The Real Real (11 page)
The following morning, balancing the stack of Sunday newspapers against my hip, I struggle to get the key into the front door of the Prickly Pear without dropping everything onto the salted pavement. The early sun streaks across the closed storefronts of Main Street, and I note how a fitful night’s sleep has done jack to dull yesterday’s stings. “Crap.” The cold keys slip from my freezing hands and clank to the sidewalk. “Jamie Beth?” I grip the papers and turn to her as she attempts to inhale enough nicotine to fuel her until lunch. “Jamie Beth.”
She squints at me over gray smoke streaming from her mouth.
“Could you maybe . . . ” I glance down at the keys, splayed beside my sneakers.
Gripping the cigarette between her chapped lips, she scoops them up to dangle before me.
“In the door, please?” I gesture with my chin. She pushes the key in and turns the knob with a sigh, the weight of the papers pitching me inside and onto the nearest wobbly table. The familiar smell of bleach and baked goods clears Jamie Beth’s cigarette from my head. So that’s something.
“Can you get the coffee going and I’ll get the awnings?”
I ask, knowing full well that she won’t because she’s too busy tackling her first priority: slouching against the counter to pick at her peeling nail polish.
No. I do not want to fill muffin cups the rest of my life.
“Jamie Beth? Please?” I plop the box of coffee filters in front of her. She contemplates them.
I duck back outside into the stark sunshine. Twirling the metal pole overhead, I tend to the windows on both sides of the corner bakery, unfurling the striped awnings that keep the sun from amplifying the heat of the basement ovens come noon.
“Jesse!”
I twist to see Drew jogging over from the Stop & Shop parking lot across the street. “You’re always running!”
What?
“What?” He reaches me, his breath coming out in little puffs.
“What?” Take two. “Hey, what’re you doing here?”
“Working.” He points at the red apron over his windbreaker. “The cart kid’s sick today so I’m on duty.”
“Cool. I didn’t know you worked there,” I lie, leaning into the pole like a cane to steady myself against a wave of nerves because, despite his initial declaration of being in this together, I’m always with Nico and Melanie and he’s with Jase and Rick. Other than crowded chaotic morning check-ins, we haven’t exchanged more than a “What’s 105
up?” since that second day in the trailer.
“Yeah, Sundays in the stockroom. Just helping out my folks with the bills.” He looks away, and I wonder just how bad things are. “And, you know, saving for a Maybach.” He raises his head, squinting into the bright sky.
“I’m working while you’re working, so that’s probably why you haven’t . . . ” You know that I’m working when you’re working? I pray he couldn’t see me gazing from the counter in my fetching Prickly Pear trucker cap—thanks, NYS health code.
“Yeah.” We smile stupidly at each other and, staring up at his wind-reddened cheeks, I can’t think of a single thing to say. “So . . . ” and that went nowhere.
He tucks his hands in his pockets. “It’s nice out here this morning, just kinda being out here by myself.”
“I can go back inside.”
“No.” He laughs. “Just with all the filming this weekend.”
“What did they make
you
do?” I will my nose not to drip in the cold.
“Oh, I had to go to some pool place in Montauk with Jase and Rick, and we were there, like,
all night
shooting the same thing over and over, which was kind of . . . ”
“Weird?”
“Yeah. And then they did, like, all these beach walk things yesterday. So many freaking people.”
“Come on, dude.” I cock my head in my best Fletch, daring to poke his ribs. “You’re not having more freakin’
fun than
ever before
doing what kids do?”
“Not bad.” He grins.
“You wish you were wearing a mike pack right now, admit it.”
He raises a shoulder, his name tag going askew. “I do kinda miss the raw skin and clammy wire.”
My turn to laugh.
“Yeah . . . ” He looks intently at me. “It’s all a little—”
“Much,” I fill in. “Much makeup. Much people. Much weirdness with friends . . . ”
“You too?” He steps closer and, beneath his flushed cheeks, I notice a small patch of stubble at his jaw that he missed shaving.
“I promised Caitlyn I’d make sure she got cast and yesterday had to tell her she wasn’t,” I confess. “I feel like I ran over her dog.”
“I know.” He crosses his arms over his apron. “I was supposed to watch my little brother Friday night and then, obviously, that didn’t happen, and my mom came down on me about how I’m getting a big head.”
“I see you and raise you.” I look up at him and let my hand dart out for a split second to his forearm. “My parents drove all the way to Providence only to turn right around in the wee hours to check local hospitals for my mangled corpse. So they’re loving me. It’s like this . . .
thing that’s kind of landed between us and—”
“Everyone. Exactly.” He shoves his hands in his pockets 107
and clears his throat, his bangs falling in his eyes. “Listen, do you want to grab lunch together?” I feel a tremble up my spine. “I can break at eleven fifteen, and we can hit the deli counter and make use of my six percent discount?”
“I can bring dessert.” I lift up on the balls of my Converses. “At a full eight percent off, thank you very much.”
“Cool!” Smiling, he jogs backward across the street toward the edge of the lot.
“Cool.”
Suddenly he stops backing up, and I follow his stare behind me to the XTV van barreling down the street, screeching to a stop between us. The side door rolls open, and I half expect armed men to leap out.
Kara, purple rings under her eyes, leans forward. “Hop in, Jesse.”
“Oh, sorry, I can’t today.” I jerk my thumb at the building behind me. “I’m working a double shift.” And having a hot lunch date!
“Yeah, we took care of that. So hop in, we had to get you in makeup five minutes ago.”
“You took care of it?”
“We quit for you. Come. In the van.”
I step forward, trying to make sense of it. “You talked to my boss?”
Kara drops her head to let out a tortured moan. “My assistant did. It’s fine. No more Prickly Crap for you. Now, will you please get in the van?”
Speechless to no longer have a job and crushed to no 108
longer have a date, I look to Drew, and he shrugs helplessly.
“You’re up at dusk, Drew,” Kara yells across the street.
“Guys have a five-thirty call at Jase’s! Jesse. Now.”
“Okay. Okay . . . well, I just have to—” I lift the pole to indicate I’m going inside.
“Whatever, they can bill us for it. Please, Jesse.”
Laying it down on the sidewalk, I walk to the van door, murmuring, “You quit my job for me?”
“You can thank me later.” Kara reaches out and, in one tug of my hand, pulls me in.
A month later finds me frantically wiping off my face as I stare out the trailer window at the exuberant Friday tide of students flowing to a trickle from the side doors. I have given Caitlyn as much space as I can bear, and today is my breaking point. I miss her so freaking much, and she has to miss me at least a little.
“Later, Jesse.” Nico stuffs her towelettes into the small garbage can Tandy holds out and jogs down the steps.
“Later.” I give a halfhearted wave as I think I spot—
yes, that’s Cay’s unmistakable streaked blond ponytail swinging. I grab my bag, lob my foundation-caked cloths into Tandy’s can, and head for the trailer door.
“Thanks!” I call to Tandy. “Bye, Kara!” I yell back to 110
the monitor room as I step outside.
“Seven a.m. call time tomorrow!” she shouts.
“Got it!”
“Hey!” Drew backs up on the pavement to clear the swinging metal. “It’s you.”
“Hey!” I scan over his ski hat to keep sight of Caitlyn. Crap. She’s with Jennifer Lanford. Again. Maybe I shouldn’t count so much on the missing part. My eyes dart back to Drew, who suddenly looks like he’s not sure what to do with his hands. “Sorry, yes, yeah, it’s been crazy this week.”
“Every week. We’re mike packs passing in the trailer.”
I nod—they’re only a few feet from her car. “Yeah.”
“Right, so I should probably . . . ” He points at the door.
Caitlyn reaches for her keys. “I really have to go.” I touch the arm of his jacket as I step around him. “Sorry!”
“Fine, but you owe me a muffin.”
“Deal.” I grin, my heart flicking from excitement to fear as I jog toward the Camry. “Cay!”
She whips her head up from where she’s just tossed her coat into the backseat. I wave. She gives me an empty smile.
Jennifer turns from the open passenger door to glance from Caitlyn to me with slightly raised, twice-pierced eyebrows that indicate she’s been filled in. Great.
“Hey.” Caitlyn crosses her arms over her thin sweater as I slow in front of the passenger side.
“Hey!”
We take each other in over the roof. So . . . here goes. “I was wondering if maybe I could, um, hitch a ride. Maybe treat to pizza or whatever. Are you guys hungry?”
“Starving,” Jennifer intones. “Those burgers were foul.”
Caitlyn sighs heavily. Ugh, I want to be an hour from now, past this part where I’m an awkward stranger with the person I want to tell about it later. “Fine,” she says.
“Shotgun.” Jennifer lifts the front seat forward, and I lumber into the back, pushing aside the CDs and Coke cans to make room for myself behind her. They get in and Caitlyn starts the car, not meeting my eyes as she turns around to back out of the spot.
“Thanks!” I click on my seat belt. “For the ride.”
“So, spill it, Jesse.” Jennifer leans around her seat, her leather jacket gathering against the belt. “What’s it like?
Give me a day in the life.”
“Oh no. It’s not really—”
“We’re dying to know,” Caitlyn says flatly as she stares at the road.
“You guys don’t want to—”
“We do. Details.” Jennifer slices the air between the seats. “We see them trailing you at school. I want the other stuff, these weekend things Caitlyn said you have to do.”
So she acknowledges the “have to.” “Oh, they suck.” I slouch back, hugging my bag.
“Details, bitch!” Jennifer commands.
“Okay, um, well, last Saturday—”
“Valentine’s?” she asks.
“Yes. So we’re sitting in the trailer at the asscrack of dawn—me, Melanie, Nico, and the nutjob cinematographer guy, Zacheria—yup, that’s his name—he thinks he’s so artsy, but I swear he worked for, like,
Blue’s Clues
before this. Anyway, he informs us that ‘we’re sick of it all.’ And we’re like, ‘Yes, yes, we are sick of it! Day off?’ No. He informs us that we’re sick of shopping and spa-ing and eating sushi. What we
want
is to get back to nature.”
A smile flickers over Caitlyn’s face. Okay, this is good, this is working.
“Cut to twelve hours trying to make the Montauk backwoods look like Mont Blanc.”
“Twelve hours?!” Jennifer hoots.
“Three to walk through the trees holding hands and trying to maintain a conversation through massively oversized Gautier earmuffs. We looked ridonculous. And we have
nothing
to talk about because we’re never apart for more than forty minutes—” Caitlyn takes a hard left, and I brace myself with a hand on the ceiling. “I mean, unless Nico and Melanie want to explain how to diagram a parabola there’s no information they’re getting that I’m not.”
“Are you like their BFF now?” Jennifer asks like it’s nothing.
“
No.
” My turn to slice the air. “No, we are
absolutely
not. It’s like people you work with. Friendly, but not—”
“Anyway!”
“Anyway, after a typical lunch of, like, malt balls and Twizzlers, Kara—the producer—announces we’re ready, after three weekend shoots of ‘fun girl time,’ to ‘re-integrate.’
Which means we’re snowmobiled to the boys’ set, which is the first time I’m around any of them—Rick, Drew,
Jase
,”
I throw meaningfully to Caitlyn, not wanting to get into it in front of Jennifer. “Awkward, yes. But at least we weren’t
chopping wood
. Like the poor blistered, splintered boys.
Fletch—the head guy—just stood there in these gigantic moon boots, slurping his Red Bull, yelling at Drew to ‘put more back into it.’ If Rick hadn’t gotten a sliver, like, an inch from his eye, he’d have made them go until they built a chalet. Then, more hair. More makeup. More Doritos.
A costume change involving lederhosen. And finally . . . a snowball fight. A
four-hour
snowball fight.”
Caitlyn lets out a knowing laugh, and I dare to lean forward between them. “Anybody with half a brain will keep walking when they see one starting. Because you will end up with snow down your neck. You will end up with wet, cold lederhosen where you’ve fallen down repeatedly in the ambush. You may even end up with a black eye.” I pause dramatically, getting into the storytelling, fishing for more laughs. “I got all three.”
“Shut up.” Jennifer smacks the dashboard.
“I will not. Of course, Nico took every opportunity to throw herself on Jase, while I’m just trying to keep a minimum of one tree between us at all times. Melanie’s packing ’em and tossing ’em for all she’s worth at every 114
bullhorned suggestion from Zacheria, hitting all of us until Rick winds up and socks her one to the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her for a good minute. At which point Kara runs over waving a medical liability release form. So, in summary: Nico slapped Rick. Jase pushed Nico. Drew shoved Jase. Jase went to take out Drew, missed, and nearly broke my nose. And that was hour one.
Tomorrow we’ll probably be going lobster trapping with our bare hands. Jealous?”
Caitlyn turns right on Main and my stomach does a little flip. “Didn’t you guys want pizza?” I ask.
“
Yes,
” Jennifer moans, turning back around to face the street.