Unscripted (9 page)

This wasn’t the first time I’d had this problem. Back when I was stupid about Alex, I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter that he was ten years younger than me. I told myself that he was different—insightful, sensitive, even mature for his years. Whatever it took, right? But I was lying to myself, and I knew it. The times we truly connected were rare. Our moment with the Hershey’s Kisses was one. Our moment at the first season’s wrap party was another.

As the first season drew to a close, I wasn’t sure we were going to be renewed, although the preliminary signs pointed to yes. When we got the official confirmation, I knew we had to have the mother of all parties to celebrate. As usual, I took care of all the planning. I didn’t mind because, as usual, I enjoyed having complete control.

I considered having it at my house, but I had invited a million people—everyone from the lowliest intern all the way up to Randy B., because at the time I was still trying to suck up to him. We may have been renewed, but I wanted to make sure we got a full twenty-two episode order—no more of this piddly thirteen episodes shit—and if I had to actually amuse Randy B. to get my way, then so be it.

In the end I rented out Zapp, a club on Sunset that was just the right side of skeevy—nasty enough to be cool (really cool, not fake cool), but not so nasty that we were afraid to drink out of the glasses. I catered the hell out of it and of course had an open bar, plus got one of the hottest DJs on the Strip, so it wasn’t too far into the evening before everyone was feeling no pain. Randy didn’t show, by the way. But we didn’t miss him.

I even gave myself permission to have a good time: I dolled myself up (face by Lacey, one of our makeup artists; hair flattened by Mario, my stylist; stomach flattened by Spanx) and even had a couple of drinks. I was feeling pretty good as I watched my flock enjoy themselves, thinking,
These are my people.
I was responsible for their happiness, their success, their future. And so far it was going well. For that, I reasoned, I deserved to have another martini.

The night dissolved into one loud, raucous, flashing blur. I remembered being surrounded by cast and crew members, giddy friends pushing their faces into mine to shout excitedly to me over the throbbing music. I remembered dancing, but not to what music or who with; laughing at jokes I couldn’t recall afterward; hugging lots of people; and even engaging in a few flirtatious exchanges with some of the guys on my staff—something they’d never dare try in any other setting, something I’d never
allow
in any other setting. In short, all the usual elements of a spectacular night out.

But one part of the night remained crystal clear. I had been gossiping with Jaya, still in my presiding corner, when she glanced up, over my shoulder, and took a polite step back. I looked behind me to find Alex standing there, smiling, looking hot in a white dress shirt and suit, as though he were some sexy corporate dude who had just gotten off work and dropped in to the party. Like a good bestie, Jaya disappeared quietly, and then it was just me and Alex, in this weird bubble. I couldn’t move; I was just staring at his lazy smile and the hollow of his throat where his white shirt lay open.

“Hey,” I rasped, faintly, and it was lost under the music.

He reached down and picked up my hand, which was hanging limply at my side, and raised it to his lips. Yes, he actually kissed my hand. “You look really nice tonight.”

I was surprised I didn’t turn into a stupid puddle of ooze on the floor.

“Really great party too,” he said, leaning in so I could hear him. I wanted to say “Thanks,” but nothing came out. Alex looked around the room, lifted his chin in greeting to someone, then looked back at me. “Want to dance?”

That brought me out of my stupor. I glanced around at the gyrating dancers, the strobing lights, the DJ bopping behind her equipment to the beat of the deafening, throbbing techno-something I was too old to recognize. Then I turned back to Alex with an incredulous look.

He only laughed. “Hang on.”

He caught the DJ’s eye and, unsurprised, she nodded, and the booming techno faded immediately, replaced by—no lie—a waltz. It was a pop song, but it was definitely three-quarter tempo. Alex took my drink out of my hand and put it on a nearby table, smooth as you please, then lifted my other hand onto his shoulder, easing me out into the middle of the now sparsely populated dance floor.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he murmured—because now we could talk at normal volume—as he navigated me in circles that made me dizzy. Or maybe I would have been dizzy without the dance steps. “I learned the waltz when I was a kid, and it’s the only formal dance that’s stuck with me.”

I could just picture him as a preteen, awkwardly stumbling around a dance floor with a girl half a foot taller than him. So cute. “Charm school?”

His lopsided smile resurfaced. “No. For a play.”

“You did theater?”

“Sure did.” He navigated me smoothly around a couple of crew members who were just doing the standard middle-school stand-and-shuffle slow dance in the middle of the floor.

“I didn’t know that about you.”

“Well, there’re a lot of things you don’t know about me.” He said this with a twinkle in his eye that made me want to jump him right there in the middle of the club. “Yeah,” he went on, “I love live theater. It’s the only medium where an actor really finds out what he’s made of, you know?” I nodded, even though I hadn’t set foot on a stage in my entire life. “Acting without a net, without a second take—anything could happen. What a rush. And you really get
into
a role, you know? It’s not like television, where we memorize the lines in five minutes, spit them out, and then move on.”

I stared. I didn’t think I’d ever heard him say more than ten words at a time unless he was reciting the ones laid out for him in my scripts. He looked abashed—he might have even been blushing, but the dim light made it hard to tell—and glanced away.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t be.”

“I don’t mean to knock television. It’s been great for me so far.”

“I just never knew you had such a love for the theater.”

“It’s so
real,
Faith.”

Maybe I was more buzzed than I thought. Because normally that sort of earnestness from anyone, even Alex McNulty, would have started me sniggering and spouting sarcastic remarks. But I just nodded. The song ended, and he led me off the floor, steering me straight to an empty booth. I slid in and he followed. Even though the booth was a nice large semicircle, he sat so close to me our hips were touching. I could barely breathe. A bottle of champagne appeared from somewhere, and he poured two glasses.

“So, not a theater person, then?” he asked.

“Well, I like theater, but . . . you know . . . this is Southern California!” I tried to laugh, but I sounded like a hysterical loon. I made myself stop.

“There’s theater here too.”

I took a gulp of champagne, squinting as the bubbles went up my nose. “Oh, I know. It’s just that my background has always been in TV and movies.”

“Oh yeah, your mom.”

I raised my glass. “The inimitable Mona Urquhart-Sinclair-Tompkins-Hijuelos . . . um . . .” I paused, then remembered my current stepdaddy’s last name. “. . . -DiNoto.”

“Impressive.”

“She gets around.”

“She’s still in the business?”

“No.” I took another drink. Wow, look—the bottom of the glass. Somebody must have drunk it all when I wasn’t looking. No worries; Alex filled it back up again. “She’s retired, living in Palm Springs now.”

“People still retire to Palm Springs?”

“Old-school retirement, right? I told her she could have bought a thousand-acre compound in Costa Rica for the price of the house she bought there. Wouldn’t go.”

“It’s just as hot.”

“Yeah, but Palm Springs is a dry heat. Whatever that means. No trench foot, maybe.”

Alex took a sip of champagne. “Maybe she wants to be close to the action, in case she decides to come out of retirement?”

I shrugged. “Anything’s possible, I suppose. She did love the biz.”

“So she, like, helped you out with
Modern Women
?”

As usual, I felt myself bristle whenever someone suggested the obvious, but it was dulled a bit by the champagne, and because this time it was coming from Alex. I knew I’d forgive him more readily than I’d forgive anyone else. “No. The show is all mine. I did it without her help.”

I must have sounded cranky anyway, because he said soothingly, “Okay.” Then, after a minute, “She’s a legend.”

“So I’ve heard.”

He was right. Mona was a legend, and not one of those fleeting acting-type legends. Her legacy was more enduring, because she had worked behind the scenes for decades, starting out as a secretary at a movie studio—long since absorbed in a series of mergers—and working her way up, through sheer bullheadedness, all the way to producer. Now the mere mention of her name elicited awe from anyone with a healthy respect for the history of American movies. She wasn’t a celebrity; she was bigger than that. She was infamous, especially to the people who really mattered, the ones behind the scenes who wielded all the power.

And she was an impossible act to follow.

Honestly, when she announced she was going to retire a few years ago—really retire this time, not like all those other times she declared she was done, only to be dragged back into the limelight when Robert De Niro begged her to speak at his TriBeCa Film Festival or some other high-profile event came along—I was ecstatic. I had been living in her shadow all my life. I wasn’t ever just Faith Sinclair. I was Mona’s Daughter, my identity defined not by my own accomplishments, but by my mother’s existence.

But Mona had been deeply ensconced in her golf-and-cocktails, dry-heat retired lifestyle with fourth husband Dominic—who begged me to call him Papa, like that was going to happen in this lifetime—when I came up with the idea for
Modern Women.
I shopped it to the networks and got the go-ahead all on my own. That was why
Modern Women
was so important to me. But nobody could understand that—and some didn’t believe it—so I never bothered to explain myself. Not even Alex, sitting so close to me that I could feel the heat of his leg through my skirt, could get me to open that Pandora’s Box.

So I just raised my glass and said, “Here’s to moms.”

Alex filled my glass again. Darned champagne-thieving gnomes. “She has some connection with Cannes, doesn’t she?”

Mona again? I wished he’d change the subject. But I answered. Didn’t want to be disagreeable.

“Lots,” I agreed. “She’s been on juries there more times than I can count.”

He nodded. “And the Sundance Institute, I heard?”

I nodded back, and my head seemed to be moving in slow motion. “Yep. Hey, you studied up on my mom.”

“I just . . . hear things, here and there.”

Patting his hand—and my hand seemed to land on his with a thud, even though I was going for more of a delicate touch—I said, “Don’t worry about it.” It came out “Dunnworrabahtit,” but then again I was pretty sure I was acting cute and alluring, so it didn’t bother me. I had other things on my mind. I looked up; Alex’s face was swimming in and out of focus. “You’re so gorgeous,” I heard myself say. The critical part of my brain gasped, horrified; the infatuated part told it to shut up and mind its own business.

He grinned down at the tabletop and murmured, “Thanks.” When he looked up again, he seemed very serious. “I think you’re great, Faith,” he said. My stomach trilled even as the critical part of my brain thought,
Hey, that wasn’t much of a compliment back.
The infatuated part of my brain told it to shut up again. “What you’ve created, with the show—I really think it’s going to be something. Even bigger than this season, I mean. And it’s all because of you—your scripts, your direction, your vision.”

“That’s so sweet, Alex.” Yes, I was cooing. So sue me. I had to get this hookup moving. We were on hiatus now; if I worked it right, when we came back for the second season, it would be firmly established that Alex and I were a couple, and we could walk onto the set together and everybody would just have to accept it because it was already a done deal. Not that I’d thought about it before now, of course. Much.

“So I was wondering . . . ,” he began.

I leaned closer and raised my eyebrows. “Yeeesss?” Oh God, I was sounding ridiculous. I really had to put down the champagne.

“Next season, what do you think of having David, you know, do some really . . . cool stuff?”

Cool stuff?

A little alarm bell went off deep in the recesses of my alcohol-addled brain. “I have some ideas for David, Alex. Don’t you worry.”

He fidgeted. “Oh, I know you do. You always write the greatest stuff. But I was wondering if maybe we could . . . I don’t know . . . brainstorm together? Come up with some really amazeballs story lines?”