by Paul Rudnick
I was tingling. It was finally happening. After all those years of listening to Heller and following her around and doing everything she told me to do, even if I knew it was wrong, I WAS IN CHARGE.
Stay humble, I warned myself, even as there were invisible fireworks bursting all around me, along with a thousand-piece marching band and a gospel choir, all wearing kneesocks.
“Teamwork makes the dream work,” I told Wyatt, which was something my dad liked to say. I raised my hand and gave Wyatt a brisk salute.
Wyatt was looking at me and shaking his head the way people do when they first see an adorable puppy or an especially cute baby. He looked as if he was about to say “Aww …” or “Ooohhh …”
“Okay,” he said instead, only now he was looking more than a little worried. “Let’s go see Heller.”
How long has Heller lived here?” I asked Wyatt as the limo approached a big industrial-looking building in a downtown area called Tribeca.
“She’s had this place for almost a year,” said Wyatt. “Although most of the time she stays at either her house in LA or her Malibu place, and she’s also got an apartment in London.”
“Heller has … four houses?”
“Oh please—the London flat is microscopic, it’s like three bedrooms. Tops.”
HELLER HAS FOUR HOUSES. There are eleven of us in Parsippany and we all share bedrooms and one tiny bathroom with one sink. I’m not complaining because our house is really cozy and so many people in the world don’t even have a house or a roof over their heads, while HELLER HAS FOUR HOUSES. THERE’S ONLY ONE OF HER.
The sidewalk in front of Heller’s building was lined with those movable metal fences that the police use for crowd control. “Is there going to be a parade?” I asked as I saw a group of grubby men and women, some of them wearing army jackets and all holding heavy, complicated cameras with zoom lenses, standing behind the metal barricades. “No,” said Wyatt. “Well, it’s sort of a parade, or at least it’s a public event. It’s Heller.”
FOUR HOUSES. At what point after she had the first three houses did Heller start to think, gee, I’m so cramped, I can barely breathe, I think I need FOUR HOUSES?
April drove the limo into a parking garage underneath the building, which, as Wyatt explained, “lets Heller get in and out without being mobbed.” Wyatt used a key, not just to get into the building but to unlock the elevator that brought us to the penthouse fourteen floors up. The elevator opened onto an enormous room filled with haphazard clumps of furniture, racks of clothes, and piles of partially unpacked boxes, as if someone was either moving in or moving out.
“What is all this stuff?” I asked.
“Heller wasn’t sure what she’d need for this weekend so she brought a lot of options, and her assistants are still unpacking things.”
“Her assistants? How many assistants does Heller have?”
Wyatt shut his eyes and counted on his fingers: “One, two, no, Avery quit, and there’s Becca, but she’s back in LA, and Kyle, and Nina, and Fiona for shoes … six. Right now, at the moment, Heller has six assistants.”
Six. Assistants. For. One. Person. One seventeen-year-old person.
Calm down, Caitlin. Deep breath. This is only the beginning. This is the first trickle of evil, before the tsunami.
“Hello?” Wyatt called out, but no one answered. Then a woman—Nina? Fiona?—appeared from somewhere else in the apartment carrying garment bags and a wig on a Styrofoam head. “I don’t know where she is,” said the woman as she rushed off into another room. Then a really tall, incredibly skinny guy in a tank top and a chef’s hat came through carrying a wooden bowl of something. “The kale needs to breathe,” the guy said as he also went off into some other part of the loft. “I haven’t seen Heller, but she needs kale!”
“Hello?” Wyatt said again, and I followed him through what looked like a bedroom and then a bathroom and then another room that might have been a library because there were bookshelves with no books and then we went through a few guest rooms and a room with an enormous flat-screen TV on the wall, a lot of audio equipment and tons of Moroccan-type leather cushions on the floor. I had now been through more separate rooms than there were in our entire house. OUR ONE HOUSE.
“Hel?” said Wyatt even louder once we were back in the main room. “She’s supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to go out, not without supervision, it’s part of her probation. HEL?”
I could never shorten Heller’s name because it sounded like a curse word. Or a destination. I would always say “Heller,” although even that made me feel wicked, as if I would someday have to explain to God that I had no choice, although God would most likely smile and tell me, “Caitlin, you always have a choice.”
YOU COULD CHOOSE TO HAVE, FOR EXAMPLE, ONLY TWO HOUSES.
As Wyatt started to frantically call different numbers on his cell phone, I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t even started my assignment and I’d already failed. I was going to take control of Heller’s life and turn her into a completely different person, into a much, much better person, into someone like me. But now she was already gone who knows where, and what if she was at a bar or buying drugs in an alley or deep-kissing a dangerous ex-husband? I hadn’t even seen Heller yet but I was starting to hate her even more because as usual, even by disappearing, she was making everything about her.
“Caitlin, this is very upsetting,” said Wyatt. “I hope nothing has happened. I’m gonna head back downstairs and grab April and we’ll check out the neighborhood to see if Heller’s on the loose. Can you just wait here and call me the second she turns up?”
I nodded but after Wyatt left I didn’t know what to do. There was a sort of French chaise and some Lucite chairs but I didn’t know if I was allowed to sit on anything. I was alone but there were SIX ASSISTANTS somewhere in the loft and maybe they had their own assistants and I could hear the distant sounds of blow-dryers and blenders.
God was testing me. He’d given me a sacred task and I’d thought it would be easy. I thought I’d just show up and that the mere sight of me would make Heller fall to her knees and beg my forgiveness, and then beg for my help in becoming a responsible, sensitive human being. That wasn’t how evil worked, especially evil the size of Heller. Evil was strong and unstoppable and devious. I wasn’t worthy to do battle. I wasn’t ready. Heller was going to win, the way she always did.
Unless for the first time ever in the history of the universe, I didn’t let her.
I had an idea. I remembered that when Heller was eleven she’d gotten this huge crush on smoking. She’d steal cigarettes from her mom and at first she wouldn’t light them but she’d sit on the picnic table behind our house, cross her legs and wave the cigarette around while imitating her mom by saying things like, “Darling, can I get a light? I’d sell my soul for a ciggie!” or “I’m going to quit, I swear I am! From now on I’m only going to smoke pot, which is really a health food!”
One night when Heller was sleeping over, we’d snuck outside and actually lit a cigarette and smoked it. I was hopeless because I kept coughing and because when I tried to dangle the cigarette off my lower lip, the way Heller had demonstrated, the cigarette kept falling onto my chest and burning holes in my pajama top. Heller, on the other hand, was a natural smoker, maybe because she was already an actress so she was using the cigarette as a prop. The first time she’d inhaled she’d thrown her head back and blown the smoke out through her nostrils as if she’d been doing it all her life. “Mmmm … ,” she’d said as if she’d just licked a frosting bowl, “K-Bop, you’re my very best friend but this cigarette is a really close second.”
I went through the different rooms of the loft looking for an open window. I found one and crawled out onto a fire escape, which went up to the building’s roof. I pulled myself onto the roof, which was covered with wooden decking and landscaped with trees and flowers in big ceramic pots. I’m not good with heights so I started touching my neck and then my arm, back and forth, in s
ets of three, which helped me be less afraid.
At the opposite side of the roof someone was sitting on the ledge and dangling her feet over the side of the building as she tilted her head back and exhaled cigarette smoke into the night sky.
For a split second I wanted to erase everything and call her name and start over.
It was the person I’d shared everything with, including the most fun I’d ever had in my life.
It was the person who’d almost killed me, the person I’d hated so much since that day four years ago, I’d done almost nothing with my life except hate her.
It was my very best friend forever and my biggest enemy and my mission from God.
It was Heller.
One, two, three …
Get the fuck out,” said Heller, without turning her head.
I felt like Heller had slapped me.
“I mean it, leave. Right now.”
Heller still hadn’t looked at me, but I wasn’t leaving. I stood there, getting used to seeing Heller again, or at least the back of her head, after four years. I’d seen photos of her everywhere and I’d seen her online and on TV, but this was different. This was scarier. This was real. One, two, three …
“Hello, Heller,” I said, trying to keep my voice even and calm, as if I was talking to a wild animal or a crazy person.
“I know why you’re here, but I don’t need a bodyguard or a chaperone or a babysitter. I’m fine. Just go. Scat!”
I steadied myself. “Heller, this isn’t your decision. Our parents and your studio have asked me to come here. There are a lot of people depending on you. And from what I’ve heard, you can use some … support.”
“By support, you mean that you’re here to spy on me 24-7, and report back at fifteen-minute intervals to the gestapo. Everyone’s afraid I might start using again and dive-bomb right off the deep end and ruin their little movie, no that’s wrong, and ruin their great big multi-zillion-dollar potential franchise, including Angel Wars backpacks, workout gear, and those sunglasses with the little wings on them. I don’t know why everyone’s so worried. I mean, what do they think I’m gonna do?”
She stood up, balancing right on the narrow ledge. She lifted one foot so she was waving her arms and teetering. I was yards away but I started to get dizzy. One, two, three …
“Wouldn’t it be terrible if two seconds after you got here, I jumped off the roof? You would have a ton of trouble getting another babysitting job.”
Heller began hopping on one foot and all I could think was, oh my Lord, she’s going to do it. I only just got here and now I have to somehow grab Heller or talk her off that ledge.
“This could be so cool,” Heller said, still on one foot and leaning out even farther. “It’s such a perfect idea.”
“What’s a perfect idea?” I asked, trying to keep it together. Heller knew how I felt about heights. More than anyone, Heller knew that once I got higher than the second floor of any building I’d start to shiver. Heller knew that the last time we’d seen each other we’d climbed up very high and the worst thing in either of our lives had happened. Heller knew all that and here she was, daring me to come closer and trying to make me feel like I was still thirteen years old.
“Oopsie!” said Heller, lunging even farther.
One two three one two three one two NO!
I was shaking and furious but I couldn’t let her win, not on the very first night. I grabbed a nearby railing with both hands and gingerly peered over the side of the building. Down below there were now at least a hundred people pushing against the metal barricades, including more photographers and even more fans clutching posters of Heller along with Anna Banana dolls and Anna Banana comic books; there were also a lot of young girls wearing Anna Banana T-shirts and there were whole families of Angel Wars fans with every member wearing little plastic angel wings on their backs and headbands with bobbing plastic halos.
“If I jump, all of those paparazzi will have to make a decision,” said Heller. “Will they run out of the way so I won’t fall on them, will they try to catch me and save my life, or will they figure if they move really fast, they can take the picture of a lifetime, of me coming right at ’em. They could make a fortune.”
The crowd spotted her and started calling her name and the fans began holding up their phones to take her picture: “HELLER! HELLER! HELLER!”
I felt dizzy and nauseous and really far away from Parsippany. I wanted to run back downstairs and all the way home but I didn’t want to give Heller the satisfaction. I was seventeen and I was in charge so I stepped a few feet back from the railing and I clapped my hands briskly, like a schoolteacher quieting a classroom of unruly kindergartners, and I told Heller, in my most no-nonsense voice, “Heller Harrigan! Get down from there! Right now!”
I clapped my hands again and Heller froze. For the first time she turned to face me head-on. “Jesus Christ,” she said, staring at me as if I was the crazy person. “Who are you, fucking Mary Poppins? Oh my God—what are you wearing?”
Heller jumped down from the ledge and started circling me. “Are you still wearing all of that Singleberry polyester? And those kneesocks? And they let you across the border?”
“What I’m wearing isn’t important. Although I am dressed in a practical, respectful and dignified manner. Unlike some people.”
Heller glanced down at her own outfit, which consisted of bikini panties, bare feet and a skimpy T-shirt that read Right Outta Rehab!
“Do you love this?” she asked, tugging on her T-shirt to make sure I could read it. “I also have one that says Angel Whores but I promised Wyatt I wouldn’t wear it.”
“I think that is … a very mature decision. I would like you to come downstairs immediately so we can discuss the weekend’s schedule and your wardrobe and your many responsibilities.”
I was feeling stronger, as if I had the upper hand. I’d gotten Heller off the ledge, I hadn’t let her intimidate me, and now I was going to get started on changing her completely. I’d stopped counting, at least for a few minutes. I gestured toward the fire escape.
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m sorry, that was rude. What I meant to say was, ‘Fuck no.’ ”
Heller sat down on a wooden chair and crossed her legs.
“I’m gonna lay this out for you. Isn’t it wacky, I don’t hear from you, or any of your family, not a Singlepeep, for all that time. Now, boom, all of a sudden, right before I’m opening in the biggest movie of all time, here comes little Caitlin Prissypants Singletoons, knocking on my door and my roof. I’m not saying that you want something, and I’m not saying that all of a sudden you’d like to be—shazam!—best buds again, and I would never ever, God forbid, use the words Singleberry and starfucker in the same sentence, but doesn’t this all seem just the tiniest bit suspicious? Just a smidge? Just a Singlesmidge?”
Heller leaned back and took a satisfied drag on her cigarette. She reached inside the stretched-out neckline of her T-shirt and scratched herself. She’d challenged me and said terrible, untrue things, with that smirk on her face. She’d mocked everything sacred. Everything Singleberry. How DARE she?
“Heller,” I said, standing straight and tall, because good posture can defeat dishonesty. “You’re right—we were friends, once upon a time. I haven’t contacted you for reasons you’re well aware of. But I am not here because of your fame or your money or your FOUR HOUSES and your SIX ASSISTANTS. I am here as a Christian, because you are in need. You have committed felonies, you have been arrested, you have abused countless substances and you have … behaved in an overtly sexual manner.”
To illustrate this last transgression, I wiggled my hips provocatively. This felt sinful, but I wanted to shame Heller.
“I’m here,” I continued, “to guide you into the light of truth, decency and perhaps pants.”
Heller snorted and took another deep drag on her cigarette. It was time to talk turkey. I lowered my voice.
“I’m
here to make sure you behave yourself, because if you mess up one more time, then your career and your life are over and you know it, you stupid, thoughtless, spoiled little spawn of Satan.”
Heller’s eyes widened. We were now on equal footing. No—I had definitely pulled ahead.
Heller stubbed out her cigarette on the arm of the chair. She looked thoughtful. She was taking me seriously.
“Well, K-Bop …”
I quivered with rage.
“Do not call me K-Bop!”
“Well, K-Bitch, here’s what I have to say to you and the big scary studio and to everyone on earth who’s so damn worried that Heller Harrigan is going to detonate her own life and take everyone down with her …”
Heller grinned, which made me take a step back, because it was always her grin that had gotten us into the most trouble. When Heller grinned, she looked like a little girl who was about to jump into a snowbank or a pile of leaves or onto her own birthday cake.
“Let’s go to a party!” said Heller, and then she was gone, running down a hidden stairwell while I tried to keep up and while I yelled the same way I had since the very first time I’d met Heller when we were toddlers:
“HELLLERRRR!!!”
We went to the party in three black minivans with tinted windows, as if we were going to rob a bank or overthrow a government. One van was filled with bodyguards and studio people while Heller’s assistants rode in the next one and Heller, Wyatt and I were in the last van with April driving. When I got into the van Heller was using her phone and without looking up she asked, “What are you still doing here?”
