The Real Real (25 page)
Oh. My. God.
Caitlyn shuffles into view in shorts and her graying bunny slippers, grabbing her dog’s collar to move him behind her to get to the door. “I’ve been trying to call you all day—”
“Don’t.” I lift a shaking finger. She freezes. “Ever again,” I spit out, stepping back to her porch stairs. “Call
OK! Magazine
instead.”
“What? Why? Jesse, why did you tell me exactly what you told them? Is it just some script the show gave you?”
She steps outside as I stumble back to the driveway where I’ve left my engine running.
“I hope they paid you a lot. I really do.” I reach the open car door. “You know, all of this—I can take. The world thinks I’m a pregnant backstabbing slut, fine. I have to talk to my parents about who I’m
not
having sex with, fine. The one guy I might’ve—the one guy I really like—
will never talk to me again, fine. But you,
you,
Caitlyn—”
Sliding into the driver’s seat I feel a sharp burst in my throat as tears blur my vision. “You broke my heart.”
Slamming the door, I throw the shift into reverse and back up her long drive, watching my former best friend get smaller and smaller.
“
Isn’t there a dress with a waist?” I ask the stylist baby-oiling my tanned legs, prepping me for the finale party like a rib roast at Cooper’s. Pressing my hands against the white organza baby doll, I stare at my reflection in the massive mahogany-framed mirror through puffy, bloodshot eyes.
Exhausted from alternating sob sessions on my closet floor and under my comforter, I’m light-headed from hunger and heartache.
“Be careful,” Diane warns me yet again as I turn, stepping off the brown paper and onto the pool house’s unbelievably impractical porous Carrara floor.
But even through my misery haze, a voice in the back of my head rings an alarm at this dress. “This dress makes 259
me look—I need to show my waist,” I say with increased urgency as Tandy re-pins the Van Cleef & Arpels chains she’s woven around my carefully constructed Grecian updo.
“But this dress goes with these.” Diane sets down the baby oil and, wiping her hands on her apron, scoots on her knees to retrieve yet another chocolate-brown Gucci bag, from which she withdraws a large box and sets it on to the marble. “These are next season, wait-listed so long your grandchildren won’t—” She stops short, her cheeks reddening. Tandy arches her penciled-in eyebrows. The rain continues drizzling outside the slats of the shuttered windows.
“I’m not,” I say quietly. As I did at the gas station, the mini-mart, and the hosting mogul’s guard gate. I wanted to roll down the window and shout it to the cadre of soaked parents protesting in the rain with soggy signs against our,
my
immorality. Why’d I bother putting on clothes before leaving the house? At least I would look how I feel—naked.
“No, right, I meant . . . So, these are
the
shoes! The Gucci Gladiator Spike.” She pulls off the box top and pushes aside the thin tissue to reveal pale gold heels with thick straps wrapping around and around them. Cooing with admiration, she unwinds the shimmering leather and sets them on the floor in front of my bare feet.
“Those have to be four inches.” I stare down at the contraptions awaiting me, the me who hasn’t been able to keep down more than a glass of water.
“Four and a quarter. You’re the Gucci runway bride,”
she gushes while adjusting the hem of my dress, where it falls a modest centimeter below my crotch. Fine. Finefinefine! There is one mission today: Salvage Drew. Tell him the truth, just like I did with Caitlyn about Josh Dupree in sixth grade. Because this is my closest frame of reference to this shit mess. I mean, what exactly
is
the protocol when one’s cheated on someone who’s not their boyfriend twice and an international magazine makes a hookup sound like a possible baby conception? Forget a publicist, I need a
Desperate Housewives
staffer. Drew, I’m so sorry for cheating on you twice when you weren’t my boyfriend, I hope you can see past the international magazine making a hookup sound like a possible baby conception. Boy, someday we’ll look back on this and laugh!
Sigh.
I’m just going to apologize, and if it’s as a runway bride, so be it.
Holding Diane’s outstretched hand, I step into the shoes, my entire body weight pitching forward onto the balls of my feet. I grimace as Diane and Tandy lace them tightly up my calves, their cooing so fervent I momentarily think they’ll lick them. They let go, and I dart my hands out for balance. I’m precarious. Betrayed, mortified, wretchedly exhausted—and precarious. They should sell it as the XTV perfume.
“God, Jesse, you give Gisele a run for her money.”
I look back into the mirror to see Kara has slipped in 261
the side door, headset around her neck, clipboard to her chest, raincoat dripping onto the tile.
“Thanks,” I say as I teeter around to face her.
“Eek.” She bites her lip. “Can’t you guys do anything more about the swelling around her eyes?”
“She’s spackled in Preparation H. Any more and she won’t be able to blink. But you reminded me about the Visine.” Tandy digs in her open toolbox and hands me the drops. “Two on each side.”
I obediently lift my head and squirt in the cold liquid while she darts over to pad my cheeks dry with a puff.
“Kara.” I blink. “This dress isn’t helping.”
“Sorry, Jess.” She looks down, seeing what I see. “Oh God, sorry. But we promised Gucci. The whole cast, head to toe.”
“Where is the whole cast? Why aren’t we getting ready together?”
“Fletch thought you guys could use some space before the VIP reception. Temperatures have been running a little high.”
Oh God, I hadn’t even— “How’s Nico?”
“She’s on her way down to the party now.”
“No, I mean,
how
is she?”
“She’s quiet.” Kara checks her cell and then something on her clipboard. “And Drew hit Jase, so those two are separated. Actually, I need you guys to wrap up and go help with covering the bruising on his jaw.” She waves at the women as they pack up their tools.
“Drew hit him?”
“Yup. Jess,” Kara says tentatively, lowering her voice.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Besides giving me a fitted dress?”
“I meant outside the show. If your parents are having a hard time with this, I could take you to someone in the city—”
“Kara,
I’m not pregnant
! And at this point, there is no outside the show.”
She nods, absorbing the crappiness of my situation.
“I’m sorry, Jesse. This has gotten really out of hand. It’s not what I signed up for, I’ll tell you that much.”
“That makes two of us,” I say. Her sad face stares back at me in the mirror.
“Let’s go,” she sighs, pulling her hood back up. “Before it starts to pour again. The golf cart is waiting to take us to the house.”
“I really think we should all talk before we’re surrounded by a bunch of contest winners, don’t you? I never would have . . . ” My eyes start to fill again.
“
No!
” All three women rush at me like I’m a puppy circling on white carpet. “No crying! We don’t have time!”
“Kara? What’s the holdup?” We all pivot toward the door at the sound of Fletch’s voice.
Kara whips the puff from the makeup woman and dabs at my eyes. “Coming right out, Fletch!”
“Holy hotness.” Too late. The ladies step away from me to let Fletch leer from the doorway in his white suit and 263
dripping XTV golf umbrella.
“Fletch.” I take a step toward him. “I need a chance to set things straight with everyone before this VIP thing. I feel awful—”
His face twists. “So let’s review. You feel awful. Drew’s bummed. Jase is freaked, and Nico’s all closed up. Are Rick and Trisha the only ones who got the goddamn memo?!
Thanks to that
OK! Magazine
story, the rerun marathon is our highest in the network’s history. Tyra wants to book you with Jamie Lynn and Ashlee Simpson. You . . . are the most ungrateful fucking babies I have ever met.
You
are standing in six thousand dollars worth of clothes and ten times that is wrapped around your stupid little head in jewels, for which you have your own private guard waiting to escort you. Do you know how many girls would trade their right tit for this? Get a grip, get happy, and get in the fucking golf cart.
Now
.”
My security guard at my elbow, I inch under his umbrella into the receiving throng of contest winners that line the white carpet leading to the main entrance. White. In a rainstorm. Because everything at this estate is white. “Jesse, Jesse, we love you!” a girl squeals, breaking into tears. I open my mouth to say something, but I’m hit by a barrage of more questions: “Do you love being on the show?” “Is it so perfect?” “Did you plan to get pregnant?” I catch sight of the amoeba clusters around Drew and Nico, who look like deer in front of speeding trucks, and Trisha, who 264
looks like the eager mud-flap silhouette.
“Were you just doing it to get back at Nico for trying to get Drew?” “Are you in love with Jase?” “Are you getting married?” “What are you naming the baby?”
“Jesse, do you have a minute? We need to talk.” Jase breaks through his mob of teenage girls, to break through my mob of teenage girls, sending both mobs into collective rapt silence.
“Yes,” I say, as I would to Satan himself if he were standing here offering to put an end to this.
“Excuse us, ladies,” Jase charms, sending them atwitter. He gestures for me to follow and I do, my Van Cleef
& Arpels guard at my wobbling heels as we make our way through the entrance gallery to a side room off the library.
The guard closes the door behind us, and I turn to Jase in what appears to be a room solely for a bathtub—no sink, no toilet, no towel racks—as if it didn’t play well with the rest of the fixtures and was given a time-out. In the white floor’s center, Jase takes a seat on the edge of the chalky marble oval, his bruised chin the only color beneath the crystal chandelier.
“Jase, you have to back me up on this. Tell everyone it’s not true, and that what happened between us was drunk and stupid and over.”
His shoulders release. “So, it’s not true.” He lets out a long, relieved breath.
“No, it’s not true!” I look back over my shoulder at the guard. “Sorry, could we just have, like, a minute here?”
“I have to keep the merchandise within visual range at all times,” he says, staring straight ahead.
“Man.” Jase claps his hands together. “That was a close call.”
I spin to him, taking a few steps closer to hiss, “We
didn’t
sleep together.
How
could it be true?!”
“Well, I mean, I passed out. You could’ve had your way with me.”
“We
both
passed out. And don’t flatter yourself.”
“Well, here we are in a bathroom . . . ” He tilts his head and raises an inviting eyebrow.
“Never. Again.” My hands find my hips.
“But those shoes . . . ” He smiles, his lids heavy.
“Are not mine and will be going back to Guantánamo as soon as this thing is done. So, you’re not going to help me clear this up?”
“It’s not like
I
look bad in this. I don’t owe Nico anything now, and with the amount of ass flying my way . . .
I got fourteen numbers in fourteen minutes out there. It’s not hurting me.”
“Jase.” I totter the few feet to him. “You
have
to help me. You
have
to. Why did you even ask me in here?”
“Fletch told me to.” He picks at an errant white thread on his linen blazer. “And to make sure I’m not a daddy.”
The adrenaline surges through me. “Okay, one: Get over yourself. Two: I know things about you. Things I never told anyone. I’d hate to have to.”
He stands, his face darkening, all come-ons dropped.
He walks past me to the white lacquered door, his shoes tapping against the shiny floor. He stops but doesn’t turn around. “You know, you want to be this nice person. This real person. This girl who’s better than all the player bullshit that happens here. And just now—what you threatened? It means you aren’t. Officially.” He walks out of the bathroom, brushing past Kara.
“Jesse—Jase!” she calls to his retreating back. “Your parents are all seated, the audience is in the ballroom—it’s time to line up.”
As she keeps up a steady string of unintelligible muttering into her headset, we follow her labyrinthine path through the ground floor, Jase using long strides to keep his distance. “Okay, here.” She deposits us with the rest of the cast and their jewelry guards in an albino-pythoncovered hallway serving as the staging area. “On the other side of that door,” she says, “is the packed ballroom. In the center of which is a stage where the show’s about to begin.
Stand by, rock stars, I’ll be back to get you in three.”
She slips through the door to the ballroom, my chanted name pouring through the wall for a moment before they realize we’re not following behind her.
“Nico, Drew,” I begin furtively. “I need to say something.” The made-up faces of my cast mates turn to me, their expressions withering. Jase leans his body weight forward, primed to take me out if necessary. “Everyone had lies printed about them. You have to understand the same thing happened to me. Jase and I didn’t have sex.” I try to 267
catch Drew’s eye. “I’m not pregnant.”
“Well, as long as there was no intercourse!” Nico cheers, then returns to scowling at the mirrored ceiling.
“But there wasn’t! Nico, you were kissing Drew in your underwear in a hot tub. It’s not like I’m the only one—”
“You’re both skanky hos,” Trisha pronounces.
“Shut up,” the rest of us say in unison.
Drew crosses his arms, his expression pained. “So how do you explain that Jase’s been talking about screwing you since Valentine’s?”
“Great.” Nico nods. “That’s just great.”
“Oh,
come on
, Nico,” Jase explodes. “We’re eighteen, for fuck’s sake, and you wanted to be married!”