Just Married?

by Natasha West

  This was bad. How had she forgotten that? Just how smashed had she gotten last night that she didn’t remember doing something so fucking stupid as getting married?

  She still had the key in the door but she didn’t bother unlocking. She took the key out, left the building and got straight back into the car. She drove directly to her mother’s office and ran in, flinging the door open. Her mother turned from the window to look at her. Ruby cried, ‘Before you start screaming, I can explain.’ It was a lie. Ruby could explain precisely nothing.

  But then she saw something unnerving. Her mother was smiling. ‘You little star’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘You did it. You made the shortlist. I’ve been calling you. Why the hell didn’t you pick up?’

  ‘Err, OK, that’s… I guess that’s good’ Ruby said, trying to adjust herself. She’d been expecting the chewing out of a lifetime. ‘But I thought you were mad?’

  ‘Mad? You’re trending. That’s exactly what we need right now. High profile. I admit, I thought you’d screwed up, Barry told me yesterday you were an outlier, not to get our hopes up. But then I get a call from him this morning saying after some consideration, you’re still in the running, down to four names and I’m pretty sure that’s not a coincidence. Thinking about it, this was perfect. I’m pissed I didn’t think of it myself.’

  ‘You’re happy?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Look, I don’t expect to meet everyone you date, but you could have told me you were getting serious with someone.’ She shook herself. ‘You know what, who cares? I just need to meet her now or it might look a little weird. As mother of the bride. One of ‘em, anyway.’

  Ruby chewed her lip.

  ‘Emily, is it?’ Denise asked. I’m seeing opportunities for some real red-carpet action. You and her, the same-sex newlyweds. Everyone’s gonna wanna know. People go nuts for weddings, for some weird fucking reason. And a gay one? Christ alive, you might just be living in about the only time in history when this could actually work in your favour. So, she at yours?’

  Ruby took a deep breath. ‘No. Because... That’s where this gets a little tricky. I don’t... I didn’t actually mean to get married.’

  ‘I don’t understand’ Denise frowned.

  ‘Yeah, so, here’s the funny part of this. I didn’t meet her before last night. I guess, ha, ha, I guess I got a little drunk last night and, ah…’ Ruby babbled.

  Denise’s unnerving smile was replaced by bare teeth for quite another reason. ‘You don’t know her?’ she asked softly.

  ‘No’ Ruby shrugged, afraid her mother was about to break a life long policy and back-hand her.

  ‘She’s a total stranger?’

  ‘Not a total stranger. I mean, we hung out a little before… You know.’

  Denise’s eyes turned from green to black. ‘Ruby. Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have any fucking idea who this woman is?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite that way.’

  ‘Oh? Then how would you put it?’ Denise asked, her tone dangerous. Ruby wanted to run. But she wasn’t six anymore. She was supposed to stand here and account for herself. Though she did take one little step backwards.

  ‘Well…’ she began. ‘The thing of it was… I mean…’

  ‘Where is she right now’ Denise demanded.

  ‘Yeah, ha, again, not sure.’

  ‘She’s not in LA?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You left her in Vegas?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Denise’s jaw was growing ever tighter. ‘Call her.’

  ‘That might be a little difficult. I don’t have her number.’

  ‘Then call her hotel! Christ, do I have to think of everything?’

  ‘Right. Yeah. Only… I’m not totally sure which one it was.’

  ‘Do you at least have her last name?’ Denise asked, furious.

  Ruby didn’t want to have to say no again. So she shrugged.

  ‘OK, here’s the part I don’t understand. No, scratch that, there’s a lot I don’t understand but what I especially cannot fucking fathom is why you would do this and then post about it on Instagram.’

  ‘I don’t remember doing that. Like I said, I was kind of wasted’ Ruby said, sliding into a chair. She had now given up on trying not to get yelled at. In fact, she was starting to think she deserved this one anyway. It was probably the only time in her life where she could see her mother’s point of view. She’d done something that was not only stupid, but shitty. Leaving Emily in that room, under her mother’s gaze, became the most shameful part of it. Not that Denise would care about that so much. But Ruby found she did. So maybe it was good to get ripped a new one. Maybe it was right.

  Denise took a deep breath, revving herself up. ‘Ruby Laura Knight, in all of your life, you have NEVER-’

  Chad buzzed through. ‘Erm, Denise?’

  Denise broke off mid-sentence, pissed, and went to the machine. ‘Yeah, what is it? I’m kind of in the middle-’

  ‘Someone here to see you.’

  ‘I don’t have any appointments.’

  ‘No, she says she’s looking for Ruby. She says it’s urgent.’

  Denise looked to Ruby. ‘Do you have some stalker I don’t know about now? Do I need to call security?’

  Ruby didn’t answer, just as confused as her mother.

  Denise sighed. ‘What’s this person’s name?’

  ‘Emily.’

  The hair on the back of Ruby’s neck went up immediately.

  Denise raised an eyebrow and looked at her daughter. ‘Well, well. The second player in this comedy of errors.’

  ‘Mom, let her in!’ Ruby said, getting out of her chair and unconsciously tidying her hair.

  Nine

  Emily was standing in the reception area. Small, beige, a coffee machine in the corner and a cheesy blonde guy on reception.

  ‘She says go ahead’ Chad said from behind too-white teeth.

  Emily braced herself and strode into the room. The first person she saw was Ruby. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi’ Ruby said anxiously. ‘It’s nice to see you.’

  Emily didn’t buy the warm reaction at all. Ruby had had her fill of her, she knew that full well. That was what you were saying when you left an empty spot in the bed. ‘That’s plenty of you.’

  But Emily had to put that aside. She was in a jam and Ruby was the only one who could get her out of it. She’d had to travel to LA as a consequence. She’d checked out of The Onyx and gotten a flight to LA, no small thing. And then a shuttle straight here. The landscape of LA was different from Vegas. It was flatter, less compressed, buildings and complexes clumped here, then miles of nothing until you hit another cluster of life. The weather was better, less hot and a lot less wet. But it didn’t matter, she wasn’t staying. She was going to change her flight home to one from LAX and get the hell out of here as soon as she and Ruby had agreed on how to go about getting this stupid marriage cancelled. She was tired, drained in body and mind. And now she was getting some casual lie from Ruby about being happy to see her. ‘I’d love to say the same, but we have a bit of a problem’ Emily said with bitterness.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘You know we’re married?’

  ‘Yep. Turns out I grammed it, just found out an hour ago.’

  ‘Oh. Right’ Emily answered.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Your Twitter. It says managed by Denise Knight Inc. You didn’t message me back and I couldn’t just wait around to see if you were giving me an annulment or not, so I looked up the address and came to LA’ she told the room.

  ‘I haven’t even looked at my Twi-’ Ruby started to say.

  ‘Well, at least someone has a little ingenuity’ the other woman in the room said, presumably the eponymous Denise Knight.

  Ruby sighed and said. ‘This is my mom, by the way.’

  Emily looked at Denise anew. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah, she ma
nages me’ Ruby explained.

  ‘Only in the way you manage a tornado or a rabid dog’ Denise said with a nasty smile. ‘So. We have a little problem.’

  Emily, who wasn’t expecting to meet Ruby’s mother today, said nervously, ‘Well, yes.’ She didn’t know why it mattered really. This wasn’t her actual mother in law. Or if she was, only briefly.

  ‘So now the question becomes, how do we handle it?’ Denise asked the pair.

  Emily didn’t really think this had anything to do with Denise, even if she was Ruby’s mother. This was a private fuck up. ‘Actually, do you mind if I have a word with Ruby. Alone.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do’ Denise said.

  Emily didn’t know how to reply to that. She wasn’t used to such forthrightness. In the UK, people just gave fake laughs and said, ‘Actually, if it’s all the same to you…’ But this was LA, and she was in the office of a bona fide Hollywood person. She was going to have to adjust her expectations of civility. ‘I see’ she said evenly. After that, she was stumped.

  Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘Mom, she’s right, we need to talk-’

  ‘No. You two have caused a clusterfuck with your actions. The adult needs to take over now’ Denise said with such deep authority, Emily was almost swayed. But then she remembered that she was two years from thirty and she paid her own bills and had a job and opened doors for people and remembered to write thank you notes and never got parking tickets. She was an adult by almost anyone’s standards. Maybe not for the last twenty-four hours, granted, but everyone was allowed one meltdown per lifetime, weren’t they? This was hers. And it was almost over. She just had to get through this difficult conversation and then she could leave and return to her life. ‘Look, Denise, I’m twenty-eight and while I appreciate that this is your daughter and you want the best for her-’

  ‘Yeah, sure, this is about wanting the best for me’ Ruby snarked. ‘But while we’re on the subject, I’m twenty-seven. I don’t need you to handle this’ Ruby told her mother.

  Denise laughed. ‘I don’t think pointing out your age is a particularly strong argument. Because what you’ve done is act like a teenager. No, actually, your character is eighteen and she’d never do something so stupid. I mean, who the fuck does something like this, Ruby?’

  ‘Look, it really doesn’t matter what you think’ Ruby began, and Emily was thinking, Thank god someone said it. But Denise cocked an eyebrow and said, ‘Yeah, it does. Because you’ve just jeopardised the movie deal.’

  ‘How?’ Ruby asked her, frustrated.

  ‘Optics. What studio would trust you with a franchise off the back of this? You get smashed and marry a stranger in Vegas? This makes you look like a total car crash’ Denise explained angrily.

  Chad buzzed through. ‘Denise, the Google alert picked up more reports. Apparently it’s not just on social media anymore. E! just did a segment.’

  Denise pressed the button. ‘E!?’

  ‘E!’

  Denise looked to Ruby. ‘Did you hear that? E!’

  Ruby rolled her eyes. Denise waived a dismissive hand at her. ‘Oh, right, I forgot for a second that you were too cool to care. Well, E! never gave a shit about you before so you need to know, this is a significant thing. Your stock just went up. Which means further to fall. Unless…’ Denise tailed off.

  Emily wanted them to stop having this side conversation. It didn’t concern her. She almost said so. But then Denise said, ‘Wow.’ She sat down in her chair slowly, contemplative. ‘You know what? I just figured out what to do about this.’ She looked to Emily. ‘You wanna make some money?’

  ‘What?’ Emily and Ruby asked together.

  Denise smiled slowly. It scared the shit out of Emily. ‘You’re going to fake like this was a real marriage’ Denise told them. ‘Just for a few weeks. And then we’ll very quietly get this dealt with after Ruby signs the contract. Or is officially out of the running. Whichever comes first. If we can do that, this could actually work in our favour’ Denise said, not really paying any attention to Ruby and Emily anymore, completely ensconced in her own machinations. ‘Yeah. We can get some real press off the back of this, a last push to the finish line, get you front and centre, make you popular and more importantly, bankable-’

  ‘Err, I’m not sure if this might be a slight fly in the ointment but I’m not doing this’ Emily piped up. She couldn’t keep listening to this nonsense. She just wanted to go home and never think about it again.

  Denise barked a laugh. ‘Yeah, sure. Let’s talk numbers.’

  ‘No. I’m not doing this, no matter how much you offer.’

  Denise leant down to her desk and jotted something onto a post-it. She handed the post-it to Emily. ‘Here’s what we could offer. It’s not much. But below that is a different figure, a performance bonus if you will. If you do a good job and Ruby gets the movie, that’s what you’ll get.’

  Emily sighed and took the post-it, checked the top figure, which was about enough to cover costs for this trip. ‘Look. I don’t care what you offer…’ And then her eyes happened to stray down the post-it, to look at the bottom figure. Emily broke off mid-sentence. She started laughing. ‘I think you accidentally put an extra zero on this other number.’

  ‘No. I didn’t. This deal is worth a lot of money. And it’s not just this movie, not even whatever franchise grows out of it, but where it takes Ruby. To the A-List. Millions and millions of dollars are at stake. I’m willing to pay whatever it takes to protect her future earnings.’

  Ruby stomped over. ‘Can I see that please?’ she asked Emily. ‘By all means’ Emily said. Ruby took the post-it from Emily. ‘The fuck? This is crazy. And whose money even is this?’

  ‘It’s yours’ Denise said. ‘And you’ll pay it.’

  ‘That’s what you think’ Ruby growled. They descended quickly into a fresh row, about money. Who earned it and who deserved it.

  But Emily barely heard them. She was still thinking about the figure on the post-it. A moment ago, she’d been sure she couldn’t be bought. But now she was thinking about Katie moving out and telling her to get a stranger to fill the spare room. If she took this money, that wouldn’t be necessary. She could afford to live alone. She might even be able to afford to put an offer in on the flat. A mortgage was cheaper than rent, wasn’t it? She could be set up from this, independent. If she could do this barmy thing.

  As Ruby and her mother went back and forth, Emily said, ‘You say just a few weeks?’

  Denise broke off mid-diatribe. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And what exactly would I have to do?’

  ‘Attend a few public appearances. And stay in Ruby’s apartment while you’re doing it.’

  Ruby’s face was a mask of shock. ‘First off, mom, no fucking way. Second, Emily? What the fuck? You’re not actually considering this, are you?’ she exploded.

  ‘I might be reconsidering my original position’ Emily muttered.

  Ruby shook her head. ‘I’m surprised at you. I thought you were better than this.’

  Emily was incensed. ‘I don’t think people who creep out of hotel rooms before the sun’s up get to judge other people.’

  That shut Ruby up. But only briefly. ‘You know what? Doesn’t matter. Because we both need to agree for this to happen. And I don’t.’

  ‘Where were those words last night?’ Denise asked. No one laughed. ‘Hey, Emily, go get a coffee. Chad’ll make it for you.’

  ‘I don’t drink coffee’ Emily said apologetically.

  ‘Then get tea. Or whatever you Brits drink.’

  Emily took the hint. ‘Alright.’ She left the room, exchanging one last glance with Ruby. She looked defiant.

  Emily went out to the reception and sat down on a chair at the side of the room. Chad was tapping at his computer and he glanced up. ‘Can I get you something?’

  Emily heard a raised voice in the connecting office. She couldn’t have said whose it was. ‘Sure’ she said, not wanting to hear the argument. ‘W
ater please.’ The row went up a decibel. ‘So, you work for Denise?’ Emily scrambled. ‘What’s that like?’

  ‘Great’ Chad said flatly, filling a plastic cup from cooler. Emily distinctly heard the words, ‘Money grabbing bullshit’ come from the office. This time, it was plainly Ruby. Chad pretended he hadn’t heard it. Emily was astounded by his poker face.

  Chad handed Emily her water and she thanked him. The door suddenly flew open and Ruby stormed out, right past Emily. She didn’t look at her. Denise’s head came out of the office a moment later. She was smiling. ‘So I think we’re ready to make a deal. Come in and we can nut out the details. Oh, and you’re good with signing a non-disclosure agreement, right?’