The Real Real (16 page)

says. “That was pretty shitty. So—Jase and Trisha—how long has that been going on?”

“I have no idea,” I say, eyes on the Persian runner.

“Do I have anything in my teeth?” He shows them to me.

“Nope. You’re ready for your close-up.”

“Thanks.” He jogs off toward the ground floor, leaving me to collect myself against the floral wallpaper.

And all at once Nico is on the step above me, shaking her head abruptly like she’s jarring herself back. I watch as she continues slowly past, sinking down each stair.

“Nico!” I call after her, unsure what to say next. “That was really shitty,” I try. “Fletch is really shitty. But—”

“But
what
?” she says to the railing.

“I—I like Drew.”

She stops for a moment. I stare into the back of her twisting blond waves. And then, without a word, she disappears down the steps.

“Where are we going?” I hear Jase ask as everyone else starts down in a loud rumble. “That’s kind of bullshit to send my girlfriend off to, what, cry on Rudell’s shoulder? I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Good,” Fletch says, taking the stairs two at a time right past me. “That’s good.”

I slump down after Fletch, Jase, Trisha, Kara, Zacheria, the P.A.s, and Ben, all the way out through the fire door and onto the sidewalk, back into the bitter cold. As I clasp my coat together, Trisha shrugs hers on over her heart157

patterned minidress. The van pulls up.

Fletch raps on the door and it slides open. “Trish,” he says, extending a hand to help her hop up.

“What?” she asks as she huddles against Jase. “I don’t understand. I’m not going with Jase?”

Fletch smiles to himself as he takes her elbow and half tosses her up onto the van seat. “Nah, Trish.” He looks up at her bewildered face, her heavy makeup caked from her performance. “You’re too easy.” He slides the door shut with a thud and raps on the side again to send it off. “Jase, come with me. Jess, stay here.” Fletch and Jase walk back under the metal awning, and I stand shivering, the thin silk doing nothing against the cold. I hear Jase raise his voice: “I’m
not
your bitch.” I turn around to watch, but red velvet catches my eye, and I look up into the first-story window where Nico sits at the bar. I stand on my toes to get a better view. And I do. Of Drew, smiling warmly as he slides his arm around her naked shoulders. She nestles into his chest. Ben and Zacheria come through the fire door, carrying more equipment. They’re not even filming yet!

All I want is to call Caitlyn.

Hot, tight tears roll down my face as the limo pulls up and Jase approaches, rattled and angry, Sam’s camera on his heels. He stops short when he sees me.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” I choke out, squinting in the camera light.

“I fucked everything up. Please, just get me home.”

“I have my car.” He spits out his fed line with one last 158

hostile glance back at a beaming Fletch and opens the limo door. I throw myself in, not caring, just desperate to be out of the camera’s view. Jase slams the door against the hot light, and we pull away as I finally allow myself to cry for what I’ve lost, huddling into the corner, praying this is really it, the night’s really over. We’re not going to circle back and start again.

But we barrel straight across town to the Midtown Tunnel, and soon we’re underwater.

I feel something brush my forearm and lift my head to see Jase holding out the Trisha-scented handkerchief from his breast pocket. I take it and blow my nose as the sooty white tiles blur past. He pulls a flask from inside his blazer and takes a long swig before passing it to me. I gulp back the warm whiskey. “Thanks,” I choke out through the burn as I hand it back to him. He takes the polished silver from me, and I realize his eyes, which were unavailable to a naked Trisha and desperate Nico, are locked on me.

“Long-ass day,” he murmurs.

“Yes,” I say, feeling the warmth of the drink spread across my chest. I let myself lean back against the leather bench as we exit onto the Long Island Expressway, the dark familiarity of it, the low buildings and night sky.

He lies back, too, rolling his head toward mine. I turn to the window, and he reaches down to lift my foot onto his knee, sliding his finger under the silk sling-back to release it from my heel.

It drops to the carpeted floor with a thud. We both 159

glance down at the light from the highway lamps glinting off the lavender polish. Getting a hold of myself, I withdraw my foot, tucking it under me. But he reaches out his hand to run his thumb along my damp cheek, his eyes on my wet eyes. And our breath catches.

He pulls my face to his. And we sink into each other.

His mouth hard on my mouth. Kissing me. Kissing him back. Making a choice. Making a mistake. But at least in control of our lives for a whole two and a half hours.

REEL 11

“
O
h, the tide is high, but I’m holding on,”
Trisha trills along with her iPod as the seven of us climb down from the white airport minivan. We make our way toward the marble-floored three-story domed entrance of Cancun’s Las Vistas Five-Star Resort and Casino.

As they roll in their product placement suitcases, I hang back from the person I hooked up with seventy-two hours ago, his best friend, his girlfriend, her best friend, her nemesis—and Drew. Inside I let the warm ocean breeze that wafts through the open space seep into my chilled body, which has gone from the unheated XTV van to inexplicably air-conditioned JFK to the air-conditioned plane to the air-conditioned hotel shuttle. Under the spray tan, my ears are blue and, despite two straight days of scrubbing, 161

those stupid painted hearts are still faintly visible, although Kara’s promised me they won’t “read”—so there’s that.

Jase and Rick take pink drinks from a tray by reception and down them, while Nico and Melanie sniff theirs.

Rick reads the little card and grabs a second. “Guava juice, cool.”

“Take a seat on the couches while I get you all checked in.” Kara lifts yet another embroidered cotton peasant blouse—which someone
must
have told her is her best look—and removes our passports from the pouch she has taped to her stomach. “And I just want to take this moment to thank you all again for your amenability. Believe me, I was as thrown as you were to get this trip green-lit at ten last night. But Fletch’s schedule moved around, and the only time
convenient
was this week. I’m sorry I had to get you all out of bed. I’m sorry I had to spray-tan you myself.

I’m sorry I cannot get my fucking boss to approve the production plan more than eight hours out. It’s not like I’ve seen my boyfriend in two months. It’s not like I had a doctor’s appointment—fuck—that I haven’t even canceled.”

Ben pauses his load-in to rub her shoulders, and she smiles in gratitude, fumbling for her phone. For once probably equally as exhausted as Kara, I gladly sink between Trisha and Melanie into the puffy white leather and rest my eyes. Trisha and Melanie, who I also managed to sit between on the plane, and who I plan to keep bookended around me for the rest of the trip. I don’t care that Trisha’s perfume makes me want to gag or that Melanie hums without realizing it.

“Okay, guys, follow me.”

We wheel our Tumi suitcases
label out
to the elevator and, as Jase swats Nico’s ass and she lets out a giggle for Trisha’s benefit, I squeeze between T&M and make myself small for the ascent to the penthouse.

“Okay, here we are. For the next four days this’ll be your home base.” Kara opens the door to what could be a living room, or it could be a snake farm. I don’t notice.

All I see is water. Beautiful, bright water. Not like what we have at home, which is dark as denim and choppy and freezing, even in the dead of August. This water is crystal blue, warm, and calm. I step out onto the marble balcony that runs the length of the room and smell the dense bougainvillea encircling the pool fourteen stories below.

“Why is no one down there?” Trisha asks, peering over the rail.

“It’s not spring break for another month, dumbass,”

Nico retorts.

Kara purses her lips, pushes her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and continues. “Okay, a few ground rules. Absolutely NO swimming in the pool,” she instructs as she opens one of the bedroom doors. “The chlorine will dissolve your tan in seconds. Girls, you’re in here. Boys, across the way.” She points to the wood-paneled door on the opposite side of the parrot-patterned couches.

Nico, Trisha, Melanie, and I follow her into a large room with two queen-sized beds. “This is where you’re starting, at least.” She shoots us a suggestive glance. For Kara. Which is like sexy squirrel.

“Mel and I are sharing,” Nico says, tossing her Tumi duffel on the bed closest to the window.

“Great,” Trisha sniffs, looking at me. “Just be careful.”

She cups her breasts. “These are still sore.”

“I’ll try not to feel you up in my sleep.”

“Wanna swim?” I ask Melanie as I stretch awake on the poolside lounger. After a full morning of pretending to buy diamond-encrusted jewelry in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton under Zacheria’s critical lens, I’m thrilled to be back in my own bikini shooting b-roll. “Maaan,” I mutter in annoyance as I un-stick my AP Physics book from my tummy where the black ink has transferred to my skin via sweat and suntan lotion.

“Kara said no. Plus, I don’t want to reapply the SPF.”

She lifts her head from where her folded arms are serving as a pillow. “I swore to my mom I’d be covered. Fastest way to early aging.”

“I’m making you a T-shirt with that on it.” I scratch my hair, my luxuriously unstyled hair.

“Well, it’s true.” She settles her freckled cheek back down to her forearm.

“We’ve been filming outside for two days.” I touch my palm to my reddening chest. “Aren’t we tan enough underneath the spray?
They
didn’t bleach out.” I stare through my sunglasses across the aqua pool to where Nico sits perched atop the tiled bar, her legs extending into the water between Jase’s submerged stool and Drew’s. Behind a potted palm six feet away, cigarette dangling, Ben seems 164

to be refocusing his camera on Nico’s caramel thighs glistening against Drew’s caramel shoulder. I hate her.

Then Jase swivels around in our direction and lifts his umbrella-covered drink in a long-distance
cheers
. And back to hating myself. I give a stiff wave I’m hoping will convey
stop looking at me
. But he continues staring with all the subtlety of Chuck Bass as he sucks on his straw. Uck.

Although, I guess I should be grateful that he’s kept his acknowledgment of what happened in that limo restricted to pervy looks and hasn’t actually spoken to me.

“Well, I’m waiting until Kara says we can,” Melanie, thankfully unaware, announces over the music from the speakers nestled in the clay planters behind us. Drew cracks up at something Nico says—probably she’s noting that this is the fourth time they’ve played this song since breakfast. Either that or I’m now dreaming in Jimmy Buffett. Nico looks eagerly to Jase, but thankfully he’s returned to cheering the NASCAR broadcasting from the TV under the dried palm awning. I watch Nico watch Jase, a flicker of sadness weighing her face for a moment before Drew swats water on her thighs and she squeals adorably.

I flop back in my chair. I could use a day off from how perfect she is. Just, like, one. A mental health day. Twenty-four hours where her breath smells, her hairline is wonky, and she gets backne.

“So, no on the swimming?” I ask, pulling off my glasses and sitting to twist up my hair. My awesomely product-free hair.

“No until we get permission.”

“Happy baking.” I hop across the few feet of broiling cement to the pool’s edge.

Melanie props herself onto her elbows and slides her sunglasses back on as I plunge. “How is it?” she asks enviously.

“
Awesome.
” I dunk back under, enjoying the moment of hearing nothing but the water against my eardrums.

“It is kind of nice not to have to wear those mike packs for b-roll,” Melanie murmurs as I surface.

“Seriously,” I second as I swim over to hold on to the wall near her chair. “Lounging around this place between scenes rocks.” Minus the avoiding Jase part, who’s always with Drew, who’s always with Nico, who’s always with us.

Which leaves sleeping, hiding under homework, and talking to Melanie.

“We’re still working,” she reminds me, tilting her scarf-wrapped head in the direction of Sam’s boom hovering over the conversation at the pool bar.

“Thanks, Mom.” I splash at her.

“I’m just saying!” She leans over her chair to sip ice water from a straw.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t about to take my top off.” I kick my legs out behind me.

“Speaking of.” Melanie raises an eyebrow to the massive red clay doors that lead from the pool to the lobby. I squint to see Trisha emerge from the shadows, one hand gripping her water bottle, the other’s French fingernails pressed to her brow.

“Let the party begin,” I mutter as she spots us and begins teetering over in her cork platform mules. “I found her snoring on the floor outside the bathroom when I got up to pee around five. Where’d you guys go, anyway?”

“Señor Frog’s. It was fun! Even the crew danced. You should come with us tonight.”

“I’m still hungover from playing quarters with Rick and Ben the first night. Plus I have to take three tests the day we get back.”

“That’s what your T-shirt’ll say. And then we did karaoke in the lobby bar. Fletch got on a Jay-Z kick. I gave out around three. I have no idea what time Trisha made it up.”

“’Sup, bitches.” Trisha gives us her new signature greeting, her voice gravelly. “Kara said these are our seats?

Why?
” She lifts her hand to shield her massive Kanye striped sunglasses as she surveys the sea of mostly empty chairs surrounding the mostly empty pool. “Of course we have to come here
before
spring break. Of course the place is dead.”