“I don’t like it when you do that, Aaron.”
“Do what?”
“You know what I mean. You can’t play with me.”
“Ah, come on. Don’t be mad.”
Amy, my roommate, tells me moving to a different city is the best way to handle a guy you can’t say no to. But it’s too cold to pap in New York. Anyway, the truth is, I’m into him. I want Aaron. He wants me. Though not enough for a husband or babies, which is still what I want more. Why can’t it be, when you find a guy you actually like, reciprocal? ’Cause I do like Aaron. I fancy him. There, I said it. And while I know he jerks me around (and can’t speak properly), he does have many redeeming qualities. For example, he’s hot. And he has a great body. And he’s clever, intelligent, and very, very funny. Mostly though, I like Aaron because, Claudia or no Claudia, we have chemistry. That’s what always gets me. I never end relationships—or stop them before they should begin—if there’s chemistry. I’m addicted to pheromones. No matter what the guy looks like or how he treats me, if I feel him in the pit of my stomach, my senses go out the window and I turn into a “sixteen-year-old boy.” So, while my head knows this will probably never go anywhere with Aaron, my heart—or maybe just my libido—will not listen.
* * *
In the morning, however, my head is in control. Before heading to my doorstep, I stop by Rachel Bilson’s, Aaron’s sit in Los Feliz, to have the talk.
He walks over as I pull up.
“I know we’re not going out, but this has got to end.”
He has a goofy smirk on his face.
I continue: “You disappoint me…I drive you crazy…you infuriate me…we fight. Worst of all, you hit on me—and never finish.”
He’s attentive as I speak, half amused, half sheepish. When I’m done, he smiles, says “you’re right,” leans in my car, grabs the back of my neck, and pulls me to him. I can feel his breath mix with mine and we almost kiss. And even though I don’t want to, I melt. Then he says, “I’ll come over and say good-bye after work.”
“Fine.”
I drive off. Weak, weak woman, I chastise myself.
At four-thirty, he calls. “Gotta check out the Will Ferrell set. I’m not sure if I can make it.”
He’s just not that into—
“Of course you do.”
“Stop having a go—”
“Never mind, Aaron. We’re done. Good-bye.”
But then, as it happens when you’re a pap in Hollywood, another celebrity intervenes. I’m driving toward home an hour later when Katherine Heigl’s bright red Range Rover passes me. I U-turn and follow her to the Grove, next door to Aaron’s apartment.
After the shoot, I call him. “I’m at the Grove. Should I come over?”
“Yes,” he answers immediately. “I’ll call you when I get home.”
I wait at Starbucks. Thirty minutes later, he calls.
Ten minutes later, I’m outside his door.
Aaron comes down when I buzz, grabs my wrist, and yanks me inside. He pins me to the lobby wall and we kiss. His hands grope my body and I pull at his hair. After a minute, he leads me to the stairwell. We run upstairs and stop at the top and kiss more. Still attached, we move toward his door. He fiddles with the knob till it opens, then pushes me inside. My back to him for the first time, he scoops me up, takes me into his bedroom, and lays me on the bed. He pulls his shirt over his head and lies on me. My nails dig into his back, I wrap my legs around his waist, and pull my body into his. He lifts my shirt and his lips move to where his hands have been.
Then, the buzzer rings. Aaron looks up, petrified. “Who the hell…?”
He gets up and goes to the living room. “Hello?” he says through the intercom.
“Hey, it’s me.”
Claudia.
Then there is a blood-curdling “FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” He presses the intercom again and says, “Be right down.”
And, that is truly the end of that.
The Battle of Bosworth, Round 3
Cumulative score: Kate: 2; Simon and Jen: 1
In retrospect, perhaps the note we left in Bosworth’s mailbox was a bit psycho. Maybe it would have been better if we didn’t effectively write, “If you cooperate with us, we will not tell anyone else where you live.” I guess that could be construed as “burglar talk” or “stalking.” But we still like to think that’s a stretch.
Clearly, Kate is not scared of us. And she’s not scared of the camera either. She poses at every red-carpet event and every “Fashion Week” around the world. Honestly, Kate doesn’t know what being bothered by paps means. I wish I could tell her how bad it could be.
Today, Simon clocks the porcelain goddess (as he calls both Kate and his toilet) pulling out of Nicholas Canyon onto Hollywood. He wasn’t even actively working her. He just happened to spot the car. He gets on the follow and beeps me immediately. “Got Bitchworth.”
She runs her first light at Hollywood and Fairfax, pops two more, then speeds down a quiet side street and pulls into a random driveway.
“Well, no question here. She’s onto me,” he says.
“Stay with her. I’ll be there in five.”
“Jen, if she drives like this, it’s gonna end bad, and they’re gonna blame me.”
He manages to stay on her, and I catch up at the same time they arrive safely to a photo-free office building off Doheney and Sunset. We know there isn’t a shot possible in the garage—too dark, too ugly, and too short of a walk to the elevator—and we know security will be stationed on the first floor and up. There is a possible shot in the outdoor lunch garden, if she chooses to lunch there, but we aren’t going inside to see. Today, “the paranoid girl will be checking for us in every crack, including her rank arse,” says Simon. “You may be beautiful, Kate, but your arse still smells like the rest of ours.” Oh, he can’t stand her.
Simon and I park on the street next to the garage and discuss waiting or not waiting. She could be here all day. We decide to give it an hour.
A few minutes later, a car pulls up and parallel parks next to us. A man gets out and approaches Simon’s car. I immediately drive off. I don’t know who he is, but I know I don’t want to talk to him.
I beep Simon—“Don’t talk!”—but it’s too late. He doesn’t respond.
Ten minutes later, Simon calls. “What happened?” I ask anxiously.
“It’s over, Jen. It’s over.” Simon’s always-chipper voice is fully deflated.
“Oh no. Tell me.”
Simon begins the play-by-play. “Well, he saunters up in super-snug, tapered jeans. Not Pete Wentz–tapered, mind you. More like The Gap 1988–tapered. Larry—the Tool—circles my car. He taps on my windshield, asks for ID. What was I thinking, Jen? I handed it over.”
“You weren’t thinking. You’re a great pap, but sometimes I wonder about your brains.”
“He was wearing a gold police badge on his belt. He looked serious,” Simon says defensively.
“Right, the kind the sheriff wore in The Dukes of Hazzard.”
“Yeah, the kind the kids wear in cops and robbers. But I’m an ex-pat. You know I can’t mess with the law.”
“Larry wasn’t the law.”
“But I didn’t know that. You got the smarts, luv. Not me.”
“What happened next?”
“Well, Larry’s copyin’ me license…”
“Ugh.”
“…and I ask him what this is all about. He says, real official and all, ‘I will respond to your questions after I write down all your information.’ That shut me up.”
In the end, Simon acceded to all of Larry’s demands, including staying five hundred feet away from Kate and not photographing her “ever again.” He eventually figured out that Larry was Kate’s hired security guard and not any sort of law enforcement official, but he didn’t care. Larry’s scare tactic had worked. Simon was done.
* * *
But I hadn’t agreed to any of that. And I was mad. How dare he threaten m
y Simon! Imposter!
I drive back to the office building and the Tool is standing outside. Good, that means Kate’s still inside. Larry immediately approaches my car. I refuse eye contact. He bangs on my window and tries to open the door, which I locked—I had a feeling he was going to do that.
“Give me your details right now. I’m gonna call the cops.”
“I thought you were a cop,” I mouth and point to his badge.
He makes a lot of noise, a lot of demands, while furtively trying to block my view. But I know what he’s doing. I see her. The doe is exiting the parking garage. I try to pull away, but Larry pushes his tapered-jeaned legs to my car and won’t let me pass.
Somehow I manage to maneuver my car around him. This is quite unfortunate. It would have been better had the day ended here.
I cut off Kate at a side street and end up in front of her. I pull to the shoulder and wait for her to pass. But, like me, Kate’s a fighter. She pulls up behind me and lays on the horn. She honks—continually—for at least a minute. Like a baby’s incessant crying, it starts to get to me. Rage circles my head like ravens their prey, and I exit my car and walk toward her knowing I can’t hit anything but wondering if I can stop myself.
“What the fuck!” I respond like any normal adult would.
She and her (one) friend call me names: “loser, bitch, whore,” etc.
Then I have a thought. I go back to my car and grab my camera.
Bitchworth (I’ve started calling her this now) moves quick. She pulls her car out in front of mine, and then I follow her to where I know she is going: the Beverly Hills Police Station.
Like blood from a freshly cut wrist, indignation is gushing out of my being. I should stop—I know—but I cannot. I am out of control. Kate pulls into the emergency parking space at the station, and I pull up next to her. Then Larry swoops in behind me, blocking me in.
“Move, asshole!” I yell. At this point, I’ve gained enough sense to know I don’t want to be here.
But it’s too late. Larry gets out of his car and is not going to move. He removes his Dukes of Hazzard badge.
Then come the cops. One after the other, like clowns out of a Volkswagen, at least a half dozen Los Angeles police officers exit the station.
“This guy’s blocking me in. Is that legal?” I say to one.
“Lots of things are legal in my book little girl,” the cop spits out.
Oh, great, so that’s how this is gonna go.
The cops get busy and take statements from Larry, Kate, and Kate’s friend. No one talks to me, the criminal.
After about five minutes of doing nothing, I take out my short lens (the flash seems a bit over-the-top, so I turn it off), walk up to Kate who is tattling to an officer, and start taking pictures. It’s so obnoxious, but I’m past any measure of dignity.
Kate shields her face, but neither she nor the cop say anything.
When the “little girl” cop who is now talking to Larry sees me, he belts out, “I will not allow you to make a spectacle out of me! Go sit there,” and he points to the curb like I’m in time-out. “My time is being wasted on nonsense,” he continues.
Yeah, mine too.
When I look around, I see clearly excessive coppage—at least ten now. More have come out to see what’s going on. I recall a recent ballot measure to add more police to the L.A. streets. Just what we need, more police who have nothing to do.
While sitting on the curb, I pop out my memory card (I’d like to keep those shots of Kate talking to the cop—never mind that they probably won’t sell due to my “involvement”) and then detach my Canon lens and replace it with my less expensive Tamron one. The “little girl” cop told me that he was going to take my camera as “evidence,” though of what crime, I am not sure.
I sit for ten minutes. Everyone is hard at work. Slowly some of the cops begin to leave. I stay seated on the curb watching the violation of my rights by the lead “little girl” cop. He is transcribing my driver’s license into his notebook, and Larry is looking over his shoulder like a parrot, transcribing the same.
Eventually, Kate drives off. She looks smug but wrecked. At least I ruined her day too.
“Where’s your gold badge?” I say to Larry as he walks toward his car. He ignores me.
Now it is just me and “little girl” cop. He hands me back my ID and asks for my phone number.
“Why’d you need that?” I say, too late. I should know by now: Always question cops.
“Oh, it’s for my little black book,” he smiles. “You can go.”
I get back in my car—no ticket, no citation, and all “evidence” still in my possession. As I pull out of the emergency space, another cop falls in behind me.
You’ve got to be kidding! They’re gonna get me on a traffic violation, I realize, sick to my stomach.
But he doesn’t turn on his lights. Instead, he pulls up beside me and rolls down his window.
“Are you OK?” he asks.
His face is kind, and that breaks me. Tears pour out. “I was just doing my job.”
“I know. Hang in there. It’ll be OK.”
I’m grateful for this gesture. I keep crying, but some measure of respect returns. Maybe I just haven’t met the good guys yet.
On my drive home, the words merry-go-round in my head—“extortion,” “letter in the mailbox,” “we have her on security tape”—all words I heard Larry whispering to the cop. At home, I look up “extortion” on Wikipedia. It mentions a maximum of twenty years in prison.
I can’t afford to fight Bitchworth, and money always wins. Will Gloria Allred, the high-profile attorney, take my case? What if I go to jail for five years? All for what? This job that makes me money but is slowly taking my life?
Chapter 15
The next Saturday, still queasy over the Bitchworth incident, I am back at Heigl’s. Her publicist hasn’t called about Cabo, which makes me feel foolish more than anything. (As much as Aaron has warned me against it, I’ll admit I was starting to feel like one of them.)
To add insult to injury, when I rock up this morning to Heigl’s, there are ten other paps. Last weekend, I was alone. I guess everyone had the same idea when they saw my mani-pedi set, and StarNP got pictures of her sister’s wedding, which apparently happened later that same day.
“You got scooped,” Bartlet barks when he phones for his morning check-in. “You should have stayed on.”
“She gave me enough at the salon,” I respond defensively. “Besides, I wouldn’t have crashed her sister’s wedding.”
“Well, you lost money because of it. StarNP’s pictures went all over. And now Heigl’s gangbang material, so deal with it.” Bartlet goes on to say that he read Katherine prefers to stay in on the weekends and “make love” (he doesn’t use this term) with her fiancé, so she’s probably not coming out.
Ulysses Bartlet is an interesting guy. Over the phone, he’s a commander. His directives are precise and stalwart, and he’s usually right. He could lead an army or a ship with his voice or, like Charlie, a kick-ass trio of girl detectives. His deep, punctuated British accent never wavers or bends, and though he’s thirty-three and technically younger than me, he sounds like a middle-aged man. Bartlet doesn’t have misconceptions about the business being slimy or feel the need to stroke his “journalistic integrity” like other agency owners do. He cares only that the money is good. His expectations are high, and though he suffers from a severe case of Tall Poppy Syndrome, he’s empowering as long as he has the upper hand. For these reasons I like him, as does most of the staff. Which is why we all deal with his crass remarks.
Bartlet was wrong. Heigl comes out around one. Her gangbang is ready. Ten cars fall into line behind the red Range. I am first. Normally, on a gangbang follow, female paps almost always get pushed to the back; however, the paparazzi are moving into my territory cautiously. They know Katherine is mine.
The reason men don’t like women in the lead is because they think we aren’t gonna
keep up. Aggressive protocol goes along with multi-car follows such as this one, and it’s important that the cars at the lead are staying close to the celebrity’s car by popping all possible lights and blocking out “foreign” cars, i.e. cars not related to the follow. Otherwise, the cars at the back of the follow will never keep up.
As the first car behind Heigl, I need to get my camera ready. Today’s lens choice is unclear. It’s Katie, whom we “respect,” so we want to “go long”—she will give everyone time to shoot—but with so many paps, can we stay out of each other’s frames?
Katherine stops at the Rite Aid in Los Feliz. She has a baseball cap pulled low on her head, which I’ve never seen her do, and she pauses before entering the store to tell us she’s sick. We all have on long lenses and shoot her entering and exiting, but the shots are mostly worthless—you can’t see her eyes.
Back to our cars, we follow her to a magazine stand on Vermont and Melbourne. Heigl takes her time browsing and soon lifts her head and smiles. She must be thinking about the prospect of so many of us leaving with nothing. She’d feel guilty if she wasted our day.
There are ten of us crowded on the small sidewalk. It’s an obvious short-and-flash photo-op, but everyone has long-lensed it so they are getting extreme close-ups, less than desirable as they tell less of a story. I’ve “shorted it” but without a flash to make it “look long.” (It’s the “flash” of the short-and-flash that is considered rude. By putting the short lens on my camera, I can get wide-angle frames showing Katie is magazine shopping but still give her “respect.”) While we huddle around the newsstand, I call out instructions—“Give her space,” “Watch out, guys,” “Back up—she’s sick.” I hate it when paps do this—act like they own the celebrity—but I can’t help myself. Amazingly, they listen to me. Everyone is on their best behavior.
Nearer to her than the others since I’m on a short, I whisper, “If you ever want to avoid us, exit right, the long way out your subdivision. No one will see you.”
She doesn’t respond or seem to process my comment in the moment. And, I would miss her too if she did that, but the tables are turning and it’s time Katie learned the game.
Shooting Stars Page 19