Between You and Me (25 page)

“Can I show you anything else?” Professionalism straining, the woman behind Fred Segal’s cufflink counter stares at Kelsey with the same intensity that Kelsey peers through the glass at an array of skull-themed options. She is obviously hoping that Kelsey will say no, so we’ll leave and take our colicky infant with us—let the sneering bleached lollipops shop in peace. The store is steadily raising the music to drown out Jessie’s wails, Joy Division sounding more joyless with every added decibel.

With the baby strapped to her chest, Kelsey bounces continuously. It feels like she’s been bouncing for two straight months—downward swaying being the only of the Five S’s to buy us a respite. I now totally get why recordings of an inconsolable infant are used to torture suspected terrorists.

Kelsey bites her lip as she contemplates platinum poker-chip cufflinks. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

I study the case, aware that this anniversary gift has to be as perfect as the elaborately planned day it will cap off. “Lo, how we doing on time?” she asks, adding quietly, “I was so wrong about coming here. This feels all wrong. Can we swing by Rodeo on our way—it needs to feel special—these don’t feel special.”

“We have to be at the studio in half an hour, and Aaron’s plane should be landing soon.” Bringing him home for the first time since Jessie was born. My mind races to make sure we hit all her marks—that the Annie Leibovitz angel-themed family portrait doesn’t run late, ensuring that they have time to play with Jessie at home, give her a bath together, put her to bed, and still make their dinner reservation and first-kiss re-creation at the club.

“And don’t forget about traffic,” Michelle says as she returns from the dressing room with a green Eres maillot in hand.

“But none of these is right.” Kelsey rubs Jessie’s feet.

“I could hear that child clear across ladies’ intimates. Maybe it’s something you’re eating, Kelsey,” Michelle helpfully observes as she takes a seat on a converted surfboard and picks up a tabloid. “She’s pretty lippy. You never screamed like this.”

“Can I see those little gold revolvers?” Kelsey asks the salesgirl. “The food thing is an old wives’ tale, Momma.”

“What we call folk wisdom.”

“Okay.” Kelsey lets out a jittery breath as she takes the guns. “I’m just going to have to figure this out while she screams.”

“Oooh.” Michelle looks up from the magazine. The very one that’s been avidly chronicling Jessie’s colic, and the opinions of “experts” who assess where Kelsey is failing. It started a month ago, when one morning, after driving Jessie around for hours, she had finally fallen asleep, and Kelsey desperately needed to pee. Panicked and leaking, she left Jessie in her car seat for less than a minute while she dashed into a gas-station bathroom. What the pictures didn’t show was that Jessie was still under the watchful eye of about a hundred paparazzi and GM parked a few feet away. Now the tabloids are trying to one-up each other chronicling Kelsey as a bad mom. Which, to anyone who knows the strain her knees are taking as a one-woman cradle, is ludicrous. “Baby Gap is looking for models.”

“No. You have your clothing line to focus on, right, Momma?”

“Not even Kathie Lee and Hoda’s Beautiful Baby contest?”

Kelsey clanks the revolvers down and turns to her mother.
“Why?”

“She’s so beautiful—we should give her opportunities.”

“For
what
?” Kelsey raises her voice to be heard, rubbing Jessie’s back as the screams escalate. “Momma, I don’t want her to have to think about anything but having fun until she graduates college.”

“And that’s a dig at me.” Michelle turns the page. “You didn’t
want
to go to college, Miss Thing—what use would college have been?”

“I don’t know. Logan, what did you learn at NYU?”

“Use a condom.” I slide the gold guns back to the salesgirl.

“Oh, please.” Michelle dismisses her. “It just about wore me out keeping up with you. You loved performing. You loved the contests.”

“Because it got us away from Daddy
.”

In a lull between songs, between screams, Kelsey’s words echo off the tiled ceilings. Michelle lowers her beating face, wordlessly untucks her legs, and walks out the door. Kelsey watches, as everyone watches, her hands momentarily still on her daughter.

I push the tray back to the salesgirl. “How about I have Cartier pull a few things and run them to set?”

Kelsey nods, wrapping her arms around the tiny bundle on her chest. “I know, baby,” she whispers. “It hurts. Your tummy hurts. I know.”

In pursuit of Kelsey’s heavenly
vision, the set feels like a chicken coop as we all sneeze, blow, and sneeze again, our eyes, ears, and mouths filled with the spray of hundreds of bags of feathers.

Today Andy and Kelsey’s aspirations are in alignment. Andy wants this
Vanity Fair
shoot to shift public perspective from questioning Aaron’s fidelity to a wholesome family bond. Kelsey wants the wholesome family bond.

My phone rings. “Aaron, everything okay?” I ask, trying to find a spot out of the way.

“Yeah.”

“Your flight land?”

“Yeah.”

“You in the limo?”

“Yeah.”

“On your way here?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, great,” I say, having checked off my immediate fears. “Happy anniversary.”

“I, uh, wanted to see what I could do for that. We’re doing something tonight, right?”

You’re shitting me. “Yep.”

“I don’t have anything up my sleeve, but I could have flowers sent . . . ”

“Um, Kel got some roses,” I say, underplaying the yellow blooms blanketing their home.

“Okay. Well, what about getting a friend to DJ at the house, make that fun?”

“I think you guys are going out.”

“Oh. Okay, well, whatever. It’s not like this is our tenth. I’m sure she didn’t sweat it, what with the baby ’n’ all. Okay, see you.”

Fuckfuckfuck.

I immediately call Cartier and add the canary diamond rose brooch Kelsey admired. A pin might be an odd gift for a twenty-five-year-old, especially one she’s technically buying for herself, but the reference to her bridal bouquet should beat the nothing that’s been planned for her.

“Please keep the door shut!” Kelsey cries, sneezing as I enter. “I can’t take Jessie out there.” I glance at the sleeping baby, praying this nap holds out. “How is this gonna work?”

Annie’s studio manager bites his pencil. “She’s gonna shoot the baby separately at the end and Photoshop her in.”

“What? No,” Kelsey protests. “I wanted, like, like, the Cruises or the Testino spread with Lola sitting on her stomach. This is supposed to be our family portrait—
ahchoo!
”

“I hear we’re having a crisis?” The stylist sticks her head in.

The assistant flaps his arms. “I tried elastics, I tried clamps, I can’t get anything to close. I can’t get her arms through the sleeves, I can’t get the pants past her hips, I—”

“Well, she’s fat,” The stylist says matter-of-factly.

“I had a baby.”

“What about using what she came in?” I ask. The sound of everyone’s nostrils flaring is audible. “Or running to H&M and getting her some normal-size clothes? These are like Build-a-Bear outfits.”

The stylist scowls. “Percy, call the office, see if we have any of that stuff we pulled for Queen Latifah.”

Kelsey is handed a robe. The hairstylist flags the studio manager over. “And
psst.
” He points unsubtly at her scalp.

“I’m shedding, I know,” Kelsey says loudly, blinking as her irritated eyes water. “And I’m breaking out. But my stitches have healed—too bad this isn’t for
Hustler
.”

Kelsey is already hoisted into
her harness when Aaron arrives, forcing them to greet each other from a distance. He first refuses the outfit they’ve chosen, then the meal on offer, followed by the drinks in the cooler, and is generally surly and difficult with everyone, as if trying to ensure they walk away saying that Aaron is such a dick and not, hey, I worked with the loser who sings “Zigging When It Should Be Zagging.”

“Okay, now, Aaron.” The room quiets as Annie finally speaks in the thin voice of someone whose every word is hung on. “I want you to look at Kelsey like you love her.” She stares down at the screen, analyzing the image. Then up, analyzing Aaron. “Love her.” Down to the image. Up to Aaron. “More love.” Again. “More love
in the eyes
.” Again. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to you.”

A determined Kelsey makes a
joke when we arrive at the club that Aaron should carry her to the VIP lounge to complete the reenactment. But, by design, there are no douchey guys to maul her this evening. I thought it would feel more special if we rented out the VIP area, but, devoid of Hollywood heirs and the randy twenty-somethings looking to bag them, the empty booths have a dampening effect on what little enthusiasm the two guests of honor seem to muster. Jessie slept through tummy time and was hungry early, precluding the bath, leaving Kelsey alone to nurse while Aaron succumbed to jet lag. Even with Aaron’s friends, Kelsey’s dancers, and the handful of buddies Finn was able to wrangle, the party is slow to get going. Honestly, I have to keep reminding myself that we didn’t just load in for another video shoot. But then, at Finn’s suggestion, I tell the manager to reopen his VIP list. And once everyone gets a cocktail in them, dancing starts in earnest.

Nursing her spritzer, Kelsey gamely watches Aaron do shots with
some friends, and I have to wait until she excuses herself to the bathroom to catch him. “She didn’t need to go to so much trouble,” he says.

“Well, you know Kelsey.”

He nods.

“Anyway,” I continue, “I left a red leather box under your side of the bed.”

“Of course you did.” He knocks back another shot. “Well, thanks, I guess,” he says.

I excuse myself to find Finn.

“Happy Someone Else’s Anniversary.” Finn, a little buzzed, pulls me against him into one of the velvet booths.

“You, too.” I smile, fingering his collar.

“How ’bout we go to the bathroom and have a re-creation of our own?”

“If you’ll recall, what we bonded over was the bathroom being disgusting.” I take a sip of my drink. “And technically, I’m on duty. Oh, and we have a really comfortable bed now.”

He gives me an acknowledging smile. “You sound old and married.”

“You love it.”

He separates the damp napkin from the base of his sweating highball. “I do.”

Aaron unsteadily pulls Kelsey in to dance, people making a circle around the pair, cheering them on. Kelsey snaps into show mode, flipping her hair back and rhythmically snaking up her husband. He lifts his hat, turning it around as he drops his hands behind his back. I watch as the shrinking distance between their pulsating movements once again sparks. Kelsey looks up at him, into him, lifting her arms languorously over her head and swiveling her hips. He bends his knees and starts to dance down her when he trips. She reaches for his arm, but he tugs it away.

He stumbles off the floor, and then, seemingly remembering that they’re being observed, she resumes dancing, albeit distractedly as a new song comes on. Suddenly, her forearms brace her chest and she scurries out of sight.

“Be right back,” I say.

“Meet you in a stall?” Finn squeezes my bare thigh.

“Hold that thought.” I follow the booths until I find Kelsey in the corner of the last one. “You okay?” I yell over the music, but she doesn’t hear me. She slides cocktail napkins into the gold triangle tops of her dress. “Hey.” I put my hand on her shoulder as I realize that Kanye’s latest single samples a baby crying.

“I’m engorged,” she says into my ear. “It’s so painful. I didn’t bring the pump. I didn’t think of it. My dress is soaked. How am I going to say good-bye to everyone?” She clenches her eyes.

“They’ll understand. We’re out of here.” I grab a stack of napkins.

Mortified, she won’t let my
arm go, and I end up in the backseat of my car behind Aaron, whose head lolls on the seat rest. Kelsey holds bracing palms to her breasts, her forehead resting against the glass as she takes little breaths. The second we pull up at their house, she flings her door open to race inside, her heels fighting against the suck of the pebbles.

“Thanks for chauffeuring.” Aaron pats Finn’s shoulder. “And rustling up your bros.”

“Sure thing. Hope she feels better, man.”

“Yeah.” Aaron opens his eyes wide. “Jet lag and Hennessy do not mix.” Finn responds with a knowing laugh. “Thanks, Logan,” Aaron’s voice empties as he gets out. “Party was awesome.”

I move up front, and Finn turns the car around in the driveway, the headlights cutting a swath of dimension into the black profiles of the trees. I focus on the broken yellow line, reminding myself that I can, should, clock out.

Suddenly, tires screech and the horn blares. I spin to see the stop sign Finn just ran as the other driver screams, “Asshole!” and continues on.

“Pull over.”

“We’re almost home.”

“Finn, pull over, you’re drunk.” I catch my breath.