The Real Real (12 page)

“No.” Caitlyn speeds the final mile to my house. “We kind of have plans.” She shoots a look at Jennifer. The look she always used to shoot me. That’s
my
look.

“Okay.” I tell myself to shrug as she veers into my driveway.

“You’re really funny,” Jennifer states as she gets out of her seat to let me out.

“Thanks.” I climb past her. “Thanks for the ride,” I mumble in Caitlyn’s direction as, head tucked, I focus on making it inside before my eyes water.

Just as my foot hits the porch steps, I hear a door slam and spin to see Caitlyn marching over, hunched into herself, the skin above her deep V-neck turning red in the cold. “We can’t just go back, Jesse.”

“I know, I just thought—”

“You can’t just tell some Jesse story and expect me to be fine.”

“Maybe not fine, but at least talking to me! I hate this.

You know what I miss most about Saturdays? Meeting you at breaks to commiserate about lost weekenders with real estate listings clasped to their fur-covered chests.”

“But now you have your own fur-covered chest,” she spits, her eyes glassy and hard.

“Caitlyn, it isn’t my fault that I got this job and you didn’t!”

“I can’t, Jesse. Don’t do this again. It hurts too much.”

She runs back to the car, and in a blurry moment they’ve pulled away.

The next morning, after our seven a.m. call time and General Mills Breakfast Of Champions, Melanie, Nico, and I are driven over to the Stop & Shop.

“Yes!”
Kara cries into the bullhorn, startling the other shoppers trying to feed their families without coming into the aisle Zacheria commandeered.
“I love it. Now don’t
look at the prices. Melanie, Jess, stop checking the
prices! Cut! You’re rich girls shopping for a romantic
dinner. Price is irrelevant. Do-over!”

My heart hung over from my failed attempt with Caitlyn, but trying to focus, I return the packet of steaks to the Stop

& Shop meat case, walk back to the top of the aisle, emptying our basket along the way, and begin again.

“Good, great,” Zacheria coaches from out of frame.

“Olives! Take olives! And those little pickles! The expensive ones! Yeah! Grab the little pickles!”

At that, Nico and Melanie finally lose it, falling on each other in a heap of helpless laughter.

“Cut!”

“Okay.” Kara, ever the pacer, makes her laps behind our three chairs in the trailer as they redo our hair and makeup from the grocery store without the safety net of smocks, careful not to drop anything on our jewel-toned cocktail dresses. “You’ve shopped. Now you’re going to go back to Melanie’s house to cook for the boys.”

Stricken, Melanie swings around in her chair, getting a green stripe of eyeliner across her face in the process. “
My
house? But it’s not—I mean, of course, yes, if you want, but I have to call my mom, we have to get it nice—”

“Oh no, don’t worry, Melanie,” Kara rushes to reassure her. “We rented a house for the night.”

“Oh,” Melanie says, swiveling back so the makeup artist can dab at the streak with a Q-Tip. I give an internal sigh of relief that if Melanie’s house isn’t glamorous enough—

and they have an attached garage—ours definitely won’t be called upon. And I won’t have to run home some night and try to repaint it between four and six a.m.

“So, let’s get you gorgeous and get you cooking!”

“Stand back from the steam!”
Zacheria shouts into his bullhorn, the sun now setting through Mrs. Richardson’s 117

bay windows as I stir the spaghetti.
“Stir from a distance!

Jenny, crouch down out of frame and fan her!”
Teetering on my patent-leather platforms, I take two steps back from Mrs. Richardson’s antique copper pot with Mrs.

Richardson’s antique wood spoon. In Mrs. Richardson’s French Country kitchen. Which I’ve been in countless times with my mom and was never supposed to touch anything. Ever.

“Cut! Her makeup is sliding off. Get her fixed up
and off stove duty! Can
anybody
cook without sweating?”

“If we were making sushi,” Nico retorts. And Melanie shoots her the same knock-it-off look she does any time Nico talks back.

After they fix my makeup, I’m stationed in the breakfast nook with a Wüsthof knife and olive-wood cutting board. Which I think is only supposed to be used as a cheese tray. Every slice of carrot makes a thin groove in the wood.

“Kara!” I call out as they’re re-lighting the kitchen.

“Are you sure I can use this?”

“They signed a form, Jesse. We’re clear.”

“Okay, you are making dinner for the guys, and
go!”

Nico, Drew, Jase, Rick, and I all nod on fumes of enthusiasm from where we’re seated at the massive mahogany table. Melanie once again delivers her line: “I’m so glad 118

you guys liked the pasta. Dessert is from this really cool Doritos recipe I downloaded from the Doritos website, www.doritosdelights.com. It has a delicious key lime center and a crumbly Doritos crust—”

A loud stomach grumble interrupts her. We all cut our eyes at Drew, who shrugs apologetically.

“Drew,” Kara moans, her bullhorn momentarily at rest in her lap.

My non-dining dining companions slump forward in our straight-backed Napoleonic chairs while the food stylist appears to spray more baby oil atop Melanie’s outstretched pie. To keep up the gleam. The same gleam that has been sprayed on all our food tonight. I am starting to wonder how many brain cells I could really lose to baby-oiled garlic bread and if I would really miss them.

“I can’t work like this!” Zacheria screams from the minstrel’s balcony above the table.

“Drew, just . . .” Kara wrings her hands in exasperation from the nearby monitor station. “Hang in there. We’re almost done with the ‘pie’ scene, okay?”

Drew sighs. “Yeah, I need to eat something that’s not in quotes.”

“Seriously. That pizza smells killer.” Rick strains to see the spread on the craft services table just out of shot.

“Can’t we at least nibble on the stuff we cooked?” Nico twists around to blink into the wall of lights.

“I’ll get it right this time, Kara,” I hear Mel offer from behind my chair.

“Remember, don’t say the line exactly how I said it. It sounds forced.” For the first time Kara makes little effort to cover her frustration. “Just give it your own spin, Melanie. The clock is ticking.”

“Sure, no problem!” I turn to see Melanie nod with a frozen smile, her green eyes sparkling in panic. The more frustrated Kara gets, the more Melanie freezes up.

“She says she gets it, but I’m not hearing it,” Zacheria mutters.

“Sorry, I’ll definitely do it this time.”

Eager to help Mel out and get this over with before my stomach joins Drew’s in a chorus of protest, I whisper over my shoulder, “Just say, like, ‘This pie from doritosdelights.

com rocks! You guys have to check out the site.’ And then I’ll ask what else is on the site, okay?”

“Exactly, Jesse!”
Kara booms, reminding me that I traded in effective whispering when my parents signed the XTV consent, just like the Richardsons traded in the safety of their cheese tray.

“Thanks.” Melanie’s cheeks redden under her foundation.

“Sorry—no, I think she’s doing a great job—”

“Melanie, sit. Jesse, up. Change of plans. Take the
pie and we’ll start the scene from the kitchen.”

“But I really think Melanie—”

“Take the freaking pie to the freaking kitchen, Jesse.”

Jase grips his hands around the table lip, the linen puckering.

“Please,” Nico implores. “I’m going to faint, seriously.”

“No, it’s fine.” Melanie steps forward to hand me the cold porcelain dish, and I push up and around her as she studiously smoothes the emerald satin of her skirt to sit.

I scurry through the double mahogany doors and wait in the trashed kitchen, grabbing an abandoned clammy fusilli from a nearby strainer and snarfing it down as Kara yells,
“Action!”

I push through the doors and walk to the head of the table, where everyone stares at me expectantly over the flickering candelabras. “This pie
rocks
. It has a key lime center and a Doritos crust. We found it on doritosdelights.com.”

“Cool.” Drew gives it his best. “I love that site.”

“It’s dope,” Jase helps.

“Totally!” Nico lifts a shoulder coquettishly at Jase. “I get a ton of after-school snack ideas there.”

I slide the pie onto the table, and Melanie brings it home. “Hey, after dinner, let’s hit my parents’ Jacuzzi!”

“Cool!”

“Yeah!”

“Let’s do it!” We all cheer like we’re on Nickelodeon.

“Cut! Moving on!”
Kara says the magic words.
“I
love you guys! Okay, break. And into bathing suits.”

“Girls, no pizza for you, or I’m going to have a camera full of tummy bloat,” Zacheria warns from above as we scoot back our chairs and scramble over one another to descend on the crew’s food.

“Nico!”

Nico looks up from the fray, Cheez-Its crumbling out of her full mouth. “Yeah?”

“Hair and makeup.” One of the faux-hawked assistants reads down his clipboard.

“Two minutes,” she begs through chipmunk cheeks, spraying bright orange flakes.

Melanie and I offer sympathetic smiles, but continue shoveling in anything not-pizza from the trays.

“
Now
, Nico.”

Nico manages to grasp two handfuls of gummy worms as she’s hurried away toward the library serving as trailer.

I take advantage of the distraction to swipe a slice from the open box and, knowing the layout, dart around the feeding frenzy and into the back hall. Saliva filling my mouth in anticipation, I take a few steps into the cover of the dim sconce lighting and sink my teeth in. Oh my God. Cheesy, salty, bready, baby-oil-free heaven. I slide down the wall to the black-and-white-marble tile, savoring every bite.

“Busted.” Two John Varvatos Converse appear in my carb haze, and I look up to see Drew. He grins.

“If you tell on me I will have you killed, and I’m not even kidding.” I hastily swipe a napkin across my chin.

“There’s a felon who washes dishes in my dad’s kitchen—he has crazy sympathy for having to eat on an institutional schedule.”

“Don’t worry, O’Rourke, I value my life and don’t really see you as the tummy-bloat type. They said there was a bathroom back here?”

“Down the hall.” Savoring the compliment, I pull in my legs so he can pass, my patent leather heels squeaking across the marble. “In the paneling.” I point a few feet down the green silk brocade panels bordered in shiny wood.

“Where?” He looks from wall to wall.

“Between the painting of the hunting dogs and the painting of the hunted pheasants. It’s hidden.”

He steps closer to the wall and runs his finger along the molding. “Because rich people don’t want people to know they go to the bathroom? Ah-ha!” He locates the groove and swings open the door.

“It’s like a status thing.”

He tilts his head at me questioningly, brown hair flopping.

“That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.”

“You have . . . ” He walks back toward me.

“Many theories. Rich people like: appliances they don’t use, curtains they can’t close, pets they don’t play with, and bathrooms they can’t find.”

“No.” He leans down and gently wipes my chin.

“Sauce.” He slides his finger over the napkin wadded in my hand while I die a silent death.

“Thanks,” I manage.

“Sure.” He smiles, his face staying low next to mine.

I breathe carefully out of my nose, willing my nostrils to mask the pepperoni.

“This the shitter line?”

Drew jerks up, and we both look over at Jase, tugging 123

at the starched collar of his borrowed shirt.

“Just gimme a sec.” Drew steps to the hidden door.

“You should tell him your theories,” he offers before closing it.

Jase leans against the wall opposite me as I dab the napkin over my whole mouth and chin. “This blows,” he summarizes after a beat of me nodding with pursed lips.

“It does,” I concur.

“I mean, I thought they had an indoor pool.”

“Right, that’s the bummer.” Not the two hours we just spent not eating.

“Everyone on this street has an indoor. My dad’s building one with a waterfall next door. Next to the guesthouse.”

I stand up as the person I’m avoiding brings up the subject that makes me avoid him, lest we have any more

“heat.”

“Pizza was decent,” he continues his review.

“Yeah.” I straighten the hem of my cranberry satin minidress to cover the tops of my thigh highs.

“So, sorry about your nose,” he says to me. I look up, and he looks to the painting above my head. “I was gunning for Drew. My pitching arm must be off. Good thing spring training’s coming up.”

“Whatever, it’s fine.” I give a shrug in that brown-bunny-turning-white-in-the-snow sort of way. “Tandy fixed me up.”

He drops his blue eyes to mine for the first time, his 124

smile spreading. “You just had me all distracted in those lederhosen. They let you keep those?” He drums the wallpaper behind him.

“That’s silk.” Reflexively I point to his greasy fingertips as my mind registers and then tries to reject his comment.

“What, this your house now?” Straightening, he shoots me a withering glower.

I fold my napkin into little squares while glancing back at the wall that’s sealed up over the boy I want to be talking to. The one who’s nice, funny, hot, and nice. “No, I just . . . ” know that my mom spent six hours trying to get a speck of mud out last Easter, so ten fingers covered in pizza grease—

“You just
what
?” he prods, leaning in to lower his voice.

He gives me a look that makes me wish we could go back to the minute before when he was only being sleazy. “Why does Fletch keep asking me about Trisha?”

“JESSE!”

“Sorry, gotta go.” Never so relieved to hear Kara yell my name, I dart past him to get suited.