by Tia Williams
“Polaroid photo?”
“Exactly.” His eyes sparkled.
Then, something odd happened. Jenna took a sip from her plastic cup of water. Without asking, Eric took it from her, turned the cup till it was just so, and drank from it, too.
Andrea didn’t know what she’d witnessed—if it meant something, or nothing—but it was unmistakably intimate.
She realized the story wasn’t about Darcy Vale breathing life into a stale genre. It was about StyleZine’s superstar editor and videographer. A fashion veteran and an unknown kid just out of film school, who were so creatively in sync they were finishing each other’s sentences. A pair of black visionaries making genre-elevating work in the notoriously monochromatic fashion industry. A Generation X-er and a millennial who combined their influences to create magic—and as a bonus, were wildly photogenic.
And then there was the way they were looking at each other.
Andrea whispered something in her photographer’s ear. He nodded.
She walked up to the two of them. “I’m Andrea Granger, from New York. Sorry to interrupt. My intention was to interview Jenna, but I really feel that I should to talk to the both of you. Together and separately.”
“Me?” Eric looked at Jenna. “Are you sure?”
“Oh you have to talk to Eric,” Jena gushed. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. He’s…”
Andrea held her hand up. “Hold that thought while I turn on my recorder. So, whose idea was this?”
“His.”
“Hers.”
“Ours,” said Jenna, with pride. Andrea smiled.
A week and a half later, New York magazine’s Power 25 issue came out. As promised to Darcy, StyleZine was in the top five. Also, as promised, StyleZine was one of the few power players who had their own article. New York also awarded the site valuable retail space on the cover.
But the article was not a profile on Darcy. In fact, Darcy had one quote, a throwaway line about StyleZine’s impact on ecommerce. The images from Darcy’s photo shoot weren’t even used.
The whole piece was about Jenna and Eric. Each of their backstories, their passion for the series, their effortless partnership. Andrea explored the cultural impact of trying to broaden the fashion industry’s perception of what’s chic by profiling deeply fashionable women of all sizes and ethnicities. Andrea detailed Eric’s USC success, and reintroduced Jenna to her audience. Jenna sounded like what she was: a seasoned pro who was invigorated by her partner’s fresh vision. Eric also sounded exactly like himself; a fledgling filmmaker thrilled at the opportunity to flaunt his skills on such a visible project.
A casual reader would’ve thought that the lovefest oozing off the pages was just friendly, mutual regard. Jenna’s small soliloquy raving about Tyler on Perry Street seemed innocuous. As did Eric’s jokey response when Andrea asked him what it was like to shoot so many desirable women: “They’re pretty, yeah. But it’s easy to forget, with Jenna Jones running around looking like Dorothy Dandridge in leather jeans.”
A casual reader might not have even blinked at the trio of black and white photos accompanying the article. The first was of Cara Delevingne in men’s Ray Bans, all surly-sexy in an anti-hero stance with lip curled and her fists thrust into her motorcycle jacket. The second was of Cara in a similar pose, but with Jenna vamping next to her in the shades. The third photo was of Jenna and Eric. This time, Eric was wearing the shades. Looking like a black James Dean in a white tee and dark jeans, he held his camera down by his side, while the other arm was flung across Jenna’s shoulders. He smiled down at her while she giggled at some private joke.
It was just a candid outtake of a couple of good-looking people caught in a moment of comfortable comraderie. All three pictures were sexy—but for the people who knew Jenna and Eric intimately, that last one was just oblique enough to inspire a double take.
At home, in the Tribeca triplex he’d shared with Jenna, Brian Stein laid awake in bed. It was 1:20 am. He’d read the article five times, and was reading it again. He knew Jenna. He knew that breathless, worshipful tone. The way she spoke about that director—that child—was exactly the way she used to speak about him.
She was fucking that fifth grader. She was in love with that fifth grader.
He stared at the photo and was gutted. He wasn’t prepared for this. Stone-faced, he flipped back to the beginning for the twelfth time.
Across the room, Celeste “Lily L’Amour” Wexler was almost finished packing a Lily Pulitzer duffle with the few clothes and toiletries she’d kept at Brian’s. She couldn’t handle another second competing with Jenna’s ghost, a poltergeist in Alexander McQueen thigh-high boots. The Forbes.com piece had been bad enough, despite Brian swearing that he took the interview before they met.
And then there was the thing with his desperately ill mother, Anna. For the past couple of months, Brian had been devastated over Anna’s second bout of breast cancer, and nothing Lily did helped. He never even noticed her patience during all those hospital visits, when that horrifically face-lifted harpy reminisced endlessly about Jenna. How Brian and Jenna walked her down the aisle at her second wedding. How Jenna gave her the Pomeranian that she loved more than the man she married. How Jenna should be by her side. It was a Jennabration, each time, and Brian never made an effort to shut Anna up.
And now, he’d dived head first into her New York article like it was a Pulitzer Prize masterpiece. Why was he so hung up on her? Hadn’t she pulled some completely psychotic, reverse domestic abuse shit and punched him out?
It was too much. Lily loved him, but knew her time was up. After all, she was a relationship columnist.
She tossed her key on the floor, grabbed her bag and left. Fifteen minutes passed before Brian knew she was gone.
Darcy Vale sat at her desk, the magazine open to the page of Jenna and Eric together. She was trembling, and hated it. She was sweating, and hated it. Nothing was worse than feeling a loss of control. Being surprised. Being betrayed. She’d grown StyleZine into the successful brand it was today. She was the visionary who’d staffed the site with the perfect blend of talent, personality and mediagenic hotness. She embraced nepotism and hired Eric. She looked beyond her personal feelings about Jenna, and brought her back. And how did they thank her? They didn’t. Neither one of them uttered one word about her. They stole her moment. They made her look…inconsequential.
And their photo was practically pornographic.
She would find a way to fuck that New York reporter later. Jenna, too.
In the meantime, she picked up her phone. “Eric.”
“Yeah?”
“Get in here.”
Five minutes later—too long, so disrespectful—Eric walked up to her office, stopping in the doorway.
“Close the door. Sit down.”
He did. “Wassup.”
“Wassup? Really? You didn’t think to consult me before you took this interview? If I didn’t need you for The Perfect Find, I’d fire you on the spot, shared DNA or no.”
“That piece has been aggregated on Buzzfeed, on Vogue’s website, on EW.com. Refinery29. Everywhere. Everybody’s talking about StyleZine. Did you hear that Phillip Lim wants to partner with us on a Facebook contest? The most stylish girl wearing his shit gets to do a Perfect Find with us. That’s huge.” He shrugged. “What exactly did I do wrong?”
Darcy smiled. “You’re feeling yourself, aren’t you? You got a little press and you feel fly, right?”
“I always feel fly.”
“When did you start sleeping with Jenna Jones?”
“Okay, now you’re bugging.” He started to stand up.
“Don’t you fucking move.”
“That’s what you got from that article? Five months ago you thought I was an aimless, jobless, shiftless Negro. Now, I’m bringing money and publicity to your site. Creating dope work. And you’re still mad?” He folded his arms. “Goddamn, woman. Trying to please you is like bench-pressing Earth.”<
br />
“Are you sleeping with Jenna Jones?”
“No.”
Darcy eyed him, her head cocked to one side.
“Jenna is your age. She’s like my cool, pretty aunt. She’s our Homecoming Queen, like you always say.”
“I say that with derision.”
“I like Jenna. But even if I liked her liked her, I’d never be that unprofessional. I’m offended at the suggestion.”
“Oh! He’s offended.” She leaned forward. “I put everything I had into building this company. I married a billionaire who couldn’t get it up to fund this company…”
“Did you really just tell me that? I’m calling Child Protective Services.”
“Belladonna Media is my greatest achievement. Everything you do reflects on me. You will not come in here and embarrass me. Don’t do it. Not with her. Get the thought out of your head.”
“Yeah whatever. Is that it?”
Darcy looked at Eric, so insolent and maddeningly unfazed. So sure of his position in the world—never knowing what it was like to compromise, humble, or degrade himself to survive. Twenty-two years old with a splashy piece in a major publication. He didn’t even know how lucky he was.
She wanted to strangle him.
“I want to show you something.” She typed onto her laptop keyboard, and swiveled the screen around.
“See that guy? The subject of this Forbes.com profile? That’s Brian Stein, the dashing, multi-millionaire real estate developer. He’s also the love of Jenna’s life. But she left him. You know why? Because she was dying to get married and he wasn’t. She was dying for a baby, and he wasn’t. She dumped that perfect man because her priorities are a ring and a kid. And you’re only a kid, yourself.” She leaned back in her chair, looking sad for him. “You’re so in over your head with this crush, Eric. She’d never take you seriously.”
Eric glanced at the screen, long enough to see Brian’s picture and the pull quote: “My proudest achievement? This house. Not the property, but the life I made here. With the woman who made it a home. She decorated it; her touch is everywhere. Everything about me that ever mattered is here, in her details.”
After a moment, Eric spoke.
“You’re pissed because the New York article isn’t about you. Which is not my fault. You’re weirdly into Jenna’s love life. Which is none of my business. And now you’re trying to intimidate me with some dude getting misty-eyed over his ex’s decorating?” He chuckled a little, standing up. “Meeting adjourned.”
Darcy watched him leave, her brow knitted in concentration. Then, she shut her door and made herself a vodka tonic. She didn’t yet have proof that he and Jenna were having an affair—but no matter how long it took, she’d get it. And when she did, God help those two for trying to play her.
Eric headed across the loft space toward his desk. But he didn’t stop there. He kept going, walking to the elevator bank, riding down to the lobby, and ending up outside. There, he paced back and forth in front of the building, clenching and unclenching his fists, his face a tornado of wild hurt and rage.
Thunderstruck.
Jenna was sitting in her office, reading their article for the zillionth time. She had so many conflicting emotions about it; she couldn’t pick which one to run with. She was so proud of Eric. She was so proud of them. She was deeply nervous that she’d gone too far with the public gushing. She was excited that she did what she set out to do at StyleZine, create game-changing work and prove to everyone that she was the same Jenna Jones from Darling, maybe even better.
But she was stuck on one part of the interview, and couldn’t get past it.
New York: You’re a New Yorker, born and bred. Do you aim to be identified as a New York filmmaker, like Lee or Scorcese?
EC: I love New York, but I don’t know where I’ll end up. I obviously want to work in Hollywood. I love the science fiction films coming out of London. I’m at the beginning of my career. I have a lot to experience. I don’t want anything holding me back, no ties. These are the hustle years.
No ties.
She read his quote over and over, and each time, she felt smaller and smaller. Eric had become vital to her life, but he hadn’t even lived his yet. Sometimes, when they were together, this thought crept into her brain, but she always buried it. Being with him felt too good to tarnish it with…reality. But now the words were in print and she couldn’t deny them.
CHAPTER 23
It was the one-week anniversary of their New York piece hitting stands, and Jenna and Eric had celebrated by drinking his dad’s specialty, rum-spiked Caucasian Shakes, and having lazy, rainy day sex. Now, it was 2am, and they were lying in bed with their limbs intertwined, snacking on a jumbo bag of Skittles. Jenna was naked except for a pair of purple bikini panties. All Eric had on were the USC basketball shorts he kept at Jenna’s. Turner Movie Classics was on in the background, playing Hitchcock’s Psycho, but they were barely watching it. For different reasons, they’d both been on the quiet side all day.
Eric kept trying to make himself go to sleep, but every time he tried to relax, Brian’s Forbes.com quote screamed in his head. Whenever his eyes closed, he pictured an ecstatic Jenna riding the Central Park carousel with two flawlessly styled kids. Kids that weren’t his. Because, as his evil elf of a mother pointed out, he was just a kid, himself—and he’d never be able to give her what she wanted.
A part of him hoped Darcy had made that up. It was possible. She was so spiteful. His mother was a person who’d spent most of her life obsessing over imagined blows to the rep she’d fought for. Plotting payback.
And Eric wasn’t immune to her spite. When he was eleven and got detention for cursing at prep school, Darcy had her fearsome thug of a husband drive over Eric’s videocamera—back and forth, until it was dust—demolishing two years of footage. Eric was gutted, just like she intended him to be.
He actually prayed that this was one of those times.
“You know what I wish?” she asked, popping three yellow Skittles in her mouth.
“No, what?”
“I wish I could cut off your penis and carry it around with me in my purse.”
“You don’t even need the rest of me attached to it?” Eric knocked her foot with his. “Would you love me less if I had a really small one?”
“Sort of,” she said. “I read something awful in British Cosmo once, about a woman whose boyfriend had micro-penis syndrome? It was the size of a mushroom. He’d only have sex with her in the dark. Turns out, he’d been using a dildo on her for seven years and she had no idea.”
“But how could she not know?”
“There are some very real-feeling dildos.”
Then, they were silent for awhile, both lost in contemplative horror over micro-penis syndrome, the creeping suspense of Psycho—and in their own anxious thoughts.
“Eric, can I ask you something?”
He propped his head on his hand, looking down at her. “I don’t think dildos have any place in two-person sex. I’d feel so inadequate.”
“Do you ever think about our future?” She faced him.
“Oh. This conversation.” He poured the rest of the Skittles into his mouth, steeling himself for wherever this was going.
“We can’t sneak around like this forever,” she said. “As thrilled as I am about our New York article, it scared me, too. I mean, two more quotes declaring our appreciation for each other’s talent, and we might as well have posed naked. And speaking of that picture…”
“I know,” he groaned. “So obvious. But only to us. I doubt anyone else would think twice about it.”
“We should’ve been more careful,” said Jenna. “What if Darcy picked up on something? Getting away with this lie for seven months has made us lazy. And I hate that we even have to deal with this. The secrecy used to be exciting; now it’s just exhausting.”
“Agreed. So I’ll marry you and end it all.”
“You shouldn’t even be thinking about marriage. These ar
e your hustle years.”
“You caught that, huh? Yes, I said that to the reporter, but I didn’t mean…”
“I know what you meant. And it makes sense for you.”
“You wouldn’t wait for me?”
“Would you want a forty-eight-year-old bride? And what if we wanted…”
A baby, thought Eric. Just say it. A baby.
“Wanted what?”
“Nothing.” Jenna said. “I just get scared sometimes. I love you in a really big way, and when I imagine our future, I don’t see how our paths match up.”
“I don’t know how it works, either. I just know I want you.” He traced the outside of her ear with his finger. “Lustily, repeatedly, and aggressively.”
She smiled.
“Yeah, we have epic issues,” he said. “But name a couple with a perfect relationship. Besides the Carters.”
“Jay and Bey? You think so?”
“They’re, like, the dream!”
“I adore them. But they’re in show business. It’s the Jay/Bey perfection machine. Their jobs are to project aspiration, sex, fairy tale domesticity. In real life, no couple is that flawless.”
“Damn. That’s black-sphemy, kid.”
Jenna laughed a little, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Please don’t stress about us,” said Eric.
“But what are we gonna do?” she whispered.
“Whatever we’re doing now is good enough for me,” he said. “It’s everything to me.”
“Me too. I live all week for this specific moment. You, with those abs, making bad puns. But when I think about our situation, I get anxious. It’s bizarre being a grown woman with a secret boyfriend.” She pushed her hair out of her face. “And in the back of my mind is this worry that I have you on borrowed time. Like, I should savor every moment because, given our ages, I don’t know how we’ll make it.”
She paused, folding and re-folding the Skittles bag into a tiny square.
