She was drifting off when the phone rang, and she was so tired that she actually answered it.
‘Adi? Are you still sleeping?’ Gilles’s voice, uncharacteristically deep for someone so slight, boomed through the phone.
‘We’re not meeting today until one. It’s only ten. Why are you calling me?’
‘Well, well, someone’s not a morning person!’ he sang, sounding delighted.
‘Gilles …’
‘Sorry. Look, I have to cancel lunch today. I know I’m a hideous friend, but I got a better offer.’
‘A better offer? First the bird calls me fat, and now you’re saying you got a better offer?’
‘The bird? What?’
‘Forget it. So enlighten me, what constitutes a better offer than chopped salads and Bloody Marys and manicures?’
‘Oh, I don’t know … Maybe, um … let’s see … only the opportunity of a lifetime. Are you ready for this?’
‘I’m ready,’ Adriana said, working hard to sound highly uninterested.
‘The agency called to say that Ricardo got stuck on a shoot in Ibiza and couldn’t make it back for today’s booking.’
‘Mmm.’ Adriana vaguely remembered that Gilles and Ricardo were sworn competitors, although she tended to think that this vicious competition stemmed more from Gilles than from Ricardo, who, much to Gilles’s chagrin, seemed quite content to accept almost all of the agency’s most prestigious assignments. He did most of the big names in Hollywood and his calendar was booked annually for – and a year in advance of – the awards shows. The two men had gone to beauty school together, assisted together at all the Madison Avenue salons, and then, even though both were promoted to the floor at the exact same time, Ricardo had somehow become a superstar.
‘Any idea what today’s booking is?’ Gilles sounded ready to jump out of his skin.
‘Let’s see, what could it be? A photo shoot!’ she said with snotty faux enthusiasm.
He ignored her. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I’m sure you don’t want to hear what it will be like to do Angelina’s hair on the set of The City Dweller, which just so happens to be the movie they’re calling her sexiest ever. Funny, I was thinking about inviting you to come along and meet everyone, but I’m sure you’d never be into that …’
‘Angelina?’
‘The one and only.’
‘Her sexiest movie ever?’
‘They’re saying it makes Mr. and Mrs. Smith look like The Sound of Music.’
Adriana exhaled. ‘Do you think Brad will be there?’
‘Who knows? Anything’s possible. I heard there’s a good chance she’ll have Maddox with her.’
Maddox. An interesting development. As much as Adriana disliked children – especially the shriekers and the ones with runny noses – she’d fallen in love with the entire Brangelina brood. Granted, screams and snot didn’t really come across in the pages of US Weekly, but Adriana was certain these children were different: composed, dignified, possibly even sophisticated. And there was no denying their style. She’d love to see that stylish Cambodian adoptee in person. Pax would be worthwhile, too, but no one – not Zahara nor even Shiloh – would be as rewarding as a Maddox sighting. She bolted upright in bed and began a frantic search through her open closet. What does one wear to a movie set?
‘I’m so there!’ she squealed, her usually aloof demeanor completely shattered. ‘Where and when?’
Gilles was kind enough not to laugh. ‘I thought you might be interested,’ he said with deliberate coolness. ‘Corner of Prince and Mercer in an hour. I’m not sure where the hair and makeup trailers will be parked exactly, but text me when you’re there and I’ll come find you.’
Adriana clicked her phone shut and bolted into the shower. Hesitant to look like she’d made any effort beyond the cursory, she applied a little lemon-scented baby powder to her roots but kept her hair unwashed, resulting in a sexy tumble of waves. She used tinted moisturizer instead of her usual skin-perfecting foundation and rubbed a bit of lip gloss into her cheeks before slicking it across her lips. A quick dab of white shimmer powder in the corners of her eyes – a trick passed down from her mother’s modeling days – and a single coat of brownish-black mascara completed her face. Her wall-mounted magnifying mirror confirmed that not a trace of makeup was detectable, but the outcome left her looking fresh-faced, glowing, and gorgeous.
The outfit took a bit longer. She discarded two sundresses, a belted tunic, and a pair of tight white pants before finding the winner: perfectly worn skinny Levi’s that literally lifted and displayed her ass, topped with two barely-there racerback tanks layered one over the other and finished with this season’s Chloe buckle flats. Her skin, permanently tan from both genes and months spent on the beaches of Rio, literally popped against the white cotton tank tops, and her hair spilled down over her shoulders. She added a mismatched bunch of gold bangles to one bronzed wrist and chose a pair of small, understated gold knot earrings to finish the look. Forty-five minutes after hanging up with Gilles, Adriana tiptoed past the guest bathroom toward the front door, loathe to wake the sleeping bird.
‘Arghwahhhhhhh!’
She heard flapping and another screech – indiscernible in content but oddly mournful in nature – followed by more frantic flapping. Christ, she thought as she opened the bathroom door. It sounds like he’s dying in there.
‘You cannot die right now,’ she addressed the sheet-draped cage. ‘At least have the courtesy to wait until after I meet Maddox. Better yet, wait for Emmy. I have no idea what to do with a dead bird.’
Silence. Then, a positively sorrowful cry. She’d never heard anything like it before, but the misery of it made her shiver with fear.
Adriana jumped forward and tore the sheet from the cage, desperate to quiet the suffering animal. ‘What is it, Otis?’ she crooned through the bars. ‘Are you sick?’
It wasn’t until Otis cocked his head in that telltale – and perfectly healthy – way that Adriana knew she’d been had. She’d made it out of the bathroom and halfway through the foyer before Otis belted out ‘Fat Girl!’ in triplicate, stopping only to cackle between calls.
‘Go ahead and die, you winged rodent. I hope it’s long and slow and very painful. I’ll dance on your miserable birdie grave.’ The whole situation was enraging! Just because Emmy felt too guilty to sell or murder the damn bird should not mean that others had to endure its abuse. What are you supposed to say when your best friend calls the night before her trip, panicked that her vet no longer boards birds in his kennel? Any remotely rational person would say exactly what Adriana had said – namely, that if she couldn’t wear it, eat it, or accessorize with it, she wasn’t interested – but Emmy’s sheer panic had eventually worn her down. She swore that Otis was relatively low maintenance and that with the exception of a few moody outbursts, Adriana probably wouldn’t even notice he was there. Yeah, not notice. That’s why she was standing in the elevator, wondering if her hips looked a bit wider these days. Or why she was about to trek the twenty blocks downtown rather than take a cab, because clearly she needed the exercise. Fucking buzzard.
Her heart rate was elevated from a combination of physical exertion and excitement by the time she arrived, and she felt a little sticky from sweat, but the dampness gave Adriana a sheen that heightened her beauty. Not a few passing men wondered if she’d just rolled out of bed after a morning of lovemaking; the others wondered what it would be like to join her.
Gilles appeared moments after she texted him. He noticed a group of PAs standing outside one of the trailers watching them, so he grabbed Adriana’s hips, pushed his pelvis against hers, and kissed her full on the mouth. ‘Damn, girl, you’re gorgeous,’ he announced. ‘Almost makes me wish I were straight.’
‘Yes, querido, me, too. I’d marry you in a second. In fact, if I haven’t found myself a husband in the next year, will you marry me?’
‘Tempting, I have to say. Commit to one person for the rest of my life and a woman at
that? Just castrate me now.’
‘Wait, I think I’m onto something. We’d have a completely open relationship, of course – you’d be welcome to sleep with anyone you like – but we could go to parties and family stuff together and still have our own separate lives. We’d be the new Will and Grace. I think it sounds fantastic.’
‘Yes, Adi dear, but what, may I ask, is in it for me? You forget, I do all of those things now without being married …’
‘What’s in it for you? Hmm,’ Adriana pressed her forefinger to her lips and pretended to think. ‘Let’s see. Oh, I don’t know … unrestricted access to my unlimited trust fund, perhaps? Would that work?’
Gilles dropped to one denim-glad knee and brought her hand to his lips. ‘Adriana de Souza, will you marry me?’
She laughed and pulled him up. ‘One year, querido. I’ve got one year to find myself a proper husband – and by proper, I mean one who wants to have sex with me – and if not, you and I are getting hitched. Sound good?’
‘I’m hard right now, I swear I am. Just say it again: trust fund.’
He led her halfway down Prince Street before breaking the news that there would be no Angelina introductions that day.
‘Tell me you’re kidding. I got up and showered and dressed at ten, for chrissake. Is Maddox at least here with a nanny?’
‘Sorry, honey. But I am scheduled to do Paul Rudd in twenty minutes, and you’re welcome to come sit in.’
Adriana sniffed. ‘He’s cute, I guess.’
‘And, if you’re a good girl, I might even let you stay for the early-evening shoot –’
‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’m going out with that finance guy.’
‘Oh, that finance guy. Got it. Well, as super-fun as that sounds, they’re shooting a scene tonight with Tyra … a lingerie scene … and there’s talk that Naomi might join her …’
‘Shut up.’
‘Not kidding.’
‘When?’
‘It’s called for seven at Sky Studios. There’ll probably be drinks afterward.’
Adriana slowly exhaled and looked at Gilles. ‘I’m in.’
‘Given.’ He pulled open the door on a Haddad’s trailer and waited for Adriana to step ahead. A teenage girl she didn’t recognize sat patiently in one of four chairs, back to the lit mirror, as a pudgy female stylist wrestled a round brush through the girl’s thick waves. The other three chairs appeared recently vacated, still littered with Mason Pearson brushes, T3 ionic hairdryers, and every Kérastase product sold in North America.
‘Gilles, they pushed up the call time by a half hour because Tobias needs to get out of here early,’ the stylist called out over the drone of the blowdryer. ‘I’m handling everything here, so why don’t you head to the location for touch-ups?’
‘On it,’ Gilles sang. He hefted a huge leather tote overflowing with supplies onto his shoulder and motioned Adriana toward the door. ‘To the set we go.’
The scene was already under way when they arrived at the loft, and their set passes were scrutinized by no fewer than three PAs.
‘This place is harder to breach than Chez Cruise,’ Adriana whispered when they’d finally made it inside.
Gilles smiled but remained alert, carefully sidestepping the tangle of wires and extension cords. ‘Right before you got here I watched them tell a mailman that he wasn’t allowed to deliver the mail until they were done for the day.’
The huge, classic SoHo loft had sixteen-foot ceilings and exposed brick and all sorts of very intimidating modern art sculptures. The crew had set up a king-sized bed with a metal four-poster frame – the kind that looks like a huge hollow box has been attached to the top – in the living room in front of the fireplace. With its chic brown and lime-green duvet and matching low-profile nightstands, it looked like a photo straight from the West Elm catalog. But far more interesting was the nearly nude actress splayed across it.
‘Quiet on the set!’ a deep male voice boomed from somewhere overhead.
Gilles held up a hand and grabbed Adriana’s wrist. They both froze in midstep.
‘Rolling!’ another male voice called. A chorus of replies followed from all around the room.
‘Rolling!’
‘Rolling!’
‘We are rolling!’
‘And … action!’ Adriana turned to see that these last words came from a man who sat a bit off to the side. He wore a pair of massive headphones and leaned intently forward in his chair, examining the center screen with complete concentration. Next to him, a young girl diligently took notes on a clipboard. Adriana surmised that this was the director, the god himself, and she was pleased to confirm her suspicions when she stepped a few inches to the left and was able to read the back of the man’s chair. was stitched in all caps on the black fabric. What she hadn’t expected was that he’d be so young: His résumé read like that of someone in his fifties or sixties, but this man didn’t look a day over forty.
Gilles and Adriana watched for a twenty-second clip while the actress, wearing an open button-down and a pair of white cotton panties that managed to be ten times sexier than most thongs, read a novel on the bed. She was just casually stroking her stomach and flipping the pages when Adriana realized the girl was Angelina’s body double.
‘Cut!’ Tobias yelled. Within a half-second, Gilles beelined to the actress and began finger-tousling her hair. He didn’t appear to notice that she was propped on her elbows with her head thrown back as if in ecstasy.
A few minutes later, with the scene set exactly the same as before, there was another round of ‘rolling’ shouts and a call of ‘action!’ Only this time, just as the chiseled male actor lowered himself on top of the girl, a cell phone chirped. Adriana’s cell phone. Forty heads turned to stare at her as she, completely unflustered, rooted around in her bag, pulled the cell phone out, and switched it off – after checking the caller ID.
‘And cut!’ Tobias screamed. ‘What is this, people? Amateur hour? Lose the cell phones. Now, let’s take it from Fernando’s entrance. Pick it up right away and … action!’
This time the actors completed the scene to the director’s satisfaction and Tobias grudgingly called for a break. Gilles gripped Adriana’s hand so hard that his fingernails dug into her palms. She knew he was about to go berserk – he always was a screamer – but before he could drag her outside for a tongue-lashing, Tobias intercepted them. His headphones were looped around his neck; he frowned and shook his head in anger as the rest of the crew moved far enough away to avoid direct contact while remaining close enough to hear whatever went down.
‘Who are you?’ Tobias demanded, looking directly at Adriana.
Gilles began blathering. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr. Baron, you have assurance that such an incident will never—’
Tobias interrupted Gilles with an exasperated wave but didn’t divert his attention from Adriana. ‘Who are you?’
He stared at her and Adriana stared back, the two of them locked in a power struggle for nearly thirty seconds without saying a word. Adriana admired his steadfastness; most men got flustered when she remained silent and defiant. She also rather liked his solidness. He was above average height for a man, probably close to six feet, but his fitted T-shirt showed off an upper body that gave him a much bigger look. As far as she could ascertain, both his tan and his thick, dark hair were real. She was close enough to smell him, and she liked that, too: a good mixture of fabric softener and a subtle, masculine cologne.
Doing her best to appear unapologetic, she looked directly into his eyes and said, ‘My name is Adriana de Souza.’
‘Ah, well, that certainly explains it.’
‘Pardon me?’ And then it occurred to her – maybe this man somehow knew her mother and, as a result, wasn’t surprised by Adriana’s diva-like behavior. It wouldn’t be the first time someone in the entertainment industry had put together Adriana’s famous name and gorgeous looks.
‘It explains why a young girl like you would have a João Gilbe
rto song as her ring tone. From Rio?’
‘São Paulo, actually,’ Adriana purred. ‘You do not strike me as Brazilian.’
‘No? Is it the name or the nose?’ He finally smiled. ‘You don’t have to be Brazilian to know bossa nova when you hear it.’
‘I’m sorry, I must have missed your name. You are?’ Adriana asked, wide-eyed. She knew from many years of experience that if you treated the overconfident ones like dirt, they were yours forever.
His smile faded for a moment before expanding to an all-out grin, one that said, Hey, an adversary. I like that. And although he didn’t ask for her number then and there, Adriana was one hundred percent certain that she’d be hearing from Tobias Baron.
‘Why so quiet?’ Russell asked as he navigated through the parking lot-like conditions on the Merritt, made even worse than usual by his steadfast refusal to work around the Trifecta of Traffic Horrors: They had left the city not only during rush hour, but during rush hour on a Friday – of a summer weekend.
Leigh sighed. Only three more days until her coveted No Human Contact Monday. ‘Just the usual dread.’
‘They’re really not so bad, honey. I have to say, I don’t totally understand why they get to you so much.’
‘Well, that’s probably because you’ve met them all of five times in your entire life and, if anything, they know how to make good first impressions. They don’t get to their real heavy-duty undermining until you’ve really started to know and trust them. Then … watch out.’ Annoyed that he was defending her parents, she scrolled through the iPod and turned the volume all the way up. John Mayer’s ‘Waiting on the World to Change’ blasted from the speakers.
They were in Russell’s new Range Rover, which she loathed. When he’d elicited her opinion a few months earlier on what cars she liked, she’d merely shrugged.
‘The beauty of living in New York is that you don’t need a car. Why bother?’
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