“So what should I say? When you tell me I’m the most beautiful woman in the world?”
Jate smiled. “You could say thank you. And then you might return the favor, and say something nice about me. Maybe about my hair.”
“Excuse me,” I said as I unbuckled my seat belt and ran for the bathroom, closing the accordion doors behind me once I was inside. Even though the bathroom was fitted with marble and brushed steel fixtures, it was still small and when I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink I saw Becky, just the way she’d appeared in my mom’s trailer in our claustrophobic, molded pink fiberglass bathroom to which my mom had added way too many of what she’d called “decorator accents,” including a hanging white wicker basket of trailing, pink polyester silk petunias and a doll whose crocheted skirt had concealed an extra roll of toilet paper as if the doll were a cunning midget shoplifter.
What are you doing here, you dweeb, you imposter, you total fake? I asked my reflection. Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t handle this, you can’t talk to Jate Mallow on a private jet, you could barely manage to say hello to Cal Malstrup in the East Trawley High School hallway between classes, when you’d dip your head and manage a sort of half wave while muttering “hey.”
I heard my mom’s muffled ringtone coming from my shoulder bag but when I reached inside, my hand closed around another surprise gift from Tom Kelly. It was a velvet pouch from Madame Ponelle’s gem shop, containing a pair of square-cut ruby earrings which looked like the world’s most expensive sore throat lozenges. As I slid them into my earlobes I could hear Shanice comment, “Becky, you look like your ears are bleeding.” My mom had forced me to get my ears pierced but I only wore the most insignificant, almost nonexistent gold hoops. I owned almost no jewelry because I never wanted to call attention to my head or my neck or my wrists or any other part of me.
“You okay in there?” I heard Jate call out, and with my rubies clanking against the sides of my head I stepped out of the bathroom, even though I’d been seriously considering washing my hands for the rest of the flight.
Before I could sit down I caught sight of my reflection, of Rebecca, in the glass of a large, framed black-and-white photo of the Chrysler Building hanging on the wall behind Jate’s head, and I saw that my rubies’ sparkle only enhanced Rebecca’s phenomenal head of hair.
I’d gotten so flustered, and so hopelessly Becky, over meeting Jate that I had totally forgotten — I was Rebecca Randle.
“So,” I began, “you’re an actor?”
As I spoke I overheard myself and I didn’t sound like Becky, whose voice was usually a please-don’t-call-on-me-even-if-I-know-the-answer mumble. Rebecca sounded years older, or at least more experienced, as if no matter what she was saying what she meant was, “In your dreams, baby” or “Does your mama know you’re here?”
“I think you were on some sort of TV show?” I asked.
“A while ago,” said Jate, refusing to be riled. “Lately, I’ve been into movies.”
“What would I have seen?”
He named a batch of films, all of them mega-blockbusters, including, of course, Cloudborne.
“Cloudborne?” I repeated vaguely, as if the title were something caught in my teeth.
“It was about the Wright brothers?”
“You’re kidding.”
That did it.
“Oh, come on!” said Jate, laughing. “You’ve at least heard of it! It’s the biggest movie of all time, even if you hated it, even if you got bored and walked out, you know about Cloudborne!”
“Of course,” I said gently, making it clear that I was still just being polite, to spare his ego. “It’s … a wonderful title.”
“And what do you do?” Jate asked, trying not to sound patronizing but not trying all that hard.
This was a good question: What exactly did I do? Was I a recent high school graduate or a Super Shop-A-Lot Employee of the Month from two Septembers ago, or as of today, was I a sort-of cover girl? What was I going to print on my tax return where it said “Occupation”?
“I’m the most beautiful woman in the world.”
I said this with serene, immaculate confidence, as a simple statement of fact. And as my remark lingered in the air I added calmly, “There was a vote.”
Jate and I both burst out laughing because what else could you do? What I’d said was completely true but it was also nuts.
“When I saw those pictures of you online,” said Jate, “at first I thought they were Photoshopped. But then Seeley sent me some stuff from the Vogue shoot.”
“While she was taking them?”
“We’re buds. She said you were so gorgeous that putting you on the cover of Vogue was redundant. She said that she’s been taking pictures for thirty years and she’s never seen anyone even close to you. And she said that she knew I’d be interested.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how it works. Because for the moment, and maybe only until we land, I’m the biggest star out there. Name a continent. And so I get first pick.”
“First pick? Of what?”
“Women. Planes. Projects. Leather jackets. If I see something online about a guy who’s just invented the next step in wireless digital whatever, I call him up, I say my name, and suddenly he’s at my door, hand-delivering the prototype. If I hear that some Pulitzer-winning novelist has written the first chapter of a book that might have a role for me, I text him, and he makes the character hotter and younger and American. And if I have a pet cause, Slovakian orphans or Icelandic voter registration or bipolar baby ocelots, I don’t give anonymously to the appropriate organization. I call the president, and we have lunch.”
“Good to know.”
“But all of that access and the influence and the perks, they’re the least of it. They’re nothing, compared to the sex.”
Sex. I was now talking about sex with Jate Mallow. OMG. OMFG. Or as Rocher would say, OMF-My-Head-Just-Exploded-G.
“And I’m not just talking about stalkers or lonely First Ladies or God knows, actresses.”
“And do you take advantage? Of your options?”
Rebecca was coming off as equally experienced; she was raising the sexual ante. But Becky was growing more and more anxious because I could tell where things were headed. And while no one was hotter, or better in bed, or more worthy of Jate than Rebecca, Becky was a virgin.
And yeah, I know, I was eighteen, what was my problem? If Cal Malstrup had asked me, would I have done it, in his parents’ house while they were over at that ribs joint for their anniversary, or in the back of Cal’s pickup where he kept a folded-up stack of those grungy, quilted blanket–type things he used for moving furniture? Yes, I would’ve had sex with Cal because he was nice looking and because I wanted him and because I knew I should have sex with somebody, because it would’ve proved something, it would’ve proved that I was cute enough or at least available enough, for someone to want to have sex with me. But Cal hadn’t asked. And now Jate was about to.
“It’s crazy,” said Jate, leaning forward. “But I can pretty much have anything and anyone I want. And I’m not saying I deserve any of it, but I’m not going to say no.”
“Of course not.”
“Are you?”
Oh my God. OH MY GOD!!! No that’s not right, that’s not nearly enough because right now even God must be tweeting everyone in heaven and asking, “Did U hear what Jate just said???” Somebody pinch me, somebody stop the blood from pounding in my ears, somebody scrape me off the ceiling and shove what’s left of me into a keepsake locket. Because this was it, this was everything I’d thought I wanted since I was eleven years old. This was my destiny. This was why my mom had left me that phone number and this could be my first step to satisfying every one of Tom Kelly’s conditions, because I was already more than in love with Jate Mallow and sex with Rebecca could only lead to marriage because how could Jate ever improve on Rebecca?
Beyond all that, this was the moment that
every beautiful woman knew all about but which I’d never been anywhere near. This was when beauty became a bargaining chip, something you traded for something else. Jate was watching me, and he wasn’t about to let me squirm off the hook, claiming that I was exhausted or seeing someone or just not into it. I was Rebecca Randle and now I had to decide: What was I worth?
“Look at you,” said Jate. “You’re so unbelievably gorgeous and you’re shaking like a little kid. You’re about to burst into tears. Because you think that I’ve kidnapped you and cornered you and that I won’t let you off this plane until we have sex. Because I’m Jate Mallow and I get whatever I want. And right now I want you.”
“But — isn’t that what we’re talking about?”
“Yeah, maybe. If I was a total prick. If I believed any of that bullshit I just told you about getting first pick. Oh, and if I wasn’t gay.”
What? WHAT? Jate was WHAT?
I’d tracked all of Jate’s romances. When he was seventeen he’d been linked to Madison Maystock, the teen star of Too Much Madison, another hit syndicated show, where Madison had played a girl who was secretly a witch but who’d also just wanted to be a cheerleader and have fun. After two years together, which had included the platinum-selling duet “We Could Be Us,” Jate and Madison had broken up and Jate had moved on to much publicized relationships with a Venezuelan supermodel, a Broadway dancer and then someone whom Jate had told the press was just “a regular girl from back home in Illinois who likes to stay out of the spotlight.” Of course, I’d been jealous of all those girls but Jate had left each of them because, I’d assumed, they hadn’t been me.
“Rebecca? Hello?” Jate was saying.
“Uhm, what, um, what did you say?”
“I said I was gay. And yes, I’m careful about it and I’m gonna assume that you’ll protect my privacy, because we have so much else to talk about.”
“What? What? I’m sorry, what?”
“Okay,” said Jate, “let’s go over this, so we can get it out of the way. And don’t lie and pretend that you never saw my show, because I am so onto you. When you first saw me, on Jackie + Jate, what did you think?”
“I thought … that you had the most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. I loved the way it swept sideways across your forehead and then curled under your ears. My mom and Rocher and I always had fights about how long it took you to get it like that and whether you had to spray it rock hard to keep it that way. And I would always defend you, I would say, I bet Jate’s hair just grows like that naturally. And that it was because you wrote such beautiful songs so that your hair was like music growing out of your head.”
“You said that?”
“I was eleven.”
“And while you were thinking about me and my incredible musical hair what were your fantasies?”
“I always dreamed that I’d be in a nightclub, just like the one on Jackie + Jate, which looked like a preschool classroom with a disco ball. And I would be sitting by myself at one of the little round tables up front and you’d put my name in a song except the only words I could think of that rhymed with Becky were necky and wrecky….”
“And did you ever picture the two of us having sex?”
“No! Of course not!”
“So all you wanted was an imaginary boyfriend with great hair who could fake playing the guitar.”
“But you’re gay!”
“Which is pretty much what I just described.”
I was coming off as forlorn so Jate came over and knelt beside me and took my face in his hands, just the way I always thought he would do on the first episode of our imaginary reality show about our wacky hijinks as young newlyweds.
“But if you’re gay, if you didn’t want to … I mean, if we weren’t going to … if there wasn’t even a chance, goddamnit — then why did you come and get me, on your motorcycle? And what am I doing on this plane? And why are you being so nice to me?”
“Because you’re gorgeous. And because even though you think you’re such a tough cookie, you’re also incredibly sweet. And because, I hope — you’re Elyssa.”
“Elyssa?”
Elyssa, it turned out, was the female lead in High Profile, which was the action movie Jate was about to begin shooting in our flight’s destination, which turned out to be Paris.
“So what do you think?” Jate asked after he’d described the movie and my role. “You’re perfect for it. We’ll have a blast. Are you on board?”
My head was spinning, like one of those carnival wheels that could stop at all sorts of different outcomes. I was Becky, no, I was Rebecca. I was miles up, with Jate Mallow, who was gay. And now he wanted me to become a movie star. My phone rang. It was Tom.
“Is this Elyssa?”
“How did you know about that? Jate only asked me five seconds ago!”
“I know everything.”
“So — should I do it?”
“Of course. You’re not getting any younger. Eyes on the prize, Rebecca. It’s an easy yes, because tell me, who falls in love more passionately, and gets married more frequently than any other group of people in the world?”
Of course. Movie stars.
Once we’d landed in Paris, I stayed with Jate at The Ritz and I was amazed, not just because we were occupying half of an entire floor but because I had to get used to telling cab drivers, as if it was something I tossed off every day, “The Ritz.” By the time that High Profile began shooting two weeks later, paparazzi photos had cropped up all over the world of Jate and me getting out of cars and being hustled into restaurants, and having stores cordoned off so we could browse undisturbed. The headlines blared, “JATE’S MYSTERY CRUSH!” “TOM KELLY DISCOVERY NOW JATE-BAIT!” and, just as I’d always dreamed, “REBECCA: SHE’S JUST JATE!” I began to suspect that everyone, from a chambermaid pushing her laundry cart to a gendarme directing traffic, was going to surreptitiously photograph me and I was always right.
I met with the movie’s director, Billy Seth Bellowitch, who reminded me of a gangly, middle-aged, slump-shouldered eleven-year-old because he offset his thinning hair and pot belly with baseball caps, high-topped sneakers and baggy, prewashed jeans; he bristled with sports logos while being too out of shape to move very quickly. He had trouble remembering my name because, as Jate explained, “It’s a two-hundred-seventy-five-million-dollar movie, so he spends most of his time storyboarding the action sequences, like when we’re hang gliding over the Amazon, and a tribe of angry pygmies shoots flaming arrows at us.”
“Why are the pygmies angry?” I asked.
“Because they work for the Soviet mobsters,” Jate replied impatiently.
When Jate had introduced me to Billy Seth, Billy Seth had looked me up and down and given Jate an enthusiastic thumbs-up but without a trace of lust. This was because Billy Seth was emotionally stunted and he hadn’t discovered girls yet. I was a necessary element in his movie and I seemed every bit as promising as the night-vision headgear he’d just inspected.
I read the movie’s script, which Jate told me was just a blueprint and was being continually rewritten by tag teams of writers. Jate would be playing Renn Hightower, a renegade American CIA operative, while my character was described as “a high-class international call girl, a total uber-hottie, with extreme martial arts moves.” I told Jate that I’d never acted before except for performing as a dancing pumpkin pie in my second-grade Thanksgiving pageant. “That’s more than enough training,” Jate assured me.
Before the actual filming began, Jate and I spent a week with J. P. Drayer, whom everyone said was the greatest stunt director who’d ever lived. J.P. was in his sixties and he looked like a grizzled, chain-smoking cigar-store wooden Indian or a taciturn cowpoke who’d beaten lung cancer by lassoing it and dragging it out of town.
I loved the stunt rehearsals because I felt grounded. I got to wear sweats and get grimy and knee people in the groin. As Becky, I’d been okay at soccer and the balance beam so I had something to offer Rebecca; in a wa
y, I became her stunt double. When J.P. taught me how to block a punch or get my foot high enough to pierce someone’s throat with my spike heel, I was focused, and when I got it right, proud of myself, maybe because I was doing something that didn’t depend on what I looked like.
I’d never been anywhere near a movie set so on the first day of shooting I didn’t expect there to be so many people. There were over one hundred crew members gulping 5:00 A.M. bagels outside a warehouse in a nondescript neighborhood. Inside the warehouse was a set built to resemble an exclusive private gambling club atop the Eiffel Tower. The action of the movie took place over a single weekend so I’d be in my Tom Kelly red dress for most of the film. Tom had flown in with Mrs. Chen and her assistants to maintain the dress and to provide red silk lingerie, a red bikini and a clinging red Hazmat suit, which I’d be wearing in the scene where Jate and I were exposed to high-grade antimatter.
I had been granted my own trailer parked outside the warehouse. As I waited, I felt even more at odds than usual. The trailer was brand-new and twice the size of the ramshackle home where I’d grown up. This trailer was bright and outfitted with countless TVs, a spacious bedroom and a full kitchen with a dishwasher and a yogurt maker. There was thick, clear vinyl protecting the upholstery, a pleasingly chemical new-trailer smell and a full-sized fridge stocked only with bottled water, carrot sticks and little sealed cups of Jell-O, because as a production assistant had whispered to me, “the camera adds ten pounds.”
On that first morning, at 6:00 A.M., I sat before the vanity table and the large mirror outlined with lightbulbs, which had been set up in my trailer’s living room area. Mrs. Chen had already helped me into my dress and departed so for a moment I was alone, watching Becky in the mirror. Becky’s hair and face were, of course, familiar and ordinary. Like everyone else on the set I was waiting for Rebecca to appear.
I was about to star in a movie and my life had already surpassed every dream I’d ever had, but something was missing. Could it be that becoming so beautiful and meeting celebrities and seeing the world from the tinted window of a limousine still wasn’t enough? Was that why my mom had run away? Tom Kelly wanted me to fall in love and get married but those goals felt impossibly distant. I was caught, hovering midway between Becky and Rebecca, between whoever I used to be and whoever was about to go before the cameras, and add another layer to the deceit.
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