A Dangerous Dress (31 page)

I harbor no such illusions. I simply dreamed about Grandma.

She was sitting at the foot of my bed, right there in the Tribeca Grand. She looked around and said, “Nice room.”

“You can see!” It was a big deal, because as I told you, Grandma was legally blind for years and years before she died.

“Stop changing the subject,” Grandma commanded. “The subject is you.”

I figured she was talking about what I had done. “I’m sorry I lost your dress.”

“Don’t worry about the dress. Good dresses take care of themselves. Especially the dangerous ones.” She smiled, as if remembering something naughty.

“I just feel like everything is falling apart.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head wisely. “Everything is coming together. You just have to let it happen.” Then she frowned. “But first you have to stop worrying so much about every little thing.
I found
this dress. I lost that dress. Josh kissed me. Reed didn’t kiss me.
Those are all
details.
Quit fretting about the details, and get on with living.”

“But what if I make a mistake?”

“You’ve made lots of mistakes.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Well, you have. But you’re supposed to make mistakes. You’re young. You have to take chances. Don’t you remember that paper you wrote? All those things you hoped my dangerous dress and I did?”

“Of course.”

“Well, we did them all.” She laughed out loud. “And then some. Made mistakes, too. Some real doozies. But looking back, the differences between the right choices and the wrong choices don’t seem to matter much. The point is that it was all an adventure.
My
adventure. I lived it. And I wouldn’t change a thing.” She stood up. “Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Why do you think I left you the dress? You’ve always been raring to go—you just needed a kick in the pants to get you started. And you’ve done fine so far. Only you can’t stop halfway. It’s all out there waiting for you. So quit feeling sorry for yourself and get on with it!”

At that moment, a fire truck screamed by on the street outside the hotel, waking me up. And, of course, Grandma wasn’t there at all. It was just a dream.

Don’t you think?

Even though I had fallen asleep at the very bottom of the pit of despair, I woke up feeling great. My confidence was back. I would win Reed’s heart, Bertie’s confidence, and Fox’s viewers. My butt wasn’t even sore where I had landed on it.

So, dream or ghost, thanks, Grandma.

I had room service send up a yummy waffle with fresh strawberries and whipped cream I just knew somebody actually whipped that morning, instead of squirting it out of a can. And a big pot of coffee. While I ate, I turned on the TV and went looking for Fox News. I figured I still had time to do a little quick research. When I switched to the channel the directory told me was Fox News, though, I found a
Simpsons
rerun. Which was actually pretty engaging, and put me in an even better mood.

When I arrived at the studio, I was sent back to the room where I’d met Bertie Thorn the day before. Bertie was alone, without Reed. I thought she was wearing a different suit, but I had to look twice to be sure. And her hair and makeup were exactly the same, like she stamped herself out of a mold every morning.

I was about to ask about Reed when he walked in. He was smiling broadly, and he gave me a hug. An ambiguous hug, somewhere in between a producer hug and a boyfriend hug. Then I noticed Bertie glaring at Reed. He noticed her too, and the hug turned entirely professional.
Thanks a lot, Bertie.

“How’s my star?” Reed asked, still flashing his Labrador grin.

Okay reminding me about that star thing was probably a pretty good move on his part. Because I kind of softened up. I might’ve even giggled a little when I said, “Fine.”

“Good,” he said. Then he sat down, and as soon as he was in his chair he was all business. “You’ve already met Bertie.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s my associate producer,” he said.

“She told me,” I said.

“Bertie is short for Roberta,” he said, “but never call her that.” He and Bertie laughed like there was some joke I wasn’t in on. It hadn’t sounded so funny when Bertie said the same thing the day before.

“I won’t call her that,” I said. “So how’s your crisis?”

“What crisis?” Reed asked.

“
Your
crisis.”

“Oh,” he said. “Fine.”

“All resolved?”

“All resolved.” Clearly he didn’t want to talk about it. Well excuse me. But he did dump me just as we’d been about to become more than associates. I thought it was perfectly fair for me to ask. I guess he didn’t agree. “Can we get back to business?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Bertie wants to develop your backstory.”

I must have looked puzzled. “It’s a movie term,” Bertie said. “It means things that happened in a character’s life before the start of the film but are still relevant to the story.”

“But we’re not making a movie,” I said.

“Every medium is storytelling,” Reed explained. “Whether it’s movies or TV news. The audience has to care about you even before they’ve met you. So we need to tell them your story.”

Bertie flipped open a notebook computer that was as thin as a restaurant menu. “What did you do before you went to Europe?”

“I worked at a bank,” I said. “Actually, a savings and loan.”

Bertie typed. Fast. Her fingers on the keys sounded like hail hitting a car roof.

Reed looked at Bertie. “Savings and loan is better,” he said, and she nodded yes.

Without looking up, she asked, “What’s the name of the savings and loan?”

“Independence. Independence Savings and Loan Association of Northwest Indiana.”

“Can you believe that?” Reed asked Bertie.

“Amazing,” Bertie said. They were both smiling. “Job title?”

“Deputy vice president.”

“Nice,” said Bertie.

In case you’re wondering, that really is my title. Uncle John said he felt bad he couldn’t pay me a lot, but he could make up for it by giving me a nice title. I don’t believe that, though. I don’t believe he felt bad about not paying me a lot. But I didn’t mention that.

“Current status?”

To which I didn’t say anything.

Bertie looked up from her keyboard. “Current job status?”

“I’m . . . on a break.”

“What does that mean?” Bertie asked.

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“Let it go,” Reed said.

“We really shouldn’t,” Bertie said.

“You’ll think of some happy way to say it,” Reed told her in no uncertain terms.

Then I told Bertie my story. Not in anything like the detail I’ve given you, but in considerably more detail than the
Reader’s Digest
version I told Reed back in Paris. By the way, I told them the real name of Reliable Pictures. Reed said they wouldn’t use that name because the conglomerates that own Reliable and Fox News are competitors, and the last thing anybody needed was a lawsuit. Reed giggled when I told how Nathalie took off her clothes in front of everybody, and Bertie blushed, plus she glared at Reed, although she typed it all down.

“That’s a future segment for sure,” Reed said. “Hollywood’s moral cesspool.”

“Actually it was kind of a joint-venture thing between the French and Hollywood,” I said.

“Hollywood and France’s moral cesspool,” Reed said. Bertie nodded and typed.

When I started talking about Armani Collezioni, Reed said, “Just call it Giorgio Armani.” Finally we got to the part about George, his girlfriend, the dress, and me getting fired. I started to explain that George worked for the State Department, and he wanted to buy his girlfriend a dress for this formal dinner with Jacques Chirac. Only when I said that, Reed frowned. When Bertie saw Reed frowning, she stopped typing.

“Let’s leave that part out,” Reed said.

“Which part?” I asked.

“The State Department thing,” Bertie said. “He was just a misguided American citizen.” She started typing again. “Blinded by the overpriced glitz and flash of Euro-chic.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Reed.

“He was an asshole,” I said.

Bertie stopped typing again. “We don’t want to say that.”

“We don’t?” I couldn’t see why not. I mean maybe we couldn’t say
asshole
on TV. Although as I recall, they used to say it on
NYPD Blue.
But surely we could convey the concept.

“We don’t want your fellow American to come across as the villain,” Reed said. “There are much bigger fish to fry.” Then he laughed. “But of course you know that.”

I laughed too. Even though I had no clue what he meant, or what was so funny. I felt safer acting like I was in on the joke. Plus it made Reed happy that I laughed.

“So get this,” he said to Bertie. “Jane tries to tell the man he’s making a big mistake; he’s going to humiliate himself spending all that money and having his girlfriend wear that dress.”

“Fantastic,” Bertie said, her fingers flying.

I actually thought Reed did a pretty good job of telling it, considering he wasn’t there. Of course, he left out the whole tit thing, but apparently you still have to be quite delicate about what you say on TV.

“So the man spent a fortune, bought the dress—then he and his girlfriend were humiliated, just like Jane tried to tell them they would be. When he came back to Armani to complain, they needed a scapegoat, so poor Jane got fired.”

“That’s the part Reed saw,” I said.

“He did?” asked Bertie.

“He did,” I said. “He was in the store.”

Bertie turned to Reed. “You were in Giorgio Armani?”

“Armani Collezioni,” I said.

“Stick to Giorgio Armani,” Reed said to me. “We don’t want to confuse people.”

“What were you doing in Giorgio Armani?” Bertie asked Reed.

“He was buying a tie,” I said.

Bertie recoiled as if somebody had slapped her. Her head snapped around and she looked at me. Then her head snapped back and she looked at Reed. “You weren’t,” Bertie said to Reed.

“I wasn’t,” Reed said.

“You wouldn’t,” Bertie said.

“I wouldn’t,” Reed said.

“Then what were you doing in the store?” Bertie asked.

“I was . . . location scouting,” Reed said.

“You sure looked like you were buying a tie,” I said to Reed.

“He was
location scouting,
” Bertie said to me. The way she hissed when she said
scouting,
I could tell that this discussion was over. Then she turned back to Reed, and smiled like her body had suddenly become possessed by a really happy demon. “Where were we?”

“Poor Jane got fired,” Reed said.

“You poor girl,” the sweet demon inhabiting Bertie Thorn’s body said to me. She didn’t actually sound all that sympathetic. Then she stopped typing.

“I think we’ve got it,” Reed said.

“Are we done?” I asked. I was tired. I had been talking, Reed had been listening, and Bertie had been typing, for more than three hours.

Reed said he was done, but Bertie and I were not. He told me Bertie was the best, and she would take care of me. “Because you’re my star,” he said. He smiled, and I smiled. He gave me another hug that was somewhere between professional and personal, and left the room.

Leaving me all alone with Bertie Thorn.

B
ertie Thorn did not say anything. For quite a while.

It was probably only about thirty seconds. A minute, max. But at the time it felt like we sat there in silence for an hour. She finally said, “So.”

“So,” I said.

Then she said nothing for a while.

So it was totally out of the blue when she said, “He likes you, you know.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Reed,” she said. “He likes you. Quite a lot.”

“No he doesn’t,” I lied. Despite Reed’s poor judgment, bad timing, and ambiguous hugs, I was pretty confident that he did in fact like me. Quite a lot. Which as I have said was fine with me. But agreeing with Bertie on this issue didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Of course he does,” Bertie said. “You’re perfect.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of Reed?”

“No, silly. Of going on camera. In front of millions of people.” She appeared to shiver slightly before straightening up in her chair. “We’re watched by more people than CNN, you know.”

I didn’t know. And up until that moment, I had not actually focused on how many people might be watching. Now I thought about it. “No, I’m not afraid,” I finally said. Which was true. It did not scare me. I don’t know why, it just didn’t.

“Being on camera scared
me,
” Bertie said.

“You?”

“Me,” Bertie said. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you.”

“Know what?”

“About me,” she said. “And Reed.”

“No.”

“I was you,” she said. “I mean, I was supposed to be. Reed was grooming me to be Fox News’s next big star. A fresh American voice with a point of view.”

Hey,
I wanted to say,
wait a minute. That’s not you, that’s me.
But she was still talking.

“The whole time we were getting ready for my debut, Reed and I were . . . together.” She blushed. Full-on blushed, like somebody splashed bright red paint across her cheeks. Some people blush attractively. Like Reed, for example. Bertie Thorn does not.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I froze. On camera. I couldn’t do it. I knew exactly what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t make the words come out of my mouth. On live TV.” Her eyes seemed to have sunk back into their sockets. “It was a disaster.”

“I won’t do that,” I said. Meaning
I’m assuring you, associate producer of Fox News, that I will not freeze on your show.
I honestly do not think I was trying to rub my relationship with Reed in his ex-girlfriend’s face. But she didn’t hear it that way.