by Denise Wells
Of course, there was only one season of Keeping Tabs that aired, because once I kicked Pax out and we didn’t reconcile, the concept was pointless. I didn’t really want to act after that, and no one was interested in my pilot, so I just kind of drifted for a while. Not literally, just mentally. Somehow, I always ended up at the right place at the right time and just before the divorce, I was able to put my name on a clothing line that’s in all the major department stores. Shortly thereafter, my makeup line from when I was a teen got a total revamp.
That kept me busy for a while, until it didn’t. Being a face or figurehead doesn’t take much effort, so when the offer to guest judge on a reality talent show came up, I jumped at it, met Hunter, and now I’m here.
I moved back to the Seattle area to be with Hunter about a month ago, after maintaining a long-distance relationship for almost a year. Deciding, once again, to leave show biz and just keep my focus on the clothing and makeup lines. Both provide enough financially that I don’t have to work aside from them if I don’t want to.
Hunter lives, rather we live, in a small suburb outside of the city, which he says is the new Silicon Valley. The area where we are is very green and scenic, with a mountain feel. The downtown area boasts a decent green grocer, small boutiques, and a great yoga studio. And it’s only a ten-minute drive from downtown Seattle.
I hop in my car and head down the hill into town. The roads are wet and the sky gray, but the air smells clean. Which is probably my favorite thing about moving from California back to Washington, it always smells good here. Where California has sunshine and palm trees, Washington has evergreens and fresh air.
Crystal and I meet for yoga three times a week. Best friends since high school, she was literally the only girl who would talk to me. But it worked because we totally hit it off and have been near inseparable since, even though we are opposites in almost every way. She’s short and curvy with shoulder-length, shaggy, dark hair and a sexy America Ferrara vibe. I’m taller and more a cross between Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. Mostly legs, teeth, and hair.
Crystal and I pull into the parking lot at the same time as one another. She waves frantically, as though I don’t know her car, or that she’ll be here, which makes me laugh. In the last few years, our lives have gone in opposite directions. Prior to that, she came and hung out with me in LA for a few years. I paid her to be my personal assistant, but that mostly meant that we hung out and goofed off.
About three years ago, she decided to “get her life together”—her words not mine—move back to Washington, and focus on establishing a career. She became a medical device rep, which is how she met her doctor husband, Michael. He asked her out, they eloped six months later, and now she’s a deliriously happy stay-at-home mom with twin eighteen-month-old girls. I would kill myself if I had her life.
“Hey, fancy pants,” she says as she gets out of her car, the nickname she’s had for me since high school. I was fancy pants because I’d come from Hollywood.
“Hey, baby mama.” A new nickname I’ve adopted for her since becoming pregnant and having babies. Prior to that, I just called her C. Obviously she’s the more creative one between us.
We hug and head into the studio.
Most times I don’t get a chance to talk to her until after our class. Today is no exception. She usually hires a babysitter for three hours so we can get coffee after yoga and catch up on things. Like we’re doing now.
“Have I told you how happy I am that you’re back?” she squeals. Yes, squeals. It should be annoying, but it’s not. Crystal has an adorable squeal. It goes right along with everything else about her, also adorable.
“Me too,” I tell her. And I am. LA gets old after a while if you aren’t in the thick of it—acting, auditioning, preening for the paparazzi. Not actively going after movie roles is the epitome of not being in the thick of it.
“How goes wedding planning?” she asks.
“Barely begun, but not bad,” I say, taking a sip of my Americano, wishing I could afford the calories of creamer. But with wedding dress shopping around the corner, I need to watch my intake.
“Have you thought about locations yet?” Crystal asks, pulling the lid off her cup and scooping out whipped cream with her finger.
I’m jealous.
“No, not really,” I say.
“What do you think of Court in the Square? Michael and I went to a medical mixer there a while back, it was amazing.”
“I don’t know. Hunter wants fancy, and I think I’m still undecided.”
“Definitely Fremont Foundry. It’s fancy as fancy gets.”
“It’s to be expected, right?”
“Absolutely, when tech genius takes fancy pants as his bride, people expect shiny and spectacular.”
I laugh at that. Crystal is the only person I seem to be able to laugh at myself with. And only because she instigates it. With everyone else, it’s all seriousness all the time. Including me with myself.
“What about dresses?” Crystal asks. “When do we go dress shopping?”
“I need to lose ten pounds first.” My weight is a sore subject between us. I’ve always been a bit preoccupied with how much I weigh, how I look. I am an actress after all, and my face and body are constantly photographed. Plus, Hunter’s constant observance of my weight adds pressure too. And the camera adds ten pounds. Since pictures and video from this wedding will be seen on television, in magazines and all-over social media, not losing ten pounds isn’t an option.
“Are you kidding me? From where?”
“My ass, my stomach, my upper arms. I’m hideous right now, Crystal. I’ve totally let myself go since I stopped acting.”
“Tabs, your body is amazing. The envy of many. You work out like a fiend, totally watch what you eat, have perfect dimensions. Don’t think I didn’t notice you sipping on plain black coffee there—yuck, by the way. You do not need to lose any weight.”
“Not all of us have breastfeeding as a means of weight reduction,” I complain.
“Well, not just breastfeeding but running after two little monsters all day. Did I tell you, we started weaning them this past weekend?”
“Really? How’s it going?”
“Good, I guess. You know it skeeves me out they can ask for it now, right? So, it needs to be done. Plus, both have full mouths of teeth. Which just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. So, yeah, gonna be denying the girls the boobs. Michael will be happy to have them back to himself without the surprise milk squirt once I dry up. And we’ve been breastfeeding only at night for a while now, so it’s not like they are going cold turkey.”
“You make them sound like junkies.”
“They are. Twenty-seven-pound junkies, jonesing for a fix every night at seven o’clock. Speaking of babies and junkies, what’s Hunter going to do now that he sold his tech-baby?”
“Well, first he wants a great big splashy wedding.” I smile.
“Do you feel weird doing that your second time around?”
“A little,” I admit. “But he really wants it and it’s a small thing to do for him. He’s paying for it all and has already hired a coordinator. Outside of making a few decisions, it’s looking like all I will really have to do is show up.”
“He’s already hired a coordinator? Wow, who is it? Do you like her?”
“I haven’t met her yet. He hired her on his own—”
“You okay with that?”
“Yeah, I think I am. This whole big wedding thing isn’t as important to me as it is to him, so I’m happy to let him take the lead on whatever he wants.” Plus, he said the less work I had to do, the better. That my days should be spent by the pool eating grapes and lounging. If he has his way, I’ll never work another day in my life.
“That’s really nice of you,” Crystal says. “Most women would have a fit that he made the decision without them. So, who did he pick?”
“Liza Littleton.”
“O
h, she’s really good.”
“I know, her reputation is impeccable. How can I complain?”
“Yeah, you really can’t.”
The conversation stalls for just a moment. But it’s that comfortable silence you can only have with the closest of friends.
“Hey, how’s the book coming along?”
“Ugh. Not well.” I’m writing a book about my life as a child star. Well, I’m telling my story to a ghostwriter who is writing the book. For which I am grateful. Remembering the stories and retelling them is hard enough without having to also figure out how to make them entertaining. “The writer keeps trying to make it this salacious story of stage moms and demanding directors, parties and drugs, sex and alcohol, with Pax and me as star-crossed lovers thrust into the middle of it all.”
“I’d buy that book.” Crystal winks.
I laugh at her. “Me too. But that’s not the story I want to tell. That’s every child actor’s story, pretty much. I want to tell a different story, one of a young woman who worked hard and built a solid career after retiring from acting, which brought me to where I am now. No Pax, no stage mom, none of that usual crap.”
“I get it,” she says, taking a drink of her blended coffee. “But those are two very important aspects of your past and your success. People want to know about the dirty details. Especially since neither Pax nor your mom are in your life any longer and both of those break-ups were so public.”
“Everything people need to know about my mom, they can get from her books,” I grumble. After cutting ties permanently, Mom wrote a tell-all consisting mostly of trumped up stories about what a histrionic—her word, not mine—pain in the ass diva I was. Her book release coincided with one of the movies I did after returning to Hollywood.
It was a bestseller.
She followed it up with a how-to on successful stage mom-ing.
It was also a bestseller.
The irony kills me.
Rumor has it she’s moved to Montana and is working on a third book about life after Hollywood.
And Pax? I keep hoping if I ignore that he was a part of my life, he will just go away. So, I refuse to let the ghostwriter include him in the book. Well, try to anyway.
“I never told you this, but I read her book,” Crystal says.
“You did?” My stomach sours immediately. I can’t believe she would support my mom in such a way. I’m hurt. And pissed. “How—”
“Before you get all wound up”—she reaches her hand over the table to grab mine—“I didn’t buy it. I saw it in that Little Library Kiosk on State Street and grabbed it.”
I nod. That makes me feel a little better. I try to swallow down the acid already rising in my throat. The coffee makes it worse.
“Do you want a water?” I ask, standing and heading back up to the counter.
“Sure,” she calls after me.
I’ve calmed down by the time I return to the table. The acid is still there, churning in my stomach, but I feel better in my head.
“Don’t be mad, please.”
“I’m not mad. I was hurt at first. But you didn’t buy it or support her in any way like that. And if I’m honest, I can see where someone might be curious about it. I just wish there were more of the truth in it.”
“From what I know of you, most of it was real, just embellished a bit.”
“Most of it?”
“Well, some stuff was clearly made up. Like this one scene where she claimed you threw a temper tantrum and cut up something like fifty thousand dollars’ worth of wardrobe for Tabby is so Gabby because craft services ran out of chocolate chip cookies.”
“That did happen,” I say drily.
“Really?” Her eyes grow big, but I can tell by the smirk on her face that she knew that and was just baiting me.
“You’re a bitch.” I smile.
“Takes one to know one.” She smiles back.
I check the time. “Sorry, I gotta go. I need to shower and change before Hunter picks me up.”
“Yes, your highness.” She smirks.
“Thanks for that,” I say. “I know, I need to tell him I don’t like the ‘my queen’ nickname.” I stand, put on my jacket, then grab my phone and yoga mat.
“You know, most women would appreciate being called a queen.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not most women.”
It’s one thing to be worshiped, but it’s a whole other thing to be perceived as infallible, which I fear is where Hunter is heading with his ideas of perfection and royalty.
2
Pax
“Yes, baby, Yes. So good. Perfect.” I move to the side to get a better angle on her face. “Oh yeah, just like that. Do it again.”
God, she’s good.
Her head falls back and her chest thrusts out, her breasts on full display trying to squeeze out of the small top covering them. The sun is hitting us from the perfect position and the sand is damp, but not so wet it sticks. Waves are crashing along the shore in the background, the setup can’t get any better.
“That’s my girl,” I tell her. “Keep moving, just like that.”
She looks up at me from under her lashes, her blue eyes bore into mine, lips pursed, hands running through her hair, lifting it away from her face.
“There, right there. Oh, that’s good.”
She stays on her knees, legs parted, skin glistening, looking at me like she wants this. Bad.
She licks her lips and winks at me.
I groan slightly. Oh, yeah. That does it for me.
Right there.
I take a dozen or so more shots, cooing to her all the way, before handing my camera off to Ryan, my assistant for the day.
“You are a goddess, E,” I tell the model. She stands and someone hands her a towel to wipe off the sand from her legs.
“We got it in that last bunch.” I turn to the editorial director and give him a satisfied smile, because those last few shots were fucking fabulous. There are some models I love working with, and Emmanuelle is one of them.
“Fantastic as always, man, thank you,” the director says to me, reaching out to clasp my hand in his, then turns to everyone else, clapping his hands to get their attention. “That’s a wrap, everyone. Good job. Let’s clean it up. Emmanuelle, great job.” Emmanuelle preens under the praise. The rest of the group follows in kind, wishing one another congratulations on a job well done with handshakes and half hugs.
Emmanuelle smiles at me before retreating to the wardrobe tent.
“Goddamn, she’s hot,” Ryan mumbles under his breath.
“Eh, you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,” I tell him, only partially joking. I photograph models in swimsuits all the time and have done this particular calendar shoot nine years in a row. I’m not saying I’m tired of doing it, because that would be ridiculous. As Ryan said, it’s hot chicks in bikinis. And it’s my bread and butter.
But I can’t exactly be famous for shooting pics of bikini models and celebrities when both my father and grandfather were Pulitzer Prize, International Photography, and National News Award winners in photojournalism. Yes, both won all three awards. So, to avoid tarnishing the family name with sub-par gigs, I created an alias and wore a disguise when I was first starting out. Which turned out to be a smart thing because thanks to the reality show, Keeping Tabs, that my ex-wife Tabatha and I were on, my real face was recognizable pretty much anywhere.
I use the name Matthew Hanhauser—my middle name and my grandmother’s maiden name—and wear a cheesy disguise that, surprisingly, has not once been questioned: glasses, fake mustache worthy of a 70s porn shoot, and a baseball cap with some shaggy hair attached to the bottom. Matthew takes pictures of models and celebrities, like today. And I, Pax Baldwin, do the more serious photo shoots. Not even Tabatha knows I’m Matthew Hanhauser.
I’ll admit, it’s odd to go from capturing images of war-torn areas in Yemen filled with lawlessness and devastation, to the beaches of Southern California where excess and f
reedom abound with women posing wearing next to nothing as a means of making a living. It takes a major mind-shift to wrap my head around the dichotomy of the two worlds. And I don’t bounce between the two that often any more, focusing instead on getting the best shots possible in every situation.
In addition to calendar and celebrity shoots, Matthew is a highly sought-after celebrity wedding photographer. I don’t even know how it got started, but it’s ballooned into an extremely profitable side business. And I will forever call it a side business, even if I do make more shooting celebs and weddings than I do with National Geographic and Time magazine covers.
Emmanuelle exits the tent wearing yoga pants and a sports bra. “Hey, Matty, you around later?”
“Should be, why? What’s up?”
“I’m around too. You’ve got my number, use it.”
“I might just do that.” I smile and wink. I still have yet to understand how women find this getup attractive. The 70s ’stache alone would be a turnoff for me if I were a chick.
She turns and walks away. Ryan and I continue packing away my equipment. “That is exactly why I want to be you,” Ryan says.
“You don’t want this life, Ryan. It can be lonely, filled with different cities all the time, getting used to new time zones, constantly meeting new people, hardly ever the same girl twice in your bed.”
“That’s supposed to dissuade me?” He laughs.
“It’s not all models and bikinis.”
“I know, dude. I know.”
“All I’m saying is it can be hard to make connections with people. I have my friends back home, but I’m too busy to make new ones.”
“Emmanuelle is your friend.” He leers.
I laugh at him. I don’t blame him for getting excited. I was the same way with my dad, who was my mentor, when I was his age. Though my dad didn’t do a lot of women in bikini shots, the money wasn’t in it then like it is now. But when he was first starting out, he did studio shots of pin-ups for calendars. This was before my grandfather won the Pulitzer and the legacy for my dad wasn’t quite so daunting like it is for me.
