The Real Thing (23 page)

Chapter 26

I
answer it, rationalizing that it's probably nothing. “Hello?” “Tiana, you have to go out to the left coast.”

Oh, it's only Shelley. She'll understand my quest for nothingness. It's kind of a requirement for her job, too. She edits nothing all day, and someone higher up actually publishes that nothing. “I'm taking some days off, Shelley. I'm beat.”

“Toby McBain lost his house and car in a wildfire out there, and he has three more sexy men to do, so . . .”

I want to laugh (Toby is gay), but that would be doing more than I want to do right now. “So Toby can still do his damn job, Shelley. He doesn't need a house to do an interview at someone
else's
place. Don't tell me his ability to call for a cab or rent a car was burned up, too.”

“He's very distraught,” Shelley says. “He can't find one of his dogs.”

Now
that
sucks. I like dogs. Unless they're purebred lap dogs with names like Mr. Bubbles or Mrs. Fancy Pants. I prefer mutts with names like Come Ear and Shithead.

“I wanted you to do those interviews anyway,” Shelley says. “You'll write them better than Toby any day.”

Not if I'm wallowing in self-pity. “Look, Shelley, I just got back and have loads of laundry to do.” But that would require doing something, too, so I guess I've just lied. “And I have tons of shopping to do, and—”

“You can have all the time you need when you get back,” Shelley says.

I kind of like the sound of that. That will give me ample time to perfect nothingness. “You say they have wildfires going on?”

“Yes. Just north of San Diego. Nowhere near where you're going.”

I am never going to write that book on nothing. Hmm. I'd have to do something for it to exist, and the critics would say I'm a hypocrite. “She obviously wrote the damn thing,” they'll say, “so she's contradicting herself.”

My fax machine kicks into gear, spitting out what looks like . . . yep. It's an itinerary. Shelley is far too efficient for
my
own good.

“Shelley, please. There has to be someone already out there who can do Toby's job.” I could randomly pick any name from a Southern California phone book who could do Toby's job.

“Tiana, you're my first choice.”

At least I'm someone's first choice.

“I want you to do it,” she says. “Your tickets will be at the counter . . .”

I tune her out. Shelley thinks I actually listen to her while she's acting managerial. And it kills me that she has yet to ask even a single question about my return trip to Aylen Lake. It's possible she's simply forgotten I went to interview, um, Evelyn. Maybe I should bring it up, you know, at least so I'll have someone to talk to about Dante.

Hmm. Better not. I'd have to make up more lies. That would require thought, and I don't feel like thinking right now.

After a sleepless, sweaty night (I had dreamed I was alone in a sleeping bag inside a sauna talking to a cartoon Blood Elf Rogue named Lelani), I sleep all the way to crappy LAX, rent a crappy car, and head for number four's crappy beach bungalow, cursing every crappy California driver I can. I intend to get numbers four and seven done before lunch today, and I know I can do it. I mean, they can't have anything to say. They're
real
celebrities.

While number four's crappy bedmate/girlfriend/slut-for-the-day /whatever sunbathes topless on a deck off a dump of a bungalow facing the Pacific in Manhattan Beach, number four complains about his last two crappy action-adventure movies that were “directed by a fucking idiot fool moron.” Um, I want to ask him, if you knew the first movie was crappy, why'd you sign on for the second with the same fucking idiot fool moron director? I don't, though. I don't want to make this man upset. He has an unintelligent temper. A few years ago, he threw his cell phone at one of New York's finest outside a club in Manhattan (how ironic). The phone shattered into a million pieces on impact with the cop, yet number four attempted to punch him out anyway. A Taser reduced number four to a sniveling ball of moronic goo, the entire incident ended up on YouTube and
Entertainment Tonight,
and the cop probably hasn't had to pay a cover charge at any club in Manhattan since.

Unfortunately, number four is easy on the eyes, and he is what
Personality
thinks is what
America
thinks is sexy. Five questions and ten minutes are all I need. The pictures take longer. Bedmate Bimbo Bitch wants to be in the picture. She rises and I swear her breasts make a
boing
sound as they leap into the air.

“It'll be
so
hot,” she tells him, pressing those silicone fun bags against his back.

“It's not about you,” he tells her.

She backs off, her fun bags reinflate, he cracks a smile, and I take the picture.

Done.

I find the infamous number seven on location in a studio getting his face painted, er, made up. He has very large pores and unusually nasty onion breath. He spends most of the interview spouting invectives against the war in Iraq. “We shouldn't have ever fucking gone there, okay?” is his most intelligent quote. He plays an idiot on
Don't Go There
and has most of the funniest lines, but none of what he's said about the Middle East will make it into
Personality
. I draw little curlicues and put beards on smiley faces while he rants, a speck of white spittle growing ominously in one corner of his mouth. I know Shelley will cut the antiwar quotes and say that he's “politically active and outspoken on contemporary issues.” That will probably be why
Personality
thinks he's sexy.

He tells me that he's leaving this “fucking idiotic” show at the end of the “fucking idiotic” season for a “fucking” career on the big screen. I almost tell him he'll be stuck in moron roles for the rest of his
fucking
life, but I don't want to take the three hours it would require to
fucking
explain it to him.

“To get out of the box,” he says, cutting the shape of a TV with his hairy-knuckled hands, “I have to think
outside
the box. You get me?”

I want to encourage him to think, but I think that might get in the way of his career.

Once he's fully painted (his makeup artist had to work for Earl Scheib), he drags me to the set and has me take fifty pictures of him sitting on a couch in various poses. After the first five, I fake pushing any buttons.

I did like the couch. At least the couch had character.

“How'd I do?” he asks at the end of the interview, that white fleck of spittle looking dangerously like a pimple about to explode.

I want to lie and tell him he's an ass, but I'm afraid he'll take it as a compliment. “Fine,” I say, shielding my eyes from the—damn, that's a boil. Ew.

Done.

Instead of checking into my crappy hotel room, I drive cursing to crappy LAX and book a crappy flight to Seattle, where number eight is filming yet another crappy David vs. Goliath–type coming-of-age jock movie. I'm sure it will get crappy reviews. While waiting for my flight, I call Shelley, who can't believe I've already finished two interviews.

“That was
quick
,” she says. “You are amazing.”

Whatever.

From the plane, I use the crappy plane phone to call number eight's publicist, who puts me on hold while he “reaches out” to number eight. The accountants at
Personality
will hate me for the phone bill, but I don't care. When the publicist comes back on, he says, “He can give you a twenty-minute window.”

Whatever.

As misty-minded as the Seattle weather, number eight has even
less
than nothing to say about anything, which could be some sort of record for Hollywood. Maybe I should get him to write the preface to my book on nothing. Shoot, he could probably write the whole thing. Hmm. I'd have to get him a big box of crayons and some primary school ruled paper, you know, the kind of paper with dotted lines to guide his letters. Then, we'll get some safety scissors and cut and paste what he writes to make the book....

A former star volleyball player at UCLA, number eight has rugged good looks, a disarming smile, a cleft chin, and dimples, but that's about the only thing busy and working about this man's head.

“What is the secret to your success?” I ask.

“I've just been successful,” he says.

I rephrase the question. “
How
have you been so successful?”

“Successfully,” he says, and he says it seriously.

I . . . kid . . . you . . . not.

I want to hit him with a left hook to get his two brain cells on speaking terms. “Would you say you're riding a wave of success?”

He smiles. “Oh, yeah. It's been quite a ride on the waves of my success.”

It's like pulling teeth. I write down the quote I
fed
to him. It's just dumb enough to make someone in America think it's sexy.

“Tell me about the movie you're shooting.”

“Well, it's about this guy who has a kid, and the guy was, like, all-world and stuff in sports, and the kid is, like, a total dork, you know?”

I nod. I know a total dork when I see one. I will be taking his picture shortly.

“What about your character matches your personality?” I ask, frowning inside because I have ended my question with a five-syllable word.

He stares at me.

I give him a simplification. “How are you and your character alike?”

“Oh. Well, we're both, um, buff, and athletic, and like, all into healthy stuff.”

How, like, totally, like, unquotable.

And stuff.

I take several pictures of him walking a rocky beach barefoot, his pants legs rolled up, his feet and ankles blindingly white, his long surfer's hair flapping in the breeze. He then gets it in his head to jog away from me.

“Keep taking pictures,” he says, “I want you to get my best side.”

His ass
is
about the smartest part of him, so I take lots. Shelley will rejoice. When he comes back, he's pouring sweat, bent over and out of breath. “Got a cigarette?” he asks.

I . . . kid . . . you . . . not.

On the flight back, I compare these three “leading men” to Dante, and Dante kicks the living shit out of them. When it comes to action and adventure, Dante throws bombs while number four makes them—and often. When it comes to being genuinely funny, Dante is good with the jabs and gibes while number seven just
looks
funny. And when it comes down strictly to backsides, Dante is
smokin'
while number eight plainly smokes too much.

And they all precede Dante on the sexy-man list.

Someone in editorial is a fucking idiot fool moron.

Chapter 27

W
eeks drift by, cold November weather drifts in, and I drift about my business.

And the assignments I get generally suck.

Shelley assigns me a series of “Where are they now?” pieces, stories designed, in many cases, to resuscitate and resurrect the dead, I mean, former stars' careers. It is my job to return child stars and other former celebrities to the collective American consciousness. I will first have to remind readers why these people were once celebrities.

That's usually the hardest part of the assignment.
What were we thinking?
I wonder as I struggle.
What the hell made them special?

Second, I will detail their falls, meteoric or not, into obscurity. The police blotter and court records usually do the trick here, though I actually have to dig for information on others. Like Dante, they just simply evaporated into oblivion.

Finally, I will update our readers on these former celebrities' current situations. I'll only have to use my camera for this part. Once our readers see them as they are now, they'll go back to the original question:
What were we thinking?

I go to Miami and interview a former one-hit wonder rapper who now works in a video store stocking shelves and recommending Woody Allen films. No one asks for his autograph now, but he says, “They all want to see me do my dance.” I ask him to show me, and he does, flapping his arms while marching in place. That was a
dance
? It looks like a man trying to fly. Those pictures—in heart-wrenching sequence—will accompany his story.

I rent a car and drive up to Stamford, Connecticut, catching up with a former model-turned-infomercial spokesperson. At sixteen, she was the “it” girl, appearing on billboards, magazine covers, and commercials for designer clothes, expensive cars, and weight-loss products. Now she hawks acne creams. Supremely articulate with a doctorate in physiology, she says she doesn't miss the glamour and the glitz at all. “I get to eat now,” she says. I take a picture of her eating her way into a size fourteen. Her eyes are still skinny.

I fly into Lubbock, Texas, where I interview a former NFL rookie of the year who blew out a knee his second year in the league. After some brutal rehab in the off-season, he returned only to blow out the other knee in training camp. Undaunted, he returned to the University of Texas, received a BA in history, and now teaches middle schoolers the history of the great state of Texas. He hobbles terribly and still uses a cane as he continues to rehab the other knee, but it's a proud hobble. “Sometimes I think I get more respect now than when I was in the NFL,” he says. I take respectful shots of him and his students, who really love this guy. Shelley chooses to run the one of him hobbling on his cane instead. I send him a letter of apology, but he takes it in stride, sending me the nicest e-mail: “It's okay. Come back in a year, and you can take pictures of me running.”

I take a taxi out to Flushing to interview one of the many redheads who played Annie on Broadway. She's still giving shows at twenty-one, and she's still using “Tomorrow” to make a buck today. The folks in the audience at Flushing House didn't seem to mind. “I love to see their smiles,” she says. “I love it when they sing along.” I get several shots of her removing her red wig. We should get a few letters to the editor for those.

I go to Harlem and interview a misunderstood rapper, one of the first to curse on CDs before Tipper Gore and her warning labels. “I got no air time after that,” he tells me. “I had to go underground. I had to be a voice crying from the wilderness.” He shares some of his serious poetry with me, and it is fantastic. I suggest he get these poems published in a collection. “Can't make a buck with poetry,” he says. “But music moves in cycles. One day my words will be righteous again.” I include a section of a poem in my piece: “love is soft as sunrise, simple as sky, silent as silk, solemn as sea”—Shelley cuts it. The shot of him in his Kangol is one of the best shots I've ever taken, the lighting and background just right. Naturally, Shelley chooses the one I take of him flashing ancient gang signs against a graffiti-covered wall.

My last “Where are they now?” piece takes me to Des Moines, Iowa, where I interview a former famous twin. While her sister wallows in fame and swallows too much alcohol—two DUIs in the last few months—this twin leads an ordinary life. She didn't go Ivy League, instead attending the University of Iowa and earning an art degree. “I like being married,” she says, tending to her two kids (ages seven and three) while pursuing her painting dreams. “I like having the whole picket fence, dog, and stay-at-home experience. It's where I belong.” She certainly seems content, smiling confidently at her professor husband in the original shot. When Shelley cuts him out and inserts the other twin in his spot, it makes it look as if content twin is looking up to and envying the crazy twin.

I have to write so many apology letters to these people.

All of these former stars had fame thrust upon them at early ages. Some couldn't handle it and had no backup plan. The world simply left a few behind. Yet others have thrived out of the spotlight, succeeding like the rest of us in spite of everything. Of all the interviews I've done for
Personality,
these were the saddest and yet most interesting to me.

It is such a shame I only have respect for former celebrities. I like them because they're just like me now.

Throughout these travels, I've been doing a lot of reading, mainly of interracial romances. These are new to me, and I'm surprised there are so many out there. Like any other books I read, I like some and I don't like others. I like the ones that only mention race and get on with it, letting the cover pictures do most of the “racial” work. Okay, I think to myself while looking at the cover, they're different. So what? All people are different. All relationships are different. Tell me a good story about these two. Entertain and enlighten me.

I'm finding that I don't like books that focus solely on race and the “jungle fever” aspects of it all. Yeah, the sex can get red hot, though sometimes the sex scenes read more like an anatomy class lecture. I get the feeling the authors believe the sex is hot
only
because of the contrasts. Back in the day, that might have been normal because interracial sex was taboo, but in today's multicultural society that just doesn't seem realistic to me. Constant conflict, contrast, and jungle fever are
not
good bases for lasting relationships. I prefer interracial romances that transcend race and just tell a good story of a strong man and a strong woman getting together and getting it on. These kinds of books, however, depress me some. Dante and I were strong people, we got together, we got it on, and now we've gone our separate ways. I wish our ending were as happy as the endings I've been reading.

Some days, depression gets the best of me, and I take the F Train out to Coney Island, walking the barren boardwalk, taking pictures of unmoving rides, floating through the New York Aquarium, and walking the beach. The desolation consoles me somehow and says, “Hey, your life isn't half bad.” Isn't that what Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been trying to tell us? That life is only “a Coney Island of the mind”?

I also get hot dogs from Nathan's when I'm there. I may be depressed, but I'm not crazy. You can't go all the way out to Coney Island and not get a Nathan's hot dog at Surf and Stillwell. It's un-American. If I didn't get a cheese dog smothered in chili, Krinkle Cut fries, and a large fresh-squeezed lemonade, I'd feel like a traitor to my country.

All this doing nothing is making me fat. I don't quite fit in the skinny little mirror near my dresser, my pants whine, and my tops pop off—buttons, usually. After thinking about joining Gleason's for eighty dollars a month and quickly discounting that idea—I'd be too embarrassed to work out in front of all those hard bodies—I get on the Internet and create a gym right here in my space.

It doesn't cost as much as I thought it would. Shoes—forty-two dollars. Adidas. Not my brand, but they were on sale. A pipe-metal speed bag and heavy bag platform—two hundred dollars. I don't want to scar my exposed ceiling in any way. An Italy Country Pride Everlast heavy bag—a hundred. It's solid white with red and green accents. Italy Country Pride Evergel and regular boxing gloves—seventy-five dollars. With the Evergel gloves, I won't need to wrap my hands at all, and they fit inside my regular gloves like, well, gloves. A six-piece Everlast speed bag set and a jump rope—seventy dollars. For five hundred, the cost of six-plus months at Gleason's and maybe only a few months at fancier gyms, I have my own boxing gym.

Having a place where I can lose some of my pity-party blubber in secret—
priceless.

I don't know why more women don't do this kind of workout. I use every muscle in my body, don't have to use a big inflated ball, don't have to listen to anorexic women tell me to “feel the burn, ladies,” and I don't have to buy expensive shorts, sweats, or tops to “be seen.” I estimate that I burn over five hundred calories an hour. I'd have to do over ninety minutes of low-impact aerobics to get the same results.

On the wall next to the metal platform, I posted the Virgil quote that assaults you at Gleason's Gym—with some minor changes:

I have put up my hands a
lot.

I rise at four-thirty every morning now, put on some sweatpants, and get right sweaty to the glorious sounds of Andrea Bocelli, a blind Italian tenor who has the most sensuous voice. I still listen to Smokey Robinson (and all of his Miracles) and Johnny Mathis, and I occasionally throw in some Sinatra. Besides the obvious benefits of working out, getting up at four-thirty allows me to take a longer shower and rush less afterward. I don't feel guilty all day about not working out or grouse at work about
having
to work out
after
work. I have no extra clothes in a gym bag to schlep around, I have no chance to go home sweaty or tired, and I get to bed at a reasonable time. At four-thirty, even in Red Hook, the world is asleep, peaceful, and serene. I don't need a psychologist, psychiatrist, maharishi, spiritual guide, therapist, counselor, guru, or personal trainer to make me feel better about myself, and cleaning up sweat on hardwood is a breeze. Some days I work out so hard I fog up my window.

I have an intense workout.

After all, I had a good teacher.

I work out for fifteen four-minute rounds. I jump rope for six rounds,
resting
in between each round. I ain't crazy. I hit the heavy bag for four rounds, not resting at all between rounds. There's just something cathartic and therapeutic about slamming your fists against a big heavy target and hearing the
pop
and the
pow
. Besides, I have to get back at my neighbors somehow for all their nocturnal hammering, cutting, and sanding. And, it releases a lot of the sexual tension that has built up in my body since . . .

I can't get that man out of my head. I've divided my life into two parts: BD (before Dante) and AD (after Dante). I miss him.

End of whiny, pining interlude.

And now, back to boxing.

I do the speed bag until I can't hold my arms up any longer (about two rounds), shadowbox in front of the mirror for two more rounds, and do as many crunches and push-ups as I can, ending it all with more jumping rope.

My sweats fell off me the other day while I was shadowboxing.

It was cool.

On my legs. Since the window fogged up, I kicked the sweats away and finished my workout in my underwear.

That was kind of hot, you know?

I'm not the kind of girl to measure myself or even weigh myself—I'm too old to care much about that kind of thing anymore. I take me as I am, and I think I've dropped at least fifteen pounds. I stare down at three inches of space between the top of my pants and my hips, and I have to wear a belt. My breasts bounce around in every bra I own except my sports bras. My booty is tight, muscular, and, well, it's still out there. No amount of sweat and bounce is going to diminish what heredity has given me. What I like most is my stamina. I can take stairs, run for the train and the bus, and even jog through Red Hook without losing my breath.

I am alive, and I feel
good
.

I stand naked in front of the mirror after every shower and pose. I have cuts. I have abs. I have perky breasts. They don't go
boing
, but they are definitely at attention. I have calves. I have biceps and triceps. I even have tighter skin around my jaw line. I will never become anorexic Evelyn, but let me tell you something—I am one fiercely sexy
corpo provocante
now.

I'm also into saving money like a bandit for some reason. I know, I spent money on my little gym, but when I think of how much I will save in the end by
not
going to a gym, I feel right thrifty. Instead of getting a fancy coffee from the Coffee Den, I make myself a commuter cup of Red Rose tea every morning. I was amazed to find these wonderful tea bags at Fairway Market one morning, and I bought up every box and bag I could. I have yet to find authentic Chelsea buns like the ones Red fried up that morning, but I will. I even cook fish filets on occasion, using Red's “secret” recipe. I checked out Fulton Fish Market but found no smallmouth bass. What a letdown.