by Kim Izzo
My husband’s a reality television producer who, like most men in Hollywood in his position, would rather be directing films. But he got his big break, if you could call it that, as a producer’s assistant on a show that pitted dwarfs against giants in a race to find a pot of gold out in the desert. I wish I were making that up.
Disappointed my unexpected appearance at the party didn’t get better results, I headed to the food. The craft table was stacked with the expected variety of snacks from the humble carrot stick to classier fare like beef sliders topped with foie gras. If no one bothered to talk to me, at least I wouldn’t go home hungry. I normally avoided wrap parties. If you didn’t work on the production, then you were seen as an outsider at best, or at worst, a groupie. Dean preferred me to stay home on nights like this, too. He said he had to focus on the guests, particularly if there were television network honchos in the mix, or if he was really lucky, a movie studio executive or two whom Dean would want to schmooze in the hope he could at last escape the reality television racket. But tonight was different. It had the whiff of a going-away party attached to it, and I had taken a risk that he would be happy to see me.
“Are you Clara?”
I was midway through a beef slider when I heard my name. I turned around and found myself face to face with Kiki, the “breakout star” of Dean’s latest hit. Her looks were what tabloid reporters referred to as “plastic fantastic.” Her skin was plump from strategically placed filler, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she had cheek and breast implants. I wondered if she got a two-for-one special. Her eyes were large, almost Kewpie-like, and she had a sweep of platinum hair that Gwen Stefani would envy. Kiki was the poster girl for reality TV: a standard-issue blonde with big assets and a mouth willing to say and do anything.
“Yes, I’m Clara.”
Kiki giggled but her face barely moved. Botox and filler, then. I bit into the slider.
“Clara Bishop who writes for Hollywood Hush?”
I swallowed. I had no idea how she recognized me, but I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
“They ran your photo a few times when you were doing Emmy picks,” she explained. I nodded but said nothing, because her interest in me meant one thing. I was a celebrity journalist at a top weekly glossy that could make or break a star, or at least extend the run after a series finale, and it wasn’t unusual for D-list celebrities to ask for my help. Some even tried bribing me. I never took bribes; never slept with a source either, but I was happily married. That didn’t stop reality contestants. Even the girls. Oh Lord, maybe Kiki was a lesbian. It wouldn’t be the first. Clearly Kiki wanted me to write about her.
“I want to ask you a favour,” Kiki purred, flashing her Chiclet teeth in the process. Here it comes.
“Sure,” I said cautiously. It took chutzpah to ask someone you just met for a favour.
“I’d like to buy you a coffee,” she began and paused nervously. Cripes, maybe this was a come-on. “I’d like to pick your brain because I’ve always wanted to be a writer like you.”
This floored me enough that I stopped myself snatching a second slider off the tray. I took a closer look at her. She was busting out of her dress like an escaped convict. Her platform pumps were ridiculously high, but given my own shaky gams I gave her points for balance. Her expression said fun-loving party girl, no serious thought detectable beneath the thick layer of foundation and lashes of lipstick. She looked like a writer about as much as I looked like Santa Claus.
“You write?” I asked in a tone more snooty than I intended.
“I’m a poet,” Kiki enthused. I grabbed another slider and shoved it in my mouth whole. “But I want to switch to journalism.”
I continued to chew on this bit of information and the slider. “That’s a big switch,” I said as sincerely as I could.
“I know. That’s what I keep telling myself.” She shook her head like she was discussing giving up an opera career at the Met. “But no one’s buying poetry.”
“Sadly, no one’s reading it either,” I interjected.
“Riiight?” she agreed in a high-pitched voice. “But I know all about how this reality thing works, and I could write inside scoops and do post-mortems and things like that.”
She was no dummy. She knew the term “post-mortem.” Magazines like Hollywood Hush loved first-person stories, as did entertainment television shows. A successful contestant could parlay their fifteen minutes of cavorting fame into a career if they were smart. And I never met a smart cookie I didn’t respect.
“Sure, we can have coffee and chat about writing,” I offered and smiled at Kiki for the first time. She beamed, which made me like her more. Smarts and enthusiasm got you places in this town, not to forget Kiki’s plastic-fantastic attributes.
“That’s awesome!” she hugged me. “Are you here to cover the show? I can introduce you around if you like.”
I shook my head, “My husband worked on it.” In these situations I preferred to be vague.
“Who is your husband?”
I hesitated as long as I could. “Dean Lapointe,” I said and waited for the inevitable reaction of surprise. I was never what people expected, but Kiki gaped in a way that alarmed me. “You seemed shocked,” I said flatly.
Her eyelashes fluttered like a moth trying to land on a light bulb. “I had no idea that Dean was married,” she exclaimed, looking more alarmed than me.
“We have a policy of not telling people in the industry. Except for our closest friends, that is,” I said politely. Liar. But what else could I say? That my husband was embarrassed that I wrote for Hollywood Hush? That my husband disliked wedding bands because he didn’t like how his felt on his finger? Or that lately it was something more than rings he didn’t like the feel of? That was enough reality for a dozen television series.
As if sensing my attempt at faking it, Kiki touched my arm, “You shouldn’t worry about him.”
“I wasn’t,” I stuttered and felt my heart race as the heels once more wobbled beneath me. Sensing my anxiety, she flushed.
“No, of course not. Why would you? He’s just a man, that’s all I meant. And we all know how they are! Riiight?”
“Riiight,” I drew out the word in a perfect imitation of how she had said it, but she was gone before she could hear it.
It was time to leave. Clearly Dean didn’t intend for this current crop of “stars” to know anything about me. I wondered if he had seen me earlier and turned his back anyway. Feeling a fool, I moved through the packed room towards the exit, past a leather sectional sofa stuffed with the men and women who had appeared on the show. The door was only a few feet away, but by then it was too late; Dean was standing in front of it like a Walmart greeter when he saw me. He was shaking hands with a man who produced a sitcom. The sitcom’s star had just fallen off the wagon, and I had written an unflattering but honest story about it. This wasn’t going to be pretty. Dean pasted a smile on his face, but not before I’d seen the flash of disappointment. As I walked towards him one agonizing step at a time, afraid I would topple over, I felt a desperate urge to have Kiki at my side for reinforcement. The pace was excruciating, as though the world had become a slow-motion film.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming tonight,” Dean said without warmth. “You know my wife, Clara?” He knew full well the producer knew who I was. I was never certain if Dean thought these types of awkward moments were funny or fodder for his next reality show idea: pitting a celebrity journalist and a furious star against each other, fight to the death!
“Clara,” the man croaked my name.
“George,” I said and forced a smile.
“George was just telling me about his show.” Here it comes. I braced myself. “The ratings have gone up despite the negative press,” Dean said, making it clear to George whose side he was on. I wanted to disappear.
“Yes, some stars are impervious to the media,” George said pointedly. I wanted to point out how the media helped boost those ratings, bu
t he kept talking. “So when do you go to London?” he asked Dean.
“I leave on the weekend,” he answered and stood straighter, chest puffed up. “You know the Brits, they always want to push the envelope. And that’s hard in reality TV.”
Ah, London. Dean was flying to England to produce a new show called Come to Daddy, which brought reality TV to new heights of low. The premise was this: a houseful of buxom beauties vie for the attention of a super-rich sugar daddy who is at least forty years older than all of them. Dean insisted it was a stepping stone in his quest to direct films. Just how that worked was a mystery to me, but it paid the bills.
“They’ve come to the right man,” George said and thumped him on the back.
“I’ll be gone at least six weeks. They’re putting me up in a suite at The Savoy, so I’m going to be well taken care of,” Dean continued.
George turned to me and looked as if he might choke when he said, “You’re going to miss your wife.” Dean nodded slightly.
I had a secret. I’d bought a plane ticket to London to surprise Dean. Armed with romantic visions of moonlit walks along the Thames, inspiring nights at the theatre and afternoons spent in galleries when he wasn’t shooting, he would find me irresistible all over again. Time away was all we needed. But there was another reason to go; I wanted to get pregnant. I had a miscarriage when we were first married; in fact, the pregnancy was why we got married. Not that we’re old-fashioned, but we were both from broken homes and so it just felt right. Besides, I was crazy about Dean. So I was devastated when early in the second trimester it was all over. I’d never felt such loss before, never felt so incomplete. Dean was distraught too. We decided to postpone trying again until our careers were more established. I’d agreed, in part because emotionally I couldn’t handle losing another baby. And at the time, I still held the ambition of being a working screenwriter, not a celebrity writer. Nearly six years had passed, and at thirty-five I didn’t want to wait anymore, but all attempts had failed and my period still arrived jarring and unwelcome like an alarm clock that’s been set too early.
Dean wasn’t convinced that we should have a baby until he’d directed his first film. It seemed like an excuse, a reason to say no, which made me lie awake at night wondering if I hadn’t gotten pregnant the first time would the man I loved be lying in bed with me. Of course, as a writer I had a vivid imagination and that wasn’t always helpful. Dean was still my husband, no need to be paranoid.
But as I stood there in the midst of a party celebrating his latest achievement, it didn’t seem to matter that Dean wasn’t thrilled to see me. Once I became pregnant it would be different. He would be a proud father and he would realize what he had: a wife who adored him and would give him everything he wanted. I smiled and touched my husband’s arm. He looked down at my hand on his sleeve and went back to talking to George. What Dean didn’t know was that tonight was prime time for making a baby. Tonight would be perfect, and if not tonight, then we had six weeks in London to make it happen. Then we would be happy.
CHAPTER TWO
After the Party
I kissed Dean as soon as we entered our apartment. Gently at first. He hated it if I was “aggressive.” He took my hand and led me to the bedroom. We kissed some more and I waited, limp in his arms, for him to make the next move: a hand on my breast maybe, or a nibble on my neck. Dean was restrained as usual, his arms at his sides like a tin soldier, but I kept kissing him until I could almost see the passion seep out like liquid mercury.
I didn’t give up. I lifted my stained dress over my head and threw it to the floor. I kicked off those damn heels so I was a few inches shorter than him. Little, unthreatening me.
“I love you,” I whispered in the hope he’d take the cue.
When he didn’t respond, I glided to the bed and removed my bra and underwear. Dean undressed too. I climbed beneath the covers and he slid in next to me, my hand once more lightly touching him, only this time, the layer of protective denim gone, he swivelled his hips away, pecked me on the cheek and smiled.
“I’m wiped out,” he said breezily, as if we’d come back from a hike with flushed cheeks and cold hands.
“I think we have enough energy for one more thing …” and I kissed him again. This time his lips didn’t part.
“Clara, I’m tired,” he said firmly.
“Is it me?” I asked, just as I had done many times over the past year and always with the same result.
“Don’t make me feel bad about this. I’m just not in the mood. Is that okay?” He pouted at me like a child.
“Of course it is,” I said with forced warmth. “I just miss you.”
“I’m right here,” he said, sounding relieved, as though excused from the dinner table after refusing to eat his broccoli. Then Dean rolled over and went to sleep. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. I felt the tears run down my face and I didn’t wipe them away. Part of me wanted Dean to see me cry and feel bad or guilty, anything but indifferent. But I knew that wouldn’t happen. I was playing to an audience of one: me.
The Morning After
This was what being left by your husband looked like: him standing at the foot of the marriage bed. You sitting up naked—the sheet pulled up to your chin like a deflector shield. In his hand a packed duffel bag, and a set of keys discarded on the duvet.
This was what being left by your husband felt like: an ambush.
“I love you, I’m just not in love with you,” Dean explained with a note of pity in his voice. “It hasn’t been good between us in a long time. You can’t really be shocked, Clara.”
“But I am shocked!” I cried. I couldn’t bring myself to admit I knew he wasn’t happy. “I believed you when you said you were just tired all the time. I didn’t realize you meant you were tired of me.” I grabbed my robe and leapt out of bed and threw my arms around him. “We’ll be better. You have to try, Dean. You do love me. You know you love me.” The words sounded hollow even to me. He didn’t move a muscle; he just stood there allowing me to grasp the last breath of us before he gently pried my arms away.
“I’m sorry, Clara. It’s not you, it’s me.”
“You’re leaving me and all you can say is a cliché?” I retorted dryly. “Your writer’s criticism never leaves you, does it?” he snapped. That got me.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re always so sharp and clever when it comes to words, especially mine or my work for that matter.”
“That’s not true! I’ve always supported you. You know I think you’re talented.”
“You look down on what I do,” he said accusingly. “You don’t think it hurts me when you write about how bad reality TV is?”
I was taken aback. “I always showed you those articles before they ran. And besides, I’ve been off the reality TV beat for ages and you know it,” I said weakly. “What’s this really about? Surely you’re not leaving our marriage because I don’t like The Bachelor.”
“I’m leaving because I need more.”
At first I didn’t say anything. What more could I have given Dean? My marriage was my proudest accomplishment, and I gave more than I got but never complained. I felt my eyes well up and prayed that when the tears fell it would be in a single dramatic stream down my face like you see in movies, the kind of tears that somehow makes the actress even more beautiful. No such luck. The tears flooded down my cheeks in uncontrollable torrents as words sobbed out of my mouth incoherently. “More than a wife who adores you? Who thinks you’re talented and believes in you?” I stuttered. “What about our baby?”
Dean flinched. “We don’t have a baby.”
“But we were trying! You wanted to have a baby with me,” I moaned, aware that my nose was running too. I grabbed a tissue from the nightstand. “You were so happy when I was pregnant the first time!”
“Let’s not bring that up again,” he said coldly.
The blood was pumping through me so hard that my ears were poundi
ng. I wanted to say what I’d always feared and suspected … that he only married me because I was pregnant, but despite my reporter skills of being able to pull the truth from others, some truths were better left unspoken. This was one of them. I began to tremble and clutched the robe tighter around me. Then I remembered Kiki’s words last night. “He’s just a man …” What had she been trying to say? That Dean had cheated on me?
“Is there someone else?” I asked. “I know the rumour.” I lied about the rumour, but what Kiki let slip was close enough.
“What rumour?” he said in a panicked voice.
“You forget what business I’m in,” I said, making myself sound more in control than I was. “I hear things.”
A very long pause filled the room, and I felt my stomach churn like rancid butter. He ran his fingers through his hair and then he said it.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he spoke clearly, defiantly, as though it was me who had done something wrong. “But it did happen.”
No wife wants to be right about this sort of thing. Suddenly, the tears stopped, as if my insides were flash-frozen.
“Who is she?” I managed to squeak out.
“It’s none of your business.”
“Who is she?” I repeated. “I deserve that much after all we’ve been through together.”
“She’s just a girl I met at a bar.”
My jaw tightened.
“What do you mean some girl at a bar?”
“She’s a waitress.”