Accidental It Girl

by Libby Street

  The words seem so innocuous: “I’m disappointed in you.” But there was something in the way that he said it. His big, tired, almond-shaped eyes would bore into me, they’d blink and appraise. He’d wring his rugged, blistered hands and languidly shuffle his feet. He’d shake his head and scratch at his prematurely gray hair. As the word disappointed trickled over his lips he gave the distinct impression of a man who’d had a tiny little piece of his heart ripped out and stomped on.

  I can see that look now, as clearly and vividly as if he were still alive and boring his weary eyes through my duvet—guilt from beyond the grave.

  And Ethan Wyatt came out of this with nothing more than some tedious insurance paperwork to suffer through, paperwork that I’m sure someone else will fill out for him.

  I clutch at my aching chest, rip off the covers, and pad directly into the kitchen—driven by the promise of caffeine.

  Slumping against the wall, I watch Brooke prepare cereal made of what appears to be twigs. She always eats right, and actually goes to the gym—daily. I’m a “better slimming through chemistry” girl myself. In other words, I much prefer potions to Pilates. The closest thing to a workout I get is fighting my way from Sephora’s anticellulite lotion section to the cash register.

  “I knew the coffee would get you out here,” Brooke chirps happily.

  I groan and shuffle over to pour some coffee. I’m not sure my foul mood can handle her pep.

  She turns around, mixes up her twigs with soy milk. “How was your date with the macho man?”

  I lift the coffee to my lips, anxiously anticipating its wondrous effect. “Before or after I dumped him and he sent me to track down a member of the Osmond family?”

  I gulp some coffee and am about to launch into the whole story when Brooke interrupts me with a shocked gasp. “Jesus! Sadie, what happened?”

  “We broke up,” I say, confused by the look of absolute horror on her face. “I mean, his ego might be a little deflated but it wasn’t that bad.”

  “I’m talking about that!” she says, ogling my chest—her eyes wide with concern.

  Looking down, I freeze. My stretched-out old tank top reveals that I am black and blue, pink, green, and yellow. The center of the bruise is about four inches in diameter and located just above my heart. From there it stretches out toward my left shoulder and down over my left breast like a pastel spiderweb. It is gigantic…and ugly.

  “Oh,” I say softly—startled. “Oh!”

  Brooke’s eyes continue to widen and examine the bruise. I can almost see the thoughts bouncing around in her head. She’s wondering whom she’s going to have to beat up.

  I start, “I’m okay. I think my camera just—”

  Brooke is incredulous. “You don’t look okay. Who did this to you—Donny or Marie?”

  Before I can begin my twisted tale, the door buzzer hums loudly.

  “Luke’s been out all night. He’s stopping by for breakfast before he crashes,” Brooke says distractedly. Luke technically has his own apartment, but practically lives with us. He keeps his own pillow in the hall closet because he sleeps on our couch so much that the cushions were getting, according to Brooke, “that nasty, sleepy boy smell.”

  The same front door that Brooke and I can never seem to unlock swings open with no problem for Luke.

  “What day is it?” Luke asks, striding toward the kitchen with a smile.

  “Friday,” replies Brooke. While I chime in, “Saturday.”

  Luke looks at us, waiting for a definitive answer. I never know for sure what day it is without consulting the calendar on my cell phone. I defer to Brooke.

  “Friday,” she says. “I have the day off. Definitely Friday.”

  “Damn, that means I have to work tomorrow,” grumbles Luke. “Oooh, coffee.”

  He heads for the coffee, but stops short when he sees me. “Sadie, what happened to you?” he whispers.

  The concern and compassion in his voice tug at some deep part of me. My eyes fill with unwanted, ridiculous tears. “Ethan Wyatt wrecked the Camaro.”

  I am lying on the couch with the remote control in hand and a plastic sandwich bag full of ice on my chest. I think it’s too late for the ice to do any good, but I let Brooke do it anyway.

  I told them everything, from toothbrush to tow truck. At once they turned into doting parental figures, coercing me to lie down, force-feeding me Cocoa Puffs and raisin toast, and agreeing with everything I said. It was kind of nice, but as pity parties go, a little on the lame side. At some point I’m going to need a little less toast and a little more tequila.

  “Who’d you get last night, Luke?” I ask, turning my attention from Good Times.

  “De Niro again, Kate Hudson, Owen Wilson.”

  “Not bad,” I reply, impressed.

  “Eh,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “What are you going to do about the car?”

  “Stop buying shoes, eat only bread and water, hope that a mysterious benefactor has upped my insurance.” Sue Ethan Wyatt for all he’s worth. Crush him like a little bug.

  Or…I could call Paige. She has the money.

  I glance over at the corner of the room, and my eyes land on the big brown box.

  No, she wouldn’t help. She’s always thought my job was beneath me—or more to the point, beneath her. I think she’s intrigued by the fame and fortune aspect of it all, but the fact that I’m on the blue-collar side of the business doesn’t appeal to her sense of decorum and good breeding. She tells her friends that I’m a photographer, and then quickly changes the subject. Paparazzi isn’t part of her lexicon; it certainly isn’t part of her vision of the perfect daughter. Not to mention my mother is not exactly the most reliable person to call for help. A real emergency would illicit a response like “Darling, can I call you back? I’m late for the hairdresser, and you know how Franco hates to wait. Thanks. Bye.” The follow-up would come two weeks later…. “All right, I’m here for you now. I got your message. No, no, darling—you cut the green wire, not the red one.”

  The three “years of silence,” as I like to call them, went something like this: 1989 was all about feeling sorry for myself and watching Disney musicals. Then 1990 was a year of alternately hating Paige with a fury and experimenting with the latest exfoliation techniques outlined in Seventeen. In 1991 I wanted to be Christy Turlington and wished, more than anything, that my mother had taken me with her. Then, near Thanksgiving of 1991, gifts began trickling in.

  At first they were trinkets, small pieces of jewelry, hair accessories that I couldn’t use because I’d chopped all my hair off that summer (when Christy did). Then, at Christmas, a makeup kit arrived—a Chanel makeup kit. New Year’s brought a journal. It was leather and velvet with a lock that looked to have been swiped from a medieval text. By April of 1992 I had amassed quite a collection of things, the value of which I still believe totaled more than the entire contents of my father’s tiny house. The period that followed I have generously entitled “Paige’s Mother-Daughter Adventure”—she began having me over for weekends.

  I had just turned fourteen and was outstandingly awkward and plump. Puberty was very unkind to me. My breasts and hips emerged long before my upward growth spurt, so I resembled a lumpy apple for the first gruesome year of high school. But, as Paige used to remind me, my hair was so pretty—smooth, shiny, and sun-bleached to a honeyed platinum blonde.

  One day, completely out of the blue, Paige sent me a note instructing me, in no uncertain terms, to proceed directly to her house Friday after school. She said she’d spoken to my dad about it and that he knew not to expect me home until Sunday evening. The kicker? The note came attached to a brand-new cashmere Benetton sweater. If I had had any inkling of what cashmere was, or what it cost, I probably wouldn’t have worn it. I would have hidden it under my bed with the rest of her gifts so my father didn’t know I was “cheating” on him with my mother. But as it was, when Friday came around I wore the sweater to school. I loved it—so soft and de
licate and creamy white, like an eggshell. All day I got compliments on it, and all day I fanta-sized about what it would be like to hang out in my mother’s enormous house surrounded by all the expensive things that I was sure would make me feel just instantaneously happier. The only thing I was nervous about was the bus.

  Paige lived, quite literally, on the other side of the tracks. This meant that to go directly to her house I had to take a different bus from school. I had to take the cool bus, the bus that all the cheerleaders rode (well, the few not driven to and from school by their much older boyfriends). There were no band geeks or math league members on this bus. It was a bus filled with superlatives—Best Couple, Most Likely to Succeed, Cutest Butt. I was completely petrified. Though not a math league member myself, my best friend at the time (who, incidentally, was infinitely cooler than I) was first chair tuba in the marching band. But when I walked onto the cool bus, I held my head high and tried to look like I belonged. Apparently, my routine didn’t quite hit the mark. The hottest, most popular guy in my grade, Marshall Holmes, tapped me on the shoulder as I passed him and said, “Uh, Sadie. I don’t think you’re on the right bus.”

  He didn’t mean it to be cruel. I honestly think it was well-intentioned concern that prompted him to speak (Marshall grew up to be a very wealthy, very gay doctor and adoptive father of four Cambodian orphans). But, nevertheless, his comment sparked a cacophony of laughter and snickering at my expense. It also caused a face-reddening cringe and the sudden desire to crawl under a seat and assume the fetal position.

  Believe it or not, that was the highlight of the weekend.

  I very quickly caught on that my mother had not invited me to the home she shared with Dr. Hank, DDS, so that I could be folded into the warm embrace of a happy privileged home. She had invited me as an accessory, a prop.

  I was greeted at the front door with two air kisses. The only touch that came by way of greeting was a nudge propelling me inside the foyer. And even that, I think, was done with the dull, flat tips of her acrylic nails.

  There were two parties planned that weekend, she informed me. “One tonight with my golf ladies, and one tomorrow with Dr. Hank’s business acquaintances.” She directed me to follow her up the long, winding staircase to the second floor. “We’re just so excited to have you!”

  Paige showed me to “my” bedroom. It looked like Holly Hobby had been held prisoner there, tortured, and then blown herself up MacGyver style using only a paper clip, some Pepto-Bismol, and a thousand yards of lace. Two gorgeous brand-new outfits hung neatly in the closet—one for Friday night, one for Saturday. The weekend spiraled ever downward quite nicely from there.

  I was the only nonadult at either party. Paige paraded me around like a sideshow oddity, showing off my outfits and forcing me to “tell people how well you’re doing, honey.” I was like a new sofa she’d acquired for the occasion. Look at it…isn’t it nice. The upholstery’s beautiful, and the frame is so sturdy!

  Everything about the house was foreign to me. Despite its lavishness compared to my father’s place, it felt totally empty. There were no memories there. I didn’t know the bikes that hung in the garage, couldn’t recall how the ding on the fender came about. There were rules I didn’t know to obey—taking your shoes off before entering from the backyard, not touching the screen of the fancy TV (“You’ll leave fingerprints!”), not feeding Oodles table scraps because she had a sensitive stomach. On the living room bookshelf was a picture of my mother. She was on the beach in a skimpy white bikini. She held a tiny little fish in her hand. Her skin was golden and smooth, her hair the same sun-kissed platinum as mine. The bikini clung to her sculpted curves so precariously that it seemed to cover her by sheer will alone. I couldn’t identify the exotic tropical locale and had no idea why she looked so proud of that silly little fish.

  As bizarre as the whole experience turned out to be, I couldn’t stop coming back each weekend. The only way I know to describe it is that it’s like when you watch one of those shows on the Discovery Channel about babies born with two heads, or people forced to cut off their own limbs to save themselves from certain death. Something about it grosses you out, freaks you out…it may even give you nightmares. Still, you have to watch. You become mesmerized with curiosity and wonder. That’s what it was like growing up with Paige for a mother.

  Week after week I was trussed up and polished. I was paraded around and gawked at, prodded and given diet advice by my mother’s leather-skinned golf buddies. I was leered at by Dr. Hank’s mysterious “associates” and given off-the-cuff orthodontic tips by his “business acquaintances.” Looking back on it now, I can see that my mother’s increasing interest in me, if you can call it that, makes perfect sense. She and Dr. Hank had spent three blissful, romantic years as a couple. They’d had their time together and Paige was ready to start a family. Lucky for my mother she didn’t have to get fat and incontinent to do so. I was a ready-made family, the finishing touch for my mother’s home—the pitter-patter of little feet that rounded out and perfected the image of domestic bliss she wanted to be envied for. If I hadn’t been a wimpy doormat of a self-conscious youth, I probably would have rebelled. If I hadn’t felt so completely curious and slightly helpless, I either would have refused to go along with these performances or spoiled them in grand fashion—explosives, poison, dirty body-pierced boyfriends. But as it was, I went along with them for years. Monday through Friday I was myself, Saturday and Sunday I was Paige Price-Farmer’s “darling daughter.”

  That box over there could be anything. A plasma TV, a giant velvet Elvis, a killer python. There’s really no telling how good or bad it might be, or what Paige expects in return.

  It’s time for the evening news. I don’t mean the local variety that’s so abundant here in New York, or the kind of broadcast by the roughly seven million twenty-four-hour news networks. No, I’m talking about the evening entertainment news. It’s part of the job for Luke and me, and one of Brooke’s most beloved guilty pleasures.

  This is a somewhat tedious, but occasionally amusing, job-related diversion. Tonight, however, it’s turning my stomach to knots. I know they’re going to cover the airport pileup, and I know they’re going to make it out to be my fault. Since Lindsay Lohan got her driver’s license these stories have become a main-stay of the nightly entertainment news—and it’s always the photographer’s fault. Always.

  “Oh, damn!” whines Brooke as I make my way back from the kitchen with a load of stress-reducing snacks in my arms. Brooke sits, as she always does, perched on the edge of her seat as though ready to pounce.

  “What? What is it? What did they say?” I ask breathlessly, dropping the snacks on the coffee table.

  “No, no. It’s nothing about you. I just missed E! ‘Behind the Scenes of Finding Her.’ Damn, I forgot it was on! There’s only five minutes left.”

  Finding Her is the upcoming release starring Brooke’s true love fantasy man, Duncan Stoke. Duncan Stoke is an all-American hunk, Brooke’s current celebrity obsession, and the one man in Hollywood with a name more improbable than Vin Diesel.

  “He has two movies coming out this summer. He’s going to be all over the TV,” Luke tells her.

  “Hallelujah!” She points to the screen. “I mean, look at him. He’s gorgeous. I saw him on Leno the other night, Sadie. He’s so perfect for me in every way. If I were just a little bit crazier, I could totally become a stalker.”

  Brooke is somewhat of a nascent celebrity freak. The further along she’s gotten in her chosen career of real estate, the less she’s been inclined to do it the rest of her life. She’s got it into her head that she’s going to marry into fame, fortune, and a life of leisure. For most people this would be a harmless fantasy. For Brooke, given her complete focus, dogged determination, and proximity to people who track celebrities for a living, this becomes very dangerous. She’s a heat-seeking missile.

  “I wonder if he’s coming to New York to do publicity,” she says ominously, whi
le watching Duncan Stoke’s chiseled, action-hero features flicker across the screen. Something about his oh-so classically manly form, or his pitch-perfect combination of cockiness and boy-next-door charm, has enraptured her.

  Unlike me, Brooke is a dreamer who wholeheartedly believes in true love and happy endings. (Her parents have been married for thirty-five years and have always been blissfully happy.) I believe this is the root of her celebrity obsession and her all-consuming fantasy life that centers on hooking up with one.

  It is so much easier to believe that the right guy exists, and that you just haven’t met him yet, if that guy’s face is known to you. It’s much more frightening to think that he’s out there and you might not recognize him.

  What if you meet him and you don’t understand his importance? What if you miss it altogether? What if when he asks you out for coffee you say, “Sorry, gotta feed my cat,” not knowing that he’s The One? (And not actually owning a cat.)

  The feeling of knowing that a perfect someone is out there is comforting, soothing. In lonely times you can console yourself with the knowledge that circumstances out of your control (namely, his bodyguards) are all that’s keeping you from romantic tranquillity with the man of your dreams. The sense of hope this creates, no matter how unrealistic the celebrity match, is important to the single girl’s sanity. The only thing scarier than the possibility of missing The One is the possibility that he’s not out there at all.

  In times of disappointment or stress, Brooke can always dive into her quixotic infatuations. They give her hope. For this reason, I find them hard to discourage.

  Brooke sighs as the show ends. She stares off into space with a dreamy look in her eye, no doubt mentally picking out a Vera Wang wedding gown, or redecorating Duncan’s beach-side cottage in East Hampton.