“Hi, honey. Where are you from?” the woman sitting next to me to the left, wearing a fanny belt and bright-red lipstick, asked.
“I’m actually from around here,” I responded. It was surprisingly easy. “I’m from Malibu.”
“Oh, my! Just like the beach Barbie!” exclaimed the woman on my right, who had a lovely combination of blue and green eye shadow on her eyes.
“Where are you ladies from?”
“Nebraska. About an hour outside Omaha. We’re college roommates, been friends for thirty years. This trip to Hollywood is our dream girls’ getaway.”
I lit up. “Oh, how fun. I love my college roommates! I hope we’re still friends in thirty years!”
Thinking of Evelyn and the Andy Girls, Sandy and Brandy, made me feel sad and…homesick. I missed them so much. I missed school. I missed Arcata. I’d never been homesick before. I guessed it was because I’d never left my home, and even if I had, I doubt I would have missed it. Thankfully, I had Jace here. If not, I don’t think I would be surviving this.
“Oh, honey, you will be if you want to. It just takes effort.”
I nodded solemnly and made a decision, then and there, to put in the effort. It would be worth it. Which reminded me, I owed each of them a text. All three of them had sent me several messages since I left Arcata that I’d yet to respond to. Things just happened too quickly around here. I felt like I was treading water in an attempt not to drown.
“So, who do you think is going to be on the show today?” the first woman whispered conspiratorially.
See, here was yet another situation where I was handling things quite a bit differently than I would’ve before. The ‘old me’ would have simply shrugged, not wanting to commit to an answer or be asked further questions. However, the ‘new me’ figured—why not? Why not give these ladies a little thrill? Hollywood was their dream girls’ getaway, after all. They’d probably appreciate a little brush with a celebrity, even if it was only secondhand.
“Angelica James,” I answered in a hushed tone. “Don’t tell anybody though. She’s a surprise guest.”
The women’s eyes widened in delight. The first lady’s jaw dropped and she whispered excitedly, “We love her! We see all of her movies. Is she really going to be on today? Is she really going to be here?”
I smiled. “She’s already here. She’s backstage.”
They both gasped after which they asked in unison, “How do you know?”
I grinned broadly and leaned in closer. “I’m her daughter,” I confided.
The woman to my right began fanning her hands frantically as the other hopped up and down in her seat, both barely able to contain themselves. It made me feel good to be able to brighten their day. It also gave me confidence. I started to think that maybe I would be able to navigate the rest of this day without too much trouble, after all.
I doubted that I was ever going to become the kind of person who really enjoyed conversations with strangers or struck them up on my own. At the core, I still was a true introvert, after all. But I was beginning to get the idea that perhaps a lot of the things I had thought of as my crippling social awkwardness—the stuttering and babbling, for instance—were actually more the products of my constant anxiety from being judged and criticized rather than the products of my innate introversion. I hoped so. If that were true, that meant that the rest of my life would be a lot easier. It meant that, if I could truly learn to relax and have confidence in myself, conversations with strangers—while they would never be the most comfortable thing that I would do in my life—would at least be navigable and maybe even (slightly) enjoyable.
God, wouldn’t that be nice?
Chapter 11
Cat
The dense jungle of arms, elbows, and shoulders as we pushed our way through paparazzi to get to the car was like a nightmare. The deafening sound of photographer’s yelling my mother’s name, shouting out questions, trying to be louder than the person beside them to garner her attention all became a hum of roaring white noise. The bright flashes of cameras snapping pictures at a rapid fire pace was blinding in its force.
The relief that I experienced from the morning show taping that had gone off without incident was short-lived, only lasting as long as it took for us to step outside the guest entrance where we were bombarded by paparazzi. This was yet another aspect of the business that I was totally ill-equipped to handle. I didn’t like having my personal space crowded, and I didn’t like being touched by strangers. Therefore, you can imagine how much fun it was for me to have to fight my way through a crowd of people who were all trying to push me aside to get a better camera angle on my mother.
Of course, it wasn’t always this bad when she was just leaving a run-of-the-mill television appearance. There would generally be one or two guys, and half the time, they’d be across the street shooting with telephoto lenses. But today was not just any day. Today was Day Two after the scandal, and my mother was leaving, after having made her first public appearance. That sort of thing was tabloid gold.
Thankfully, my panic was as short-lived as my relief. We hadn’t made it five feet into the dense, aggressive throng of photographers when I felt familiar strong arms encircle me. Jace was right behind me and had wrapped me up in his protective presence. That was nice enough in and of itself, but an added bonus was that the photohogs actually seemed to back off a little—an unprecedented event, at least in my experience. I glanced up at Jace, wondering what he would make of it, and the mystery was suddenly solved.
His face was like granite, but he was still somehow telegraphing the murderous rage that would be unleashed if anyone were to lay a finger on me. It couldn’t be clearer in the set of his jaw or the steel spark in his eye. The paps, as ultra-focused on getting their shot as they were, apparently still had at least some shred of self-preservation somewhere in their lizard brains, because they all apparently received the subconscious message and none of them tried to test it.
I grinned as Jace hustled me forward and into the waiting limo. My Jace. My sexy, protective, alpha man. Yep, he might be gentle and loving as hell with me, but God help anyone who tried to hurt me.
I liked that. A lot.
When Jace, my mother, Jerry, and I were all safely inside the limo and the door had been securely shut, Jace turned to me and asked, his voice amazed, “Is that what it’s always like? How do you live like that?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Jerry beat me to the punch. “Because it’s part of the job. That’s how she lives like that. It’s part of the job.”
Jace glared at Jerry, but Jerry apparently didn’t have the same self-preservation instincts the photographers had, because he didn’t seem to notice.
Finally, either feeling that the point had been made or just deciding to move on, Jace turned back to me. “It’s not your job,” he assured me in a low tone. He put his hand on my knee comfortingly.
“It’s all of our jobs,” Jerry snapped.
Jace turned back at him and I could tell he was about to snap.
I jumped in to diffuse the situation. “I think”—I touched Jace’s arm, trying to redirect his energy—“Jerry just means that we all have to do our part. That’s all.”
“Well,” my mother said, interjecting her own conversation as if the one the rest of us were having was not even going on, “I really think that went well. I think that I came off as very sympathetic. What do you think, Jerry?”
Jerry turned his attention immediately to my mother. “Oh, for sure, A. You were perfection, as always. It went just like we practiced. This will really do the trick. I promise.”
My mother’s face turned up in a satisfied smile at Jerry’s response. “Lunch now?”
Jerry nodded.
Jace squeezed my knee. “Good. I bet you’re ready for a break, babe.”
Jerry barked out a laugh. “It’s not a break. It’s lunch on the patio at the Ivy. It’s a performance. It’s to be seen and to be photographed.”
&nb
sp; Jace sighed beside me as he shook his head. I didn’t think he had realized, until today, how very different my life here was from the life that we knew together. Of course, this craziness wasn’t what it was always like down here either—but it could be, at any time, and that was the point.
When we got to the restaurant, Jace was not happy to learn that we would be sitting at separate tables. My mother and I were seated at a table on the front patio, just along the white picket fence that borders it. It was the best vantage point to be photographed from, and Jerry wanted the visual takeaway headline to be “mother and daughter, out having a casual lunch.” He and Jace were sitting two tables away.
Jace tried to insist that, if we had to sit at separate tables, Jerry have the waitstaff sit us at tables that were right next to each other, but Jerry refused. He said that he did not want Jace and me looking at each other or carrying on a conversation between the two tables, which would look strange if a photo snapped just at that moment when one of us was talking to the other. He wanted me completely focused on the conversation I was having with my mother—or more precisely the conversation we would be pretending to have.
I could see, by the expression on Jace’s face, that he was not planning on just accepting that and moving on. Again, I headed off a confrontation by doing my absolute best to convince him that it was fine and remind him that although we may not be able to talk during the meal, he could, at least, see me clearly from where he would be seated. He still didn’t like it, but that did satisfy him enough that he agreed to go along with it, albeit reluctantly. I was filled with awe as Jace walked away with Jerry to the other table. It was amazing to be so fiercely protected, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, but sometimes, it could be kind of exhausting.
Throughout the lunch, I did notice various people taking snaps of my mother and me, both professional photographers and passersby alike. So, I figured, at least Jerry’s plan was working. The most exhausting part of the whole meal was that my mother and I had to keep up a guise of amiable patter through the entire thing. I let her do the majority of the heavy lifting on that front. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was how to chatter on with a smile pasted on her face for hours on end while ultimately saying nothing at all. That was a skill she had mastered, I was sure, at the beginning of her career—if not sooner.
Several times, tourists came up to our table and apologized profusely for interrupting our meal before asking to take a picture with my mother. Of course, since Angelica was “on the clock,” this didn’t bother her at all. This was her job—these were her people.
Honestly, it didn’t bother me either. In fact, I was glad for the short breaks from the exhausting task of keeping an interested and open expression plastered on my face as my mother prattled on about pieces of gossip and other inanity I really could not care less about. I smiled inside as I listened to the tourists go on and on about how sorry they were to interrupt our family lunch and they would never interrupt our time together if it weren’t a once-in-a-lifetime chance, etc. It was really difficult to suppress the more sarcastic side of me, which wanted nothing more than to respond with something like, “Seriously, no worries. Really, you’re doing me a favor. I’m having a horrible time. Honestly. Interrupt any time. I promise you.”
Obviously, I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t say anything at all. I just offered a gracious smile as I took their cameras and listened to their instructions for how to shoot the photo.
That was me. Camera girl. Afterthought at best. Annoyance at worst. That’s what I had always been here. And that’s why I was so glad that, before too long, I would be fleeing the weirdness of this life, yet again, and heading back to my real one. With Jace, the guy who made everything real. The guy who made everything worth it.
Chapter 12
Cat
After lunch, the limo had whisked us off to do another talk show, so here I was—again with Jace—sitting in yet another green room, which was hardly distinguishable from the one we’d sat in that morning. Jerry was sitting on the facing couch and—again—typing furiously into his iPhone. Except for the fact that I wasn’t quite as sleepy or hungry as I had been that morning, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the two experiences apart. It was like déjà vu all over again.
Jace wrapped his arm around my shoulder and I snuggled into his. This whole ordeal would have been so much worse without him here. I couldn’t even imagine. I’d only had him in my life for a few months and already I couldn’t quite picture how I had gotten along without him by my side, supporting me every step of the way. Although I was a little terrified by how vulnerable that burgeoning dependence made me, I was also a little thrilled by the fact that I was actually letting myself open up that much. It felt like a victory, to be honest. Being open to connection is something I have always struggled with for many reasons, and with Jace, that trust seemed to come easily. I loved the way I felt around him—safe and connected.
I tilted my head back and my eyes reached his. “I don’t know how I’d be getting through this without you, Jace. Thank you so much for being here.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Honestly, I don’t know how much I’ve really done,” he admitted. “I want to help you and be there for you in any way I can, but I kind of feel like all I’ve really done so far is try not to hurt anyone and eat a lot of really good free food.”
Jerry snorted and Jace’s eyes darted towards him.
I put my hand on Jace’s cheek to guide his attention back to me. “Ignore him.” Without even looking over at Jerry, I knew he was opening his mouth to respond, so I quickly interjected, “Shut up, Jerry.”
Leaning closer to Jace, I whispered so that we could have a small sibilance of privacy, “Jace, you have no idea what you’ve done for me just by being here. Your presence centers me. It’s so amazing to have someone here who I know is just concerned about me. I know you’re not here because my mother is paying you or because the lifestyle is dazzling or anything else like that. It’s me you’re concerned with above all else.”
“Well, yeah,” he said, confusion clouding his sexy features, “obviously.”
I shook my head. “If you only knew how not obvious that actually is…”
Before we could continue the conversation, one of the producers came in, clipboard in hand, headset mic firmly in place. She motioned for me to follow her, and I gave Jace a quick kiss before I got up. I started down the hall, following behind the blazer wearing headset woman, not feeling particularly much of anything, other than anxious to get this last appearance over with. That all changed the moment I saw a large logo above the studio door that I was about to enter.
Late Night Date with Byron Marks.
No!
My feet suddenly felt like they’d been dipped in cement. It felt like all of the oxygen was sucked out of my lungs. My ears were ringing.
The AD turned around when she realized I wasn’t beside her and I could see her mouth moving but I had no idea what she was saying, my mind was not in any shape to process anything other than the fact that this was Byron Marks’ show. There was only one other person on this planet that had humiliated me almost as much as my mother had…and I was about to walk into his studio audience.
After not getting any response other than a spot on zombie-impression the AD grabbed my arm and dragged me to my seat. Part of me registered that I was in a room filled with people, but it was on a purely intellectual level. I felt disconnected, like I was on the outside looking in. I tried to make myself snap out of it. If there was anytime I needed to have my wits about me, this was it.
Byron Marks had gotten his reputation by being shocking and provocative. He was known as the Howard Stern of late night. For some reason, even though I always tried my best to avoid him by being invisible on his radar at my mother’s parties, I inevitably ended up being the subject of his shock-jock banter. He used me as easy entertainment for countless social engagements hosted by my mother at our ho
me. It was like he got off on embarrassing me—and my mother loved every second of it.
When the show began, Byron stepped out to raucous applause from the studio audience and started his monologue. The audience members surrounding me laughed and cheered along, and I tried to follow their lead, the last thing I needed was to stick out like a sore thumb if any cameras happened to scan the crowd.
After the first commercial break, when Byron had still not acknowledged my presence, a small glimmer of hope began to blossom in my chest. Maybe he didn’t know I was here. Maybe he would just focus on the accident. My mother walked out to equally if not more applause than Byron had received and I felt myself holding my breath as she launched into her portion of the interview section of the show. Several minutes in, I began breathing normally. It was obvious that Byron was sticking to the script, asking her the preapproved questions. My mother, in turn, was parroting back her pre-rehearsed responses, and the audience was in the palm of her hand. I was doing my part, keeping an attentive and supportive expression on my face.
When I saw the red light above the camera flash indicating it was time for a commercial break I felt all the muscles in my body relax, thinking that her interview would be over soon and I was out of the woods when Byron threw a curveball. A big. Giant. Steaming. Pile of. Curveball.
“Now, when something like this happens, it doesn’t just affect you, am I right?” Byron’s leading question looked like it shocked my mother. No one who didn’t know my mother would have noticed it, but I knew when her left brow raised and her mouth pinched, she was surprised, and not in a good way.
“Oh, of course not,” my mother agreed readily and with the proper solemnity, instantly covering her initial reaction. Only someone who knew her as well as I did could spot the sudden tension in her manner. This question was clearly not on script, and it’s not something she could have related to, anyway. In her world, there’s nothing that affects anyone but her.
One Day His (The Someday Series Book 2) Page 9
