by Libby Street
“Oh, whatever!” I say—remarkably able to quiet the sick, mentally disturbed part of me that wants to giggle and say, “You really think so?”
After a half block of forcing myself not to peer over my shoulder, I hear the distinctive lilt of his highly trained voice. Ethan is not far behind me, shouting the immortal words of Kit De Luca: “Work it baby! Work it! Own it!”
Irritating, but not lethal.
Suddenly, he sprints in front of Brooke and me and begins snapping pictures of us while walking backward. “Perfect!” he says, snapping off two shots. “Now just pout for me.”
Brooke unconsciously—I hope—begins hamming it up.
“Can I ask you something, Wyatt?” Brooke asks, startling me.
“For you, Brooke, anything,” he replies with his signature cocky lilt.
“Why Duncan Stoke?” She’s obsessed!
“For this, you mean?” he asks, clicking off another couple of pictures.
Brooke tilts her head down for a more flattering angle, and says, “Yeah.”
“He spread a rumor about me once,” Ethan replies, inadvertently allowing just the tiniest hint of anger to make its way into his voice.
“Oh, reeeaaally,” Brooke says dramatically. “What about?”
“I was up for the same part as him in Dereliction of Duty, and he heard that the casting director had a sweet spot for me. He told the producers that I was unstable and possibly addicted to drugs. I lost the part.” Ethan looks up from the camera, measuring Brooke’s response.
Brooke squinches up her eyes, studying him—no doubt trying to determine if Ethan is telling the truth. She shakes her head. “He’d never do that,” she says with a strident air.
Ethan huffs and then adds, “He did.”
“I don’t believe it,” Brooke whispers to me. “Not at all. Dereliction of Duty is the film that made Duncan a household name. Obviously Ethan’s jealous.”
“Obviously,” I concur—completely unconvinced.
I force Brooke to forge ahead. And, doing my best to ignore Ethan, quicken my steps. People are starting to notice us.
“What’s the hourly rate, Sweet-cheeks?” Ethan asks—loudly.
I hate to admit it, but a tiny flutter of pleasure squirmed through my midsection at the “sweet”…okay, and the “cheeks.”
Digging deeper into my well of calm, I stop and flash him an ear-to-ear grin—wide enough to be worthy of Julia Roberts—giving him a glimpse of my amused incredulity. “Comical, Wyatt, but it won’t work.”
“You’re looking tired,” he adds smugly. “Should I call someone? Your parole officer? A psychiatrist maybe?”
I try to smile with flair and ease, but I have a feeling it may actually be more of a grimace.
“Oh, that’s great,” he says, continuing with his act. “More of that, only this time less fangs—more pout.”
I pause on the corner of Second Avenue and Sixteenth Street. (Stupid uncooperative lights!) He continues shooting away. His camera, my increasingly fake smile, and Brooke’s attempts to follow Heidi Klum’s “Tips for Better Snapshots” begin to draw even more attention. Four, maybe five people stop to investigate Ethan’s catcalls and inspect Brooke and me, wondering who we are.
A heavyset woman in curlers and a Member’s Only jacket approaches Ethan. She points and asks, “Who are they?” Like we’re not even here. “What do they do?”
I open my mouth to tell the strange lady to mind her own business, but of course, Mr. Big Mouth beats me to it. He leans over to the curler lady conspiratorially and says—in a stage whisper, “Well, you know…adult films.”
Admirably, I resist my natural instinct to smack Ethan upside the head. Instead, I turn to him, toss my head back and laugh uproariously. Pulling out my inner flirt, I give him a fresh look at my pearly whites—more fangs than pout—and ask, “What has gotten into you? You are an absolute riot this morning, honey! Now, quit playing around. Go home and find yourself a job. Oh, and don’t forget to feed your ferrets.”
With the “joke” revealed, the crazy lady in the curlers huffs loudly and throws her hands up in disappointment. The other onlookers, however, are not as discouraged. They merely squint their eyes and press in closer.
Ethan gives me a devilish grin, his blue eyes dancing. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.” He pulls the camera up and resumes shooting.
Just as I’m about to lose my cool, I notice a knot of teenage girls striding down the street toward us. All half-dozen of them are various shades of bottle blonde. Each is clad in a different hue of midriff-bearing pink—bubble gum, ballet, Pepto-Bismol. I gather from the book bags and leisurely pace that they’re on their way to school.
I feel an unexpected surge of adrenaline, and a stroke of inspiration that’s almost Machiavellian in its poetic depravity. This is it, my chance to lose him.
In a low voice I tell Brooke, “Follow my lead.”
She nods her head, and I practically leap on the hood of the first cab to pass by.
I force Brooke (who is still posing) into the cab.
I pause before getting in and lean over the door toward Ethan. I lock eyes with his and give him what I believe approximates a come-hither stare. Well, from my end it feels that way, at least. I do the classic “come here” finger move—curling my finger repeatedly, as if drawing him in by a string.
Stunned, and I think a bit intrigued, he leans toward me. Slowly, carefully, I bring my cheek to his. Barely brushing my lips against his skin, I put a peck on his fuzzy face. I whisper, “You can’t beat me. Give it up.”
With a quick tug, I pull down a good portion of his poorly affixed fake beard.
Smiling, I scream at the top of my lungs, “Oh, my Gooooood! It’s Ethan Wyaaaaatt!”
“Very funny,” he says, only slightly perturbed.
I grin a knowing, cocky smile of my own (the first time I’ve been able to use one of those in a while) and watch as his face begins to show little flashes of panic. Little furrows appear on his forehead. The slight dimple on his left cheek smooths out as his smile slowly curls downward. His blue eyes widen as a shrill, frightening sound assails him.
He hears it, that most terrifying of sounds for the unguarded male celebrity: teenage girls, squealing with delight.
With a wink, I slide into the cab and wave good-bye to my dumbfounded (and amazingly scented) celebrity stalker. Luckily, the cab doesn’t spring to life before I get a chance to see Ethan Wyatt being mauled by six extremely enthusiastic young fans.
Chapter 19
Brooke and I step onto the escalator of an Upper East Side Barnes & Noble.
“How are we supposed to recognize her?” Brooke asks, scanning the stacks and café as we’re deposited on the second floor.
My eyes flit over the wide mahogany shelves and little placards—Self-Help, Biography, Reference. The sunshine must have coaxed readers outside, because most of the comfy chairs scattered around are empty.
“She told me that she’s pregnant, that we’ll be able to spot her from a mile away.” I return to my visual sweep and notice a very petite, very pregnant woman sifting through a table of bargain books. “That must be her,” I say to Brooke, pointing across the room.
“That little thing was Ethan Wyatt’s personal assistant?” Brooke says, verbalizing the surprise I’m feeling myself. She adds, “I imagined a Malibu Barbie type.” Yeah, so did I.
I survey the room—she seems to be the only pregnant woman around. With a name as faintly exotic as Jacinta Brown, I really expected her to be sort of…well, exotic. As it turns out, the only thing truly striking about her is that she’s managed to stay vertical. Her belly is enormous, especially given her slim frame and diminutive stature. The fact that she’s upright seems to defy the laws of physics.
I approach the woman at the bargain books table. “Jacinta?” I ask.
“Oh, hi! You must be Sadie,” she says with a wide engaging smile. Jacinta’s auburn, pixie-cut hair shows off her soft, pretty features incl
uding, appropriately enough, a peachy sort of glow on her freckled cheeks.
“That’s me,” I reply, “and this is my associate, Brooke Nolan.”
“Associate?” Brooke chides under her breath.
“Would you like to sit down?” I ask Jacinta, indicating the in-store café nearby.
Her shoulders droop while her hand moves to caress her belly. “Oh, that would be great,” she replies with a sigh of relief.
Jacinta waddles precariously to a table while Brooke and I bring up the rear—each of us with our hands held out a bit, ready to catch her in case she suddenly loses her epic battle with gravity.
Drinks and Danish are procured, and we settle into a quiet little nook.
I begin. “Thank you so much for meeting with me. I promise that you’ll be kept anonymous. I’m sure it must make you a little nervous to break your confidentiality agreement—”
“Confidentiality agreement?” Jacinta interrupts.
Brooke and I look at each other with concern. Oh, no—I’ve bought a Danish for the wrong pregnant Jacinta.
“Um,” I stutter, “you were Ethan Wyatt’s personal assistant? Yes?”
“I was,” she replies brightly.
Wait a second. “He didn’t make you sign a confidentiality agreement?”
“No, he doesn’t believe in them.”
He doesn’t believe in them? What’s there to believe? Nobody has a personal assistant without a confidentiality agreement. If I had a personal assistant I’d make them sign a confidentiality agreement, and I don’t even have anything to keep confidential.
“You’re kidding?” I ask, the only thing approximating a reply that immediately springs to mind.
“No,” she says with a smile. “Crazy but true.”
Oh, boy.
For the first half hour of our conversation, Jacinta details just how fabulous and fun it was to work for Ethan. The closest thing to a complaint she could come up with was, “Sometimes his schedule was manic.” She’s done everything but regale us with tales of how he hugs lepers and dries puppy tears in his spare time.
Getting frustrated, I begin a new line of questioning. “I hear Ethan is quite a…” How do I say “slut” without using the word slut? “I hear he’s, um, a bit of a ladies’ man.” To put it mildly.
Jacinta laughs. “He’s lived in L.A. most of his life, and he’s a good-looking guy. Of course he’s dated a lot. He’d hate me saying this, but…” Her voice trails off.
Don’t stop now!
“But…” I encourage.
“The bad boy image is totally manufactured by the press. He’s not like that. He rarely brought women home, didn’t really sleep around. I never thought of him as a womanizer or skirt chaser or anything.”
“Oh,” I say, for lack of anything better.
Jacinta adds, “I suppose he’s occasionally fallen into bed with the wrong person, but we’ve all done that, right?”
I hope that’s a rhetorical question, because I’d hate to have to get into that. I mean, do I go chronologically from the beginning? Or start with Todd and work my way backward?
I change the subject. “So, he never hit on you, or…”
“No way,” she replies with a laugh. “He likes ’em feisty. I’m way too low maintenance for him. That’s probably one of the reasons he gets into trouble—high-maintenance women have a tendency to create high drama, if you know what I mean.”
I don’t know why, but I suddenly feel slightly offended.
Jacinta continues, “I think he likes a challenge.”
“Really?” asks Brooke before eyeing me.
What’s that look supposed to mean? I shrug my shoulders at her, but she doesn’t answer. Brooke simply smiles and takes a gulp of coffee.
Right. This is not going as I’d planned. Let me try again. “But, Jacinta, you quit your job with him. So then, he must have done something to make you decide you couldn’t take it anymore.”
“You’re right,” she says, “he did.” Jacinta looks down to the giant bulge under her Pea in the Pod T-shirt, strokes it gently.
Brooke gapes at me, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. She’s obviously thinking the same thing I am: Holy shit!
“Gordon,” Jacinta says sweetly.
“Aw, it’s a boy?” Brooke says tenderly.
“What?” Jacinta asks, her nose and eyes squinching up in what appears to be confusion. She adds, “Oh, my God! You thought…” before breaking into a fit of riotous laughter.
Several moments pass—Jacinta laughing, Brooke and I looking at each other perplexed.
Finally, as her giggles subside, Jacinta puffs, “Oh! Don’t make me laugh. My bladder can’t take it.” She clasps her hands onto either side of her belly—as if trying to stabilize it. She raises her left hand to show us a small but elegant engagement ring and a thin slip of a gold wedding band. “Gordon—my husband. He and Ethan worked together on Out of Harm. Gordon played one of the foot soldiers in Ethan’s platoon. They became friends, and Ethan set us up on a blind date.”
“Ethan introduced you to your husband. The father of your baby,” Brooke says, while a smile—with a troublesome “I told you so” look about it—creeps across her face.
“After we got married Gordon wanted to move to New York…what he really wants to do is direct. I know, cliché, right? But it’s his dream. Anyway, I had to quit my job with Ethan. Oh, and by the way,” Jacinta says with a sentimental little gleam in her eye, “it’s a girl.”
Chapter 20
Turns out Ethan wasn’t even angry when Jacinta quit—not even a little peeved. He was the best man at her wedding.
What’s worse, when I got home from Barnes & Noble I did a little research online.
I Googled the crap out of his name and, unfortunately, found out loads of very interesting, very exciting, very nice things about him. For example, I discovered that the whole business about “Cocoa with an a” was a poorly crafted, poorly executed scam. Cocoa had tried the same paternity suit tactic on the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and the erstwhile owner of a chain of Nevada Gas-n-Sips. Ethan was her third—and probably last—attempt at acquiring a handsome child support settlement. As it turns out, all three of her children were fathered by the same man, a gentleman who goes by the name of Lux. (He also happens to be the D.J. at the strip joint she works in.) This story I found buried deep in the archives of the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice. When originally printed, the article sat right beside a piece on the proposed rerouting of sewer pipes. Funny, the story about Cocoa accusing Ethan was front page news in the same paper. I have to say, even I found that the slightest bit unfair.
With further digging—and carefully sifting out tabloid reports of bar brawls and how Ethan “loves the ladies”—I found dozens of articles about how great he is. Of course, I also found dozens of articles labeling him a sellout and discounting every bit of work he’s done since about 1999 as blatant and pathetic bids for money with no regard for artistic merit or, more important, plot. It seems Ethan was expected to be the new indie poster boy—doing good work for next to no pay. He was supposed to be Paul Giamatti, only disturbingly attractive. River Phoenix, only alive. He was to be the rich man’s Vincent Gallo. This all ended when he became the rich man’s Ethan Wyatt, star of such memorable films as Loose Girls and Felony Charge. As much as I’d like to defend my own comments about how Ethan has turned into a “plastic action figure,” the criticism I’m finding online seems to be overkill. I guess the backlash against him “going Hollywood” probably wouldn’t have been so harsh if, in early interviews, he hadn’t proclaimed that it was his dream to be a serious actor. He said—repeatedly—that his goal was to “do small but important films” and focus on his “craft.” But, come on. I mean, maybe he just saw his first action picture as his one big opportunity to pay off his credit cards. Maybe at first he thought he could do both—one big action flick, followed by one indie. Maybe he just got used to the comfort, and let’s face it, joy, of not b
eing beholden to someone else to help pay the rent. Is that really so hard to understand?
Honestly, I don’t know how they do it…people who really go after their dreams. How do people manage to stick it out and put up with the life of a starving artist? How do they survive the uncertainty of not knowing if the dream will come true or just be a complete waste of time and energy? I can’t really blame him for taking a shot at something more stable.
He’s a man with a razor-sharp wit that’s both self-effacing and charming (and not just in that sort of evil way that I’ve experienced). And, okay…though I wouldn’t ever admit to this in public, even if forced to take an oath, I can almost see how someone—not me, mind you but someone—might fall for him. In that sort of quixotic way that Brooke has fallen for Duncan Stoke, I mean. If he weren’t a phone-thieving stalker, Ethan Wyatt would almost be a bit of a catch—and it’s driving me crazy. There has to be something wrong with him.
Could he really be this amazing, semisensitive, outrageously good-looking do-gooder? Really?
Would a guy like that stoop to petty vengeance and harassment? I don’t think so. There has to be more to him than that. I just have to figure out what.
I turn up the Jason Mraz on the stereo and sing the words into my toothbrush. To stimulate my brainstorming, I polished off an entire box of Chocolate Fudge Frosted Pop-Tarts. To prevent stimulating myself straight to Jenny Craig, I must now stand before my full-length mirror and lunge to the beat.
I lunge at the sinister Brown Box in the corner and raise my voice, hoping to frighten the thing out of existence using only my horrible Jason Mraz impersonation. No dice.
Damn, I have the windows open, no less than three fans going, and am wearing only panties and a tank top; still, my bedroom feels hot enough to slowly roast a chicken. I position myself in front of the box fan on my windowsill, spreading my arms wide, doing mini arm curls. The mintiness of the toothpaste and the sharp blast of air combine to mimic passably the feeling of a chilly breeze. Lovely.
A shrill clang somewhere outside my window interrupts my brushing and curling. It almost sounds like rusty metal being bent or—oh no. The fire escape.