The Real Real (14 page)
“Yeah.”
“That’s my mom,” she announces with pride, her face finally relaxing.
“Wow,” I say with a full mouth. “That’s really cool,” I repeat inanely, eager to fan the relaxed flames. “So . . . she lives in the city?”
“They’re not divorced, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Her lips remain apart, but the smile falls out of her eyes.
“Not . . . legally.” She slides into the seat opposite me, shrugging. “One day she was in the middle of making me lunch and just put her purse on her shoulder and walked out.”
“Oh my God, that’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she says, her voice and expression fully flattening. “The last time I saw her I was ten. She took me to 136
the zoo.” She picks up my used napkin and wads it into a ball. “I Google her sometimes. Or look her up on IMDB.
See if she might be working. She did a spot on
Law and
Order
a few years ago.”
“Nico, I don’t know what to say—”
“Then don’t.” She narrows her eyes at me and, even though by all appearances at school I’ve been “let in” as the Fourth Grace, I’m reminded this is a limited-time guest pass.
“Right.”
“Hey,” Trisha calls softly as she comes padding in wearing low-ride sweatpants and a tank top, her face intact, her extension-less hair twisted into a chignon. I inhale hard as Trisha wraps her arms around a rigid Nico, resting her head on Nico’s shoulder. “Smells amazing, Nic.”
Nico waits for a moment before slinking out of her grasp. “Kara didn’t mention you were coming, too.” Nico beams at the camera, which probably can’t detect the now nuclear level of tension that fills this kitchen.
“Yup.” Trisha shrugs awkwardly as if this is, in and of itself, an answer. Still smiling broadly, Nico pulls a plate from the cabinet and slings another portion for her.
“Thanks.” Trisha takes it, placing it down on the island to grab the wine bottle tucked next to the cookbooks.
Nico pulls a water glass from the cabinet and hands it to her without meeting her eyes. Trisha fills it to the rim and takes a long gulp as Nico leans back against the counter.
Trisha clears her throat. “It was fun to hang out.”
Nico nods slowly, staring at her intensely. “So, where you been, Trish?”
“Down visiting my aunt in West Palm.” She slides her near-empty glass onto the table.
“Funny, the last time you took me down there I’m pretty sure I got reception.” Nico clatters her plate into the sink and squirts Williams-Sonoma dish liquid from the stainless-steel caddy of matching hand soap and lotion.
“Trisha always used to take me and Mel on vacation with her,” she informs me. “Or at least call when she didn’t.”
Trisha lets out a hard laugh. “But Nico’s been busy.
Right, Jesse? Would have been pretty hard for her to get away because of the show, don’t you think?”
Ben sighs, “Girls.”
“Because of school,” she corrects, both their eyes flashing with an equal tenor of hurt.
“Well, this chicken is amazing,” I offer feebly.
“You should have called me back,” Nico says quietly.
“You should have gotten me cast.”
I shake my head as Ben lets out another exasperated sigh. “Oh, she couldn’t—”
“Shut up,” they both spit at me.
“You should know better than to throw yourself at my boyfriend.” Nico takes the wine bottle from her and pours the rest down the sink. “You just look cheap. And desperate. Desperate and jealous.”
“No.” Trisha’s acrylics grip the granite, her face reddening as what looks like years of the unspoken is surging 138
to her mouth. “What I look . . . is
awesome
.” Nico turns around. “I’m as hot as you are now, Nico. I’m not your lame sidekick. Mel can have it. And I’m not going to tiptoe around you and your freaking moods for another freaking minute.”
“Fuck. You.”
“Yeah.” Trisha sucks in her lips, wiping a splash of mascara from under her eye. “I’m sure he will.” She strides out, and a moment later we hear the front door slam.
Nico whips around to the sink and flicks on the water.
She reaches for a switch and the garbage disposal grumbles to life. Her head falls. I stand, debating my next move while her shoulders shake, and then all at once it’s over.
She turns everything off and, pulling her sleeve across her eyes, turns to me. “Those onions were crazy, huh?” she says cheerfully, reaching out for my plate.
“Yes?” I say, wondering if this is Trisha’s code name.
“I always cry like crazy when I’m chopping onions.”
Oh. “Yes, yeah, me too. It’s awful.”
She drops our dishes into the dishwasher and closes it.
“You know what, I’m crashing. Can we call it a night?”
“Sure,” I say. Really? We can’t stay up till the sun rises having cozy, uncomfortable talk?
“Great. I have a queen. You can sleep with me.”
I wake at seven in Nico’s bed. In Nico’s pajamas. With a sleeping Nico clutching my hand. And a worn stuffed unicorn in her other. I twist my head, seeing in the daylight 139
four walls of collages capturing three lives entwined.
Melanie, Trisha, and Nico flying down a Slip ’n Slide, watching fireworks, riding ponies, turning thirteen, their arms around one another’s shoulders, grinning from baby teeth to missing teeth to braces to Whitestrips.
Then, on her armoire, on her dresser, in sterling frames—Nico and Jase in fallen leaves, in swimming pools, in front of Christmas trees. And on the bulletin board over her desk—the notes. Short but copious, and all signed,
Love, Your Jase
.
Slipping my hand slowly from her grasp, I try to reconcile the Trisha from these pictures with the Trisha from last night. And the Jase from the guesthouse with this Jase who smiles adoringly at Nico in every image.
And then I flash to his hand on my bare hip. And try to reconcile that.
And then to Drew. For whom I need everyone else to reconcile their everything else and keep Nico focused on Jase if I’m even going to stand a chance.
“
Jesse!” Mom calls from downstairs early the next Saturday morning, a slight warble in her voice. “I think you should get the paper today!”
I look at my tired eyes in the bathroom mirror, the zits Tandy manufactures and simultaneously hides every day with her layers of makeup.
“Jess?”
“
Really?
” I cry out indignantly from a whole floor away, my mouth full of toothpaste foam.
“I’m dipping French toast and my hands are all eggy.
I just heard it hit the house! Get it before the cold makes it damp!”
Rolling my eyes, toothbrush in mouth, I stomp down 141
the stairs, open the front door, and reach down to swipe the
Sunday Star
from the doormat when something purple catches my eyes. I straighten up to take in the four-foothigh white teddy bear sitting on the porch’s old wicker rocking chair, a fresh lavender rose in its mouth, an envelope in its hand. I step over the doormat, the late February wind slicing through my thin cotton pajamas. Through the living room window I can see my mother squeezing her hands together in vicarious maternal excitement.
I look around in the chirp-filled stillness. Nothing. No van. No cameras. Tentatively I extract the envelope from the velour paws and open it.
On the florist’s card is printed, beneath the glittered illustrations of flowers and hearts,
Let’s get away from it
all, just the two of us. Drew
.
Get away. With me. Drew. Me. Not Nico. Take that, FrankenTrisha! Yes.
Yes!
“Yes!” I cry out, toothbrush aloft, bouncing up and down on my porch, the invitation clutched to my chest.
“And cut.”
I freeze.
“Moving on!”
I pad down the steps, around the side of the house, and under the porch, where I find Kara crouched low with puffy headphones on, watching a monitor. “Great.
That was just
great
, Jesse. And thank God, because it only took two friggin’ hours for your mom to notice the bear on your porch.” She takes off her headset and, stepping 142
out through the hole in the lattice, straightens, beaming, despite bloodshot eyes that belie her exhaustion. “And Fletch owes me twenty bucks. He said Jase. But I said, no, our Jesse is a Drew girl. I wish we could’ve gotten this sooner, but we were waiting on Trisha. We had to make sure that was going to go off as planned before we could even start following a secondary romance. Now that we have our love triangle, we can focus on you and Drew. It was
fantastic
. With the bear and everything. And we got
lots
of profile. You look so great. You’re gonna
love
it.”
I look down at the fake invitation I just did a Snoopy dance over, mortified.
“So,” she barrels on, consulting her clipboard. “First you’re gonna go get dressed, and then I’m driving you over to the spa. You have a date with Drew tonight—”
“A ‘date,’ you mean.” I rabbit-ear my cold fingers.
“It’s Valentine’s Day—”
“Two weeks ago.” I point my toothbrush at her. “I spent my Valentine’s Day getting beaten in lederhosen.”
“Tonight.” She reaches down to unplug the headset from the monitor and winds the cord around the metal.
“If we shot it on the actual V-Day, it’d have cost a fortune to rent a location. You have a date to get ready for.
A real date. With a limo and a restaurant and everything.
Regardless of who initiated it.” She looks at me, and what is sitting between us is the full hand I’ve just shown, all hearts. “Besides, you might be interested to know the color of the rose was Drew’s idea.”
* * *
Chin lowered, mouth pursed, eyebrows knit, Kara stares at my breasts. And stares. And stares. I feel myself flushing deep pink to match the dress. Behind the ten-foot felt screen behind her I can hear Jase and Drew and the crew setting up for the shot. I reach for another Twizzler, capping off my lunch of Twizzlers, the only “food” I can eat in Zacheria’s proximity that doesn’t invite bullhorned commentary. “I don’t get it,” Kara says finally to Diane.
“Jess, unzip the dress.” I do, letting it fall to my waist.
“She
has
breasts. Where do they go in that dress?”
“Can we change it?” Diane asks, lifting out a hot pink tutu from a Cynthia Rowley bag.
“No. Viktor and Rolf are paying to have it in the episode. Can we add some cutlets?”
“It won’t take a bra. I could sew one in?”
“No time.” Kara checks her phone. “It’s after five thirty.
The sun’s set. Tape her. Just be careful of the paint.” I twist once more in the mirror to see the lavender hearts that run up my spine into my hair, the color I requested to match my lavender toes, wondering with an eager twinge if the night will reveal them. I let myself imagine for a moment being on
The Bachelor
. Not the not-having-goodvalues part. The part where a TV show enables you to have your first kiss on a secluded exotic beach or in a hot air balloon. Where they pay for your ten-million-dollar dream wedding. Where a little staging, a little TV magic, could make this “date” our first.
Walkie-talkie to her mouth, Kara exits our little makeshift dressing area set up between Mr. Wooten’s pool table and Mrs. Wooten’s monkey-patterned couch, and Diane hands me two silicone blobs that look like—
“Cutlets,” she says, jerking her head toward my palms.
“That’s why they call ’em that. Hold ’em up.”
I do, and she pushes my hands closer together, creating monster cleavage. Then she pulls out a roll of lingerie tape and wraps me like a burst pipe.
“Ow,” I say as she catches my skin.
“Honey.” She snorts. “Just wait till it comes off.”
She finishes and gives a good squeeze before zipping on my dress. Ho-ly cow. I look like Angelina.
“You should totally get implants,” she says admiringly in the mirror.
I shake my head. “I don’t yet know what I’m going to do with my life, Diane. But I’m hoping being shaped like a barbell could only be a hindrance.”
“Okay.” She tilts back the screen, and I step out into the Wootens’ baronial entry gallery. “Tah-dah.”
“Shhh!” Kara holds up her finger, and I see through the forest of lighting equipment Nico, in a strapless red velvet sheath, doing Kara’s “fun” take on gender reversals and coming to pick up Jase at “his” house. He looks surprisingly at ease in his black suit, even between takes, as Zacheria instructs Jase to shift the flowers to his “upstage”
hand. Nico seems to be gripping his other one tighter than she held mine in sleep a week ago.
On the fifth retake of closing a door, Jase loses his patience. “Dude. Isn’t this a little ridiculous for Valentine’s Day? Last year—”
“You took her to Denny’s and gave her a thong from Victoria’s Secret? Riveting. We’re doing Valentine’s glamour the way every teenager wishes they could.
“And . . . rolling!”
Kara shouts.
Nico reaches back into the Wootens’ entry gallery to sweep the red fox stole from the side table. She flings it over her shoulder and shuts the door. A few moments later I hear a car start.
“And cut!”
Zacheria stands up from his green folding chair. “Gorgeous! Let’s get the setup flipped to the side door and take it again with Drew and Jesse! Where are Drew’s flowers?”
A sneezing Jenny comes running over with a bouquet of pink roses.
“Great. Jesse! Where’s Drew?”
“Here!” He emerges from the baronial library doors on the other side of the foyer, and Kara thrusts the bouquet into his hands. I step forward as she spins him by the shoulders and suddenly we are almost nose-to-nose with only the fragrant blooms between us.
“Hi,” he says, blushing in his gray suit.
“Hi.”
“Guys, let’s move!”
I pull on my Viktor & Rolf evening coat, and Zacheria 146
leads us to the service entrance at the Wootens’ mudroom.
He walks outside and looks back from the garbage cans as the cameras arrive, holding his hands up, framing the door.
“Drew, Jesse!” he barks. “You’re going to stand here.