by Leah Stewart
Is the picture why Charlie hasn’t called her back?
Since, her only contact with Max has been via text. She texted Oops and he texted back Fuck ’em. Ambiguous with a large potential for awkward. What Josie returns from her reverie certain of is that she needs to head that awkwardness off. She pulls out her phone, texts Max and Cecelia. I hate my bodyguard.
Too bad! the return text from Cecelia reads. Mine is funny!
Mine just scolded me.
From Max: Mine is the type to sneak you in the back door of a club.
Josie texts, How do you know?
Because he offered to sneak me in the back door of a club. A beat, and then Max adds, Drink at the hotel bar?
Yup from Cecelia.
I don’t think my bodyguard will like that.
Don’t tell him! Cecelia says.
Tell him I’ll protect you, says Max.
Hey, I’m the Chosen One. I’ll protect myself.
No way Cyrus would believe that this was possible. In the lobby of the hotel, he proceeds with an air that, whatever else it’s supposed to do, certainly has the effect of drawing attention to her. Before she even makes it to the registration desk, a man approaches to ask for a picture, already fumbling for his phone. “No pictures!” Cyrus barks, stepping toward the man with his hand in the Heisman position.
“No, it’s okay,” Josie says. She feels a teenage level of humiliation. Now the whole lobby is looking. “I’ll take a picture.” She smiles at the man, and her agitation must have put extra dazzle in the smile because he looks stupefied. She takes a selfie with him. The trouble with selfies is that they force you to lean in very close to the fan, much closer than you have to when someone else holds the camera. This guy leans in so close his cheek brushes lightly against hers. He puts his arm around her, snugly enough to press her breast against his side. Josie catches the look of rigid alarm on Cyrus’s face. The camera flashes, and she steps away from the guy quickly before Cyrus can move in. And also because she wants to. After that, there are ten more pictures before Cyrus decides to overrule her, announcing that Ms. Lamar needs to get to her room. He wields an enviable authority. The fans scatter as soon as he says the word.
On the journey from the desk to the elevator, Josie keeps her head down. Cyrus’s force field holds. An empty elevator opens its doors and Cyrus hustles them both in, hits the button for Josie’s floor, holds out his hand for her key card, zaps it in the slot, hands it back. The elevator doors close on someone’s hopeful face and the sound of wai—, but Cyrus is unmoved. He says, “Ma’am, do you still want to allow pictures?”
Rebelling against Cyrus might not be in Josie’s best interest, but oh how she wants to. “I’ll let you know,” she says.
When the elevator arrives, Cyrus steps out first, holding up his hand to stop Josie. He looks both ways down the hall before he does the come-on gesture to wave her out. She’s played this scene before, wearing a prop bulletproof vest, carrying a prop gun, conscious of holding it with the proper grip. At the corner, he performs the same maneuver, holding her back until a group of twentysomething guys rumbles past. Then he actually says, “All clear.”
She is relieved by the sight of the door to her room. She slides the key card into the lock, turns to him with a smile, and says, “Well, thank you,” but when she presses the door handle, nothing happens. She tries the key card again, sees that the two little lights flash red, and groans. Cyrus holds out his hand for the card, tries it himself with the same result. See? she wants to say.
He’s annoyed with the disobedient card. He clicks his tongue. “We’d better go back to the desk,” he says.
“I’m fine. You can call it a night.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do, ma’am.”
All the way down and back up, they repeat the routine. This time they have companions in the elevator and Cyrus stands in front of her, which, sure, means no one bothers her, but also means she’s pressed into the corner of an elevator behind a very large man. When she tries the new key card, she can feel herself clenching her jaw. This time the lights flash green! Thank God.
“You’re all right for tonight?” he asks. He has her itinerary, knows all that’s on it tonight are optional parties she doesn’t plan to attend. She agrees that she’s not going anywhere. “Your breakfast meeting is in the hotel restaurant at 8:15,” he says. “So I’ll see you at 8:10.”
“In the lobby?”
“I’ll come up here.”
“All right,” she says, weary of conflict, even, or especially, the passive-aggressive kind. She says good night and thank you, and is glad to shut the door on his face. “He’ll come up here,” she mutters, crossing with purpose toward the bed. “Of course he’ll come up here.” She turns and falls backward, snow-angel style. She lets out a long breath, closes her eyes. Cyrus took a lot out of her. Though she’s been really tired in general lately. She’s getting old. She should probably go to bed right now, magic the lie she told Cyrus into truth. Imagine if Cyrus catches her in the bar with Max and Cecelia. What trouble she’ll be in! She can picture the stern disappointment on his face, an image that actually increases her desire to go. This reunion is tricking her into feeling twenty years younger, complete with the urge to rebel against her own well-being. But, of course, Cyrus won’t be in the bar. He’ll be asleep, lying fully clothed atop the made bed, with his arms crossed over his chest like a vampire.
She should be grateful to Cyrus, probably, for being so sure of his role and hers. She had no idea what to do down there in the lobby. She didn’t know who to be with those fans. She’s out of practice. Her self-assurance is a rusty instrument, damaged by storage. But there’s such falsity in this pretense that she’s special! She wanted to explain that to the little crowd of fans instead of agreeably, dutifully posing for selfies and signing her name. They see a certain Josie Lamar—Josie Lamar as an all-but-transparent container for Bronwyn Kyle—and they project that image so ferociously onto Josie’s actual, inadequate body that Josie herself can see it there, a ghost, an aura, an outline, a costume that she could put on. And if she tells herself it’s okay to do that, to be that for them, to accept their admiration with beneficent kindness as if she deserves it, because she’d be doing it for the fans who, after all, want that, who in no way wish to see her brought down to size? Well, then she is not telling herself the whole truth.
She thinks of how Charlie would have handled Cyrus and the scene downstairs, how he would have projected an easy goodwill, made jokes, slung his arm around his selfie partner, or suggested silly poses, and she feels a sudden sharp yearning for him or maybe to be different herself, because maybe his way is, after all, better than hers. She remembers her vehemence, her anger, as she insisted the opposite, and is sorry, so sorry that tears prick her eyes. What is her way? She doesn’t quite know anymore, hasn’t in a long time, not since the first time she realized her longing to go unrecognized had been fulfilled and—this was the terrifying, more important realization—that she didn’t actually enjoy its fulfillment. And when attention returns? To receive it as her due is delusional. To lap at it eagerly is pathetic. To angrily dismiss it is unkind. So she has landed on uneasy acceptance, but she can’t claim to like it there.
From the first, she loved Charlie’s willingness to say what he thinks, to admit what he feels. She loved that it didn’t occur to him not to. She loved his kindness, his genuine interest in other people, his desire to engage. His honesty, which brought out a corresponding honesty in her. She felt fully herself with Charlie, a whole person, not a collage. When she was with him, she stopped witnessing her own performance, stopped running everything she wanted to say through a complicated system of filters. She wasn’t pretending not to care what anyone else thought. She really didn’t care. She didn’t care! For a brief, exhilarating time, if people looked at her, sh
e didn’t care, and if they didn’t, she didn’t care, and if she got an audition that was great and if all she had to do that day was go to the farmer’s market with Charlie, that was also great. Over and over she experienced her own freedom with the force of revelation. This was peace. This was, at last, transcendence. She’d passed through a gate, shedding her insecurities and her disappointments and her petty, nagging jealousies, and she believed this state of calm acceptance was a permanent condition. But then he got famous. Then they went to a party thrown by one of his castmates, a party where she knew almost no one, and so very many people came between her and him that it took him two hours to notice that she’d left. “I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry,” he said later, but still he didn’t understand, still he seemed bewildered by how long she cried.
Her phone chimes, announcing a text from Cecelia. We’re downstairs. Where are you?
When she opens the door, she half expects to find Cyrus standing outside it, legs spread, hands clasped gently in front of him. But he’s gone. She finds herself imitating him, looking left down the hallway, then right, making sure. All clear. Though she gets some shy glances in the elevator, only one person stops her on her way across the lobby to the bar, a woman, older than Josie, who requests a hug, and when Josie grants it, gives her a little squeeze, which Josie receives as comfort, feeling an inordinate gratitude that returns that prickly feeling to her eyes. Why is she so weepy? Is it Charlie? She resolves again not to think about him. She resolves to shake off her melancholy without much hope that she’ll succeed, but when she spots Cecelia and Max at a round booth in a dark corner of the bar—her friends, her compatriots—the mood lifts like a flock of birds. They wave her into the booth with a conspiratorial air. She makes a split-second decision and slips in beside Cecelia rather than Max. Cecelia leans against her, welcoming, as Max reaches across the table to lightly touch her hand.
“We got you a vodka tonic,” Max says, pushing it toward her. “Cecelia says it’s what you drink now.”
“Cecelia is right.”
“Very simple,” Max says. “Very classy. Remember when you only drank White Russians?”
Josie makes a face. “I was young. I wanted everything to be sweet.”
“I liked tequila shots,” Cecelia says. “I thought it made me seem like a badass.”
“It did,” Josie says.
“I was afraid of you,” Max says.
“I was afraid of you,” Cecelia says. “At first, anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t know?”
Max shakes his head.
Cecelia looks at Josie with a playful display of shock. “How could he not know?”
Max spreads his arms out. “What’s scary about me?”
“Ah,” Cecelia says. “I won’t feed your ego by telling you.”
Max turns a help-me-out expression on Josie.
“She’s talking about your face,” Josie says.
“My face?”
Cecelia says, “Your terrifyingly handsome face.” She takes a sip of her own vodka tonic. “It made us want to giggle. We were afraid we would giggle when you came around.”
Max looks at Josie, who nods. “It’s true,” she says. “That’s why you were scary. Fear of giggling.”
“I’m debating how to take this,” Max says. “Sure, it could be a compliment. But what does it mean that you’re not giggling now? Should I conclude that I’m less handsome?”
“Oh, don’t conclude that,” says Cecelia. “We’re just used to you now.”
“You have no urge to giggle?” Max says with sorrow.
“I just want us to stop saying giggle,” Josie says.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Josie takes a sip of her drink, makes a face at its sharp, strong taste, and puts it down. This is quite an opportunity for flirtation Cecelia has given her, with Cecelia herself there to provide cover. Does she want to take it? Maybe. She gives Max a sidelong smile. “I plead the Fifth.”
“We may come back to this discussion,” Max says.
“May we? Let’s talk about Cecelia now.”
“Yes, let’s talk about me,” Cecelia says. “Do you like my outfit? I don’t think I like my outfit.”
“She looks hot,” Max says.
“You look hot,” Josie agrees.
“I don’t know about this stylist,” Cecelia says. “I don’t think I like anything she picked out.”
“You’re just nervous,” Max says.
“That’s true. Don’t talk about it, though. I mean my being nervous. You can talk about it.”
“What’s it?” Josie asks.
Cecelia grins. “I’m up for a part in a movie.”
“That’s great!”
“She’s going to leave us, though, any minute now,” Max says. “To have a drink with the director.”
“Oh, that’s less great,” Josie says. “What’s the part?”
“It’s an indie film. Based on a novel. It’s the lead. And she’s not a maid or a single mom or a noble social worker or whatever. It’s the sort of part I never normally get. She’s a middle-class woman with a family and a job, seems totally normal, but her secret is that she’s a kleptomaniac. She’s only ever stolen little things, but then she impulsively steals some jewelry that gets her involved in this whole elaborate crime thing—it’s good, it’s really good. It’s a great script. The guy who’s directing it, he wrote it, too.”
“Do you know him?” Josie asks.
Cecelia nods. “He directed an episode of Kidnapped last year. He turned out to be a huge Alter Ego fan. So we had this conversation about how I liked Vivi best evil, because I got a break from being so reliable and good. That’s why he thought of me for this.” She sighs. “He’s thirty-two. He’s ten years younger than I am. He’s never directed a movie. I’ve been acting for twenty years. I’ve been working in this business since he was a child. And I’m so nervous about meeting with him that I’m freaking out over my clothes like a high school girl.”
“You look great,” Josie says. “And you’ll be great.”
Cecelia rests her head briefly on Josie’s shoulder. “I just want the part so badly. I forgot how much it sucks to want something this badly.”
Josie’s eyes go involuntarily to Max, and he looks back at her just as she looks away. She has turned her gaze quickly to Cecelia, who, of course—of course!—took note of this wordless exchange. Cecelia picks up her glass and hides her smile behind it. Cecelia is nervous but not quite as nervous as she’s making it seem. The director has all but told her she has the part. She’s playing up her nerves because of the double bind of friendship with another actor: She doesn’t want to risk offending Josie by failing to keep her apprised, but neither does she want to risk making her feel bad at a time when getting work is a struggle. Also, Cecelia knows Josie’s tying herself into knots about Charlie and Max and the photo, and whatever may or may not happen, so she’s providing distraction. Then, having eased them into this evening, she’ll leave them alone to do with it what they will. She’s not so sure Max is the best option for Josie—that, in her opinion, is very obviously Charlie, with whom Josie was the happiest that Cecelia has ever seen her. And the one time Cecelia gambled on turning an on-screen relationship real, it was a spectacular disaster, leaving her firm in her opinion that that’s never a good idea. But she wants Josie to get something she wants, even if that something is a man a little too confident of his own impenetrable charm.
Cecelia lifts her glass. “To Alter Ego,” she says. “Because it gave me you two.” They clink, and she adds, “It was a first love, wasn’t it? Working together. I’ve never had anything quite like that again.”
Max shakes his head. “Me neither. I mean we all get along on my show, but it’s mostly professional politeness, more like a job, not like . . .”
&n
bsp; “Summer camp?” Cecelia suggests.
“We’re not so bonded,” Max agrees.
“We’re not so young,” Josie says.
“Or so unencumbered,” says Cecelia, who is married to a poet who stays home with their two girls. “We gave everything to that show. We were ardent.”
“Good word,” Max says.
Cecelia grins. “I know. Jamal likes that word. He likes to talk about words that people don’t say anymore, that he wants to bring back.”
“Like what else?” Josie asks. Ardent is a good word for Charlie, and just like that, she has already broken her resolution not to think about Charlie. What word will make her not think about Charlie?
“Now I’m drawing a blank,” Cecelia says. “Hang on, I’ll text him.”
“What’s it like being married to a poet?” Max asks.
“What’s it like?” Cecelia repeats, eyes on her phone. She finishes her text, puts the phone down, and looks up at Max. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Is everything profound?”
Cecelia laughs. “Yes,” she says. Her phone chimes and she picks it up. “Vexed,” she says.
“What’s that mean?” Max asks, and Josie says, “Frustrated.”
“Annoyed,” Cecelia says.
“Nettled,” Josie says, and Max says, “I feel like you two are trying to tell me something.”
Cecelia’s phone chimes again. “Countenance,” she says. “Now he’ll be at this all night. That’s what it’s like to be married to a poet.”
