The Cinderella Pact

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  This is all true. From what Charlotte explained to me in a subsequent brief, chaotic phone call from the Hamptons where she is visiting one of her more famous authors over the holiday, Sweet Dream is putting me up in L.A. supposedly as a courtship maneuver. In reality, they’re checking me out, to see if I could market a movie on my so-called fake life. If they are impressed during the twenty-minute meeting on Monday morning, there’s a deal. If not, it’s off.

  “What they’re looking for is a woman who can appear on the Today show, tell her story about fooling four million Sass! magazine readers into believing she’s Belinda Apple, and yet be compassionate enough, endearing enough, so that people will want to see her story on the big screen,” Charlotte said.

  “This woman . . . you mean me, right?”

  “Yes, Nola.”

  “Will I have to lose weight?”

  “Well, television does add fifteen pounds.”

  I do the math. My hard work all summer essentially ruined by one measly camera.

  After a microwaved lunch of first-class vegetable lasagna (6 to 9 points, depending, but as the other choice was baked halibut in a white sauce, I took the risk) and fruit salad (3 points, though I didn’t eat the mushy pineapple) served on real white linen, I lower my first-class window shade and stretch out, pulling the soft blanket tightly under my chin, imagining how I will wow Sweet Dream Productions.

  I catnap and fantasize about me sitting knee to knee with Mr. Bigshot of Sweet Dream in his spectacular L.A. digs. He is hanging on every word. He’s calling up writers in town, he’s waving in interns to hear my tale.

  You pretended to be thin and British when all along you were fat and rejected? I LOVE it, I LOVE it, I LOVE it.

  And then Brad Pitt comes in, does a double-take upon seeing me, falls on one knee, and asks me where I’ve been all his life.

  Don’t laugh. It’s Hollywood. Anything can happen.

  There is a bump of turbulence that sends us downward for a couple hundred feet and causes me to nearly wet my pants. I am now fully awake for, like, the rest of my life. I don’t think of uncurling my toes until the seat belt sign goes off and the woman in brown heads to the bathroom. She is not Sandra Bullock after all. Just another California girl with a pair of inconceivably bony hips to remind me that I am a fool for ever daring to hope.

  Eileen’s right. I’ll be a spinster forever.

  Which is when, with a shot of panic worse than the turbulence, I suddenly remember my sister’s engagement party that everyone predicted I’d miss because I’m a hulking jealous thing. They have no idea that I’m 36,000 feet in the air on my way to L.A. to meet slick movie producers. They are livid that I am not in my parents’ backyard writing down what gifts my sister’s receiving and from whom, even though I’m not her maid of honor.

  Now I will have to become a nun. Immediately. A cloistered nun, because that will be the only way to get back in my family’s good graces again.

  A man in a black suit in baggage claim at LAX is holding out a sign that says APPLE. I pass it twice before realizing he is not begging for food, that he is waiting to take me in his Lincoln Town Car to the O. Apparently the O is so chic it can’t be bothered with the H, T, E, and L that other, lesser accommodations seem to require.

  As soon as I climb into the car, I pull out my cell and dial home. Mom answers, sounding tired—and slightly put out.

  “Oh, Nola. I’m so disappointed. You said you’d come.” There is the sound of running water in the background and the clatter of dishes. That’s right. It’s three hours later there and the party must be over.

  “I really meant to come. I have a gift and everything. It’s just that I got called away on business.”

  “You didn’t say anything about that yesterday.”

  “It’s, uh, very last-minute.”

  “It’s Labor Day weekend. Everything’s closed tomorrow. Who has business meetings on a bank holiday?”

  “People in L.A.”

  “Where?”

  “Los Angeles.” It’s hard to keep my excitement in check. “I took a flight from Newark late this morning and I just landed. I’m here, Mom, really, really here. People are Rollerblading. It’s crowded as all get-out, and I’m in a traffic jam. I can see the Hollywood sign, even.”

  “That imagination of yours. Even as a little girl you took it too far, though then it was sweet because you were a princess in the land of make believe, riding a unicorn. Now you’re in Los Angeles stuck in traffic. Really, Nola, perhaps it’s time for you to get some professional help.”

  I search for some way to prove to her that I’m really on the West Coast and start by declaring landmarks as we crawl into the city. The 405. The Hollywood Hills. Finally I say, “If you don’t believe me, call the O in Beverly Hills.”

  “What do you mean ‘call the O’?”

  “It’s a swanky hotel that goes by one letter, like, um, Prince.”

  “Prince? What prince?”

  My driver’s shoulders are heaving in laughter. “Just call, Mom. Then you’ll see.” I give her the number and hang up.

  Two minutes later my cell phone rings. Mom again. “Your father and I agree you should talk to Father Mike. At the very least.”

  “Didn’t you call the O?”

  “I did, and they’ve never heard of you, Nola.”

  Of course they haven’t heard of me because my reservation is under Belinda Apple. Dammit. There’s nothing I can do now.

  “Really. Jealousy is a deadly vice that destroys the soul, Nola.”

  “I am not jealous of Eileen.”

  “Just know that your father and I still love you, even if we don’t love what you do. Cherish the sinner, condemn the sin, that’s our philosophy.”

  I hang up, resigned to the fact that no matter what I do, I am in a hole out of which no human can dig.

  Beverly Hills looks exactly like it does in the movies, only somehow smaller. The homes are mini-mansions surrounded by lush ferns, red bougainvillea, and spiky palms. Rodeo Drive is pristine and white and I worry that even window shopping as we drive by will ring up a charge on my Visa bill.

  A group of women in white capri pants and sleeveless tops stroll past us down Santa Monica Boulevard, their arms laden with yellow and white shopping bags. Their hair is blond without being brassy. Their tans are tan without appearing burnt or sprayed on. They are all honey and grace and put my Malibu Barbie to shame.

  I have definite doubts that we are the same species, me and them.

  “You are from where?” asks my driver, Fareeq, who hails from Iran, but don’t worry—he assures me several times—he’s not a terrorist.

  “New Jersey.”

  “Ahh.” He nods knowingly. “Springsteen.”

  “Yes,” I say. “He and I hang out often. Old buddies, the Boss and me.”

  “Really?” Fareeq raises his eyebrows in the rearview.

  “No. It’s a joke.”

  For which I will pay dearly, as Mr. Fareeq, who apparently has hung out with Springsteen, tells me in great detail what Bruce Springsteen is like. (“He’s real people, you know? Like you and me.”)

  Meanwhile, I’m being eaten away by this question: Do I tip him? I try, but he acts insulted. He leaves my bags by the receptionist, who appear piqued that I have inconvenienced them by arriving at their counter. Clearly I am not L.A. Grade-A.

  They do not look like any hotel receptionists I’ve ever seen. There are no gold vests or bow ties. Instead, they wear black T-shirts, gray suit coats, and headsets (headsets?). Then I get it. These are professional receptionists. Oh, and aspiring actors.

  “I have two faxes,” says ’Enri, who has lost his H much like his hotel. “They came in for you about an hour ago.”

  I take the faxes, along with my unidentifiable room card and my luggage, across the Art Deco lobby to ride the elevator to floor 15 where my room is. I ignore my mother’s oft repeated warning never to stay in a hotel room higher than the seventh floor because fire de
partment ladders can only reach the seventh floor. I decide it is time to live life dangerously—eight floors above the safety zone.

  My room is huge and decorated in shades of cream and brown with touches of green. I suspect feng shui. The king-size bed is on a dais and there are all sorts of interesting and expensive organic products made out of green tea in the bathroom. Flinging back the curtains, I find a sliding-glass door to a small patio looking out over L.A., where a faint line of brownish haze hangs over the city like an umbrella of smog.

  It’s a shame. Just think of what this part of the world with its white, expansive beaches and lush growth looked like when only Native Americans walked it, their eyes on the stars in the sky instead of those in concrete.

  It is Sunday at five, though it feels more like eight by my Eastern Daylight Saving time, and after all the excitement that resulted in a very restless sleep last night, I’m “coming down.” I can’t remember when I’ve felt so utterly exhausted.

  Collapsing on the bed, I sink into the mattress, kick off my shoes, and quickly scan the faxed memo.

  To: Belinda Apple

  From: David Stanton, Stanton Media Inc.

  Re: Meeting

  Dear Ms. Apple:

  Welcome to LA! Hope your stay here is going well and that you’ll be able to see some of the sights.

  My secretary, Charlaine, has set up a preliminary meeting at the O for four p.m. If that doesn’t work for you, please call my office and she will rearrange. As I think you know by now, the matter we have to discuss is very serious as well as very personal. It can’t be put off.

  Looking forward to meeting you,

  Dave

  This memo makes absolutely no sense and the words are blurry. I must be more tired than I thought. David Stanton? Here in Los Angeles? What would he be doing here? He’s supposed to be in London, scooting around the Ritz in his wheelchair. And how could he meet me tomorrow afternoon when . . . Oh, I’m too beat to analyze it.

  I’ll think about it later. Right after I take this quick toes-up.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “She’s the most absurd person I’ve ever met. ASAP, PPI. Puhleeze.”

  Marge Tuttweiller, Charlotte’s California film agent, is monstrously tall in a beige pantsuit, her black hair yanked back tightly and twisted into a severe bun. When I enter the lobby of the O, I find she is standing with her hands clasped behind her back, talking loudly to no one.

  “Really? She went downtown on Kraunbaum. Disssgusting.”

  I check behind me. Is Marge speaking to someone over my shoulder? No. OK . . . so it’s true what they say about everyone in California being a bit flaky. Riding in the elevator I was serenaded by a guy with a huge afro reciting line for line the sales pitch from Glengarry Glen Ross.

  Before that I ran into a would-be starlet named Gloria in tears, crawling past my door on her hands and knees. I guessed it was some drug-related hysteria until she explained losing her earring and now she risked being late for the audition for a spinoff of a Friends spinoff that would single-handedly save her career, or rather, jump-start it. Luckily, I found the pearl-and-diamond number by her room door. Gloria said she must have lost it when the man she brought back from the club last night “bit it off.”

  Right.

  “Belinda Apple?” Marge shouts, pointing at me. “Love the dress.”

  Does she really love the dress? Or is that a kind of L.A. code, untranslatable by dumpy East Coasters?

  Perhaps this flowing green-and-blue Indian silk number I’m wearing was a bad choice, not sleek enough for a meeting with L.A. film producers. I bought it last year in a boutique in the Village, partially because the tag said it fell into the “normal size” range and I was so thrilled I didn’t even read the price tag (huge) before surrendering my credit cards. It was tight then and is delightfully looser now. Almost hangs off my body.

  “Ta, ta. You bet.” Marge reaches her hand into her pocket and says, “We better hurry. We’re late.”

  Only when she turns and I see the small earpiece do I understand that Marge has been talking on her hands-free. She is not, in fact, another California nut.

  “I don’t know how much Charlotte filled you in,” Marge says, taking her Jaguar on a suicidal left turn onto Sunset Boulevard.

  “Not much. It was a two-minute phone call.” I involuntarily grip the dashboard as she drifts seemingly sideways through traffic.

  “Figures. Charlotte doesn’t know boo about the film industry. Listen, you just let me do most of the talking. When they ask for your opinion, try to agree with whatever they say. Whatever you say is meaningless to their ears anyway. Afterward you can tell me what you want or what you didn’t like at the meeting and I’ll go to the mat for you. OK, Belinda?”

  “Nola. There’s no such person as Belinda.”

  Marge frowns and yanks the wheel to the right. “Well, in Sweet Dream’s minds you are Belinda so let’s pretend, just for today. This is L.A., after all, the land of make-believe.”

  The place I’ve been looking for since childhood—at last.

  Sweet Dream’s offices are on the fifth floor of a deserted office building in West L.A. Marge explains that everyone is out for the Labor Day holiday and that Bill Benjamin, the producer I’ll be meeting, and the “writer attached,” Charles, cut their long weekend short to meet with me because they’re heading to Vancouver for a month.

  Marge tells me they’re shooting a movie for Lifetime called Intimate Stranger, about a harried housewife who runs away with a man she just met at the checkout counter of Wal-Mart, though she returns when her husband tracks her down to tell her their baby is in Intensive Care after falling into a vat of Mr. Clean while chasing a pretty yellow butterfly.

  I am beginning to feel uneasy. Something about producers with two first names. And then there’s the Intimate Stranger thing. Wal-Mart. Baby at the bottom of a vat of Mr. Clean. Pretty yellow butterfly. How, exactly, will they be treating the story of an overweight editor who poses as an erudite British ethics columnist?

  Bill Benjamin, aka Mr. Bigshot himself, greets us at Sweet Dream’s glass double doors. He is an older man, balding with gray hair, yet dressed like a twentysomething in designer jeans, expensive Italian loafers, and a T-shirt that evokes the color of doggy doo. I’ve seen a lot of doggy doo colors here in L.A. Perhaps doggy doo is all the rage. I will have to go back and spread the word in Princeton.

  “Belinda?” He extends his hand and makes superb eye contact.

  “Actually . . .”

  “That’s right.” Marge pushes me inside his office, which is done up in various colors of beige, accented by bright orange pillows on his couch, cobalt-blue glass bottles on his bar, and a green fern by his window.

  I am directed to a flimsy-looking folding chair, the kind I usually try to avoid after writing the Belinda column that started the Cinderella Pact. As I’ve said before, lies can turn into reality, if you believe them hard enough.

  “Love the dress!” he exclaims.

  OK . . . what is this dress business about?

  Charles the writer, he informs us, is running late. He’s catching some waves—the knucklehead surfing addict—and he’s on his way. He called from his cell minutes ago.

  “So, Belinda,” Mr. Bigshot asks, “how was the flight? Is the hotel OK?”

  “Great,” I say, the chair creaking as I shift weight. “And thank you for putting me up. It was so nice of you to go through all that expense—”

  “No problem.”

  OK, so that’s what you’d expect Mr. Bigshot to say. But Mr. Bigshot didn’t say “no problem.” It was Marge who, having not spoken for .23 seconds, is chomping at the bit to get us started.

  “Belinda’s story is unique and fantastic. And I think you know me well enough by now, Bill, to know that I am no-bull.”

  “Absolutely.” Mr. Bigshot folds his arms and crosses his legs, which as a professional liar, I can assure you is body language for I loathe and distrust you, Marg
e.

  “So let’s not waste your time or my time. Let’s grab some of our holiday and just finish this deal.”

  “Sure, sure.” Mr. Bigshot puts a finger to his lip. “Just one thing, Marge. I’m a bit concerned about the whole English angle. You know how we are about foreigners these days. To have a British advice columnist . . . it’s not American enough.”

  American enough? What’s he talking about? I stare at Marge mutely, as I’ve been instructed. But instead of Marge defending me, she says, “I couldn’t agree more. Same thing crossed my mind. Minor point.”

  “Minor point.” Mr. Bigshot agrees. “So let’s say we make her American. Midwestern or . . . I know, Southern. You know, something like Belinda Apple grew up poor in Mississippi, the daughter of a white, uh, merchant’s daughter and black field hand.”

  Black field hand! I blink several times trying to Morse Code to Marge that This . . . Is . . . Baloney.

  “I love it!” Marge exclaims. “And it satisfies the networks’ need to air more movies about people of color.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t take that into consideration.”

  They cannot be for real. I try to keep in mind what Marge said, that this can all be changed later, and just smile and nod.

  “And then there’s the whole tabloid magazine thing. I’m not sure that’s going to grab enough people. I’m thinking more visual . . . like Belinda becomes a television personality.”

  But . . . but that makes no sense. How could Belinda be on TV when she’s supposed to be a secret identity? They’re going to ruin everything.

  Desperate, I casually slide my foot over to Marge’s and tap her toe.

  Marge casually moves her leopard-print Manolos (I’m pretty sure they’re Manolos), blatantly ignoring me. “And then, her father sees her on TV.”