Outside In

by Courtney Thorne-Smith

  “I can imagine.” Paige lifted the box off Kate’s lap and put it next to them on the couch. “I think you are probably in shock or something. I am.”

  Kate felt tears gathering behind her eyes. “Did I just get fired?”

  “That’s what you said. I wasn’t actually in the room.”

  “I wish you had been. Did I tell you that Hamilton tried to hug me?”

  Paige couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Yes, you did.”

  “Did I tell you that he was offended that I didn’t want to hug him back?”

  Paige laughed again. “Yes, you did.”

  “Is it just me, or is that fucking whacked?” Kate looked up with an expression of genuine curiosity.

  “Yes, honey, it is fucking whacked.” Paige reached up to brush Kate’s hair out of her eyes. “This whole thing is fucking whacked.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Kate’s voice sounded flat. “Was my mom in the room?”

  “What? Why would your mom have been in the room?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It just seems like she would have wanted to be there.”

  Paige leaned in close to Kate’s face, looking for signs of a breakdown. “Kate, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes as much sense as the rest of it.” Paige sat back. Kate had her there. “I just think she would have wanted to be there to get her ‘I told you so’ in right away,” Kate went on, offering a wan smile. “On the bright side, I guess that gives me something to look forward to.”

  “True,” said Paige. “On the even brighter side, your cachet as an auction item has just fallen through the floor…”

  “…so that’ll save some time,” finished Kate, her smile widening.

  “Exactly.” Paige stood up and offered a hand. “Should we collect your oral-hygiene products and get out of here?”

  Kate allowed herself to be pulled off the couch. “Shouldn’t the fact that my life as I know it has just come crashing to a halt warrant a ‘get out of flossing free’ card?”

  Paige took hold of both of Kate’s arms and looked intensely into her face. “You can cry your eyes out. You can lie in bed for three weeks eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and watching True Hollywood Story. You can even get your very own Home Shopping Network membership number, but I cannot allow you to ignore your dental health.”

  “How about my mental health?”

  “Mental health is for sissies.” Paige turned Kate so that she was facing the bathroom and handed her the box. “Now, get packing. We want to get to Krispy Kreme before all of the really disgustingly creamy, candy-coated doughnuts are gone.”

  Kate walked the three steps to the tiny bathroom. “Don’t you have to work today?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you had to come in to do extras for that restaurant scene.”

  “I did…until I quit.”

  Kate dropped the box into the miniature sink and turned to face Paige. “You what?”

  “I quit.”

  “Oh no,” said Kate desperately. “No, no, no—don’t quit just because I got fired. It’s not worth it. I’m not worth it.”

  “First of all,” Paige said definitively, “you are worth it. Second, don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t quit because you got fired. This is not some misguided show of support. I just don’t want to miss the doughnut extravaganza.”

  “Paige, be serious. Please.” Kate felt too vulnerable to be teased anymore.

  “Okay. In all seriousness, I quit because you were the only thing that made working here bearable. Besides, how long do you think it’s going to take Sapphire to decide that having me here upsets her delicate constitution? It’s just not worth the anxiety of waiting for the ax to fall.”

  Kate squinted at Paige, trying to figure out if she was telling the truth. Paige squinted back, mirroring her. Kate said, “I’m not going to share my doughnuts with you.”

  “I’m still quitting,” said Paige, squinting harder.

  “Okay, then.” Kate broke the stare-down and turned back to the bathroom. “You have officially passed the comfort-food withholding test. I am happy to inform you that you can now join the unemployed depressives.”

  “I’m so excited,” said Paige, grinning. Kate glared at her. Paige immediately slouched and turned her mouth into a frown. “I mean, I am so depressed.”

  “Much better,” said Kate, laughing and continuing to pack. She picked up the few pens and notepads that were scattered around her trailer and tossed them into the box, along with the framed photographs of her parents (her mother’s yearly start-of-production gift), and her toothbrush. Standing by the door with Paige at her side, she did a scan of the room that had been her home for two years. Why didn’t she have more personal items to pack up? In the past week, she had moved out of her home and her dressing room, with just a few boxes and a couple of suitcases to show for it. Where was the evidence of her life? She felt Paige’s gentle touch on her arm.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “I guess so,” she said, grateful for the feel of Paige’s hand guiding her out the door. Without that proof of her physical being, she may have doubted that she existed at all.

  32

  Kate stepped out of her trailer into the brightness of the sunny afternoon, the light momentarily blinding her. When her eyes adjusted enough to take in the parking lot, she saw what she at first thought was a mirage.

  “Michael?” she asked dubiously, half expecting the handsome man in the suit to tell her that she was mistaken, that he didn’t know anyone named Michael. Instead, he stopped dead in his tracks, looking like a frightened child caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

  “Kate,” he managed, his eyes darting around rapidly. “I thought you’d left.”

  “You thought I’d left?” asked Kate, completely confused but thrilled to see him. “Why are you here? Did Paige call you and tell you to come?”

  “No,” said Paige from behind her. “I don’t know why he’s here. I don’t even have his number.”

  “Then how did you know to come?” Kate looked at Michael with a look of such openhearted wonder that he was struck dumb. Where was a white horse when you needed one?

  “Um, well, it’s sort of a long story,” he stammered, searching desperately for a way to confess to being a gutless liar that wouldn’t immediately snuff out the admiration in Kate’s eyes.

  “Well, time is one thing I have a lot of,” said Kate with a brave smile. “It’s a job I lack.” Saying the words out loud brought reality crashing back down on her, and her eyes filled with tears. Between the pain of her morning and the unexpected joy of seeing Michael, her emotions were a whirlwind.

  “Oh, Kate,” Michael said, wrapping her in a hug. He couldn’t stand seeing her in pain, but he couldn’t think of anything he could say that wouldn’t cause her even more. He looked over Kate’s shoulder and locked eyes with Paige. She, too, looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and hero worship. He offered her a weak smile, knowing that she wouldn’t view him as a hero for long. He held Kate while she cried, allowing himself the indulgence of breathing in the scent of her hair and trying to commit to memory the feeling of her body close against his. Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out a way to avoid this being the last time he would hold her, the last time she would turn to him with anything but anger and disappointment.

  “There you are, Michael!” called a shrill voice from behind him, the accompanying clicking of stiletto heels removing any doubt as to whom the voice belonged to. He inhaled one more deep, heavenly breath of Kate’s scent before turning from the entrance to face his fate.

  Sapphire had apparently spotted Michael through her trailer window while she was somewhere in the middle of her beautifying process. Her hair was half in rollers, half teased almost straight up. She had one eye done in bright shades of lavender and one completely free of makeup. She looked like a half-man–half-woman character from a carnival. The female half looked a lot like Cruella de Vil.

 
; “Where have you been? I have been waiting for you all day!” Sapphire fell into Michael’s arms. Well, it would be more accurate to say that she fell into Michael, since his arms remained straight at his sides.

  He turned his head away from the teased and perfumed mass that hung from his neck to look at Kate. Her eyes were still wet with tears and she looked completely lost. Behind her, Paige had clearly passed through the denial stage and was already closing in on anger. “I see you know Sapphire, Michael,” she said. “That’s interesting.”

  Michael turned his eyes back to Kate, desperately searching for his voice. His mind was racing, rifling through his few precious memories of Kate, of all the times he could have told her the truth but chose not to out of fear. Now all of those times came back to prosecute him, and he could see in Kate’s face the jury waiting for him to take the stand in his own defense. He opened his mouth to speak, deciding that any half-assed defense was better than walking silently to the firing squad. “Kate, I—”

  “Kate?” screeched Sapphire, finally finding the strength to disentangle her arms from around Michael’s neck and stand on her own two feet. “Why are you talking to Kate? I’m the one you came here to see.”

  Kate looked from Michael to Sapphire and back again, bewildered. She searched his face, her beseeching vulnerability breaking Michael’s heart. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Michael.”

  Before he could answer, Sapphire broke in. “Why does it matter what you understand? You don’t even work here anymore. Hamilton!” she called over her shoulder toward her trailer. “She’s still here!” Hamilton’s head appeared around the door, cell phone at his ear. He took in the scene, held up his free hand in a “just a second” gesture, and disappeared back into the safety of Sapphire’s dressing room. Michael watched him slam the door, wondering if there was room in the trailer for him, too. When he turned back around, he faced three females in various stages of confusion and anger.

  “Michael, why are you here?” asked Kate.

  Paige stepped forward to stand next to her friend in a show of moral support. “Yes, Michael, I think we’d all like to know what’s going on.”

  Sapphire looked at both of them with disgust. “What I would like to know is why you two are still here.” She moved so that she was standing next to Michael and slid her arm through his. “And why you are talking to my agent.”

  If the world didn’t literally stop on its axis, it did a very good impression. Kate gasped and took a step backward, almost losing her footing. Michael moved forward to help her but was stopped by Paige, who held out a warning hand toward him as she steadied her friend with her other arm. He finally found his voice, but all he managed was “Kate, I can explain…” before he realized that, in fact, he couldn’t explain, not here in front of all of these people.

  Sapphire snorted her disgust. “There is nothing to explain, Michael. She doesn’t work here anymore, I do, and I need you to come take care of me.” She tightened her grip on Michael’s arm and turned him back toward her trailer, saying over her shoulder, “Let those two lesbians take care of each other.”

  “Sapphire!” scolded Michael, allowing himself to be pulled away from Kate in order to protect her from whatever other vitriol might pour out of Sapphire.

  “What?” Sapphire asked innocently as they walked away. “It’s true. I just feel bad for my Hamilton, wasting so much time trying to make a marriage work with that muff diver.”

  Michael turned back for one last look at Kate. Her shock made her look six years old. I can explain, he tried to say with his eyes. I can fix this. Just give me some time…Sapphire yanked his arm, pulling his gaze back to her and his body into her trailer.

  Kate didn’t move. “What just happened?”

  “I really don’t know,” said Paige, moving forward to wrap a stabilizing arm around her. “Maybe God is starting up with the plagues again. Do you see any locusts or frogs?”

  “It isn’t funny,” whispered Kate, and Paige felt Kate’s shoulders begin to tremble as she surrendered to the tidal wave of emotions that had been building for the past week. Paige turned her toward the parking lot and half carried her to the car so she could have her well-deserved breakdown in peace.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” she said gently, holding Kate tighter. “I know it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.”

  33

  Michael slumped on the couch in Sapphire’s trailer, numb to the manic chatter that surrounded him. Sapphire and Hamilton were quite proud of themselves—getting Kate fired and landing a possible movie deal were making this a banner day for them both. Michael could hear them prattling away near and at him, but he couldn’t be bothered to make sense of anything they were saying. For once, he was grateful to both of them for their incredible narcissism: being heard didn’t seem to be the point of their exercise. It was enough for each of them to be talking continuously and at full volume.

  How had his day turned to such complete shit so quickly?

  A few hours ago he had been reveling in his newfound status as an almost writer/white knight, preparing his brave stallion so he could gallop in and save the day for his lady love. Now he felt more like an incredibly depressed court fool, trapped for all eternity in the trailer/castle of King Bombast and Queen Narcissia.

  A knock on the door brought the ego party to a standstill. Sam stuck his head in and started to remind Sapphire that she was needed on set. One look at her half hairdo and lopsided makeup application told him that that need would go unmet for the foreseeable future. Sam just sighed and closed the door, too upset about the news of Kate’s firing to pretend to care.

  “Don’t you think you should get ready?” Michael asked, vaguely curious about how long her vanity would allow her to stay half done.

  “What did you say, Michael?” asked Sapphire, momentarily halting her self-aggrandizing diatribe. “Did you say Bob Steinman is ready for me?”

  Once again awed by her selective hearing, Michael said, “No, I asked when you were going to finish getting ready for work.” She looked at him blankly. “Work. Here. Today. They are ready for you.” He exaggerated his enunciation and slowed his speech dramatically in an attempt to be understood.

  Instead of answering him, Sapphire looked to Hamilton and asked, “Do I have to?”

  Unable to contain his annoyance, Michael snapped, “What do you mean ‘Do I have to?’ Of course you have to—it’s your job.”

  Hamilton looked at Michael as though he had just struck an innocent child. “Now, Michael, I don’t think there is any reason for such a tone.” Sensing her advantage, Sapphire thrust out her lower lip and sniffled dramatically. “Oh, my poor, sweet baby,” said Hamilton, crossing the room to take her in his arms. “He didn’t mean it.” He looked pointedly at Michael over her shoulder. “Did you, Michael?”

  Looking at the grotesque tableau in front of him, Michael wondered how he had ended up there. Having spent his entire adult life trying to distance himself from his childhood, he was once again in the position of being asked to support the insane delusions of an unstable woman who had way too much power over his future. Without Sapphire, he had no production deal. And without a production deal, he had no way to help Kate.

  “Of course he wants you to be happy, my darling,” said Hamilton, in an attempt to cover Michael’s silence. “That’s all any of us wants.”

  Sapphire wasn’t fooled. “I want to hear it from him,” she said, pointing at Michael, her annoyance at his reticence turning her voice cold and hard.

  He just stared at them, unmoved.

  “I’m sure he is just looking for the perfect words to describe how much he—”

  “Shut up, Hamilton!” Sapphire moved away from her anxious boyfriend in order to stand directly in front of Michael, all pretense of little-girl vulnerability replaced by straight-backed imperiousness. “Michael, I need to know that you are on my side…no matter what.”

  She said the last part with such intensity that Michael
almost laughed. Instead, he sighed and said, “Sapphire, haven’t I always taken care of you?”

  She smiled and batted her eyelashes, reverting to her default personality of flirtatious, spoiled toddler. Behind her, Hamilton almost swooned with relief. “You see, darling, we are all your friends here. Michael was just teasing you.”

  “You silly-willy,” she said, shaking her finger at Michael before turning away and heading to her mini refrigerator. She opened it and took out a giant chocolate bar, a large square of which she immediately popped into her mouth. “You shouldn’t tease a woman on a diet. We can get cranky, you know.”

  Michael had to ask: “What diet allows you to have a chocolate bar the size of a child’s torso?”

  “The Chocolate Diet,” said Sapphire and Hamilton at exactly the same time, both looking at him as if he were the stupidest person in the world. Then Sapphire added her life’s motto: “Everyone who is anyone is doing it.”

  “Apparently, it’s how Angie Jolie lost all of her baby weight so quickly,” said Hamilton, reaching for a hunk of the gargantuan candy bar.

  “Really?” Michael said, using their interest in the snack to cover his move to the door. “I was under the impression that it was her humanitarian work and parenting three children that helped Angie slim down.”

  “No,” Sapphire said through cocoa-coated teeth. “Chocolate.”

  “Interesting,” said Michael, feeling like he was sneaking out of a crack den. “Well, I’ll be going now. I’ll call you about, um, everything…soon.”

  He stood outside of her trailer, looking across the parking lot to where he had been embracing Kate just a few short minutes ago. It seemed like a dream—a very good, very beautiful dream, but a dream nonetheless. He knew he would probably never experience that joy again, that he didn’t deserve to, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do his best to play the role of the knight in shining armor behind the scenes. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath before heading over to Jerry’s office to do what he had done so many times before: plead Sapphire’s case.