The Year of Living Famously (13 page)

“You'll just have to come back to New York for a visit,” Steven said.

I'd been thinking the same thing. I wanted to take Declan to visit Emmie. I wanted to wash L. A. from my hair, even if it was for only a few days. The problem was that the holidays were looming, we were leaving for Dublin after Christmas, and Declan had so many other things on his plate right now. But Steven's words had struck their mark.

“Maybe we will,” I said. “I'm really dying to get back to Manhattan.”

“Absolutely. Come home for a while, and come to my place.”

“You've opened a new bar?”

“A bar
and
restaurant,” he said proudly. “It's called Jasmine. It's French Vietnamese. You've got to see it.”

“That's fantastic. I'd like to check it out.”

“You'd bring Declan, too. Right?” It was the first time that Steven had said my husband's name, and something about his simpatico tone rang false.

“Most likely,” I said, wary.

“It would really help me out, Kyra.”

“What would?” I stood up from the table and put a hand on the balcony railing, feeling a sudden alarm.

“If you could bring Declan here, I'd get a lot of pub, you know? It would mean a lot to me.”

I brought the hand to my head, and squeezed my eyes shut. “You're unbelievable. You know that? You called me because of Declan, didn't you?”

A tiny pause erupted in the conversation. I knew I was right.

“No,” Steven said. “I don't even know what you're saying.”

“Yes, you do! Jesus, Steven!” I don't know why I was so hurt. I shouldn't have expected any more from him, but a zing of pain hit me just the same.

“Kyra, don't get all emotional. I'm just asking a favor.”

“And I'm just telling you to fuck off.”

 

A couple days later, Dec and I attended a cocktail party in Malibu thrown by his new manager in Dec's honor. It was so exciting to be there, with Dec in the spotlight among all these important Hollywood types, but all night I noticed something different about the way Dec was speaking. Too quickly, it seemed at first, then with more of an Irish lilt than
usual. But I was being towed around by Graham's wife, Sherry (a woman who had to be a few years younger than I and, therefore, about thirty years younger than Graham), introductions were being made, and so I really only orbited Dec during most of the party.

Finally, I was able to excuse myself and go to the bathroom, a stark white space with a wall of windows overlooking the Pacific. I stared outside for a while, wondering at the velocity with which Declan (and by default, I) had been invited to a place where even the toilets had ocean views.

When I came out, I saw Declan talking to Max and three other people. One guy, who was in his forties and bore a resemblance to John Belushi, I'd been told was a studio president that Declan had always wanted to meet. The woman next to him was his wife. The other man was in his sixties, someone I didn't recognize, which was not surprising since I know so few people in this industry.

The whole group was laughing at Declan, at a story he was telling. Dec quickly introduced me to everyone, and went back to the story.

“It's the truth,” he said, “people in Dublin can swear better than any people on this earth.”

I'd heard him say this before. In fact, Declan could rattle off strings of profanities in the most creative ways, and he insisted that his talent was minimal compared to the rest of the Dubliners. But it was the way he had spoken the sentence that was odd. “Truth” sounded like “troot,” and “Dublin” sounded like “Dooblin.” And suddenly his speech was peppered with questions instead of statements. (“Didn't I, now? Didn't I grow up only a stone's throw from the River Liffey?”)

But why was he doing it? To entertain the crowd? That seemed to be it. Max chuckled happily. The studio president gestured toward someone else at the party (“Ya gotta hear this!” he said), and soon there were four other people
huddled close to Declan. People cocked their ears because when that brogue got heavy it became even harder to understand, and yet they were all smiling that isn't-he-charming smile, giving each other looks, knowing they would be relating this story to everyone they ran across tomorrow.

How strange it was to listen to him talk like that, as if someone else, some enhanced version of my husband, had inhabited his body.

At one point, the studio president's wife, an elegant woman in her late forties, turned to me and introduced herself as Leila. “Do you know how rare it is to find someone like your husband in Hollywood?” she said. “I mean, do you really get it? He is just wonderful.”

“Yes,” I said simply, trying not to make a face. What would she have done, I wondered, if I had said,
He is wonderful at oral sex, but he can't clean a kitchen to save his life.

In my head I imagined the other questions I was surely about to hear from Leila.
Do you know how amazing he is? God, do you realize how lucky you are to have him?
These were the type of questions people constantly asked me since
Normandy
came out. Speaking in low, hushed, reverent tones, the person was always completely unaware of how insulting these queries were. They assumed, first of all, that I was some poor, pathetic woman who would have lived a life of misery and destitution had it not been for some cosmic alignment that brought me into Declan's world. Secondly, they presupposed that I didn't know the man I'd married, that maybe I actually found him stupid and slow and idiotic, and only through the words of these people would I wake up and recognize my accidental good fortune.

“My God, do you hear him?” Leila said. “He is so hysterical.”

“That he is.”
And you should hear this story when he's not doing his Paddy McIrish imitation.

“You must be so proud.”

“I am,” I said truthfully. Despite it all, I was immensely proud of the way Declan held his own in that crowd. He more than held his own, actually. He was the star.

“I love your dress,” Leila said. She reached out and touched the skirt. I was wearing one of my fifties swing dresses, but I'd had this one made with a wild seventies Pucci print.

“It is fabulous,” said a voice from behind me.

I turned. It was Kendall Gold.

Even
I
knew Kendall Gold. She was the daughter of a famous comedic actress, who had made her own name by taking on quirky roles and period pieces until she won an Oscar last year. Her face was ubiquitous on every magazine rack. With her sunny blond hair, and her allegedly sunny disposition, she was America's “It” girl of the moment.

We introduced ourselves, and Leila, Kendall and I drifted away from the group around Declan. We talked fashion. I told them how I'd designed my dress. As they oohed and aahed over it, I found myself experiencing a rare, happy moment that had nothing to do with Declan. I gave them each one of my new business cards.
Kyra Felis, Designer
the cards read optimistically.

“Let me know if I can design something for either of you,” I said. Immediately I felt like a door-to-door salesman, pitching vacuum cleaners to housewives.

I had to drive home that night, because Dec had had way too much to drink. Maneuvering the car at night, in unknown territory, was even more terrifying than usual. I was hanging over the wheel, peering into the darkness at the curves in the road.

“So what was that back there?” I said to Declan. “Were you trying out for the part of a leprechaun?”

“What do you mean?” I noticed the brogue was much lighter now that we were in private.

I started faking his accent, mimicking a few of his phrases. “You might has well have done a jig,” I said.

He laughed. Yes, he admitted, he was putting on a bit of a show, but he really wasn't faking it. That was how he used to talk when he was young. He brought it back occasionally, usually when he'd had a few drinks. People liked it. They responded to it, and he missed home. It made him happy to talk like a real Irishman once in a while.

“Does it bother you, then?” he said.

I hesitated, still squinting at the road.

Finally, I said, “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because you're acting. And yet there were no cameras, no one to call ‘cut' or ‘action'. You were doing it on your own.”

“So what?”

A decent question. Why was it annoying me so? Finally, I figured it out. “How am I supposed to know if you're acting with me?”

“Ah, love, because you know me.” He leaned over the console and rubbed my arm. “You knew then I was just pretending. You'd always know. And besides, I'd never act with you. I don't have to.”

We'd come into some area of civilization again, and I stopped at a light. He leaned farther into my seat, nuzzling my neck.

“You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how,” he said, using a Clark Gable voice.

I pulled back and looked at him.

“See,” he said. “You knew. You'll always know.”

I
t was ten in the morning, a few days after Graham's party, and I'd just gotten in from a run, when the phone rang.

“Please hold for Kendall Gold,” said a woman, who sounded very busy.

“Excuse me?” I said into the phone.

No response.

I panted and used the bottom of my T-shirt to wipe sweat off my forehead. I shifted the phone to the other ear. When nothing happened for a few seconds, I was about to hang up.

But then I heard, “Kyra? Are you there?”

“Kendall?” I said.

“Yeah, hi. I met you at that party in Malibu.”

“Sure,” I said. “Are you looking for Declan?”

“No, no. I wanted to talk to you.”

I pulled the phone away and stared at it for a second. Why was Kendall Gold calling me?

“You there?” I heard her say.

I put the phone back to my ear. “Yep, right here. Uh…how are you?”

“Fine, great. Well, you know, the usual bullshit. I've got ten scripts to read, and one of my personal assistants mis-took me for David Spade and tried to attack me. Goes with the territory, right?”

“Does it?”

“Well, you know how it is with personal assistants. They're loyal until you can't get them an audition. I mean, how many has Declan gone through?”

“Declan doesn't have a personal assistant.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I don't even know what a personal assistant does.” I went out on the balcony and sat in the sun.

“My God, they do
everything.
” Kendall ran down an exhaustive list of duties her PAs did for her, which included returning her phone calls, reading e-mail, answering fan mail, buying her underwear and protein bars, picking up her dry cleaning, making her travel plans and coordinating her household staff.

“But look,” she said, “I didn't call to talk about PAs. I called because of that dress you wore in Malibu. Are you selling it anywhere?”

“I wish. No, I made that for myself.”

“Would you be willing to make one for me?”

I sat up straight. Did I just hear Kendall Gold asking
me
to make her a dress? “Of course,” I said.

“I've got this charity luncheon at Tom and Rita's, and I thought it would be perfect. Half fifties-suburban, half Studio 54.”

I laughed. She'd described the dress perfectly. “I'd love to make one for you. When is the luncheon?”

“Well, that's the hitch. It's next week. Is that too soon?”

I calculated everything I would need to do—get her
measurements, cut a new pattern, find the material, beg the factory to make it for me ASAP. One week was technically and entirely not enough time.

“I can do it,” I said.

 

I was still on the balcony—scribbling notes, sketching Kendall's dress—when Declan came in.

“I'm out here,” I yelled.

When he came though the doorway, I jumped up. “Guess what? Guess what?”

“You're cooking dinner?”

I scowled. He knew I never cooked, and yet he was always making light of it, which sometimes made me wonder. Did he wish he had a more stereotypical wife, one who would clean instead of calling Angel Maids, one who would whip up steak tartar instead of speed-dialing sushi takeout?

“Kidding, love,” he said. He dipped his head down and put his forehead on my collarbone, his arms around my waist. “What's your news, then?”

I pushed him back slightly so he could see my face. “Kendall Gold asked me to make a dress for her!”

“What?” His face was elated. “You're kidding? Which dress? The slip dress with the satin straps, or maybe that draped one with the bias cut?”

When I met Declan, he could barely distinguish between the words
sleeve
and
hem,
and yet here he was talking bias cut with me. I hugged him again.

“No, the fifties one with the Pucci print that I wore to Graham's.”

“God, that's brilliant!” He lifted me off my feet.

When he set me down, we heard a strange whir and then a series of clicking sounds. We both looked to the alley below the balcony. A man stood there with a camera and a black bag slung around his body.

“Hey, there!” Declan called down to him.

The photographer let the camera drop for a moment. He had a sharp, pointed face like a ferret, but friendly eyes. “How about a smile from you two?” he said.

Declan looked at me. He shrugged in a “what do you think?” kind of way. He appeared pleased with this development. I shrugged back.

We turned to the street and put our arms around each other. We smiled wide for the photographer.

That was a mistake.

 

Anyone who has lived in Manhattan knows that where there is one cockroach, there are others. Declan and I soon learned that the same axiom applies to photographers.

Two days after that first photographer appeared in our alley, we found three more outside our front door.

Declan was thrilled. “Hey, what's this?” he said in a happy voice. We had just stepped out onto the front stoop. I blinked at the bright false sun, tightening my arms around myself in the surprising chill.

Declan was dressed in new black Joseph Abboud slacks that Graham's assistant had bought at Graham's instruction. Declan had to “stop looking so MTV and start looking more old-school movie star,” Graham had said. Graham's specialty was molding an actor into a persona. Declan, he had decided, wouldn't dress in skull caps and baseball shirts like that other Irish actor, and Graham had put the kibosh on Declan's own jeans and loose, oversize shirts, too. Rather, Graham had decided that Declan would wear crisp white shirts and Italian leather shoes and soft-as-silk pants. He would be a throwback to James Cagney and Spencer Tracy.

It irked me a little when Declan had come home wearing such an outfit, boasting that Graham had paid for the whole thing. The clothes were great—it wasn't that—and
the charity of the situation didn't bother me. On the contrary, I think I had a strong sense, even then, that Graham, as well as many others, would make scads of money on Declan. What rankled was that if anyone should be selecting clothes for Declan, it should be me. Graham may not have even known that I was a designer at that point, but the new clothes felt like a slam somehow.

Anyway, the morning of the three photographers, Declan was wearing one of his new outfits, while I was in running pants and my old faded jean jacket. I had only gotten out of bed to walk Declan to his car. Our time had become that scarce. I so rarely saw him that in order to spend time together, I walked him to the parking lot, or he sat on the edge of the tub when I took a bath at night. Moments together had become as precious as pearls.

So I was blinking furiously in the sunlight when we saw those photographers. “Hey, what's this?” Declan said, and they shouted, “Declan! Declan!”

They didn't know my name yet, or they didn't care, and either way that was fine with me.

At my side, Dec preened. These photographers signified that what was happening to him—the acclaim from
Normandy,
the ridiculously huge advance he'd just gotten for a new film, the multiple offers that were pouring in—was real. These photographers, inadvertently, told him that he deserved the reviews and the new, massive money we had in the bank. I thought to remind him of that other axiom—
Never believe your own press
—but in his case, the press was true. Declan was fantastic in
Normandy.
He did deserve millions of dollars for feature films and car commercial voice-overs.

But within days those three photographers turned into six. Then they morphed into a pack of ten. And soon, they weren't just lingering outside our apartment. They fol
lowed Declan in his car. They shot us sitting outside at Cow's End when we could find time for coffee. I tried running from them once, when we turned a corner and saw them lurking, but I tripped and skidded onto my knees on the asphalt. Those bloody scrapes on my knees stuck with me for weeks. Every time I looked at them I felt like hunted prey.

In New York in the evening, I had always left my lights on, my curtains open. I really didn't think anyone would take the time to watch my dim form from across the street. But now in L. A., I was always drawing the curtains, peeking out for the familiar shape of a telephoto lens.

As I said, at that point it wasn't me they wanted, which was relieving and yet vaguely insulting. They wanted Declan. They wanted shots of him buying a paper, saying hi to someone on the street, and putting gas in his car, just as bad as they wanted those red-carpet shots, those photos of him pumping Brad Pitt's hand, the ones of him mugging with Geri Halliwell.

But even though it wasn't me they wanted, I was affected. It was hard not to be. When I walked out of the house, when they were still waiting for Declan to appear, they would shoot a few desultory shots of me, for something to do. I didn't know their names, like Declan did. I didn't see their presence as anything more than an uninvited guest at the foot of our marriage bed. Yet still I knew they were there. I couldn't help but set my face in a somewhat nice expression. I couldn't help but throw my shoulders back, and affect nonchalance as I threw my vintage Margaret Smith bag onto my other shoulder. Like never before, I noticed my own posture, my expressions, my movements, my car with its layer of dirt, my black Versace sling backs that were fading at the toe, my halter dress that had produced a black thread dangling from its hem, my too-faded navy running pants, my sand-caked Nike
shoes, my fake Gucci sunglasses, my brand-new zit on my cheekbone, my eyebrows in need of waxing, my chipped fingernail polish.

I was always aware of the photographers, and therefore, I was hyper-aware of myself. It was as if the Kyra of old, the one who'd lived in Manhattan and been content with her small life, was watching the new Kyra, and unsure what to make of her.