by Jane Heller
The photographers, on the other hand, weren’t going anywhere. Instead, they stayed to catch the bizarre scene that was taking place in front of their eyes. Worse, the Today’s Woman cameraman kept shooting, with Barbara egging him on.
In an effort to rescue Stuart, Tony dove into the fray, grabbing a tray of hors d’oeuvres and smashing it over Sergei’s head.
Following his lead, I snatched a copy of Simply Beautiful and spanked Ho’s butt with it.
But it was Tara who really scored. She went for one of her candles—I think it was the vanilla with boysenberry—and seared Miguel’s forearm with the flame until he shrieked.
“Good one,” I told her as Tony gave Sergei another shot with the tray.
Luckily, Jimmy had called 911 the minute things had turned ugly, and the cops showed up just as Tara was singeing Miguel’s skin again, this time with an incense stick.
After another twenty minutes or so, the bad guys were taken away in handcuffs, Stuart was whisked away to the hospital by Jimmy and Tony, and Tara and I were left with the mess—the literal mess and the media mess.
“So much for your job, Amy,” Betsy taunted as she stepped gingerly over the debris. “The book’s going to tank, and it’s your fault. But cheer up. Maybe they have an opening in the publicity department at the World Wrestling Federation.”
Before I could respond, Barbara was at my elbow.
“Well, this certainly wasn’t what I anticipated,” she said with a laugh after telling her crew to pack up. “I can’t use it on Today’s Woman, but I won’t have any problem turning it over to the executives at my network.”
“Turning it over to your network? What for?”
“For one of their reality shows.”
“Oh, Barbara, I’m begging you not to,” I said after moving her away from the shellshocked Tara, whose image, not to mention her career, had been trashed, along with mine.
“You can beg all you want, but they’re always looking for reality programming.”
“Come on, you’re better than that,” I said, trying a little flattery. “You’re a journalist, not some sleazy tabloid reporter.”
“Journalist, schmernalist. I’ve got your author right there on-camera, setting people on fire while a bunch of thugs are throwing punches at her husband. It’s not my thing, but there’s an audience for it.”
“What about your audience? Today’s Woman’s audience? Don’t you care about them?”
“What’s your point?”
What is my point? I wondered. I took a breath while I tried to come up with one. “Your audience wants human-interest stories that they can relate to,” I said, the germ of an idea forming.
“Yeah? So?”
“So I think I’ve got one for them. Give me a sec, would you?”
I scurried over to Tara, who was sitting by herself in the living room. Her chignon had come apart, and she was staring off into space, twirling the end of a loose strand of hair.
“Hey, snap out of it,” I said, shaking her shoulder.
“What’s to snap out of?” she said. “It’s over. Our entire campaign is over.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Not if you’re willing to spin your story a little differently.”
“You publicists and your spins,” she said morosely.
“Listen to me. Barbara Biggs is about to walk out of here with damaging video of this party, and while it’s perfect for some stupid reality show, it’s the wrong material for Today’s Woman. I say we give her the right material.”
“Amy, we tried,” she said. “We got Stuart to fly back from Florida and the plan backfired.”
“Then we move on to plan B, like Tony always does.”
“What’s our plan B?”
“We turn this awful night to our advantage by making a deal with Barbara. We give her an exclusive interview with you, the controversial and charismatic author whose book party ended in a brawl, and in exchange she agrees to toss the Three Stooges video.”
“An exclusive interview with me about what? That my husband and I don’t have the marriage I pretended we did? That what I wrote in Simply Beautiful was a fantasy?”
“You guessed it.”
“Are you crazy? That would kill book sales.”
“They’re already dead, Tara. But you have a chance to save yourself. Do an exclusive interview with Barbara and tell the truth for a change. Tell her you dreamed up the book to distract you from your miserable marriage. Tell her you made yourself happy by surrounding yourself with beautiful things. Don’t tell her audience how to be perfect; tell them how to make the best of a bad situation, how to be human. I guarantee you that you’ll be more sympathetic than you ever imagined. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
She nodded, her eyes tearing up.
“And don’t cry, for God’s sake,” I said, handing her a cocktail napkin. “You’re still going to be a role model for women, just not the one you expected.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Good. Now fix your hair and makeup. I don’t want you looking that human.”
I ran to pitch Barbara the new slant on the interview. “If you don’t want this, I’m going straight to Oprah,” I said, back in publicist mode.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said vehemently. “I’m doing the interview myself.”
“Then you’ll hand over the footage you shot tonight? No tape, no deal, remember?”
“You got it.”
There was a flurry of activity then as I straightened up a corner of the apartment so the crew could set up for round two.
“Now,” Barbara began once the camera was rolling again, “what’s the real reason you wrote Simply Beautiful, Tara?”
What came next was pure Tara Messer, which is to say that, even in her darkest hour, she shone. The minute the little red light went on, she was dazzling, sparkling, as compelling as ever. You couldn’t turn away from her as she told her story. I had heard it all before, but I was riveted. She was the flawed Tara now, the fallible Tara, and she had a way of making even heartache and deception seem glamorous.
“I created the environment I wrote about because it allowed me to feel in control,” she said, then admitted that her marriage was a sham and all the rest.
By the end of the interview, Barbara was totally in her thrall, just as I’d been for so many years.
“This will be dynamite television,” she told me. “I’m airing it as soon as I can get it edited.”
“I’m glad,” I said, and I was. Glad for Tara that she’d been able to walk away from the evening with some dignity. Glad for me that I’d convinced Barbara to stay and shoot the segment. Glad that, no matter what happened with the book or my job, I had my best friend back.
“You know,” I said as we strolled down the street after leaving Julie’s, “we’re not a bad team when we keep it honest.”
“You were amazing the way you saved my ass with Barbara.”
“Just working the media, as usual. You were amazing the way you nailed the interview.”
“Just hogging the spotlight, as usual.”
“As I said, we’re not a bad team.”
She hooked her arm through mine while we waited for the light to change.
39
“Ihearthebooksflyingofftheshelves,” said Connie about a week later. She had stopped by my office between meetings.
“What?”
“I said I hear the book’s flying off the shelves. You must be pinching yourself.”
“I am. I am.”
Within twenty-four hours after Tara’s interview with Barbara Biggs aired on Today’s Woman, copies of Simply Beautiful started selling faster than booksellers could keep it in stock. A few days after that, it shot up to number one on nearly every list in the country and transformed Tara from a fallen lifestyle guru to a literary superstar. According to the readers who saw her on the show and flooded L and T’s Web site with E-mails, she touched a nerve in a way she never would have if she’d done the intervie
w as the deliriously happy wife. What they related to was her vulnerability, her pain, her valiant attempts at coping with disappointment and despair. That’s not to say that they didn’t love all the soft-focus stuff about taking baths and collecting seashells and filling the house with the scent of cloves. But mostly, they just loved her, and they wanted more of her.
“Julie’s already talked to Tara about a follow-up book,” I told Connie. “I think they’re playing with the title Simply Beautiful for Singles.”
“Catchy.” She rolled her eyes. “So she’s getting a divorce?”
“The paperwork is in the mail to Stuart as we speak. Plus, she’s got the Westchester house on the market. She’s looking for a place in the city.”
“Amazing how things turned out. The launch party’s a media disaster, and your best friend’s a media darling.”
“Which goes to prove that there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” I said.
“I guess not, although you’d have a hard time convincing Tony of that. He’ll go to pieces if the reviewers don’t give him a break on the new book.”
I felt myself blush. “I think the research he did for this one should change their minds about the Joe-Lucy relationship. It’s more fully developed than it was in the earlier books.”
“And what about your relationship? Is marriage in the future for you two?”
“Oh, Connie. Come on. Tony’s never been the marrying kind.”
“He’s never been the dating one woman for more than a month kind, either, but look at him now. People change, Amy.”
“I know.” I smiled. “Remember how I used to say I didn’t want Betsy’s job? That I wasn’t cut out to be marketing director?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I do want her job. When Julie let it slip the other day that they were canning Betsy, I told her to spread the word that I was interested in a promotion.”
“Now, that’s showing some guts. Good for you.”
“Thanks.” I gave her a hug. I had aimed for her waist, but she was so short, I ended up hugging her teased-up hair. “There’s something else I need to change about myself, though.”
“What?”
“My reluctance about telling Tony I love him. I haven’t been able to do it, Connie, and it’s got nothing to do with his fear of commitment. It’s about mine. I’m afraid that if I expose my feelings the way I did with Stuart, I’ll get crapped on again.”
She put her hands on her tiny hips. “First of all, Tony is not Stuart. Second of all, he adores you. Third of all, you’ve gotta get over what happened in the past. As in move on already.”
“You’re right. It’s just hard.”
“Hey, it’s all hard. You think being married to Murray is one long picnic? I’m crazy about him, but there are days when I want to chop off his—Well, what I’m saying is that there are no guarantees in life, not in love, not in work, not in anything. Could Tony end up crapping on you? Who knows? In the meantime, he makes you happy. That’s something.”
I nodded. “It is.”
“Sostopbitchingandtrynottoblowit.”
“What?”
“I said stop bitching and try not to blow it.”
“Okay.”
It was my birthday the following week. Not surprisingly, Tony wasn’t much for the sort of scenes at restaurants where the waiters gather around the table and sing badly, so we celebrated quietly, just the two of us, at his loft. He ordered in from the Chinese place around the corner, and we spread all the little white boxes on his dining room table and dug in.
“So what’s my present?” I asked, munching on Szechuan shrimp in black-bean sauce. It was so spicy, my lips were vibrating.
“What makes you think you’re getting another present?” he said, snaring a shrimp off my plate with his chopsticks. “Isn’t this dinner enough of a happy birthday?”
I looked up and noticed the twinkle in his eye and realized he was kidding. “Then there is a present?”
“There might be. Have you been a good girl?”
“A very good girl.”
“So you think you deserve a present?”
“I do, yes.”
“What kind of present, may I ask?”
“Something shockingly expensive, but not embarrassingly so. Oh, and it should be something personal—not a new set of sheets, for example.”
“Sheets aren’t personal?”
“They are, but no one except you and my cleaning lady would ever see them, so why bother?”
“Ah, so this present is supposed to impress people? Make them a little jealous?”
“Not necessarily, but it would be more fun if it did.”
He nodded. “I’ve got just the thing.” He bounced up from the table and disappeared into his bedroom.
I waited with great anticipation as I polished off the rest of the shrimp. What could he have gotten me? I wondered. I was guessing a pair of skis, since he’d talked about taking me to Aspen for the holidays. I was guessing a sleek new laptop, since he’d made jokes about my clunky old one. I was even guessing jewelry, although he wasn’t big on flashy possessions, his flashy sports cars aside.
“Here we go,” he said, emerging with a big gift-wrapped box.
I joined him on the sofa. “Wow,” I said, shaking the box. “Whatever it is weighs a ton.”
“Open it.”
I tore open the wrapping and flipped off the top of the box. “It’s a manuscript,” I said, peering at the five hundred-plus pages inside. “Your manuscript.”
He smiled proudly. “That’s right. The next installment in the Joe West series. I wanted you to have a copy before I deliver the original to Connie next week. It fits your criteria for a birthday present, doesn’t it? It’s shockingly expensive—L and T paid me a hefty advance for it—but not embarrassingly so. It’s personal—check the dedication page and you’ll find out just how personal. And it’s bound to impress other people—I do have my fans, and they’d be mighty envious of you for getting a peek at it. All in all, it’s the perfect gift, I’d say. Happy birthday, Amy.”
He leaned over and kissed me.
Okay, so I admit it: A copy of his new book wasn’t what I’d had in mind. It just wasn’t. Skis? Yes. Computer? Yeah. Jewelry? Why the hell not!
And yet, I was touched that he wanted me to share his sense of accomplishment about the book. And I was extremely flattered that he was dedicating it to me, to show his gratitude for my input. I told myself to look thrilled.
“This is the perfect gift,” I said. “It’s a part of you, and that’s very meaningful. Really.”
“Glad you like it,” he said, still sounding mischievous. “Now open it.”
I was confused. “I did open it.”
“No. Take the manuscript out of the box and turn the pages.”
“Oh, Tony. You don’t want me to read the book now, do you? Don’t get me wrong—I’m dying to read it. But we’re in the middle of dinner. We haven’t even had our fortune cookies.”
“Please?” he said, sort of pouting.
“Fine.” I lifted the manuscript out of the box and set it on my lap. I read the title page. Then I read the acknowledgments page. I’m sure I was doing a little pouting myself—why did I have to read the book during my birthday dinner?—when I came to the dedication page. “Oh.” I blinked when I saw that there was something taped to it. “What’s this?”
He shrugged. “Just the floppy disk, in case you lose the hard copy.”
“It’s too bulky for a disk.” I pried the layers of tape loose from the page. Underneath it all, there wasn’t a disk, but a Tiffany aqua velvet pouch. My eyes widened as I glanced up at him. “Tony? What in the world are you up to?”
“Go on. Open it.”
I pulled the drawstring and reached carefully inside the pouch.
“Oh my God,” I said as I held it up to the light. It was a gift that was shockingly expensive but not embarrassingly so, was personal, and would totally impress other people.
“But Tony, it’s—”
“A ring. And I take it you’re pleased. Or did you really want the sheets after all?”
I smiled. “It’s gorgeous. Truly gorgeous. You have great taste.”
He stroked my cheek. “I do, don’t I? So what do you think? Should we get married?”
“Married? You?”
“Married. Me. And you, too, of course.”
“But I haven’t even told you I love you yet.”
“I was hoping the ring would motivate you to do that.”
I looked at the sparkling stone on my finger and could feel the hugeness of the smile on my face. Oh, I did love Tony. That much I knew. As for the rest? Well, Connie was right about there being no guarantees in life. Getting dumped was always a possibility, but so was being cherished. It was high time I went for the cherished, I decided.
“I love you,” I said. “And, yes, I will marry you.”
He pumped his fist in the air, then scooped me up in his arms. “Would tomorrow work for you?”
I laughed. “Couldn’t we be engaged for a little while?”
“Haven’t we done that already?”
“I mean, for real this time. Just so I can experience what it’s like to have a fabulous fiancé, instead of one who marries my best friend, steals from his family, and winds up in Florida with orange hair and a pregnant secretary.”
“Okay, you win.” He kissed me. “Just tell me you love me again.”
“I love you again. And again.”
He nodded at the bedroom. “Want to see how many agains you have in you now that you’re wearing the magic ring?”
“Lead the way.”
Tara
Epilogue
You see that? I wasn’t the villain of this story after all. I know you were dying to hate me, because I’m gorgeous and stylish and smart. Yeah, smart. (How many of you have a book on the New York Times best-seller list?) But in the end, I turned out to be sort of the heroine. Amy got the man she wanted and the job she wanted, and I was the one who made that happen.