The Real Real (9 page)

“I can’t feel my lips,” I offer to the klieg light that hovers brightly above our three treatment tables, like we’re about to be abducted by the world’s smallest spaceship.

Mrs. Dubviek may have finally let them knock down a wall between treatment rooms to accommodate the crew lining every peach marbleized inch, but it took her five masques to shut up about it.

“It’s fine,” Melanie chimes amenably.

I push myself up on my elbows. “Seriously. How are you so chipper?”

Nico rolls onto her back, adjusting her terry-cloth robe as she rests her head in the foam doughnut. “That’s just Mel.”

“What?” Melanie shrugs. “It’s our job. I mean, better laying here and have this stuff put on than having to be the ones out in the snow waiting to apply it. You two should get magazines.” She lifts the cover of
Us Weekly
where Miley Cyrus is ducking into something with someone.

“I get for you.” Mrs. Dubviek uncurls herself from the out-of-frame slipper chair, her crossed arms providing a shelf for her cleavage as she squeezes past the crew in her stocking feet.

“Okay, girls,”
Kara’s disembodied voice booms through the megaphone from the other room, where she’s encamped behind the monitors. Everyone tilts their heads, listening like Caitlyn’s dog when he thinks you said “dinner.”
“So here’s where we’re at: The color of the real
facial mask is officially not reading, so we’re going to
think outside the box on this one. Stand by.”

Zacheria—no last name, just Zacheria (rhymes with digestive distress)—the award-winning cinematographer and officially my least favorite person
ever
, steps in with his black leggings and Hezbollah scarf to hold up his hands in a postcard shape while climbing over our tables. “Jenny!”

he hollers, one knee above my shoulder, the other directly on Melanie’s. Her eyes tear.

Jenny, the sad, skinny woman who did something really, really bad in a previous life, shoots in with open tubes of . . . toothpaste? wedged between her fingers. “Yes?”

“You are
here
.” Zacheria points at Nico’s head, and 84

Jenny drops to her knees and shimmies between the tables to crouch awkwardly with her face level with Nico’s. Zacheria stares intensely down at both of them. Nico raises one eyebrow, flinching when he grabs one of the tubes from Jenny and, with a flourish, smears the thick turquoise paste directly onto Jenny’s forehead. She smiles as if anointed.

“I have solved this! The aqueous pigments will pick up on the cobalt undertones in the wall. Mother of Melanie!

Where is the mother?!”

“Mom?” Melanie calls out. We all turn to the frantic clicking of Mrs. Dubviek’s restored mules as she hurries in, a stack of magazines clasped to her chest. Everyone, that is, but her daughter, who’s pinned at the shoulder by a madman.

“You have a fountain! Where did I see a fountain?”

Mrs. Dubviek’s face lights up. “We do! In the waxing room. I show you!”

“Just a heads-up: I will be un-filmable for, like, twelve hours if you put Crest all over my face right now,” Nico says into the air.

“Let’s think positive, okay?”
Kara pleads from her God station.
“So, toothpaste them, Zacheria, right?

Can we get this shot now?”

Zacheria unstraddles us, using Jenny’s head as a railing.

“I want that fountain in here!” he screams up to the ceiling. “It’s going to be beautiful!”

“Nikita, no complain or they no shoot you so much, yes?” Mrs. Dubviek deposits the magazines on my table 85

and hands one to Nico. “You ice face before bed and be good as new.”

“Okay, Mamma,” Nico says affectionately. So weird.

Was there an adoption I missed?

“Good! Mr. Zacheria, I show you fountain. You will love!” She clicks out with everyone trailing behind her, and the room is finally silent, save the electric hum. I rest my head back and wonder what Caitlyn is doing and if Fletch is on the red-eye, adding her name to the production schedule this very minute.

“Do you think Jase is being weird lately?” Nico turns to us, and I’m thankful that we’re all on our backs so she doesn’t see my eyebrows dart up.

“I don’t think so.” Melanie shakes her head while I pretend not to be here. “Weird, how?”

“I don’t know. He just seems kind of . . . into me and then . . . not.”

“Jase loves you.” Melanie pats her arm.

“Yeah.” Turning to the wall, Nico curls into a fetal position. “I’m so sick of thinking about this.”

Sitting up on my elbows, I fan the well-flipped magazines with my four-time pedicured toes, picking the one with the most headlines devoted to Robert Pattinson. After a few minutes, the faintest hint of a snore fills the room.

“Is Nico related to you guys?” I whisper to Melanie.

“No.” She flips a page. “Why?”

“Just ’cause your mom and her seem really—”

“I mean, I’ve known her since we moved to the States 86

when I was, like, two. My mom opened this place the same time Nico’s dad bought the dealership land from Trisha’s parents,” she explains without looking up from her celebrity gossip. Ah, Trisha’s parents, now Trisha’s mom, who, thanks to her dearly departed third husband, owns practically every commercial property on Main Street. So that’s how Hampton High’s triumvirate was born: on a Monopoly board. “Nico’s always looked out for me.”

“Got it. So your parents are . . . ”

“Friendly, you know.” She shrugs. “Socially. Not exactly vacationing together,” she says calmly. And it’s only then that I realize what Melanie is
not
saying: that despite her beauty and accommodating personality, and the success of the family business, at the end of the day her mom still pedicures her friends’ moms’ feet. I think Mel’s growing on me. “And
we’ve
been best friends since forever, and my mom just always really took to her. I don’t know. . . . ”

Her voice trails off. Or maybe my ears are just getting as heavy as my eyes.

“Stay with me, girls! They’ll be in to paste you—

we’re just adding some K-Y jelly for consistency.”

“Now,
that’s
what this party’s been missing,” I mutter, and Melanie cracks a smile.

“Isn’t it freaky how nobody wears underwear?”

“What?”

“In these magazines.”

She flips over the hot-pink cover to check out the latest girl, exiting car in short dress sans panties. “Retarded.” She 87

thinks for a moment before returning to the page where she left off. “I don’t get why they refuse their makeup for these ‘just like us’ shots. . . . I mean, you’re having your picture taken for a magazine—get it together.”

“I know,” I murmur, my thoughts drifting to posing in parking lots, my eyes drifting closed before the minty lubing has even begun.

At dawn I find myself back in Mom’s boots, slumped against the van with Nico and Melanie. We stare across the snow at the whip-fast dismantling of our “Saturday at the spa” just as Saturday actually begins.

Kara emerges from the well-choreographed frenzy, trudging up to us with her headset around her neck.

“Great work tonight, guys.
Great,
great work. Fletch is going to be
psyched
.” She sounds so palpably relieved I want to give her a hug. “Okay, so here’re your cells.” She reaches into the pockets of her down vest and peels blue tape off each one before passing them back. We extend our fingertips from the warmth of our sleeves to take back the devices, each of us flipping them open. Six twenty-two a.m. I immediately hit Caitlyn’s number on the speed dial, waiting to get a signal.

“So, Melanie.” Kara squints through her glasses. “You can head home with your mom; you’re wrapped. Nico, we’re going to do some exteriors with you at your house, and Jesse, we need you to stick around, okay? You can wait in the trailer.”

Wha?

Melanie blanches. “Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No! No, you were great.” Kara lays one hand on Melanie’s arm. “There’ll be plenty of screen time for everyone, okay? We’re really happy with what you shot tonight, Mel.”

At that her face relaxes. “Great! It’s all great. I had fun. Later, Nic.” She pulls Nico in for a quick hug. “Bye, Jesse.”

I wave halfheartedly as I listen to Caitlyn’s voice mail inform me that my broken promises have filled her inbox and it cannot take my message at this time.

The sound of a door slamming outside startles me awake from where I was apparently forgotten on one of the trailer’s white benches. Stretching up in the bright light washing in through blind slats, I look around and register that the makeup station is bare, all signs of Tandy and Diane and their team of magic, gone. I shuffle to the door and push it open, blinking in the sun, struck that no amount of movie lamps could truly replicate this.

“Sorry, have you seen Kara?” I ask the teamster winding up what looks to be the last cable in a now empty lot.

“Over at the other location,” he grunts.

“She left? When?”

“Dunno.”

“Well, do you know if they still need me?”

“I’m the only one here, and I don’t.” He hoists the 89

thick roll onto his shoulder. “Listen, anyone else in the trailer? I got to get it over there.”

I stick my head back into the darkened interior. “Hello?”

I call. Nothing. “Nope.” I pull the door closed behind me and zip up my coat in the bracing air. “So, um . . . if Kara asks, can you tell her I went home? Because no one ever came and got me. So . . . ” I watch as he peels up gaffer’s tape from the pavement. “Great, then. Bye!”

I head down the steps and through the mess of crispy boot prints to skirt around to the front of the spa where melting ice tinkles from the trees.

I tilt my sweatshirt hood to shield my eyes from the snow glare and zip my coat to my chin in preparation for the long walk home. Home. As soon as I finish giving everything I have of value to Caitlyn in a desperate attempt to win her forgiveness, I will pull on my holey sweats, crawl into Mom and Dad’s bed, fire up the TV, and hunker down with marshmallow-packed cocoa . . .

ooh . . . or maybe a hot bath . . . maybe get the little TV

in the kitchen set up on the toilet seat and bring the cocoa in there . . . maybe rig the DVD . . .

Suddenly a black SUV with tinted windows pulls past me into the driveway. It stops, and the back passenger window slides sleekly down. “Give me natural,” I hear as I’m met with a blinding flash. “Your eyes’re closed.

Whatever.” I recognize the mirrored aviators tilted over an iPhone screen. Fletch!

“Hi!” I jog over.

“Jesse, what’s up?” He reaches out to swipe fingers, all the while looking at his phone. Registering that he’s expecting us to do some street-boy high five, I tug my hand out of my pocket too late to meet his and we awkwardly brush nails. “Come on in.” Ignoring my gaffe, he waves his fingers, flexing the word
Killah
tattooed on the fleshy web at the base of his thumb. He would seem to be indicating I should get in the car but makes no effort to move over.

“Sure!” I go around, squidgying myself between the wet hedge and the car to open the back passenger door.

Sprawling on the black leather interior, he greets me with another flash. “Second time’s the charm.” As the spots clear from my eyes, I see his phone has been custom-spangled with black Swarovski crystals in a skull-and-crossbones pattern.

“Hot, right?” he asks. “Gift from Diddy.”

“Cool.” I shrug off my hood and attempt to fluff my sprayed-dead bangs. He drops the phone in the pocket of his Prada parka.

“Just wanted a shot for pitching sponsors. Selling young and natural all the way, baby. G, let’s do it.” He lifts forward to slap his hand on the driver’s shoulder—a very large black man in a disjointedly bright pink sweatshirt spotted with Murakami daisies.

His eyes darting back and forth, Fletch splits his attention between me and the flat screen—one of three I can see from here—showing some sort of financial show over 91

the driver’s seat. “You ready for all this, Jesse?”

“Definitely. And I’m so glad you’re back because I’m really eager to talk to you about Caitlyn. My really hilarious, pretty friend Caitlyn. I talked to Kara about her when you were away, and she said you made a decision?”

He nods, his teeth sinking into his lower lip. Dear God, just make this man say
yes
and I swear I will go directly home and write three letters to Grandma before I even set foot in that tub. “Riiiggghhht,” he says. Fasten your walker for some seriously charming communication! “I really dig you taking the initiative to think outside the box about our baby, Jesse. I need that. I need everyone thinking.”

“I am!” And now
yes
. Just one little
yes
.

“Man.” He laughs as he punches his fist into his hand. “We were in serious need of story line! Something dynamic! I owe you, Jesse, you landed it!”

I did? “Great!” Looks like
yes
, sounds like
yes . . .

“Now, one more thing.” G turns the SUV onto Dune Road. “What I want from you is to really focus on letting your character be bigger. Don’t hold back, like, at all.”

“My character?” I strain hopefully to spot Caitlyn’s white coat in the mass of people milling around the trailers parked in the Beach Club lot.

“Spunky heart-of-gold with a hit of smart to keep it relatable. And here’s the money shot, okay? We’re meeting you just as you’re discovering your dark side. I’m telling you it’s a magic combo. Money.” I crane my head. There’s Kara and the lighting guys and the makeup crew. “Just.”

He tosses his hands up. “You know, like, if you’re mad, go there. If you’re jealous, don’t put revenge out of your mind. If you’re in love, act on it, you know? Good gets you into heaven, not television. Cool?”

Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about. “I guess?”

“And anytime you want to come by my place to converse about it . . . I think you’re about to really blow up.”

Sure—uh-huh—sure. “Definitely. So Caitlyn’s on the show?”

His face clouds and I get a hint of what Fletch angry would look like. Something you do not want to be in a confined space with, like, say an SUV. “Jesse. I have about two hundred emails to return and twice that number of phone calls to make and that’s before, like,
lunch
. Instead
I
chose to come pick you up this morning,
personally
, so I could talk to you, and now I don’t feel like you’re listening.”