Outside In

by Courtney Thorne-Smith

  “People get what they deserve—I knew that man-eater, Sapphire Rose, would get her just desserts,” could turn to the same friends and say, “Wasn’t she just brilliant in that Vivien Leigh movie? I am so glad that she found her soul mate in that handsome Hamilton Morgan.”

  Michael knew that even if he were able, through a series of divine interventions, to pull this project together, there wouldn’t be a lot of up-front money in it for Sapphire, but his client was much more interested in the perks, anyway. He’d been through many frustrating negotiations with her during which he was fighting for more money, and all he could get her to focus on was the length of her trailer or how much of her wardrobe she would get to keep. God forbid she had just read an article about the contractual demands of an A-list diva, because he would then find himself giving back hard-won cash in exchange for such essentials as custom-colored M&M’s or a youth-preserving brand of bottled water that had to be carted in from Uruguay on the backs of spiritually gifted donkeys.

  He was getting ahead of himself, though. First he had to call Bob and convince him to back a movie about the life of a deceased movie star whom no one in his target demographic of twelve-year-old boys had ever even heard of, starring his difficult client, the ex–movie star and current campy man-eating television star.

  It was going to be a long day.

  Sapphire watched from her trailer window as Kate and Paige got into Paige’s tiny car and drove away.

  “Is that one of those cars like Cameron Diaz drives?” she asked Hamilton, who was sitting next to her on the couch, peeking out the other side of the window.

  “Yes, darling, it’s a Prius.”

  “It’s tiny.”

  “Yes, it is. It is good for the environment, though, which makes for good press.”

  “Is that why Cameron drives it?” Sapphire had lost interest in looking out the window and turned to face the mirror, which never got boring.

  “No, believe it or not, she really wants to conserve energy.” Hamilton chuckled. “I mean, I am all for doing good deeds, but for god’s sake, make sure that there is a camera nearby. Otherwise, you are just driving an uncomfortable car for no reason.”

  “I don’t want to drive an uncomfortable car,” said a worried Sapphire, torn between her desire for positive media attention and her obsession with being as comfortable as humanly possible for every single minute of the day.

  “Don’t worry, my little hothouse orchid,” said Hamilton, pulling her into a comforting embrace. “I promise to wrap you in heated leather seats and surround you with polished wood finishes.”

  “But I want good press, too,” she whined in the little-girl voice that Hamilton found so utterly irresistible.

  “I know you do, baby, and daddy is going to get it for you. All we need to do is ride in a hybrid car when we go to awards shows. We don’t even have to ride in it the whole way. We can take a limo to a block away from the event, and then we have to be uncomfortable only for a block or two.”

  “One block, okay?”

  “Less than one block, if that’s what will make you happy.”

  “It does,” said Sapphire, jumping up off the couch and launching into a series of dramatic stretches as if she had just completed a long and arduous negotiation. She watched herself in the mirror as she reached her arms and legs out in different directions, checking to see which positions were most flattering. For her, “proper form” had less to do with avoiding injury than it did with showing off her body to its best advantage. She found an exceptionally flattering position and rotated her body so that Hamilton could enjoy how slim her waist looked when she held both of her arms over her head and extended her left leg while pointing her toe. “Do I have to work today?”

  “Yes, you do, my princess,” said Hamilton, clearly thinking that the combination of her tiny waist and submissive attitude made her almost unbearably attractive. “They changed the whole schedule for you, remember? Just so that you wouldn’t have to see Kate.”

  “But I did see her,” Sapphire protested.

  “But only through your window, honey bear. Jerry has promised that you won’t have to do any scenes with her.”

  “I don’t want to see her at all. It upsets me.” To illustrate just how much it upset her, she stopped posing and slumped into the banquette. Luckily, she was within arm’s reach of the muffin basket.

  “Well, you know that protecting you is everyone’s first priority, but since you and Kate work on the same show, you will probably have to see her from time to time.”

  “Why?” Sapphire asked through a mouthful of chocolate croissant.

  “Because you work together, darling.”

  “Why?”

  Hamilton looked at the woman he now loved, her chocolate-and crumb-covered lower lip thrust out in a charming pout, and realized that he would do anything within his power to make her happy, even if it meant losing his hard-earned percentage of Kate’s salary. “Would it be better for you if she wasn’t here at all?”

  Sapphire lowered her face before she raised her eyes to meet Hamilton’s, ensuring that they would catch the light in the most flattering and effective way possible. She allowed a single tear to fall down her left cheek and nodded slowly to demonstrate that, although she would do everything she could to have Kate fired, she was in pain about it.

  Hamilton came over to sit next to her, kissing the tear away. “I just can’t stand to see you in distress like this, my sweet. I am going to go talk to Jerry right now and see if we can’t figure something out.” He pulled her close, planting another kiss on top of her head. “Would that make you feel better?”

  Sapphire nodded into his chest. “A little.”

  “Well, that’s a start at least,” said Hamilton, heading for the door. Then he added, “Maybe my little girl needs a little trip to the jewelry store later to cheer her up. What do you think?”

  Sapphire thought she was the luckiest little girl in the whole wide world.

  23

  “Palm Springs?” Paige couldn’t believe her ears. “Your parents left you home alone the day after you broke up with your husband to go to Palm Springs?”

  “Yeah,” said Kate, taken aback by the intensity of her friend’s response. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Not a big deal? Are you high?”

  “No,” said Kate, knowing it was a rhetorical question but feeling a need to defend herself, nonetheless. “Why are you yelling at me?”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.” Paige took a calming breath before she continued. “It is just that it is so fucked up and you don’t seem to have any idea!”

  “You’re yelling again.”

  “No, I’m not!” yelled Paige. They looked at each other for a moment over their decimated veggie scrambles and burst out laughing.

  “You do realize that everyone is staring at us,” whispered Kate.

  “No, duh,” said Paige. “You’re famous.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Wow. You’d think my mother would be nicer to me.”

  “Exactly my point!” bellowed Paige, causing almost all of the other diners to turn and stare at them again. Kate slumped down in her chair, giggling and trying to disappear. Some of the customers smiled, happy to be in on the game, but some people just looked annoyed at the interruption. The line was drawn directly between those who recognized Kate as a television star and those who didn’t. For those to whom she was a celebrity, almost anything she did seemed charming and interesting, but for those to whom she was just a regular customer, she was one-half of an irritatingly loud twosome.

  “This is so going to end up in the tabloids.”

  “As what? Kate Keyes-Morgan has a loud friend? I don’t see that on the front page. Unless maybe you are about to change into an unflattering bikini. Cellulite always scores a headline.”

  “Oh my god,” said Kate, terrified. “I would just die.”

  “I so wish you we
re exaggerating, but somehow I really don’t think you are.”

  Kate shrugged. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t literally die.”

  “But you’re thinking that you just might kill yourself, right?”

  Damn, she was good. “Let’s just say that I hope I would recover…but I’m not so sure that I would.”

  “Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come up until you are about three thousand times healthier.”

  “Agreed…as long as you are not using the word ‘healthy’ as a euphemism for fat.”

  Paige dropped her head into her hands. “Oh dear, we have so much work to do on you.”

  “Do you really think now is the time to bring up plastic surgery?” Kate asked with faux earnestness.

  “If I thought that it would actually help your crippled self-esteem, I would drive you to the doctor myself.”

  “Don’t even worry about it. For that, my mother would come back from Palm Springs.”

  Paige shook her head and said, “Please tell me you are kidding.”

  “Oh no, not at all. She’s wanted me to get my boobs done since I lost the Miss Junior Orange County pageant in eighth grade. She probably thinks Hamilton left me because of my small boobs. Come to think of it, maybe he did.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Paige, then added, “He probably did.”

  “Oh god,” said Kate. “It really is that pathetic, isn’t it?”

  “No, Kate, it isn’t pathetic,” said Paige, leaning forward in her desire to be understood. “It is infuriating…galling…maddening—not pathetic. Where is your anger for god’s sake? Your husband left you for a brainless lunatic, and when you went to your mother for support, she took off to Palm Springs. You should be furious!”

  Kate watched Paige getting more and more revved up. She didn’t seem to care that people were staring at her or that they were probably thinking that she was crazy, irrational, or—god forbid—not nice. Paige seemed to get larger before her eyes, as if her anger were literally puffing her up. Yet Kate knew that when she felt angry, she got smaller, literally and figuratively. When she finally spoke, even her voice sounded small. “I do get mad when I talk to Hamilton. I’ll have you know that I have thrown around the f-word more than once.”

  “Good for you. I am very happy to hear that,” said Paige proudly, as though Kate had just brought home a straight-A report card. “Saying ‘fuck’ to, at, or near Hamilton is a very good start, but I think there has got to be some real butt-kicking rage in there somewhere that is looking for a way out. You are just too damn…good all the time.”

  “Well…I don’t want to kick ass. I just want to take a nap.”

  Paige took a deep breath, readying herself for another motivational offensive, but instead of launching into an energetic tirade she exhaled slowly and sunk back in her chair. “You know what? I want to take a nap, too. Let’s go get you moved out of your mother’s house and onto my couch for an afternoon of Lifetime movies and catnaps.”

  Kate froze, confused. Was Paige inviting her to stay with her—which seemed way too good to be true—or just offering up an afternoon of trashy TV? “Okay, um, that sounds like fun. Let’s go get…an afternoon’s worth of stuff from my mom’s.”

  Now it was Paige’s turn to look confused. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that you want to move in with me only for the afternoon. And, if so, are you saying that because you really don’t want to stay with me and are trying not to hurt my feelings or because you actually think I just invited you to move in for an afternoon?”

  Kate blushed scarlet, wanting nothing more than to melt into her chair. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “Well, let me be clear: I am offering you a place to stay. It isn’t glamorous, Lord knows, but you are welcome to stay with me until you remember that you are a rich television star and can actually afford to get your very own place.”

  Kate looked up, scared. “Do you think I should?”

  “Should what?”

  “Get my own place. Like you said.”

  “Oh dear,” said Paige. “I can see that I am going to need to go really slowly. I was kidding about you getting your own place. You are definitely not ready to live on your own. I don’t remotely trust you to feed yourself properly yet, and I have a feeling you are wearing your only cute outfit.”

  This was undeniably true. Kate didn’t know what had possessed her to grab formal wear instead of sweats when she made her hasty retreat from her house, but when she unpacked her suitcase at her mother’s house, it looked like an explosion at a designer-gown factory. “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve been there, remember? When I left my second husband, I took only my slow cooker and my thigh-high boots. I was out of my mind.”

  “What were you going to do? Start a career as a slow-cooking dominatrix?”

  “Hey, don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” Paige said, checking the bill and throwing down enough cash to cover half. “Now, do you want to stay with me or not?”

  “Nothing would make me happier,” said Kate sincerely.

  “Oh jeez. I’m offering you a place to sleep, not proposing, for god’s sake.”

  “You say that now,” said Kate, throwing in her half of the bill and following her friend out of the restaurant. “But stranger things have happened.”

  “I may need to rethink this,” said Paige, laughing.

  “Too late!” sang Kate happily.

  “Oh dear,” said Paige.

  “See? You called me ‘dear.’”

  “Help!” called Paige out the window as she drove away, Kate giggling in the passenger seat beside her.

  When the two women walked into Marcia’s house twenty minutes later, it was buzzing with activity. Kate’s mom was at the center of a group of young Hispanic men who were busily setting up tables and chairs in what had been a fully furnished living room six short hours ago.

  “Mom, when did you get back?” asked Kate, pressing her body against the entryway wall in order to allow a man struggling with the weight of a large box to get past.

  “Your father and I drove home early this morning. We had planned to stay the week, but we had to rush back to set up for the party!” Marcia trilled, happy to be at the center of anything.

  “What’s the party for?”

  “For the condo association. That’s why we went to Palm Springs. We all went down for our big benefit dinner.”

  Paige squeezed through the crowded doorway to stand next to Kate. “Your condo association has a benefit dinner? What charity does it support?”

  “The new pool, dear,” said Marcia. “And who are you?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Kate, trying to forge a path through the sea of rented furniture to get Paige within handshaking distance of her mother. “This is my friend, Paige. Paige, this is my mother, Marcia.”

  Kate could almost see her mother’s mental Rolodex spinning at full speed, searching for a famous identity to connect with her daughter’s friend. “It’s so nice to meet you, Paige. Do you work with my daughter on her show?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Marcia brightened. “Oh, isn’t that lovely! And who do you play?”

  “I just play with her makeup.”

  “I’m sorry?” asked Marcia, confused.

  Kate stepped in before her mother could say anything too offensive or insensitive. Why should Paige have to experience Kate’s reality? “Mom, she does my makeup. You know how you are always saying, ‘Why can’t you look as good as you do on your show?’ Well, that’s all Paige’s doing.”

  Kate tried to ignore Paige’s “Oh, that is so fucked up,” even though it was cough-talked directly into her left ear.

  “Well, isn’t that lovely.” Kate knew that in this case “lovely” was code for “disappointing.” “Will you be doing Kate’s makeup for the dinner tonight?”

  “Uh, I wasn’t planning on it.” Paige raised her eyebrows at Kate in an oh-so-subtle “what the fuck is going on?” expression. />
  “Mom, you didn’t tell me anything about a dinner tonight.”

  “Well, dear, I didn’t know about it myself until last night—that’s why we’re all rushing around like crazy.”

  Kate assumed the “we” referenced the many workers running around the condo carrying tables, chairs, and boxes. Her mother never ran. Kate took a deep breath, trying to inhale some of Paige’s self-confidence. “Well, Mom, I can’t come to your party. We, uh, made other plans.”

  Marcia looked Kate directly in the eye. “You can’t have other plans. This whole dinner is for you.”

  Kate’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  “Katherine, close your mouth. You look like a largemouth bass.”

  “Ouch,” whispered Paige.

  Kate snapped her mouth shut and said through clenched teeth, “Mom why are you having a party for me?”

  “Well, sweetheart, it’s because so many of your father’s and my friends want to meet you.”

  “Really?” asked Kate, suspicious.

  “Really,” replied Marcia, steely-eyed.

  “Well, I gotta say, this seems like a lot of preparation for a friendly little get-together,” Paige said, dodging two men carrying a portable bar.

  “Well, we have a lot of friends,” said Marcia proudly.

  “That’s great.”

  “It really is.”

  “Yes, it is. Maybe the best part of having so many wonderful friends is that you’ll hardly notice if one little person is missing. Kate, should we go ahead and get your stuff?”

  “Huh?” Kate was staring at Paige in shock, watching her stand up to her mother.