How could I be too much and not enough at the same time?
This memory flashed through my mind more as a fleeting feeling than a thought and disappeared in the blink of my bone-dry eyes. I turned away from Derek and swallowed down the stupid frog in my throat.
Derek attempted a course correction. “I mean, it’s cool if you’re part Indian. Kind of hot, really. I just didn’t know.” I ignored him, but he persisted. “Hey, if you’re free tomorrow night, I was wondering if you might like to go out and do something.”
“On a Tuesday?” I turned and leveled him with a what-kind-of-idiot-do-you-take-me-for look. He’d never asked me out before. Either he had an Indian fetish or he was after something. The trouble with working in the gossip industry was that everyone always had an angle. I trusted no one. Except Zion. I trusted Zion with my life.
He ignored my skepticism. “Yeah, there’s this club opening, and I’m on the guest list.”
“Sorry. I’ve already got plans.”
“Oh, yeah? Whatcha doing?” He was way too interested and not nearly disappointed enough.
“Washing my hair.” I threw him a withering glance. I wasn’t about to tell him I had tickets to Micah’s show. He could pry into my business the old-fashioned way, by rummaging through my backpack when I wasn’t looking.
The door opened and bounced hard against the wall. Andy walked through it before it could swing back and hit him. He slowed as he passed behind my desk. “Wilder. In my office. Now.” His pace picked up. He didn’t even check to see if I followed behind him.
I climbed from my stool and caught Zion watching me. I mouthed “What?” at him, but he shrugged, hands outstretched, palms up. I sucked in some air. Andy was no fun on his best days. He seemed to be riding a storm cloud today.
When I entered his office, he had his phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear. Clumped strands of unwashed hair striped his forehead. His right index finger scrolled across images on his tablet, making them careen off, chasing after each other. In his left hand, he held a pen over a temporarily forgotten copy of the competitor’s paper. I suspected it may be the paper featuring a photo of me.
He fluttered the pen at a futon chair and readjusted the phone on his shoulder. I shoved over a stack of week-old papers and took a seat, awkwardly eavesdropping on his phone call.
“I have to say I was pretty annoyed Friday night.”
I settled onto the seat and glanced up to discover the phone lay abandoned on the desk, and Andy now stared directly at me, waiting for a response. “Oh, uh. Friday night.”
His eyes bored into me. “I didn’t think I’d need to give you a deadline, but I also never expected you’d send in your work past midnight.”
My fists clenched, damp from the anxiety. “I can explain.”
Andy tsked. “Zion already filled me in.”
“Zion?”
“Right. He explained why you were so late.”
“He—” Zion wouldn’t have sold me out. I squirmed in my seat but resolved to wait for Andy’s explanation rather than undermine both of us with the wrong panicked guess.
“You need to be better prepared, Scout. You know there are things you can carry to recharge on the go.”
“Yeah.” I relaxed, relieved that maybe he’d become more understanding of my medical issues. “But that’s not exactly why—”
“You can borrow this for now, but you should invest in some.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a rectangular white plastic box, the size of a cell phone. He tossed it to me, and I recognized it as soon as my hand wrapped around it. I had about six of them in my camera bag. “Next time, you won’t be stuck with a camera full of photos you can’t send in.”
I clutched the portable battery pack. “Thanks, Andy. That would have been a big help last weekend.”
He’d already forgotten me and started scrolling through the pics on the tablet. As I stood, he lifted his head again. “Those pics of you and Micah that Wally Stephens captured trumped your pics anyway.” He had to get that last dig in.
I laid my hand on the door handle and twisted it. “Right.”
A beat before the latch disengaged, he added, “Did you get pics of Eden on Saturday night?”
I released the door handle, blinking fast. How did he know about that? “I—”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you for your pics. That was on your time. Wally Stephens said he saw you there, though. Called to ask if there was something going on between you and Micah.”
“Between me and Micah?” I shock-laughed. “That’s preposterous.”
“Yeah. I laughed it off, too.” He froze, hand mid-scroll. His forehead wrinkled as his caterpillar-like eyebrows levitated. “You’d let me know if you had an in with Micah, right?”
“What?”
“Because if you do, I’d like to see you work that angle.”
“You want me to exploit Micah Sinclair?”
He set the pen down and placed his fists on the table to support his weight as he loomed forward, focusing now on nothing but me. “Josephine, do you know what you do for a living?”
“Of course.”
“Does Micah Sinclair know what you do?”
I swallowed. I didn’t like where this was going. “Yes.”
“Then who do you think is exploiting whom?”
I wanted to argue with him, but I had nothing to prove that Micah hadn’t been using me for free publicity. So why shouldn’t I use him back? We could have a symbiotic relationship. “You’re right. I forgot who I was dealing with.”
He waved his hand. “Rookies. You need to get a thicker skin.”
He was right. I nodded. “Sure. But I don’t know if I’ve got as much access as you seem to think.”
“With Adam out of the country, maybe you could buddy up to Eden. Information is currency, Jo. Befriend her. Try to find out if they’ve set a date for their wedding. Prove to me you’re more than just one more skilled photographer. Go after the story.”
I pictured her with Adam, happy about a pregnancy only one other person knew about—a tabloid journalist of all people. What would Andy do with that information? But I didn’t want to sell her out. I knew there was a line between public and private information, even if Andy no longer saw it.
But I said, “I think you’ve overestimated my connection with her. She only hired me for pictures. Since I sent them off, she’ll have no more need of me.”
“I think she will.” He maintained eye contact with me until I dropped my gaze. Then he returned to checking all the pictures his photographers had sent in, panning for gold.
I slipped out of his office, feeling the need for a Silkwood shower. Maybe I could apply for a position in another division. I caught Zion’s eye, and he tilted his head, “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Thanks for covering for last Friday.”
He nodded once. “Payback for Saturday night.”
I still couldn’t believe how fangirlish he’d been all weekend. After we’d returned home from the club, he’d watched videos of Adrianna and changed his ringtone to one of her songs. And now his screen saver was a picture of Adrianna.
I started to tease him for acting like a besotted teenager, but I knew that as soon as I pulled my stool up to my laptop, I was going to go through my Friday night pics for any shots of Micah.
And indeed, I climbed on my stool and played Where’s Waldo with the party pics.
In the first pic I found him in, he was talking to a group of people, smiling, wide-eyed, engaged. But after one or two shots, he inevitably locked in on the camera. It may have been my imagination, but he never seemed to look directly into the lens. His eyes were always a smidgen off to the left like he was looking past the camera. Like he was looking at me. I shook off a shiver and grabbed a sweatshirt from a hook on the wall.
Zion interrupted my stargazing with a “Whoop!”
I figured he’d gotten some pictures that turned out well, but when I s
wiveled around, he was staring fixated at his phone, his face contorted in uncontained glee. “Omigod!”
“What?” I slipped off my stool and tried to look over his shoulder.
He hid his phone against his chest, but I could tell by his shining eyes and pudding face that he would tell me. “Omigod. So this morning, I tweeted at Adrianna.” He turned his phone to face me so I could see his notifications. “Look! She just favorited my tweet.”
As I looked at his notifications, another popped up. “And she just followed you.”
“WHAT?” He fumbled the phone but caught it before it dropped to the floor. “OH MY GOD!”
“I hate to be a naysayer, but are you sure it’s her and not a bot? Or some auto-follow thing? Or her manager?”
His expression darkened, and I regretted my words, but I didn’t want his fawning to lead to disappointment. “It’s her. Look. It’s official.”
“Yeah. Okay.” I patted his back. “That’s awesome, Zion. How cool for you.”
I caught Derek watching us with a smirk on his face. He thought he was too seasoned to get excited over any celebrities. I pursed my lips at him, too grown up to stick out my tongue.
As soon as I was at my desk, I sneaked my phone out of my bag and searched for Micah on Twitter. When I found him, I followed him and wrote, It was good to see you last weekend. Thanks for the tickets to your show! I stared at the message for a minute and then hit Send. I didn’t expect to have the same luck as Zion, but it was worth a shot.
It had been a long time since I’d used Twitter in such a personal way. I pushed my phone into my pocketbook and scooted up to my desk. My laptop was docked. Three enormous monitors stretched across the workstation. On the left, a folder displayed thumbnails of the images from Friday night. A Twitter app dominated the center console, flashing constantly with new updates. The right monitor currently showed a map of Brooklyn.
I scrolled through various feeds on Twitter watching for any indication of a celebrity sighting. I’d hit the streets in the afternoon, but for now, I needed to tag any pictures Andy had missed. Halfway through the pictures, I’d started yawning so loud, Zion went and fetched me a cup of coffee. The groups of people repeated again and again in slightly different configurations. I’d been introduced to most everyone, but if nobody in the office could recognize them, they weren’t generally of any interest. But in a crowd like this, it had to be assumed that anyone could be someone or might one day become someone. Better to tag what I could.
Aaron Silver. I typed the name in, trying to recall when I’d taken his picture. How did I manage to get a shot of Aaron Silver without noticing that? Aaron had played the lead in an off Broadway production of Hair earlier in the summer, but I remembered reading in our own Arts and Leisure section that he’d recently taken a smaller part in a larger production. I could have asked him about that if I’d seen him there rather than here, through the lens.
The next picture clued me into why I’d missed seeing Aaron. Micah had stepped in front of the camera and walked toward me. That must have been right before he took me to meet those snobby old farts.
Zion snuck up behind me. “I’m heading out. Someone spotted Peter Dinklage walking his dogs.”
“Okay. I’ll see you at home later. I’m gonna go poach Andy’s turf later today.”
“Don’t work too hard.” He mussed my hair and left.
When I turned back to tag the next picture, I noticed Eden standing in the background, Adam’s arm wrapped around her, caressing her belly. She’d missed that one. The gesture could mean anything, but Andy missed nothing. I glanced over my shoulder, finger hovering over the delete key. But if a picture disappeared, Andy might ask why. So instead, I clicked on the tags and made sure Eden and Adam weren’t listed.
Chapter 11
Andy’s favorite stomping ground was a restaurant that catered to the stupid rich. The menus had no prices, and the chefs prepared tiny portions of elegantly plated and delectable food, though from what I could gather, money couldn’t buy unicorn meat or other rare cuts unavailable at any ordinary steak house. The patrons here paid for prestige. The restaurant faded into the urban landscape and looked like any of the hundreds of hip and trendy spots all over town. An innocent couple visiting the city might inadvertently walk in and ask for a table. Lucky for them, they’d be turned away, not because they didn’t have reservations. One didn’t need reservations at a restaurant like this. The right people could stroll right up, unannounced, and be seated. Meanwhile, I’d never been through the front door. I pictured the A-listers inside shaking hands with each other, making jokes only famous people would get. “Did you flash the paparazzi out front?”
At times like these, I wished I could drink to numb the sense of rejection. I had no true desire to be accepted by this disparate group of people who shared little in common with each other except for their exceptional spheres of influence. I’d observed them long enough to know they were all just people. Some had been born with money and power. Others had earned it. Some were gracious despite their blessings. Others behaved as though the universe owed them even more. But all of them needed the same basic things. All of them had to eat. And it didn’t matter that it was six o’clock on a Monday. Time bent to their whims.
I staked out a position close to the corner near the parking garage. And waited. I slipped an earbud in one ear and loaded up a playlist to block out the street noise. My phone buzzed, so I knelt down on the concrete to slip it from my backpack and make sure Zion wasn’t trying to reach me. But it was only a Twitter notification. I clicked it.
Micah had replied to my earlier tweet. Glad you had a good time. See you at our next show?
I checked his feed and found it littered with recent replies he’d made to others like he’d just logged on and started going through all of his tweets, and it made my heart sink to discover he’d answered me at the end of a chain of obligatory fan management.
He wrote, Thanks! Love you, too! to a number of fans who’d expressed their love for him.
And I hope you have a happy birthday! to people begging him to tweet that, or who casually mentioned it was their birthday. Either way, he had it covered.
When I saw the tweet where he wrote, Yeah, that Micah Sinclair’s the worst, I had to click through to find out what inspired him to respond that way. The original tweet hadn’t even been addressed to his Twitter handle. Someone had claimed, Micah Sinclair sold his soul to the devil. How else can anyone explain his popularity?
It tickled me that he wasn’t only reading tweets directed at him, but searching out comments about him. It made me laugh that he interacted with his haters as much as his fans.
The phone buzzed again while I was spying on his tweets. He’d sent a direct message following up. Stop at the will call before the show. I’ll leave some backstage passes.
I sat down hard on the sidewalk and read the message over again. With my back pressed against the wall and my feet crossed under my knees, I hit reply and typed, Thank you. I look forward to it. But when I hit Send, I got an error message rudely informing me that the recipient didn’t follow me. I retyped the message on the public feed instead. It occurred to me to let him know he wasn’t following me, but I couldn’t think of a way it wouldn’t sound desperate. I considered unfollowing him and following him again. How pathetic could I be?
Before I could decide my next step, hip-hop legend L.L. Stylez appeared around the corner, and I was on my feet in seconds, snapping pictures. He acted put out by my attention, but he preened for my shots nonetheless. I called out, “L.L., could I get a comment about the announcement you’re retiring?”
One of his handlers followed behind, speaking for L.L. “His comment was his press release. Please take a step back.”
I swung wide around them and beat them to the front of the restaurant so I could get some shots of him strutting toward me. He wore sunglasses and a track suit, but he vogued like he walked the runway. I blurted out, “You’re looking fine,
L.L.,” and he stopped dead.
He pulled his sunglasses up an inch and scanned my entire body, starting with my feet. “You’re looking fine, little lady. Who you with?”
I handed him my card, and he eyed it. Cursory.
“You want a statement?”
I flipped the switch on my camera from still photo to video and began recording. I could do this without looking down. If L.L. made a statement, I wanted it on camera. I wouldn’t get the video, but I’d at least have a documented record. And I needed him to say it without uttering the three deadliest words: Off the record.
“I’d love to get your thoughts, L.L.” Could I pull off cool and flirty?
“I’ll give you a statement.” His handler had grown skittish and had started to urge L.L. toward the restaurant, but he swatted the hand away. “Yeah, I’m retiring. Not from music. I’m going to be helping young musicians grow, sheltering them from the agents and the snakes that prey on the creative. This industry is a cesspool of no talent wannabes looking for the next buck. Where’s the integrity?”
He glanced down toward my camera, and I knew he was aware everything he said had been recorded. I still didn’t dare lift the camera to shoot video. He clearly had more to say, and I didn’t want to blow the moment. He leaned in close now. Inches from my face, and I could smell the traces of liquor. He didn’t appear drunk, but at some point that day, he’d had a drink. He looked in my eyes and waited until I stopped and locked eyes with him. He laid a finger on my chin, this legend of hip hop and blues. The stubble on his chin had begun to turn silver. I suddenly felt humbled by his intense attention—until he whispered, “This industry ain’t no place for a pretty little thing like you.”
And just like that, he whipped away from me, dragging his entourage in his wake. For half a second, I felt dejected for standing out on the street chasing after photos and scandal rather than finding ways to make photographs of trees interesting. But as the last of his entourage disappeared through the doors, it struck me that he wasn’t any better than me for all his lofty criticism. He retained a cadre of personnel whose only job was to cater to him. He was fixing to spend the money he’d earned in the industry on an eighty-dollar sirloin.
A Crazy Kind of Love Page 10
