The Year of Living Famously

by Laura Caldwell

  I noticed a few glances from other patrons in the bar, a murmur of “Isn’t that…?” but I didn’t care the way I normally would. I stayed focused on Bobby’s face.

  “Hey there!” he said, trying a cheery tone. He moved forward to hug me. When my arms remained at my sides, he took a step back. “Want a drink?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Well, sit down.”

  I considered him for a moment, then sat on the edge of one of the white chairs.

  He took his seat. “Kyr, listen, I—”

  “Why?” I said quietly.

  His eyes roamed my face. “Uh…”

  “Why did you do that to me?”

  “What…What do you mean?”

  “Jesus, Bobby, don’t play dumb. At least give me the courtesy of admitting it.”

  “Okay, well in my defense, I—”

  “Is there a defense to this?” I said incredulously. “You know how much I hate the press and the photographers. You listen to me tell you how it makes me crazy, you listen to all my plans, and then you go and sell that information to the paparazzi? What is wrong with you?”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Are you taking drugs or something? Did you need the money for that?”

  “It wasn’t the money,” Bobby said, shaking his head.

  “What then? How can you possibly explain—”

  “I’m in love with you,” he said. He stared at his drink, as if he’d like to dive into it.

  We sat. Seconds ticked by. People at the next table began to sing “Happy Birthday.” Bobby continued to gaze at his cocktail.

  “When?” I said softly. “I mean, how long?”

  “In some ways, I think it’s always been like that, but I didn’t recognize it until you married Declan. He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong, but I couldn’t stand seeing you with him. It was making me insane. And then when you told me at the Globes that he was your best friend. God…” He trailed off. He looked up and finally met my eyes. “That killed me.”

  I sat back in the chair and put my head in my hands. Finally, I looked at him again. “You thought if I saw how nuts Declan’s life would always be, I’d leave him?”

  A small nod. “I knew you already hated the fame, so I reconciled what I was doing by telling myself I was helping you. I was showing you what you were in for over the next thirty years.”

  I laughed, a harsh sound. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

  “I can’t stand what I did. I don’t know how it happened. I mean, at first, I leaked a few things. Then you were hanging tough, so I did it again. The more I saw you with Declan, the more it was making me nuts. I felt like I’d never had my chance with you, and if I could just get that chance. If you could just see that it was never going to change with Declan. I kept slipping things to the press—I didn’t want to hurt you, I only wanted you to understand what your life was going to be like. And I guess, well…it just got away from me.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “God, Kyr, can you forgive me?” He reached over to touch my hand, but I pulled it away.

  I stood up. “I don’t know, Bobby. I don’t know about anything anymore.”

  I’ve heard people say that after you’ve suffered a loss, night is the worst time. For me, it was the mornings. Mornings used to be a time of promise, a clean slate. But now, the mornings were when I remembered. For the past seven or so hours I would have lost myself in sleep, in dreams, where Declan was still by my side, and Bobby was still one of my dearest friends. And yet when I awoke, the reality hit like a sharp, hard stab to my chest. I would sit, stunned, on the side of my bed, willing myself to start breathing again, forcing the tears away.

  I often called Declan when I woke like that. It was early in L. A. but he picked up the phone because he knew it was me.

  “Come back, love,” he’d say, his voice sleepy, sad.

  “I can’t.”

  “Bobby won’t muck things up for us anymore.”

  “It’s not just Bobby, you know that.”

  Silence. He couldn’t argue with me about that. Bobby had made things worse, but he hadn’t created the situation, and it was one that wouldn’t go away. Although I was photographed occasionally now, it was nothing compared to being with Declan. The combination of the two of us, constantly at premieres and dinners with other actors, constantly in the scene, would always draw attention, and it was that ever-present attention I couldn’t bear.

  “I just miss you,” I said.

  We would sit on the phone quietly then. I squeezed my eyes closed and pretended he was next to me. I conjured up his golden eyes and his strong arms with the freckles that danced across them. I imagined those arms around me.

  People told me time would heal, that my separation from Declan would get better as the days and months went by. But it seemed that getting better would mean I would always know—even in sleep—that Declan was no longer at my side, and I thought that sounded worse.

  chapter 33

  Declan McKenna on Lauren: We’re Just “Mates”

  Hurray for friendship—that’s what Declan McKenna has to say in the new issue of GQ magazine. The Irish heartthrob, who separated from wife, Kyra Felis, three months ago, calls former flame, Lauren Stapleton, a good buddy whom he can turn to in times of trouble. “Lauren understands the pressure I’m under with my new films and my new fame,” McKenna says. “We used to date a long time ago, but now we’re just mates. I think men and women can be great mates. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.” McKenna also addresses his problems with Felis. “We’re in different places right now,” he says.

  PAGE 6

  SIGHTINGS

  Declan McKenna at Spago in L. A. dining with actress and ex Lauren Stapleton, along with entertainment lawyer Tony Fields and his wife, Alexa Kennedy…McKenna’s estranged wife, Kyra Felis, dining solo at 92 in Manhattan.

  Declan & Lauren Produce Pandemonium

  Declan McKenna and Lauren Stapleton induced a crowd frenzy when they appeared for a screening of McKenna’s new film Liquid Glass. The couple, who had been denying rumors that they had reunited in the wake of McKenna’s split from wife, fashion designer Kyra Felis, were hand in hand. The statuesque Stapleton wore a revealing gown by designer Mehta Vamp. McKenna, who kept glancing at his date’s décolletage, wore a very large smile.

  “I can’t believe you,” I said when Declan picked up the phone.

  As usual, it was early, and he groaned. “What are you on about?”

  I got up from the rumpled sheets of my bed. When was the last time I’d washed them? I kicked the door of the bedroom closed. Emmie was in the city for once, and I didn’t want her to hear this. “Is she there?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Don’t give me that crap. You know who.”

  He grunted, then breathed out long and slow. I could imagine him throwing back the Zen-green sheets, walking to the windows, opening the blinds and gazing out at the canyon. “Kyra, you told me to move on. You said we were over.”

  “And you can just forget me after a few months?”

  “I haven’t forgotten you, and you know it.” His voice was quiet now, sad.

  “But Lauren?” I said. “My God!”

  “She’s got a good side.”

  “I must have missed that side.”

  “Look, it’s mostly business,” he said.

  “Is it?”

  “People love it,” he said without answering my question.

  “What people?”

  “I don’t know, Kyra. I just do what I’m told. Angela and Graham tell me where to show up and who to take with me. I do my job.”

  “You never used to do things like that for PR.”

  “I did before I met you.” He coughed. It made him sound like an old man. “When you and I got together, I didn’t have to do stuff like this. I wouldn’t. Now that you’re gone, I’ll do whatever they want, and now that you’ve broken us, I can be with wh
oever I want.”

  We were both silent for a moment.

  “I don’t care anymore,” he said. His voice had become hard.

  I did not know it, but before all this—before I found and lost Declan—there was a certain levity to my heart. An innocent weightlessness. I hadn’t known it because it was difficult to feel my heart when it was like that. Oh, I suppose I felt it when it soared—like when I said “I do” on that lawn in La Jolla—and I thought I knew sadness. But it turns out I was wrong. Even the loss of my parents didn’t sink my heart when I was a child. I didn’t know enough then to truly realize what I’d lost. But I recognized it on the phone with Declan that day. I knew what I had lost, and my heart was as heavy as stone.

  Emmie took me to dinner. MacKenzie was on a book tour, but even without him by her side, Emmie glowed. Her red hair, which she’d just had touched up, was shiny and cut to perfection. She had on a creamy ivory blouse, with a chunky silver necklace from Tiffany’s. Her limp seemed less evident.

  “Let’s start with champagne, shall we?” She signaled the waiter before I could respond and ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

  I sat back against the red leather booth and listened half-heartedly to Emmie’s critique of MacKenzie’s book reviews.

  “It’s true,” she said. “Ageism exists in the literary world, too. If Mac had written this book when he was forty, they would call it brave and subtle, but now they call it sentimental. It’s such twaddle.”

  I nodded once in a while. I murmured vague sounds of outrage.

  “My dear,” she said when our champagne was poured, “I have a toast.”

  “To the success of MacKenzie’s book,” I said, raising my glass.

  She touched the rim of her flute to mine. “Yes, yes, of course, that. But no, I have a different toast. Here’s to you making it work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Toast, toast,” she said, waving her flute toward me.

  I clinked glasses with her. “Okay, I give. Tell me.”

  “My dear, you and Declan. You just need to make it work.”

  I set my glass on the table. “God, Emmie. If you only knew how I tried. It’s not something you can shape like a lump of clay.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Declan’s life is what it is. I know lots of people might love the celebrity life, but I just don’t. I need my privacy. I need not to be followed all the time. I need to make mistakes that don’t get broadcast around the country. I won’t ask Declan to change who he is or the way he’s living his life. I have to either take it or leave it. And I can’t take it—I really can’t. So I had to leave.”

  Emmie made a pshh sound of disgust. “You’re being much too tragic.”

  I laughed despite myself. “I’ve lost the love of my life, and you’re telling me I’m being too tragic.”

  “Well, it’s true. You’re rather catastrophic about this. It’s not so black and white.”

  “Of course it is. I either live in L. A. with Dec and put up with all the crap that goes with it, or I don’t. I choose not to.”

  “There are other options.”

  “Like what?” I took a sip of my champagne. The bubbles tickled my nose. It seemed too whimsical a drink for my mood. I put the glass back on the table and pushed it away.

  “I don’t know, Kyra. That is for you to figure out. Just make it work.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  Emmie topped off my champagne glass. “There’s no need to be patronizing. I think I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Really? Did you make it work with Britton?” It was a low blow, but I was desperate to get off the topic.

  Emmie gave me an intense look with her teal eyes. “He had a family. He had children. I could not make that work, because there were people who would have been gravely hurt. You, on the other hand, are hurting no one but yourself.”

  I shook my head and glanced around the restaurant. It was early in the evening, and the place wasn’t full, yet.

  “Have you spoken to darling Bobby?” Emmie said. Despite what he’d done, she still had a soft spot for him. (“I always knew he was in love with you,” she’d said.)

  “A few times.”

  Bobby and I had talked twice since the Royalton Hotel. He cried, he apologized, he explained, he said that the only thing he wanted in the world now was my friendship. He also said that he’d taken a leave of absence from work and was seeing a shrink three times a week. After forty-five minutes on the phone one night, Bobby near tears again, I forgave him. I had been feeling such a desperate loss of all things well and good in my life that I wasn’t quite ready to chalk up Bobby as one of those losses, even if he had contributed to the overall picture. Plus, it’s surprisingly hard to hate someone who says they love you.

  “Well, there you go,” Emmie said. “You’re making it work with Bobby.”

  “Not quite. I forgave him, but Bobby and I will never be the same.”

  “Perhaps not, but my point is that you’re making an effort. You’re looking for ways to remedy the situation. That’s what you need to do with Declan.”

  “Sure,” I said with very little life in my voice.

  “Kyra.” Emmie pushed her glass aside and took my hand. “I haven’t asked much of you over the years, isn’t that true?” Something about her voice sounded grave.

  “Is something wrong?” I said.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Well, no. You’ve never pushed me to do anything.”

  “And I’m not pushing now.” She squeezed my hand tighter. Her skin felt papery and cool. “I’m asking you to try. That’s all. Take out what you have with Declan and gaze at it. Look at it from different angles. Do you see?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. I—”

  “Kyra.” She smiled a little. She looked at me in the way she had when I was little, right after my parents died—with compassion, with sadness, with love. “Make it work.”

  chapter 34

  Not so long ago, right before I met Declan, I wanted a witness to my everyday life. I got what I asked for. Millions of people witnessed my life for a time. You were probably one of them. Oh, I know you don’t buy those tabloid magazines, but you glance at them in the checkout line, just like I used to.

  Today, when I went out for coffee, I looked at one of those magazines. I couldn’t help it, because there was a picture of Dec and me, along with a bunch of other famous couples who’ve split up—Tom and Nicole, Meg and Dennis, Demi and Bruce.

  What Is Wrong with Celebrity Marriages? the headline read.

  I glanced over my shoulder. I scanned the parked cars for the jut of a telephoto lens. I studied the open apartment windows across the street. Old habits die hard. Finally, I turned back to the paper and flipped it open.

  The bit about Declan and me was in a section called “One-Minute Celeb Marriages,” where it discussed marriages that had happened and disintegrated “faster than you can boil water.” Declan and I were held up as the prime recent example of such a marriage. I began to feel shaky as I read the piece, almost faint. I couldn’t blame anyone for seeing us like that. It’s true that our marriage hadn’t even lasted a year. Yet it was appalling just the same. I knew in my heart that ours wasn’t simply a blip on the Hollywood marriage scene. It is—was, I should say—so much more than that.

  If we’d been a regular couple—maybe if he was a teacher and I a boutique owner—would we still be together? My initial reaction is to say yes. If it weren’t for those photographers, those reporters, those fans, if it weren’t for Amy Rose, if it weren’t for Bobby, then we would be happy. But that’s putting too much blame on other people. I was there; Declan, too. We aren’t blameless. If anything, maybe fame was a test of our marriage and, so far, we had failed.

  After I saw that article, I went to the public library at Bryant Park. It’s where I used to study and sketch. It was Bobby who introduced me to the genealogy room. Long, carved wood tables with low reading lamps
; huge arched windows that overlook the street; a golden glow imbuing the whole room with warmth. I used to love to sit there, letting myself be lulled by the soft tap tap tap of footsteps on the marble floor, the murmured voices at the desk. The place drew me into a space where my designs flowed, my mind flowered—shade that bodice, pull the sleeves a little longer, drop the hem. It all came so easily when I was there in the past, so I went back today, thinking the same thing would happen to my writing. I needed help. I have become blocked in the telling of this story as I get to the end of what I know to be true. As I get to the present.

  It’s been a catharsis to write this, to chart the past that I’ve lived for the last year or so, but as I get to the end of that past, to now, I find myself stalling. Because it seems as if I should decide. I should be able to take that history and apply it to a decision about the present. And yet I wonder if I am too late. Declan doesn’t call as often as when I first moved back to New York, and when he does he sounds resigned and distant. I fear he is taking me at my word and leaving me alone.

  The genealogy room isn’t helping today. Cell phones ring from inside bags. A bum to my left snores so loudly, it’s hard to ignore. Likewise, it’s impossible to ignore thoughts of Declan. Even when he is no longer leaving messages for me, I hear him calling. Now that my story has lost some of its steam and I’m a bit flattened by the telling of it, I don’t know if I can ignore that call. I don’t know that I want to.

  What do you do when the person you love leads a life you hate? Do you make them give up that life just to make you happy? No, I couldn’t do that, because it wouldn’t make me happy—if he’s miserable, so am I. It’s all a terrible conundrum, a cluster fuck of an emotional riddle.

  I get up from the table and wander the bookshelves. I find a book listing Irish passenger arrivals into the Port of New York from 1820–1829. I look to see if there are any McKennas there, maybe one of Declan’s ancestors, and sure enough I find a listing for a thirty-year-old woman named Mary McKenna, a “spinster” it says, who came over from Ireland in 1828.