by Carol Snow
“. . . so much for us all to learn . . .”
“. . . world-famous for his work in animal voice-overs . . .”
I followed Jay into the second-to-last row. Once I settled onto the comfy seat, I finally took off my sunglasses.
Brady leaned forward to see my face. “Much better.”
“Thanks,” I mouthed.
We locked eyes. I forgot to breathe. Brady dropped his gaze and smiled shyly.
He plucked at his trousers. “Are the leather pants too S-and-M?”
Fighting a giggle, I shook my head.
“Seriously?”
“Yes!” I whispered. “I like them.”
He sighed. “I just hired a stylist and she told me to wear them. And, you know, it’s embarrassing enough that I’ve even got a stylist, and now she’s got me looking all Village People. She said it’ll make people notice me, and I’m all—that may not be a good thing.” He ran a hand over the leather. “It’s crazy soft, though, I’ve gotta admit. Feel it.”
Did he just say—? Fingers trembling, I reached over and stroked a spot just above his knee as dirty, dirty thoughts swam through my mind.
In the aisle, the film’s director, producer, and voice-over cast filed in to the theater. Everyone started to clap, which unfortunately meant I had to take my hand off Brady’s leg. A couple of people tried to get a standing ovation going, but it didn’t take.
The theater had a shallow stage with a microphone on one side. Once the cast had settled into the first few rows, a skinny guy with salt-and-pepper hair bounded up the stairs and stood in front of the enormous blank screen. He wore khakis, a pale blue polo shirt and white sneakers. Anyone who dared wear such boring clothes had to be very, very important.
The applause started up again, along with the standing-ovation attempt, but it still didn’t take.
The thin man held up both hands. The applause stopped almost immediately, and the crowd craned forward.
“Executive producer,” Jay murmured in my ear. I’d almost forgotten he was there.
Hands in pockets, the man spoke into the microphone. “Five years ago, someone came to me with a screenplay and said, ‘This is a movie that has to be made. And you’re the man who has to make it.’ ”
He paused so we could all take that in.
“And so I asked him, ‘What’s it about? The civil rights movement? War? Genocide?’ And he said ‘no.’ ”
Here he paused even longer, which seemed kind of silly since we all knew what he was about to say.
“And that’s when he told me it was a movie about sheep.” He grinned.
Obediently, people in the audience threw back their heads and laughed. A few clapped.
His face grew serious, impassioned. “And on the surface, yes—Baaad Boys is a movie about sheep. And if you ask young children why they liked it, they will say it’s because it’s so funny, or they like the music, or they like animals. But what they learn from this movie—what we all learn from this movie—is that it is okay to be different.”
Brady leaned so close to my ear, I could feel his body heat. “Friend of mine saw this movie at a private screening last week.”
“Any good?”
“He said it was worse than Air Bud.”
Ben actually liked Air Bud, but I didn’t say that. It didn’t seem like the right time or place to tell Brady that I had a child.
Finally the producer got off the stage and the movie began. It was about a herd of well-groomed sheep that follows the sheepherder without question until they all stumble across a blue sheep living in a cave. Separated from its parents at birth as the result of a mountain lion attack, the blue sheep was raised by birds who have since flown away. No word on why the sheep turned blue.
The blue sheep joins the herd. Before you know it, the other sheep start using berries to dye their fleece. No one wants to be shorn. One sheep (now purple) sprouts dreadlocks. The sheepherder turns mean.
Brady’s friend was right: it was much worse than Air Bud. But I didn’t care because I was sitting next to Brady Ellis, who would occasionally lean over, lightly touch my bare arm, and whisper in my ear: “Jay should give you hazard pay for this.” Or, “Check it out—the kid three rows in front of us is playing with his Nintendo.”
“That’s baaaad,” I whispered.
“Very baaaad.”
“Shh!” Jay said in my other ear.
Brady fought a smile. “Baaad girl,” he mouthed.
Less than an hour into the movie, as the early exit traffic increased, Jay pointed his thumb toward the door. I slipped my sunglasses back on and groped my way toward daylight.
In the lobby, Jay called the driver, and Brady lingered. He reached out like he was going to take my hand. Instead, he brushed the backs of my fingers with the backs of his. A current ran up my arm and through my body, all the way to my toes.
He smiled shyly and then dropped his eyes to the ground. “I’d like to see you again.”
“You would?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?” He touched my cheek. I was grateful for my big sunglasses, which allowed me to gawk at him with undisguised lust.
“Well, let’s see. How about—because you’re a big star and I’m just this random girl.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thought of myself as a girl rather than a woman. It was kind of nice.
He slipped his hands in the front pockets of his soft, soft pants. “Not much of a star. I’m totally B list.”
“Well, you’re going to be a huge success,” I said. “I can tell. So, um—yes. I’d love to see you again. But . . . do you mean as myself or as Haley?”
He laughed. “That’s a funny question. I want you to be yourself. I don’t care who you look like. You can dress up like Cinderella for all I care.”
“I don’t know about Cinderella. I’ve always been more partial to Snow White.”
He grinned. “If you’re Snow White, I’ll be Happy.”
I fake-winced and then started to giggle. “That was bad.”
He pulled out his cell phone. “Can I have your number?”
Jay came over just as Brady finished inputting all of my information. “The driver’s bringing the car around front.”
Brady held my eyes. “Later, Ver—I mean Haley.” His smile let me know the slip had been intentional.
I expected Jay to chide him, but he was already involved in another phone call.
Later, in the limo, I pulled out a tiny mirror to check my makeup and fuss with my hair. “That went well.”
Jay raised one eyebrow.
“Anytime you want me to do something like this . . .” I said. “It doesn’t have to be a film premiere. Brady and I could go to the beach, maybe, or just out to dinner.”
“This isn’t a dating service,” he said, offending me on more levels than I knew I possessed.
I pulled off the cowboy hat and fluffed my pale hair. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
Chapter Twenty
Friday morning, all alone, I made a big pot of coffee and settled myself in front of the computer, where I did an images search on “Haley Rush.” Sure enough, there I was in my cowboy hat and sunglasses, standing on the red carpet, hand on hip, posing for photographers. It was hard to believe that was me. I looked so happy, so confident. I looked like a movie star. I looked like someone Brady Ellis might want to date.
Would he really call?
My photo showed up on a celebrity gossip site called Get This! The caption was uninspired: “Haley Rush attending the Baaad Boys premiere in Brentwood.” Underneath, there were viewer comments—lots of them! How cool was that?
What is up with the cowboy hat and boots? She looks like she is going trick-or-treating.
Well! That was rude. But it’s not like I picked out the clothes. Simone should feel bad, not me.
Those sunglasses look stupid. Way to big. Her eyes were probally blood shot, she was probally trying to hide them.
My eyes were not bloodshot, than
k you very much! They are just a brighter, prettier blue than Haley’s. So there!
She has sellulight on her thighs. Gross.
I have . . . what ? Ohmigod! Cellulite? I do not! It’s the lighting! It’s the angle! It’s . . . okay, maybe that dress is a little too short to be flattering, but—
She looks like she is preggnent.
I am not preggnent! Or pregnant! How could these people be so mean?
I closed out the site, shut my eyes, and tried to calm my breathing. Once I was back to normal, I clicked right back to the picture and read every comment. A couple of people chided the meanest commentators to cut me some slack, but most took delight in trashing my hair, my hat, my body—even my pretty pink cowboy boots.
I had pored over Haley’s photos before, but I had never read the comments. Now I went back to the image search and clicked on some of the more familiar shots.
People were kind at the beginning of Haley’s rising popularity, but they had grown increasingly cruel. Her eyes were too close together, her fashion sense was off, her posture was bad. They called Pookie, the fuzzy pink backpack, “childish,” “stupid,” “retarded,” “lame,” and “like something she ripped off from one of the tone-deaf kids who thought she was a good singer.”
Haley had encouraged me to take Pookie on my lunch date (oops—platonic encounter) with Brady. She knew there would be pictures. Was she thumbing her nose at the photographers? At the public? Or at me?
When my phone rang Sunday morning, I hoped it was Brady. Three days had passed without a word. But no: it was just Jay. “Do you have any idea where Haley might have gone?”
“She’s missing?”
“Rodrigo popped out to get her some Pinkberry last night,” Jay told me, his voice tense. “And when he came back she was gone.”
“What about her car?”
“She took the truck.”
Haley, the truck, and Mulholland Drive were a frightening combination. But surely someone would have noticed if a bright yellow truck had driven off the edge.
“Have you called the police?”
“No. I’m sure she’s fine. And like you pointed out, she’s an adult. She can do what she wants.” He was a lousy actor. “Just—call me if you hear anything.”
I refused to worry about Haley.
I closed out the computer and got down to the business of a normal life, vacuuming and dusting, cleaning the shower and scrubbing the toilet (which was getting pretty disgusting). And then I headed to my favorite Target, the one in Amerige Heights.
I had just finished loading my cereal and was headed for women’s clothing when I ran into Nina.
“Hey!” I wanted to give her a big hug, sneak off to Starbucks, and tell her all of my secrets. But I couldn’t, of course.
“Hello.” She did not appear to be in a mood to hear my secrets, anyway.
“Where are the kids?”
“Home.” She crossed her arms.
“Oh. Ben’s at Hank’s this weekend.”
She looked around the store. “Ken here?”
“Ken Drucker? No. Why?”
“I heard you were with him this morning.”
“I was home this morning. I cleaned the toilet.” My back tightened with irritation. Nina was mad at me because she thought I was going out with Ken and hadn’t told her? How do these rumors start?
“Well, that’s weird.” She couldn’t decide whether or not to believe me. “Because Terri just called me. She went to Yogurtland after church. She swears she saw you there with Ken. She said you smiled at her and everything.”
Oh. My. God.
Nina saw my expression. “So you were there?”
“I gotta go!”
“But what about the stuff in your cart?”
“Later! I just, I just—I’ll see you later.”
Ken’s ranch-style house, painted two shades of green, was smaller than the Motts’. It had a flat, neat lawn in front and big, leafy trees on either side. Haley’s big yellow truck was parked in the concrete driveway.
When no one answered the doorbell, I turned to leave, only to see Ken and Haley, pink-cheeked and holding hands, walking up the driveway, a chocolate Lab at Ken’s side. Ken wore cargo shorts and a black shirt, both made of some high-tech moisture-wicking material. Haley wore her usual velour sweats (mint green today), which for some reason looked plusher in Fullerton than they had in Beverly Hills. Her messy hair was pulled back. She wore a baseball cap that said MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN. It had to be Ken’s.
“Veronica—hi!” Ken said. “I was just showing Haley some of the trails.” She refused to meet my eyes.
“I heard you went for yogurt this morning,” I said. The dog trotted over, sniffed my crotch, and returned to Ken.
Ken said, “Haley told me she liked Pinkberry, and I told her, Haley, you’ve got to try Yogurtland! She likes it even better. Don’t you, babe?” He leaned down to check her expression: sweet, wide-eyed bliss. Of course, she was an actress. She probably had an entire catalog of facial expressions.
“I didn’t realize you two had even met,” I said.
“Really? I thought you two told each other everything.” He dropped Haley’s hand and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Not everything,” Haley said in a little baby voice.
Oh, God. Had they had sex? Was I in trouble? Jay was going to kill me.
“How did you . . .” I began. “How did she find you?”
“She e-mailed me!” Ken said, beaming. “Last weekend. Said you’d told her we’d be perfect for each other. And, you know, I’m starting to think there’s something to that.” He squeezed her shoulders.
“I finally got up the nerve to call her last night.” Ken continued. “And we talked for, what—two hours?”
Haley looked at the ground. “Three.”
Tinny country music filled the air: a John Denver ringtone. Ken reached into one of his many pants pockets, pulled out a cell phone, and checked the screen.
“Pamela.” He and Haley wrinkled their noses. He hit a button. “Hi, Pam.”
“How did you get his e-mail address?” I whispered to Haley.
She licked her lips. “The website you showed me listed the pack leader guy. So I just wrote to him and said, like, I need to talk to Ken about my cookie order. He gave me the e-mail.”
My nostrils flared. “Cookies are a Girl Scout thing. Cub Scouts sell popcorn.”
She rolled her eyes. “What. Ever.”
“Did you tell the pack leader who you were?”
She squatted down to the dog’s level and rubbed his ears. “I said I was you.”
“You can’t do that!”
She looked up and narrowed her blue (but not bright blue) eyes. “Why not? You say you’re me all the time.”
“That’s different. You can’t just walk around Fullerton pretending to be someone else.”
She straightened. “I wasn’t pretending anything. Nobody thought I was you.”
“Of course they did. I live here, remember?”
“At least five people asked for my autograph. They knew who I was.”
The people who know me don’t ask for my autograph—but there was no point fighting about it.
Ken was deep in conversation with Pamela, a line of irritation settling between his eyebrows. I continued my interrogation. “Didn’t Rodrigo think it was weird that you were on the phone for three hours Friday night? He never even mentioned it to Jay.”
“Rodrigo wasn’t there.”
“But he told Jay that he just popped out to get you Pinkberry.”
She raised her eyebrows (both at the same time since she couldn’t do just one) and spoke slowly. “He lied. If he came over at all on Friday, it’s because he called the home number and I didn’t answer.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“Jay thinks I can’t be left alone,” she said. “Which is so fucking stupid. I mean, what am I going to do?”
I resisted the temptation to offer suggestion
s. Drive Mulholland while drunk? Crawl down steep hillsides in the dark? Visit men you’ve met on the Internet?
“Rodrigo and I have a deal,” she continued. “Sometimes he comes over—we really are good friends—but most of the time we agree to tell Jay he’s been there. Rodrigo gets paid, and I get to be left alone. It works out for everyone.”
“Jay is really worried about you,” I said.
She laughed bitterly. “Jay only worries about himself and how much money he’s going to make.”
Ken slipped his phone back into one of his pockets, closing it with Velcro for added safety. He looked at Haley, at me, then back to Haley.
“Like seeing double, right?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t actually think you look that much alike.”
Jay answered on the first ring. “Veronica.”
“Haley’s here.”
“Oh, thank God.” He exhaled with relief. “She’s with you?”
“Well, no. But she’s in Fullerton.”
There was silence. “Because . . . ?”
“She met somebody. A man. And he lives here.”
“Quite a coincidence.” His voice was flat and accusatory. I liked him better when he was worried.
“It’s somebody I know. Obviously. And I mentioned him to Haley, and she took it upon herself to contact him.”
“Somebody you know? What—you mean a boyfriend?”
“As you know, I don’t have a boyfriend.” And probably never will.
“That’s just great,” Jay said. “Now we’re screwed. This guy will fuck around with her, and then she’ll have another breakdown, and then he’ll go to the press and—”
“He’s not like that,” I interrupted. “He’s a nice guy. Ethical. It’s all been very wholesome. They talked and ate yogurt and went for a hike.”
Suddenly I had a vision of Haley selling her Beverly Hills mansion and moving into Ken’s little ranch house, walking the boys to school, tending a garden in the backyard. Hollywood made her miserable. Why shouldn’t she just give it up? Perhaps Ken and Haley weren’t such a ridiculous match, after all.
