Adulation (42 page)

Two hours later, Danny called Dez as he left Raj’s office, apologized for leaving so abruptly, and told herhe was going home. Back at the house, he opened his MacBook and logged in to his e-mail account again. His fingers shook as he typed, and he knew it had nothing to do with his not having had a cigarette. Havingalready checked his schedule with Dez, he then suggested a date and place for him and Teresa to meet.

Five minutes later, she responded, confirming the date.
 
Looking forward to finally meeting youface to face
, he read.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Sunny Smith

S
ATURDAY MORNING, I
 
called Georgie and Theo and met them for lunch at the Town House diner. Duringour college days, Town House was the final destination following a night of dancing and drinking, theplace we went for our buzzes to come down.

My milkshake sat untouched as I stirred it with a straw, filling in my friends on the previousnight’s events.

“You told him you’re
 
quitting
 
Whitford’s?” said Georgie, unable to hide his delight.

I nodded slowly, still astounded.

“When did you decide to quit?” asked Theo.

“I swear it just came out of nowhere.”

“Nonsense,” said Georgie. “It came from that place in you that knows it’s time to move on. That is,if you’re really ready. I mean, are you really going to quit?”

“That’s the most shocking part of all: I think I am.” They both quietly squealed with excitement. “And here’s the other thing,” I said to Georgie. “What do you think of my taking over the lease on yourand Marcus’s apartment?”

“Why would you want our place?”

“For starters, it’s bigger than mine. It has an extra room for an office, which I clearly need now,and your landlord allows pets.”

Georgie sat up straight in the booth. “Whoa. I never even thought of that. We already gave thelandlord notice, so for all I know he’s promised it to someone else, but I’ll talk to him about it.”

“Ohmigod, Sunny, this is
 
so
 
exciting,” said Theo. “But where does that leave Mr. Wonderful? Notto take his side, but he had a point. You did tell him you were all in. Although there is also Danny Masters. Anyone who knows you well enough can see it in your eyes every time someone mentions hisname. You can’t expect Josh to live with that, and neither can you anymore.”

“Let’s make a list,” suggested Georgie.

I groaned. “Another list? What are we calling this one?”

He grabbed a clean napkin as Theo searched her bag for a pen. He drew a vertical line down themiddle, crossed by a horizontal line up top, and wrote
 
DM
 
on the left side and
 
JH
 
on the right.

“OK, we’ll start with Mr. Wonderful,” said Georgie.

“You know, I know you both call him that sarcastically, but he really is a wonderful guy,” I said.

“Go on,” said Georgie. “Make his case. Seriously, Sunny, now’s the time.”

“Well, he is good-looking,” said Theo. “And he’s been really supportive of Sunny.”

“He smells good too,” said Georgie. We both gave him a surprised look. “Well, it’s not like Idream of the guy at night, but it’s something I noticed, OK? Shoot me.”

“He can be really thoughtful, like buying me the orchid,” I added. “Plus he’s great with his kids. He’s very attentive with them and doesn’t try too hard to compensate for being divorced; he never says abad word about his ex-wife in front of me or them, and even to her...” I paused while Georgie scribbled

everything we said in stunted, bullet-pointed, block caps. “He’s funny, intelligent, good at his job, and...” I paused again.

Georgie stopped writing and looked up. “And?”

My voice caught in my throat. “And he loves me.”

Georgie wrote
 
LOVES SUNNY
and underlined it twice. “OK. On to Mr. Masters.”

“Well,” I started, searching for something. “He thinks I think he’s a failure.”

“And he lives in LA with Charlene Dumont,” said Theo.

“I don’t think they live together,” I corrected.

“Plus I heard they broke up. Again,” said Georgie. “But he did mention you at the Oscars, so he can’t hate you that much.”

“How do we know his mic didn’t cut out because he told me to go fuck myself or something?” I offered.

“Because he’s Danny Masters, not Kid Rock,” said Georgie. “C’mon, what else? There has to be something else we can put in his column.”

“I can’t think of anything else,” said Theo. They both looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.

Georgie straightened his posture again to announce the results. “Well, clearly Joshua Hamilton is the better man on paper.”

I stared at my milkshake and stirred it slowly. Teddy was great on paper too, I remembered. I could recite  scores of platitudes for him. And look how that turned out. And then it dawned on me: I could no longer take stock of what the facts told me. History was all a matter of interpretations of the bits and pieces of information we put together to tell the story of what happened. But they weren’t always accurate. Sometimes we told the stories we wanted to hear. Teddy had been one of them. And there in that diner booth, we were trying to do it again with Josh.

I piped up. “There’s that five minutes outside the theater.”

My friends looked at each other, then back at me. “What about them?” asked Theo.

“You asked if there’s anything else to add to the Danny Masters side of the list. Add that.”

And as Georgie scribbled the words
 
FIVE MINUTES
 
onto the napkin, I suddenly knew exactly what I wanted. Or, more specifically, what I didn’t want.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Danny Masters

D
ANNY COULD BARELY
 
sit still as he waited in his office, and the bagel and coffee Dez bought for him satuntouched on his desk. Writing was futile; he couldn’t even comprehend a two-sentence e-mail from Paul Wolf.

Dez opened the door and poked her head in. “She’s here.”

His mouth went dry and the blood drained from his face and he felt woozy as he stood up. “OK,thanks,” he said, his voice cracking.

“You OK?” she asked, fully entering the office and closing the door behind her, leaving it openonly a sliver. He gripped the side of the desk.

“You know who she is?” he said.

Dez nodded. “I took a guess.” She went up to Danny and hugged him. The gesture of affection tookhim by surprise for only a second, until he realized how much he needed it.

He looked in her eyes. “Thank you,” he said. Then he smiled and said, both earnestly and lovingly, “You’re a great assistant.”

A look came over her, like a teenage girl who just got a compliment from her big brother. Shetossed her arms around his neck and hugged him again, less tender and more playful. She then let go andopened the door fully, standing aside to let him through.

He tried to clear his throat and coughed. Then he took a deep breath and stepped out of his office.

Teresa looked nothing like he’d imagined—at twenty-four years old, she was almost as tall as hewas, with long, cascading black hair and a petite frame. Her eyes were brown and round, lined in thickblack mascara and liquid eyeliner and a bronzer for foundation. Her lips were glossed in an apricot color. She wore a plain cotton floral-print dress with periwinkle flats. Every casting director’s dream for a girl-next-door role. Perhaps he’d been expecting to see the little girl in corduroys and a baby bluewindbreaker (he remembered like it was yesterday) with a pageboy haircut with bangs that had been cuttoo high.

She stood there, looking as apprehensive as he felt.

“Teresa?” he asked in an uncertain voice, as if needing confirmation.

“Hi,” she said shyly in what still sounded like a teenager’s voice as she extended her hand toshake his own. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” she said.

Danny took her hand carefully, as if doing that alone could break it. “Same here,” he said. “Didyou make it OK?”

“Yeah, it was fine. Thanks for the limo. Definitely attracted a lot of attention at school.” Shequickly added, “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here. Except for my very best friend in theworld, and she goes to school at Michigan State.”

“That’s OK,” he said. He was trying hard not to stare at her, to look for traces of permanentdamage. “If you don’t mind my asking, I’m curious as to what you
 
did
 
tell people.”

“That I had a job interview with Google. Which, by the way, if you had any connections, I would

totally
 
be up for that for real.”

He shook his head, feeling disappointed. “Sorry, I don’t.”

He led her into his office, where she took in its surroundings.

“I expected something bigger, more elaborate,” she said. Then she caught herself. “Not to be rude...”

“It’s OK,” he replied. “Most people think the same thing.” He accidentally banged into the coffee table in an effort to move out of her way and gripped the armrest of the couch to steady himself.
 
Be cool, be cool, be cool...

She spotted his Oscar on the shelf near his desk, set apart from his Emmys and other awards, and her eyes grew wide with excitement. “Is that...” She pointed to it.

He grinned. “Sure is.” He picked it up and offered it to her. “Go on, hold it.”

She was visibly starstruck by the statue as she tentatively held out her hand. She wrapped her fingers around its torso and marveled at the weight of it as her arm sagged. “Whoa,” she said. “You can really work out your triceps with this thing.” Seeing her holding the Oscar made him look at it with more awe than ever before, for it had suddenly become tangible evidence of how hard he had worked to redeem himself for her.

He laughed, trying to sound casual. “It’s the latest Hollywood workout.”

“You must, like, look at this thing every day. I’m surprised you don’t sleep with it beside your

bed.”

“I did for the first week after I won it. I can’t help but picture my Jewish grandmother lecturing me about worshiping false idols, though.”

“Is she alive?” asked Teresa.

Danny shook his head again. “No, and neither are my parents. She would’ve been very proud of this, though. Would’ve bragged to all the ladies on the block and in her knitting club about it. I’ve never been religious anyway.”

He felt as inept as a guy bombing out on a blind date.

She handed the Oscar back to him and moved on to the Emmys next, touching each one. She then turned around, and she and Danny faced each other, encountering their first lapse of awkward silence.

Danny broke it with a question. “Ever been on a studio lot before?”

She shook her head, still silent and seemingly starstruck.

“Would you like to?”

This time she nodded vigorously. “But—” She stopped him just as he picked up the phone to call over to the lot. “Can we go somewhere and talk first?”

“Sure.” Danny hung up the phone, hoping she couldn’t see how badly he was shaking. At least he could blame it on quitting smoking, although he knew that wasn’t the reason. “There’s a café downstairs.”