Trashed

by Alison Gaylin

  “That’s my manager,” Julie said.

  “Huh?” It took a few seconds for Simone to register that she was referring to the large woman in the red silk dress. “Oh . . . really?” She glanced at the group again, recognized Randi’s associate, Nathaniel, who was now discussing the huge hit his IBM stock had taken at the end of July. “Had to give up the Malibu place, but I love my new pad,” he said. “Needed to downsize anyway.” The rest of the group stood there listening, so sober, so oblivious to the shipping heir, who was now zipping up his pants as Lynzee de la Presa, winner of seven Grammy Awards, stretched out on the grass and closed her eyes.

  Honestly, how long did it take people to get that unshockable?

  Julie said, “Randi’s great. I almost cashed it in last year when I hit the big two-five, but she talked me out of it. Sure enough, she was right.”

  “The big two-five?”

  She laughed a little. “For actresses—well, actresses who are my type, anyway—turning twenty-six is sort of like the clock striking midnight. You hit that age and you’re not Scarlett Johansson yet, you’re screwed. You’d better find yourself a husband fast because you are not an ingénue anymore. Thank God I met Chris Hart.”

  “What?!”

  “Hello? Devil’s Road?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “I never would have gotten that part if it wasn’t for him.”

  Simone examined Julie’s face. “I used to have a huge crush on Chris Hart back in high school.”

  Julie shrugged. “Not when I knew you. It was all about Brad Pitt. Man, how many times did you force me to watch Twelve Monkeys with you?” Her face gave nothing away.

  Lazlo Gant jumped off the raft, making enough of a splash to drench the centerfold, and swam over to the side. “Stick a fork in her, she’s done!” he said as he pulled himself, dripping, out of the pool.

  “You want to meet Chris?” Julie said. “He’s here.”

  Simone gulped down the rest of her drink. “Sure.”

  They walked away from the pool, up a small hill with a gazebo on top. Torches lined their path, as if they were on their way to a tribal ritual of some sort. . . . Human sacrifice, maybe. The phrase “Dirty Dylan” snuck into Simone’s head, and she tried to tamp down that stab of guilt. “Julie,” she said, “are you sure you’re ready to be famous? I mean . . . those paparazzi can be pretty brutal. And the press . . .”

  Julie turned to her, smiled her dazzling smile. “If there’s one thing I know how to handle,” she said, “it’s attention.”

  Chris and Lara were standing under the gazebo— Lara in a flowing white linen dress, Chris in khaki pants and crisp white shirt. As Simone and Julie approached, they were no more than a foot apart, involved in an intense conversation. The way they were looking at each other smacked of déjà vu. Where have I seen that? Simone wondered, for about three seconds before it hit her. She was looking at a mirror image of Chris and Julie in the Beverlido’s alley. It was as if Hart were auditioning the same scene, opposite different actresses. Simone heard Lara say, “I know you so well.”

  Julie tapped Chris on the shoulder. He turned, and instantly the intensity dissipated. “Oh, hi, Dylan.” He couldn’t have sounded calmer.

  “I’d like you to meet my old friend Simone—from Wappingers Falls,” she said. “She had a total crush on you in high school.”

  Simone felt herself blushing. “Thanks, Dylan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Simone,” said Hart, who clearly had no recollection of her from the Devil’s Road party, hours before. He held his hand out to her, but as she shook it, he looked not at her face but at her hand, her wrist. “Pretty bracelet.” He held Simone’s hand up, showed his wife. “Do you like that, Lara?”

  She nodded. “What is it, Loree Rodkin?”

  “Not sure.” Simone coughed. “It was a gift.”

  “From who?” said Chris.

  Julie said, “Nosy,” her tone a little too familiar, too teasing, for its own good.

  Lara said, “Did Dylan tell you what she did to get the part in Devil’s Road?”

  “Uh . . . she, um . . .” Simone looked at Julie. “You said if it wasn’t for Chris, right?”

  “Thanks a lot,” Lara said.

  “Huh?” said Simone.

  Lara sighed. “When Chris decided to produce this film, he showed me the script, and asked if I wanted to play Delilah,” she said. “I didn’t really think it was the right part for me—she’s a little young, for one thing. And she really should be a natural blonde. Dylan and I have the same manager, and I immediately thought of her. Chris didn’t want an unknown, but I marched her right into his office. I had her memorize one of Delilah’s monologues, and without even introducing herself first, she recited it. He was sold.”

  “I was so nervous, I cried in the middle,” said Julie. “Had to catch my breath.”

  Chris smiled. “That’s what sold me.”

  Simone stared at Julie, headlines shooting through her mind: HART-BREAKER: DYLAN WAS LARA’S BEST PAL! LARA’S TRAGIC MISTAKE: “I TRUSTED DIRTY DYLAN!”

  Hard to believe that for six months in high school Simone had known Julie so well that she could predict what she was going to say before she said it. They told each other their most secret daydreams and their darkest fears and their most embarrassing crushes. They spent all day in school together and talked for hours on the phone every night. They found the exact same things hilariously funny—Chris Rock, the stateroom scene in Night at the Opera, the way their math teacher Mr. Hansen’s butt always shook when he wrote on the chalkboard.

  When I’m a famous actress, Julie once asked her, will you write my life story?

  Of course! Who knows you better than I do?

  But now, as Simone watched her old friend Julie talking so calmly to the new friend she’d betrayed, Simone wondered if she had ever known Julie Curtis at all.

  By three in the morning, a lot of the more exhibitionistic guests had either left or passed out on the grass, and the party became smaller, more low-key. Chris and Lara went home, as did Caputo, Randi DuMonde, and most of the others whose jobs required them to wake up in the morning. Not Simone, though. After three more rum and Cokes, she was feeling nothing but love for her high school friend. Even if she was screwing the husband of the woman responsible for her big break, Julie was still a hell of a lot of fun.

  At this moment, the two of them were sitting on the edge of Blake Moss’s pool, dangling their feet in the water, Julie leveling Simone with the celebrity gossip she knew.

  “But that doesn’t even make sense,” Simone was saying now. “There isn’t enough room in a bathroom stall for her to be doing that with one guy, let alone a whole boy band.”

  “Yoga,” Julie said.

  Simone burst out laughing.

  Julie said, “I’m serious,” but she started laughing too, and Simone said, “How do you know all this stuff?” and Julie said, “You’d be surprised how much I know.” And then, just like that, the laughter died in her throat.

  Simone looked at Julie’s profile as she gazed at the water, her pale blue eyes reflecting the pool lights. Julie inhaled sharply, then stopped, as if she was going to say something but thought better of it.

  Simone thought, She’s going to confess, and she almost told her, Don’t do it. Don’t tell me, because then I’ll have to confess too. I’ll have to tell you my real job, and that’s gonna put such a damper on this evening. . . .

  Julie said, “I know why Nia Lawson killed herself.”

  Simone stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t because of what happened with her and that congressman. I mean, it’s sad and all, but that was doomed from the start, and she probably knew it.”

  “Are you talking about all the bad press she got?”

  Julie shook her head. “It was what happened after the press died down. How everyone . . . just stopped caring.”

  Simone recalled what Nigel had said. She died a month ago, and
she couldn’t even move issues then. “But why now? She’d been over for years.”

  “Randi had just met with Nia Lawson, a few weeks before she did it. Randi was . . . she was pretty convinced she could find work for Nia, maybe she could make a comeback. And then . . .” Julie pulled her feet out of the water and hugged her knees to her chest in a way that made her look very small, like a child. “I think Randi saying that stuff to Nia brought everything back. I think she killed herself because she knew the comeback could never happen.” She took a breath and looked at Simone. She could tell Julie wasn’t talking about Nia Lawson anymore. “I don’t think she ever got over being ignored.”

  “Julie,” she said, “you don’t ever have to worry about being ignored.”

  “I hope not. Like I said, I can handle attention. But the lack of it . . . that’s what scares me.”

  Like an answer, a deep voice cried out, “It’s not fucking fair!”

  Julie and Simone turned around and saw Blake Moss apparently trying to calm down a man in baggy orange shorts, who was pounding his fist into the thick trunk of a magnolia tree. “Take it easy, man. Calm down,” Moss was saying.

  “Don’t you fucking tell me to take it easy!” The man’s voice was choked, agonized. Simone and Julie stood up, moved a few steps closer, and the man slipped out of the shadows. Keith Furlong.

  How long had he been here?

  His face was red and contorted, a tear glistening on his cheek. “You have no idea what I’m going through!” he howled. “Get away from me. You have no fucking idea!” Then he took off, rushing past the women, the smell of his sweat mingled with heavy cologne, lingering in the air as he headed off toward the front of the house. “You have no idea how much this hurts!”

  Blake Moss stood beside Julie and Simone, all three of them listening to the screech of Furlong’s tires. Emerald’s death. It has finally sunk in.

  Blake said, “Now there is a dude who needs to get a grip on his emotions.”

  Simone turned to him. “Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?”

  “Unfair?”

  “Well, yeah. He just lost someone he loved very much.”

  Moss turned to Julie. “Shit, she’s adorable.”

  “Yeah, she’s always been like that.”

  Simone said, “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not freaking out over Emerald, angel. He’s mad because he lost the Devil’s Road premiere party.” Moss rolled his eyes. “Your friend Destiny talked to one of the tabs about his private life. That and the whole Emerald thing . . . the studio doesn’t want the picture to be associated with that.”

  Simone said, “That . . . that’s why he was acting like that? That’s why he was punching the tree?”

  “Well, it is his livelihood.” He gave Simone a long, steady look. “Good thing Dessy never showed,” he said. “I’ve a feeling she would have gotten it a lot worse than my tree.”

  Destiny tried very hard not to make noise. She never put her TV on, barely used the water faucets, and padded around her room very softly, like a cat. Her finger throbbed worse than ever, but she never cried, never made a sound. What if he was in the hallway, listening? He could be. He could be anywhere.

  Just two days ago, Destiny had dreamed of being famous. She had pictured her name in headlines, people recognizing her in the street, asking for her autograph. Now all she wanted was to disappear.

  Terror was with her always now—a constant, draining terror, like she was treading water in the middle of the ocean. Every so often, she’d think, Sooner or later, the shark will get you. . . . She hated that thought.

  She never opened her window shade, but sometimes she peered around it, just so she could see what time of day it was. She did that now.

  Outside it was dark—not that it made any difference. But it was as good a time to sleep as any. Destiny kept her clothes on. She switched off the lights. Then, carefully, she got in bed and eased onto her side. She rested her hand against her hip, felt the pulse beating into that enormous black finger. She didn’t mind it so much now, the finger. It reminded her she was alive. She felt the rough pillow pressing into her cheek. There were no sheets here, no bedding at all. It made her own little house seem like a luxury condo, the type of place where one of Them would live. Where he would live.

  She closed her eyes and let the finger throb and hated her house, herself, her life. Most of all, she hated him. She wanted to cry. Think good thoughts, think good thoughts. . . . She brought Mom to mind, that day at Disneyland. She didn’t care so much about princesses anymore, didn’t care about Snow White or Fantasyland.

  So instead, Destiny remembered something from later in the day. . . .

  The sun is setting and they are on the riverboat ride, watching mechanical Indians dancing around a fire.

  Destiny—Sara—looks at them for a while, but she finds the fake Indians boring. Their movements are so small, so predictable. It would be much more interesting if they just had real people pretending to be Indians.

  Sara turns away from the robots and looks straight ahead, at the water reflecting the pink and orange sky. This makes her gasp. It is beautiful. She imagines herself spinning around in a dress of those colors. “They make prettier sunsets here,” she says. And Mom puts her arm around Sara and laughs, unaware of the tumor beginning to form in her brain. Mom holds Sara close and kisses her cheek, and says, “You are my most special girl.” Sara says nothing, just smells Mom’s shampoo, which she knows for a fact is what love smells like.

  Moments later—or was it hours?—Destiny was back in her bed. Her mom stood over her, stroking her hair. Stop treading water, Sara. Come with me.

  I want to, Mommy, but I’m scared.

  Destiny heard her own voice saying the words and woke up. Talking in my sleep. Her eyelids drifted open, and it took several seconds for her gaze to focus. There was something on the pillow, next to her face. A photograph. She picked it up.

  It was the picture her mother had taken. Sara and Snow White. I must still be dreaming. I left that in the kitchen, and then it was gone. . . . But how could she be dreaming when she could feel it between her fingertips? How could she see the picture so clearly when . . .

  The lights were on.

  Destiny’s mind screamed, Who turned on the lights? And from behind her came the answer . . . a latex-covered hand sliding over her mouth. “Hello, Destiny,” said his voice, so calm, so certain. “Time to pick up where we left off.”

  Destiny closed her eyes tight, tears leaking out the corners. Her body convulsed and she felt her bladder release, hot liquid pouring down her legs. Her throat welled up with a thick, choking sob, because she didn’t want it to be true, didn’t want this to be happening, but it was. It was real.

  The shark had come.

  THIRTEEN

  Simone walked into the office at twenty minutes after ten with a raging rum and Coke hangover and Nigel rushing out into reception to greet her as if she were the queen. “If it isn’t the best insider we’ve ever known!”

  Simone said, “It was more Elliot than me.”

  “Maybe,” said Carl. “But Elliot didn’t go to high school with Dirty Dylan!”

  Simone stared at him. “How did you know?”

  “Kath told me,” Nigel said. “Wait. You weren’t planning on keeping that from all of us, were you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Simone made it to the reporters’ room in three angry strides.

  As she stormed in, she heard Matthew saying, “So, was she the school slut or what?” Simone ignored him, ignored Elliot, and headed straight for Kathy’s desk.

  Kathy was pecking away at a sidebar: IS DIRTY DYLAN PREGNANT? She continued typing, maddeningly cool.

  Simone took a breath, in and out. “Okay, first thing. How did you find out?”

  “IMDb,” Kathy replied. “I’d noticed you talking to Dylan at the party, but you never told me about it. And then you suddenly got that attack of the guilts, didn’t want
to celebrate. I remembered you mentioning your high school friend, and sure enough, the Internet Movie Database says Dylan Leeds was née Julie Curtis.”

  Simone gritted her teeth. “Okay, fine.”

  Kathy kept typing. “IMDb rocks. I can’t believe we used to have to use clip files. You don’t know how lucky you have it. Reporting was a bitch before the Internet.”

  “Kathy,” Simone said, as calmly as she could manage, “why did you tell?”

  Kathy stopped for a moment, gazed up at her. “You can’t keep stuff like that from Nigel, honey,” she said. “Number one, he’ll find out and get pissed. Number two, it’s not fair to us. This story is the best break we’ve had in years. It could save our jobs—our homes, our health insurance. Hell, Matthew’s planning on getting married over Christmas. This is his future you’re talking about.”

  “Matthew is getting married?”

  “If you have an inside connection to that story, you need to be open about it.” She gave Simone a pointed look. “It’s the ethical thing to do.”

  “But . . . she’s my friend.”

  “Your friend is breaking up Hollywood’s happiest marriage. It’s going to be a cover story for us for weeks, months maybe. So you’re either going to wind up sitting around the office making up stories about what a whore your friend is or you can hang out with her as an insider and give us something more balanced.” She raised an eyebrow. “Something closer to the truth.”

  Simone moved away from Kathy’s desk.

  “She’s right, you know,” said Matthew.

  Simone said, “No. She’s just damn good.”

  “You’re the good one.” He winked at Simone, and predictably she blushed.

  “You’re getting married?”

  Matthew shot a look at Kathy. “Yep, Ms. Kinney is not the best person to trust with a secret, is she?”

  “Who’s the lucky—”

  “You’ll get an invite, don’t worry,” he said. “But right now, I’d rather show you exactly how good you are.”