I know as a liberated woman I’m not supposed be swayed by men with fast foreign cars, but have you ever ridden in a BMW Z4 Roadster? Better yet, have you ever ridden down the Pacific Coast Highway on a warm and sultry September evening in a BMW Z4 Roadster?
I didn’t think so. Judge not lest ye be judged, missy.
Chip gives me a quick tour of the area, zipping me through the canyons and magnificent neighborhoods of Beverly Hills. The breeze is blowing back my hair, and Chip’s hand frequently brushes my knee as he shifts. I am feeling sexy and daring. This is what it’s like to fall in love. I must tread cautiously.
At one moment, while we are stopped outside some pink mansion that used to be owned by Fred Astaire, a helpful Beverly Hills cop strolls up and demands ever so politely to see Chip’s license.
“Oh,” he says, giving the license a once-over, “it’s you, Mr. Stanton. I should have recognized the plate.” Then he tips his hat and wishes him a lovely evening.
Chip tells him no problem. He even asks the cop how his wife is doing.
“I guess you live around here,” I say, trying not to pry. (Who am I kidding? Of course I’m trying to pry. All I wish is that I’d shot him up with sodium pentothal before our drive.)
“My mother lives around the corner. She moved there thirty years ago, after the divorce.” Chip starts up the Z4 again and heads back to the main strip. “I spent every summer with my dad in Princeton—that is, when I wasn’t at camp. And during the school year I lived in Beverly Hills.”
“Sounds rough.”
“I suppose I could drop a fortune on a psychiatrist,” he says, taking me seriously. “But I’m not that kind of person.”
“Uh, I was being sarcastic.”
He grins. “Should have known. See, if you’d been from L.A., we would have gone off on psychiatrists for half an hour.”
“I’m from Manville, New Jersey. We don’t have psychiatrists. Bowling alleys. Strip joints. Churches. Those are our therapies.”
“Now, that’s interesting. Strip joints and churches. How does that work?”
“Actually, very well. You stay out at the strip joints until they close at two. Then you go to the private clubs—you know, the Polish Club, for example—until dawn and then, stumbling on your way home you stop off at Holy Ghost for sunrise Mass and ask for forgiveness of all your sins.” I am sounding like a blue-collar hick, aren’t I? Oh well. “Manville is your place for one-stop sinning and repentance.”
“Brilliant. You’ve got to take me to Manville sometime. I’d love to do the whole routine, right down to the Hail Marys at dawn.”
All right. What does that mean? Does that mean Chip and I will have a bicoastal L.A. to Manville romance? Or is that some kind of polite, you must take me to meet your crazy relatives when I visit in next millennium line?
“Listen, Chip. I have to know something,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner you’re David Stanton’s son?”
Chip stops the car in a parking lot by the Pacific Ocean. “Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”
“Because you’re married.” (OK, this has nothing to do with his name, but it was a way for me to ask without appearing too girly.)
“Because I’m married?” He smiles, letting me know full well that I’m not fooling him. “I’m not married.”
Score!
I go “hmph,” as though this amazing revelation is a mildly interesting fun fact, like learning that spiders have fifty-two eyes. “So, then, it goes back to what you said the night I got the Mercedes—that you didn’t want me to treat you differently.”
“Exactly.” He touches me on the nose and says, “Shall we go? Or are you going to sit in the car some more? I know you’re slow to move, but there’s a whole beach to walk and a fantastic sunset to watch.”
Getting out of the car, I am breathless and not just because Chip is single. (It’s tempting to sneak away and call Mom in victory, very tempting. Though, on second thought, she’d probably just claim I was fantasizing again.)
No, I’m breathless because I’m in one of the most beautiful spots in the world.
Behind us is the Pacific Coast Highway, a winding strip of asphalt that hugs the rocky California coast. To the north of us Malibu’s dramatic cliffs fall to the ocean while in front of us looms a white beach and the magnificent Pacific, the reflection of the evening sun glistening on the water. I’ve seen all this in so many movies, it feels familiar. Even so, I’m all tingly realizing I am actually here.
“Wow.”
“You don’t get that in Jersey, a setting sun on an ocean, do you?” Chip reaches out and takes my hand. It’s strong and in control.
I have no idea what’s going on here. Is this a business meeting like he arranged for Belinda? Or is this more? There are so many conflicting signals—letting his knuckles brush my knee, reaching out for my hand, taking me to the beach. Yet, he hasn’t made one move.
Then again, he might just be a friendly California guy showing a girl from out of town the sights every tourist wants to see. Aggh. It’s driving me insane. I have to know.
“I mean, Jersey’s beaches are fine,” I hear myself saying. “I love Jersey, especially the southern part around Stone Harbor down to Cape May. But this. This is . . . awesome.”
“You wanna take a walk up the beach? I don’t know if you’re a celebrity watcher or anything. I guess working for Sass! it’s part of your job description. Anyway, if you stay below the high-tide mark you can do the entire length without Demi Moore’s security guard going ballistic. It’s cool sometimes who you run into. Last time I was out here, Dustin Hoffman ran smack into me.”
As we stroll up the beach, my only regret is that there is not a mist and I am not wearing a dorky white turban like Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. Don’t get me started on Katie and Hubble. Just thinking about them makes me cry. Why oh why couldn’t he love her for who she was? It was the McCarthy era, for heaven’s sake. She had to protest blacklisting.
“You’re lost in thought,” Chip says.
“Just thinking about the McCarthy era.”
“Hey, whaddya know? Me too.” And he bumps against me playfully.
It’s like we’re teenagers. It’s odd how thrilling it is to be awkward, making small talk about the rise of a celebrity culture. As we pick up shells and duck incoming Frisbees, I update him on Deb and Nancy, about how Nancy was sexually harassed at her law firm and how Deb’s husband won’t compliment her on her weight loss. Which means Chip has to compliment me on my weight loss and so I change the subject.
Somehow we get onto Eileen and her wedding to the Jack Russell terrier, a nickname that Chip finds extremely amusing and that I assure him he wouldn’t if he knew in three months Jim Russell was to become his brother-in-law.
All the while I am conscious of Chip, of how much taller he is than I am, how he turns his head to smile, the crookedness of his broken nose or the way he shakes his hair back from his forehead.
Intimacy steels these observations. If Chip and I are together—Lord, what am I saying? I’m like a girl with a crush. Anyway, if—big if—Chip somehow decided that a bicoastal relationship was the way to go, and if we got to know each other verrry well (and I think we all know what that means), I promise that I will try to remember the tension, how embarrassed I was stumbling over a piece of driftwood and then being hit in the head with a volleyball.
How come Barbra Streisand wasn’t hit in the head with a volleyball? That’s what I wanna know.
We head into Gladstone’s and find that there’s been a mix-up. Chip’s reservation for seven thirty was put down for eight thirty. This is bad news because the place is packed, especially the deck, which is where we really want to be, though the sun is setting and I’m getting chilly.
“We could go someplace else,” he suggests.
Overhearing this, the hostess begs him off with offers of a drink for each of us on the house. I think she likes him because she keeps bending over to pick stuff up t
hat I swear is not on the floor.
“Let’s stay,” I say. Besides, I am starved! And watching the huge helpings of crab cakes (4 points), coconut shrimp (16—forget it) and even an iced seafood tower (? points) pass by, I’ll be damned if I’ll be denied. I haven’t eaten all day.
This is a fact that I should have been paying attention to, that I haven’t eaten in, oh, thirty-six hours, when a waiter comes out to the deck to bring us our drinks—the “usual” (whatever that is) for Chip and a humongous margarita for me. It has been sooo long since I’ve had a margarita and even though it is 5 points, possibly more, I take a good long sip.
And nearly swoon.
“You OK?” Chip asks.
“Fine.” I smile, steady myself, and enjoy the waves crashing in the twilight beneath us. “I love the salt air. It’s so refreshing.”
“I thought you’d like this place. That’s why I wanted to bring you here.”
I eye him slyly. “I thought you were going to take Belinda here.”
“Actually, my intention was to take Belinda out to the cleaners.”
Silence. Cripes. He knows about the Belinda brouhaha. Better take another sip for fortification. “How so?” I ask bravely.
“I guess it’s OK if I talk to you about this. From what Lori DiGrigio and my father said, they’ve made you aware of the general problem.”
“Oh, sure.”
“I think their concerns are well founded. I had my staff . . .”
Staff? He has a staff?
“. . . research this and . . . I better explain.” He leans back, looks out to the ocean, and slides his arm along the back of my chair, exactly like he did in the Mercedes. It is warm and strong. Would it be a crime to wrap it around my body?
“In my father’s opinion, a revelation that the ethics columnist violated the basic ethics of, for example, not lying on her résumé, could be a big scandal for Sass!”
“Absolutely.” Oh, God do I need this drink.
Chip takes a modest sip of his own and goes on. “Since Lori hired her, he felt there’d be a conflict of interest if she did the investigation. So he put me in charge.”
This is cause to down half the glass.
“I’m the one who has the unpleasant task of outing her. Maybe even firing her.”
I can see the bottom, and it is not pretty. I cannot get over the odds that I have fallen for the one guy who could single-handedly institute my career ruin. The fates, I decide in my tequila daze, are mocking me. Plus, they are thin. I know it.
“And tonight?” I manage to get out two words.
“Tonight, I was going to . . .” He picks up my glass. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been paying attention. Waiter?”
Like magic a waiter appears at our side. “Another?” he asks.
“I really shouldn’t,” I say.
“Oh, come on,” Chip urges. “I’m driving this time.”
“Well . . . OK,” I agree begrudgingly. “But only if you make it a double.”
Chip raises an eyebrow.
“I’m thirsty.” And you’re cute, I want to add. So cute I could pinch your cheek.
Get a hold of yourself, Nola. It is my inner voice that sounds suspiciously like my mother’s. The same one that advised me against the fifteenth floor of the hotel. You don’t want to blow it by making a fool of yourself.
“I won’t,” I answer.
“Pardon?” Chip is handing me my drink.
“Uhh . . .” I think fast, which is not easy right now. “I won’t tell anyone about Belinda.”
“That’s good because as it turns out, I think she’s ducking me.”
“Really?” I stir my drink and look around, soaking up the love. Yes, I think dreamily, California is where I’m meant to be. It’s so laid-back. So forever young. And isn’t that who I am? Laid-back and forever young? “Forever Young.” Boy that was a bad song.
“How did that go again?” I ask.
“What?” For some silly reason Chip seems confused by this question.
“ ‘Forever Young.’ ”
“By Dylan?”
“No, no, no. Not by Dylan.” Dylan. Sheesh.
“Billie Holiday?”
“What are you, a ‘Forever Young’ expert? I’m talking about the really bad version. And not the Mel Gibson movie, either.” That’s when it hits me. “Rod Stewart.” And just to prove how bad it is, I sing my own rendition of “Forever Young,” artfully incorporating Rod’s scratchy voice and dramatic hand gestures.
When I’m done and the couple next to us moves to another bench, Chip abruptly gets up and announces that we apparently need to eat right away, though I’m perfectly happy drinking margaritas. What’s the big rush? Who needs all those unnecessary food points anyway?
“I’m going to ask the hostess what’s going on,” he says.
“Okey dokey.” I watch him walk off in his strut that I’m pretty sure is unconscious and decide then and there that he’s mine. Oh, yes, he will be mine.
I take another sip of my double margarita—no salt. It seems weaker than what I would expect from a double margarita no salt. I must speak to the waiter, though he seems to have disappeared. Poof!
And then I see her. Oh . . . my . . . God. Harley Jane Kozak one table away. I just knew I’d see a movie star sooner or later. I just knew it.
I love Harley Jane Kozak. I am like her biggest fan. I loved her as Steve Martin’s sister in Parenthood. I loved her when she played a virginal nun in Santa Barbara. Come to think of it I have vague plans of becoming a nun, which means she is my role model. And I need to tell her that right now. Even if she was crushed by the letter “C” from a hotel marquee.
I stand and find that the deck wobbles a bit. It must be built on faulty pilings. I congratulate myself on remembering the word “pilings.”
“Harley Jane Kozak.” I wave to her. “Over here!”
Harley Jane Kozak looks up from her salad. She’s blonder than I remember. Skinnier, too. But she’s dressed down like a real person. Jeans and clogs. “She’s one of us,” Fareeq the limo driver would say if he were here. I’m sure she won’t mind if I ask her for an autograph.
“I’m so, so sorry to bother you,” I say, teetering over to her table. “But I loved you in Guiding Light and Santa Barbara. You are like the best!”
“Thank you.” Harley Jane Kozak has perfect teeth
Boy these people in California are nice. I love California. Have I said that already?
“And I wonder if you could sign your autograph.”
“Sure.” She looks at me expectantly.
Am I supposed to be doing something? Maybe she wants money? But why would Harley Jane Kozak need money?
“Do you have a piece of paper or something?” she prods.
“Oh, right. For the autograph.”
“It would help.”
Hmmm. No paper. I don’t even have a pen. I know! My bra! It’s white just like paper.
“How about this napkin?” she says, grabbing a Gladstone’s napkin as I begin to fiddle with my bra strap.
I remember that I might be a bit tipsy and that I tend to lose things when I’m a bit tipsy. “No . . . that won’t do. I’ll just accidentally blow my nose on it or something. I have an idea.” I attempt to snap my fingers and miss. “How about my arm?” I push up my sleeve and stick out my arm.
“All right.” Harley reaches in her purse, pulls out her pen, and signs my forearm, even putting a little smiling face on it.
“It’s beautiful,” I gush, admiring her pretty signature. “So what are you starring in these days?”
“I’m not doing movies anymore.”
“Oh.” I frown in sympathy as I try to stand straight. It’s really, really hard. “That’s too bad. I was talking to this girl, uh, Gloria, about how hard it is to be an aging actress in Hollywood. I’m really sorry.”
“I’m not sorry. I write books. Mysteries. Dating Dead Men. Dating Is Murder.”
“Hold on, hold on. You write t
oo?”
“In fact I’ve won several awards.”
“Pretty and smart. Listen. Write those titles down for me.” I thrust out my arm again.
“Nola?”
I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn. Chip. And from the look on his face I can tell he’s not here to join in the Harley Jane Kozak lovefest.
“I have a great idea,” he says. “It’s gonna take too long for us to get a table. How about I drive you back to the hotel and we get dinner there?”
“Room service,” I declare, my evil brain cooking up an evil plan of Caesar salad and seduction.
“Yes, room service.”
Excellent. He fell right into my trap.
Chip leads me back to my chair, away from my new best friend Harley Jane Kozak, and hands me my purse, telling me—as though I were a child!—to wait for a few minutes while he says good-bye to Harley Jane Kozak. I’m not exactly sure what he’s saying, but I overhear the words “I’m sorry” and “the margaritas were too strong.”
The margaritas were, like, so not too strong.
When Chip appears again he reveals that he’s brought the car around out front. How he managed to do that I have no idea. He’s a miracle boy.
“You’re a miracle boy!” I declare for everyone to hear.
“Yes,” he says, trying not to smile.
The drive back to the O is a blur. So is the part where Chip puts me to bed and turns out the light and arranges for a cab to pick me up the next morning to take me to the airport.
It’s not until I’m on the plane home the next day, queasy and filled with regrets, occasionally wincing at the LOVE, HARLEY ☺ fading on my arm, that the memories come back to me in bits and pieces.
They’re not exactly clear, but of the following I am certain:
I have told him my weight. My real weight.
I have confessed that I am emerald-green jealous of my superthin sister, Eileen. (Why did I do that? Why would he care?)
The Cinderella Pact Page 20
