Accidental It Girl

by Libby Street

  “Steve! Steve, over here!”

  “David, this way!”

  “Smile for the camera, Michael Ian Black!”

  “Guttenberg, where’s your little lady?”

  “Hey, Hasselhoff, you ever beat that DUI rap?”

  That last little gem stings my right ear. Both the volume and the familiarity of the voice make me cringe—Phil.

  “Ah,” Phil grumbles to me above the din of the surrounding photographers. “If it isn’t Sleeps with the Enemy.”

  I reply, “Oh, you’ve converted to Native American—fascinating. Tell me, Walks with Pitchfork, shouldn’t you be digging around in De Niro’s garbage right now?”

  “Touchy, touchy.”

  I’m just going to pretend that Phil doesn’t exist, that I can’t smell his slightly rancid Eternity for Men, and instead focus on the task at hand. A-list celebrities have finally begun to arrive.

  A comfortable, soothing rush of excitement washes over me as I click off dozens of frames.

  Jamie-Lynn Sigler is ravishing in shades of pink and lilac.

  Mira Sorvino and her hot young hubby are adorable.

  …P. Diddy…Christina Ricci…Julia Stiles…Donald Trump…They all saunter past the photo pen, pausing every couple of steps to pose—and I get all of them.

  A lull in the arrivals is the only thing that breaks my stride—some sort of limo pileup, no doubt.

  A rather fresh and happy-looking Cindy Crawford makes her way down the line of photographers. Lucky her, she’s the only celebrity in sight.

  I snap off a few shots of Cindy and pull the camera away from my face—to give my eye and my arm a rest.

  “Hey, Sadie!” cries Phil over my shoulder.

  What now? I turn. “Yeah—”

  A dazzling, scorching light fills my eyes.

  I’m blind.

  That asshole really did it this time. I am actually blind.

  Rubbing my eyes, I scream, “What the fuck, Phil? Watch where you point that thing.”

  “Just in case,” he replies slowly, with a bitter cockiness in his tone.

  I open my eyes. Through a haze of purple dots I see Phil smirking over the lens of his camera.

  I ask, “Just in case wha—”

  Before I know it, I’m staring into a half-dozen wide, black, vacant eyes—deep, hollow, and menacing.

  “You guys, seriously,” I plead.

  In an instant, a half-dozen flashes go off in my face. An instant later, eight more, then ten. Gary/Mark, Mark/Gary, and several other photographers in the vicinity fire away at me with impunity.

  “You guys!” I beg once more.

  “Sorry, but it’s my job,” I hear Mark/Gary say. The familiar ring of that phrase causes a knot to form in my throat.

  The maelstrom of bright light and shutter clicks sends me into a dizzy spell.

  The only thing I see—the only thing I can think about—is the flashing light stinging my eyes. There’s no use in turning away—nowhere to go. The flashing light spills out over everything, making the world around me seem pale and over-exposed.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the clicking sound to stop. It’s the only thing I can think to do.

  After several seconds of rubbing my eyes, I manage to peel an eye open and discern that the arrivals have resumed. The idiots around me have, thankfully, turned the black eyes of their cameras back to the red carpet.

  A sudden deafening outcry from the fan gallery alerts us all that someone important is here.

  From the far end of the photo pen comes, “Ethan! Ethan!”

  Great. Perfect. And my heart rate was just returning to normal.

  I put the camera back to my eye. Now how am I supposed to take pictures like this? I can’t see anything. The whole world is covered in a bluish haze and little black dots are floating all over my field of view. My heart feels like it’s pounding against my lungs, forcing me to take short, shallow breaths to keep the oxygen flowing.

  The cries for Ethan Wyatt’s attention crescendo.

  Wyatt saunters coolly past the first ten feet of the photo pen, not deigning to stop and pose. He strides down the carpet, an eerie serenity playing on his face. The crowd is mesmerized by his elegant features and expertly tousled black hair. Those impossibly blue eyes. A tiny bit of skin exposed by a jacket gone askew. They’re spellbound, and he knows it.

  Oh, boy, that walk is something special.

  As he ambles into my general vicinity, he turns, slows his pace. His eyes dart up and down the photo pen, scanning for something—someone. Even against the hail of flashes and screams, he remains unruffled.

  Through the tiny rectangle of my viewfinder I see Ethan Wyatt’s expression change. He takes three purposeful steps up the red carpet and then stops—in front of me.

  His jaw tightens up, shoulders tip slightly farther back, pushing his well-defined pectoral muscles against the supple fabric of his shirt.

  He glares directly through my lens and straight between my eyes, like he’s trying to bore into my skull. Just the slightest hint of a smile slowly spreads across his outrageously handsome face. It causes my camera to slip out of my hands and slide down the strap. It comes to rest somewhere near my belly button.

  That is a look of pride. Sheer, unadulterated pride.

  Ethan puts his finger up. As his eyes lock onto mine, he gives me the “come here” gesture. The power of it almost knocks me off my feet.

  Amid the confused glances of the other photographers, I lean slightly forward.

  Ethan Wyatt angles toward me, that tiny bit of exposed flesh just above his belt presses up against the cold metal rail separating us from them. His lips move closer to my ear; his nose grazes the top of my earlobe.

  He whispers, “I meant to tell you, don’t forget you have your monthly haircut and…ahem…lip wax tomorrow. Two o’clock.”

  He pulls away grinning slyly, and I’m left leaning against the railing with both hands—to keep myself from collapsing. Unfortunately, I don’t think my wooziness has anything to do with my knee. (Though, the words lip and wax could have a little something to do with it.) I swear, there’s some sort of black magic in all that winking and whispering and general…hotness.

  Ethan breaks his gaze and resumes posing for the other photographers.

  I’d love to shake my fists at him and scream, “You won’t beat me!” but I can’t. Just now, perched on my one good leg, trying desperately to see past a bluish polka-dotted haze, and contemplating the fact that a wickedly hot man knows I get my lip waxed—I have to say, I feel the slightest bit beaten.

  Oh, and guess what…I didn’t get a single shot of Ethan Wyatt.

  I hear a grunt from over my shoulder and turn to identify its source. Phil.

  His beady, bloodshot eyes glare directly into mine. One of his eyebrows raises up. He’s suspicious. Very suspicious.

  I suddenly feel the overwhelming need to defend myself, to deflect his curiosity. “Damn actors,” I say, trying to sound venomous. “Threatening me with lawsuits. Huh!Idiots.” That was really unconvincing. I may have just cranked his suspicion up instead of decreasing it. Shit, I really should have paid more attention in the one acting class I took in college. Unfortunately, as it is, I didn’t learn much beyond the lyrics to Annie Get Your Gun.

  The celebrities are all inside. I think I’m going to go home and take a long hot bath and let Jason Mraz sing me into a bubbly coma.

  I lumber down the abandoned red carpet and, almost to the sidewalk, I nearly lose my lunch.

  My mother is sitting behind the wheel of her Mercedes, just off to the left of the VIP arrival point.

  She rolls down the passenger’s side window and leans over the center console. “Hi, darling! I thought I’d surprise you and give you a ride home. Fancy some dinner? My treat!”

  My mommy came to pick me up from work.

  I’m just about to ask her how she managed to make it through the many blockades that have been set up to keep out the rif
fraff when Paige looks over my shoulder and gives a flirtatious little wave to someone behind me.

  I turn around to see a very large member of the security team wave back at her—and blush. Ah, I see.

  “I guess—” Oh, crap. The faint tinkle of electronic ringing issues from inside my bag. I give my mom the “hold on” finger point and quickly retrieve the phone. It’s my PR contact from inside.

  “Hey,” I grumble, trying to sound tired.

  “Thought you’d wanna know, Ethan Wyatt is on his way out of the building,” comes the voice through the line.

  “Which door?”

  “Back.”

  “Good, thanks,” I reply.

  I turn my attention back to Paige.

  “Okay,” I say to her. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Sadie!” she calls, as I do my best to hobble away quickly. I’m going to get a picture of Ethan Wyatt’s face if it kills me—this time, with my eyes open.

  Behind me I hear a car door slam and my mother’s voice tittering, “Would you be a dear? Won’t be a sec, thanks!”

  I look back to see her handing her car keys to the burly, blushing security guy and skipping in her Manolos toward me.

  I stop dead in my tracks. “Mother, seriously. You need to stay here. I’ll only be a minute, I promise. Then you can take me wherever you want. Just stay here.”

  “You’re injured. You need help with those bags,” she says while ripping my camera bag off my shoulder and strong-arming the collapsible stool from my hand. “I’ll be your assistant!”

  My assistant is wearing three-inch heels and a four-hundred-dollar cashmere sweater.

  We make our way to the back of the building just in time to see Ethan Wyatt signing autographs for a couple of cater-waiters.

  “Okay, I mean it—you have to stay here. No matter what happens, just don’t move. I’ll come back for you in a minute. All right?”

  “Is that Ethan Wyatt?” Not exactly the response I was looking for.

  “Yes. Are you going to stay here or—”

  She shoves the camera bag and stool at me and rolls up her sleeves as though preparing for a fight. She marches away—in the direction of Ethan Wyatt.

  Since she just claimed to be my assistant, does that mean I can fire her now?

  As the waiters trudge back into the theater, eBay fodder in hand, Ethan lights a cigarette and descends a set of concrete steps to street level.

  “Paige!” I yell.

  She doesn’t skip a beat.

  “Mother!”

  Still heading straight for him.

  “Is that you, Price?” he says, shielding his eyes from the stark white light illuminating the side of the theater.

  Paige closes in on Ethan’s position, and I do my best to increase my speed.

  “Hello!” I hear my mother say while holding out her hand. “My name is Paige. I believe we’ve spoken?”

  Ethan takes her hand and smiles at her brightly.

  My mother continues, “So, you’re the man who’s stalking my daughter.”

  “I am,” he says proudly.

  Oh, my God, this is humiliating. The next thing you know she’ll be asking Ethan for his mother’s phone number so they can discuss his inappropriate behavior.

  Paige appraises him like you would a dog show entrant, examining his hind quarters, quantifying the luster of his coat. “You don’t look particularly crazy,” she says with a coquettish air.

  “Thank you, Mrs.—is it Price?”

  “Price-Farmer, actually. But please, call me Paige.”

  I finally hobble into striking distance. I lean over to my mother and whisper, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She lays one of her well-manicured hands on my shoulder and says, “It’s fine, sweetheart. Trust your mother.”

  Yeah, that’ll happen. I whisper back, “Are you crazy?” (That’s number two, if you’re counting.)

  “Mr. Wyatt, my daughter is a very strong-willed individual.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Ethan replies. With nothing but three cubic feet of humid air between us, his eyes suddenly lock onto mine. His eyes are doing that somewhat breathtaking boy-girl thing again, like I’m not the bane of his existence but just a person—a person that he just might like a little bit.

  I do the only thing I can think to do—I look away.

  Paige resumes, “I don’t have to tell you, then, the sorts of things she would like to do to you in return for this vendetta of yours.”

  “Mother—” I try again.

  “I think I can guess,” he says—still smiling at me and not even glancing toward Paige.

  “Just stop,” I whisper to Paige, begging.

  She waves her hand to shush me. “Mr. Wyatt, I completely understand your frustration with Sadie’s behavior. The picture of you that recently appeared in Celeb was beyond intrusive—”

  “Mother!” I yelp, trying to grab her arm as she and Ethan begin calmly strolling toward the sidewalk.

  I struggle to keep up. Limping as I am with two armloads of gear.

  Paige continues, “To be honest, I have often thought Sadie would have been better off sticking with her first passion…”

  Oh, no! “Don’t!” I hiss to her.

  “Art photography. Portraits,” she says, raising an eyebrow as though fully expecting Ethan to be impressed. “She did such beautiful work…once.” Oh, my God. “She had an amazing talent.”

  Had an amazing talent? What, did my talent just up and walk out the door on me? Desert me like some fickle boyfriend?

  “Paige!” I exclaim with venom. “You need to—”

  But my words get tangled with Ethan’s. With his voice dripping in self-satisfied curiosity, he asks, “Portraits? Really?”

  As usual, Paige’s attention is completely beyond my grasp. She is arm in arm with a handsome man of wealth and consequence—I don’t stand a chance.

  “Oh, yes. She has a website. Look it up on the Internet.”

  This just gets better and better. If I’d been the one to throw that in his face, it’d be one thing. But my mother? With the caveat that my talent has suddenly vanished? With the snarky disapproval of all the work I’ve done since?

  Paige resumes the humiliation. “Sadie has had a few trials in her life that precipitated this—”

  “Oh, my God, Mother. What happened to the ignoring plan? You’re off point. Way off point,” I plead.

  “As I said, I fully understand your frustration,” she continues—completely ignoring me. “But I fail to see what justice or relief hurting my daughter will bring to you or those lovely young ladies you were involved with.”

  Ethan takes a deep breath. He stops, looks at me—thinking. “Paige, your daughter is…unique.” He turns to Paige. “She’s good at what she does. It just so happens that what she does hurts people—namely me. That shot in Celeb was—” He cuts himself off and takes a long drag of his cigarette. “It was the last straw, in a very long line of straws.” Ethan looks around and exhales silvery smoke into the night air. “I just want Sadie to understand what it feels like to be on the other side of that lens. To see what it really means to do what she does. I’m sure it sounds petty. And, trust me, revenge is not something I do, usually. But giving her a taste of that makes me feel just a little bit better. So, I can’t promise you that I’ll stop. At least, not now.”

  My stomach turns, but not because he says he won’t stop. It’s the thing about how I hurt him—that boyish doe-eyed look about him as he said it. That’s what got to me.

  Obviously frustrated, but trying to control his emotions, Ethan aggressively shoves his hands in his pockets. As he flips his jacket back, he again reveals that tiny little patch of flesh above his belt. For some reason I can’t take my eyes off it.

  “I see, then, that we’re at an impasse,” replies Paige with a demure little nod of her head. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wyatt,” she adds, holding her hand out once more.

 
“No, the pleasure is mine,” he replies, shaking her hand.

  A pleasure to meet the man who’s stalking me? A pleasure to meet Paige? These people are lunatics!

  Stunned, and possibly slipping into mortification-induced shock, I stand at the edge of the sidewalk and watch Ethan slide into the back of a waiting limousine.

  My heart sinks suddenly, remembering something…I didn’t get a picture….

  The light from the streetlamps stings my eyes, red and dry as they are from the assault in the pen.

  Paige comes to my side and caresses my arm. “Well,” she says, “that’s unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate?” I say, shrugging off her caress and dropping my camera bag and stool to the ground. “Unfortunate?”

  “Sadie, calm down.”

  “You just completely humiliated me. It may only be about the nine millionth time you’ve humiliated me in my life, but to him?Now? You’re a fucking fruitcake, you know that?”

  “Language, dear,” she says calmly.

  “God! And I had talent once? How do you always know exactly the worst possible moment to say these things? Did you have to train somewhere for that?”

  Her eyes fill with phony concern. It’s the same look she used to give me when I’d sulk, and sometimes cry, from her little mother-daughter exhibitions. She tries, “Sadie, I—”

  “No. No! You can’t manipulate me anymore. Why can’t you just stop trying to make me feel bad? God!”

  “I came here to help you,” Paige exclaims, with what looks alarmingly like real shock. “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “If you really want to help me, you’ll let me be!”

  I grab my gear from the ground and race out onto Seventh Avenue.

  Chapter 22

  My mother has a real talent for turning me back into a bitter, angsty teenager,” I tell Luke as we sit on the floor of my bedroom flipping through some of my old portfolios. “For years I’ve done everything I can think of to keep things relatively nonviolent between us, and then boom, one suspiciously giant box and a few little words later and I’m back to screaming at her.” And digging through the clutter under my bed to find my old portfolios. Damn, she’s sneaky.