Gorgeous

by Rudnick, Paul

  The only people who weren’t going wild were Tom, who was leaning against a cast-iron column with his arms crossed in satisfaction and Seeley, who was busy taking hundreds of pictures. As the music boomed and everyone began peeling off their sweat-soaked clothing and the waiting models from the outer lobby began wailing, every fuse in the building blew and there were sparks spewing everywhere and then darkness.

  “Fuck,” said Seeley admiringly from the gloom, lit only by the glow of her cigarette. I was exhausted but still vibrating, as if I’d just competed in a triathlon and set three new world records. As I tried to regain some control of my body and my personality, like a cowboy settling a snorting bronco, I remembered something else about my mother. Every month, after examining each page of Vogue, she would carry the magazine outside atop her flattened hands, as if it were radioactive, to the tag-sale barbecue rusting behind our trailer. She’d douse the magazine with lighter fluid and burn it to a crisp.

  When Tom and I left Seeley’s studio the limo was waiting but our exit had been stalled by a second gas-guzzling land yacht, a Mercedes so lustrous that it must’ve been coated with a custom blend of moonlight and melted Rolexes. Drake was standing beside our car, just about to head-butt the driver of the Mercedes. He said to Tom, “He pulled up right after you guys went inside and he won’t move. He says that his passenger needs to talk to Tom.”

  “Who’s his passenger?” asked Tom.

  “I am,” said a forceful, tough guy’s voice.

  The passenger was standing a few feet away, balancing a cigar and a cup of take-out coffee in one hand. I’d expected a construction worker or a police sergeant but this guy had the burnished Ivy League polish of a man’s man in an ad for Canadian scotch or serious leather luggage. He was tall and well into his sixties, with creased flesh, a strong jaw and thick silver hair, which was probably trimmed every other day by a personal, old-school barber. His tan could have been acquired on the ski slopes, or in the Kalahari while he was digging the grave of the bandit he’d just stabbed to death.

  “Hello, Tom,” said the passenger, although he didn’t offer a handshake.

  “Brant,” said Tom warily.

  I knew, because I’d Googled Tom, that this was Brant Coffield. He was a major player in Tom’s life. Years ago he’d provided the start-up money for Tom’s company.

  “How long has it been?” asked Brant, who knew to the second how long it had been.

  “Too long,” said Tom, and then, taking a step closer to Brant, he opened his arms and the two men embraced. Brant was taken by surprise, which meant that Tom was winning.

  “What are you doing here? I heard that people saw you and I couldn’t believe it,” said Brant. “What’s going on? What in God’s name …”

  “Brant,” said Tom, cutting him off. “This is Rebecca Randle.”

  “My God,” said Brant. He was stunned and there were tears in his eyes and I knew that when he saw me, he was seeing my mother. I wanted to ask him what he remembered about my mom but something else was happening. Brant kept looking at Tom and then at me, in disbelief. And I wondered: Unlike Tom and Drake and Lila, why didn’t Brant look unnaturally young?

  “You can’t do this,” said Brant, with a rising agitation. “It’s not possible.”

  “I can do anything I want,” Tom replied evenly.

  “But you can’t!” Brant insisted, and I wanted to slap both men or kick them and ask why no one was bothering to fill me in about their past or my future. But all of my borrowed courage had fled in the daylight. Even after my performance at the Vogue shoot, I’d shrunk to the practically invisible size of Becky Randle from Missouri. I was a pathetic fraud and I knew it. As I was about to howl that I wasn’t and I could never be my mother, and that the Most Beautiful Woman Who Ever Lived was the Biggest Dishrag on the Block, I heard the roar of a Harley-Davidson without a muffler, and a third man’s voice — a voice that belonged to the only guy I’d ever loved — told me, “Get on.”

  Of course, I recognized the voice, but when the guy on the motorcycle tugged off his helmet and shook out his swirling tousle of expertly highlighted, fetchingly matted, exquisitely wayward hair, I forgot that I was standing on a street corner in a dress that had transformed me and that I was being fought over by two dashing and possibly homicidal men. Because the guy on the motorcycle, with the tortured hair and the disgruntled, bruised, dreamable lips, not to mention the unholy cheekbones and the eyes, oh my dear God, the eyes that had taught me everything I knew about love — those eyes, both of them, they were a Beverly Hills swimming pool filled with that blue-colored sports drink and stocked with diamonds — those eyes could only belong in the sockets of Jate Mallow.

  As a little kid, I’d never developed goony celebrity crushes or overflowed my hard drive and phone and locker with visions of some lip-synching boy-band member or the mop-topped surfer dude on some Malibu kid-com. I’d sneered at the girls who couldn’t shut up about Togger or Danny or Steeve and who’d texted their favorite hottie five times an hour and truly believed that he’d personally responded when they’d received generic mass emails promoting a new CD along with machine-autographed photos signed “To someone really, really special in my life.”

  But this was totally and completely different. This had nothing to do with all of those other manufactured, prepubescent, girly-man skeeve monsters who the other, pathetic girls had liked. This was something they couldn’t even begin to worship or even see, because if they so much as looked at him, his beauty and their evil would make them go blind. This was something beyond sacred, this was something real and true and for all time, and anyone who didn’t get it should just drink drain opener and die gurgling but even with their last ammonia-scented breaths they shouldn’t even be allowed to say his name, because this was JATE MALLOW.

  Since I was eleven years old I had known, and it hadn’t been a shooting-star wish or a trigonometry-test daydream, I’m telling you, I knew, because there are some things, like that the sky is blue and the earth is round and love is real, that you just know, that Jate and I would be married. I’d prepared myself by learning every conceivable factoid about my husband-to-be. I knew that Jate was Jate’s real legal name because his parents had wanted to mix the earthiness of “Jake” with an antidote to “hate” and a gesture toward his future when he would “create.”

  Jate had been born into a religious cult with twenty-three members, led by his wild-eyed, shaggy-haired dad, who’d worn a clerical collar over his limp, tie-dyed T-shirts and the long vests that Jate’s saintly mother had stitched from Guatemalan souvenir placemats. The cult’s primary belief system had demanded moving Jate’s family, in a dented, decal-smothered van, out of Illinois to Los Angeles, where the twelve Mallow kids had sought the glory of Jehovah by acting on television. Jate and his siblings had been homeschooled so they’d been available round the clock for auditions, underage pageants and go-sees. Jate’s dad had forced Jate to pretend to be a twin so his two selves could work longer hours.

  I’d first seen, and loved, and become engaged to, and secretly married to Jate when he’d been cast as one of the title characters on a syndicated kids’ show called Jackie + Jate, where he’d played Jate, the whimsically rebellious, electric-guitar-strumming, tank-top-wearing brother of Jackie, a studious, by-the-rules girl played by his real-life sister, who later became a radical lesbian and had then renounced lesbianism for evangelical Christianity and had then died of a heroin overdose. She’d been played in the eventual TV movie of her short, sad life by her own younger sibling, Juliet. Jate’s father had given all of his children names starting with J for Jesus, and because, as the family’s manager had advised, “It’s catchy.”

  Every week on Jackie + Jate, Jackie had hit the homework and tried to lure Jate into a trip to an art museum or a science fair but the pair always wound up at a beachfront tiki shack or a dance contest or a mall talent nite — anywhere that Jate could shake his unruly locks, which were soon insured for millions, and grin h
is unruly grin.

  Rocher and I had been wedged onto our couch on either side of my mom, who’d shared our Jate-ism. Jate had conquered every demographic, so around the world entire families had solemnly repeated Jate’s all-occasion catchphrase at car washes and tea ceremonies and child-custody hearings: “Well, that’s just Jate!” Rocher, my mom and I had spent at least two-thirds of our waking hours gathering and collating Jateiana and analyzing Jate’s favorite foods (“I like to eat healthy, but man, I love chocolate”), colors (“something about blue just gets me”), dog breeds (“I love my mutt, because he needs my love”), first-date preferences (“I like to just talk and really get to know someone”), and, most especially, what he hankered for in a girlfriend. Jate’s tireless publicists had reported that Jate’s “must-haves” were “a sense of humor,” “someone who just likes to hang and have fun” and “someone who’s not stuck on herself.”

  Rocher, my mom and I had each privately known that we were the only person alive who met every requirement but to keep the peace we’d agreed that when Jate showed up at my mom’s trailer, we’d each chat with him for five minutes and then he’d make his final and irrevocable choice. I had no doubts about Jate’s decision because I had planned on underlining the fact that I didn’t have a dad, which would position me as brave and needy. I’d rehearsed in the bathroom mirror, admitting, “I’ve never met my father, and I don’t even know who he is,” with a wavering, don’t-you-worry-about-me smile and a single tear running down my cheek, a tear I’d applied with clear nail polish, so I’d never be caught tearless. I hadn’t told Rocher or my mom that they were out of the running because I’d pitied them and because after Jate and I were married, on a Very Special Episode of Jackie + Jate, costarring Jate’s real-life mutt, who’d be wearing a gingham bow tie as Jate’s best man, I’d fully intended to let Rocher and my mom walk the many additional dogs that Jate and I would rescue from the pound and they could also supervise the Midwestern branches of our fan club.

  Jate had known early on that his teen idol bubble, while lucrative, wasn’t the key to career longevity. He’d sued his parents at age sixteen to become an Emancipated Minor and then he’d quit his TV show after five seasons to buy a loft in Manhattan and study his craft. He’d appeared in one Off-Broadway play for a sold-out limited run of twelve performances, playing a charismatic, self-destructive, inarticulate college dropout squatting on a friend’s couch and then he’d nabbed the romantic lead in what had proved to be the most successful movie of all time, a tragic yet uplifting story, set against the sweeping canvas of early air travel. Jate had played Orville Wright, the hunkier and more nakedly sensitive of the two pioneering brothers, who’d fought his attraction to Emily, his brother Wilbur’s lovely young blond fiancée, who’d also been, in many ways, the world’s first flight attendant. Immediately following her wedding to Wilbur, Orville and Emily had escaped on an epic flight around the globe and while their love was true and strong and kept their spindly aircraft soaring, they soon accepted that they’d betrayed Wilbur and right after some gorgeously photographed sex, partially blurred for PG-13 purposes by puffs of mist, they’d plunged intertwined into an active volcano. The final words of the film, which received a record twenty-eight Academy Awards, belonged to Wilbur, who, as an eagle perched on his shoulder, told the proud bird, “I can never hate them. Because they loved, all over the sky.”

  I’d seen Cloudborne eighteen times and whenever Jate had taken Emily in his long-john-clad arms and murmured, “You’re my propeller,” I’d felt he was sending me, and only me, a coded message which read, “I really hate Emily and after she gets killed in the volcano I’m going to crawl back out, without being disfigured in any way, although the molten lava may have seared my sleeves off, and I’m going to find you, Becky Randle, and kiss you and hug you and talk about your life and then let you call Rocher and your mom so you can tell them all about it.” The movie had been historically demented and Jate’s greatest accomplishment had rested in his saying his lines without laughing, but I hadn’t cared. Jate had done what only the greatest movie stars could do: He’d let me love him. And when Cal Malstrup, with his arm around Shanice, had said that “nothing in that movie was even true, it was all, like, a movie,” I’d replied, under my breath, “I guess you know everything, Cal. Except about love.”

  Which is why, without another word or an instant’s thought or anxiety, I tucked myself onto the back of that motorcycle, linked my hands around Jate’s waist and left Tom and Brant yapping at each other. I didn’t care. I didn’t run through a checklist of pluses and minuses, I didn’t worry about offending Tom or losing a chance to learn more about my mom. All I knew was that the wind was playing photogenic havoc with my red dress, that I could feel Jate breathing through his battered leather jacket, and that I was completely happy.

  We sped out of the city with Jate winding heedlessly in and out of traffic, which was thrilling, especially because I’d been cooped up in Tom’s compound. We reached a small private airport where the security guards recognized Jate and opened the chain-link fence and soon Jate was steering directly onto the tarmac, coming to a halt beside a sleek private jet. Of course he has his own plane, I thought, because if he boarded a commercial flight he’d be hounded by people like me. Removing his helmet, Jate said, “Man, I think that having your own jet is disgusting. It eats up money and fuel and fucks up the environment.” Then he grinned and added, “So that’s why I borrowed one.”

  Jate helped me off the motorcycle, slung my helmet onto the handle bars and asked, “Are you cool with this?”

  “Where are we going?” I asked and immediately wished I hadn’t, because needing a destination was so wussy and nice-girl and non-Jate.

  “You’ll see,” said Jate as his arm swept chivalrously toward the mechanical stairway that was descending from the plane’s forward hatch.

  Just a week earlier I’d been overwhelmed by a hotel duvet, and here I was on a private jet, which was exotic and unnerving on a whole new scale. This was the first moment when I told myself: Becky, remember everything. Not just because it’s Jate but because it’s the world. You’re not looking at a picture of a private plane in a magazine, it’s the real thing. And who knows what’s going to happen next, so be your own scrapbook.

  The jet’s interior was an open lounge, with the curving walls paneled in a rich mahogany set off by deep, beige wool carpeting and honey-colored leather banquettes. There was a fully stocked bar and behind touch panels, all sorts of flat screens, audio equipment and a candy store’s worth of treat-filled apothecary jars.

  “Welcome aboard, Ms. Randle,” said a pretty, uniformed flight attendant. “I’m Kyla. And, Mr. Mallow, what can I get you?”

  “Rebecca?” asked Jate, and from hearing him say my name, I inwardly screamed and cheered and recorded his saying Rebecca for use as the greeting on my voicemail.

  “Oh, just some water, please,” I said, because I’d read somewhere that you should stay hydrated during a flight.

  “Good to go, Jate?” asked the captain’s voice via the sound system.

  “Roger that,” said Jate, raising his voice slightly, and then, to me, “I’m such an asshole.”

  Then Jate grinned at me and acted like a guy and ran his hand through his hair and shrugged off his leather jacket, which I knew, from the website Fashion Freekz, that one of his stylists must’ve tracked down for him at a vintage leather jacket source in the East Village, the kind of place that supplies clothing poor people have broken in so that rich people can feel cool. Between Jate and his jacket and the plane I was getting so overstimulated that there was only one thing I could do. I dug my phone out of the slouchy red Italian goatskin shoulder bag that Tom had made for me, and I stood beside Jate and I sent the picture to Rocher. Two seconds later I only skimmed Rocher’s text message, because I didn’t want to be rude but I registered the following words: “Jate,” “JATE,” “love,” “marry,” “ME,” “hate you forever,” “tell everything” an
d “mmm … rubbing photo of Jate against a part of me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Jate. “I’m a much bigger asshole.”

  “Here we go,” said Jate as we buckled ourselves in using the custom-stitched leather seat belts that matched our armchairs. As the plane taxied and picked up speed I clutched my armrests and shut my eyes, pretending that this was my longtime takeoff ritual, knowing full well that sooner or later I’d have to open my eyes and when I actually did, a few seconds later, Jate was looking right at me, in the same way as Seeley, Drake and so many others, with a thunderstruck, scientific awe. “You are so beautiful,” Jate said.

  “I am not,” I insisted.

  “You are the most beautiful woman in the world. And I’m not blowing smoke or trying to get into your pants, because if I was, I wouldn’t say something that corny and useless. And I’m not even being nice. I’m just being accurate.”

  “Stop it, right now, shut up. I’m not the most beautiful woman in the world, I’m not what you or everyone else thinks I am, I’m just … a girl from out of town.”

  “Don’t. Don’t do that. It’s tacky. And beneath you. And you don’t have to do it, at least not with me. You don’t have to do it with anyone.”

  “Do what?”

  “Go through the motions. Put yourself down. Talk about how gawky and ugly you were in high school and how you couldn’t get a date and how the guy you had a crush on blew you off and took someone else to the prom.”

  “But he did, he went with Shanice Morain….”

  “I don’t care. It’s bull. And it’s ridiculous. Especially on you.”