All Eyes on Her (26 page)

“That was amazing,” Cassie said, and then hopped out into the throng of waiting paparazzi.

“No,” Jonathan said to me before jumping out after her. “
She’s
amazing. Did you see the way Cassie took care of me? Where can you find a woman like that?”

Lydia ran right past the paparazzi and into the hospital, bolting alongside the stretcher conveying Sheila, followed closely behind by Cassie and Jonathan. Disappointed to realize that nobody besides Alex, Luke and myself remained inside our clown-car of an ambulance, the paparazzi quickly dispersed.

It looked as if the both of them were getting ready to speak at once, so I held up a hand to silence them. There really was nothing they could tell me that I didn’t already know. And there was nothing I needed to hear. They weren’t really competing over me that night any more than I had been competing with that redhead at The Skybar for Luke a week before. Alex hadn’t known me for years by that point, and Luke had never actually known me at all. This was about territory and instinct, pure and simple. I knew it as well as anyone else because I had been just as guilty of that motivation as them. The truth was not just that all women were animals…the truth was that everyone was.

“No need to say anything, boys,” I told them, shaking my head. “Trust me. I get it.”

To forgive the animal instinct inside of these men was to admit to the animal inside myself. Survival is more than an instinct; it is an imperative. So maybe it’s not about forgiving or denying our inner ape. It’s about accepting, appreciating and keeping her on a very short leash, and going along with Alex and Luke and even Stefanie when they occasionally failed to secure said leash.

But I would think more about that later. Right now, I had to drag my knuckles into the hospital and be part of the welcome committee for the newest little gorilla in our pack.

A
SHA THRUST HER TONGUE OUT AT THE BEADED STRAP ON MY
shoulder, while her head bobbled from side to side. Sheila and Josh had decided to raise Asha with exposure to both their religions because as Sheila said,
Life is confusing anyway.
She might as well get used to it. Asha was truly good-natured, even for a one-month-old baby, calm to a fault, probably in direct reaction to her mother’s tendency toward the dramatic. I rocked the baby gently, cradling her head, savoring the idea that I could protect for however short a time.

“Here come the
copter-azzi,
” Lydia announced, and gestured above her head at what was previously clear blue sky.

All two-hundred seated guests shifted their attention from the altar to the skies above the new Camydia Compound in the Pacific Palisades. Cameron and Lydia’s recommitment ceremony came complete with a chartered fleet of limousines shuttling guests to and fro, a split-level platform erected to showcase the smiling couple, and a gospel choir from Lydia’s childhood church, singing out over the bluffs at the Pacific Ocean.

And even with all that meticulous planning, someone had forgotten to restrict the airspace around the Palisades for long enough to avoid helicopter-photos that were sure to be splashed across most trash magazines the following morning.

How convenient.

“Do something about them!” Lydia scolded her security manager. After having thrown her hair back, Lydia perked up and gave the vultures her best look of interrupted romantic devotion. “This is a private expression of our love, damn it!”

I smirked at Sheila, who took Asha from my arms and handed her over to Joshua.

“Even
I’m
not falling for that,” she whispered, before fishing a bottle of formula out of her bag and handing it to her doting husband.

“You’ve got to say this much for her, though,” I countered. “She plays the paparazzi better than anyone I have ever seen. Her new album is likely to go platinum.”

“Of course it is. Everybody roots for love,” Cassie interjected, slipping her hand into Jonathan’s. “We can’t help it.”

I also learned recently that everyone can’t help but root for the underdog. Because the last thing I expected to feel when I opened a letter from Stefanie the day before was hope that she would succeed at the new law firm where she was starting to practice. It was only an announcement, of course, one of a thousand photocopies she had made and probably distributed without thinking to everyone in her Rolodex. I recognized, too, what this could be intended as. I chose, however, to see it as a peace offering. One which I would return with a congratulatory bottle of merlot.

Maybe after an entire month without any men in my life, I was unfettered enough to see things clearly.
If all of the insanity had been rooted in biological competition, then clearly avoiding men completely would render me genius enough to make partner in no time.
I smiled to myself, tipping back my glass at the champagne toast.

And as always, positive energy draws opportunity to a woman in much the same way as heat draws moths to a flame. The moth eyeing me from across the room was fixated, even winking as the bubbles zoomed to my head. I knew I should have ignored him. Snubbed him. At the very least
definitely not
have winked back.

But what would be the fun in that?