The Real Real (13 page)

An hour later finds the six of us, girls in strips of couture swimwear, boys in board shorts, huddled together in the sunroom, its curtains drawn. A shivering mass of spray-tanned gooseflesh, we wait in darkness to be released through doors held shut by crew guys in down jackets and ski hats. I keep from freezing by focusing on the rippling 125

profile of Drew’s shoulders all of an inch from my nose.

Hello, Drew’s shoulders.

“Jase?”
Kara requests, via bullhorn, from all of two feet behind us.

“Yeah?” To my horror, the head atop those shoulders swivels around, catching my glazed-over eyes mid-fantasy.

Not Drew. Not even close. His gaze locks on mine for a moment before a slow smile twinges Jase’s lips. The clouds of air cease puffing from my lips. Tilting his head the tiniest bit forward, he lets his gaze boldly wander down over every inch of me. I am suddenly breathless as I feel an involuntary hot capillary dilation creeping up my stomach and chest.

“Crap, I can’t see you in the dark. Jase, raise your
arm and wave it around!”

I shake my head, knocking his pheromones out of my nose and my brain back into place. Hello, he’s an
asshole.
I step away, into Melanie, who pushes me back off her toes.

Jase darts out a hand to my hip to steady me as he waves the other overhead for Kara.

“Great. I want you up front so you can be the first on the patio. Jase, then Nico, then everyone else.”

With a last cocky smile he releases me to step forward, and we all shuffle around to let him and Nico take their places.

“Nice suit.”

I look up from the invisible palm print Jase left to see Drew—rippling muscle, but
nice
. “Thanks, I had no idea 126

crochet held up to chlorine,” I whisper.

“And . . . action!”
The doors whip open to a blast of light and frost as we shuffle forward into a six-kid pileup.

“
Trisha?
” I hear Nico. “What are you doing here?”

I step out from the huddle to see, standing on the top step of the steaming sunken Jacuzzi, an airbrushed version of Trisha Wright: gold string bikini taut over flattened bum, triangle top straining over two freshly installed C-cups, and a nose and cheekbones that make her look like a five-years-older someone else. Someone generic.

Someone
Girls Next Door
. She lets out a squeal and dips to splash water in our openmouthed direction, dousing the guy holding the fan to keep her hair extensions waving.

Sweet Jesus. The A plot has arrived.

“Come on in, guys! The water’s
hot
!”

Jase backs up a step, missing Rick’s high five. “Yeah!”

Rick recovers into a fist pump. “It’s got cup holders!” He jogs over the icy slate patio to grab a soda from the nearby cooler and hop on in. Drew follows, and, with a furtive look at Nico, Melanie pads quickly behind him.

“Jase!” Camo-clad Zacheria waves him on from the bushes and, finding his smile, Jase follows into the frothy water.

But Nico just stands there, rigid as everyone passes, her breath coming out in little puffs in front of her pale face. “Come on,” I say, sliding my hand gently around her elbow. “It’s freezing out here.”

“Right.” She starts walking next to me, our feet 127

stinging. “Right,” she says again, seeming to shake it off as we arrive at the tub.

“Damn! This joint is boiling,” Rick says as Jase settles back into the circular bench.

“Your skin just has to adjust . . . to the heat,” Trisha coos before dunking under and surfacing in Jase’s face.

Nico stops dead, one hand on the railing, one foot in the water. Trisha whips her hair across Jase’s chest to spin around and sit on his lap, her back against him. “So, Nico, miss me?” She rests her extensioned mane on Jase’s neck, her implants surfacing over the bubbles.

Nico appears to be speechless.

“Well, you know, it’s been pretty hectic,” I answer, tugging Nico down the steps into the stingingly hot water behind me. “School, I mean. Has been hectic,” I add for the cameras. Melanie scoots over to make a spot for her, but Nico just stands there, eyes locked with Trisha’s new blue contacts, which, over her naturally brown irises, make her look like she’s not really in there. Nico looks at Jase, but he just shrugs as if Trisha has a gun on him. I then look to Melanie, the resident Nico expert, but she’s in a baby splash war with Rick. Because off-camera Zacheria is pointedly patting the air in front of him.

“Nico, you want to sit down?” I try as I lower myself on the bench next to Drew.

“I do.” She stares at Trisha writhing slowly on her boyfriend—Trisha, arching her back, pursing her lips, her body angled for Jase, for Nico, but ultimately for the 128

cameras sticking out in the nearby hedges. What, did she get a tutorial while on the operating table?

“Nico?” Drew says suddenly, moving over to create space between us, twisting that pizza slice in my stomach to life.

Her face radiating gratitude, she turns her full, God-given blond everything on him and, striding through hip-high water, sidles between us, slipping an arm around his waist.

Jase’s brow darkens. Trisha swivels around to face him, upping the ante, and I, I am as frozen as if I were buried in that snowbank a foot away.

“Cut! Now, that’s television!”
Kara cries into the frigid steam-filled night.
“Trisha, you’re a
trooper
! Gold
star for coming in before your stitches are out!”

Having dispatched Nico and Melanie twenty minutes ago, Jenny raps on the metal siding of the van to cue the driver to take Trisha and me home. I huddle into the corner, my wet, chlorinated hair starting to harden in the cold, wishing I lived in the same direction as Drew. But I don’t. Nico does. Nico, whose rescue Drew came to. What
was
that?

The van pulls out into the empty street. “That was
amazing
!” Trisha gushes, slowly peeling off a false eyelash. “Wow.” Sticking out from below her swing coat, her bare legs straddle the tote between her strappy-sandaled feet. “The wardrobe and the crew and the lighting! The makeup lady even shaded my stomach,” she prattles in 129

delighted disbelief. “Has it been like this the
whole
time?”

But she doesn’t stop for me to answer. “Wow, you’re
so
lucky.” She reaches down into the tote and pulls out a packet of makeup remover towelettes. “But I’m lucky, too!

I mean, I couldn’t believe it. There I was in West Palm—

recuperating.” She points to her face. “Because I didn’t make the show, and, as my mom said, I mean,
hello,
wake-up call! I’m just sitting there, letting the new me heal, and Fletch comes a-knockin’ talking about dynamic new story lines. Mom says I manifested it.” She wipes the white cloth across her face, and it comes away thick with concealer, revealing a yellow-and-black marbleized web of bruising across her skin.

The driver’s cell rings in the silence and he answers it, listening for a few moments. “Will do,” he says before hanging up.

“He wanted me ASAP.” Trisha resumes her update.

“But not even tattoo cover-up worked a week ago. This is so much more awesome than I thought it would be!”

The van lurches going over a pothole as it does a U-turn.

“I know I’ve missed a lot of school, but, whatever. I’m a legacy at Goucher.” Trisha reaches under the nape of her neck and unclips an extension, holding a glob of wet hair.

“This is totally going to kick Jase’s ass in gear. Did you see the look on his face when he saw me? It’s ridiculous. He just stays with her out of convenience. But being chosen for this has to show him how big his world can be. And how 130

great
we are together.” She unclips another clump of hair.

“And screw Nico. Let her find herself some nobody. Drew Rudell. He wants to sit next to her? Perfect. Done.”

The van parks and, unable to pull my eyes off her, I fumble for the handle.
So
not perfect.
So
not done.

“Okay! Well, see you on set!” She smiles, and I can see a small black wire peeking out of her nostril.

“Yeah,” I say, desperate to get away, unable to believe, in a futile effort to get Caitlyn cast, I’ve thrown Nico onto Drew’s lap. With my thrust the door roars open, and I blink out at the unfamiliar driveway. “Um, sir?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Nico’s house. I’m on Belvedere.”

“Nope, Kara called. You’re both getting out here. Sleep-over shoot.”

Trisha and I look at each other, confused. And then Ben’s van pulls up behind ours.

REEL 9

With Trisha at my heels, shielding her raw face from Ben’s camera with her bag, I tentatively push open Nico’s front door. “Hello?” We step into the two-story entrance hall, squinting as Ben’s light is refracted in every prism of the chandelier, multiplying and magnifying the glare.

He drops the camera to his side, but the reflection off the polished pink marble isn’t much better.

Trisha rushes past me and opens a door to a powder room under the sweeping staircase. “I just need to, um . . . ”

Put your head back on?
Face tucked into her chest, she disappears inside.

“In here, Jesse!” Nico calls from the double-wide doorway to the left. “Take your shoes off! And no smoking in 132

the house!” This, I assume, is directed at human-ashtray Ben.

I follow Nico’s voice into her living room. Not how I ever imagined I’d get here—not that I imagined I would.

Standing in front of her hulking flat-screen, I pause between the brass-trimmed glass shelves and the mushroom leather sectional to stare at the portrait over the mantel. I knew Nico did JCPenney fliers and the like when we were kids.

There she’d be, sitting in our Sunday circular, twirling a pink umbrella above her daisy-patterned sack dress. But here she is in a black velour sweatshirt popping against a bright blue background, her hair blowing back from her heavily glossed lips. I’m about to shout into the kitchen to ask if she’s still modeling, but then I realize the Nico in the picture is flat-chested. It couldn’t have been taken later than sixth grade.

Ben and I find the fully developed Nico with her damp hair pulled into a bun, emptying the contents of the Sub-Zero onto the flecked granite countertop under Sam’s watchful gaze. “Where’s Mel?” I ask.

“Oh, Kara dropped her off first. It’s just us.” Quality time with you and FrankenTrisha—awesome. She pulls a copper pot down from a rack above the stove and squirts olive oil into it, lighting the flame. “Chicken cacciatore over linguine?” she asks, turning to the chopping board and hacking apart a carrot with vicious determination. “I ate, like, that entire thing of gummy worms and I’m still starving.”

“That sounds great. But I can also totally have toast.

It doesn’t have to be fancy.” And you really don’t need to know about my bogarted slice of pizza.

“I sautéed the chicken this morning before I left. It’s no problem,” she says, sounding like one of those drama exercises Mr. Brauer made us do in tenth-grade public speaking, where you’re thinking
Die, motherfucker, die
, but the line is offering someone a doughnut. Flipping her damp hair over her shoulder, she fills the pasta pot from the special hot-water nozzle, the steam deepening the red in her cheeks.

“You sauté chicken?” I ask, attempting to lighten the mood.

“I don’t strike you as the Rachael Ray type?” she responds edgily, going to the fridge and pulling out a half-empty bottle of white wine. “Dad likes to eat as soon as he walks in the door, and if I don’t leave tennis practice till six that doesn’t give me much time.” She twists off the cork and pours herself a glass. I watch the liquid hit the rim, hoping it can achieve what I can’t.

“Um.” Ben clears his throat, tilting the lens to the floor. “If you, uh, put that in a water glass, a tinted one, and keep the bottle out of frame, we’re golden.”

She obliges with rolled eyes. “Want some, uh, apple juice?”

“No, thanks,” I say, eyeing Ben. “Apple juice gives me a headache.” As she stirs the pasta, I look around the joyless kitchen, the stainless-steel appliances and more mushroom 134

leather in the breakfast nook, bringing out the gray in the terracotta granite. Our fridge might be yellow vinyl, but at least its covered in photos of my Halloween costumes and our cousin’s Christmas cards. At least you know we live there. “You know, my dad’s fine with it.” It takes me a second to realize she means the wine.

“Don’t address me,” Ben says, his eye on the viewfinder.

“Don’t address me,” she mimics, the corners of her mouth turned down.

There’s a sudden clang as he accidentally hits the hanging pot rack with the boom.

“Uch,
do
you mind?!” she lashes out.

“So, where is your dad? Is he home?” I leap in. “Would he like to join us maybe?” Or perhaps we could wake the neighbors?

The sauce bubbles on the stovetop and, taking a breath, Nico adds the chicken before reaching over and hitting play on the answering machine. “Hey, baby.” A man’s voice fills the room. “Sorry I’m out. Sal wanted to try bottle service at that new club on the North Shore. But in the morning I’m gonna take you for eggs Benedict, and you can tell me all about XTV’s next big star. I’m so proud of you, Nicolina. I told Alec Baldwin about you today and he was very impressed. I’m seeing a guest spot on
30 Rock. . . .
” He kisses into the phone and hangs up.

“So, Alec Baldwin . . . that’s really cool,” I say, like he doesn’t come in once a week for muffins.

“He’s thinking about the new Aston Martin,” she says into the pot.

“Your dad’s out clubbing? Right now my parents are sound asleep after rubbing Vicks on each other and watching Conan.”

“That’s funny.” Thank you. She takes a deep swig of wine. “He likes to dance. That’s how he met my mom.

At Limelight.” She ladles up the chicken, and I take my plate to the breakfast nook and dig in, relieved to have something to do while she fixes herself a helping and leans against the sink. “You remember that iodine commercial where the woman holds up her finger and the scar disappears?” She re-creates the pose.