Once Upon a Star - Celebrity kiss and tell stories

by Peggy Trentini

  A friend of mine, Maria, had taken me out with her friend, Tai Babylonia, who was an Olympic figure skater. She was stunning, and I spent most of the night chatting with her and uncovering aspects of her world that fascinated me far more than everyone else. She rarely or never went out clubbing, so this was a big night, and I was happy to have been invited. Maria had just broken up with her long-time boyfriend, and I was trying relentlessly to find her a respectable replacement.

  “What about that one?” I said, taking a sip of my drink and pointing to a tall, dark, and handsome nobody at two o’clock.

  “No, too lanky,” she said, “I can’t just find a new one.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “My heart’s broken,” she said and slammed back the remains of her vodka tonic.

  “That one is cute,” said Tai in her broken accent, and pointed toward the bar.

  “Holy shit,” I said, and sunk down into the booth.

  Maria sat there, slack-jawed, laughing, “Is that David Cassidy?”

  It most certainly was David Cassidy. I had flash backs to my early teen years where I’d had pictures of him literally plastered to my bedroom walls. I worshipped him and played his records till they wore straight through.

  “I don’t get it. Do you want him?” Tai was asking me, but I was deep in my daydreams like this was 8th grade history class.

  Suddenly, my thoughts broke as Tai shouted,

  “Hey David, come over here.” The funny thing was that David couldn’t hear her. The bar was packed, and there were about a dozen conversations taking place between us and him. However, what he could see was a crazy beautiful girl, practically standing on her seat and flagging him down. He smiled from the bar and raised his drink, but when she didn’t stop, he actually came over to us.

  What I didn’t know at the time, but soon figured out, was that Tai and David were long time old friends. You would think I would have mastered meeting celebrities by this point, and you would also think that I no longer had the ability to get star struck and stumble over every word that I spoke. But then, you would be wrong.

  David came over and gave Tai a great big hug before introducing himself to Maria and me. I made sure to smile, because no actual words were coming out of my mouth. Eventually, several minutes after being introduced, I managed to say, “It’s really nice to meet you.” Everyone stared at me and continued talking. I finished my drink, wondering how, after all this time, I could manage to still be so awkward. I felt as if I had been hit by a truck.

  Maria finally said, “I have never seen you so speechless. Literally, like, never ever. In all the years I have known you, I haven’t seen you say so little in any given amount of time,” and she busted up laughing. I was looking around to make sure David wasn’t still within earshot. He was posted up at the bar again, but this time when he looked over, he was looking at me. I thought I was imagining things at first, but half way through our next round, I finally asked the girls if I was crazy. We all looked. He smiled and motioned for me to come over to him. I couldn’t move. My knees locked, my throat went dry, and nothing in the world, aside from Tai literally shoving me out of the booth, would get me to move. So, she shoved me out of the booth.

  I walked over to him and counted slowly in my head so all the nerves fell off around me. By the time I got to the bar, I had regained my composure and tossed my hair behind my shoulder, ordering a vodka tonic.

  “Make that two,” he said to the bartender.

  We talked for a bit, and I giggled a lot. Eventually, he asked me,

  “Have you ever heard about my family curse?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’ll tell you all about on our date tomorrow night,” he took my number down on a napkin before leaving me smiling and glowing at the bar.

  David picked me up the following night with flowers and dressed to the nines. I was living out an actual childhood fantasy, and I kept taking mental notes and pinching myself to be sure it was real. I wanted to recount every single detail to Maria. He kissed me on the cheek and hugged me hello before opening the door to his Mercedes for me. Everything he did, I found attractive. I paid attention to the way he drove, the way he switched gears and checked the mirrors as the radio hummed behind everything he said. I just managed to make myself articulate and adorable during the ride.

  I started to ease into the evening, and, by the time we pulled up in front of Casa Vega in the Valley, I was totally myself again.

  Casa Vega was most certainly off the beaten path, but was a secret hot spot nonetheless. It was an interesting choice for our first date, so I was glowing at the idea of him wanting some privacy for just the two of us. No one here would bother you, and, on many nights, you could spend a whole evening without seeing a single person in your inner circle. A private booth waited for us. We took a seat: Me, David, and my exquisite delight. The booth was tucked away and hidden in the back of the restaurant, and David insisted I sat right next to him. I left my delight sitting across the table from us, with her legs crossed, listening to our conversation.

  I tried to focus on the menu, but all I could think about was the fact that my thigh was touching his thigh. When his hand brushed mine as he pointed out his favorite dish on the menu, I just about squealed.

  I let David order for me. I didn’t even read the menu. Thank god he drank tequila, because, after a popper or two, my nerves were soothed and we were chatting up a storm. He kept putting his hand on my bare thigh and sliding it up above my hemline. I practically choked on my margarita. His touch gave me goose bumps and chills ran down my spine. I kept catching his eye and biting my lip, because this was all too good to be true.

  The booth was lit from a lamp hanging along the side, casting the most favorable light across our table. It was hard for me to not feel like this was everything I had asked for. Everything I had been through was worth it, if it led me to the moment I was having right now. I made doe eyes at David, and he touched my chin, lifting my face toward the light, and slowly kissed my lips. He tasted like a man, and I tasted like tequila. I wanted to keep going, take my clothes off in this booth and make love to him in the back of this strange restaurant in the Valley.

  The rest of dinner went on this way. We would hopscotch between petting each other and actually enjoying our dinner. David sped down the freeways to get home as I rubbed him through his jeans, and we listened to the music with the windows down. We were in love with being young and pretty, and were in love with being in love.

  Once we got to my house, we could barely open the door before jumping on top of each other. He was peeling off my clothes, and I pinned him against the wall. I started stripping for him very slowly, and, as he admired my body, I tried to distract him from the mess of my apartment. I pressed myself against him, and he held me close, kissing me hard. I started to unbuckle his belt.

  “You know, you never asked me about my family curse,” he said.

  “What is it, pray tell,” I said, and continued unbuttoning his pants. Before he could answer me, I found the answer for myself. As I slid his pants down his legs, I found myself face to face with the most ginormous penis I had ever come across. It was huge, like, freakishly huge, and I almost had to shy away from it. He told me that all the men in his family had the same affliction, and we both laughed.

  I looked up, giggled, and made the most of that man.

  The Betrayal

  I think by now we all know how this story goes. I fell in love with David. I fell in love with him, no reserves at all. I just abandoned all my fears and all the destruction I had seen and caused. I believed in fate and the stars and that all the screwed up relationships I’d had lead me to him. I was the luckiest girl on Earth. David called me every day, and we saw each other every single chance we could.

  David set a different pace in my life than I had known in other relationships. He usually came over to my house, and, for a while, time passed in complete, unobstructed happiness. If this was everything I had always
wanted, then why was I starting to want more?

  After time passed, I started to notice that all this time in meant very little time out, and we all know that the grass is greener. I just wanted balance. I had always had an extravagant public life, and this hiding away was reminding of my time with Sly. David sensed my desire to take our relationship to the next level. Over the course of a single week, I started to see things in a different light. I think, once the bubbles in my head wore off, I started to realize what was really going on.

  I was annoyed that we spent all of our time in my house and I never went to his place. I was tired of having dinner in dark, obscure restaurants on the outskirts of town. I had been a fool before, and I wasn’t about to be taken as one again, so I confronted him one night. I asked him straight up as he came to my door one late night. Why all the secrecy? Why did I feel like I was hiding? I didn’t even know what I was hiding from. He came into my house and sat down on the couch, looking solemn, and I prepared myself for whatever it was that would come out of his adorable mouth.

  He told me her name was Sue. He had tears in his eyes, and I had rage in my throat. Just as I was about to scream and throw him out, he continued to tell me that he lived with Sue. I could feel the rage rising like vomit. God damn! How had I let this happen to me again? How could I have been so stupid? I wanted to smash that simple smile out from the back of his head; I wanted to time travel and see the blatant, glowing signs I had ignored along the way. Then, all of the sudden, he started to cry. Why was he crying? What nerve did he have to cry? I didn’t know how to react. This was my place to be upset, so I stood there, watching him, because I had no idea how this was going to play out. I was dumbstruck.

  It turned out that Sue was terminally ill, and he lived with her because he couldn’t leave her. He cared for her and paid for all her treatments. Of what she was dying from, I didn’t ask at the time. He just kept saying,

  “I don’t know what to do, not right now, I can’t leave her right now.” I sat down next to him and held his hand. I felt like such an asshole. He spent the next hour apologizing to me for acting this way, and for not telling me the truth. He didn’t think I would’ve understood or would have ever wanted to see him again. He felt terrible about everything, and so did I. I hated being the “other” woman, but this was unlike anything I had ever been through before. And I loved him, I mean, I really loved him.

  I told him I wouldn’t ask him to leave her, and that I understood. I couldn’t make any promises but for now, I said that we were okay. He told me that they were just close friends, and they hadn’t been having sex for a very long time. She was so sick, and they had been together for so long. There was love, but he didn’t love her the way he was in love with me. I was glowing at hearing those words. He could have told me anything after that, because nothing else mattered. David Cassidy was in love with me.

  We spent most of the night talking like we never had before, sharing stories of our lives that I hadn’t felt comfortable talking about with anyone. At one point, I offered to break off our relationship, even though I loved him, so he wouldn’t have to deal with all of this. He held me close and begged me to stay. He said he couldn’t bare the idea of losing what we had. David told me that he had been in therapy for a long time, and I trusted that he was telling me the truth about absolutely everything.

  Months went by after that night, months and months of the same story. Some days were better than others, and some days, I couldn’t bear the thought of going on. I kept telling myself how stupid this was. All of my girlfriends told me, too, openly, of how ‘fucking dumb’ the whole relationship was. He was never going to leave her, and I felt a horrible part of me was waiting for her to die. Her, this woman I didn’t even know, dying of something I didn’t know, in a place I had never been. The whole charade was making me sick. David would come over to my house, and we would have incredible sex and make amazing meals and enjoy each other. He never spent the night, but he would stay up late with me, talking about everything.

  I learned a lot about him as a person and, in this time, despite how I felt about him or about our relationship, he became a very dear friend of mine. He was a very confused man, and, on the bad days, I just felt terrible for him. He had all these unhealed wounds that had taken their toll on his life. He had never gotten over the death of his father, Jack Cassidy, who had fallen asleep intoxicated while smoking. He burned to death in his bed. David never forgot that. He also talked about his relationship with Susan Dey a lot. I think he would be surprised sometimes, when he found himself unaware that the conversation had led back to her. He would catch himself mid-story, and sort of stop and swallow all his words. I started to understand that she was the real love of his life. He never admitted it, but a girl can sense these sorts of things. My heart went out to him.

  Then it happened. It happened as it always inevitably did. Maria was calling me nonstop until I finally answered. She said she was coming over. She came storming into my apartment, tabloid in hand. I had flashbacks to my life with Sly again. Anything on or in a tabloid was bad news. She told me to sit down and flipped the tabloid open, then laid it in my lap. There, on a double page spread, was a picture of David, smiling and clear eyed, with his girlfriend, Sue Schifrin, who was very, very pregnant. I screamed at the top of my lungs and hurled the magazine across the apartment, knocking over and shattering a picture of David and me, oddly enough. The magazine, the picture, and the glass, all lay on the floor, mocking me.

  I wasted no time trying to get David on the phone. After the third time, I left a message, asking him how he could do this to me, asking him if he had ever loved me. I went on a tirade, calling him a coward and a liar and a fake. I told him I never wanted to see him again.

  I calmed down and had a glass of whiskey. Maria and I rehashed the whole situation, and, after I was done being upset, it was so ridiculous that it was almost funny. I knew that it would take time, but eventually it would only be funny.

  “Well, I guess he wasn’t really lying to you. I mean, I guess she was terminally pregnant,” Maria said, and we busted up laughing. It was in part from the shock, in part from the whiskey, and in part because I felt that, well, shit, it happened again. Go figure. At a certain point, nothing surprised me anymore.

  Chapter 1 1

  Mark Messier

  Midsummer Night’s Dream

  I was a groupie. I hadn’t meant to, but I had become a groupie, a city girlfriend, and a low burning flame in far too many men’s lives. I was proud of my collection, but, nonetheless, grew tired of the same damned story when they came to town or left town, or whatever they did. I weeded through my dating list and cut them off, one by one. I ignored their calls, I got too drunk to drive to their houses, and I literally tricked myself into saying no sometimes. After a few weeks, the phone stopped ringing, the flowers stopped coming, and I was alone, really alone, for the first time in what felt like forever.

  I decided this time to really reprioritize my dating plan. I had said this before to myself, but this time I meant business. No more rock stars, and no more movie stars. A voice in my head laughed, and asked me how long this would last. I started passing on all the same old parties I used to get all gussied up for. I knew who would be there, I knew what they would be drinking, and chances were that I could even tell you what they would talk about. It was like a movie on a loop: same shit, different night.

  Weeks went by like this, and all my friends made fun of me. They came by my apartment and called me Old Mother Hubbard, but, secretly, I think they envied me and my self-control. We all wanted what I was after, a good man, and a good life.

  However, of all the things I was willing to sacrifice, the one thing that I never questioned giving up was partying at the Playboy Mansion. This may sound counterintuitive, and I suppose it was, but those parties were the best times of my life. I loved going to the mansion. I had so many close friends, and it just felt like a big family. I felt like I belonged there. The Midsummer Night�
�s Dream party was just around the corner, and my friend, Katy, who had recently become a playmate, called and demanded that I get the stick out of my ass and join in the fun. I told her I wasn’t planning on missing it for all the nice guys in the world.

  She and I spent an afternoon shopping at Trashy Lingerie, our favorite store for such events. We tried on everything they had while they served us champagne. By this point, we were very, very valued customers. I found the perfect black number. It was understated. I knew there would be a million women there for the men to ogle. But I wasn’t going to the party to find a new man, I was going to see some old friends and have fun. I wanted to attract as little attention as is possible when you are nearly naked for an entire evening.

  I hung my outfit up in my apartment, and tried to get excited in the few days prior, but I just couldn’t muster the same sort of enthusiasm, and I couldn’t even fake it. I had been going to mansion parties since I was eighteen, and never had they disappointed me. I wondered what could be wrong with me. When the night came, I gathered my things and went to Katy’s house for a pre-party. All us girls were getting ready, which included a lot of squealing, a lot of drinking, and a lot of, “oh god, you look ahhhmazing!” Everyone did their best to get me in the mood, and, by the time we left, my spirits were looking up.