The Accidental Diva

by Tia Williams

  “I’m not sorry I missed it,” Mario said in gruff, Italian-accented English.

  “Like you had a choice, Mars bar.” She gave him an arseniclaced smile. Billie had learned that she hadn’t invited him to Sam’s party. He was on probation for taking too long to finalize his divorce from the mother of his three teenaged children. The only reason he was allowed to come out tonight was to keep up appearances. It was okay to go to a party alone, but dinner was another story.

  He ignored her and fixed his piercing emerald-green eyes on Billie. “Beelie, you are quite a stunning specimen. Why do you waste-a your time on a man who is not-a there for you? I know many handsome, extremely wealthy men who would die for the love of a young, café au lait–skinned goddess like-a yourself.”

  Billie smiled through the pain. European men get right to the point, she thought to herself. At least he’s stopped staring at my breasts. “Thanks, Mario. Jay’s sorry he couldn’t make it. He’s finishing up a manuscript, so—”

  “That’s-a no excuse. If you were mine, I’d never let you out of my sight. I’d bathe you in so many kisses there’d be no question of-a my love. Paige, we must-a have her out to Tuscany, some-a-time.”

  “For God’s sake, Mario, stop verbally molesting her.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s fine.” Billie wanted to go home. She wanted this nightmare dinner to be over. “You know, I’m not feeling very well. My head…”

  “I know.” Paige got the point. “Mario? Would you be a darling? I seem to have run out of cigarettes. Can you go to the bar and buy me some?”

  “Anything for-a you.” He kissed her hand and slithered away.

  Eyes following him, Paige commented to Billie, “The problem with Mario is that he’s the greasy Guido in a bad script. Everything he says, it’s like the first season of a sitcom when all the actors are trying too hard. You know, when they haven’t settled into their characters yet?” She downed her third glass of merlot. “I want to tell him, ‘Once more, with less feeling!’”

  “Oh, I think Mario’s sweet,” Billie managed.

  “Anyway, I made him go away because I could tell you needed a moment, Chicken,” Paige said softly, using her sympathetic voice. “You look like you’re nursing an ulcer.”

  “I’m sorry for being such depressing company. I think I should go.”

  “I met him, Billie. He’s very handsome and smart and he looks like he’s hung like a horse. I totally get it. But this is very lax on his part.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve dated those creative types before. I know how exciting they can be. Did you know I used to go with Sting?”

  “No!”

  “Uh-huh. During the Early Mullet years. Oh, we were fabulous. I couldn’t get enough of him. And this was before all this tantric drama. I can’t imagine what he’s like now.”

  “How glamorous. What happened?”

  “Well, it was a great ride until I realized that both of us thought he was God.” She eyed Billie pointedly.

  “I hear you,” Billie said with a sigh.

  “I’m loath to say it, but Mario’s right. You could have anybody. You could have Mario. You want him?”

  “Thanks for the offer, but he’s too old for me. And besides, you love him, right?”

  Paige looked alarmed. “Love him? Are you mad? I grew out of that years ago.”

  “Grew out of loving him?”

  “No. Love, in general. I’m too old for that. It’s all messy.”

  “Paige, forgive me for sounding naïve, but why are you marrying him then?”

  “Why not? He’s a billionaire, and we like a lot of the same things, and he has a great big yacht. He’s really sweet when he’s sober. It’s a good match. But don’t compare yourself to me. I’ve been in love so many times, I’ve built up an immunity. Now I’m just looking for somebody who won’t yell at me for shopping too much or for fucking underwear models.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why the hell not?” She seemed very matter-of-fact, but she looked weary. And she was wearing a lot of eyeshadow. Billie wished she didn’t know that Paige had gotten rejected by the mysterious Iglesias at the Sam C. party. What had she been through that made her this hard? She shuddered. She didn’t want to end up like Paige, whatever that was.

  “Listen to me, Billie. I’m only going to say this once. Don’t let this man take advantage of you. He’s just a man. There are many more to be had. Understand?”

  Billie nodded sadly, just as Mario returned to the table with a pack of Marlboro Ultra-Lights. Paige announced that Billie was leaving to sleep off her migraine, and Mario feigned a heart attack.

  As Paige kissed her goodbye she said, “Nobody puts Billie in the corner.”

  * * *

  • • •

  At midnight, Billie was lying in her bed with her rosebud-embroidered duvet pulled up to her chin. She vaguely wondered what Paige had wanted to tell her over dinner; it was as if she’d changed her mind when she saw how brave Billie was trying to be about Jay blowing her off. What a hideous night. She had an ice pack balanced on her forehead, and her cheeks were damp with tears. A Percocet had numbed the pain in her head, but not her aching heart.

  She didn’t want to call Jay. Actually, she was hoping he’d call her and apologize profusely. But that didn’t happen, and now she was lying there, morose, listening to Mary J. Blige’s classic my-man-done-me-wrong-but-you-know-I’ll-never-dump-his-sorry-ass CD, My Life.

  After a lengthy discussion with herself, she finally reached for the phone to call him. At that very moment, it rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Billie?”

  “I’m the only one who lives here.”

  “Hi, baby.”

  “Don’t ‘baby’ me. I can’t believe you did this again. You stood me up again.” Her voice was shaking.

  “I didn’t stand you up. I called first.”

  “When you call fifteen minutes before you’re supposed to show, it’s a stand-up.”

  He was silent for a second. “You know where my head’s at, Billie. I got caught up in the manuscript. I know it’s not an excuse, but it is a reason.”

  What? “What kind of bullshit is that? Which talk show did you pick that up from?”

  “Billie…”

  “You know, I’m so stupid. I’m totally ignoring the signs here. I invite you out, you don’t come. And this happens over and over. Clearly you don’t care about me or my life. Clearly you don’t care about anybody but yourself.”

  “Listen to yourself. You know that ain’t true.”

  “Why isn’t it? You may feel like you care, but you don’t show it. This was so important to me, Jay. In all the years we’ve worked together, Paige’s never invited me to dinner. You always insist that I understand your writing time. And I do. But you don’t care about my career.” She paused to take a breath. “You know what the problem is? The most important person to both of us is you. We both think you’re God!”

  “Whoa. I walked into the wrong conversation. How’d we get to God?”

  “It’s true! And where does that leave me? With no date at a double date, dodging advances from Eurotrash.”

  “I know that motherfucker didn’t try anything…”

  “Oh, shut up, Jay,” Billie said, really incensed. “You’re so hot and cold. I can’t read you. One minute you’re so in love with me, and I can really feel that you are. The next minute, you couldn’t care less. God, now I know how Pandora feels!”

  Jay dropped his beer bottle on the floor.

  “I feel crazy, Jay, I really do. I’m starting to wonder if I’m making our whole thing up. Like you’re not even real.”

  “Who am I, Keyser Söze? Listen, Billie, I don’t want to lose you. Please. I know I ain’t do
ing this right.”

  “But we keep having the same conversation over and over!”

  “I know, I know.” Jay was beginning to panic. “Look, I feel like I’m always apologizing to you. The only thing I can say is that I’ve never been in this kind of relationship. This is all new to me.”

  “Come on,” she said, sniffing. “I deserve better than that.”

  “It’s true. I mean, I ain’t tryin’ to sound like psych one-oh-one…but it’s a new thing having someone else to care about and think about and really consider. I gotta get used to it. I ain’t never been this deep with anyone before.”

  “What you’re saying is you’re totally self-absorbed.” She tried to sound tough, but Jay always got her with references to his rough past. Her heart melted for the little boy he didn’t get to be.

  “Basically.”

  “At least you admit it. So what were you really doing while I was choking down chicken yakitori?”

  “So now you think I got other bitches in here? I was working, Billie.”

  “But so what? Everybody works. We all manage to have lives, too.”

  “It’s different, ma. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. Book deals do not happen to people like me. I know I seem sometimey, but I have to figure out how to be with you and work at the same time.”

  “People do it every day. Why are you so special?”

  “Cuz I just am.”

  “What?”

  “Look, I ain’t grown up with shit. I ain’t had the opportunities you had. Your life is unreal to me, nahmean? We come from two different worlds. I can’t take this for granted. I can’t sleep on it. I came from nothing…and if I don’t focus, I’ll end up right back there.”

  He always had a way of making her feel ridiculous. Like a silly bougie girl with no problems. Suddenly, the dinner began to seem not so important. Why was she really upset? Because Jay had embarrassed her in front of a snotty, middle-aged socialite and a playboy with a million hands? She was ashamed. Jay had risen from the depths of ghetto hell to land a book deal with the biggest publishing house in the world, and she was whining about superficial nonsense.

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “It’s gonna be like this for a minute. This is me. I gotta get this done. I wanna be with you, I do, but…” He stopped, realizing that he was going down the wrong road. “But beyond all that. I shoulda gone anyway. I was wrong. I just get so caught up, it’s like I’m possessed. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “I know you are,” Billie managed. She forgave him. What could she do? She loved him desperately. “But I don’t ever want to have this conversation again. And if you stand me up again, it’s a wrap.”

  “I won’t do it again. I was a selfish bastard.” Jay breathed a tiny sigh of relief. He’d really fucked up this time, and he knew it.

  “I guess there’s something to be said for your dedication.”

  “Not for nothing, I’ve always had an outstanding work ethic. I was the most upwardly mobile kid on my block.”

  “Yeah. Lucky for you your block never got into that whole ‘just say no’ thing,” said Billie.

  “I want to see you.”

  “No. My head hurts. I’m going to sleep now.”

  “Why can’t I come over?”

  “Because it shouldn’t take me kicking and screaming to get you over here.”

  “But I thought we were growing.”

  “And also because then we’ll have sex, and I still want to be a little mad at you.”

  “You can’t do both?”

  “Nope. Good night, Jay.”

  “Good night, Billie. I love you.”

  She wondered if that was enough.

  * * *

  • • •

  Dew of the Alps was having a breakfast event at the Bryant Park Hotel. The event was divided between two huge suites, each devoted to one of their new lotions. The first room celebrated the Skin Silkening Intensely Hydrating Moisture Surge Lotion for Dehydrated, Parched Skin, while the second room was all about the Skin Cooling Pore Clearing Astringent Activating Lotion for Oily, Pimple-Prone Skin. To keep things lively, the beauty editors were divided into two groups, each assigned a “tour guide” from Dew of the Alps public relations.

  Billie’s group was first led by their guide to the Skin Cooling Lotion room, which was decorated to look like a Polynesian island. It certainly felt like a Polynesian island. Between the heat, which was cranked up to ninety degrees, and the industrial-strength humidifier hiding behind a huge potted palm tree, it was outrageously steamy. The tour guide was draped in a sari and some sort of complicated, flowered headdress. The editors were handed terrycloth flip-flops as they entered the room and, to their horror, were asked to dump their Manolos into a Pier 1 straw basket. The floor had been covered in sand, and baskets of pineapples and hibiscus were strewn all over the room. The waitresses, who offered tropical juice drinks to the sweating editors, wore nothing more than bikini tops and grass skirts. Everyone was miserable.

  The tour guide was explaining to the editors, who were trying to keep their balance while perched on unsteady hammocks, that in hot, humid climates you sweat. And the Skin Cooling Lotion, with its astringent properties and tingly texture, makes you feel better.

  “Ohhh, okay,” whispered Monica. “See, now it all makes sense. Now I don’t feel so horrible about them fucking up my perfect blowout.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Does my hair look like Gene Wilder’s?”

  “Well, yeah. But look around. Everyone’s does.”

  “Fucking shit. I knew I should’ve listened to my mother and become a real journalist.”

  Just then, a hearty “thunk” interrupted the tour guide’s speech. One of the poor waitresses had passed out, knocking over a tiki torch on her way down. She was immediately whisked away by a couple of assistants, never to be seen again.

  “Whew!” exhaled the tour guide. “I’m sure glad that torch wasn’t lit!”

  With that unfortunate mishap, the Skin Cooling presentation was over. The editors all but sprinted out of the room. Passing the other group in the hallway, they exchanged desperate glances.

  As Billie and her group were ushered into the Skin Silkening room, they were greeted with an icy burst of air. At first it was refreshing after the sweltering hell of the Skin Cooling experience, but it soon became clear that the freezing room was a different kind of awful. The air conditioner was on thirty-five degrees, and a mighty fan was producing an authentic, Arctic-type wind. The room was decorated to resemble the slopes of Aspen, down to the last detail. There was polyurethane snow everywhere. Male models in ski outfits ushered the editors to their seats, stationary ski lifts plunked in the center of the room. The tour guide here was dressed like a ski bunny, in a fuzzy pink parka and big fuzzy boots. Someone had erected a mural depicting snowy mountaintops and a distant ski lodge

  “Is this Auschwitz?” asked Monica, her teeth chattering.

  “Just pretend it isn’t happening,” said Billie. A skier lumbered by, offering each of the editors a cashmere wrap and a mug of hot chocolate. Billie took them both and held herself back from pouring the hot cocoa down his snowsuit.

  This was the most monstrous event in history.

  Fifteen minutes later, the ski bunny was droning on through a slide show presentation.

  “…and in arid, cold temperatures your skin tends to feel parched and dry. Dew of the Alps recently ran a groundbreaking test on women with dry skin, and we found that they develop what we’ve termed ‘compensatory behavior.’ In layman’s terms, this means they, er, have the urge to apply lotion…”

  On the heels of this stunning revelation, Billie decided to take her own advice and tune out. She burrowed further into the wrap, and reflected on her love life. Could she really
handle such a topsy-turvy relationship? The one good thing that came out of Jay’s disappearing acts was her realization that she needed to get a life. Her love for Jay was bordering on obsession, and it wasn’t healthy. She had taken on an unflattering manic personality. Her mood would crash if he wasn’t attentive enough, and it would soar if he was. It was how she used to be about good and bad days at work.

  Billie stiffened, feeling a revelation coming on. In her adult life, she’d never dated, never had a man. There was no love in her life, so she was obsessed with working. Now, it was the other way around. She was obsessed with love, and let her job fall by the wayside. And neither way worked for her. What she needed was balance, dammit, balance. She wondered if she also needed therapy.

  Now, she understood what the girls had tried to tell her at Florent. It’s okay to surrender to love, but it’s not okay if you forget who you are. She could handle Jay’s crazy moods so much better if her own life was more fulfilling.

  It was a ridiculously simple concept; why was it so hard to put into practice?

  She smiled, her heart racing. What was she thinking, not being thrilled at the chance to become a beauty director—and at such a young age. In London, no less! She’d be making history. Billie took a sip of the hot chocolate and decided she had to gain some perspective. If she and Jay were meant to be, it would work out, London or no London. They could figure out a long-distance relationship, right? Other couples do it every day.

  Billie managed to tough out the rest of the event. (A week later, all the beauty departments in the city would be stricken with identical bouts of the flu.) Feeling renewed and inspired, she ran the two blocks back to her building. Once in her office, she flung her goody bag at Sandy, who was thrilled at the rabbit-fur earmuffs and a gift certificate for a Polynesian body wrap at Om spa. Billie immediately dialed the editor in chief’s assistant.

  “Du Jour, Tiffany speaking?”

  “Hi, sweetie, it’s Billie. Does Fannie have any time to meet today?”