Please (4 page)

“
Great.” Elizabeth hung up. She was not looking forward to seeing those notes. She was sick of looking at the thing. Still, it would be better to get started on it now, while she didn’t have the distractions of the kids and Steve.

It was late, but Elizabeth didn
’t feel tired. It must be that New York energy, the ambient vibe from the city that never sleeps, she thought. She knew Emily would be asleep by now. Her radio show started at 6:00 and she had a half-hour commute to the station in Ottumwa. But Nina would still be up. Elizabeth called her.

“
’allo Leez,” she answered. “How is New York?”

“
Well, I haven’t seen much of it. I’ve been on set all day. Some of the cast invited me to a club tonight, but ...”

“
But what? Oh my God, Leez, why are you even thinking about it? Go!” Nina was insistent.

“
Aw, come on, Nina. I’m too old for that.” Elizabeth stood up and examined herself critically in the mirror. Thanks to her obsessive need to run, her body looked better than it had in college, but there was nothing fine about the laugh lines that crinkled in the corners of her eyes when she smiled.

“
Nonsense! You are only as old as you think you are. You love to dance. You must go!”

“
You think?”

“
Absolutely! Put on some lipstick and some fuck-me heels. Have some champagne. You deserve it. When do you ever get to have fun, hm? This is your chance. Don’t be, how do you say, the wet bed clothes.”

“
Okay. I’ll go.”

“
And call me tomorrow to tell me all?”

“
Yep.” Elizabeth hung up, smiling. She loved Nina. You could always count on her to bring the
joie de vivre
.

Elizabeth rifled through her wardrobe for something suitably hip and trendy to wear to one of Manhattan
’s most exclusive clubs and came up with ... nothing. Hip and trendy hadn’t been her vibe since Keenan, if ever. She pulled on a pair of slim dark jeans and the white wife-beater she normally wore layered under long-sleeved shirts when it was cold. Because she was tall for a woman and Steve was average, at best, for a man, she didn’t normally wear heels. But she had gone on a shopping trip to Chicago with Nina and Emily last year and found the most exquisite silver snakeskin stilettos. Nina and Emily didn’t have to twist her arm too hard to make her buy them. Of course, they’d never been worn. Fairfield wasn’t a stiletto kind of town. She strapped them on now, feeling instantly sexy, even powerful.

Until she looked in the mirror.

What she saw looking back at her wasn’t the sexy, ageless Elizabeth in her mind, but a thirty-eight-year-old mom in a man’s undershirt and a kick-ass pair of shoes. She put on some black eye-liner hoping it would help, but it only made her look tired.

“
Who do you think you’re fooling?” she said to the woman in the mirror. She was sitting on the foot of her bed taking her shoes off when she heard a knock at the door.

“
Shit!” she muttered and hobbled with one shoe on to answer it. It was Sebastian. And Naomi.

“
Hi Liz! Are you ready to bring it?” Naomi squealed, dancing into the room. She was wearing a tiny scrap of blue sequins that barely deserved to be called a dress and open-toe black booties.

“
Looove the shoes,” she said, a rush of kinetic energy. “Oh what a great view you have. Where’s your makeup? I love putting makeup on all my girlfriends. If I didn’t have talent, I’d do it for a living. Is this all you have? Oh, well, sit down. Seb, just hang. This won’t take two secs.” Naomi began working with Elizabeth’s limited supply of brushes, enveloped in an air of intense concentration and lemony scent.

Sebastian picked up the book on Elizabeth
’s nightstand and began thumbing through it.

Naomi kept up a continuous stream of chatter as she dusted and smeared and dabbed at Elizabeth
’s face. Elizabeth “hmmed” and “uh-huhed”, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her chest.

“
There,” Naomi said with triumphant finality. “That’s the best I can do. Take a look. You’re hot, girlfriend!”

Elizabeth had to admit she did look better, but next to Naomi
’s twenty-six-year-old poreless fairy princess beauty, she felt like the troll that lived under the bridge.

“
Wait.” Naomi fished through the tangle of costume jewelry that Gwen had dumped into Elizabeth’s bag, extracting a pair of dangling silver earrings. “You need some bling.”

Sebastian put down the book. It was Flaubert
’s
Madame Bovary
, one of Elizabeth’s favorites. She was reading it again, for the third time.

“
Let me,” he said, taking the earrings from Naomi. He stood so close to Elizabeth that she could feel the heat radiating from his body as he threaded the silver post through her ear. Naomi buzzed around him like a bee near a flower, laughing and putting a possessive hand on his back.

“
Perfect,” he said, standing back and admiring Elizabeth. Naomi linked her arm through his.

“
Thanks,” she said.

*

Elizabeth loved to dance. From the day she had put on her very first pair of pink leather Capezios at the tender age of five, she had been smitten. She just loved the way her Ichabod Crane arms and legs lost their gangly awkwardness and became fluid, elegant, graceful even. She felt the way she imagined a seal must feel when it curved, weightless, underwater. With her height and practical upbringing, dance had never been a career choice, but in her twenties when she was living in Chicago, she and her girlfriends went clubbing every weekend. Funk, house, salsa, electronica, she did it all.

Of course, all that
had petered out after she met Steve. Steve didn’t dance. Period. Then they moved back to Elizabeth’s hometown of Fairfield, where the only clubs were the ones on the golf course. By the time Keenan came along, nightlife had ceased to be an important word in Elizabeth’s vocabulary and dance something she only did at weddings.

So when she
, Sebastian and Naomi walked into the dimly lit space of the Submercer, instantly cocooned in a womb of sound and moving bodies, Elizabeth felt like she was coming home. Well, coming home to a house where all the furniture had been changed and the walls painted strange and unsettling colors. It was a bit like being in a red brick dungeon, the dark windowless space divided by low arches and brick columns and packed with firm young flesh. There was so much writhing skin on display, Elizabeth couldn’t help thinking of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. In her tank top and jeans, she felt as over-dressed as if she were wearing a burkha.

Trailing the actors past the bar, she looked around the room. Red leather banquets and low glass tables ringed the dance floor. This was where the not-so-young-and-firm sat, sipping micro-brews and martinis and shouting to be heard over the music. Elizabeth tried not to register surprise as she noticed more than a few celebrities. She was horrible at putting names to faces, but Emily the
E! junkie would be quietly freaking out if she were here.

“
Drink?” They had stopped at a table, where Cullen, still wearing his turquoise shades despite the minimal lighting, was holding court. A waiter, who had clearly decided she was no one important, all but tapped his foot, waiting for her answer.

“
Martini,” she said, immediately regretting it, but feeling too intimidated to change her mind. She hated martinis. “Dirty,” she added as an afterthought. At least now it wouldn’t taste like she was downing rubbing alcohol.

Cullen interrupted his monologue to acknowledge their arrival.

“Naomi,” he purred, kissing her cheek. “Sebastian, my man.” He gave the much taller actor one of those funny handshake half-hugs that were supposed to convey manly affection without creeping into queerness. “Oh, hi!” he said to Elizabeth, obviously surprised she was there and trying to decide how he should play the uninvited interloper. “Welcome, welcome.” He clasped her hand between his. She didn’t qualify for a cheek kiss. “So nice of you to join us.” King Cullen had decided to be magnanimous and let the peasant join his audience of courtiers.

Elizabeth smiled at everyone seated around the
table. She recognized a cameraman, still in his vintage Hendrix t-shirt, greasy curls poking out beneath a pork-pie hat, and another guy from the set, a sound guy or lighting guy, she wasn’t sure. The others she didn’t recognize, but they were all men.

Cullen continued his story as if there hadn
’t been an interruption. Elizabeth tried to listen, but it was impossible over the thumping bass of the music. Sebastian and Naomi were already out on the dance floor. She could just see Sebastian’s head and the odd flash of Naomi’s blond hair through the tangle of limbs. She felt a throb of disappointment. She wanted to dance.

The man sitting beside her nudged her bare arm to get her attention and held out his hand.

“Matt Thibeaudeux,” he shouted to be heard over the music. “Scriptwriter.”

“
Oh, hi. Elizabeth ...”

“
Yeah, I know. Your picture’s in the book, right? You have a very distinctive look.” He gestured to her hair. “I spent a month with
Habibi Baby
. I feel like I know you.” Elizabeth smiled. Short, balding, and paunchy under his starched white dress shirt and sports coat, Matt looked just as out of place here as she felt.

“
I hope it wasn’t too painful for you,” Elizabeth joked. Her novel was classified as chick lit after all. One look at the hot pink cover was all it took for men to dismiss it. Even Steve had demurred.

Matt smiled.
“Actually, you made my job pretty easy. The dialogue is great. I just copied and pasted whole chunks of it.”

“
Thanks.”

“
No, thank you.” He paused for a minute, a confessional look stealing over his face. “I kinda feel like we should have talked before now. At least emailed, but ...”

“
Yeah, I know,” Elizabeth dropped her voice and leaned in closer. “Can’t mess with Cullen’s process, right?”

Matt nodded and shrugged.
“The price you pay to work with genius, I guess,” he said, with an eye-roll. “Or in my case, to work at all.”

Elizabeth laughed.
“Right.” She drew a figure 8 on the glossy tabletop with her finger, thinking of what to say next.

“
I didn’t see you on set, did I?” she asked. Matt would have stuck out among all the hipsters.

“
Ha! Are you kidding? The script is done. What do they need me for? Nah. I live in Queens.” Matt leaned in close, confiding, “Cullen threw me a bone, inviting me out tonight. To make up for the crap money he’s paying me.”

Elizabeth glanced
at the director, fully engaged in his story, loyal subjects hanging on his every word.

“
At least he’s paying you something,” she said, before she could stop herself.

Matt laughed, his bushy eyebrows shooting up.
“He’s not paying you? You’re shitting me?”

Elizabeth shook her head, smiling.
“Not unless you include the dollar that was in the contract that I signed. But as my agent says, the movie will be free publicity for the book, and it’s not like there’s a line of directors begging for the rights.” She shrugged. “He’s putting me up here for a week.”

Matt mimicked her shrug, taking a sip of his beer.
“It’s not cheap, but I’m sure he got a deal. Talk about free publicity, right? And permanent cool status. The setting for a Zweibeker.”

“
Right.” That sinking feeling was back again. Mercifully, the rude waiter arrived with her drink, sliding it in front of her without even a glance in her direction. Elizabeth took a sip and grimaced. Mm, she thought, salty rubbing alcohol.

“
You like it dirty?” Sebastian’s voice was low and suggestive, so close to her ear that she could feel the warmth of his breath. “I’m not surprised.”

Elizabeth started, unsettled by his proximity. He leaned over her, his skin slightly flushed and shiny from dancing, looking at her as if he expected her to say something. But Elizabeth didn
’t remember how to play that game. She just flashed him an awkward smile and turned back to Matt.

God he
’s hot, she thought, trying to keep her mind on what Matt was saying as Sebastian sat down beside her, his thigh pressed against hers. But Matt could have been speaking Swahili for all she knew, so conscious was she of Sebastian next to her. Her heart was beating at sprint-speed.

“
Hey,” he said, his lips close to her ear again. He nudged her forearm with his, skin to skin.

Elizabeth turned to face him, inching her arm awa
y.

He touched her glass.
“May I?” he asked.

“
Uh, go ahead,” she said, taken aback.

He took a sip, looking at her over the rim.
“The taste reminds me of something,” he said with a sly smile. “Now what could that be?”