Katrina said, “Greta, will you come in the other room with me for a moment? Just for a minute.” Before she could answer, Katrina got up from her chair and leaned over and said to Cece, “I’m going to show Greta where her marks are for the scene, okay? We’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” Cece said. “Don’t be gone too long.”
Greta got up and followed her wordlessly to the front door. Once there, she said, “So where are my marks?”
“We mark the floor with tape to show where you should be at different times during filming,” Katrina said impatiently. “That doesn’t matter. We’ll go over it later. I brought you out here because we need to talk.”
She leaned in, her face serious. “You just signed a contract agreeing to this, Greta, so suck it up and do it the way we wrote it, okay?” Her words were harsh, but her expression was pleading. “If you don’t, it’ll just be harder for the rest of us. We have a lot riding on this particular episode. It’s going to be included in the package that’s being shopped around for Cece’s reality show.”
“Cece’s getting her own reality show?”
Katrina nodded. “There’s been a lot of interest. With Cece’s following, she’s already a major celebrity, and we need to capitalize on that while we can. We’ve been putting together a montage of clips that will knock their socks off. Originally, we were going to call it Visiting with the Vanderhavens, but now we’re leaning toward Oh, That Cece! What do you think?”
“You could go either way, I guess.”
“It’s going to be huge. I mean, like, colossal. And with you in the cousin role, you’ve found yourself a new, very high-paying job.” She pointed a finger. “Greta Hansen, you’re going to be a star.”
Katrina was talking as if she was going to be living here permanently. Greta had a sudden need to set her straight. “Oh, no, I’m just here for the summer.”
“You can say goodbye to that. If the Vanderhavens want you on board, they’ll make you an offer, and they’ll make sure it’s one you won’t refuse. You’ll have more fame and money than you ever dreamed of, but you’ll find out pretty quickly it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.” She sighed. “Vance and I have been wanting to walk away for ages now.”
“So why don’t you?”
“There’s some weird clause in each of our contracts that says we can’t vacate our positions until a replacement has been provided for.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s a lot more legal language than that, but basically, it means that publicly we’re Cece’s best friends for the purposes of her brand, and until they cast different best friends, we’re obligated to fulfill the roles. And they won’t cast different best friends. We’ve already asked,” she said, in answer to the questioning look on Greta’s face. “Apparently, we’re doing such a fabulous job, it would be difficult to replace us. And Cece is so secluded that we’re about the only people she comes into contact with on a regular basis, so Vance and I are locked into this thing forever. We’ve hired an attorney to go over that contract line by line, and he couldn’t find any loopholes. Believe me, if I had a time machine, I’d go back and stop myself from signing the damn thing.”
Greta was starting to get a sick feeling. “Is my contract set up like that?” She thought back to how quickly she’d scanned it before signing. She should have read it more thoroughly.
“No, yours has an end date. Lucky you.”
Greta exhaled in relief. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, that’s good for now, but be careful if they offer an extension, because there will be something in there that will let them decide how long they want you here, instead of the other way around. It’s easy to get blinded by the money and not notice all the rest of the stuff in the contract.” Katrina grimaced. “By the way, the thing about the reality show is top secret. Don’t breathe a word of it to anyone.”
“Except Cece?”
“No, not even Cece. Especially not Cece. Getting her psyched up to do these short clips is torture. I can only imagine how she’ll react to having to do full episodes on a regular basis. It’s going to be a nightmare.”
“I won’t say anything, I promise,” Greta said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What’s going on with Cece today?”
Katrina looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“She’s different from what I expected.”
“How so?”
“In the videos, she’s always kind of bubbly, laughing all the time. And then sometimes she’s sort of flirty and mysterious, but this morning, she seems . . . ” She stopped to think of how to phrase it.
“Blah?”
“No, not blah. Sick, maybe? Not really with it.” What she wanted to say was that Cece acted like someone who had just come out of a coma, didn’t like what she saw, and wanted to go back again. “Is she using anything?”
“Like drugs, you mean?” Katrina shook her head. “No, she’s not on drugs. What you’re seeing is Cece the way she usually is. We work with her so that on film, we get the reaction we need and then splice it in accordingly into the clip. It’s all carefully curated to present the correct image. That’s why you’ll never see Cece on a talk show or interviewed by anyone outside of our control. She doesn’t do impromptu very well. Vance and I have to do a lot of hand-holding with her to get the end result just right. Mostly Vance, because she responds better to him, and he has more patience.”
Greta simply said, “Oh.”
“It’s exhausting, is what it is.” She said this as if she’d been asked to define the situation.
“I see.” But Greta didn’t really see at all. Was Cece as lackluster as she appeared? She was starting to think that so much of what she knew of Cece Vanderhaven’s life was a facade, a grand illusion designed to impress, much like the family’s yearly Christmas cards.
Katrina started to whisper, pouring her heart out in a way that made Greta uncomfortable. She and Vance had the same therapist. “He’s a Jungian,” she said, and the conversation spun off from there. From the way she talked, everyone in the Vanderhaven circle had a therapist. That it was a given, like going to the barber or getting your car’s oil changed. “Originally, we went to the same guy Cece did, and he was fine, but we were worried about him telling the Vanderhavens what we were discussing, so we switched therapists.”
“But I thought there was some kind of patient-confidentiality thing?”
“Supposedly, yes. But everything’s for sale. You know that.” She leaned in. “Vance and I have grappled with how to be team players while still keeping an emotional and spiritual balance. It’s so hard, Greta, so, so hard. It’s, like, we’re trying to establish some space for ourselves, and the Vanderhavens keep pulling us back in.” She went on to talk about sleepless nights and drinking too much to lessen the stress.
“It sounds terrible,” Greta said, nodding sympathetically.
Katrina exhaled in relief. “No one else would understand,” she said. “It’s a very specific kind of stress. Everyone thinks we have this fabulous life.”
“You’re entitled to feel the way you do.” Greta meant it. Who was to say Katrina’s feelings weren’t valid? Other people not understanding didn’t negate her experience. In the context of her life, the stress was real. It’s easy to speculate that others have it better, but the prince traded places with the pauper, and both of them found out it wasn’t so easy on the other side.
Katrina pulled her into a hug and, when they pulled apart, wiped a tear from her eye. “Thanks, Greta. You’re a great listener. Don’t repeat any of this to Cece, okay? I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.”
“I promise I won’t say a word.”
Walking back into the kitchen, they encountered Vance and Cece, right where they’d left them. Cece said, “Greta, did you see your marks?”
“My marks?” She’d completely forgotten their pretense for leaving the room.
“I just explained t
o Greta how it works,” Katrina said. “This is all new to Greta, so we’re going to have to be very patient with her today. We’re counting on you to help, Cece.”
Cece brightened. “Of course I’ll help Greta!”
When Vance’s phone pinged, he took a look and said to Katrina, “We’ve got the crowd lined up. I planned for a medium turnout.”
The rest of the morning was a flurry of activity. A team of people, eight in all, walked into the apartment, two of them pulling a rolling rack of clothes and another wheeling in what looked like a portable barber chair complete with a remote to raise or lower the chair height. The makeup artist had a case of cosmetics the size of a large toolbox. Katrina and Vance went through the clothes on the rack, choosing outfits for the shoot.
Greta sat watching as they took turns getting their hair and makeup done. Katrina’s and Vance’s times in the chair went quickly, but Cece’s turn went on and on. She squirmed at one point and said, “How much longer?”
“Not too much longer,” the makeup guy said. “And when I finish, you will be magnificent!”
When he was done and he turned the chair around, Cece did look magnificent, as beautiful as in her cosmetics ads.
“How do I look?” she asked, tipping her chin up.
Greta said, “Absolutely gorgeous.” It was the truth. Cece had gone from being merely pretty to stunning. Her hair hung in sleek waves over her shoulders. It was glossy, catching the light in all the right ways. Greta had watched the transformation as it happened and still was amazed by the end result. She couldn’t wait to see what they could do for her.
When the team began to pack up their stuff, Greta said to Katrina, “Wait a minute! What about me?”
“Not today,” she said briskly. “We’re doing a character arc, remember? You’ll start out frumpy like you are now and gradually, with Cece’s help, get transformed into a beautiful swan.” She gave her arm a squeeze. “Can you wait?”
“I guess so.”
After most of the hair and makeup team left, they sat at the kitchen table and ran through their lines. As Cece and Greta read, Vance made adjustments to the dialogue, and each of them marked the changes accordingly. Greta frowned. So much of what they had her saying was contrary to her personality. She would never show up at someone’s house sobbing that her life was over because some guy had dumped her. When she objected, Katrina reminded her that this wasn’t her per se, but a character named Greta. “Like an alternate-world Greta Hansen. Think of it as being like a part in a movie.”
Greta folded her arms. “I know I’m playing a role, but the people who know me will take it as the truth. It’s embarrassing.”
Katrina said, “If you want, we can change the boyfriend’s name. Would that help?”
“Yes.” It did help.
“It’s like playing pretend,” Cece chimed in. “Like we did when we were kids?” As if they’d grown up together. The idea made Greta smile. Eventually, she caved in, agreeing to play it the way it had been written.
Filming the short scene took more than an hour and was way more involved than Greta would have imagined. A young woman held up cue cards with Cece’s lines, and some guy in headphones held a boom microphone above their heads. They had to do it over and over again, Greta bursting through the door and throwing herself into Cece’s arms, while Katrina and Vance rushed in from the other room to see what the ruckus was. They had to film from Greta’s vantage point going through the door, and then from Cece’s of Greta coming toward her. One time she pushed through the door so quickly that the edge caught Cece on the shoulder. Greta was horrified, but Cece just burst out laughing. It was good to see her take it so well because most of the time she looked miserable, asking how much longer this was going to take and if they could be done already. Greta knew how she felt. Making everything look spontaneous and exciting was taxing.
Once they had watched all the footage on a laptop and determined they had enough to work with, Vance told the camera crew they could go. As the team packed up their equipment, Vance and Katrina went into a huddle, deciding how to edit the footage and how they’d release it. Cece was not part of that conversation.
“Finally!” Cece said, collapsing into a nearby chair. “I thought we’d never finish.”
“It did seem to take a long time,” Greta agreed.
“Right?” She perked up. “I have to do it every day too.”
“Not every day, Cece,” Katrina corrected. “Four times a week.”
“It seems like every day,” she said, sighing. “They always say just a little more, and then I do a little more, and then there’s more after that. It goes on and on.”
“So you don’t like what you do?” Greta asked. In her imaginings back home, she’d had a million questions for Cece. She’d wanted to know how she’d created a multimillion-dollar company by the time she was twenty-three, how it felt to be from such a prestigious family, what goals she had for future ventures. But those were yesterday’s questions; today none of them seemed relevant. “I mean, you get to go to all the exclusive clubs and design new fashions and be in commercials.”
“Sometimes it’s fun,” Cece said. “I love dancing, and I like when we visit kids in hospitals.” She slung her leg over the arm of the chair and leaned back. “Katrina, do we have any hospital visits scheduled?”
“Not anytime soon,” Katrina said.
“You see?” Cece said to Greta. “I’m always locked into their schedule. I almost never get to choose what I want to do.”
“You’ll like what we’re doing tomorrow,” Katrina said. “We’re going to lunch at Bellemont, so the public can get a good look at Greta.” She addressed the next part to Greta, explaining that the Bellemont was a restaurant owned by the Vanderhavens. “It’s got that industrial vintage decor. The menu is upscale pub food. You’ll like it.”
“Sounds great.”
Cece asked, “Can Brenna come with us to the restaurant?”
“No, Cece, not this time.”
“Brenna never gets to come,” Cece said sadly to Greta. “I keep asking, but she’s not allowed.” Millions of fans followed Cece’s every move, all of them thinking she had this dream life, and here she couldn’t even invite her own sister along for lunch. How sad not to be able to make those kinds of decisions.
“Maybe she can come another day,” Vance said, never taking his eyes off the laptop. “Or maybe this—how about you and Greta take Brenna to Serendipity for ice cream next week? I’ll find somewhere to slip it into the schedule.”
“Yes,” Cece said. “That would be great.”
Vance grinned. “I’ll make a note of it. In the meantime, we can look forward to tomorrow’s lunch at Bellemont.”
CHAPTER TEN
On the second morning of Dalton’s homelessness experiment, he was awakened by someone nudging his foot with the tip of a shoe. The night before he’d found a similar setup to Matt’s, minus the little rock cave, and so he’d spent the night lying between a large boulder and a row of bushes. He’d used his backpack as a pillow and tried unsuccessfully to convince himself he was in a safe and comfortable spot. He’d fallen asleep secure in the notion he was completely hidden, but sometime during the night, he must have shifted in his sleep, because now his exposed feet sticking out in the open had attracted the attention of what he would find out later was a nice police officer.
“Sir, sir, are you okay?”
What? Dalton’s eyes flicked open. It felt as if he’d just drifted off to sleep, but judging by the first bit of daylight through the branches, it was early morning. He rubbed his eyes, his mind still cloudy.
“Sir, are you injured or ill?”
He managed to get out an answer. “I’m okay.” His voice sounded thick from dry mouth.
“Come out of there now.”
Dalton wasn’t entirely sure who was talking, but the man’s authoritative tone made him think not listening was not an option. “Just a minute.”
“Sir, you need to co
me out now. I want to see your hands.”
Dalton scooted out on his butt, branches scraping against his face as he went. “I’m coming out. I don’t have any weapons.” He scrambled to his feet, arms raised, the backpack dangling off one arm.
The police officer was a big guy, so tall and bulky he loomed over Dalton. Still, Dalton wasn’t worried. He’d heard of the homeless being arrested for petty crimes, but for the most part, the police just told them to move along. “Good morning, officer,” he said.
“Too much to drink, son?” He had aviator sunglasses perched on the top of his head and an amused expression Dalton found reassuring.
“No, sir, I’m just out of money and trying to figure out my living arrangements.”
“The park isn’t a good option,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s family friendly during the day, but it’s not safe at night. Not to mention it’s against the law.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to find you here again,” he said.
“No, sir. I won’t do it again.” Not in that particular spot, anyway.
“There are lots of services available in the area. If you’re by yourself, you can apply at the intake center on East Thirtieth Street, and they’ll let you know about shelter availability for men. They might also know how you’d go about getting a referral for treatment for substance abuse and alcohol addiction.”
“Thanks, I’ll check it out,” Dalton said, brushing a leaf off the front of his shirt and wondering what it was about his appearance that indicated he was addicted to drugs or alcohol. It had to be because he was sleeping on the ground in Central Park.
“There’s a public restroom that way, if you want to clean up,” the officer said. “You probably want to wash your face. And you have a twig in your hair.” He pointed.
Dalton ran his fingers through his hair. “Good idea. About the restroom, I mean.”
“Good luck to you, son. I hope things get better for you.” And then he strode off without even issuing a ticket. All he’d done was give him some good advice. Dalton made a mental note to give the NYPD a five-star Yelp review when this whole experiment was over.
Good Man, Dalton Page 8
