Accidental It Girl (7 page)

Paige showed me to “my” bedroom. It looked like Holly Hobby had been held prisoner there, tortured, and then blown herself up MacGyver style using only a paper clip, some Pepto-Bismol, and a thousand yards of lace. Two gorgeous brand-new outfits hung neatly in the closet—one for Friday night, one for Saturday. The weekend spiraled ever downward quite nicely from there.

I was the only nonadult at either party. Paige paraded me around like a sideshow oddity, showing off my outfits and forcing me to “tell people how well you're doing, honey.” I was like a new sofa she'd acquired for the occasion. Look at it…isn't it nice. The upholstery's beautiful, and the frame is so
sturdy
!

Everything about the house was foreign to me. Despite its lavishness compared to my father's place, it felt totally empty. There were no memories there. I didn't know the bikes that hung in the garage, couldn't recall how the ding on the fender came about. There were rules I didn't know to obey—taking your shoes off before entering from the backyard, not touching the screen of the fancy TV (“You'll leave fingerprints!”), not feeding Oodles table scraps because she had a sensitive stomach. On the living room bookshelf was a picture of my mother. She was on the beach in a skimpy white bikini. She held a tiny little fish in her hand. Her skin was golden and smooth, her hair the same sun-kissed platinum as mine. The bikini clung to her sculpted curves so precariously that it seemed to cover her by sheer will alone. I couldn't identify the exotic tropical locale and had no idea why she looked so proud of that silly little fish.

As bizarre as the whole experience turned out to be, I couldn't stop coming back each weekend. The only way I know to describe it is that it's like when you watch one of those shows on the Discovery Channel about babies born with two heads, or people forced to cut off their own limbs to save themselves from certain death. Something about it grosses you out, freaks you out…it may even give you nightmares. Still, you
have
to watch. You become mesmerized with curiosity and wonder. That's what it was like growing up with Paige for a mother.

Week after week I was trussed up and polished. I was paraded around and gawked at, prodded and given diet advice by my mother's leather-skinned golf buddies. I was leered at by Dr. Hank's mysterious “associates” and given off-the-cuff orthodontic tips by his “business acquaintances.” Looking back on it now, I can see that my mother's increasing
interest
in me, if you can call it that, makes perfect sense. She and Dr. Hank had spent three blissful, romantic years as a couple. They'd had their time together and Paige was ready to start a family. Lucky for my mother she didn't have to get fat and incontinent to do so. I was a ready-made family, the finishing touch for my mother's home—the pitter-patter of little feet that rounded out and perfected the image of domestic bliss she wanted to be envied for. If I hadn't been a wimpy doormat of a self-conscious youth, I probably would have rebelled. If I hadn't felt so completely curious and slightly helpless, I either would have refused to go along with these performances or spoiled them in grand fashion—explosives, poison, dirty body-pierced boyfriends. But as it was, I went along with them for years. Monday through Friday I was myself, Saturday and Sunday I was Paige Price-Farmer's “darling daughter.”

That box over there could be anything. A plasma TV, a giant velvet Elvis, a killer python. There's really no telling how good or bad it might be, or what Paige expects in return.

It's time for the evening news. I don't mean the local variety that's so abundant here in New York, or the kind of broadcast by the roughly seven million twenty-four-hour news networks. No, I'm talking about the evening
entertainment
news. It's part of the job for Luke and me, and one of Brooke's most beloved guilty pleasures.

This is a somewhat tedious, but occasionally amusing, job-related diversion. Tonight, however, it's turning my stomach to knots. I know they're going to cover the airport pileup, and I know they're going to make it out to be my fault. Since Lindsay Lohan got her driver's license these stories have become a main-stay of the nightly entertainment news—and it's always the photographer's fault. Always.

“Oh, damn!” whines Brooke as I make my way back from the kitchen with a load of stress-reducing snacks in my arms. Brooke sits, as she always does, perched on the edge of her seat as though ready to pounce.

“What? What is it? What did they say?” I ask breathlessly, dropping the snacks on the coffee table.

“No, no. It's nothing about you. I just missed
E!
‘Behind the Scenes of
Finding Her
.' Damn, I forgot it was on! There's only five minutes left.”

Finding Her
is the upcoming release starring Brooke's true love fantasy man, Duncan Stoke. Duncan Stoke is an all-American hunk, Brooke's current celebrity obsession, and the one man in Hollywood with a name more improbable than Vin Diesel.

“He has two movies coming out this summer. He's going to be all over the TV,” Luke tells her.

“Hallelujah!” She points to the screen. “I mean, look at him. He's gorgeous. I saw him on Leno the other night, Sadie. He's so perfect for me in every way. If I were just a
little
bit crazier, I could totally become a stalker.”

Brooke is somewhat of a nascent celebrity freak. The further along she's gotten in her chosen career of real estate, the less she's been inclined to do it the rest of her life. She's got it into her head that she's going to marry into fame, fortune, and a life of leisure. For most people this would be a harmless fantasy. For Brooke, given her complete focus, dogged determination, and proximity to people who track celebrities for a living, this becomes very dangerous. She's a heat-seeking missile.

“I wonder if he's coming to New York to do publicity,” she says ominously, while watching Duncan Stoke's chiseled, action-hero features flicker across the screen. Something about his oh-so classically manly form, or his pitch-perfect combination of cockiness and boy-next-door charm, has enraptured her.

Unlike me, Brooke is a dreamer who wholeheartedly believes in true love and happy endings. (Her parents have been married for thirty-five years and have always been blissfully happy.) I believe this is the root of her celebrity obsession and her all-consuming fantasy life that centers on hooking up with one.

It is so much easier to believe that the right guy exists, and that you just haven't met him yet, if that guy's face is known to you. It's much more frightening to think that he's out there and you might not recognize him.

What if you meet him and you don't understand his importance? What if you miss it altogether? What if when he asks you out for coffee you say, “Sorry, gotta feed my cat,” not knowing that he's The One? (And not actually owning a cat.)

The feeling of knowing that a perfect someone is out there is comforting, soothing. In lonely times you can console yourself with the knowledge that circumstances out of your control (namely, his bodyguards) are all that's keeping you from romantic tranquillity with the man of your dreams. The sense of hope this creates, no matter how unrealistic the celebrity match, is important to the single girl's sanity. The only thing scarier than the possibility of missing The One is the possibility that he's not out there at all.

In times of disappointment or stress, Brooke can always dive into her quixotic infatuations. They give her hope. For this reason, I find them hard to discourage.

Brooke sighs as the show ends. She stares off into space with a dreamy look in her eye, no doubt mentally picking out a Vera Wang wedding gown, or redecorating Duncan's beach-side cottage in East Hampton.

Brooke's show gives way to the precommercial tease of the night's celebrity news. What do you know, the centerpiece of their coverage tonight will be “the lowdown on steamy rumors of Ethan Wyatt's on-set canoodling, and his harrowing paparazzi-involved car crash.”

Yep, I can tell by the condescending way the host said “paparazzi” that they're going to make it out to be my fault. Obviously, I'm not surprised, but for some reason seeing it on national television makes my blood absolutely boil. And I didn't even get a shot of his face.

I blurt, “Ethan Wyatt swerves in and out of traffic, slams on his breaks, destroys my car, and they are going to say that it's
my
fault.”

“You admit that it was partly your fault,” says Luke.

“I didn't get a ticket, remember?” I say, doing my best to defend myself. “He's the one who swerved off the road and caused the whole pileup.”

“Because you were following him.” Luke adds, “Bit of a chicken/egg thing there, isn't it?”

“I—”

“Okay, enough of that,” Brooke says, cutting me off. She looks at me quizzically and adds, “I still don't get why you couldn't get a shot of him. They could have had
your
pictures to frame you with on the news.”

“I have no idea.” And to be honest, it completely freaks me out. This job is my life. Trust me, I know it's not supposed to be that way. We're all supposed to “work to live,” not “live to work.” I get it. I mean, I've read all the same articles as everyone else, seen all the same experts on the
Today
show. But, as stupid, silly, and slightly pathetic as it may sound, I don't know what I would do without it. I finally have my life in some sort of order. I finally feel relatively stable. My job makes me calm, if you can believe that. Last night was the first time I haven't been able to summon that calm at will.

“What if I'm losing my edge?” I ask, while petitioning Brooke with my eyes to tell me it's not possible.

“You?”
quips Luke.

“Luke, I couldn't take the picture. It was like…” I take a deep breath. “It was like I was paralyzed. It felt…wrong somehow, or something.” Too personal? “When he looked at me I…” completely lost all control and turned into a stuttering, unprofessional heap of jelly. “I just couldn't do it. What happens if I can't do it anymore?”

Luke shakes his head. “You think you could just—
whoosh
—lose the ability to take pictures?”

“Yeah,” I reply matter-of-factly. “I read somewhere about this artist who went to bed one night halfway through a masterpiece and woke up the next morning and couldn't paint. Couldn't
finger
paint. Couldn't—”

“Were you reading the
National Enquirer
?”

“I'm serious!” I say, suddenly desperate to get Luke off my back.

“So am I!” he retorts.

“I have an idea,” chirps Brooke. “Practice on me. Pretend I'm famous.”

Brooke races across the room and back, delivering my camera. She immediately begins posing.

“It's not the same,” I say after taking several shots. “It was Ethan Wyatt—”

“You want him?” Luke asks bluntly.

“No! I am not the least bit attracted to him! Why would you assume I want the guy just because—”

“Calm down, Killer,” coos Luke. “What I meant was, do you want to get a
shot
of him? Do you want to try and
find
him?”

“Oh,” I say, as a sudden and rather overwhelming rush of embarrassment makes my cheeks go warm.

Brooke flips through the channels searching for the other celebrity news outlets.

A voice from the TV peals, “…Billy Bush with the latest from the Big Apple. He'll give us the lowdown on Ethan Wyatt's dangerous run-in with an overzealous paparazzi.”

The
Access Hollywood
theme song rings through the apartment like a battle cry.

I
can't
let him win. I can't let some cocky, sexy, talented, fairly amazing actor beat me. He's supposed to be afraid of
me
—not the other way around.

“Yes,” I say boldly. “I'd like him served up on a platter, if possible.”