Lauren Takes Leave

by Gerstenblatt, Julie

  I feel like I’m in that scene from The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door to her house and emerges from the black-and-whiteness of Kansas into the Technicolor of Munchkinland. “It’s just…I can’t stop screaming!” I scream.

  “Well, try, please or else I’m gonna have to vacate,” Tim Cubix says, looking over his shoulder and up the beach. The crowd has thinned out considerably now that it’s getting late in the day, but there are a few stragglers like us in a cluster of chairs a ways down the beach. “I’m in no position to draw a crowd.”

  “So, then why are you even talking to us?” Jodi asks. Plastered to her face is a dreamy smile that she can’t seem to make disappear. She’s trying, though. It just won’t budge. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  Jodi’s boobs peek out from the triangles of her brown crocheted bikini top as if to say that they aren’t complaining either. “Maybe if we call you Lex Sheridan, no one will notice you!” she says.

  Tim actually laughs good-naturedly at Jodi’s bizarre suggestion.

  “Who is Lex Sheridan?” I ask.

  Jodi checks with Tim via eyebrow communication. He nods his head like, go ahead, tell them, and she continues. “Everyone thinks Tim got his start in Fly By Night, in which he plays the superhero vampire, Black Dawn.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we know,” Kat says. “And that was such a surprise blockbuster that Hollywood just kept making more of them, with Dawnbreaker and then Night Stalker and Black Dawn Redux.”

  “See, but here’s what you ladies don’t know,” Jodi says. “Tim’s big break was playing a male-nurse-slash-bodybuilder in Afternoon Delight! That was my favorite soap opera in middle school, and those six weeks with that character were the best ever. The writers hit him with an ambulance so he died in front of his own hospital.”

  “Hence Lex Sheridan.” Tim smiles.

  “Hence!” Jodi says.

  “Holy Dawnbreaker,” Kat says, plopping herself down on the sand. “I’m sitting in Tim Cubix’s shade.”

  I wonder if I can think of him as merely “Tim” or if my mind will only allow him to be a first and last combo, like Michelle Obama or Jacques Cousteau. I try it out. Tim, Tim, Tim. Just Tim. Bring him down to earth, Lauren, or you’ll never be coherent again.

  “Who me? The homeless beach bum?” Tim’s smile is all creases and dimples and loveliness.

  “Yeah, well…from a distance…” Jodi starts.

  “And even from close up, actually…” Kat says.

  “What? I look awful?” He’s coy, he’s playful, he’s flirtatious. I’m officially besotted. He takes a seat on the edge of his beach chair and we all swoon as Jodi sits down next to him.

  “Well, the beard… You do, yes,” Kat braves. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”

  “It’s true. We love you, Lex Sheridan,” I say. I am a moron, officially. My skin instantly flushes pink and I feel a little bit dizzy. I join Kat on the sand.

  You know how girls used to cry when they saw Elvis? Or scream in sheer terror over their love for the Beatles? I’m like that on the inside. Little teenaged versions of me are in my head screaming and jumping up and down and having a festival of sheer euphoric insanity. On the outside, I’m trying to keep it together for the sake of my own thin reputation.

  I pinch myself on my forearm to keep the tears at bay.

  Yes, I am that stupid.

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I love my fans, too.”

  Which is nice of him to say. Even if it sounds totally canned.

  He pauses for a second, as if debating what to do with all of us. He puts a hand on his leg as if about to stand, and I think he’s planning to bolt.

  Because if I were this movie star right now, surrounded by the somewhat unstable trinity of ladies made up of Kat, Jodi and myself, I’d be like, what the hell did I get myself into here and how can I quickly extract myself from it?

  But then Jodi invites Tim to join us for a cocktail, ordering a round of strawberry mango smoothies for us from the hotel’s beach waitress. He sort of shrugs to himself and settles back in his chair, pushing down the brim of his Kangol.

  Kat and I drag over a few stray chairs and circle around him.

  “See, I knew not to get you an alcoholic beverage.” Jodi says to Tim, clearly loving this moment. Then turning to us, she adds, “Lex is not drinking much these days.”

  “Spoken like someone on a complete People magazine diet,” a bemused Kat murmurs.

  “The Afternoon Delight fan is right. I’ve got another shoot coming up in a few weeks, and I’ve got to drop, like, twenty,” Tim explains.

  “Speaking of which,” Kat adds, “aren’t you supposed to be on set right now, in the Everglades or something? Right around here, I think.” Jodi gives her a look. “What? Maybe I can be an expert, too. It just so happens I read one of your tabloids on the plane. And Tim? Can I call you Tim?”

  “I would prefer if we call him Lex,” Jodi says.

  “Call me Tim.” He nods, smiles, and dimples us, all in one swift move. A hot chill passes through me, the kind that in grade school meant that someone had just stepped on the site of your grave. It’s exciting and dangerous all at once.

  “Okay, Tim,” Jodi says, sounding disappointed. “If you say so. But if you ask me, it lacks something.”

  “Cheese,” Tim says. “It lacks cheese.”

  Kat continues. “You never did answer our question of why in the world you would get in the middle of our bitchfest.”

  Tim glances over his shoulder, first left, then right, and then stares off down the beach for a while. I start biting my cuticles in the stillness.

  Then he sighs. “I know I just met you ladies, but I feel like maybe I can trust you.” He stops there and seems to make some sort of decision. “What the hell. I listened to you for long enough to know your stories, right?”

  “Tim Cubix is stalking us,” Kat says, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “So I know how you are, shall we say, on the lam—” Tim continues.

  “On the down low,” Kat adds.

  “MIA,” Jodi says.

  “Pulling a Thelma and Louise,” I manage before turning bright red again and shutting my mouth.

  “So, anyway. My point is this,” he continues. “With one call, I could tell your husband”—Tim looks at me—“or your husband”—he smiles at Jodi—“or your soon-to-be-ex-husband—”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t give a flying fuck,” Kat responds.

  “—just where you are and what you’re really up to,” Tim finishes. Then he looks directly at me. “Ms.…Jury Duty, was it?”

  I can’t believe it!

  “Tim Cubix is blackmailing us!” I testify.

  “Shh,” he orders, looking around again.

  “Holy Fly By Night.” Kat shakes her head disapprovingly.

  “This is so exciting,” I decide, taking a sip of my yummy non-alcoholic, lo-cal smoothie. It’s like my life really is a movie!

  “I must apologize for my friends, Lex. Tim. It’s just that they spent last night pole dancing and making out with women, and now, meeting you, they’ve come completely undone,” Jodi explains.

  “I did not make out with anyone! She did,” I say, pointing to Kat. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. To clarify,” I falter, wondering why I can’t just shut up.

  Kat gives a half wave as if to acknowledge that she is the mock lesbian of note.

  Under these new circumstances, I just can’t stand the thought of arguing with Kat and Jodi. I lean over and take Kat’s hand in mine and squeeze it. She squeezes back.

  I think we’re good. For now anyway.

  I’d like to apologize in some small way to Jodi as well, but she’s far too obsessed at the moment with Tim. Which, in my mind at least, means that all is temporarily forgiven.

  “Sooooo,” Jodi purrs, moving as close to Tim as she can without actually mounting him, “what’s the scoop? Why aren’t you at work right now in the Everglade
s?”

  “’Cause I’m hanging with you lovely ladies!” he tries.

  “Bullarkey,” Kat states.

  “Fine,” Tim says, putting his hands up in an ‘I surrender’ gesture. “Would you believe me if I told you that I’m…pulling my own little Thelma and Louise?” He pulls down his sunglasses for a second and winks a baby blue my way.

  “Um…” I begin. Even Jodi and Kat seem to be at a loss for words.

  “It’s true. I needed a getaway. My agent booked me back-to-back on these projects even though I asked him not to, so, between work demands, and the paparazzi, and Ruby, and the kids—”

  “A shitload of kids!” Kat adds. “Some natural, some adopted!”

  “—I just…heard this little voice in my head telling me to slip away for a few days. I know it’s not right. I know that my manager is going ballistic right now. I’ve put him in a tough spot. But he’ll figure it out.” He scratches the back of his left hand as if there’s a strong itch there that just won’t go away.

  “And Ruby?” Jodi asks, her bikini triangles quivering in excitement. “Have you told her where you are?”

  Ruby is Tim’s longtime girlfriend, a mega movie star in her own right, whose humanitarian efforts helped promote her to a leadership role in UNICEF. Together, they’ve been dubbed Rubix Cube by the media.

  “Yes and no. I mean, I live for her and my family. Really I do. But I needed a break from my hectic life and she understands. We are texting, keeping in touch. But she doesn’t know I’m in South Beach.”

  “So…you’re just like us!” I say. “Technically, we could blackmail you.”

  Everyone looks at me.

  “Not that we ever would,” I add quickly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tim continues, smiling. “The cameras will get to me first and spoil everything, just you wait.”

  “You need a disguise,” Jodi says. “Something to make you incarnito.”

  Tim studies Jodi for a moment, but doesn’t try and correct her malapropism. I instantly like him for it.

  “I have a feeling hanging out with you guys might do the trick, actually. No one really looks at a group of middle-aged women in a hotspot like this. I think I could blend in.”

  “Thanks? So, you’re blackmailing us and using us,” I decide, warming up to the idea of this movie star as a real person. “And insulting us.”

  “Sort of.” He nods. “Awkward question? Could one of you guys get my room key for me at the front desk? My manager always books my hotels, but since I’m not talking to him, I just showed up here and did it myself, from my cell phone. Then I realized I was kind of screwed. I can’t just walk up to the desk and check in under my own name, see. The cameras would start flashing in ten seconds. I’d be found out and sent back on the first flight.”

  “Like you broke your parole or skipped out on bail.” Kat nods.

  “Just like.”

  “Have no fears,” Jodi says, standing. “I’ll get the key. What name did you use?”

  “Tom Cruise.”

  “Seriously?” Kat asks.

  “Yeah, he and I have this longtime running joke with hotels, where I check in as him and he checks in as me. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Sounds pretty basic,” Kat says.

  This whole scenario is striking me as more than a little odd. Fine, it’s true that Tim would have trouble getting a room without being discovered in an instant. But we just met him like ten minutes ago. How could someone at his level of celebrity hang with regular people like us? And three women, no less? Something isn’t adding up. But it’s so much fun that I decide not to dwell on the fact that this all feels like a little too buddy-buddy too soon.

  Jodi grabs her stuff and heads to the lobby. “I’m off,” she says, looking like a Hollywood starlet again, with the hat and the sexy cover-up, the big sunglasses and the metallic beach bag. I can tell she’s loving this whole thing. I mean, she’s about to pick up the key for Tim Cubix’s hotel room, which suddenly makes her famous by association, which is almost like being famous herself. “In the meantime, why don’t you guys take him upstairs?”

  “Can’t,” Kat says, looking at her watch. “Look at the time. Five forty. I’ve got a massage booked with Clooney in twenty minutes.”

  “Cool!” I say.

  “Joking,” she says back, rolling her eyes. “C’mon, Tim.” She snaps a towel at him. Let’s hit the showers.”

  Man, is he fucking gorgeous or what? As we ride up together in the elevator, I have to steady myself against a wall as another heat wave travels through my body. I look for any signs of distress from Kat. Complete normalcy. No twitching, no hives.

  Intellectually, I know Tim Cubix is just a guy. But my reaction is visceral. I might break down at any moment. Like he’s the Mona Lisa and the painting is hanging in my house. It’s both utterly fabulous and, at the same time, it’s unsettling to look it in the eye.

  As we enter the hotel room, a call comes up from the lobby. “Hello?” I answer in a British accent.

  “Oh, sorry, wrong room,” Jodi says.

  “No! It’s me, Jo, with a disguised voice!”

  “Freak. Tell Lex that housekeeping hasn’t gotten to his room yet. They didn’t believe he was Tom Cruise, who, apparently, always stays at the W when he’s in town. They say the room won’t be ready for a while, but tell him not to worry. I have my ways and I’m gonna use ’em.” She disconnects without saying good-bye.

  I tell Tim the news of what happens when you are not a famous person and you check into a hotel pretending to be Tom Cruise. How sometimes you have to wait.

  “Mind if I just freshen up in here?”

  “Yeeea—uhhhhh…!” a stunned Kat and I reply in unison, our four eyeballs watching his every move.

  So now Tim is “freshening up” in our bathroom. Kat and I are unpacking our things and watching E! on television, the volume turned up so we can hear it over the rush of water.

  “Hey, Kat.” I smile. “Tim. Cubix. Is. On. TV. And. In. Our. Bathroom!”

  “Taking a shower!” she adds.

  “He’s probably naked!” I scream, on the verge of tears again.

  “Shh…I sure as hell hope so. Otherwise, that’s weird, right? Why would he shower with his clothes on?”

  “Because we are sitting here fantasizing about him right on the other side of the door! Duh!”

  “It’s locked.”

  “People know how to pick locks.”

  “Well, unfortunately for us, we don’t.”

  A knock comes as we are debating whether or not we could—and then should—try to open the bathroom door with our credit card–like room keys.

  “Coming, Jodi,” I say, opening the door.

  Only it’s not Jodi.

  Standing before me is Lenny Katzenberg. All six feet, two inches of him, with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. His hazel eyes hold a flicker of devilish charm and his hair is noticeably more salt-and-peppered than it looks in his videos. He’s wearing worn Levi’s and a rock concert T-shirt, just like he does on camera.

  He looks better than great.

  “Lauren!” he announces, pulling me close to him in a bear hug. “What a surprise! What are you doing here in Miami?”

  He smells like cinnamon and oranges and pine trees.

  “What am I—?” I begin, as he releases me.

  “Kidding. I got your e-mail this morning and knew: this was it. It was like you were telling me without telling me.”

  My heart starts to beat wildly, not out of lust, but rather in a full-on panic attack. “And…what, exactly, was I not telling you?”

  “That you wanted me to come to Miami!”

  “Because…?”

  “Because.” He nods his head solemnly and takes both of my hands in his, looking in my eyes. “Exactly.”

  Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit.

  The bathroom door opens, and a towel-clad Tim emerges. His hairless torso is rock solid and dripping wet. It takes a
ll the strength I can muster not to reach out and lick him.

  I am a sick woman, surrounded on all sides by temptation.

  “Hey,” Tim says, noticing the open door to the hallway and speaking to Lenny. “Could you decide in or out, and close that behind you? Thanks.” He picks up his duffle bag from one of the beds and takes it back into the bathroom with him.

  “By the way, you look familiar,” Tim Cubix says to Lenny Katzenberg, before shutting the bathroom door once again.

  Lenny cocks his head to the side, evaluating what just happened. “Was that…?”

  “Tim Cubix, yeah, yeah, yeah, big effing deal,” Kat says, coming over to us. “Get over it. I mean, you came down here to get laid, right? Not to stargaze.”

  “Kat!” I say, shocked more by the idea of Lenny getting laid than by Kat’s complete rudeness. Am I to be the lay-er?

  “I’m Kat, if you haven’t figured that out by now,” she says, putting her hand out to shake Lenny’s. “Lauren’s best bud.”

  Lenny releases my hand to shake Kat’s, then looks around the room, waiting for me to say something.

  “Lenny! Wow, I mean, this is really…” I trail off, not sure what it is or how to feel about it.

  Kat fills the awkward silence.

  “Oh, you’re probably looking to see who else we’re hiding in here. Bono was hanging out, but he had to go. Some forest he had to save somewhere, big tree emergency. And Ashton Kutcher took a Snickers from the minibar and owes me four bucks! Famous people, I’m telling you.” Kat sounds confident but starts pulling nervously at her curls.

  Getagripgetagripgetagripgetagrip.

  “Hi-yyy!” Jodi sings, the front door slamming behind her. “I got you an adjoining room. Only now you are known as Mr. Moncrieff of room 1215.” She stops talking and takes in the scene of me standing awkwardly between Lenny and Kat, Tim nowhere in sight. “Well, isn’t this interesting.” One of Jodi’s perfectly arched eyebrows is perfectly arched in surprise.

  We all stand around silently. Lenny adjusts his duffle bag on his shoulder and coughs.

  “I got it!” Tim hollers, stepping out of the bathroom fully dressed. He towels off his hair and points at Lenny. “I know where I know you from! You’re that YouTube rapper! Love your stuff, man!”