Cover Girl Confidential

by Beverly Bartlett

  Yeah, I thought, it’s been fantastic for mine.

  Hughes continued: “You know, Britney Spears, Lisa Marie Presley? Renée Zellweger? Marrying someone without warning is a time-honored Hollywood stunt.”

  My attorney nodded in a sad, knowing way. “But you didn’t share this thinking with Addison?” she said.

  Hughes shook his head. “No. A woman like Addison? She’d never go for something like that. She takes these things seriously. She’s genuine. Down-to-earth. She still wears CoverGirl, you know. A big star like her? She could buy anything, but she sticks with the company that taught her about concealer as a teen.”

  I gasped. I didn’t even remember telling Hughes that. Plus, I didn’t really want it to get out that I used concealer. The whole point of concealer is that no one knows you’re wearing it!

  “That’s the way she is,” Hughes continued. “She’s got brand loyalty.”

  He paused for a moment, then added: “And great-looking skin, of course.

  “She’s old-fashioned. Salt of the earth. The real deal. You should have seen how excited she was to get towels monogrammed with her new initials.”

  He had been fidgeting with his hands at chest level, but he dropped them into his lap. “I felt terrible.”

  “And was it your plan from the beginning to end the marriage in a matter of days?”

  “Well, weeks. Maybe months. We were having quite a good time, so I wasn’t in a big rush. Hell, there was a moment or two when I thought we’d last at least as long as Brad and Jen did. But that would be sort of the ‘worst case’ scenario.”

  He flexed his fingers in the air to signify quotation marks around “worst case.”

  He continued, “Of course, I had no way of knowing that the clerk would make an error and annul our marriage along with the others. So I didn’t plan that part. But when it worked out that way, I was positively thrilled. When Addison told me, I was so astonished and exhilarated I was afraid she’d think I was drunk. It was just so clean! Much better than if I’d had to break it off. And the gay angle? It was perfect.”

  “Why do you say that?” Cassie asked.

  “Well.” Hughes paused again, looked at the crowd nervously. “Some of you may not know this, but there’s a lot of speculation that I’m gay.”

  The ICE attorney did another of his mock gasps of surprise, but this time the judge met his eyes and smirked, rather than glaring.

  “I’ve never discouraged it,” he said. “The gay community is a powerful driver of pop culture, can’t hurt your career at all, these days.”

  “So you were worried that your marriage to Ms. McGhee would damage that?”

  “Well, of course,” said Hughes. “Of course.”

  Long pause.

  “So when I was able to link the ending of my very brief marriage to the gay rights movement—well, it was just inspired. The people on the Internet thought I had planned it as a way to take a stand without actually outing myself.

  “It was serendipity,” he said, in a line that would be much mocked by the late-night comedians later.

  “But not for Ms. McGhee,” my attorney said.

  “Well, no,” Hughes said. “Not for her. Honestly, I was sort of relieved when she threw that gadget at me. I deserved that. If she had gone to trial on that charge, I would have stood up then and there and told everyone that it was all my fault. I was the one who had done wrong.”

  “But?” my attorney said.

  “But she pled guilty before I even got a chance to talk to her,” Hughes said. “And I thought, Well, okay, let bygones be bygones. And then you know, they put Mia Hamm on the show. I’ve always had a crush on Mia Hamm.”

  Several women, and not a few men, glared at him. He cleared his throat. “I’m ashamed to say I allowed myself to put this out of my mind, as long as she was just off serving her prison time. But this week, with the news everywhere, I realized I had to do something. I can’t let her get deported without anyone knowing the truth.”

  My attorney, who had excellent timing, stood silently for a long moment and let the courtroom ponder everything that Hughes had said. While we were all pondering, I looked at Hughes—not knowing if I should feel a rush of fondness for this last-ditch attempt at saving me or hatred at the way he had used me.

  He looked at my attorney, then the judge, then turned and caught my eye. He blinked three times before he turned away.

  Chapter 35

  The judge said ICE was right and that Hughes’s testimony had no bearing on my case, as my criminal trial had already been decided. The question before him, the judge said, was not whether I had a good reason to toss a sharp implement at Hughes Sinclair. No, he said, the question was far simpler than that—though it was two questions, really. Was I a convicted felon? And was I a US citizen? And if the answers were yes and then no, then the matter was pretty much out of his hands. He didn’t even know why we had a full hearing. He could have decided this case, he said, in twenty seconds.

  He pounded the gavel and declared me deported. And then he said that as a humanitarian gesture, he would allow me to spend the night at Cassie’s and have a last Thanksgiving dinner there with my family before being returned to prison to serve out my time. I had nearly a year of my sentence left. That would give me time, he noted, to “get my affairs in order.” Then, he said, I would be sent home. I thought of Slater County. And I realized that was not what he meant.

  He elaborated a bit on being allowed to go to Cassie’s for Thanksgiving dinner and then, almost as an afterthought, said: “Assuming you’re willing to have her and her family for Thanksgiving, Ms. Von Maur.”

  Cassie said that she was. Though she was not exactly quick to say it, I noticed.

  We were introduced to Cassie’s quiet kids and her rather uptight in-laws and we all attempted to carry ourselves with a bit of holiday cheer, but we mostly just sat around the table awkwardly, chewing the turkey. Cassie’s mother-in-law was right. It was overdone.

  My brother whispered a complaint about this when Cassie stepped into the kitchen for a butter knife. I shot back that she was my attorney, not my chef. He rolled his eyes and replied: “I don’t know about that. She certainly cooked your turkey.”

  My father put down his fork and said: “Overcooked it.”

  Well, I thought. My family is certainly getting wittier with the repartee.

  I never talked much to my family about my romantic life—perhaps you’re not surprised. But there at the Thanksgiving table, I spilled out my reaction to Hughes’s testimony. My father looked uncomfortable the whole time, but I suppose he was indulging me because I was about to be leaving.

  “Hughes told me,” I finished, “that I would always know if he was lying because he would blink three times.”

  Everyone at the table looked at me, blankly. “He blinked,” I said. “Three times!”

  I looked at Cassie. “Don’t you think he was lying? He didn’t really marry me as a publicity stunt! I understand that he changed his mind about us. He realized our marriage was a mistake. Realized that before I did. I see that now. But he wanted to marry me, at least for a few days there. He thought he loved me. He was lying on the stand.”

  I looked at my mom and said, pleadingly, “Wasn’t he?”

  My mom put her fork down with great dignity and finished chewing. The turkey was, as I said, tough, so this made for a long and dramatic pause. She chewed and chewed and chewed. She swallowed the turkey, took a drink of water, and then answered me.

  “Ada, honey, everyone blinks.”

  The eldest of Cassie’s kids chimed in to say, “Yeah, everyone blinks.”

  A sheriff’s deputy knocked on the door about then and tapped his watch. It was time to go.

  I finished chewing my turkey. (Took a while.) Got up, put my hands forward for the cuffs, and walked to the car. I wondered if I would ever see my family again. Then the deputy brought me back here to my prison cell, to wait out the remaining days of my sentence before being dep
orted.

  I noticed the women in the cell block had actually turned the channel. They were watching a CNN report about my case. But when they saw me coming, they switched it off and looked at me with shy and guilty expressions. The embezzler waited until a quiet moment and then whispered to me in a knowing way. “Mother Africa,” she said. “It will be an adventure.”

  I said she was probably right. And I think, somehow, that I actually believed it.

  It was visiting hours, but visitors never come on Thanksgiving Day. (They come the day before or the day after to assuage their guilt without ruining their dinners.) So we were all surprised when the guard walked in and said someone was here to see me.

  “It’s the guy with the bow tie again,” she said.

  Chapter 36

  I really thought it would be Baxter this time.

  The last bow-tied visitor had been Hughes. But I couldn’t imagine that he’d show his face now. And Baxter was overdue for a visit. Wasn’t he?

  As soon as the door opened, I saw the shiny wig and knew it was Hughes. He walked over and sat down as close to me as he could.

  I should turn around and walk out, I thought. That’s what Cassie told me to do. I’m a smart woman. I shouldn’t even need Cassie to tell me that. Or maybe I should call the guards and have him thrown out. You can’t use someone else’s ID to get into a prison, surely. If I’m going to serve time for our relationship conflicts, perhaps he should as well.

  But I’ve never once done what I should have with Hughes. I stood there and let him whisper to me. He apologized again and again. His voice broke more than once. I almost pitied him. But whenever I did, I reminded myself that in a few hours, he’d be living it up with Mia, talking on the air about how much they had overeaten on Thanksgiving.

  “I just don’t understand,” I said. “What were you thinking? How could you do that to me? Why did you fool me like that?”

  He glanced around the cell, lowered his eyes. He’d been whispering all along, but he lowered his voice even more.

  “I’m a sick man,” he said.

  I looked him up and down. He didn’t look sick. Had he said it to make me feel a twinge of pity?

  “Are you dying?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Oh no, nothing like that.” He tapped his temple three times. “No, no, I’m sick up here.”

  There was a long dramatic pause. Then he said: “I’ve got an online addiction.”

  I stared at him for a moment. Was that a joke? He gazed back at me seriously and I saw that it wasn’t.

  “Oh good grief,” I said. “There’s no such thing.” I flipped his chest with my hand. “And you? You don’t even check your e-mail more than once a day.”

  He gave me a sad and knowing look. “More like four times an hour. And it’s not just e-mail. I get on discussion boards and write about the show for hours at a time. Discuss it ad nauseam.”

  I gasped a little. Had I talked to him online?

  I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Really?”

  He was talking so quietly now that I had to lean forward to hear him. “I use more than one name,” he said, “so it won’t be so obvious that I’m posting all the time. I pretend I’m a housewife from Fargo and fawn all over Hughes Sinclair on the boards.”

  I gasped again, this time a little louder. FargoMama?

  Hughes continued: “I spread rumors about my sexual orientation and then log on under another name and argue with myself. Sometimes I just talk about the show’s recipes and so forth. It’s almost like”—he lowered his voice yet again—“having a split personality. I started doing it to generate buzz, but I guess I got carried away.

  “On one discussion board, I swear that for a while I was almost the only one posting. If it hadn’t been for some guy named ObjectiveObserver and some weirdo named Weatherjunkie—I’d have been talking to myself.”

  I put my hand over my mouth. Hughes seemed to take it as a gesture of pity. “I know,” he said. “It’s so embarrassing.

  “You’re great,” he continued. “So pulled together. So organized. So happy. So normal. I remember that day when you were just casually remarking that you were going to check your e-mail. I looked at you at that moment and I realized that I had a problem. I could never admit to checking my e-mail. My shame was an indication that my usage was out of control.”

  “Oh good grief,” I said again.

  “I know,” he said, apparently misreading my sentiment.

  “What I said on the stand was true,” he said. “At least partly. I thought marrying you would be good for my career—for both our careers, really. But there was more to it than that.”

  His voice broke and his eyes glistened. “I wanted you to cure me, Addison. I thought maybe all I needed was the love of a good woman.”

  “To solve your Internet addiction?” I said, with a note of sarcasm. I will confess that in the various scenarios I had come up with, I had imagined him saying he’d wanted me to cure him of something. Not, however, of an Internet addiction.

  “I needed help,” he said.

  And he never blinked. At least, you know, not more than once or twice. I watched him very closely. But he never blinked three times. I watched his little performance, sad as it was, and I thought it might be something like the truth.

  “You know the best part?” he asked.

  I shook my head no. I was thinking, There is a best part?

  “I think it worked,” he said. “While we were married, I didn’t have as much time to get on the boards. And then after everything that happened, well, I couldn’t stand to get on them. Weatherjunkie was always saying something bad about me, and right about then they started promoting the boards better, so other people started posting, too. They were all shouting me down. I really do check my e-mail only a few times a day now.”

  “Good for you,” I replied, in what I thought was a pointed way.

  “It has been,” he said. “I even took up knitting.” He smiled a little. “It’s quite trendy, you know. They say even Russell Crowe is doing it.”

  We sat there in silence for a moment. And then, he just said he was sorry, a sentiment he expressed over and over again in a dozen different ways, sniffling a little through it all. And I think he was sorry. Who wouldn’t be?

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

  I started to say: Just leave me alone. But then I realized that very soon I would be placed on an airplane and deposited in a strange land. I wasn’t even sure what I’d be able to take with me. A change of clothes? A few dollars in cash?

  “I don’t know how this is going to work,” I said. “But I might need a little money when I leave.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Not much,” I said, with feigned good spirits. “Things are very cheap there.”

  He was nodding his head, waving his hand as if money were nothing. Which to him, it isn’t.

  “I’ll pay you back,” I said, offering him a weak smile and a brave joke. “Though it may be in chickens.”

  He patted me on the shoulder, tried to say I was a hero or something. But he couldn’t get the words out for crying.

  “It’s okay,” I said, though I wasn’t sure that it was.

  I gathered my courage to ask for more. “Hughes,” I said. “I know it doesn’t really matter now. But for some reason, it’s important for me to know if you’re gay.”

  I was scared he was going to press me on why I wanted to know, because I feared that my answer was either silly or transparently needy or both. I just wanted to know if any aspect of our relationship had been real. But Hughes didn’t ask.

  He looked at me, tenderly. And said he was not.

  “You might not believe this,” he said. “I’d understand if you didn’t. But when I saw that picture of you with the president, before I knew the story behind it, I really was sad and hurt.”

  Then I asked for a final thing. I asked if he could arrange for me to see Baxter.

  He bit his lip, winc
ed, then looked at me evenly. “I’ll try,” he said. “But that might be a tough one.”

  I was shocked. Tough? Tough to get Baxter to come see me? Really? Suddenly, it became clear to me.

  Baxter had initially come to visit me once a week. He’d bring me one of those little bags of M&M’s—you know, the size people give out at Halloween. I could make one of those last until his next visit. And we’d talk about horse racing, or the weather. At least we talked about those a little. We mostly talked about me and my chronic unhappiness—my anger at Cal, my displeasure with the attorney he provided, my resentment of the flexibility expert, even my irritation with Robert Downey Jr., who kept sending me short notes encouraging me to “embrace the pain” so that I could use it as a tool in my acting.

  The last couple of times that Baxter came, I remember now, he seemed a little bored with my speeches. The visits became further apart. It had now been weeks.

  I realized suddenly that Baxter was sick of me, tired of me and my problems, fed up with my self-involved self-pitying. I was so self-involved and so self-pitying that I had not even noticed.

  I was suddenly overcome with guilt and regret. Regret about everything—Baxter, spending the best years of my life in a hotel room, not being nicer to Whoopi Goldberg. I regretted not listening to my father’s tales about my homeland, obviously enough. I regretted never letting Kevin Ford know how I felt. I kicked myself for not trying harder to beat out Lucy Liu for that part in the Charlie’s Angels movie. Why didn’t I go on that date with Steve Burns? I need more disarming boyish cuteness in my life.

  I even regretted not entering the Pork Queen competition. Maybe if I had, things would have been different for me somehow. I don’t know how it could have made a difference, but maybe it would have. Have you ever felt like that?

  I might have stewed like this for days, a good couple of weeks probably. I probably would have stopped pacing altogether. I might even have gained weight. But it wasn’t long before a guard came to my cell. She said the guy with the bow tie was back and then she hesitated. “He’s looking better,” she said. “His hair isn’t so shiny.”