How to Sleep with a Movie Star (29 page)

Epilogue

Nine Months Later

I
stepped out of my attorney’s office with a very nice check in my hand and some very good news dancing through my head. Sidra had just been fired from
Mod.
The
New York Post
would be running the story the next day—she had been ordered by the court to pay me $100,000 in punitive damages, which I figured would put quite a dent in her designer clothing budget.

The victory against Sidra made me feel the most triumphant, but as I clutched the check in my hand, I couldn’t help but feel pretty good about my victory over
Mod
too. My attorney had already taken his percentage of the award, but he’d left me with a sizable check. I already knew what I was going to do with it. I opened the envelope and snuck another look at the mind-blowing figure.

$2,400,000.

$2.4 million. It was my portion of the settlement that
Mod
magazine had offered to avoid being dragged through court.

Margaret had, of course, been fired, too. It made me feel a bit bad, because I knew she had believed Sidra’s lies and hadn’t intentionally libeled me. But now the former managing editor Maite Taveras was running the magazine, and it had finally undergone the jump in circulation that Margaret had obsessively pursued for years.

The day Maite got her promotion, she’d called to offer me my job back, but I politely declined. I loved writing for
Woman’s Day,
where there was no catty competition, no backstabbing, and no gossip. The staff worked nine to five and went home at the end of the day with smiles on their faces. I could never go back to
Mod,
regardless of who was running the show.

I was humming as I turned into the HSBC Bank branch in Union Square to complete a transaction I’d set in motion a month ago, when my attorney had called to tell me the amount of the settlement. My first thought had been,
What am I going to do with $2.4 million?
I couldn’t imagine spending all that money over the course of a lifetime. But I knew someone who would benefit from a percentage of it, and there was no one who deserved it more.

By the time I emerged from the bank an hour later, I had deposited the check into my account and used a portion of it to complete a real estate transaction. My real estate agent Elizabeth met me at the title agency next door. Together, we reviewed the documents and put a 50 percent down payment on The Space, a restaurant in the East Village whose owner was retiring. Wendy had commented more than once how it was the perfect location for the little French bistro that she’d always dreamed of owning. Now her dream would come true. She’d been the only one to stand by me throughout the tabloid nightmares of the previous summer, and this was the best way I knew to pay her back.

I would give it to her as a wedding present when she married Jean Michel next month in a small ceremony at Les Sans Culottes.

After I left the bank I walked through Union Square, breathing in the sweet aroma of banana bread and carrot cake from one of the stalls set up in the farmers’ market. Apple cider simmered at the next stall over—tempting, even in the early May heat.

I stopped into the Starbucks on the east side of the square for a Mocha Frappuccino. While I waited in line, I flipped absently through the
New York Post
and fantasized about Wendy getting a stellar restaurant review in the paper. The words “Next please” from behind the counter snapped me back to the present, and I lowered the paper to look at the guy in the green hat and apron behind the Starbucks counter.

But instead of ordering my Mocha Frappuccino, I started to laugh. Hysterically. The guy behind the counter turned beet red.

“What can I get you?” he asked stiffly.

“Oh my God,” I managed to choke out. People around me were looking at me like I was crazy, but I didn’t care.

The guy behind the counter was Tom.

“It’s not that funny,” he said angrily, his face on fire.

“Actually, it is,” I said between giggles. “So I’m guessing the novel didn’t quite work out?”

“No,” Tom mumbled. He looked terrible. He’d put on at least twenty pounds, and most of it had settled in a potbelly that poked out beneath the apron. His hair was so long that it skimmed his shoulders in stringy waves, and his skin was pale and washed out.

“
Was
there even a novel, Tom?” I asked. He paused for a moment and looked down at his feet.

“No,” he mumbled, almost inaudibly. I laughed again and realized how far I’d come in the year since I’d been with him. I could hardly imagine that he’d ever been a part of my life.

“I’ll have a tall Mocha Frappuccino, please,” I said finally.

“Fine,” he said glumly. He turned away to put the order in, then turned back to me. “That’ll be three dollars and sixteen cents.”

I silently handed him a five-dollar bill, stifling another giggle. As he handed me back a dollar and change, he suddenly froze. Instead of giving me my change, he grabbed my left hand and turned it over.

“You’re wearing an engagement ring,” he said slowly, an odd expression in his eyes. I smiled.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am.” He turned my hand over to get a closer look. The two-carat stone, princess cut and flawless, set in Tiffany platinum, sparkled alluringly on my ring finger.

“Who is he?” he asked glumly. I turned my hand back over and took my change.

“No one you know,” I said brightly with a smile on my face. “Nice to see you again.” Then, leaving him staring at me with an open mouth, I made my way to the end of the counter where I picked up my Frappuccino. I left Starbucks without looking back.

As I walked down Broadway a few minutes later, slurping the last few sips of my drink and still giggling to myself about Tom, my cell phone jangled in my purse. I dug for it and pulled it out. I checked the Caller ID, smiled, then flipped it open.

“Hey, sweetie,” I said as I answered the phone.

“Hey, honey,” said Cole. “Did you get the check?”

“Yep,” I said brightly.

“And did you buy the restaurant?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Wendy is going to be so surprised.”

Cole laughed, and I marveled for a moment at how the sound of his voice always made me feel warm and tingly inside. Since the night of his premiere, he’d been spending as much time as possible in New York, and he was no longer staying at the hotel where I’d woken up, mortified, nearly a year ago. On his New York visits now, he squeezed into my double bed with me, and I always woke up with his strong arms wrapped protectively around me. He’d flown me out to L.A. on the few weekends he was stuck on movie sets, and in December, I’d taken him home to Atlanta to meet my mother and sister. We had spent Christmas in Boston with his mother, father, his two sisters, and his nephew. I loved them all instantly, and I’d left feeling like I was already a member of the family.

Cole had proposed to me just three weeks ago on bended knee at Over the Moon. His favorite waitress, Marge—who I supposed was somewhat responsible for salvaging the chance of a relationship between us—delivered the ring, which I found baked into a slice of strawberry cheesecake, my favorite dessert. We had celebrated quietly that night over champagne at my apartment with Wendy, Jean Michel, and Cole’s bartender friend, Jay. We even invited Marge, who showed up with a giant takeout box full of crispy bacon, eggs, and hash browns with cheese . . . the meal that had started it all between me and Cole.

No one had leaked the engagement to the media yet, although there was a tabloid rumor that I had been spotted wearing an engagement ring. I felt like Jennifer Garner to Cole’s Ben Affleck, which was absolutely ludicrous. Who would have thought that the media would one day be interested in what I was wearing on my left hand?

“I have a surprise for you too,” said Cole mysteriously as I cradled the phone on my ear and sipped my Frappuccino. “Go pick up a
Tattletale
and turn to page fifteen, okay?”

I groaned.

“
Tattletale
?” I said. “You know I don’t read that trash.”

“No, trust me, you’ll like this,” he said, still sounding cryptic. “It’s kind of an engagement present from a friend of mine. Call me back once you’ve seen it.”

“If you insist,” I agreed with a shrug.

I ducked into the next convenience store I came across and paid a dollar for the last copy of
Tattletale
on the rack. I took it outside with me and flipped to page 15.

As soon as I got there, the hysterics that had started moments ago at Starbucks returned. Once again, I looked like a lunatic to passersby, laughing so hard that tears were falling from the corners of my eyes.

Cole’s “friend” was George Clooney, and he had taken out a full-page ad in
Tattletale
. In it, he’d included a terrible picture of Sidra DeSimon, who appeared to be snarling at the camera. Underneath it, in block letters, were the words:

I DID NOT DATE THIS WOMAN.

EVER.

THIS AD WAS PAID FOR BY GEORGE CLOONEY.

I was still laughing hysterically when I called Cole back.

“That is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” I choked out through giggles.

“I know,” said Cole, who was laughing too. “When I ran into him last week and told him about our engagement, I told him all about what had happened with Sidra, and he said it was the last straw. He was sick of her using his name to get attention. He swears up and down he’s never even met her.”

“This is too funny!” I gasped through my laughter.

“Okay, gorgeous, I have to run,” Cole said softly as his laughter finally subsided. “I’ll be in by nine, okay?”

“I can’t wait to see you,” I said softly.

“Dinner at Swank, then?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll call Wendy and make sure we have a reservation. Have a safe flight, okay?”

“You bet,” Cole said. He paused for a moment. “Oh, and are those reporters still following you, honey?”

“Yes.” I laughed. “Every day.” You had to admit, it was funny. When I was working as a celebrity editor, I never dreamed that one day I’d have a throng of tabloid journalists camping out on
my
front doorstep, demanding to know whether the diamond ring on my finger meant that Cole Brannon was finally off the market.

“You should tell them,” Cole said after a pause. “I want them to know. I want the world to know.”

“Me too,” I said softly.

“I can’t believe we’re getting married,” Cole said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”

“Me neither.”

“Claire?” Cole said after a pause. “I love you. I really do.”

“I know,” I said. “I love you too.” We said our good-byes, and I snapped the phone shut.

As I walked the rest of the way home, the sun shone down on the city, bathing the streets with soft light. Around me, taxis whizzed by, stores overflowed with customers, and people brushed by me up and down the street, hurrying to their destinations. I walked along slowly with a smile on my face, knowing it no longer mattered what any of them thought of me. My life had become more perfect than I could have imagined.

As I turned the corner from Third Street onto Second Avenue, the crowd of paparazzi (who had been clustered on my doorstep since rumors of the diamond ring on my left hand had leaked out) fumbled with their cameras. There were several cries of “It’s her! It’s her!” Flashbulbs exploded around me in a blinding array, and I was suddenly at the center of the media storm that had been following me for weeks.

“Claire, is it true you’re engaged to Cole Brannon?” shouted one reporter as I made my way to the front door of my building.

“Did he really propose, Claire?” yelled another as I pushed through the throng.

I paused for a moment, like I always did, still somewhat taken aback by the attention. Then I did something I’d never done before.

I stood there and smiled. With a tabloid clutched in one hand and my handbag dangling from the other, I stood and faced the press that had first haunted me almost a year before. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t care what any of them thought or what their publications printed about me.

“Yes,” I said finally. The throng immediately hushed into silence. “Cole Brannon and I are getting married. He proposed three weeks ago.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the questions came in an avalanche of noise and the flashbulbs clicked away like a swarm of psychotic fireflies. I soaked it all in for a moment, realizing how liberating it was to simply tell the truth. To simply be me. To have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of.

I gestured for quiet, and the throng immediately hushed again.

“We love each other very much,” I said, knowing I was no longer afraid of what they thought of me, what they printed about me. I knew who I was, and I had everything I’d ever needed. “And I’ve never been happier in my life.”

As the bulbs exploded again in what looked like a fireworks display just for me, I smiled at the cameras and knew that everything in my world was finally the way it was supposed to be.

About the Author

I
used to think I’d be a famous rock star. I had big plans. My stage name would be Mystica, I’d start a pop rock group called the Popsicles, and fans across the world would know my hit song “Why Did You Leave Me?” Of course I was eight years old, practicing for my big gigs on a Star Stage and a Fisher-Price tape recorder, and my “hit song” was a three-chord little number I’d written on the piano. Then it dawned on me: I can’t sing. I mean, I really, really can’t sing. As in, I scare people away. So as you may guess, singing stardom was not in the cards for me.

But from the ashes of my Mystica dream (which is revived from time to time in drunken karaoke sessions that everyone regrets) came the beginnings of a writing career that I would fall in love with. Now I contribute regularly to a variety of magazines, including
People,
which has been an incredible experience. I’ve interviewed Holocaust survivors, civil rights activists, people who have shaped the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, and, of course, the people you would expect me to talk to for
People
magazine: movie stars, rock stars, and celebrities from all walks of life.

I’ll admit to developing little harmless crushes on some of the people I’ve interviewed: Matthew McConaughey, Joshua Jackson, Mark McGrath, and Jerry O’Connell, among others. But unlike the title of the book suggests, I’ve never slept with any of them! I swear! Not even close. But
How to Sleep with a Movie Star
sprang from the thought of “What if?” What if I crossed the line and threw professionalism out the window (something I’d never do)? Or worse, what if someone
thought
I had acted inappropriately with someone I’d interviewed and started a rumor saying that I had slept with a source for a story? My career would be over! In this book, Claire Reilly, a twenty-six-year-old magazine editor a lot like me, has to face just that type of issue.

In addition to
People,
I contribute regularly to
Glamour
and
Health
and am “The Lit Chick” on the nationally syndicated morning show
The Daily Buzz
. Check out my Web site at www.KristinHarmel.com, and please write in and say hello! If I don’t write back right away, I’m probably out shoe-shopping!