Victoria was a tough-as-nails bitch—everyone knew that— so he wasn’t surprised that she was looking for love with someone else. He’d always hated her. She seemed so haughty and barely said hello. Her husband was also an ass, cutting Anson off mid-sentence when he asked if he might take a look at his screenplay. Every busboy this side of Nevada has a screenplay. Take a number. He didn’t have to be so nasty. Eliza’s affair shocked him. Tyler Trask? He was a rogue. And Eliza didn’t seem like the type to cheat. But she also wasn’t as nice as she pretended to be. He had asked her on more than one occasion—not explicitly, but she knew what he was talking about—to introduce him to her magazine editor so that he might pick up some extra work. He was great at interviewing people, and he knew he would be great at doing it for a magazine. But she had shrugged him off. Since then he had put her on his list. Helen was so out there that it didn’t surprise him the least. She probably had an open marriage anyway. He didn’t know quite what to make of her, but he had always held a grudge against her for scheduling her art show at the library on the same day as he was reading a collection of his columns at Village Books. But the one he hated most was Leelee. That short, fat blond cheerleader. She was so fake sweet and nice, and yet she would stab you in the back with daggers. He knew that she was the one personally responsible for blackballing him from the beach club. How could she have so much power? He’d lived in town much longer.
At first Anson was merely amused to have the knowledge that his prim and proper neighbors were cheating on their spouses, but the more he thought about it, the more it dawned on him that he could use it to his advantage. He had a brilliant screenplay just sitting in his top drawer. Surely Justin could get it into the studios, or refer him to the right agent at his office. And right now the best way to get to Justin was through Victoria, and to do that, he had to make it worth her while. That’s why he planted the first blind item in his column. He worked hard on it, crafting it with his usual mix of flattery and intrigue, and found himself giggling about it for the rest of the night.
Who would you rather have, Justin Coleman or Wayne Mercer? Oh, take your mind out of the gutter, ladies, I’m not speaking in amorous terms—we all know that Justin is happily married to his ever-loyal wife, Victoria. I mean, who would you rather have represent you? The starlet Hadley Whitaker is currently deciding between the two men this very minute. Will she go with IAA or ACM? Stay tuned. I know I will.
It would only be the beginning. Next week Anson would write something about Helen. Her husband was a director— perhaps he could be of some use. And who knows? If he got to Eliza, perhaps she could get Tyler Trask to star in his movie? The world was his oyster.
•• 23 ••
The Ritz in Boston had always been Leelee’s favorite hotel. She’d stayed at the Plaza Athénée in Paris and the Connaught in London, but nothing compared to her hometown hotel, where she had spent so many glorious weekends escaping boarding school and college with a bunch of friends for the Head of the Charles. Her father’s fiftieth birthday party had been there, she held a tea party on the day of her debut there, and most special of all were the Sunday brunches with the Porter family when they were in town. She had not needed another reason to worship the place, but she was given one when Jack met her on that rainy Friday night in a suite on the sixth floor.
On her way up in the elevator she felt like Countess Olenska going to meet Newland Archer. Somehow the place evoked Edith Wharton, and she had specifically read The Age of Innocence on the plane to psyche herself up. The man at reception had told her that Jack had already checked in, or rather, “Mr. Swifty” had checked in, and with every illuminated red button in the elevator, Leelee knew she was one floor closer to her beloved. She had decided that she should enter dramatically, and mysteriously, and attempt to facilitate intercourse as swiftly as possible. If they lingered, there would be time to talk each other out of it. Well, she wouldn’t be talked out of it, but he might be. They might fall prey to their old relationship and start goofing around, and then all they’d end up doing was raiding the minibar and watching Letterman. Boring. There was no way Leelee would allow this to be another missed opportunity. She was going to get her man if that was all she did.
The elevator pinged and Leelee got off and walked to her room. She fluffed her hair forward and fiddled with her skirt. It had been a pain to fly cross-country in high heels and stockings, and the skirt was just a little too tight, but she knew she wouldn’t have time to change, so she had suffered for the sake of sexiness. She was even wearing a raunchy black garter belt underneath that she had just purchased at Victoria’s Secret. Jack had often alluded to his penchant for garter belts in his joking e-mails.
“You came,” said Jack when he opened the door. He looked more gorgeous than ever. He had obviously just gotten out of the shower, as he was clad in a plush white Ritz bathrobe and was drying his hair with a towel.
Leelee took one look at him and then jumped into his arms. In his surprise, he almost fell backwards, but held his arm out to stabilize himself on the door as she wrapped her legs around him and leaned in and kissed him passionately. Jack carried her into the bedroom and gently put her on the enormous canopy bed. She didn’t say anything, just smiled. This was how it was supposed to be. She felt like Mrs. Jack Porter. She thought of Tierney and giggled. She had always hated her. As she and Jack embraced, alternating between long, wet kisses and shorter, more urgent ones, she realized that this was a better form of retribution against Tierney than her previous schemes. As Jack penetrated her, she thought of her previous pathetic acts of vengeance. They brought her only anger, not pleasure like now.
When Leelee was forced to move to L.A. she decided that she needed to overcome her rage toward Brad if she was going to spend her life with him. Instead, she channeled her venom toward Tierney. Whenever Leelee was having a bad day every few months or so, she’d drive down to the Kinko’s in Manhattan Beach. There she would Xerox a copy of a letter that she had written using cutout letters from various newspapers. She’d make one copy, using the plastic gloves that she’d gotten out of a L’Oréal hair color box, and then tear the original to shreds. She’d place the letter into an envelope and then into a larger envelope addressed to a post office box in Dallas, Texas, that she had found online. When the letter was received in Dallas, the person there would remove the second letter and mail it so that the postmark would be from Texas. No one would have any idea that the letter originated with Leelee.
On her way back home, driving up the congested Lincoln Boulevard, Leelee would experience a surge of joy when she let her imagination run wild. It was such a pity that she couldn’t be there to see the letter recipient open yet another piece of anonymous hate mail from Leelee. But she could imagine Tierney’s contorted face and only hope that she’d brought her a tenth of the pain that she had caused Leelee. This was revenge, after all.
With a sudden surge, Leelee flipped Jack over. She made love to him passionately, her thoughts now focused on his wife. When she was done, she collapsed on the bed and closed her eyes.
“Knock, knock—you still there?” asked Jack, gazing at her intently.
Leelee realized that she had zoned out. She rolled over toward him and rubbed her hand across his chest. “Totally. I’m just so happy.”
Jack gave her a crooked smile and leaned back on the bed, his arms folded behind his head. “I know. It’s weird.”
“Weird?” asked Leelee, suddenly worried.
“Not weird bad, just weird. I mean, come on, after all these years.”
“I know. You bastard, you made me wait way too long!” she said, teasingly punching him. They had always had such a lighthearted rapport. It would be strange to change the way they interacted now that they were lovers.
“But wasn’t it worth it?” said Jack, his eyes shining brightly. “I mean, aren’t I the best?”
“You are, Jack,” said Leelee, beaming.
•• 24 ••
“Did you
say something to Anson?” Helen asked Daniela, anger rising in her voice.
“What are you talking about? Of course not,” she said calmly, taking a sip from her cosmopolitan. Her giant green eyes coolly returned Helen’s stare.
“Then what is this?” asked Helen, thrusting the Palisades Press in her lover’s face. It was a blind item in Anson’s column: Producer Daniela Fox has been squiring a lovely Asian lady around town. She looks familiar, like someone I might know, but then, I’m not sure. Good luck on your new relationship, Daniela!
“It only mentions my name. There’s nothing about you,” said Daniela, her demeanor still relaxed and composed. That was actually one thing that Helen didn’t like about Daniela: nothing seemed to rile her. In fact, she was completely blasé about everything. It made sense that she was a successful producer, as she never appeared flustered or lost her cool.
They were at Father’s Office, a bar on Montana in Santa Monica, and it was beginning to get crowded with the singletons looking for beers and babes. Helen was supposed to have dinner with Daniela, but she was over it. They’d been together less than a month, but Daniela wasn’t worth the risk of exposure, and obviously she wasn’t as discreet as Helen had thought. It was odd, because she had believed that Daniela was not a gossip, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Unless it was one of her friends who’d told Anson. Now that would make sense, realized Helen suddenly. After all, he had mentioned Justin last week.
“Sorry,” said Helen. “I’m suffering from fear of detection.”
“No problem,” said Daniela. “Have a drink.”
It was more of an order than an offer, and Helen felt compelled to say yes. Truth be told, Daniela scared her a little. After things didn’t work out with the guy from YAS, Helen had thought that maybe it was men in general who couldn’t give her what she needed. Maybe because her mother was cold and her biological mother abandoned her, she needed to find the care and love of another woman to satisfy her. It sounded sick, but she felt like she ought to try. But Daniela was more like a man than any man she had been with. She was very demanding in the bedroom—almost more aggressive than a man—and she had taken to calling Helen and telling her what to wear on their dates. At first it was titillating and sexy. She enjoyed being ordered around, and it was fun to wear the flirty little dresses that Daniela preferred. Not to mention that Daniela was very attractive, with curly red hair and creamy skin. But the more they had sex, the more she realized that she wasn’t completely satisfied being with a woman. She needed to be penetrated, deeply, and gadgets didn’t do it for her. Being with someone who had breasts was an initial novelty, but there was only so much you could do with them after a while, and it had been a month already. Although Daniela could spend hours playing with hers, which eventually got old. Not to mention that she hadn’t found any of the tenderness or bonds that she had thought would come out of being with a woman. And then she had run into Parker, an old lover whom she had been with before Wesley, and they had a long conversation about how time had passed so quickly and how life was so ephemeral, and then one thing led to another and they had actually had sex that morning, which was awesome and once again confirmed that it had to end with Daniela.
“I need to end our…relationship,” said Helen timidly.
Daniela’s eyes widened as if she had heard something appalling, but that was the only part of her face that betrayed emotion.
“You’re never going to find what you’re looking for,” said Daniela icily. “You’re too broken, incapable of emotion. You think it should all be handed to you, but you don’t realize you need to participate in a relationship in order for it to work.”
Helen was dumbstruck that Daniela was so vicious. “Um, that’s not really true…”
“Yes, it is,” said Daniela coldly. “I mean, look at you. You can’t relate to your husband, you’re scared to death of your daughter, and you’re as cold as a fish in the sack.”
“I’m not scared of my daughter,” said Helen, her voice rising.
“Yeah, right,” said Daniela, beginning to cackle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You stay away from her. You avoid her. You don’t know how to be a mother to her.”
“I don’t know why you’d say such horrible things to me,” said Helen, pushing back her chair and standing up. “I didn’t think you were so cruel.”
Daniela smiled calmly. “I’m not cruel. I just tell the truth.”
Helen couldn’t get out of there fast enough. How dare Daniela say those horrible things? To make up all those evil lies just because she was getting dumped. She should have known not to get involved with a woman. Women were such bitches! And to say that about Lauren. That was a joke. She wasn’t scared of Lauren.
Helen unlocked her car and pulled out of the parking spot, still ruminating over Daniela’s comments. Scared of Lauren? Absurd! Okay, yes, she let Wesley take the lead in her upbringing, but she was always there for Lauren. Okay, the truth was that she didn’t want to fuck her up. Lauren was a good kid. She deserved a good mother. And Helen didn’t know how to be a good mother. No one had ever told her. It had never even occurred to her that she’d have a daughter; she’d always thought she’d have sons. And after a very difficult delivery that turned into an emergency C-section, when the nurse held up the baby and pronounced her a girl, she was in shock. She had been so sure it was a boy that she hadn’t even bothered to find out the sex. And there was this tiny little girl, who had only seconds before had an umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and was close to death, and now Helen was supposed to be responsible for her? She panicked. It didn’t mean she didn’t love her daughter. It didn’t mean that she was a bad person. She was trying to be the best person she could be for her. That was all she could do.
•• 25 ••
“More flowers for you, Missus,” said Juana, placing a vase of roses on the dining room table.
“Thanks, Juana,” said Eliza, walking over to the table to tear open the card. Please, she prayed to herself, let them be from Declan. But of course they weren’t. The card was signed Thanks for your support. Eliza sighed deeply as she tore the card to tiny pieces and let them fall into the garbage. Tyler Trask.
“Can I call you?” he had asked as she was leaving his trailer. He held on to her arm as if he didn’t want her to leave.
“No, please…” she said, not looking at him. She was embarrassed. It had been a mistake to reinitiate contact.
“What about e-mail?” he pressed.
“God, no. Please, I can’t…”
She felt the tears well up in her eyes. She stared at the ceiling, wishing them back into her tearducts but feeling them slide down her cheeks. Tyler softly turned her body toward him and wiped away one of her tears with his fingers.
“Don’t cry,” he said softly.
“Sorry,” she said, still not looking at him.
“You did nothing wrong,” he said, reassuring her.
“Right,” she said. She did everything wrong. What was she doing here? How was this her life? He tried to pull her toward him again but she resisted now.
“I need to know how to get in touch with you. I don’t want to disrupt your life, but I can’t just cease contact,” he said.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” sighed Eliza. God, this was so messy.
“I’ll send you flowers.”
“No! Declan will see them,” she protested.
“I won’t sign the card in my name. I’ll pretend it’s something else. And I’ll only send them when I’m thinking of you. I want you to know.”
What could she do? “Fine,” she said, relenting. She felt too weak to argue. She was emotionally exhausted. She wished she could just crumple up in a ball and collapse in Tyler’s bed. But she couldn’t. Life was serious, and she could not afford to be frivolous.
“I gotta go,” she said, pulling away from him.
“Eliza, wait,” he said, not letting her go.
She turned and looked into his eyes. She almost changed her mind.
“Let me kiss you good-bye,” he whispered.
“No,” she said, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand.
“Please.”
“No,” she said. Yes! Yes! Kiss me—hold me in your arms and take me away to Happily Ever After Land. Where I’ll always feel that fluttery feeling when I see you and there will be no pressures, no sense of reality, just…happily ever after.
He sighed and looked at her. Then he leaned in and kissed each of her eyes. And then she left.
He had said he’d send the flowers only when he thought of her, but he had sent them every day. That both worried and exhilarated her. Every day, a steady stream of roses with a different card. All from him. She was scared that Declan would see them, but deep down she was more scared about when he would stop sending them. When he would stop thinking about her. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. But it was a fantasy.
She was glad she’d told her editor she couldn’t write the piece. Somehow she didn’t think she could maintain a poker face in the article. Someone would know. She felt as though everyone already knew.
Could her friends be trusted, really? Never tell your friends everything. Isn’t that what Mr. Matthews had told her back in high school? It was her friends then who had told people of her affair with her teacher and gotten him fired. She had never believed they would, and it wasn’t done in harm, but it was gossip, it was salacious, and that sort of information inevitably gets out. Since then she had tried to be the pearl of discretion. She refused to make any derisive comments about Declan, even when she wanted to throttle him, because she knew her friends would remember. And now they knew all about Tyler.
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