Molly sounded so confident over IM that I didn’t really think through all the possible roadblocks. First there’s the front desk. I’m sure they aren’t just giving her room number out to any old person, so what do I tell them to get inside? What if Becky’s under an assumed name? How do I figure out what it is?
An accordionist with a beret enters the car at Twenty-third Street. I turn my back on him as I continue to fret. If I succeed in getting up to Becky’s room, what if she isn’t there? Do I chloroform a housekeeper, steal her uniform and master key, and wait in the bathroom like they do in the movies? Probably not: There’s a reason they never show the repercussions of thriller movies, or else nine-tenths of every Angelina Jolie action film would take place in a holding cell.
The accordionist is playing “Tears of a Clown” right behind me. I try to lean away from him, but he slithers around so now he’s directly in front of me. He seems to have singled me out as his mark. Under the beret, he’s got mime makeup on, with a garish smile painted on his chalk-white face. I try to shoot him a death glare, but he’s not taking the hint. We’re in the middle of a staring match when I hear the conductor announce my stop. Damn it! My longstanding mime hatred has confounded me again! I haven’t adequately planned for my Becky confrontation because I was too busy trying to get that accordion-playing knob out of my face.
At Fifty-seventh Street I hop out of the subway. The station is muggy, and insta-sweat appears in the crooks of my knees and elbows. I run up the stairs to Sixth Avenue and head north by northeast, ’til I reach the grand façade of the Pierre, take a deep breath, and close my eyes.
I pluck each thought about Becky West out of my brain like a childhood game of “he loves me, he loves me not.” I am sorry I’ve subjected Becky to this sort of intense national scrutiny; I am not sorry I tried to succeed at my job; I am sorry I let Moira pressure me into doing something I wasn’t comfortable with; I am not sorry I tried to make my mom proud of me, even though it seems my efforts there were ultimately misguided; I am sorry I read Peter’s report when I wasn’t supposed to; I am not sure if I’m sorry we had that air-clearing fight. Maybe we needed that.
I look into the gleaming glass panes next to the revolving door and lick my palms to smooth down any flyaways. I look, well, not great, but at least not insane. I stride into the Pierre with purpose, because I remember reading that the best way to fit in when you’re too low-rent for your situation is to act like you belong; that’s why they call rich people eccentric instead of crazy. So what if my hair hasn’t been washed properly in a week and I’m wearing a dress that I bought from the Delia’s catalogue even though I’m twelve years older than their average customer? If I own it, the front-desk ladies will buy it.
Two women are standing behind the concierge desk, their backs impossibly straight. They are wearing identical gray business suits and starched white blouses with small gold studs. One woman’s name tag says “Christie,” the other’s “Astrid.” Both are cool, Hitchcockian blondes. Christie seems more approachable—I can see that her tasteful beige manicure is ever-so-slightly chipped—so I go up to her.
“Can I help you?” she asks, smiling with robotic precision. She must smile like this at strangers at least a hundred times a day.
“Yes, I’m looking for a Rebecca West,” I say confidently. I search her face for any signs that she recognizes the name, but there’s not even a flicker in her eyes. She looks down at a computer screen and begins typing quickly.
“I’m not seeing anyone by that name staying here today.”
“Hmm, that’s strange,” I say, stalling for time. “Perhaps she’s registered under her mother’s name? Darleen West?”
Christie’s imperfect manicure clacks along the keyboard. “No, I’m sorry, that name isn’t appearing, either.”
“How about her sisters? Raina or Renata or Rachel West?”
Christie starts typing again, but her eyes keep darting back to me. I can tell she’s starting to get suspicious. “Sorry, no.”
I have a few more aliases in mind, but I’m afraid Christie is going to get spooked and call security. I decide to retreat. “I must have the wrong hotel. I’m a long way from Omaha!”
Christie nods silently. I hope that one bit of misinformation covers my tracks; if Christie happens to report me to the Wests, maybe they will just think I’m a relative or friend from back home trying to show some support.
I see a plush, golden-threaded couch in the corner of the hotel lobby just out of Christie’s and Astrid’s sight line and sink down into its welcoming cushions while I try to figure out what to do next. I can’t very well knock on every one of the hundreds of doors in the building, or ride endlessly in the elevator in the hopes that Becky West decides to leave her room and hit the gym. Maybe this is the end of the road for me. The truth about Becky will come out eventually—it always does. In the meantime, I’ll just have to take my lumps and the lesson learned. I learned it the hard way, with my ass literally hanging out there, but at least I know that Becky is safe.
I’m tearing up a little as I slump back across the black-and-white checkered Pierre lobby when out of the corner of my eye I see a familiar blow-out—light brown at the roots, getting progressively lighter toward the tips. I crouch behind a chair that’s near the elevators and see the profile of one Shira Allen walking toward me.
Once Shira’s passed by I duck out from behind the chair and follow her over to the elevators. She presses the up button, and I try to stand far enough away from her that she doesn’t realize that I’m there. Her nose is in her iPhone the entire time, though, so I could probably be playing “Louie Louie” on a bagpipe without attracting her attention.
I get on the elevator after she does and watch her press the button for the seventh floor. I push the button for the eighth floor, just to cover my tracks. I hear her say something quietly, and I catch my breath. But then she jabs at her phone again and I realize she was cursing because she just lost another game of Angry Birds.
As the doors are about to close, I watch Shira take a left. I can’t just follow behind her—my tread is too heavy to tiptoe successfully. So I take the elevator to the eighth floor and make a left, just like Shira did. I find the stairwell nearest to the elevator and sprint down it, skidding to a stop just as I reach the seventh floor. I open the door to the hallway a tiny, quiet crack, just in time to see Shira lift her head up in front of a door to my immediate right. I close the door just as quietly, but I can still hear Shira’s knock on the door and a feeble voice replying, “Who is it?”
“It’s Shira. I’m just here to take a few more notes before this issue goes to press.”
“Okay,” says the little voice, and the door opens slightly, and Shira slips in.
Maybe I am like a really dirty, out-of-shape Jolie character, because I spot an unattended housekeeping cart in the hallway and grab the skeleton key that’s hanging off the side, attached to a Smurf key chain. I don’t want to have to break into Becky’s room—that does seem like crossing a line that I have managed thus far to avoid—but it’s a pretty good backup plan.
I stand in the doorway to the stairwell and wait to hear Shira’s flats on the thick hotel carpet. After what seems like an hour—though it’s probably five minutes, tops—I hear the door open again.
“Thanks for coming,” says the little voice, not without enthusiasm.
“Besos,” Shira says, and I hear the puckery sound of air kisses waft toward me.
The door closes and I watch as Shira’s back gets smaller and smaller down the long hallway. I wait until she’s out of sight before I walk up to Becky’s room and knock confidently on the door.
Chapter Thirteen
I don’t hear anything from the other side of the door for a full minute. Just as I’m about to walk away from room 714, I hear that little voice say, “Shira?”
“No, it’s not Shira.” My heart starts beating more quickly. What am I going to tell her instead?
“Who’s
there?” the voice asks, a slight tremor creeping in.
“It’s Alex,” I blurt out. Damn it. I should have given her a fake name.
“Oh! Come in!” the voice says, to my total shock. The door opens and Rebecca West is standing there, three feet away from me. Unlike Savannah Guthrie, who looked so much smaller and tidier than I had expected, in person Becky West is much more robust. She looks like a beautiful farmer’s daughter, her long blond hair in a loose braid and her face devoid of makeup. She’s wearing black yoga pants, a fitted tank top, and flip-flops. I look down at her feet and admire her clear pedicure. I’m trying to avoid making eye contact because I’m scared.
When I do finally look up, she’s smiling at me. How can she be smiling at me? Didn’t I just cause her to have the week from hell?
“I didn’t know you’d be coming so soon. I would have tidied up for you,” Becky says. I look around the room. It’s nearly spotless. The only sign that a person has been living here is a pair of worn Converse upended under a chair. Darleen West really has drilled her girls with good manners, I’ll give her that much.
“The room looks great, don’t worry,” I say tentatively.
She grins back at me. “I’m so glad you guys are interested in me and my story. I was having a pretty rough day when I got that call from your boss. Guess MTV really does make everything better.”
Aha. Molly’s intel about the Kardashian-style program was 100 percent correct. Becky thinks I am an MTV lackey coming to work out some detail of her TV show. I don’t want to affirm her assumption and outright lie to her but I don’t want to announce myself as the blogger who posted her video, either.
I’m trying to figure out my next move when I realize that neither of us has spoken for longer than is comfortable. Becky’s looking at me with a politely questioning expression, so I blurt out, “Do you mind if we sit? I’d like to ask you a few questions for background for my boss.” I even take out my digital recorder and wave it in her face. No surreptitious taping necessary, and nothing I’ve said aloud so far is a lie. This isn’t illegal, is it?
“Of course,” Becky says, giving me a practiced smile like a QVC hostess.
Whoever is paying for Becky’s digs spared no expense. She’s in a master suite, and we sit down on a brocade sofa that probably costs more than my rent. A verging-on-gaudy chandelier dangles above us, the glass casting shards of light onto Becky’s clear face. She crosses her ankles demurely as she sits. She’s so perfectly poised I wonder if she’s received media training in the past few days, or if she’s just naturally this way, or if this is the result of Darleen’s meticulous mothering.
When my conversation partner is awkward, I always get awkward; I’m generally a pretty good talker, but big empty silences make me blurt out randomness to fill the void (Do you like dogs? What’s your sign?). The opposite seems to be true with Becky West. Her noblesse oblige raises my level of confidence and discourse, and I’m able to just launch into it. I press record on my little device and nudge it toward Becky on the ornate glass table in front of us.
“Describe for me the days leading up to the release of the video,” I say, crossing my own legs at the knee.
“I was working at an MIT robotics lab for the summer, creating a robot that is capable of cleaning your entire house. Sort of like a Roomba on steroids. My boyfriend, Danny, was living with me at the MIT dorms. We were having a really great time,” Becky says. She’s lightly smiling as she tells me this, and it’s clear that she’s told this story before several times. There are no extra words or natural pauses.
“And then?”
“And then I was at the lab on Wednesday until around six. My phone doesn’t work in the lab because it’s in the basement. When I walked out of the building and turned on my phone, I had forty-seven missed calls. My first thought was that something had happened to one of my sisters.”
Oof. I push down the guilt. I can’t tell if Becky notices my discomfort because she just continues on with her story.
“But the first voice mail I got was from Mother’s lawyer, Gil. He explained precisely what had happened.”
“Your mom didn’t call you first?”
“My mother is an extremely busy woman,” Becky says curtly, her back straightening.
“Didn’t it bum you out that you didn’t hear from her directly?”
“Of course not,” Becky says. “Listen, I know a lot of people say a lot of things about my mom, but she really does just want the best for us. That’s why she wrote that book. She really believes in her philosophy and just wants to share it with the world.”
I deride this internally at first. Becky has obviously been trained like a show dog by her domineering mom. There’s no way she really feels that way about Darleen.
But then I think about it for a minute. Becky does seem incredibly centered, especially for someone who has just had her life upended. Maybe Darleen’s methods have something to them.
Besides, Darleen is still her mother. No matter how complicated that relationship is—and I truly have no idea what that must be like—of course Becky’s going to defend her mom to some stranger. I think about how livid Darleen’s comments about working moms made me—I took them personally, as if she were talking about my specific mother, when she wasn’t. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have at least half the media calling your mother a monster. I start to feel a smidge of retroactive shame for slamming Darleen so hard on Chick Habit.
Once again, I realize I haven’t spoken for a weirdly long time. Becky is still waiting patiently for my next question, her expression open.
“So . . . then what did you do?” I ask quickly.
“I went back to my apartment so that I could look at Chick Habit myself. I’ve read the site before. I used to even like it.”
It never occurred to me that Becky was a reader. I never think anyone I write about reads the site—I wouldn’t be able to be so hard on them if I did. My organs cringe but I push on.
“Do you have any idea how the video got online?”
“I know exactly what happened.”
I look at her expectantly. Becky twists a lock of baby-fine hair in her right finger and, for the first time in this half-fake interview, stares off into space. This is a chink in her heretofore unflappable demeanor. She doesn’t look hurt, exactly, but I wonder if that’s the subtext.
The silence is killing me, so I say, slightly too loudly, “What happened?!”
Becky takes a deep breath, and then the story comes tumbling out, as if she’s been storing it up for just this moment. “My boyfriend’s nutbag sister, Cassandra, had been visiting us over the weekend. She basically hated me on sight, and I have no idea why. Danny’s always so nice to her even though he knows she’s a crazy person.
“We were supposed to go to Fenway Park with her on Saturday—I went out of my way to get really good tickets—but she said that she wanted to stay in and rest. She claimed she wasn’t feeling well.” Becky winces. “I should have known she just wanted to snoop around.”
“So she found the video?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Well, it was just sitting there on Danny’s desktop. She didn’t exactly need to be Sherlock to find it.”
“And you’re positive she sent it?”
“Positive. Danny loves me. He would never betray me this way. I don’t know what his sister’s problem is. I think she’s just jealous because she has no life. She uses their family money to run some magazine about revolutionaries that twelve people read. She’s always talking about ‘exploding’ people’s expectations.” Becky puts air quotes around “exploding” and rolls her eyes. “She really believes her stuff is going to change the way people think. As if anyone cares about whether the word ‘seminal’ is sexist.
“But I still can’t understand why she sent it to that Chick Habit website. She’s always talking about how much she hates it.” A tremor creeps into Becky’s voice and she abruptly stops talking, plastering on that shopping
-network smile instead.
As I look across the sofa at her, those huge baby blues betraying the emotion she’s trying to hide, I realize what’s been missing from my job, what I’ve been shoving away all week, maybe all year: empathy. I came here expecting to expose Becky as just another fame whore, but now that I’m just a few feet away from her, I can’t help but like her. Besides, she might not even be signing on as a reality TV star if I hadn’t posted the video in the first place. I can’t condemn her for something I helped create.
Part of me wants to admit to my deceit right now, to tell Becky that I’m the one who published the video. But I’m too scared. I feel like I’m in too deep, and it’s easier for me to just play along.
“After it went up, what happened next?”
“Danny and I had a big fight, and I dumped him. Which is the worst part of this entire thing. It wasn’t really his fault.” She sniffs and adjusts herself in her seat, dropping the grin. She’s composed now but not happy.
“That’s the worst part? What about the world seeing your boobs? What about the drugs?” Damn it. So much for sounding professional.
Becky shrugs. “Having the world see the video was embarrassing, I guess,” she says with a sanguine expression. “And my mom was super super pissed. After I talked to the lawyer, she eventually called me and read me the riot act. But as I explained to her, everyone my age has embarrassing videos and photos lying around, and if they ever become famous they’re just going to come out. Look at what’s happening to all those politicians, and they’re in their forties. I really think this is a net positive.”
“A net positive?” I repeat. She sounds like she’s reading from a PR guru’s playbook.
“Of course,” Becky says, her plastic smile returning. “Would you be here arranging for my family’s MTV show if that video never got out?”
“I guess not,” I tell her.
She must be reading my dismay at her lack of genuine upset, because she turns her whole body toward me and puts her cool fingertips lightly on my arm. An expression of deep concern washes over her face. “Do you think it would play better if I were more upset about it? Because I can be sadder,” she says gently, and just as the word “sadder” comes out of her mouth, her eyes start to well with tears.
Sad Desk Salad Page 19
