The Redhead Plays Her Hand

by Alice Clayton

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I said, what do you think about the pictures that we released just this afternoon?”

  “Pictures? Sorry, I’ve been inside all day. What pictures are you talking about?” I asked, my eyes fluttering to Holly, who shrugged her shoulders, clearly not knowing what was going on either.

  “Oh, of course. You probably haven’t seen them yet, have you? Here, I have some copies with me,” she purred, handing me a stack of prints. Before they were even in my hand, I could see they were of Jack. And a girl. A girl wearing not a lot of clothing. And by not a lot I mean panties and that was it. They were kissing, his hands in her hair and her hands on his chest. Passionate. Intense. Shot after shot of his mouth on hers, on her neck, on her—

  I thrust them back at her, my hands shaking. Holly was about ready to climb out of her skin, pacing in a room that was too small for pacing.

  “How do these pictures make you feel, Grace? I mean, come on, isn’t it about time you two admit your relationship? Or is it not cheating if you’ve never really said you were an item?”

  I stared at her. I was rattled, totally rattled.

  “Is this because of the weight gain? Men can be so funny about that, can’t they?” she asked, her face painted with fake concern.

  “My weight gain?”

  “Oh, well sure. It can’t be a coincidence that just as you began to put on weight, sorry, put back on, that’s when Jack started stepping out all over town? Care to comment?”

  Holly stepped between us. “That’s it. This interview is over,” she snapped, shielding me from the camera. “You knew what was off-limits.”

  “Oh, please, Holly, it’s what we all want to know, but no one had the guts to ask. This is news. I have an obligation to my audience to—”

  “Get over yourself, Barbie. We’re through. Grace, let’s go.”

  She turned to me, pulling me out of the chair and walking me from the room, keeping herself between me and the camera the entire time. I was still frozen, shocked but furious with myself for not being able to respond. How had this happened? And what were those pictures? I turned back into the room, looking again at the stack of pictures on the table, the camera following me as I was ushered away, the simpering look on the interviewer’s face as she knew she’d gotten me.

  Damn . . . this town was vicious.

  Once Holly got me into the other room, she went back in. I could hear her yelling. She was on a tear, and I was very glad to not be on the receiving end of it. That reporter wouldn’t get another interview for years with me, or Jack, or any of Holly’s clientele. I rubbed my eyes and kicked off my heels, trying to center and breathe and come to terms with what I had just seen.

  Check yourself here. We don’t know what we just saw.

  We saw Jack with his hands on another woman. That’s what we saw.

  I’d like another look at those . . .

  Just as I was thinking about heading back in to get the pictures, Holly burst through the door, cheeks flushed red and her don’t-fuck-with-me face on. She had the pictures in her hand, and she was slapping on her reading glasses, which she didn’t officially have.

  “Barbie is gone. You might see her doing the weather in some little town in Oregon, but she’s not working here again.” Holly placed the pictures on the table in front of us. “I wanted another look at these.”

  “Oh, Christ, I want to look, but I don’t want to look. Does that make sense?”

  “Of course it does, fruitcake. Let’s not drop our teeth here. Let me just take a look . . . Mmm-hmm,” she said under her breath, holding one up to the light. There he was: Jack, in all his glory. The shaggy curls were gone, replaced by his buzz cut. Whatever this was, it was recent. I gasped as I took in the images again, his hands all over this woman. Whoever she was, they were passionate. I felt my heart drop, could he have really . . . Jesus, could he?

  “Wait a minute! Christ on a crutch, this is from his movie! Oh, I could throttle that Barbie!” Holly cried, thrusting the pictures back to me. “This is from his new movie. That’s the girl they’ve been shooting with. She’s an actress. You can even see the crew off to the side if you squint. What a bitch!”

  I examined the pictures, my heart still pounding but beginning to regulate a bit.

  “Grace, she did this just to throw you.” Holly scrolled through her phone. “Damn those vultures. They’ve had this up all day too, claiming he’s having a fling with a costar.”

  She handed me the phone. I snatched it to look for myself. With a headline made to make people stop and read, the article had zero facts and tons of hot pics, which made it the most clicked-on story of the day. And, of course, there was me at my heaviest, meant to draw a contrast between who I was and who Jack should be dating now.

  “Son of a bitch,” I seethed, scrambling for my own phone. Texts had been pouring in from Jack all day.

  Crazy—call me before you open any emails today . . .

  Hey, make sure you call me when you get a break, ok?

  Right then. You’ve either seen them and are laughing at how low these prats will sink, or you’ve seen them and are pissed, which I can’t blame you for. Please call me as soon as you can . . .

  As I was reading the last of the texts, he called. I answered.

  “Grace?”

  “Yep.”

  “You saw them.”

  “Yep.”

  “Fucking ridiculous. Is Holly with you?”

  “Yep.”

  “You tell her next time she needs to be out in front of something like this. I’m bloody well tired of this.”

  “Yep.” I sighed tiredly, the weight of the day beginning to weigh on me.

  “Is that all you’re going say?”

  “I’ll be home soon, Jack,” I replied, hanging up.

  This wasn’t his fault, not by a long shot. But the roller-coaster of emotions had just bottomed out, and I was exhausted. I looked at Holly, who was furiously typing on her phone.

  “We’re done for the day, right?”

  “Yep,” she answered with a rueful grin. I hugged her, grabbed my bag, and headed out to my car. Where I turned the music up as loud as it would go and took the long way home.

  This is the life you chose . . .

  Yep.

  I pulled into my drive and noticed Jack’s car was home. I sat in my front seat for a moment, collecting myself. This day had been a mix of extreme highs and lows. Highs being holding my own throughout a press junket that could have pulled me under a wave of bullshit. Once you got past the questions you knew they had to ask, some of the reporters actually gave me some great feedback about the show. Not only had they watched it, they enjoyed it. It was a heady thing, knowing that people were seeing your work and getting something out of it. Lows being obvious, and something I wanted to forget about. But I couldn’t, that was the old Grace. The sweep everything under the carpet, lock-it-up-in-the-Drawer Grace. That’s where I was tempted to send this entire debacle with Jack and the pictures. But nope. I was an adult now, or at least I was playing one on TV. The truth was, I wasn’t mad about the pictures—at least not mad at Jack. How could I be? He was just as much a target here as I was. As I engaged in my front-seat contemplation, I saw the curtains flutter a bit in the front window, the dining room. Squinting, I could make out the shape of Jack moving around, lighting candles.

  Interesting. What was he up to? With a smile, I got out of the car and let myself in the front door, just catching sight of him heading back into the kitchen. Kicking off my heels and setting down my bag, I glanced into the dining room. The table was set, candles were lit, flowers were arranged. Rounding the corner, I spied him in front of the stove, every burner going, every pot and pan in California either full of something or burned in the sink. Pasta crunched underfoot, alerting him to my presence. As he spun around, I laughed out loud when I saw the state of his shirt, which was covered in sauce.

  “What are you doing?” I laughed as he slammed the
lid back down on something that spittered and sputtered on the burner.

  “Dammit, I wanted to have everything done when you got home.” He grabbed a spoon and flicked tomato something or other all over the backsplash. Which is what a backsplash is for, I suppose . . .

  “What’s all this, George?” I asked, coming to rest on a high stool out of the line of fire.

  “I just wanted to make you dinner, something nice. Turns out cooking is really bloody hard!” He struggled with a colander. The colander was winning. “I’d kiss you but I’m dirty.”

  “I like you dirty. I’ll risk it.”

  He smiled, but kept his eyes on the colander and the pasta that was now escaping. “I felt terrible about today. I just wanted, I wanted to do something that could— Oh, damn this linguine,” he mumbled.

  “Can I help you? Please?” I slipped down off the stool and walked to him. Quietly I finished draining the pasta, leaving it in the colander.

  He stood next to me, leaning over the sink, face troubled. “I just hate that this happened, that they would use me to go after you in this way.” He sighed.

  “I know,” I answered, leaning into his side. He smelled like garlic. He smelled wonderful.

  “I wish I could tell you this kind of thing won’t happen again, but it will, Grace.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s gonna get worse.”

  “I know.” I sighed into his shoulder. “But the good outweighs the bad.”

  “Does it?”

  “Of course it does. Now feed me this wonderful dinner.”

  I went back to my perch as he finished. I could have helped more, but I wanted to let him do this for me. Over dinner we talked about some of the better parts of the day, and we went about the business of getting past this. Past the bullshit. Past the part where someone, several someones actually, went out of their way to try to hurt both of us. We both sighed into our linguine several times.

  thirteen

  I loved spending quality time with my new trainer, Megan.

  “As far as I can tell, you were doing great, Grace, and then you crashed your system with that stupid diet. You worked out too much, you weren’t eating enough, and your body responded by holding on to everything once you started eating again. It’ll take some time, but we can get a little of this off, although you’re pretty much where your body wants you to be.”

  “My body wants me to be high in the sky, twisted like a pretzel?”

  “In the meantime, we work on your inner strength.” She laughed, ignoring my feeble joke, as she downward dogged me on the balcony. Megan was an actual exercise physiologist, with a degree and zero interest in being an actor. She had her own workout facility high above the city in the Wilshire corridor. She was organic, honest, and a breath of fresh air. Literally, up this high, you could smell the ocean above the smog. I looked forward to these workouts.

  “I just want to get back to where I was, that’s all.” I sighed through my legs as she had me switch poses.

  “I’d like you to be even better than you were before.” She winked. “What does your boyfriend think about everything?”

  “Please. He thinks the more for him to love, the better.” I snorted, her hands on my hips as she coaxed me into another shape. And it was true. Jack loved me for who I was, hips and all. Just wish the press did. After Holly put out a statement ridiculing the website that posted the pictures of Jack and his costar, the press pounced on me. And again, every time they showed Jack with this younger actress, they did a side by side of me. Always at a weird angle; always with me looking bigger than I was. For God’s sake, I was a size 8! But that was a tank in Hollywood, apparently, and no one was going to let me forget it.

  But in the other camp, a smaller but quite vocal group of women online were expressing their support. More than one blogger had written about the fuss being made about my weight, increasing the dialogue about women on film and TV and the thin-thin-thin image we were all supposed to mold ourselves into. Not gonna lie, those bloggers made it easier for me to grin and bear this idiocy.

  Speaking of grinning and bearing it . . .

  “Okay, uncle! Uncle, I give!” I collapsed to the mat and breathed heavily after the last set of crunches were finished. Megan laughed and threw me a bottle of water, which I took gratefully. Drinking it down, I stared out at Los Angeles. From this high up, the palm trees swayed in the breeze, the glitter from a hundred Bentleys making the street below sparkle. What a town. Absently I rubbed my necklace from Jack.

  His public.

  His public continued to rage about me, online at least. The pictures of him and his new costar had brought another round of sniping from his biggest online fan clubs. He was never really dating me—I was a cougar who was fame hungry—it was exhausting. What was I to do? Did I admit that I hated what the press was saying about me? Did I comment? Did I shy away? Did I cower in the corner, or did I come out swinging, teeth bared and claws out like a cougar?

  And in addition to all this bullshit going on about the size of my ass and whether I was sleeping with Sexy Scientist Guy, I had the biggest thing ever in my professional career going on. Which, by the way, was being overshadowed by this inane chatter. Would be nice if that could be the focus.

  Glad to see we are getting back on track here . . .

  My new show was set to premiere next week, and there were more interviews to go to, radio shows to call in to, hoops to jump through, and talk show hosts to charm. And I was supposed to be focusing on potted plants and their place in my natural world?

  Pick your path. You don’t get to decide how the public reacts. You only get to decide how you react.

  True, very true.

  Victim? Warrior? Pick. Your. Path.

  As I was contemplating, I saw a woman walk nervously into the gym, peering through the window. Pretty. Plump. Her eyes darting everywhere, she tensed when she saw me watching her. Her hands tugged at her T-shirt, pulling it down a bit, trying to cover up probably without even knowing it. I smiled at her, and she seemed to relax, but only a bit. Megan spied her through the window and waved her out.

  “Hey, Chelsea, I’ve gotta take a quick call,” Megan told her. “Go ahead and start stretching out for a few, and then we’ll get started, okay?” She grabbed her phone and ducked back inside. Chelsea looked at me, then did a double take.

  “Um, are you Grace Sheridan?”

  “Have we met before?” I asked, walking over after picking up my bag.

  She smiled shyly at me, again picking at her shirt and tugging it down a bit. “Well, um, I’m a big fan of Jack Hamilton.” She blushed furiously. “And, well, you know, you’re kind of all over the Internet lately.” She blushed even more.

  “Ah, well, yes. That’s true.” I chuckled. “And you’re correct. I’m Grace.” I extended my hand to her.

  She shook it with a grin. “I’m Chelsea. Oh my God, I can’t believe it! I’ve been seeing commercials for your new show. I can’t wait!”

  “Really? Wow, that’s great. You’ll have to let me know what you think after next week.”

  “I gotta tell you, at first I only knew who you were because of, well, your pictures with Jack. And you know, at first, of course, I was jealous because, well, my God, he’s gorgeous!”

  She giggled, becoming more animated as she talked. I laughed with her, nodding my head. He was gorgeous.

  “But then, when the press started picking on you? Dammit, that pissed me off! And I thought, well, shit, if anyone is gonna be with that beautiful man, I like the idea that it’s someone like you. Does that make sense? Sorry, I know I’m babbling, but I have to know, are you two dating? Please tell me yes,” she finally ended, breathing heavily. Her eyes were dancing, her cheeks still pink.

  I took a breath on my own. “If I say yes, are you going straight to TMZ?” I winked.

  “Fuck no!” she exclaimed, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “I mean . . . actually, I do mean fuck no!”

  “Then fuck y
es, we’re dating,” I answered, and she squealed.

  I threw my head back and laughed, louder than I had in a while. As we laughed, Megan came sauntering back outside, looking like a very pretty drill sergeant.

  “Grace? You still here? Usually my clients can’t wait to get out of here when I’m done with them. Chelsea, get your ass over on that mat and strike a mean warrior pose!”

  Warrior?

  Fuck yes. I spun toward Megan.

  “Megan, what if I told you I never wanted to weigh myself again. How would you feel about that?”

  “Awesome.”

  “And if I said I didn’t care what I weighed, as long as I was strong?”

  “Awesome.”

  “Fantastic. Thanks, Megan. Nice to meet you!” I called over to Chelsea, who was indeed striking a mean-ass warrior pose.

  “You too, Grace! And tell Jack I said hi!” She giggled, her warrior becoming a little unbalanced as Megan pushed me to the door.

  “Go away now, Grace. Can’t have you distracting my clients.” She shook her head.

  “I’m going, I’m going. But seriously, I’m not weighing myself anymore,” I told her.

  “Good girl.” She winked.

  I left feeling lighter than I had in weeks.

  fourteen

  LateNightRecap.com

  Grace Sheridan was the toast of late-night this week, with appearances on Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Jimmy Fallon. While all three hosts tried to get her to comment on the status of her relationship with alleged boyfriend Jack Hamilton, Grace deftly kept the conversation focused on her career and her new show, Mable Unstable?, set to premiere in just two days. But the other hot topic that has dogged her lately, her weight, was not off-limits at all. In fact, Grace spoke candidly to Jimmy Fallon when he asked about her weight and what being asked to lose weight for this role had done to her: