Shooting Stars (35 page)

My pap lingo flowed—
giving it up, pap, on you, doorstep
—I didn't have time to come up with layman's terms at a red light.

Zac responded, “You know, it'd be fine with me if I were never photographed again.”

I am sure he believed this. He's too young to know better.

The light changed and we drove down the road unhurriedly, still conversing, our cars side-by-side. Zac
wanted
me to convince him, I could
tell. But a fire truck blew its horn, and I had to move. Then Zac turned into the Warner Bros. lot. Although I'm sure he and Vanessa weren't going to the studio at that time of night, I knew this meant it was over.

As I drove home through the dark, I realized that something in me had changed, and it wasn't just in my belly. A year ago, even six months ago, it would have been exciting to have had a conversation with a big celebrity like Zac Efron. Even if I didn't get the shot, there would have been a rush. But there was no rush this time. There was only a feeling of annoyance that I'd come home empty-handed when I could have been on the sofa watching
House
.

In the beginning, the learning curve was steep, and I was challenged by the job's investigative aspects as well as the photographic skills necessary to do it well. Beyond a doubt, it was the most thrilling profession I'd ever had, and more exciting than anything else going on in my life. I remember the advice given to me in my early days as a pap: “Write it down before it stops being spectacular.”

But the reality was, at this point, little about the job excited me anymore. Celebrity interactions blended together and rarely did I run across a new scenario. Like
Groundhog Day
, everything had already happened.

I touch my belly. There is no bump yet, there are no “kicks” yet, but I feel something very distinct. It's deep inside, and it's attached to me. And I know it's ready for me to move on. Remember that old vision I used to have? The one where I was on a diving board incessantly bouncing, getting height so that I could jump off. Well, I haven't had that dream in over two years, but tonight it will return. Only this time, I am not bouncing. I am airborne.

16
. Two years later, Skylar does go to trial. His renowned defense attorney, Harland Braun, who has also represented many of Hollywood's other “unbecoming,” was initially able to get the trial postponed, but eventually Skylar did face his peers. The trial ended in a hung jury, and a Malibu judge chose not to retry it. According to the papers, Skylar was lauded as a local hero, vocally supported by many, including his prosecuting attorney.

My all-day-long sickness is no longer car-wreck debilitating. The nausea continues 24/7, but it's all in my gut; my mind is clear. I'm about three months pregnant, and except for work, I haven't left the house in two months. I remain as still as possible on the sofa from 6 p.m. on and am in bed by nine. I sleep ten or eleven hours a night and could still use a three-hour nap. I've had no contact with Bo in weeks and haven't the energy to care. The pressing desire in my heart right now is only to be a mom. I want a husband too. Not for a lover, but so he can take care of me.

Today, I start work at noon and call it a day at four. I pop into Joan's on Third to rest and get a bite to eat before the drive home. I sit near the front window staving off vomit with a fruit bowl when Ansell, a work acquaintance, walks in. Ansell works for West Coast Wing and though we have no problems working together, I wouldn't say we're fond of one another. I haven't seen him in a while, and he stands there just staring at me. “You look really good,” he finally says. It sounds like he's almost confused by this.

I can't imagine I'm looking good when all I can think about is throwing up. These days I wear only yoga pants, and I've stopped putting on makeup and fixing my hair.

“Thanks,” I say, and we fall into small talk.

When he gets ready to leave, he pauses before he affirms, “I don't know what it is, but you look
so good
.”

I'm confused. Ansell's not hitting on me; I know that. So what is this?

He continues, “It's like…you're
glowing
.”

And he says that word—“glowing”—like he knows.

Glowing. I'm glowing. No one has ever told me that I glowed.

I beam.

I'm pregnant, and I'm glowing, and in six months, I'm gonna have a baby!

* * *

I'm finishing the day in Studio City outside Hilary Duff's house when Claudia rocks up. I'm thrilled: competition or not, she and her smiling face are a real treat for me these solitary days in the field. I haven't made any close friends at iPIX, and now that my paparazzi days are numbered, I don't want to bother trying.

Claudia is equally excited to encounter me, and I climb into her 4Runner to visit. The light will be gone in thirty minutes, and on the off-chance that Hilary comes out before then, we agree to work together sending any photos we get to CXN but leaving my name off the caption so I won't have to explain to iPIX why CXN has my pictures. Not that I'd get “in trouble”—I'm a freelancer. It would just be frowned upon for reasons of professional loyalty. Claudia, on the other hand, could get fired if she were to send her photos elsewhere—she's staff.

Ten minutes into our catching up, Kirsten Dunst walks past my car door. She smiles at me, casually, as you would when passing a friendly stranger. (She wouldn't recognize me from our short car-to-car exchange over a year ago.) We know that Kirsten's mom lives a few doors down, between Hilary and Jennifer Love Hewitt, but Kirsten's car wasn't there, so this is very unexpected.

“Damn,” says Claudia.

I sit frozen. Claudia fiddles with her car controls hoping that Kirsten won't think it odd that two girls are doing nothing in a car on the side of the road. She doesn't seem to. Two Brazilian male paps might not be as lucky.

Kirsten stops beneath a telephone pole right behind our car.

“What's she doing?” I whisper. My window is cracked, and she's close enough to hear our conversation.

On the post is a “Missing Cat” sign. Kirsten untacks the sign, puts it under her arm, then continues walking down the street.

“Oh, man. Oh, man.”

To get a shot this late in the day, we really need a flash. It's Claudia who says what we're both thinking: “I'm not flashing her. Not here.”

“No, me neither. It's too ugly.”

“Flashing” in a suburban neighborhood feels really awkward to a pap. Basically Kirsten is “home,” and there's an unspoken courtesy we normally give celebs when they are home, which includes not flashing them if they walk outside. This late in the day, we were hoping that Hilary would have left in her car, then we'd have followed her to somewhere public where flashing is copacetic.

We watch in the rearview mirror as Kirsten walks from pole to pole taking down signs. Our 70–200mm's could probably get us a grainy but salable photo, but we don't want
just a photo
. What we need is
an angle
—we gotta see Kirsten's face, and at the same time see what she's doing. We need “the story”:
Found Dunst Cat.

“Claude, not much time,” I say. “We gotta do something.”

“Damn,” she says again.

It's an opportunity that we can't ignore—it's a great story—but we have no idea how to shoot it. What we do know is that Kirsten will not give it up easily.

Kirsten crosses the street and begins to head back toward her mom's house.

“Let's just get out, and, and…do whatever,” my experienced pap-self suggests.

So, we hop out with our long lenses protruding from our jackets and fast-walk-shuffle up the opposite sidewalk to get in front of Kirsten. She is now past her mom's house moving toward more telephone poles in the opposite direction. We manage to scoot our way ahead of her.

“What now?” Claudia asks.

“Why are you looking at me?” I utter sharply. “Oh, all right. On three: one, two, three.”

We turn together and pull our cameras to our faces. “Hi, Kirsten. Can we get some shots?”

Kirsten stops, stares at us—truly like we are buffoons—then turns, unhurriedly, and shakes her head as she walks away. She knows that she doesn't have to rush—there's no way we can get by her, plus move another twenty feet for a shot with our long lenses before she gets inside. Besides, she knows we want her taking down the signs, and she's now done with that. Kirsten's a smart celeb. She knows the game.

We know it too, so we don't even move.

“Bummer,” says Claudia.

“We screwed that one up.”

But please don't think I feel sorry for Kirsten (even if she is my celebrity look-alike). Our shots would have made her look like a caring, responsible animal owner—
to what was there to object?
We won't even bother to work her tomorrow: she lives on a bitch of a curve and will be watching for us. Anyway, the cat story was the one to get.

* * *

After seeing Claudia, my lonely routine becomes even more miserable. She reminded me that I missed CXN
a lot.
Not only do I have no pap colleagues
to see
, I have none to talk to. Even Jimmy, the boss, rarely calls. Most days I have to come up with my own stories. By contrast, Bartlet used to call me three or four times every day, and if I couldn't think of a celeb to work the following day, he'd always figure something out. Bartlet pushed me to work harder and to think harder, and he made me part of a team—an unorthodox one, yet one I really miss.

But with only a few months to go before baby, I'm gonna suck it up and stick it out with iPIX. Bartlet has and continues to refuse to give me 70 percent—it's a Tall Poppy thing—and 17 percent more in a paycheck is a lot to trade for “a team,” especially now, when baby fund stockpiling is necessary.

* * *

Quite unusually, Jimmy calls today with a plan: “Why don't you work on Kristen Stewart,” he suggests.

“Who's that?”

“She's the next big thing. In the new movie
Twilight
. Opens this weekend.”

I look her up. Kristen fits the Hollywood criteria—unmistakably gorgeous and still a teenager. She has those delicate features, symmetrical face, and perfect skin that typify most American movie stars. But beautiful people aren't special here, and her fame will depend on two things: how well the movie does and how exciting her private life is (and how much of it she lets us see). She can get famous without us, but in order to do that, she'll have to be spectacular.

Kristen lives with her family in the heart of the Valley, the suburbs of Calabasas. Their house is a '70s-style ranch in the middle of a cul-de-sac which could be anywhere in Suburb, USA. The right side of the lawn is encircled with a dreadful twelve-foot-tall, wrought iron
Alice in Wonderland
gate. Parked in front of the house are a pickup truck and several hot-rod cars. There's also a black Mini, which I discover later that her mom, a tough-looking woman with tatted sleeves, drives. The Mini's plate reads “Mad Hatter,” so we know who's responsible for the gate.

But I don't notice any of this my first time here. Rather, when I rock up this Wednesday morning, all I see is Kristen and her boyfriend. I recognize her easily from my Internet research. She's sitting on her front stoop in her pajamas, about ten feet from the curb, and she's smoking. I don't make eye contact and pretend to be chatting on the phone. I am the sole car to circle the street, but since Kristen will become a star only this week, she isn't yet savvy to what a pap or pap car looks like, and she takes no notice of me.

But if I drive around again, she might. A slight curve in the road presents itself, and I know I can shoot from around its bend. Without delay, I pull into her neighbor's drive behind two cars. The owners are probably
home, but I'll be quick. Trees now shield my car, and I am sure Kristen can't see me. I drop my window, find a hole in the trees, and fire off several frames.

Frankly, I'm not too excited as I get the shots. As I've mentioned, mags don't generally like pictures featuring cigarettes. Besides, Dule, my iPIX colleague, shot Kristen and her boyfriend just a few days earlier when she was wearing a better outfit and the two of them were kissing. That set printed, but anything more of Kristen needs to be really good, at least until
Twilight
breaks and people know who she is.

After a few seconds of shooting, I zoom in on the back screen of my camera to check the frames and ensure my settings are right, as I always do if there's time. Low light and a longer-than-preferable distance have rendered the images on the grainy side, but after two years on the job, I read light quickly and usually correctly, so at least they are well exposed.

In the zoom, I also see that she is not smoking a cigarette. Rather, Kristen has a small, glass pipe that she is lighting with one hand while holding the thumb of her other over the carb (the hole) and taking a deep inhale.
¹⁷
I don't look at any more frames or fiddle with my settings. I know it doesn't take long to get high. Pulling my camera back to my eye, I continue to shoot, watching her pass the pipe to her boyfriend before they go inside. It all happens in less than a minute.

“Luck,”—according to philosopher Seneca Roman—“when opportunity meets preparation.” About four times a year, a pap will get a big hit. These days that means anything over five grand in initial sales and residuals. “Opportunity” will come…if you put in the time and know what to do when it arrives. Paris Hilton will walk your way flaunting the Holy Bible, Justin Chambers will cross the street perfectly aligned with his five kids in one frame, or Jessica Alba will pose in a bathing suit on the beach for a photo shoot. My big hits weren't because I was
“lucky” in the traditional sense of the word; rather, they were because I was prepared when opportunity crossed my path. That's the philosophy behind the daily Britney gangbangs: Rodeo2 paps will work Brit for months and months and only make a few hundred here and there. Then, the day when she shaves her head, they're there, they're ready, and they make bank.