Adulation (12 page)

Danny couldn’t see the speaker way in the back of the theater.

“I just wanted to know if Charlene Dumont is here, waiting for you backstage, and if you two are on again,” she asked.

And then he saw red: No matter how well he wrote, no matter how much critical acclaim he received or how much money he made, in the end the spotlight went to Charlene. Danny could hear the goon’s voice ringing in his ear:
 
Hey Danny, you’re bangin’ my girl, know what I’m sayin’?
 
And behind that was the voice of his father, telling him he was nobody, a loser.

“I guess you’ll just have to find out on the Internet,” he replied, trying to come off as charming rather than snippy.

“Why don’t
you
 
tell us?” she asked in a syrupy, flirtatious voice. Next to Danny, Paul covered his mic and muttered, “Oh, come on, lady.” Danny looked at Paul, who seemed to be mirroring the disgust he felt, and then looked out into the direction of the voice.

“Look, my love life isn’t a matter of national security. That movie you all just watched? I
 
wrote
 
it, OK? I wrote the fucking thing. I’ve won Tony and Emmy awards. I’m not some...
wannabe
...who does nothing but sits behind a computer screen living vicariously through other people’s lives and trolls around discussion threads. I’m damn good at what I do, and I made something of my life. And while  I may not be saving the whales, I deserve a little more respect. You people need to get a life. Really.”

Oh, shit.

Where did those words come from? He couldn’t remember thinking them, couldn’t figure out from what storage facility his brain had retrieved them, but nevertheless, they’d fallen out and settled over the audience like germs from a sneeze. Worse still, he saw the look on
 
her
 
face—she was horrified. No,
 
horrified
 
wasn’t the word. She was offended. Wounded. Pissed.

And before he had a chance to retract them, the moderator brought the discussion to a close. Once again the audience applauded, although it was somewhat more muted than earlier. Polite rather than elated. The vibration was more like a distant echo, and his gut felt completely hollowed out.

Although under a close watch by security, attendees were permitted to approach Shane, Sharon, Paul, and Danny to get autographs and take photos. Despite his having spoken such harsh words, his fans approached him with enthusiasm, gratitude, and praise. Danny kept looking past each person whose hand he shook to the next one, hoping to see her, saying thank you robotically and forcing the corners of his mouth up in a smile. The lack of sleep, the craving for nicotine, the anxiety of his blunder, and the push of the crowd made him feel woozy. Just as Paul gave security a nod and grabbed Danny by the arm to pull him backstage, Danny turned and found himself face to face with
 
her
. He felt a jolt.

“Hi!” he exclaimed.

My God, she’s beautiful
 
, he thought. Not because of her hair and makeup and outfit. Nor was she beautiful like Charlene—Charlene looked as if she’d been sculpted from marble. No, underneath the makeup a softness shone about her, the epitome of what used to be known as the “Ivory Girl” look from the seventies soap commercial.

Danny looked at her with such intent to know her, and it strangely felt like home.

He took her hand and was about to ask for her name, but before he made a sound, she spoke first.

“Mr. Masters, I have been proudly working at a bookstore for twenty years. I’ve also written four novels. And although I have never been published, I am no
 
wannabe
. You, sir, are a jackass and a failure.”

She then let go of Danny’s hand, turned and walked away.

A camera flash went off.

He blinked several times. Paul then pulled his arm away from the lingering fans and took him backstage.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sunny Smith

H
OW  COULD I
 
have been so stupid?
 
He was holding my hand
, for chrissakes. Not shaking it, but
 
holding
it, just like he did outside the theater. Or at least that was how it felt in that moment, right before I lost mysanity.

“I can-not be-lieve you,” said Georgie to me as we stepped out of the theater and into an entirely different Manhattan, the one that glowed and sparkled and vibrated in the dark, and the car horns and chatter were more like music than noise pollution. If only I could enjoy it. “You called your favorite writer a
jackass
.”

“I can’t believe
 
him
,” said Theo, trying to keep up with our hurried pace. “Insulting his audience

like that.”

“He didn’t mean
 
her
 
specifically,” said Georgie to Theo, turning his thumb to me. And then, to me, he asked, “Why’d you take it so personally?”

“Because he did mean me. He meant you too. He meant people like us who have worked a job their whole lives with crappy hours and menial pay, who didn’t go on to graduate school or be something lofty like a hotshot lawyer or president of the United States. He meant people who weren’t fortunate enough to get the breaks he did.”

“He meant people who have nine cats and watch TMZ until their eyes glaze over and play Angry Birds for eight hours while they’re at work,” argued Georgie. “He meant people who watch
 
Winters in Hyannis
 
thirty-five million times to the point of knowing whether the coffee cups are really filled.”

“I can recite whole episodes,” I pointed out. “You’re different, Sunny,” said Theo. “You’re a writer studying the craft and style of another writer.”

“Nice try.”

“Fine,” said Georgie, disingenuously acquiescing. “He meant
you
. Did you have to call him a jackass, though?”

“And a failure,” added Theo.

“He’s lucky I didn’t call him an asshole,” I said.

“No,
 
you’re
 
lucky you didn’t call him an asshole,” said Georgie.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because hopefully you can still salvage this.”

We stopped at the street corner, and I looked at Georgie incredulously. “What makes you think there’s anything to salvage? What makes you think he gives a shit about what some loser stockroom manager says to him?”

“And what makes you think she’s ever going to see him again?” said Theo.

“I’m just saying,” said Georgie as we crossed the street, seemingly pushed along by the crowd, “that he obviously put his foot in his mouth. It was that airhead who asked the Charlene Dumont question. You could tell it pissed him off. He was directing it at
 
her
.”

“So does that make me an airhead too?” I said.

Georgie put his hands up and made a noise of exasperation. “Will you just forget that? It’s notwhat he meant, and you know it.”

“For a so-called brilliant writer, he sure exhibited a poor choice of words,” said Theo.

We wound up at the Carnegie Deli, split a slice of cheesecake the size of one of my new boots,and said very little. I could barely swallow the first bite, my insides were so tightly bound in knots.

“So what’d you think of the movie?” Theo piped up.

It suddenly occurred to me that we’d spent the entire walk talking about the drama after the filmrather than the film itself.

I sighed. “It was terrific, of course. The writing was terrific. The cast was terrific. The directingwas terrific. Everything about it was terrific.”

For the first time ever, it pained me to feel such awe for Danny Masters’s writing. It pained me tooffer him praise, when I felt as if he’d just physically slapped me in the face.

“I swear he was looking right at you during the entire Q and A,” said Georgie to me.

“How would you know?” said Theo. “You were gawking at Shane Sands the whole time.”

“I pay attention, Miss Theodora,” he said, pointing at her with his fork.

“He was not looking right at me,” I said, although secretly I had been preoccupied throughout mostof the Q&A with that very observation. “It just seemed that way. He was looking at someone else—thewoman sitting in front of us, for instance—or perhaps someone else a few  rows back. Maybe he hadfamily there or something. Whoever it was, it wasn’t me.”

“And why wouldn’t he be looking at you?” asked Georgie.

“I’m sure there are far more interesting people to look at than me.”

Georgie sat up straight. “Oh. My. God,” he said, raising his voice and drawing looks from theother patrons packed into the tables crammed together. He self-consciously slouched in his chair andlowered his voice. “Sunrise, have you looked in a mirror at all today? You are
 
fucking gorgeous
,” hesaid, enunciating both words with a beat between them. “Between the hair and the makeup and the outfitand the shoes...hell, get me drunk and
 
I
 
would sleep with you tonight.”

“So would I,” confessed Theo, laughing.

“Doesn’t matter. Stand me next to Charlene Dumont and—”

“Oh, who gives a rat’s ass about Charlene Dumont?” interrupted Georgie.

“Um, I think
Danny Masters
 
does,” I said. “And as far as my looks go, I’m sure that had it been any other day of the week and not one where I blew over six hundred clams on getting all dolled up, he wouldn’t have even seen me, much less talked to me. Just blown his smoke in my face and taken another drag.”

“So what did you make of his answer to the airhead?” asked Theo. “I mean, do you think his defensiveness is a sign that they’re
 
not
 
together anymore or that they are?”

“Not,” said Georgie emphatically. “Big-time N-O-T.”

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling deflated and sucker-punched, but the person who’d sucker-punched

me was  me. I was envious of Charlene Dumont for having had the fortune to know Danny Masters at all. For a moment, maybe—just maybe—he really had liked me. But I’d ruined it.

“You know, this is exactly what he was talking about. Here we are sitting and eating cheesecake and speculating about his love life rather than talking about the film. I mean, there’s so much substance we could talk about, from character to theme to acting to directing to writing to the subject matter itself. But no, we’re talking about Danny Masters and Charlene Dumont just like every other catty gossip who’s got nothing better to do.”

Georgie looked at me and huffed. “Fine, Sunny. From now on, Charlene Dumont is on the banned topics list. We’ll talk about politics, we’ll talk about religion, we’ll talk about gay marriage, and we won’t talk about the envy of drag queens everywhere. Then we can all kill ourselves.”

“What is it with you and your drag queen conspiracy?” asked Theo.

“I say we add Danny Masters to that list,” I added, “and take him off my Forty for Forty list.”

“Not a chance,” said Georgie, his fork aimed at me this time. “He stays. He may have been a jackass tonight, but you’ll get the last laugh.”

“By sleeping with a jackass?” I said. Theo burst out laughing again, covering her mouth full of cheesecake.

“I have to side with Sunny on this,” said Theo. “He’s a great writer and all, but I think he’s a little too high and mighty for his own good. He was talking
 
at
 
the audience tonight, not
 
to
 
them.”

“That’s because he’d done like a gazillion interviews in three days and has probably been asked the same five questions each time,” I remarked.
 
Shit shit shit, stop defending him!

“Whatever,” said Theo. “Truth be told, I think you can do much better than him.”

“I think so too,” I lied.

I looked at Georgie, hoping he would see right through me and call me out on my lie, but he didn’t.

“Put Shane Sands on the list,” Theo suggested.

“No way,” said Georgie, a hint of jealousy in his voice. “The list stays as it is.”