Accidental It Girl

by Libby Street

  “Is everything okay in here?” asks Luke, darting into the room. He looks slightly like a man who’s just been jolted out of a nap. He scratches his forehead and rubs at his cheeks.

  “Well, let’s see,” says Brooke again, “Sadie kissed Ethan Wyatt. And she liked it. A lot.”

  “Really?” says Luke. “Cool. Do you think you could get him to sign a few dozen—”

  “Luke!” shouts Brooke.

  “Well…” he says, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Now, Brooke,” interjects my mother. “You know how hard relationships are for Sadie—”

  “Mother!”

  “It’s true, darling,” she says, way too easily for my liking, then turns back to Brooke. “As I was saying, Brooke…if she enjoyed this kiss…”

  Oh, my God. Shoot me. Somebody shoot me.

  “…we should be happy for her. Don’t you think? I think she would be happy for you, if the shoe were on the other foot. Wouldn’t you?” my mother asks me.

  “How the hell am I supposed to—” Paige cuts me off by giving me a look so filled with motherly admonishing that I suddenly feel like I’m about to be grounded. I say, “Sure. Absolutely, I’d be happy for her.”

  Paige coos, “See there, Brooke.”

  “Oh, God, you’re right. Of course, you’re right,” she whimpers to Paige. “I’m sorry, Sadie.”

  “Okay…” I reply.

  “All right, then,” Paige declares. “Now come on, Brooke. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  Paige takes Brooke by the arm and leads her out of the bedroom. Luke trudges out behind them.

  What the hell just happened here?

  “Hello?” I yell to my bedroom door. “Girl with a problem here! Anyone?”

  Luke opens the door. “What’s the problem?” he asks dumbly.

  “Um, let me recap. Kissed the man who’s stalking me. Might have liked it. Not sure what to do next. Any ideas?”

  Luke tugs on the bottom of his T-shirt, twists the fabric around his index finger, and stares at the floor.

  Finally, he looks up. “Uh, no. I got nothing.” Luke turns right back around and walks out.

  Well, that makes two of us.

  Chapter 27

  The bright sunshine of early morning streams through the windows of the living room. I tiptoe past Luke, who is sacked out on the sofa, his long limbs knotted up at odd angles so that every part of his body is covered by one little throw blanket. I shut the curtains to improve his sleeping conditions, then move to the kitchen to make some coffee.

  The phone rings, loud and jarring.

  But I am not going to answer. And on second thought, I’m going out to get myself a coffee and an egg sandwich—without bodyguards. I turn off the ringer so Luke and Brooke can sleep, then head out of the apartment.

  I don’t know what to think about Ethan Wyatt. I don’t know what to think of the things he said to me, and the way I reacted. I don’t know what to think about anything anymore. So, I’m going to stick with what I do know. I’m hungry, it’s a gorgeous New York day, and for whatever reason, the memory of Ethan Wyatt kissing me makes me happy.

  Bounding out of the lobby door, I’m immediately engulfed by warm, refreshing, sweet city air. Tainted as it is with exhaust fumes and a hint of rotting garbage, it’s still the smell of a fresh summer morning.

  I stroll three blocks toward my favorite deli.

  The sharp pounding of feet on pavement is my first indication that something is not quite right. It’s a stampede, the unpleasant sound of many rubber soles slapping down on concrete. My heart leaps into my throat as the slapping gives way to a strange rumbling noise, braying. A vaguely human prattle. It’s muffled, though—harsh and dissonant, incomprehensible. I think it could be that my ears are ringing and distorting the sound.

  I can’t count them all…the wide black eyes in my face. Ten, fifteen maybe. Maybe more. I hardly recognize my reflection in their convex glass. I think that’s my mouth that is hanging agape, my stunned blue eyes, my nose made to appear three times too big for my face by the curve of the lens.

  The light, bubbly, summer-induced sensation from just moments ago is replaced by a surge of fear and anger swelling up from somewhere in my midsection.

  I turn to go back to the apartment, but there are too many bodies in my way. I look up the street and my feet begin moving toward the deli. Egg sandwich. It’s the last place my legs were told to go. They haven’t yet received the message that I’m under attack.

  The swell of anger quickly crests. It smooths out over my entire body, not hot and violent, but tepid like bathwater. It feels almost like calm—born of recognition and understanding. I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming.

  Voices erupt behind me as my feet move more quickly.

  “Sadie! Wait up!”

  “Where you going?”

  “Come on, you know me!”

  “Stop running, bitch!”

  My head turns on that last one, much to the delight of the clicking, mashing crowd of photographers. Behind one of the lenses I see the suspiciously slimy head of Phil Grambs. He looks at me with a nauseating kind of grin—it’s not even self-satisfied, just joyous. Absolute bliss.

  I slip into the deli and race toward a man who looks to be in charge, an older guy with a thick five-o’clock shadow and black horn-rimmed glasses. When I see “Manager” printed on his name tag, I tell him that the photographers will try to come in unless he tells them not to. He takes one look outside at the disruption, the many legs, feet, and arms tangled up with one another. He then surveys his tiny shop with all of its odd angles, precarious food displays, and freshly mopped floor. He barely bats an eyelash before running to the entrance and peeking his head out.

  “Get outta my doorway!” he shouts. “Stay on the freakin’ sidewalk!”

  “Thank you,” I say breathlessly.

  “Are you all right?” the manager asks kindly.

  “Yeah, I—” I stop short when I notice the manager’s staff of two looking back and forth between the newsstand and me.

  When I turn around, my heart sinks and a heavy knot forms in my throat.

  On the cover of Celeb is an enormous picture of Ethan and me kissing on the sidewalk yesterday. There’s a smaller inset picture of Duncan Stoke, probably taken years ago, looking distressed. On the other side of that is Ethan’s picture of Duncan with his hands on my shoulders. The headline reads: “Steamy Love Triangle Has Stoke Heartbroken.” The subhead: “Wyatt Strikes Again!”

  Similar layouts appear on Star, Us Weekly, and People.

  To recap, I am on the cover of Celeb, Star, Us Weekly, and People.

  “I just wanted an egg sandwich” comes out of my mouth before I have the sense to stop it.

  The manager snaps his fingers at one of his employees, and she instantly begins cracking eggs and frying bacon.

  What am I going to do now? I’m trapped in a deli. I guess the good news is I could gorge myself on salami for at least three weeks. But then what?

  “Do you have a back door?” I ask the manager, who has just picked up a copy of Celeb and is reading the article inside.

  He glances up. “Nope. That’s it,” he says, pointing to the front door.

  My cell phone rings—Todd.

  “Todd, I—”

  Todd’s voice rings out, sort of. He sounds out of breath. “It’s huge, Sadie. Stopped the presses. Went back to design. Cover was supposed to be Oprah, more weight loss. Then you with Wyatt—”

  “Trust me, I know.”

  “You’re bigger than Bennifer.”

  Please, God, don’t let that be true.

  Looking out the front window of the deli, I say, “Todd, uh…I don’t think I’ll be able to work today.”

  The animals are getting restless. Two photographers are arguing over a position near the window. A small cluster of onlookers has gathered around the fringes of the photographers. I see heads bobbing and weaving over the commotion, trying to get a look
inside the deli.

  I feel a tap on my shoulder. The manager hands me my egg sandwich, wrapped in a plastic bag. “On the house,” he says uncomfortably—as though this is the first time those words have ever passed his lips. He looks at me sheepishly. “Well…uh, look, lady. We like celebrities here, same as anybody else and all, but we shoulda had about fifteen customers by now. My regulars can’t get in.”

  I guess that means I shouldn’t be blowing up the air mattress? I take a deep breath. “Okay…”

  “Todd, I have to go,” I say into my phone.

  “Where are you?”

  “That deli I like—off First Avenue, but I’m going home.”

  “No!” he shouts. “Wait for me. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “No, Todd. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

  I hang up the phone and take a deep breath.

  No. Okay. Right. I can do this. I’ve been in packs like this before. I’ve done it a million times. Of course, I’ve been on the other side, but it couldn’t be too bad, right? A few moments of discomfort, a few assholes yelling my name. If I can put up with Ethan Wyatt on my tail for a couple of weeks, how much harder could this be? I just have to block out the noise and the struggle and walk home. I just have to walk home. It’s just walking. Easy.

  Turning to the deli manager, I point to Celeb and ask, “Can I see that?”

  Just as I thought. The photo credit for the layout says “Phil Grambs.”

  There are seven pictures, a perfectly captured sequence of events. Ethan saying something to me, wildly gesturing, his face still so very handsome and striking even when contorted a bit in frustration. Ethan putting his hands on my face. Ethan moving in. Ethan kissing me. Me standing there dumbstruck, and yet with a slightly elated look on my face. Ethan walking away, his sooty black hair flopping into his eyes. Then, me standing there, confused and watching him get in a cab.

  My heart thumps like a drum in my chest as I look at the sequence over and over again.

  I feel…violated, like something personal and private has been taken away. Like all the meaning and significance that I’m just now beginning to understand has suddenly been completely stripped away. It hurts, and fills me with a profound sort of sadness for the loss of it. Those seven moments were important to me, they were special.

  I sling the bag with my egg sandwich over my arm and hike up my pants—seems the sort of thing I should do.

  With three strong, defiant strides, I step out of the deli and into the fray.

  Assholes, I silently repeat to myself, you can have that piece of time, but you’re not going to beat me here.

  The second my feet hit pavement, I’m swallowed by the pack. Elbows and hands fly this way and that. I duck to avoid being decapitated by a wayward camera.

  The voices around me are loud and belligerent. “Look here, damnit!” “Sadie, why Wyatt?” “Are you going to his place now?”

  I wait for the adrenaline to kick in, for its smooth warm glow to wash over me. I wait, but it doesn’t come.

  My feet won’t move on their own; I have to will them forward. I tussle and push just to get past the deli’s windows. People keep randomly careening into me as I try to press my way through the crowd. I end up elbowing a French guy and a Swede to try and reach fresh air—to spot a slice of the street up ahead so I know where I’m going.

  The air around me suddenly feels heavy, too many people exhaling. I feel like I can’t breathe.

  I feel a sharp jab to my back, then my rib cage, as the pack begins to stagger farther down the sidewalk. I’m pinned between a morbidly obese photographer and the wall of a copy shop. My face just inches from the glass, I startle a woman inside who looks to be preparing a photocopier for the day ahead. She looks stunned, then smiles when she notices the camera flashes and general mayhem. I put my head down and plow forward as best I can, guided only by the grooves of the sidewalk.

  I try to craft my facial features into the very incarnation of defiance, but my shoulders are beginning to slump under the weight of the task ahead. How many blocks did I walk? Should I go left at the next street, or go forward? What on earth am I doing here?

  The shouting around me increases, causing all the cries of “This way” and “Slow down” to run into one another and sound like the indecipherable barking of wild dogs.

  After a half block, we do a complex formation turn and head uptown. As the walkway widens, the tight knot of the pack dissolves. I can finally see uninterrupted daylight.

  Photographers stagger and stumble over one another, getting ahead of me to resume shooting. They perform that famed paparazzi dance—blindly walking backward down the sidewalk with cameras to their eyes.

  The screaming quiets. Most of my cohorts can’t walk and chew gum simultaneously, let alone speak while walking backward. A few of them, I imagine, are simply out of shape and out of breath.

  My heart leaps as I feel a brief opportunity for escape.

  I hustle to the edge of the street and stick my arm out for a cab. Several groans of “Come on!” and “You’re not getting away that easy!” pierce my ears before the pack, unwilling to see me go, springs to action and surrounds me.

  Excellent. I think I’ve just managed to piss them off.

  Using only my egg sandwich and my forearms, I push my way free of the pack. I do the only thing I can think to do—keep marching as briskly as I can without it seeming like an all-out sprint. In no time, the pack is back in front of me, their worn-out Vans and Nikes tapping out a feverish rhythm, in slight discord to the clicking of their shutters.

  Did I comb my hair this morning? Did I brush my teeth? Why didn’t I change my T-shirt?

  Phil moves up to the front of the crowd. I can hear his wheezing and the labored shuffling of his feet on the uneven pavement.

  “Look up, you. For fuck’s sake, girl,” a man shouts in a thick French accent somewhere ahead of me.

  “Give us your face—we go away,” chimes another.

  Funny, I didn’t realize I was looking down.

  “You fucking him?” cries an American.

  “Come on, Sadie. Give us the whole ugly truth and we’ll let you walk home,” shouts Phil. “You gonna marry that asshole or what?”

  That’s my life they’re talking about. That’s my life.

  Don’t pick your head up. Don’t look up. Don’t let them see you crack—they feed on it.

  I can feel the tingling sensation of a cringe, an angry glare desperately trying to surface on my face. I inhale deeply, and when I exhale, a barely audible groan escapes my lips.

  And my heart sinks.

  The verbal assault gains momentum. A hail of insults and obscenities are tossed my way.

  Finally regaining the strength of his abrasive voice, Phil screams, “Are you loving this or what? Huh, Miss Fucking Perfect? Your career is so fucking over.”

  At this, I look up. I can feel my face reddening, my teeth clenching, my fists just begging to go through Phil’s lens and deep into his skull. What did I ever do to him? What did I do that was so awful it deserves this in return?

  Glancing at my surroundings, I see that we’re now drawing an audience. Pedestrians have stopped to watch us pass. They point and smile like they are gazing up at the SpongeBob SquarePants balloon in the Thanksgiving Day Parade. A wide array of faces are plastered to the expanse of huge windows at Starbucks. Traffic slows as passengers and cabbies rubberneck while going past. This is a spectacle, a show for all who are here—an amusement. These men will frame some souvenir snapshots, cutting out the chaos of the other photographers and extraneous passersby, and create a tiny little world where a girl who should be happy, who should be smiling—a girl who kissed a movie star—walks home from the deli looking deeply upset.

  When the pictures are on the printed page they’ll only tell the story each of these guys wants them to tell. Those crisp glossy images will leave out the bit about how this girl, vulnerable and unprotected, was ambushed by a dozen people who
clawed at her and pushed her around while screaming obscenities. The people who see the images won’t know that the only reason she looked up from the pavement was the cruelty of one disgusting photographer. And, I suppose, when people look into the pages of Celeb and see these astoundingly pointless shots of a woman walking home, they won’t notice that I am shaking a little and trying to keep myself from crying. They won’t notice that I’m scared or comprehend how lost and lonely I feel right now. They won’t know how overwhelming it is to be completely powerless in the face of the scrutiny and the aggression, or that the printed pictures aren’t nearly as agonizing as the experience of having them taken. People will probably just glance at the shot and move on, flip the page to a layout of American Idol contestants or something equally ridiculous. So I will have been hurt, insulted…I will have gone through all this…for what?

  I’m just trying to walk home. All I want to do is go home!

  This is what Ethan wanted to show me. This is it.

  Oh, God, I made people feel this way. I made Ethan feel this way. When I followed him that night at the airport, when I walked into that stupid restaurant…I did this.

  No wonder people hate me.

  I feel the tears, only after they begin trickling down my face. The passersby don’t look concerned. They just point. The rapid-fire click-click-click of the cameras increases steadily, capturing each and every drop as it rolls over my cheek.

  Suddenly, there’s an abrupt, unceremonious tug at my shirt—from behind. The force of it propels me back, compelling my feet to move with it, or risk being tipped backward and dragged like a tree that’s just been felled.

  A pair of strong hands grip my waist and force me toward the street.

  “What—?” I yelp.

  A slow, soothing voice says, “I’ve got you, Sadie.”

  Chapter 28

  I expect to see Todd sitting next to me in the cab, but instead it’s a disheveled mop of sooty black hair and deep beautiful blue eyes.

  “I tried to call you,” Ethan says, touching my hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it in time.”