The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice, and the Road to Reinvention (13 page)

“You just fully had a conversation with yourself,” Hannah snorted.

I didn’t hear anything from or about Jeffrey again until Hannah and I attended an early afternoon pool party at the Wynn the next day.

“Doesn’t her hair look fake?” I heard a female voice sneer behind me. We had grabbed some appetizers and were perched around one of the high-top tables surrounding the glittering pool. I glanced over my shoulder to see a woman sneering and pointing at me.

It was true, I was wearing a fall to accentuate my own hair. I didn’t care. I liked the way it looked, so I ignored the catty trophy wife behind me.
You try keeping my schedule and finding the time to keep your hair looking perfect
.

Just as the lady behind me was chipping away at my self-confidence, I happened to lock eyes with one of the most gorgeous women in the room. I’m not usually competitive (I’ve spent a lot of time sharing the spotlight), but I couldn’t help feeling a little bit janky when I noticed this particular girl and her perfectly put-together signature look. She reminded me of all the corners I cut when I threw myself together that morning.
What I wouldn’t give for an extra hour a day for a professional blow-out,
I thought wistfully. This girl looked like she lived in a blow-dry bar.

She strutted toward me as if on a runway. Her name was Andi and she was a local model. She had a soft, wavy, chocolate-brown mane that tumbled down just past her shoulders, heavy-lidded hazel cat eyes, bronze skin, and perfect, pouty lips that never quite seemed to close. Shorter than the average model, Andi made up for it by oozing sex appeal. Every guy I knew had either dated her or was desperate to.

“How’ve you been, honey?” she purred, sliding into the seat next to me and tapping me playfully on the arm. Andi was always in perma-flirt mode with anyone she met, male or female. Soft touches, light hair flips, sleepy eyelids, kitten voice . . . this woman was
always
on. No wonder all the guys chased after her!

I had met her a few times at various events. The model population in Vegas is pretty small, and she was one of the premier talents and therefore a familiar face to anyone who spent a fair amount of time in the city,
looking at billboards or perusing local magazines. She was friendly, but we weren’t close by any means. Andi was a guys’ girl and didn’t seem to have too many female friends. Hannah, who couldn’t stand Andi, excused herself almost immediately from the table.

“I’m hosting a little party at Rehab next weekend, if you want to come,” she said. “I’m really hoping some guy there will catch my eye. I’m having zero luck in the love business—especially with this last guy I was seeing.”

“I’m not having much luck either,” I confessed, deciding to join her little pity party for the sake of conversation, and told her the story about me losing my lunch outside the fancy car of the last guy I had sort of dated.

“Who have you been seeing?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

She looked me straight in the eyes and with her full glitter-glossed lips said, “Jeffrey Decker.”

Fuck,
I thought. Having spent most of my life trying to avoid awkward confrontations at all costs, I had been finding myself in a shit ton of them recently.

“Oh,” I said, almost choking on the lobster slider I had been eating. “Yeah, I just met him recently. He seems, um, nice.” It was lame, I knew it, but I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t going to lie and act as if I had never talked to him, but I wasn’t even sure if I was interested in him romantically, so there was really nothing else to say.

“Are you guys still together?” I asked. Jeffrey hadn’t mentioned having a girlfriend.

“Not really.” She pouted, looking down at her lap and picking at the beaded edge of her Haute Hippie skirt. “He’s great, but a little too busy with work to focus on a relationship.”

“That sucks,” I said, trying my best to sound sympathetic. I wondered if she had heard somehow that Jeffrey and I were talking and tracked me down on purpose . . . to claim her turf, piss on the trees, and remind me of a presumed “girl code” that might exist between us. Generally, I think
girl code (aka staying far, far away from any guys your friends have dated) is a good idea, but I didn’t feel like it applied in this situation. I barely knew Andi. And, no offense, but to stay away from every guy Andi had dated would narrow the dating pool quite drastically.

Jeffrey texted me the following week to let me know that he was set to work on an indie film for the rest of the month. The movie was being shot on location in Australia, and he was heading down under immediately. Jet-lagged and lacking any friends around to distract him, he often wound up diving into long, thoughtful text conversations with me. We were in communication constantly over the next few weeks. For an extreme introvert like me, this is definitely the most comfortable way to get to know someone. We discussed music, movies, travel, food . . . you name it. Being a night owl myself, I’d begun spending hours each night on the phone texting with Jeffrey. We had quickly developed our own rapport: private jokes, stupid nicknames, and sharing secrets. In the span of a month, it was as if we’d become close friends. He knew when I’d have a big meeting, and I’d be sure to ask him about a particularly grueling day on set.

I have to say, the hardest dating book rules for me to follow were numbers 5 and 6: “Don’t Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls” and “Always End the Calls First.” I translated “calls” to mean “texts.” After all,
The Rules
was originally published in 1995. I was enjoying my text-message marathons with Jeffrey so much that I wanted to hit him up all the time. Had I not exercised any restraint, he would have been the recipient of my entire stream-of-consciousness narrative.

He kept saying that we had to get together when he got back to the States, but we never got around to actually locking down a date. I was kind of scared to actually have a face-to-face with him for a change. It was almost as if I wanted the fantasy of a boyfriend rather than an actual boyfriend. I loved having a text message bestie, but was I even physically attracted to him? This remained to be seen.

The next time I was back in L.A., I opted to go to a party at a new Hollywood club with two of the
Peepshow
dancers who also happened to be in town for the day. I hadn’t been out in L.A. in ages, so I figured it could be fun, but also, having plans gave me an excuse not to even
think
about texting Jeffrey.

The “hot party” turned out to be a promotional event complete with a gifting suite and a sea of photographers waiting to catch each guest posing next to every product. I instantly began to feel claustrophobic. From the aggressive photographers to the sponsors pushing everyone for photo ops, this felt more like a press engagement than a low-key night out. Usually I was all for press, but that night I hadn’t been prepared. It was too loud and hectic to even enjoy my friends’ company. I needed to get out of there—and fast. My anxiety was taking over and I could practically feel the walls of the club closing in on me. My mind started racing and it felt as if my pulse sped up.

I told my two buddies that I wasn’t feeling so well and was going to head back to the hotel. After we said good-bye, I made my way toward the back exit. It took me about ten minutes to navigate through the pulsating crowd. I reached down to unclasp the skull on my tiny Alexander McQueen clutch and pulled out my phone to call a cab when I noticed I had left my cash and credit cards in my hotel room.
Damn it,
I thought.
How could I be that scatterbrained?

As I sat there running through my options, wondering who would be desperate enough to pick me up in the back alley of a nightclub, I felt my phone vibrate in my hand.

It was Jeffrey: “Hey! What’s up?”

“Hi,” I responded instinctively before deciding to add, “I’m in town!”

“Awesome,” he shot back almost immediately. “Wanna meet up?”

“Sure, but you’ll have to come get me,” I texted. “I’m actually stranded and I left my wallet in my hotel room.”

“Ha-ha. I’ll come rescue you.”

I gave him the name of the club and thanked him for being so flexible.

He replied: “No problem. Just give me a few minutes. Should I meet you out back?”

“Perfect,” I responded. I loved that he suggested that—and I loved even more that he didn’t make me ask. It’s kind of an embarrassing thing to have to explain. “Oh, hey, can you pick me up out back so photographers won’t see me get into your car? You know, because I’m
such
a big deal.” Maybe he wasn’t the publicity whore that I pegged him for.

As I waited for him to roll up, I actually felt excited . . . I was crushing on this guy harder than I thought. Fifteen minutes later, my phone buzzed.

“I’m out back.”

How the hell did he get here so fast?
I wondered. I slipped out the back door and into his idling black Tahoe. When I dropped myself into the passenger seat, I could feel my heartbeat pick up. He was cuter than I remembered.

“Hey, thanks for picking me up,” I said breathlessly as I pulled the heavy SUV door shut. “That party just wasn’t for me.”

“I’m not really down with that scene either,” he said, shifting the car into drive. His dark-tinted windows shielded us from the bright camera lights that were flashing around the corner. “You wanna check out a movie? There’s a theater near my place that’s never busy.”

“Sure,” I replied as I settled in for the short drive to the theater. I was nervous, but our conversation flowed surprisingly smoothly, thanks to the fact that we had spent about a month texting while he was in Oz.

After the movie, we discussed the soundtrack while strolling back to the parking garage. As we reached the pay station, I stopped myself from offering to pay, remembering I didn’t have any money in my purse anyway. The lack of funds made it easy to stick to the rules I was so determined to adhere to, as Rule 4 advised against “going dutch” on a date. Perhaps the outdated verbiage should have given me a clue that I could skip this rule. I awkwardly shifted my weight from my right foot to my
left as he inserted his credit card. Not offering to pay didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel like I was being me.
It’s just six dollars,
I tried to reassure myself.

As we walked over to his car he said, “So, do you want to go anywhere else? I don’t know about you, but I would definitely like to keep this night going. I don’t want it to end.”

In a world of guys who act like they are too cool to care, that was quite an endearing statement.

I smiled and said, “I’d love to, but I have to be up really early tomorrow to get back to Vegas.” It was true, my schedule was packed. But it was also Rule 11: “End the Date First.”

As he pulled up outside my hotel, I said good-bye and basically did a duck-and-roll out of the car, designed to avoid any possible attempt at a good-night kiss, which I sure as hell wasn’t going to do in front of the main entrance of the Beverly Hills Hotel under the eyes of whomever might be milling about. Not to mention, it played into Rule 14, “No More Than Casual Kissing on the First Date.”
Consider me a step ahead of the game,
I thought.
No kissing
at all
on the first date
.

Racing off as if I were Cinderella leaving the ball must have piqued his interest, because his texts and phone calls were now twice as frequent, imploring me to give him a good day to come to Vegas and visit me (Rule 4: “Don’t Meet Him Halfway”). Even though his charms were sneaking up on me, I was more occupied than ever with my career, so it was easy to stick to all this advice I had gleaned from books. Also, with the relationship being somewhat long distance, it was virtually impossible to break Rule 15, “Don’t Rush into Sex,” or to be a Stage 5 Clinger even if I wanted to be.

I
RUSHED TO MEET
my friends at Lavo after that evening’s show to celebrate my latest good news. Earlier that day, I had received the phone call I had been hoping for: E! loved the pilot we had just filmed and had
picked an airdate! As soon as I hung up the phone, I ran into Laura’s room to tell her and had been in a blur of happiness ever since. There was something about having a definitive airdate that made the whole possibility of being back on TV seem real.

“You’re glowing.” Hannah beamed. “It actually looks like you’ve been getting laid. I’m happy for you.”

I laughed. “No, but Jeffrey
does
want to come out to visit.”

“So why isn’t he?” Hannah asked, peering at me from behind her phone. Now that I was looking at her properly, I noticed she was dressed all in black, as she had been the first time I met her. Her hair was pulled back into a chignon and her nails were short, black, and shiny. She pressed me: “What are you afraid of? You’ve been talking to him and talking about him for months now.”

“Let’s talk about you,” I said, changing the subject. “Your nails are back to normal.” I stated as I looked at her manicure, unable to mask the amusement in my voice. “What happened with Brendan?”

She rolled her eyes and held up her hands as if to say “Don’t even ask.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Lindsay playfully reprimanded. “Just tell Jeffrey to come! I want to meet him.”

“I don’t know,” I grumbled, reaching for a decadent gourmet fried Oreo. “I will say this; he’s much more interesting than I thought he would be.”

What
was
I afraid of? Obviously I’d made some major fumbles in my love life (and in the public eye, no less), so of course I was cautious. But Vegas was my oasis, my little isle of safety, free from the paparazzi, and I still had some time before the reality cameras became omnipresent, capturing all of my spare time. If there was a moment to take a risk and put my heart back on the table, this was it. They say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Maybe in this case that slogan would actually apply. I decided then and there that Jeffrey visiting me in Vegas would be just the thing.

The first few times he came to visit, it was casual. We spent most
of our time together under the scrutiny of all my friends, who had to vet him first. Everyone agreed that he seemed
really nice
. Eventually he became a Vegas regular, despite constantly reminding me that it was his least favorite city.