by Carol Snow
Chapter Thirty
Stefano had a new ’do: still black, but short on the sides with a long, curly lock in the front. He’d filled his studio with jasmine sprigs. The scent almost managed to overpower the smell of dyes and relaxers. There was even a big bouquet of flowers in the fireplace; it was much too warm to burn anything.
“Girlfriend. OMG.” He grabbed a lock of my hair—I think it was mine. “You’re like a cross between Boy George and Britney Spears.”
“You said I didn’t look like Britney.”
“Well, today you do. In a bad way.”
“It was worse before I bleached the roots.”
“You colored your own hair?” He bit his knuckle. “Well, let’s not waste another minute. Go change out of those Kohl’s clothes and put on a kimono.”
I was wearing straight-cut jeans and a green V-neck T-shirt. “How did you know this stuff came from Kohl’s?” I’d gone shopping over the weekend, figuring a splurge would make me feel better. It didn’t.
He giggled. “Did it really? I was just joking.”
I handed him a foil-covered paper plate. “I made you blondies—they’re like chocolate chip cookie bars.”
He took the plate and inhaled deeply, his eyes wide with wonder.
“They’re a little dry around the edges,” I admitted. “I made them in my toaster oven.”
“I’ve missed you, Veronica Zap.”
“It’s actually Czaplicki, but I’ve missed you, too.”
When I finally got settled in Stefano’s comfy chair, he said, “So tell me the look you’re going for. Spoiled heiress? Hollywood royalty? Film executive wife?”
“How about Orange County schoolteacher?”
He looked appalled for just an instant before he said, “I’ve never done that one. Might be kind of fun.”
Three hours later, I left with the best haircut of my life: just above the shoulders, lightly layered and swingy. The extensions were gone (getting them out was easier—though somewhat more painful—than putting them in) and the color was close to my natural medium brown, now with a warm touch of copper.
In return, I left Stefano with the story of Ken and Haley as well as the details of my seduction by Brady. I didn’t tell him that Brady and Haley had never been connected for anything other than professional reasons. It felt like a betrayal of Jay—and I’d messed up his life enough already.
Stefano had heard about the Leventhal party from a woman who’d been there—only she couldn’t remember Haley’s name, just called her “that not-that-talented blond girl from that TV show that all the kids seem to like for some reason that I’ll never understand.” She hadn’t realized that the blond woman on stage wasn’t Haley, just that, “She acted like she’d never heard those songs before.” Stefano guessed it was me.
“I’m just not cut out for Hollywood,” I said as he brushed some sprinkles of cut hair from my neck.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He held out two pieces of hair, one from either side of my face, to make sure they matched. “Though I couldn’t bear to live anyplace else. I’d die of boredom.”
I was kind of hoping he’d offer to cut my hair for free again. Instead, he recommended that I have someone take my picture as soon as I got home so I’d have something to show future stylists. “And then tonight you should go dancing—or at least out to dinner. You look too gorgeous to stay home.”
“Oh, I’ve got plans.” My plans involved heating a frozen pizza and watching a Disney DVD with Ben, but he didn’t need to know that.
I’d never written down Jay’s address, but after a few false turns around Melrose, I found his fairy-tale house with the Mini Cooper parked in the driveway. I hadn’t planned on stopping by, but getting the extensions out had been quicker than expected, and things with Jay felt unfinished. He might not want to see me, but I needed to tell him I was sorry: about Haley, about Brady, about everything.
At some level, I expected to find him unclean, unshaven, and depressed. But if anything, he looked tidier than usual—not that that’s saying much—in dark blue jeans and a worn black polo shirt.
He gaped at me for a minute and then said, “Wow. I mean, hi.”
“You’re probably surprised to see me here.” I’d been rehearsing this speech for the last ten minutes in traffic.
“You look amazing,” he said.
That threw me. As I’d rehearsed the speech in my head, I’d expected animosity.
“Thanks.” I blushed. “Stefano took pity on me and gave me a freebie.”
“Nothing is free in this town. How much did you have to tell him?”
“Not everything.” My speech, my speech . . . what the heck was supposed to come next?
“You want to come in?” he asked.
The house was just as I remembered: gleaming hardwood floors, arched windows, comfy leather furniture. It smelled of lemon polish and Windex. Soft rock played over the speakers.
“I was afraid I’d find you watching TV in your underwear, surrounded by dirty dishes,” I admitted.
He smiled. “When I get tense I clean.”
“You must clean a lot.”
“You have no idea. Want something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“Tea would be great, thanks.”
In the small, gleaming kitchen, he filled a stainless steel kettle from a Brita pitcher and set it on the stove.
“I doubt you’re very happy to see me,” I blurted.
He squinted in puzzlement. “Am I acting like I’m not happy to see you?”
“No. Actually, you’re—it’s just . . . you see, on the way over I figured out what I wanted to say to you, and things aren’t going quite the way I expected. I kind of thought we’d have this whole conversation on your doorstep and then you’d slam the door in my face.”
“We can go back downstairs if you’d feel more comfortable. Though I’m not planning on slamming anything.”
I shook my head. “No, I like it up here.” I blushed again. And then I felt ridiculous for blushing.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I ruined your life.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you came here to say?”
“Not exactly. I was actually going to lay a lot of it on you. Say you shouldn’t have thrust me into such an uncomfortable position and that you should have told me the truth about Brady from the beginning. But the fact is, I’m a grown-up, and nobody forced me to do anything.”
He opened a cupboard. “You want something to eat? Crackers? Some shortbread? My mother keeps sending me shortbread. I must have liked it when I was a kid or something.”
“No, thank you.”
He closed that cupboard, opened another, and pulled out two white mugs and a box of teabags. “How do you take your tea?”
“Milk and sugar. Thanks.”
He bustled around, making the tea, acting as if we weren’t going to talk about what had happened. It wasn’t until we were in the living room, settled on opposite ends of a couch, when he said, “You didn’t ruin my life.”
“If I hadn’t introduced Haley to Ken, she would have been around for the Leventhal party, and everything would be fine. Did you know that she’s planning to move to a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley and record John Denver songs?”
He laughed softly. “I knew she was selling her house, but not the rest. John Denver. Wow.” He sipped his tea.
“You must be a little mad at me,” I said.
“I was upset about the car thing.” He didn’t even want to mention Brady’s name. “But I never should have let you meet him in the first place. I guess I just thought that you . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
We drank tea without talking for a few moments, which wasn’t as awkward as it sounds. Finally, Jay put his mug on the big coffee table and said, “Rodrigo is writing a book. A tell-all about Haley. He signed the contract last week. It’s got everything—her drug and alcohol use, the bulimia, the agoraphobia, the b
ipolar stuff. The girl’s a walking psych textbook.”
“But the nondisclosure contract . . .”
“He signed it under Rodrigo Gonzo. But it turns out his real name is Rodrigo Gonzalez: that’s what’s on his license, his credit cards, his apartment lease—everything. So the contract wasn’t valid.”
“So all that time he spent with Haley, pretending to be her friend . . .”
“Research. Nice, huh? So you see—what happened at the Leventhals’ didn’t matter. Haley was going down, and I was going with her. For what it’s worth, your encounter with Brady—you know, in the car—”
“Yeah, I know.”
“It actually hurts Rodrigo’s credibility. Because he goes on and on about how Haley and Brady faked their relationship, and there’s that video of them obviously not faking anything.”
“There may have been a little faking involved,” I quipped before I could stop myself.
He burst out laughing.
Eager to change the subject, I said, “But won’t Rodrigo just say it’s me?” Oh, crap: now everyone would know. There goes my teaching career.
“Rodrigo has no reason to think you and Brady were ever even involved. Brady’s thrilled about the publicity, and you can bet he will tell anyone who will listen that he and Haley were in love and that Rodrigo is a compulsive liar who’s made it all up.”
“So Brady knows about the book?”
“Yup. I told him about it when I called to quit as his manager.”
“But doesn’t that leave you with . . .”
“A stand-up comic, a performance artist, and a handful of D-list actors who will be lucky to be cast in commercials. And, oh—a documentary filmmaker. Remember Kim Rueben, who we met at the film premiere?”
“But you said there’s no money in documentaries.”
“There isn’t. And there isn’t a lot of money in comedy or commercials, either.” He looked around the beautiful, expensive room. “Financially, I did pretty well as Haley’s manager. So it’s not like I’m starting from nothing. From now on, I’m only going to take on people who know what they want and are willing to work for it.”
“And who aren’t crazy?”
He looked at me and grinned. “That would leave me with nothing.”
“Was Haley always this way?” I asked.
He shook his head. “When I first met Haley, I was a production assistant on that sitcom, The Crazy Life of Riley Poole. It ran for three seasons, which I never understood since it didn’t seem like anyone watched it. It just got lucky on the time slot. But Haley always looked so thrilled to be on set. She stood out, too. Not because she was such a great actress, but because she just oozed innocence and enthusiasm.
“One evening I gave her a ride home. We hardly knew each other, but it was late and she couldn’t get ahold of her mother—which was pretty typical. Their neighborhood was crappy, so I walked her to the door. And then asked if I could have a drink of water.” He paused to sip his tea before continuing.
“The apartment was disgusting: clothes, filth, dirty dishes, papers. There wasn’t even a clean glass. I asked Haley if she was going to order a pizza or something for her dinner—there was no way anyone could cook in this place—and she said no because she didn’t have any money.”
His voice grew angry. “This kid had been working since she was nine years old, and her mother didn’t give her a dime. Supposedly it was all in a trust, but that was total bullshit. So, for the next few years, I helped Haley out—drove her places, got her dinner. I even bought her a new pair of sneakers once. And you’ve got to understand, I hardly made enough money to buy my own food and clothes.
“We made a deal: when she turned eighteen, she’d fire her mother, and I’d become her manager. I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t completely—or even mostly—altruistic. I knew this kid was going places, and I wanted to be along for the ride. But I really thought that once Haley got away from her mother, once she got some financial security, she’d be okay.”
He shook his head and finished his tea, still lost in his memories of a freckle-faced teenager who loved to perform.
“I never thought things would get this out of control,” he said.
I put my empty mug on the table. “I’d better go. Ben gets out of school at three.”
We stood up at the same time and carried our mugs to the kitchen, setting them side by side in the sink.
“How is my pal Ben?” he asked.
“Good,” I said. “Better now that I’m not pretending to be Haley.”
“Tell him I said hi.”
“I will.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?”
He ran a hand through his hair, which still needed a trim. “For sucking you into this whole mess. You’re just—you’re too nice. Too trusting. You see the best in people, even when there’s not a lot of good to see.”
“You mean Brady.”
“Actually, I meant me.”
We were standing very close, next to the sink. Outside the window, birds jumped among the tree branches. The afternoon sun brought out the gold in his eyes.
He said, “My comic is doing the opening monologue at the Brea Improv this weekend. So if you’re free Saturday—or Friday or whatever works—”
“I’d love to,” I said.
“Great.”
And then I remembered. “But I can’t. It’s my weekend with Ben.” Nothing kills a romantic mood like the mention of a child, but Ben had to come first.
“Maybe I could come out early then. Take the two of you out to dinner?”
“He’d love that. I’d love that.” Mischief bubbled up inside of me. “How about Red Lobster? They’ve got one at the Brea Mall.”
Jay paled. On impulse, I leaned forward and kissed him. “Gotcha.”
He hesitated for only a moment before taking me in his arms. When we broke apart I was almost afraid to look at his face. Was he thinking about Haley?
He smiled. “That was nice.”
“Not like kissing Haley?”
He looked horrified. “I never kissed Haley. And I never wanted to. What I meant that time you were here, what I should have said earlier—” He sighed in exasperation.
“What?”
“From the day we had lunch and you walked in looking all sweet and school teacher-y, I just, I just—”
“What?”
“That was it. I was done for. The only thing that put me off was how much you looked like her. But the more I got to know you, the less I even saw the resemblance. And then when you were here, out on the deck . . . It felt so right. And then the kiss . . .”
“Yeah. The kiss.”
“It was all so perfect, and then I opened my eyes, and there you were with Haley’s hair and makeup and dress and it was just—aargh!”
“You mean, you didn’t kiss me because I looked like Haley?”
“God, no! I stopped kissing you because you looked like Haley.”
“I wish you’d said that at the time.”
“Me, too.” He smoothed my hair. He gave me one more kiss and then said, “You’d better go. Don’t want to keep Ben waiting.”
I got to Las Palmas Elementary School five minutes early. The moms and dads were waiting, perched on benches or pacing the blacktop, ready to feed their children sliced apples and peanut butter crackers, to ferry them to Little League, piano lessons, tutors, or ballet. There were no cameras on hand to record the moment, no stylists or screaming fans.
Finally, the bell rang, and the doors swung open. The children streamed out, as their parents called:
“Noah!”
“Kelly!”
“Nathan—over here!”
The children looked up and smiled, basking in the glow.
Acknowledgments
I was maybe a hundred pages into telling this story before I realized that I didn’t know nearly as much about the entertainment industry—or even Los Angeles—as I thought I did. And so: a bazillion thanks to
my good friend Rafael Suarez, who gave me guided tours through West Hollywood, Los Angeles, and Beverly Hills; answered multiple phone queries; and reviewed my final manuscript. Any inaccuracies in this book are entirely Rafael’s fault, so please direct all complaints to him.
I am indebted to the people who posted YouTube videos of themselves getting hair extensions and spray tans. They were very helpful. Bonnie Largent was nice enough to answer my questions about substitute teaching, which is why I named a character after her. The real Mrs. Largent is not pregnant. At least, not that I know of.
Thank you to Cindy Hwang, Leis Pederson, and all the wonderful people at Berkley for turning my manuscript into a real-live book; to the art department for designing yet another clever cover; and the sales department for getting the final pretty product into stores.
I am, as always, grateful to Stephanie Kip Rostan for being such a brilliant agent, sounding board, and friend, as well as Monika Verma, Miek Coccia, Elizabeth Bishop, and everyone else at the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency for their smarts, professionalism, and overall niceness.
Finally, thanks and love to my parents, Tom and Peggy Snow, for giving me a normal childhood, and to my husband, Andrew Todhunter, for cheering me on, making me pizzas, and reminding me that I always panic halfway through my books—and yet they always turn out just fine. At least, I think they do.
1
In December 1996.
