She spotted the prince.
“No,” said Suzanne. “NO! No FUCKING WAY.”
“But it’s true!” yelped Aimee, grabbing Suzanne in a triumphant bear hug. “I’m gonna be Rebecca Randle!!!”
Prince Gregory ended up hugging Aimee and Suzanne, and then he autographed the women’s headshots. “Write, ‘To my favorite actress in the whole world,’” said Aimee, “and on Suzanne’s put something else.” Then he convinced them that he wasn’t associated in any way with the upcoming cable movie on his life, to be called Prince of Pain.
When a disappointed Aimee asked what he was doing in their apartment talking to me, the prince explained, “Becky works at my hotel and I’d asked her about sleeper sofas.” This seemed to cover it and the prince left. As the door swung shut, he paused. He was puzzled and unsure and still completely at sea, but no longer furious.
I didn’t go after him because there wasn’t anything left for me to say. Instead, I took my backpack and told the girls that I was headed off to work. Once I hit the street I began walking down Eighth Avenue toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal. As I angled my way through the locals and the tourists and all of those girls texting while holding oversized cups of coffee a few inches out in front of themselves, like crucifixes warding off possible boyfriends who didn’t make enough money, I began to feel a certain lightness. I had talked to the prince and I’d told him exactly how I felt so I’d never have to brood and torment myself over what it might be like to see him again as Becky. I’d behaved in a truthful and straightforward manner and so I now had what the afternoon talk shows liked to call “closure.” Closure was what the victims of spousal abuse or tornadoes or bad hair-coloring sessions always said that they wanted, sometimes along with cash settlements and, of course, appearances on afternoon talk shows. And like all of those once-suffering people I was now just fine, because whatever had happened between the prince and me, and between Rebecca and the world, it was all properly finished. I couldn’t say that I felt happy but I was definitely relieved.
I became aware that I was being followed by a limo. The car pulled up beside me and the rear window rolled down.
“Get in,” said Tom Kelly from the backseat. Drake was driving.
“Why?” I asked. “I mean, I’m sorry, but I don’t have your money. I’ll pay you back once I get another job.”
“Just get in. I have something to tell you and then we’ll drive you to the bus station. It’s always important to arrive at the Port Authority in style.”
I got into the car. Since I’d said good-bye to the prince I might as well say good-bye to Tom Kelly and then I’d be completely free, with ultra-supermax-economy-sized closure, because I’d never have to see either one of them again.
“You’re so much stronger than your mother,” said Tom, getting right to the point as the car stopped at a red light. “Your mother was almost as beautiful as Rebecca but the problem was, she didn’t have your grit. Or your curiosity. Or your knack for self-preservation.”
“And?” I said impatiently, because the bus station was only a few blocks away and because I was sure that Tom knew I’d just had it out with Prince Gregory, because Tom always knew everything and he was here to gloat.
“So stop feeling sorry for yourself and all of your little boyfriend troubles and pay attention. After I discovered your mother and after she’d moved to New York, everything happened very fast. She was offered money, movies, marriages — you know the drill. And while she was incredibly excited by all of it, she was also scared to death. Because unlike you, your mother was, at heart and forever, a very small-town girl. I think that’s why, until I spotted her on that street corner, she’d never really known how stunning she was. The idea of admitting to or capitalizing on her beauty would have seemed vain and sinful. And far too tempting.”
Which did sound like my mom. Which was why I kept listening.
“Sometimes I would practically yell at her — it’s your shot! Make a move! Say yes, to everything! But unless I was with her she could become paralyzed. Painfully shy. No matter where we went, all over the world, she could never quite accept, or believe, that this was her life. Or that she deserved any of it. We’d be invited to some fabulous party at someone’s Florentine palazzo and I’d find her in our hotel room, curled up in her T-shirt and sweatpants, watching a TV show about polar bears. And she’d look up at me and say, ‘I can’t go to the party. I won’t know what to say. Everyone will think that I’m just some stupid model.’”
“So how did you deal with it? Did you just scream at her until she did what you wanted? Until she knuckled under?”
“No.”
“So what did you do?”
“I loved her.”
I didn’t believe him — Tom Kelly couldn’t love anyone. It wasn’t possible.
“You exploited her. You took a teenager and put her picture everywhere, all over the world. And probably the second she started gaining weight you sent her right back to where she came from.”
Tom was looking at me as if he was thinking about opening the car door, shoving me out onto the pavement and then asking Drake to back the car over my head. Instead, he smiled.
“I know you might think that,” he said. “But that isn’t what happened. You see, I wasn’t one of those people who work incredibly hard and build an empire and then realize that it’s all hollow and that money can’t buy happiness. Because money can buy anything and happiness comes when you drive whatever you’ve bought or wear it out dancing or when you turn the air-conditioning all the way up and then open the French doors to the wraparound terrace, just for the sheer thrill of wasting electricity. What’s great about having money is never having to worry about money, never having to ask yourself, can I afford dessert, can I pay off the loan shark, can I make it to the end of the month without living on the street. I loved being successful and seeing my name on the rear pocket of everyone’s jeans and on the waistbands of their underwear. It was so satisfying. I once slept with a woman who, before I’d met her, she’d had the Tom Kelly logo tattooed along her inner thigh because, as she told me in her adorable French accent, ‘I want to ’ave everyzing be Tom Kellee.’
“But early on I’d been a bit like your mother, a bit afraid of ever glancing up from the grindstone. With every step forward, with every new collection that blew out of the stores, with every magazine cover proclaiming me the hot new whatever, I knew that it all became that much more precarious and that it could all be taken away overnight. I’d seen it happen to so many other people — they’d believe their own press, they’d get stoned once too often, they’d miss too many deadlines and boom, they were calling me and asking if I could hire them, off the books, to design my budget housewares for the big-box stores. And maybe that’s why I married Lila.”
“Wait, hold on, what did you just say? You married Lila?”
“She was my receptionist and my fit model, from when I was first starting out. She knew where I’d come from and how hard I’d worked. Lila had seen me shaking and sweating over the tiniest details, over a collar not lying flat or a trade paper review that called my swimwear line ‘acceptable’; she knew me better than anyone. She kept me sane.”
I’d always wondered about Lila and her endless loyalty to Tom. But — marriage?
“We lasted less than a year. We were much better as friends. Co-conspirators. Because as I think Lila was aware, from very early on, I wasn’t really the sort of person whom anyone should marry.”
“You mean because you were — gay?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” said Tom, laughing. “After all this time, even after Jate Mallow, you’re still such a nice girl. You can’t even imagine what I was. I was young and good-looking and I was doing great, and almost nobody ever gets all three. And so I took full advantage. Anyone I wanted, I had. Men, women, every possible combination. Have you ever found yourself, at 4:00 A.M., under a full moon, out of your mind on hashish laced ever so gently with angel dust, in a tent in the Sahar
a having sex with an entire nomadic tribe?”
“No …”
“It’s amazing and you don’t have to call anyone the next day because they’re gone.”
“You made that whole thing up!”
“I so love how you said that, you were appalled, but you still weren’t sure it wasn’t true. Because believe me it was, and beyond. But all I’m saying is, I enjoyed myself. I wanted to see how far I could take things, in business, in sex, in every possible direction. But when I met your mother it wasn’t that she made me feel old or ashamed or depraved. She was just … the most open-hearted girl I’d ever met. She wasn’t innocent because I don’t believe that anyone over three months old is ever innocent, but she was …”
“She wanted everyone else to be happy,” I said. “She never thought about herself, not for a second. Sometimes, a lot of times, I wanted to shake some sense into her but I never would because I knew she’d just agree with me. It was like because she was so sweet and because she wanted to be a good person all the time, she couldn’t figure out how to live in the world. Where everyone wasn’t like her.”
“Yes,” Tom agreed. “And I’d never met anyone like that. And so I loved her. I’m not saying that we ever could’ve been married and I’m not saying that she wasn’t more than a little crazy but for a very few months, we had the best time. We did whatever she wanted to do, things that no decent New Yorker ever does, at least not without cocaine and irony. We went to the observation deck of the Empire State Building and we’d go to see the worst movies, these hideous romantic comedies starring actresses with unnaturally toned biceps and we watched home shopping. And I say this with only the greatest affection, but your mother had no taste.”
I couldn’t argue. Our trailer had been infested with those polyester fleece blankets with sleeves and my mom had tended a herd of those brown ceramic animals that grow clover instead of fur.
“And so what happened?” I asked. I was stunned at how much Tom was telling me after so many months of refusal. Maybe I was pressing my luck but it was now or never. “Did you break up? My mom would never tell me anything about her life — did she catch you with someone else? Did you get bored and dump her?”
I was being vicious, even though I could tell that Tom had genuinely loved my mom. But I’d seen how Tom could turn on people and I didn’t know if anyone had been off-limits.
“No, that isn’t what happened. Maybe it would have but we didn’t have all that much time together.”
“Why not?”
“Because I got sick.”
Tom was still smiling as he continued his story. “I was just about to launch the biggest campaign of my career. Every major city, every market. London, Tokyo, Sydney, you name it. We were really going to establish the brand as a global power. I was going to be Mao and Stalin and Evita, only so much bigger, because I understood sneakers. And your mother was so excited because we’d be together. It was going to be a sort of honeymoon.”
“Until …?”
“Until the week before we were set to leave. I’d been coughing, a few aches, nothing more than that. But before I left I had a complete physical. And I was diagnosed with a truly repulsive disease and there wasn’t any treatment, let alone a cure. Not yet. And I’d seen so many people die shockingly fast, in agony. And so I called a meeting, with Brant Coffield. Because I trusted him.”
“I met him on the street outside Seeley Burckhardt’s studio….”
“Yes. And we both agreed that if people knew I was sick, the Tom Kelly brand would be hopelessly tainted and everything would collapse.”
“Because you were sick?”
“Because the disease was so awful and because it was sexually transmitted and because the Tom Kelly brand was all about sex. And because when a seven-year-old got sick from a blood transfusion in Iowa, his neighbors burned his family’s house down. And because people were scared shitless, and scared, ignorant people would stop buying Tom Kelly jeans. I wasn’t about to let that happen. And so I called your mother, who was in Africa, with Alicia. I said that I had something to tell her, in confidence. And I asked her to come home.”
“So she did,” I said, “which meant that she wasn’t on the plane with the princess, when it crashed.”
“Yes. But by the time your mother got back, she’d heard about Alicia and she could barely speak. And so I felt even worse, because of what I was about to say.”
“But you told her? That you were sick?”
“Yes. As calmly as I could. I think that’s what I hated more than anything else, almost more than being sick — telling people. And watching their faces crumple. And feeling their pity mixed with their horror. But your mother, well, this was why I loved her. Because when I told her that I was sick, she didn’t cry or fling herself on me or start jabbering on about how it wasn’t fair or about how I’d survive, I’d be a special case, an exception. And she didn’t start in about going to India and being healed through chanting and brown rice and wearing sacred crystals around my neck on a leather thong. She just said, ‘Oh, Tom,’ and then she kissed me.”
“But …”
“I know what you’re thinking and, yes, I made sure she was tested and thank God, she was healthy. And then I retired. I stayed in the compound with only my inner circle. I didn’t see anyone and sure, I had access to the most advanced and expensive and discreet medical care, which amounted to zero. There was nothing remotely effective. Soon I’d lost half my body weight, I was covered with lesions and I was all but blind.”
“Oh my God …”
“Which was a blessing, because of my vanity. I knew what I looked like and what I was starting to become and all I wanted was absolute privacy. I was not going to let the world watch Tom Kelly shrivel and rot. Because I was a very superficial guy and because I wouldn’t give my enemies the satisfaction.”
“Your enemies?”
“Please. You’ve met me. But my friends, and especially your mother, they understood. Your mom would sit with me and feed me, although I was barely eating anything, and she’d make sure I had pillows and fresh flowers and sometimes she’d read to me. Fashion magazines.”
“But …”
“She would describe them to me, what the models were wearing, so I could make bitchy remarks. But I kept getting worse and I wasn’t able to walk and I became incredibly obnoxious and disagreeable, even for me. I couldn’t stand having so little control over even the tiniest things, like brushing my teeth or moving from the couch to a chair. And your mother, even though she’d never talk about it, she was devastated. She’d decided that all of it, my illness and Alicia’s death, and the plight of the migrant workers in Albania, she thought it was all her fault.”
“Of course.”
“And then, because she couldn’t hide it anymore, she told me she was going to have a baby. My baby.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. All I could think about was that photo Queen Catherine had given me, of my mother and Tom and Alicia, when they were all so young and gorgeous and happy. In the photo my mother had most likely already been pregnant.
“That’s right, Becky. As you’ve always suspected. You’re the luckiest girl alive.”
Tom’s eyes sparkled, as if he was delivering the most delectable punch line and enjoying himself thoroughly.
“You’re my finest product. You’re a Tom Kelly original.”
I sank into the supple black leather of the backseat, like a fly ball landing in God’s catcher’s mitt. I’m not sure why but the first thing I thought about was a scene from one of the Star Wars movies with Darth Vader, the guy in the black plastic helmet that makes him sound like a heaving humidifier and who’s the embodiment of all human evil. I flashed on the part where Darth tells young Luke Skywalker, the blond, noble, Jedi-warrior-in-training, that he’s his real father. Once Luke has fully digested this information, in one of the later sequels, the father and child have a climactic laser duel.
“I know just what you’re thinking,”
said Tom. “You’re reaching for your lightsaber.”
Sure, it was true that months earlier I’d wondered if Tom could possibly be my father but I’d avoided the whole concept. It wasn’t just that I thought Tom was gay, it was more that he didn’t seem like he’d ever be anyone’s dad. He just wasn’t interested enough, or equipped, to carpool or help with homework or attend a parent-teacher conference. But then until I’d first come to New York I never would’ve pictured my mother as a gorgeous face filling half the acreage in Times Square. And now all I could think about was that billboard, the one with Tom and my mother, glowing on that sun-washed Greek island: Those were my parents.
“So my mom, when she told you she was pregnant — how did you feel?”
“Well, like I said, I was already pretty out of it but, honestly, I felt surprised and then — delighted. Amused. The whole idea of Tom Kelly as a father seemed so unlikely and that’s why I liked it. And I liked that I wasn’t just leaving a company behind, a brand. And then, of course for just a second, I hated you. Passionately. Because having a child and becoming a father, it made me feel so old.”
“But you were dying!”
“Fine, but I still didn’t want you spitting up on my cashmere or having people look at me and think, isn’t that sweet, he’s settling down. But then I hoped you’d be a girl. Because if you were a boy and you grew up to be really good-looking I’d feel competitive. But if you were a girl I’d know just what to do.”
“What? What would you have done?”
“Everything. If things had been different, we all could’ve been in the ads together. The sexy Tom Kelly clan, in moody black and white, posed in slouchy cotton sweaters on a sand dune, admiring the sea or sprawled on a mountaintop in matching parkas, with fabulous ski goggles shoved onto our foreheads or hanging around our necks.”
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