Lauren Takes Leave (24 page)

“It doesn’t even matter what I do, Lauren. There’s a nanny
cam somewhere that will ruin both Shay’s and my life anyway, remember?”

“You’re right,” I concede. “But that doesn’t mean you
should just give up on having a future that’s drama-free. Your past has been
chaotic, true, but your world doesn’t have to resemble a nighttime soap opera
forever. You deserve better, Kat.”

Her eyes hold mine for a second. I can just about see
through them, into the machinery of her brain as gears shift and slide into
place.

“Guys! People are staring,” Jodi says. “Get up.” I look
around and notice that Kat and I are the only two morons still on our backs in
Happy Baby pose.

“I thought you
liked
people staring at you,” I say
to her. And before I can think better of it I add, “Bring on the paparazzi!
Let’s get famous for nothing!” I’m on a roll now, truth-telling pouring out
from my pores, and it feels freeing. “Three kids and no excitement, so…”

“That was a secret!” Jodi protests.

“Ooh…time to
unburden
,” Kat snarks.

“And speaking of secrets,
Lauren
,” Jodi adds,
“you’re basically cheating on your husband.”

“Which is not much different than basically
stealing
from
yours,” I say.

This is not what our beachy vacay is supposed to sound
like. This is certainly not what sunset yoga in SoBe is supposed to look like.
We glare at each other in stunned silence, having never fought like this
before.

I’m suddenly not feeling quite so free.

I change my mind; honesty sucks. I wish I could stop time
and rewind the clock, put Pandora back into her box.

“That’s it! Good-bye,” Debbie says, managing, despite
everything, to be holding the most perfect Half Moon I have ever seen.

“Kumbaya?” Jodi calls, trying to make amends with Debbie
as we gather our belongings and quickly step away from the group.

“Well, that went really well, Lauren, dontcha think?” Kat
accuses. “Now my chakras are all misaligned!”

I pivot on the sand and face her. “This is not only
my
fault, you know. First, you got kicked out of school and now Jodi just got us
kicked out of sunset yoga! Which I didn’t even want to participate in, I might
remind you.”

Digging my toes into the sand, I wait for a response.

No one speaks.

I look at Jodi, who looks at Kat, who looks at the ground.

Now that we’re silent, this would have been the perfect
time to join the yoga class.

“Um, ladies…if I may?” a man calls out.

I turn my head in the direction of the voice, which holds
the slightest hint of southern charm.

Jodi takes one look at the guy and shakes her head in
disgust. “No, you may not.”

About ten feet away from where we are standing, tucked
inside a sunshade cabana, sits the offending individual. He’s wearing faded
shorts and a ripped T-shirt, a Kangol summer-style fedora, and mirrored
aviators. From his chin hangs the scraggliest looking beard I’ve ever seen.
It’s long and unkempt and kind of grayish blond, like an old man’s pubes.

An overstuffed army-style duffle bag rests at his side,
probably containing all his worldly possessions. He looks like Nick Nolte’s
character from
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
.

“What is he, homeless?” Kat whispers to us.

“Don’t get too close. Ignore him,” Jodi instructs. “And
I’m not talking to you, Lauren.”

“One, I’m sorry. I should not have lashed out at you like
that. You want to get famous, go for it. Two, I thought we were on the good
part of the beach,” I say.

“I thought so, too, until you yappers showed up, ruined
yoga over there, and made me all tense in my private beach cabana,” the man
says. Then, pointing at Jodi, “I agree with her. You guys are giving me some
serious agita.”

“I don’t need your agreement!” Jodi calls back.

“I thought you said we were supposed to ignore him!” Kat
says.

“I’m merely
telling
him that we are ignoring him!”
she explains.

“What if he wants to eat our small intestines with a
spoon?” Kat asks.

“Then we’ll give him Lauren.”

“Ha,” I say.

“I’m a practicing vegetarian, ladies…no worries about
cannibalism from me. And yes, I heard all about your little drama, since you
were whisper-screaming it to the whole of South Beach.”

Jodi’s shaking her head in wonder. “He’s got, like,
Spiderman’s hearing.”

“Batman’s,” I correct. “You know, like
bats
?”

“Maybe spiders have great hearing, too, for all you know.”
She cannot be wrong.

“Are you two really going to fight about something this
stupid?” Kat demands.

“Yup,” the man calls. “I think they are.”

“Listen here, you motherfucking Fu Manchu—”

The man interrupts what is sure to be one of Kat’s most
colorful diatribes on record. “All I’m saying is, Mercury is in retrograde,
and…”

Kat stops. She turns her head to the side just the tiniest
bit, to see if she heard him correctly. “All right. You’ve got ten seconds.”

He scratches his beard, like he’s seriously thinking about
what advice to dish out.

Then he looks up and begins pointing. “To you, the
black-haired girl, I say: stay away from trouble. As my great-granny used to
tell me back in Missouri, you don’t shit where you eat.”

“See?” I say, nodding along with the random man’s words of
wisdom and hitting Kat on the arm. Hard.

“I’m Kat, by the way,” she calls back.

“Nice to meet you, Kat. Please keep your dick in your
pants.”

“Fuck you,” she retorts, one corner of her mouth turned up
in a devilish smile.

“Lovely,” Jodi says. I’m not sure if she’s referring to
the beach bum or Kat. It kind of doesn’t matter.

“And you,” he says, pointing at me.

“Moi?” I look over my shoulder to see if he’s mistaken me
for anyone else on the beach.

“Yes, blondie. You’re not so unique, you know. Everyone
feels the way you do. Wanting to cut school, call in sick, take a break.”

“I’m not ill; I’m on jury duty,” I clarify. “You only
eavesdropped on part of the story.”

“Well, I caught the part about those little texts. That
are not from your husband, I’m guessing.”

“I might not be married, you know,” I call back. Then I
whisper to Jodi and Kat, “I’m really not liking this guy.”

“I can see that pretty diamond sparkling in the fading
sunlight, my friend,” he replies.

“Shit, he’s going to rob us,” Jodi says.

“I’m not gonna rob y’all!” he says, sounding very much
like a character from a movie who is, indeed, just about to rob us. “I’ve got
kids, too,” he adds, motioning to Jodi. “Lots of ’em. And I’ve got paparazzi.
Lots of ’em.”

“Go slip into something more comfortable—like a coma,”
Jodi says.
Like a coma?
I think. She gets up and faces him. It’s like
she’s practicing for a scene for which she’d win Best Actress in a String
Bikini in a Dramatic Role. “You’ve been
spying
on us and now you know
all this
shit
about us and you’re
slimy
and you’re
freaking me
out
!”

“That’s it. Time’s up. I’m calling the cops,” Kat says,
grabbing her BlackBerry from her beach bag.

His face—what little of it is visible—registers alarm
mingled with something else. Is he laughing at us? He gets up and saunters
toward us, palms in surrender mode, his voice taking on a stage whisper. “No,
no! Don’t call the cops! It’s cool. Really! I’m sorry for upsetting you. I’ll
explain!” He smiles and pulls his sunglasses down to his nose, flashing some
gorgeous baby-blue eyes at us, dimples creasing his cheeks. “Will you let me
explain? Sans police?”

Kat drops her phone. My mouth hangs open. Jodi takes a
step forward.

The beard and the Kangol and the sunglasses and the
dimples. The baby-blue eyes, and all those kids. All that paparazzi.

“Hey,” he says, sticking out his right hand toward Jodi.
“I’m Tim.”

It’s truly amazing how quickly Jodi’s repulsion and fear
can be replaced with full-on lust.

“Hi-yyy,” Jodi coos, straightening her shoulders and
tossing her auburn waves theatrically. “I’m Jodi.”

Then she shakes hands with world-famous actor, two-time
Academy Award–winner, and legendary hottie Tim Cubix like it’s the most natural
thing in the world, like she’s just been waiting since seventh grade for him to
show up and fight with her on the beach. “And this is Lauren,” Jodi adds,
motioning in my general direction without letting go of his hand or shifting
her gaze from his. “I believe you’ve already met Kat.”

How can Jodi form words at a time like this? Kat and I are
having a much harder time keeping our shit together in the face of this
astonishing bit of news. We manage to be calm for about a half a millisecond
before gathering together in a hug and shrieking. Then we jump around in a
circle of elation and share the discovery with each other.

“Ohmigod!” I scream.

“I think I just called Tim Cubix a motherfucker!” Kat
cries excitedly.

“Shh!” Tim Cubix smiles, motioning us to come sit under
the cabana. “Be subtle, could you, maybe?”

“I can’t! I just can’t!” I gasp. “You’re too real for
words!” I’m having the weirdest sensation standing next to the physical being
of such a renowned celebrity. It’s almost an out-of-body experience, like he’s
pulled me into one of his movies and I’m no longer living in my mundane world.

I feel like I’m in that scene from
The Wizard of Oz
when Dorothy opens the door to her house and emerges from the
black-and-whiteness of Kansas into the Technicolor of Munchkinland. “It’s
just…I can’t stop screaming!” I scream.

“Well, try, please or else I’m gonna have to vacate,” Tim
Cubix says, looking over his shoulder and up the beach. The crowd has thinned
out considerably now that it’s getting late in the day, but there are a few
stragglers like us in a cluster of chairs a ways down the beach. “I’m in no
position to draw a crowd.”

“So, then why are you even talking to us?” Jodi asks.
Plastered to her face is a dreamy smile that she can’t seem to make disappear.
She’s trying, though. It just won’t budge. “Not that I’m
complaining
.”

Jodi’s boobs peek out from the triangles of her brown
crocheted bikini top as if to say that they aren’t complaining either. “Maybe
if we call you Lex Sheridan, no one will notice you!” she says.

Tim actually laughs good-naturedly at Jodi’s bizarre
suggestion.

“Who is Lex Sheridan?” I ask.

Jodi checks with Tim via eyebrow communication. He nods
his head like,
go ahead, tell them,
and she continues. “Everyone
thinks
Tim got his start in
Fly By Night
, in which he plays the superhero
vampire, Black Dawn.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Kat says. “And that was such a
surprise blockbuster that Hollywood just kept making more of them, with
Dawnbreaker
and then
Night Stalker
and
Black Dawn Redux
.”

“See, but here’s what you ladies don’t know,” Jodi says.
“Tim’s big break was playing a male-nurse-slash-bodybuilder in
Afternoon
Delight
! That was my favorite soap opera in middle school, and those six
weeks with that character were the best ever. The writers hit him with an
ambulance so he died in front of his own hospital.”

“Hence Lex Sheridan.” Tim smiles.

“Hence!” Jodi says.

“Holy
Dawnbreaker
,” Kat says, plopping herself down
on the sand. “I’m sitting in Tim Cubix’s shade.”

I wonder if I can think of him as merely “Tim” or if my
mind will only allow him to be a first and last combo, like Michelle Obama or
Jacques Cousteau. I try it out. Tim, Tim, Tim. Just Tim. Bring him down to
earth, Lauren, or you’ll never be coherent again.

“Who me? The homeless beach bum?” Tim’s smile is all
creases and dimples and loveliness.

“Yeah, well…from a distance…” Jodi starts.

“And even from close up, actually…” Kat says.

“What? I look awful?” He’s coy, he’s playful, he’s
flirtatious. I’m officially besotted. He takes a seat on the edge of his beach
chair and we all swoon as Jodi sits down next to him.

“Well, the beard… You do, yes,” Kat braves. “But that
doesn’t mean we don’t love you.”

“It’s true. We love you, Lex Sheridan,” I say. I am a
moron, officially. My skin instantly flushes pink and I feel a little bit
dizzy. I join Kat on the sand.

You know how girls used to cry when they saw Elvis? Or
scream in sheer terror over their love for the Beatles? I’m like that on the
inside. Little teenaged versions of me are in my head screaming and jumping up
and down and having a festival of sheer euphoric insanity. On the outside, I’m
trying to keep it together for the sake of my own thin reputation.

I pinch myself on my forearm to keep the tears at bay.

Yes, I am that stupid.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I love my fans,
too.”

Which is nice of him to say. Even if it sounds totally
canned.

He pauses for a second, as if debating what to do with all
of us. He puts a hand on his leg as if about to stand, and I think he’s
planning to bolt.

Because if I were this movie star right now, surrounded by
the somewhat unstable trinity of ladies made up of Kat, Jodi and myself, I’d be
like,
what the hell did I get myself into here and how can I quickly extract
myself from it?

But then Jodi invites Tim to join us for a cocktail,
ordering a round of strawberry mango smoothies for us from the hotel’s beach
waitress. He sort of shrugs to himself and settles back in his chair, pushing
down the brim of his Kangol.

Kat and I drag over a few stray chairs and circle around
him.

“See, I
knew
not to get you an alcoholic beverage.”
Jodi says to Tim, clearly loving this moment. Then turning to us, she adds,
“Lex is not drinking much these days.”