Shooting Stars (41 page)

As the ambulance pulls out of the driveway, the guys take shots. One shot—
the shot
, and in this case
the multimillion-dollar shot,
a price unheard of in decades or perhaps forever—will expose the inside of the ambulance where Michael is. Jimmy, through coordinating his staff, will get the last shot of Michael Jackson for his soon-to-be-heartbroken fans before he's pronounced dead.

Back to today's story. At this moment, my focus is as sharp as my Canon in bright daylight, and when Katy pulls out, I fall in straight behind her. A few cars go in between, then Fitz, then the jumper. The jumper doesn't know he's about to be blocked, so he's not immediately concerned about his position. We're going east on Sunset.

Katy drives erratically from the get-go. No question she knows we're here. I'm glad, though; she'll help in the block.

I beep Fitz at Crescent Heights, our first red light. “We should be able to block here,” I say.

When the light turns green, Katy turns right, but I stay put on Sunset, all cars except the jumper's wondering why I don't move. The jumper
clues in quickly, and I can see his car trying to move into another lane to get by Fitz and me in our standstill lane.

“It's CXN. The jumper is Leo,” Fitz beeps.

Leo is a guy I like well enough, but he is fairly new from across the pond so I never worked with him at CXN. But I know CXN is dying to get Katy's address, and if it does, Bartlet will remind me for the next year that I was the reason CXN got it.

“He got around me,” Fitz beeps a few seconds later, and obviously couldn't care less.

“How did that happen?” I respond curtly. This happens to the best of us occasionally and the worst of us frequently. In this case, I suspect Fitz let him go around. Since I said we were not aiming for additional shots, Fitz has no incentive to care.

We all turn right—Katy's direction—and now Leo is in the lead.

We see Katy's car far ahead. She clears the next light, but none of us is even close when that light turns red. It's a long red, and by the time we start again, she's nowhere to be seen. CXN and I continue down the road just in case we bump into her. Fitz turns off immediately, his duty done.

“No hard feelings,” I say, pulling up next to Leo in my car. Both our windows are rolled down. “I know y'all need her address. I had to block.”

“I hear ya, mate,” he says. “Did you get some pictures at least?”

“I did. Inside even.”

“Nice one. Didn't know you could do that.” “Me neither.”

My Nextel goes off. It's Fitz, and I roll up the window so Leo can't hear.

“Go ahead.”

“I've got her,” says Fitz.

This is incredibly good “luck” and only fair that it falls the way of the paps every once in a while.
I lost them,
Katy must have been thinking.
How the heck did they find me here?

Luck.

Katy had stopped at a gas station a few blocks over, and on his way back to Michael's, Fitz recognized her Prius (the plate, of course,
since everyone has a Prius). Even if Fitz can't block (or didn't care to), he certainly can shoot. He nailed several admirable full-lengths as Katy walked in and out of a food mart. Besides the hat, Katy wore a fur-collared coat, a lip-print skirt, and multi-colored nails. And since I'll make 70 percent on those sales too, that's a year's worth of diapers for sure!

A job well executed, no screw-ups, and a little luck. Days like today are what I'll miss.

* * *

Four weeks go by with little more than Whole Foods action.

In that time, and in a large part due to the efforts of Ashton “Koocher,” Twitter is now a phenomenon. We're not even sure, yet, if the stars realize how many sets we've gotten from their tweets telling us exactly where they are going, what they are doing, and when.

“I'm gonna go workout this afternoon,” tweets Ashley Tisdale.

Cool. We'll catch you at the gym.

“Be so nice to get back to L.A. tonight!” tweets Mandy Moore.

Sweet. We'll see you in the morning
.

“Swam my way out of a strong current today. Not many could do the same,” tweets Matthew McConaughey (or someone pretending to be).

Of course you did.

I get Twitter… if you are in high school. I get it if you're a new celeb and building fan support. I get it if you're John Mayer, a quirky singer-songwriter looking for inspiration. But an established celebrity—what in the world, other than self-love, inspires you to muse all day long about your home habits to people you don't know?
²⁰

Regardless, we are your followers. (And your personal assistants' followers and your film crews' followers…)

And so, we know Dakota Fanning is home. Dakota's fourteen, just hitting puberty and thus the tabloid pages. She's too young to be a great seller, but her role in
Twilight
has put her on the “adult” map. Anyway, on this sunny day, I'm not looking for a pot of gold. A few hundred and an easy follow would be just fine.

I bank that a high schooler will sleep later than me, but when I get to her house in Studio City, her dad is pulling out, and an hour later, her mom leaves. This is unfortunate since Dakota is too young to drive. Having no Plan B, I follow the mom. She takes me to Griffith Park. We park the cars and I make a loose follow on foot through the playground, around the carousel, until—voilà—we reach Dakota. She's with her sister Elle, and they're attending what appears to be an organized club event.
'Appy days.

Even with a nine-month baby belly, it feels creepy watching young kids at a park. I don't see anything to shoot behind, so I go back to my car to hide in its cover and post up in the one spot where I can see and shoot in the dark behind my tint. I notice another blacked-out vehicle with the driver inside, car windows rolled up and visor down. He must be annoyed. I'm sure he didn't expect me when I wasn't on the follow this morning.

A few uninteresting shots later, the girls and mom leave. The other pap and I make a stealth follow and watch as Dakota gets dropped off at a friend's house. I remember when I was fourteen and got dropped at a friend's house: I'd play all day, then go home for dinner or maybe spend the night. My instinct says that Dakota won't leave again—there won't be a shot—so I wave “good luck” to the other pap and quit for the day.

It's just four when I get home, but I'm exhausted. Alexandra encourages me to listen to my body. “Take a nap,” she says. “Maybe it needs to prepare for something later.” But my due date is still two days away, and first babies are always late.

After my nap, I meet up with the girls for dinner at Elf in Echo Park, our favorite vegetarian restaurant. People often queue an hour before the
restaurant opens to get one of the six tables inside—which we didn't do—so we wait. We stand outside on Sunset and watch the traffic stream by. The air is a perfect temperature, maybe seventy-eight, and I'm happy. I look around: dingy streets, rooted-up sidewalks, fine dining establishments, Mexican fruit stands, high-end boutiques, Laundromats, stray cats—it's all here. And I think, I love L.A.

I don't remember the sky that night, but later I learn it's the new moon. In a new moon, the moon is directly between the earth and the sun. It starts in shadow, then as the night goes on, a thin crescent appears and a cycle of brightness begins.

I eat only half of my splendidly rich chickpea-and-spinach crepe with goat cheese butter. I take the rest home in a doggie bag, watch a little TV, and get into bed just before midnight.

* * *

I can't fall asleep. I think I need to use the bathroom. At 1 a.m., I am out of bed and on the toilet. Soon, I'm curled up in a ball on my black-and-white retro-tiled bathroom floor with my belly cramping. Excitement fills my blood.
This is it, Jenny. You're gonna meet your baby.

At 1:15 a.m., I throw up the crepe. At 1:30 a.m., I puke out my remaining dinner, and at 1:45, I retch out all that's left. Apparently, this isn't uncommon. I go back and forth from the toilet to the tub to the cold, tile floor.

I decided in advance that I would let Amy sleep till I really needed her—first-time labor can last as long as a whole day—but my moans are loud and impossible to stifle. My roommate comes in at 2 a.m. and tries to make me breathe in rhythm and do the exercises we learned in class. With each contraction, however, all I can do is sit on the toilet, tense every muscle, and make dying noises. Soon Amy starts to time the contractions, and by 3 a.m.—just two hours after labor began—they are only one and a half minutes apart. Every fifteen minutes or so, I feel the baby “drop”—a bizarre sensation.

Amy and I talked about my birth plan in advance. I didn't want go to the hospital too early because I wanted to avoid unnecessary intervention. But like my conception, my labor wasn't going by the book. It was going significantly faster…and with no letup.

“I think he's coming soon,” I say to Amy. “Maybe we should go.”

She agrees, gathers my hospital bag, and helps me to the car. On the way through the back alley to the garage, another contraction starts, my knees buckle, and in writhing pain, I attempt to pull off my clothes. Amy stops me. Our car ride to the hospital is without a doubt the most painful ten minutes of my life. It doesn't feel like the contractions ever stop, and I'm surprised I don't black out. Amy insists that I keep my clothes on, but I claw at them mightily—every single fiber scrapes me like switchblades.

Since it's the middle of the night, we pull right up to the hospital door. I wait for a contraction to pass before trying to walk in, but when I do, another starts. I fall to the floor unfortunately without clearing the automatic door. For the duration of that contraction, the door opens and closes, opens and closes, opens and closes—as if someone is not only monkey-wrenching my belly, but slapping my ears at the same time. Amy is laughing, but there's nothing she can do.

By 4 a.m., I am in a hospital bed at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center, and my contractions are thirty seconds apart. I am close to the most intense stage of labor. It's called “transition,” happens right before birth, and generally lasts anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours. Although I planned to go natural, i.e., no meds, the ball of fire in my womb screams, “
YES
!” when the nurse asks if I want an epidural.

“How long will it take? Can you do it now?” I holler.

“It may take an hour,” she advises.

“An hour! No, please. I can't wait that long.”

Amy, knowing that this wasn't my plan, inserts, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“
YES
!” I scream once more. She doesn't ask again.

Because my labor is going so fast, my mind can't get ahead of the pain to cope with it. Not that I wish it was taking longer: I want this baby
out
!

The nurse calls the anesthesiologist but warns again that it may take thirty minutes for her to get here, then another thirty to administer the epidural.

I don't know how I get through the next hour. The pain short-circuits my brain, and I don't remember the time. When the epidural takes effect, I am dilated to 9 cm, about through transition, and ready to push. The nurse puts me in a side-fetal position to slow down the baby until the doctor arrives. On average, first babies take twelve to sixteen hours; my labor began just four hours ago. “I'd prefer if Dr. Wu delivered this baby,” the nurse says. “I've already delivered one tonight.”

I'm fine with that. The pain has stopped, the baby is low in the birth canal, and I should need no further medical intervention. And, oh nelly,
I'm about to meet him!

I'm suddenly starved, and Amy and I discuss breakfast. As soon as I deliver, she'll get me a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit from McDonald's. I call my mom, who is three hours ahead on Eastern Standard Time and has just gotten up.

When Dr. Wu arrives and is washing up, the nurse returns to my room and I begin to push, blissfully and pain-free thanks to the epidural. This is even fun. The epidural and side-fetal position apparently stunted the labor, so I push on-and-off for over an hour, each time peeing on the hands of Amy and the nurse. “I don't know why the catheter didn't work,” the nurse keeps saying.

“I can see his head!” Amy finally yells.

Dr. Wu is called in for the finale, and a few minutes later, baby slides out into his arms. The doctor places him immediately on my chest.

Wide-eyed and beautiful, baby doesn't cry, only stares at all the bright things in the room. We dim the lights. He stares at me. I talk to him. He works his way to my breast and takes his first feeding. We cuddle for almost an hour before the nurse takes him for his baby check, and then brings him back to my arms.

One chapter back, I wrote that the only thing missing at the end of my story was love. And in the end, it's true; I still haven't found a husband or even a lover. But at 7:35 a.m. on Sunday, April 26, 2009, without a camera in sight, I met the love of my life…Charlie.

20
. By 2014,
celebrities
have become the paparazzi's biggest competitors. By posting photos of themselves on sites like Twitter and Instagram, stars often scoop pap shots with photos of their choosing. The mags get pictures for free and the celebrities have more control over their public images. It's a win-win for everybody but the paps.

Five years later…

Simon
still paps. He and I have become
real
friends.

Aaron
still paps. He settled on a nice American girl, married her, and is as
broody
(British for “wanting kids”) as ever. He'll make a great daddy soon.

Claudia
still paps. She and I have continued our friendship, and I hope she forgives me for my early indiscretions with her former on-and-off-again boyfriend. She is also writing a book—paparazzi fiction based on truth.