi-celebrity for being successful at such a young age. But in two or three years that won’t matter anymore. By the time I’m eighteen I’ll be just another shutterbug in a city teeming with them.

  So, if I do decide to stay, that’s got to be the argument I use—that my future is out here, where I have a real chance at having a lifelong career as a celebrity photographer. Like Avy, I can finish high school at the Los Angeles Professional Children’s Academy and live in an apartment with a chaperone. It’s all about who you know. And right now who I know is here in LA, not there in New York.

  Bare feet pad along the floor behind me, and into the kitchen trudges Rex Dobro, the precise persona who, according to Willow’s management, is seriously non grata in her life. The cause of her recent flirtation with ruin and rehab that nearly destroyed her career. And, as a result, he is the person whose reappearance in her life must be kept an absolute secret.