Love the One You're With

  It is surreal, the sight of them together, talking earnestly over a burger (Leo’s) and a Greek salad (Drake’s). For a moment, I lose myself, taking in all the details. I observe that their hair is the same dark brown hue, but while Drake is sporting a five o’clock shadow and longish, slightly greasy hair, Leo is clean-shaven, nearly conservative in comparison. Both are wearing plain black T-shirts, but Leo’s appears to be a Gap staple, and Drake’s is more trendy and form fitting (and likely five times more expensive). He has also heavily accessorized the look with a silver hoop earring, several rings, and his trademark amber-colored glasses.

  More than their dress or appearance, though, I am riveted by the placid, relaxed mood of their table. To Leo’s credit, Drake looks unguarded, even engrossed by questions he’s undoubtedly answered a thousand times, and Leo looks to be at complete, sexy ease. I note that he has ditched what used to be his standard yellow pad in favor of a small silver tape recorder which he has set up discretely beside the salt-and-pepper kiosk. In fact, but for the recorder and the sheer knowledge that Drake is Drake, there would be no way to discern that an interview is in the works. Even the grungy-but-still-ultra-fashionable posse whom I presume to be Drake’s entourage is keeping a respectful distance near the counter, further kudos to Leo; I’ve seen public relations types swarm around celebrities far less famous with interviewers far more accredited, playing watchdog against inane or inappropriate questions. Clearly the pack has determined that Leo is a solid guy—or at least a solid journalist.

  “Damn,” Suzanne whispers as she stares. “What a strong face he has.”

  I nod, even though I know we are not looking at the same man, basking for one final second in Leo.

  Then I say, “Okay. Let’s get to work,” and begin unloading my equipment, surveying various backgrounds, and searching for the source of the best natural light. “Try to act like an assistant, would ya?”

  “Right-o,” she says, as the manager of the diner, a squat woman named Rosa whose current giddiness belies her deep frown lines, asks if she can get us anything for at least the third time since ushering us into her diner. I have the sense that today is a highlight of her career, something we have in common—although only one of us has an 8 × 10 glossy shot of Drake and black Sharpie ready to go.

  I tell Rosa no thank you, and she presses with, “Not even a water or coffee?”

  I am too jittery for caffeine, so accept her offer of water while Suzanne pipes up with an unabashed request for a strawberry milkshake.

  “Super. We’re famous for our milkshakes,” Rosa says proudly and scurries to put in the order.

  I give my sister a disapproving, but mildly amused, look.

  She shrugs. “What can I tell ya? I work best with a sugar buzz. Don’t you want to get the best out of your people?”

  I roll my eyes, relieved to discover that my real assistant, a fresh-faced youth named Justin, has arrived with some larger lights and other rental equipment too cumbersome to fly with. After introducing ourselves and briefly chatting, I point out the shots that I think are best, then ask for his input, which seems to please him. His delight, in turn, makes me feel like the old pro and gives me a needed boost of confidence. Justin agrees with my assessment on background and lighting, adds one idea of his own, and the two of us get down to the nitty-gritty of setting up, taking light-meter reads, and snapping a couple of test sets. Meanwhile, Suzanne makes a feeble showing of helpfulness while doing her best to eavesdrop on the interview.

  As we move about the small diner, I can’t help overhearing an occasional question from Leo, and a few inspiring snippets from Drake until finally, Justin and I are ready to go. I glance at my watch, discovering that we are ahead of schedule, and feel relaxed for the first time all day—maybe even all week.

  Until I hear Leo say my name, that is, and I turn around to find him and Drake watching me expectantly.

  “C’mere,” Leo beckons as if we’re the oldest of pals, and he has just run into the third friend in our once inseparable triumvirate.

  My heart skips a beat—for so many reasons. Or at least two.

  “Holy shit. He’s looking right at you,” Suzanne mumbles behind her milkshake. And then—“Whatever you do, don’t trip over those cords.”

  I take a deep breath, give myself a final little pep talk and, feeling grateful that I don’t work in heels, stroll over to the table where several of Drake’s staffers are now hovering.

  Leo looks past them, as if they’re invisible, and says to me, “Hey, Ellen.”

  “Hi, Leo,” I say.

  “Have a seat,” he says, as I think déjà vu. Although upon further thought, the exchange actually is the same as yesterday’s—which means it’s not déjà vu. Enough mental rambling, I think as I take Leo’s side of the booth. He moves over, but only barely, so that we are close enough to hold hands if we were so inclined.

  “Ellen, this is Drake Watters. Drake, meet my good friend Ellen,” Leo says in what is another surreal moment. I simply can’t believe that I’m being introduced to Drake—and that Leo is making the introduction.

  I instinctively start to extend my hand, but then remember what Frank once told me about how germ phobic many A-listers are, so I give Drake a respectful nod instead.

  “Hello, Drake,” I say, my heart racing.

  “Very nice to meet you, Ellen,” he says in his lyrical South African accent. He looks every bit as cool as I thought he would, yet at the same time, there is something surprisingly unflashy, even understated, about him.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I say, stopping with that, as I recall another bit of advice from Frank: that a death knell for a photographer is to bore a celebrity subject with obsequious chatter. Not that anything springs to mind anyway, except for: I was, like, totally deflowered to that one song of yours. Although true, I know I would never in a million years utter such a ridiculous thing, yet I still feel mildly concerned that I might—the verbal equivalent of fearing that you will, for no reason at all, hurl yourself off a balcony at the mall.

  At this point, one handler type rubs his palms together indicating that there will be no further small talk. “You’re Ellen Dempsey?” he says, also in a South African accent, but a clunkier one than Drake’s.

  “Yes,” I say, fleetingly wishing that I changed my professional name when Andy and I married.

  “You have fifteen minutes to shoot,” another handler instructs me, somewhat condescendingly.

  “No problem,” I say, then turn my gaze back to Drake. “Shall we get started?”

  “Sure,” he says, nodding just as a rock star should—all loosey-goosey, cool. “Where do you want me?”

  I point to a booth behind ours, switching into auto-pilot. There is no time left for jitters. “Right over there,” I instruct him. “Just slide in toward the window, please. And could you take your cup of tea with you? I’d like it in the foreground.”

  “Great,” Drake says, winking. “I wasn’t done with it, anyway.”

  As he slides out of the booth, I catch Leo giving me a look that can only be described as fond. I flash him a small, sincere—nearly fond—smile in return.

  “Break a leg,” he whispers, looking up at me.

  I pause, getting sucked into his eyes. Then, against my better judgment, I say, “Wait for me?”

  Leo smiles. “Was planning on it. You can’t shake me that easily.”

  I smile again as it suddenly occurs to me that I will not be able to hide Leo’s connection to the story forever. Andy and Margot will see his byline. Everyone will. Our names will be printed together, along with Drake’s, all on the very same page. But as I pick up my camera, I tell myself that this day might just be worth a little bit of trouble.

  The next fifteen minutes are a high-adrenaline blur of snapping ninety-four photos while giving Drake a steady stream of monotone instruction: Sit here, stand there, a little to the left, chin up a bit, small smile, no smile, half-smile, hand on your mug, hand on the table, ha
nds on your lap, look out the window, look over my shoulder, look right at me. Then: Okay. That’s it. Thank you, Drake.

  And I’m done. Blissfully done. And the best, most euphoric part is that I know I have my one, great shot. I always know when I have my shot—and today I am even more certain than usual. Drake, with just the right amount of natural light behind him, creating almost a soft halo effect; red booth contrasting with black shirt and white mug; strong lines of the table, window, and Drake’s own bone structure. Perfection.

  “Thank you, Ellen Dempsey,” Drake says, smiling. “That was painless.”

  I smile—no, beam—back at him, memorizing the way he makes my most ordinary name sound like a line of a poem, one of his songs. I am on an absolute physical, emotional high.

  Then, after Drake is whisked off by his people, and Justin has packed up our equipment, and Rosa has prominently displayed her signed headshot next to the cash register, and Suzanne has hunkered down at the counter to sample a chocolate malt, I am finally alone with Leo in the back of the diner, leaning against a wall, looking into his eyes, once again.

  Sixteen

  “So? How do you feel?” Leo asks me, holding my gaze like a magnetic field.

  His open-ended question makes me feel lightheaded, and I can’t help wondering if he’s being intentionally vague.

  “About the shoot?” I say.

  “Sure,” he says attentively. “About the shoot. About anything.”

  I look up at him, feeling tempted to confess that I’m positively exhilarated. That I’ve never had such a thrilling hour of work—and rarely felt the sort of pure chemical attraction that I am experiencing now. That I know I told him that I didn’t want to be friends, but can’t stand the thought of shutting down that possibility completely. That although I’m happily married, I feel a strange bond to him and don’t want this to be it between us, forever.

  But of course I say none of this, for more reasons than one. Instead, I give him a blasé smile and say that I’m pretty sure I got some decent shots. “So don’t worry…my photos won’t water down your interview too much.”

  He laughs and says, “Good. ’Cause I’ve been really concerned about that. Ever since I called your agent I’ve been thinking, ‘Shit. She’s gonna ruin my piece.’”

  I smile, a little too flirtatiously, and he smiles back in the same vein. After a highly charged ten seconds pass, I ask if he got some good stuff.

  Leo nods, patting the tape recorder in his back pocket. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure what to expect…I’d heard that he was a pretty nice guy—friendly, open, personable…but you just don’t know what mood you’ll walk into…I guess you know how that is, right?”

  I nod. “Resistant subjects are never a good time…although surly and moody can sometimes photograph better than you’d think.”

  Leo takes one step toward me. “I guess it’s all about chemistry,” he says suggestively.

  “Yeah,” I say feeling a ridiculous smile spread across my face. “Chemistry is important.”

  Another bloated moment passes before Leo asks, so casually and breezily that it becomes pointed, what I’m doing later. It is a question I’ve considered a dozen times today, wishing that we had one more night at the Beverly Wilshire, while simultaneously feeling relieved that I have an e-ticket to save me from myself.

  “I’m headed back to New York,” I say.

  “Oh,” he says as something around his eyes falls just a bit. “What time’s your flight?”

  “I’m on the nine-thirty red-eye,” I say.

  “Oh. That’s too bad,” he says, glancing at his watch.

  I make a noncommittal sound, calculating the time I have left in L.A. Searching for a plausible way to spend some of it with Leo, rather than my sister, who is still making herself scarce at the counter.

  “So I can’t convince you to stick around for another night?” Leo says.

  I hesitate, casting about for a solution. A way to stay in town while keeping things above board. But then I conjure Andy’s smile, his dimples, his clear blue eyes, and have no choice but to say, “No…I really need to get back.”

  There simply is no way to tread these dangerous waters.

  “I understand,” Leo says quickly, seeming to read between the lines. He glances down to adjust the strap on his kelly green messenger bag—a brighter color than I’d expect of Leo—as I find myself wondering whether it was a gift; how beautiful the woman who gave it to him is; whether they’re still together.

  He looks up and winks playfully. “That’s cool,” he says. “We’ll just hang out the next time we’re in L.A. doing a feature on Drake.”

  “Right,” I say, struggling to outdo his sarcasm with a bold line of my own. “We’ll hang out the next time you dump me, then run into me years later, then reel me back in with an assignment of a lifetime…”

  Leo looks startled. “What are you talking about?”

  “Which part is unclear?” I say, smiling to soften my somewhat confrontational question.

  “I didn’t dump you,” he says.

  I roll my eyes, then laugh. “Right.”

  He looks hurt—or at least taken aback. “It wasn’t like that.”

  I study his face, surmising that he must be trying to spare my pride by pretending that ours was a mutual split. But there is no trace of strategy, no trace of anything other than genuine surprise at my “version” of our history.

  “What was it like then?” I ask him.

  “We just…I don’t know…I know I was an ass—and took myself too seriously…I remember New Year’s Eve…but I can’t really remember why we broke up…It almost seems that we broke up over nothing really.”

  “Over nothing?” I say, feeling something close to desperation as Suzanne suddenly rounds the corner.

  She must catch my expression, because she says, “Oh, sorry,” and halts abruptly.

  I force a smile and say, “No. You’re fine. We were just chatting…about…Drake.”

  Suzanne gives me a look like she doesn’t believe me, but plays along. “What did you guys think of him? Was he as down-to-earth as he seems?”

  “Definitely,” Leo says. “Very real.”

  “Very,” I echo brightly as my insides churn.

  “What was the best part of the interview?” Suzanne asks Leo. “Or do I have to wait to buy the magazine?”

  Leo pretends to consider this, but then says he trusts her and will give her the inside scoop, launching into some specifics about Drake’s work on third-world debt relief and all his criticisms of our current administration, none of which I can focus on. Instead, I fight the wistful welling in my chest, and decide to rip off the Band-Aid during the next lull in conversation.

  When it finally comes, I say as decisively as possible, “Well. We better get going.”

  Leo nods, his expression becoming familiarly impassive. “Right,” he says.

  “So thanks again for everything,” I say.

  “Thank you,” he says, withdrawing further. “I can’t wait to see your photos.”

  “And I can’t wait to read your piece. I know it’s going to be great,” I say, feeling all the exhilaration from a few minutes before drain from my body. Highs and lows, I think. It always was about highs and lows with Leo.

  Suzanne pretends to study a framed playbill hanging on the wall beyond us, as if to give us one last sliver of privacy while Leo nods another thank-you. For a moment, it seems as if he might give me a final hug, albeit a formal one. But he doesn’t. He just tells us to have a good trip.

  But all I hear is, Have a good life.

  Once back in a cab, en route to the hotel, Suzanne’s eyebrows knit into an empathetic frown. “You look sad,” she says softly. “Are you sad?”

  I can’t muster the energy to lie so I nod and tell her yes—although in truth, downright disconsolate is closer to the mark.

  “I don’t know why,” I say. “It’s all just…so weird…Seeing him again…”

  Suzanne t
akes my hand and says, “That’s normal.”

  “Is it, though?” I say. “Because it doesn’t feel very normal. And I certainly don’t think Andy would call this normal.”

  Suzanne looks out her window as she poses the ultimate question. “Do you still have feelings for him, or do you think it’s just nostalgia?”

  “I think it’s a bit more than nostalgia,” I admit.

  Suzanne says, “I figured as much,” and then, almost as an afterthought, adds, “But if it helps, I totally get what you see in him. Dark, sexy, smart…”

  A wry laugh escapes my lips. “That actually doesn’t help. At all,” I say. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Sorry,” she says.

  “And you know what else doesn’t help?” I say as our cab pulls into the hotel driveway and several bellmen swarm around the car.

  Suzanne looks at me, waiting for me to continue.

  “Leo telling me he can’t, for the life of him, recall why we broke up.”

  “Fuck,” she says, her eyes widening. “He said that?”

  “Pretty much,” I say.

  “That’s something.”

  I nod as I pay our driver. “Yeah…You think he’s messing with my head?”

  Suzanne pauses and then says, “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say as we make our way through the revolving doors and into the lobby to collect our stored luggage. “Maybe to make me feel better about the past? Or maybe he’s just…on some kind of a power trip?”

  “I don’t know him well enough,” she says. “What do you think?”

  I shrug and then say I really don’t think so—on either front. It’s not Leo’s style to gratuitously make someone feel better. Yet I don’t think he’s a manipulative game player either.

  As we settle into two hard, high-back chairs in the lobby, Suzanne looks contemplative. “Well,” she finally says, “In all likelihood, he meant just what he said: that he really can’t remember why—how—it ended. And maybe he also meant that he wishes things had gone down differently.”

  I run my hands through my hair and exhale wearily. “You think that’s a possibility?”