Reality Jane (26 page)

It was important to get that off my chest quickly so as not to seem duplicitous. Alex had set me up with my dream job. It was the least I could do. Besides, he was amply connected in Hollywood, which meant I had plenty of cachet as his friend.

When he finally pulled up in his silver Mercedes, thirty minutes late, I wanted to be mad. Then I got my first glance. It had been more than three months since I’d seen him last. His dark hair framed his face like a young Pierce Brosnan, while his fitted black button-down and thigh-hugging jeans amplified his sexy proportions. I hated that he looked irresistible. The moment I saw him, I wanted so badly for this night to be something other than a confessional. But I figured it was the lust talking, not my heart. My heart was with Grant. He and I had been dating since France, and aside from the weekend’s argument, things were quite cozy.

Alex ordered the Pappardelle Verdi, which he said everyone raved about. It looked like lamb, but I was too embarrassed to ask. I munched delicately on my pasta gnocchi, using all my willpower to peck away like a swallow. I really wanted to demolish my plate like Kathy Bates at a Cajun BBQ, then throw my face into a bowl of chocolate bread pudding—now that would have been fun. Instead, I did what everyone else in Hollywood did to curb the urge—drank. I hadn’t planned to, but I figured it might help me to say what I had come to say.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, looking into my eyes with one of his delectable half-smiles.

“You have?” I said, surprised.

“Yeah, I didn’t realize how much until seeing you now.” He looked at my empty plate. “You’re so. . . natural.”

“You’re sweet,” I said, tucking my chin into my chest, blushing.

“Love that outfit of yours,” he said, his eyes dropping to my chest. “I’ve never seen you in a skirt. It’s sexy.”

I wore a silk body-hugging tuxedo shirt with a tight black pencil skirt and tall black boots—not unlike the outfit I’d worn a few weeks ago on a date with Grant, who said at the time he
preferred me
au naturel
, in tight jeans and a t-shirt.

“So, what did you want to tell me?” he said, curious.

“Huh? Nothing,” I said, venturing on a momentary space odyssey with Alex.

“On the phone,” Alex pulled me back into reality, “you said you had something to tell me.”

“Oh, that,” I giggled nervously. “Good memory. Well, um, I just wanted to, well, you know. . . Actually, it can wait. It’s not that important.”

“Come on. Just say it. That’s not how I operate. It’s not how I want
us
to operate.”

“I know.”
Did he just say “us”?

“Well?”

“Well,” I began reluctantly, “I just wanted you to know, that, um, I’m dating, you know.”
Dating? What a cop-out! Come on, Jane. Say it!
“Yeah, I’ve been on some dates since I got home and, you know, dating, and one sort of regularly, and I just want to be honest with you, and. . .”

“Hey, that’s totally okay. I’m the one with the situation. I’m still trying to get rid of Sam.”

“Who’s Sam?” I’d almost forgotten any mention of a girlfriend, let alone the name of his young Slavic supermodel.

“Oh, I thought I told you? She’s my ex. But we’ve been back and forth, and she came to see me in the Caribbean, and I think she thought we’re still together. Only we’re not. I tried to tell her. She just won’t accept it. Thing is, we never see each other. She’s always off in Europe modeling—and it wasn’t working anyway.”

That’s my out,
I thought.
Put the ball in his court.

“There’s obviously a lot of history between the two of you,” I said. “Maybe you should try to make it work.” I pretended to be unaffected.

“No, trust me, she and I aren’t right for each other. Sweet girl but, honestly, it’s no good. We’re on two different paths and we don’t have much in common anymore. She’s sort of young.”

I’ll say!
The chambermaid had told me she was 18. Then again, with Grant in my life, I wondered why I cared.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed my hand and
threw two hundred-dollar bills onto the table. “I want to show you my pad. It’s killer.”

And before I could stop him, we were off, his car leading the way. In a matter of a few seconds, Alex had done what I hated and loved about him most: took control. He didn’t give me the option of coming over. I was just doing it. There was something so very caveman macho about him.

“Benjamin Hood, the guy who directed
Die or Live
, owns this place,” Alex said casually. “We went to college together.” He grabbed my hand as we slid through the stacking glass doors to the back of the house.

There, a long, rectangular, infinity-style lap pool stretched the length of the lot in the back garden. It looked as if the water poured off the edge of the earth, never to be recovered, and the pool itself reflected the sky like an enormous mirror. The sky blazed a glorious orange afterglow over an endless backdrop of bush-laden hills. It was a postcard-worthy mansion in the Hollywood hills.

Being here with Alex, I reasoned, was entirely innocent. All he wanted to do was show me this incredible house. As long as he didn’t have an aging gay Hollywood mogul for a roommate, things would be fine—strictly business.

“What do you think?” he asked coyly.

“Beautiful,” I said.

This is innocent. Innocent!
I repeated to myself, willing myself strong.

We re-entered the house through a huge bedroom with a yellow marble floor and expensive Matisse linocuts adorning the walls in black and white. Alex, I learned, shared the rent with a wealthy friend, gone to Hong Kong on business for a month. He said they’d been rooming together for the past year. Meanwhile, Alex’s cabin in Colorado was in the process of getting framed. It would soon be his weekend getaway.

“So, this guy, your room-mate? Straight or gay?” I asked,
thinking back to Craig and all his weird roommate/sugar daddy scenarios.

He laughed.

“Right.” He rolled his eyes. “If you must know, he’s dating a model, some Amazon from Denmark. John’s awesome.”

“You guys and your models,” I said with a hint of bitterness. Again, I wasn’t sure why I cared.

“Come here.” Alex wrapped his arms around me, pulling me onto the bed as we gazed outside, staring at the last pinkish-orange sliver of dwindling twilight. “Don’t worry, you’re as cute as any model.”

“Yeah, right.” I felt uncomfortable, as if I was cheating on Grant. We hadn’t spoken since the fight. It had been three days now and no call.

“And you’re smart, too.” Alex’s eyes grazed my body.

I smiled inside, absorbing his compliments.
Why should I tell Alex to hit the road? Grant can’t even be bothered to call me!

“Stay over.” Alex squeezed me, as if he could hear my thoughts.

“I have to work tomorrow,” I said, surprised. “It’s a new job.”

“Never stopped you before,” he chuckled.

“Very funny.”

“Then just lie with me,” he whined.

“Really, Gr—Alex, I should go.” My eyes betrayed my Freudian slip. He didn’t appear to notice as he pulled me in for a kiss. It was dark. I pushed against his shoulders to stop him, then slowly released. Reluctantly, I kissed him back, softly, easing into his arms—succumbing.

“
Mmm
, I want you,” he said.

“I should go.”

He kissed me some more. With his hands, he navigated around my body and under my skirt, pulling at the fabric and cinching it toward my waist.

“I should go. Really.” I was uncomfortable. Just a few days ago, I woke up naked with Grant.

“Okay, okay. Let’s have a drink then.”

“All right, just one drink. Then I should go.”

He poured two large glasses of wine and we settled outside.
The plush cushions of the patio chairs pulled us deeper into their grip while we stared at the night sky. There would have been a blanket of stars, but it was LA. I searched for the odd twinkling light, wandering satellite, or shooting star, as Alex talked about Samantha in a repeat pseudo-sermon on why she wasn’t right for him, as if she was why I’d resisted him.

He leaned over to kiss me again, this time less aggressively, his hands at bay. I kissed him back. His retreat made me want him more—he was so handsome, so confident. It frustrated me that I couldn’t just enjoy the kiss. Feelings of justification roared through my head:
Grant and I are not exclusive. We haven’t had the “exclusive” talk. We’re both still technically on the market! But that wasn’t true. In my world, sleeping with someone silently established exclusivity. Tiff or no tiff, Grant trusted me as I trusted him.

It was after 1:00 a.m. when I finally got up to leave. I repositioned my blouse and started for the door.
My little secret,
I thought to myself, which felt odd, because I’d never been very good at keeping secrets.

“Hey, I think you’re really cool,” Alex said, leaning into my car window for a final goodnight kiss.

“Thanks,” I whispered in my sexiest voice and backed out the car-park to begin my 30-minute drive home.

T
wo weeks before we hit the airwaves, my first
Fix Your Life
field shoot was to take place in La Crescenta—a story about a woman whose husband had committed suicide a year ago. She was still grief stricken, immobilized by emotional pain. She wrote to the Ricky Dean website, begging for help to get her life back. Minutes before I was to leave, Corinne came to me with final directions.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“I think so,” I said. “Release forms, back-story notes, shot-list. Anything else?”

“Just make sure you get her saying: ‘I hate my life. I wish I were dead, like him.’ Make sure she says that.” Corinne nodded as if she were asking me to sharpen pencils.

“Okay, I’ll try.” I looked at her sideways.

“Try?” She gave me a big smile. “You can do it. Don’t worry.”

“Okay, Corinne.”

“I should warn you.” Corinne, seemingly dead serious, grabbed my shoulder as I gathered up my things. “She looks a little trailer trash.”

“Trailer trash?”

“Poor thing. We just got her pictures. Maybe you can tidy her up a bit. Take away the. . .
po-dunk
.” She covered her mouth in a gesture of apology. “It’s awkward, but we can’t have our guests looking trashy. Orders from the top. Not right for the show’s image.”

“Okay,” I said, reminding myself,
This is Hollywood, after all
. “But I’m not sure I have the necessary supplies for that.”

“Just take a brush and make-up and, you know, fiddle with her.”

“All I have is lip gloss and a comb.”

“She’ll have stuff. And remember, she cries easily.” Corinne winked.

“Oh?”

My cell phone buzzed just as I settled into the passenger side of the crew van en route to the shoot. It was Grant. My heart raced.
Finally!
It had been awhile since our fight.

“Hey,” I heard from the other end of the line. He sounded rather subdued.

“Hey,” I said, wanting to apologize and to see him.

“How are you?” he said quietly.

“Good,” I said with uncertainty. “You?”

“Busy—away on a shoot for five days in Vegas.”

“Fun?”

“Not really,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get you. I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too.” I felt relieved and guilty at the same time. I wanted to tell him the truth: that I needed him. Even that night with Alex, when I was acting like Miss Queen Slutbag with My Big Fat Complex Life, had felt alien to me. I craved normal— Planet Earth, not Planet Hollywood.

I craved Grant.

The line went quiet.

“Are you working?” Grant said.

“Yeah, we just got super busy.”

“I’d love to see ya. You around tonight?”

“Yes,” I said excitedly. “I mean, I will be. I’m leaving now for a shoot in La Crescenta. I should be back in the office by seven.”

“How about we meet at your place around nine? I’ll bring dinner.”

“Sounds great.”