Skinnydipping (19 page)

“I see you on TV all the time now!” I yelled over the music.

He shrugged. “It’s a living,” he said. “But what about you? Have you been in anything?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m working a lot—hostessing at La Fenice and working for the Kamerons.”

“Wow, that’s cool,” he said. “Maybe you’ll get into one of Josh’s movies.”

“Yeah, right. That’s the problem with being an assistant in Hollywood. They always see you as an assistant.” This I’d realized after only a few weeks working for the Kamerons. “Note to self: Don’t take any more assistant jobs!”

Jake laughed. “Good advice.” I found his southern accent even more charming than I had the first time I met him.

He had such a handsome, boyish manner about him that I couldn’t help flirting. He went for the kiss and it was soft and exciting. He brushed his fingers along my jawline.

“I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I met you,” he said.

“I’ve been waiting for you to do it, too.” It wasn’t totally true, but somehow in retrospect it seemed true.

We danced all night, and drank, and danced more, and drank more. When the bar closed, we all piled into Jake’s car for either a very late or very early party in Hollywood. It was at a humongous loft owned by a middle-aged gay couple, a costume designer and a very
wealthy producer. At the door, a spectacularly tall drag queen in heavy makeup and a blonde wig greeted everyone. “Hi, honey,” she said as I walked in. “Welcome to the headquarters of the gay mafia. We run Hollywood, and don’t you forget it!”

“Thanks,” I said, laughing. “But I thought the Jews ran Hollywood.”

“The Jewish
gays
run Hollywood, honey,” she said loudly. “There’s more crossover than you think!”

Inside, Jake and I got a drink from the huge polished wood bar along the edge of the sunken living room, then snuck out to the back porch. He pulled out a joint. “You want to share?”

“Absolutely.”

We smoked in amiable silence and I started to feel dizzy in a really nice way. I leaned into him and he put his arm around me. “Hey,” he said, looking down at me. “You know what? I really want you to come home with me tonight. But I’m not going to ask you. Instead, I’m going to ask you if you want to have breakfast with me tomorrow.”

Some part of me was swept away by this romantic move. He didn’t want me to be a one-night stand. Another part of me wondered if he was powerful enough, rich enough. He felt more like friend material than potential husband material. Is this what I was going for? Jake struck me as the kind of guy who would live on a girl’s couch while she went to work and paid the bills. He was young and handsome enough to get his way. Then again, he was pretty hot right now, the actor of the moment. This could be the start of a long and successful and illustrious career, and I could be the woman who was there with him, right from the start. A true Hollywood romance.

“Breakfast sounds great,” I said, kissing him again.

True to his word, Jake
called first thing in the morning to invite me over. “I make great pancakes,” he said to lure me in. “Come over and play.”

He opened the door to his apartment on Venice Beach, wearing a frilly apron over jeans and a tight T-shirt. He had very nice shoulders.
His eyes were a little red and his hair was mussed up, like he hadn’t looked in the mirror yet. Also charming.

“Cool apron.”

“I know, isn’t it?” he said, laughing. “I wore it just for you. You said you like to cook.” His southern drawl was even more adorable in the light of day.

“I did? Well, it’s true, although I haven’t cooked in ages.”

He waved a spatula at me. “Come on in! Welcome to my humble abode,” he said. It wasn’t exactly humble. It was about twice the size of my apartment, decorated in bachelor-pad style, but hardly the starving-artist version. He had a huge stereo system, wood paneling on the walls, a leather sectional with a lot of furry pillows, and wood floors that looked new.

I sat down at the table and he began piling pancakes on a plate. I panicked. “Um … just one is all I can probably eat. Oddly, I’m not that hungry.”

“No way, you can’t eat just one pancake,” he said. He put a plate in front of me. Three pancakes, all dripping with butter, surrounded by bacon. I was like a deer in the headlights. It looked delicious, but there was no way I could eat it. “Do you want orange juice? Coffee? Cold pizza?” he said, opening the refrigerator door and surveying its contents.

“Coffee’s fine.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Just black,” I said, fearfully eyeing the bottle of syrup on the table. I turned it around and looked at the back. The label said 80 calories in two tablespoons, so if I had only one teaspoon, that would be, let’s see … about 15 calories.

He handed me a mug and sat down, his own plate piled with a stack of pancakes and a pile of bacon. He dug in. I looked nervously at my plate.

“Are you gonna eat?” he said, pausing with his mouth full to look at my untouched plate.

“Of course!” I assured him. I picked up my fork.

Careful. Careful. Don’t trip the binge switch.
I cut off a tiny piece of pancake. Jake stopped chewing and watched me. I speared the little piece of pancake with my fork and brought it halfway to my mouth. Jake stared at me.

“What?” I said, self-consciously.

“I’m just waiting to see what you think. I’m not sure whether I know how to make pancakes or not. I want a review. Here, you forgot this,” he said, handing me the syrup.

I put my fork down and drizzled a little bit of syrup over my pancakes. No more than a teaspoon. Maybe less. Then I picked the fork back up and took a bite.

The pancake was tender, warm, cakey, just slightly crisp on the outside. The butter and the tiny drop of syrup added just a tantalizing flirtation of rich sweetness. Perfect.

“You definitely know how to make pancakes,” I told him, sincerely.

He grinned and went back to wolfing down his food, satisfied with his pancake prowess. With his attention elsewhere, I was able to cut a few more pieces into smaller pieces and eat one more magnificent delectable bite before putting down my fork.

“Wow, I’m so full,” I said dramatically, holding my stomach, which felt more bloated already.

“Are you gonna eat that bacon?”

“No, I’m … not much of a bacon eater.” Lies! My loins would quiver at the taste of just one bite of crusty bacon. Oh, the naughty things I could do to a piece of bacon. But I knew what the salt and fat would do to me.

“Cool,” he said, grabbing it off my plate. “You want to go to the beach?”

“That sounds great. But I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

“I probably have one you can borrow,” he said.

“You’re not a cross-dresser, are you?”

He laughed and went into the bedroom. He came back out with a little pink bikini. “Will this fit you?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m not wearing somebody else’s cooch,”
I said. “If you want to go swimming, you’re going to have to buy me a virgin bikini.”

Jake and I spent the afternoon at the beach, lying in the sun or cooling off in the surf. It felt natural and easy. When we got back to his place that afternoon, we fell right into bed. He was gentle and sweet and romantic and passionate, and I felt like we were locked away in a private little world.

In the middle of the night when I got up to get a glass of water, I opened the medicine cabinet and saw a tube of mascara and a bottle of Clinique eye makeup remover. The sticker on it said $24.95. Who in God’s name spends $25 for eye makeup remover? Give me a jar of Vaseline and a few baby wipes and I’m good to go. I leaned over to peer out the bathroom door at Jake, asleep in the bedroom. Who else was he sleeping with? I found a cotton ball and took off my mascara. I had to admit, the fancy stuff worked really well. Then I went back to bed.

Over the next few weeks, Jake and I went out a lot, and I was becoming a serious beach bum between his place and my new (though temporary) home in Malibu. I really liked him, and I loved the recognition he got wherever we went out together. It made me feel like I was important. One night, lying in bed, I asked him the question I’d been thinking about for a few weeks.

“Jake, who’s the owner of the bottle of eye makeup remover in your medicine cabinet? I don’t care, I’m just curious.”

He blushed, but acted cavalier. “Oh, you know—some chick I used to date. She’s no you.”

“No really, it doesn’t bother me. I’m just curious.” I realized as I said it that it really didn’t bother me. I liked Jake, but I wasn’t threatened by his romantic past, and I certainly hadn’t stopped looking for Mr. Perfect.

chapter thirteen

M
y L.A. days were quickly passing into months. I’d wake up just in time to get to La Fenice for the lunch rush, then run to the Kameron house and put in my time as Carol’s slave laborer. I was probably netting $10 an hour total, but to me, it was a fortune. I was paying the few bills I had on time, chipping away at my credit card debt, and continuing to starve myself successfully on most days, so I felt totally in control.

Sometimes, in weaker moments, I’d pull out the Sybil cookbook and flip through the pages, longingly gazing at beautiful photographs of cupcakes and roast turkeys and potato gratins.
Someday I’ll cook again, when I’m married and settled and I have a beautiful kitchen, and it doesn’t matter if I’m fat
, I thought to myself, although I didn’t really believe that day would ever come—the getting married part, the beautiful kitchen part, or the part where it wouldn’t matter if I was fat.

One afternoon at La Fenice, Carol’s niece Jeannie Klein came in to see me. It wasn’t unusual to see her at the restaurant, because she worked in the neighborhood and liked to drop by to say hello and share the latest gossip over lunch if she hadn’t been to the Kameron’s house for a while. I could tell she hadn’t come in to eat. “Faith, guess what?” she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

“What?” Jeannie always had the best gossip about Hollywood. I figured she had something especially juicy. Maybe something on Josh or Carol.

“That guy you’re dating, Jake?” This took me by surprise.

“Yes?”

“He’s the guy I was dating last month.”

I couldn’t help sitting down. I stared at her. She looked at me, pleased with herself, as if she’d figured out the answer to a puzzle that had been driving me crazy. In fact, she had.

“No. Way.”

“Yep, I finally got it out of him,” she said. “I knew he was seeing someone else, and frankly, I’m
so glad
it’s you! He had no idea we even knew each other. Hilarious, right? We have to get together to compare notes sometime.”

I burst out laughing. “I’m so glad it’s
you!
” I said. “But shouldn’t we hate each other now?”

“Are you kidding? Jake’s nice and cute and stacked and all, but girlfriends are forever. Besides, I broke up with him.”

“You’re so enlightened. Oh, shit, wait a minute. Was that
your
pink bikini?”

“I think I still have one over there. Why?” she said.

“You have no idea how intimate you and I almost were. We practically had a three-way.”

“Sounds fun,” she said with a laugh.

“Hey, I’ve got to go, but wait … first… you just have to answer one question for me. This is the thing that’s been bugging me ever since I first spent the night at Jake’s.”

“Do tell.”

“Why, Jeannie, why on earth would you spend twenty-five dollars on a bottle of eye makeup remover?”

“
That’s
what’s been bugging you most? Faith, you crack me up.”

The next day, during the
five minutes I was home between La Fenice and the Kamerons’, the thing I’d been waiting for months on end, even while I was dating Jake, finally happened. The phone rang and I heard the voice I remembered so well and missed so much. “Darling!”

Vince Beck. My heart started pounding. I didn’t know why he had this effect on me. I couldn’t let on. But to hear his voice, after all this time …
play it cool, Faith.

“Who is this?” I said.