How to Sleep with a Movie Star

  “This is the best publicity we could have asked for, Claire!” the mad cow enthused. She tapped the cover of Tattletale for emphasis. “This is wonderful! When the magazine comes out next month, everyone will rush out to buy it and get the story behind your romance with Cole Brannon! It’s not what I would have expected from you, Claire, but I love it.”

  I couldn’t grin back. I was flabbergasted.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” I said finally. This was too bizarre to take in. I wrinkled my brow and studied her in consternation.

  “Oh, Claire, no need to be modest with me,” Margaret pushed on, steamrolling right over my words. “I must admit, I am a bit disappointed at being scooped by a tabloid, but what a great way to get the Mod name out there. I’ve already gotten calls from some of the company’s biggest investors, and they’re all terribly intrigued.”

  “Great,” I said weakly. I was baffled. I forced a wan smile.

  “Do you know what this means, Claire?” Margaret asked, leaning forward hungrily. I shook my head slowly. She licked her lips and grinned at me. “It means we’re going to pass Cosmopolitan, Claire. For the first time in Mod’s history. We’re going to pass Cosmopolitan in circulation for our August issue. Thanks to your fling with Cole Brannon, Claire, Mod will fly off the newsstands.”

  “But . . .” I tried to formulate a response, but my brain didn’t seem able to connect with my mouth.

  “Because of your hard work, Claire, I’ve decided to give you another raise,” Margaret said, beaming. I started to protest, but Margaret interrupted me. “I wish more of my editors would take your kind of initiative, Claire. Well done.”

  I opened and closed my mouth wordlessly a few times, like a fish. Then I just kept it closed as Margaret chattered on about circulation figures, flings with celebrities, and her own crush on Robert Redford that she always wished she’d pursued. I sat stunned until she was finished. I valiantly issued one last denial, then sat back mutely as she rolled over that one too, dismissing it with a tinkling laugh. I was completely flabbergasted by the time she ushered me enthusiastically out of her office, asking me to keep up the good work.

  *

  “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” Wendy rushed out of her cubicle to embrace me in the hallway as I walked back to my desk like a zombie. I didn’t respond right away, because I was still in shock. Wendy took my silence and my battle-weary demeanor to mean the worst. “Oh my gosh, she fired you, didn’t she? God, Claire, I am so pissed off. I’m going in there right now to quit myself.” She looked angry and defensive, and she reached down to give me another tight hug.

  “No,” I finally said. I felt like I was walking in a fog.

  “No what?” asked Wendy confused. “Hey, are you okay?” I didn’t answer. I looked down and then back at Wendy.

  “No, I didn’t get fired,” I said finally. I watched her eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

  “What happened, then?” she asked. The answer to this still confused me.

  “I got another raise,” I said slowly. “I don’t know what just happened.”

  *

  By noon I’d stopped answering my phone, because every single call I had taken was from a reporter or a producer looking for the “real” scoop on my love affair with Cole Brannon.

  I realized by lunchtime that the calls were much more than just an annoyance. None of the dozens of people I’d heard from today took me seriously. In the space of a few hours, I’d somehow gone from being a reporter worthy of respect—even if you didn’t believe Mod was a bastion of great journalism—to a common tramp who was bent on climbing the ladder of celebrity, who’d gotten lucky by landing Cole Brannon on the first rung.

  It was my biggest fear come true. I had always worried, being the youngest senior editor at the magazine, that people would think I was sleeping my way to the top. It was certainly a pattern that had repeated itself on other rungs of the ladder at our magazine and other women’s and entertainment magazines, many times over. In other areas of the corporate world, women sometimes made their way to the top by sleeping with their bosses. In the magazine world, it was just as effective to sleep with someone powerful or prominent outside the company—an actor, a politician, a rock star—and let them pull the strings for you.

  And now, the world was sure it was true in my case. I had been so careful to always be and appear appropriate. And now it looked like I’d just climbed the ladder with the help of Cole Brannon—instead of my own hard work.

  During lunch, which I took alone at my desk after silencing the ringer on my office phone and turning off my cell phone, I thought about Cole Brannon and wondered whether he’d seen today’s Tattletale yet.

  He was probably furious at me. I chewed nervously on the nail of my index finger. He would be mortified. He didn’t date women like me. He certainly didn’t sleep with women like me. And now he probably thought that I’d lured him into the bathroom just to get a good shot for the cover of Tattletale.

  I shouldn’t have cared, of course. He had lied to me and was probably off somewhere sleeping with a married actress. But I couldn’t let it go.

  Breathing hard, I pulled open my desk and rummaged through until I found the notebook I had used as a backup when I interviewed Cole last Saturday. I flipped through until I found the cell phone number he’d given me. The one I swore to myself I’d never use. But this was an emergency. I had to tell him the Tattletale story wasn’t my doing.

  Nervously, I dialed the number, noticing abstractly that he still had a 617 area code—from Boston—instead of a 323 from L.A., or a 646 from Manhattan, as I would have expected.

  As the phone rang twice, time seemed to slow down. I could feel my heart pounding, my palms sweating, my mouth going dry. Maybe I shouldn’t be calling him. Maybe I should hang up.

  “Hello?” a sleepy female voice answered midway through the third ring. I was too surprised to say anything for a moment. I looked down at the phone to see if I’d dialed correctly. Indeed, I had. “Hello?” said the voice again, sounding a bit perturbed.

  “Uh, hello,” I finally said. “I’m looking for Cole.” Why was a woman answering his phone? More important, why was it making me feel so jealous?

  “Who’s calling?” snapped the woman on the other end.

  “This is Claire Reilly,” I said timidly. There was silence on the other end. Finally, the woman laughed, low and deep in her throat.

  “Well, if it isn’t Claire Reilly,” the woman said with what sounded like an edge of anger. “Claire, this is Ivana Donatelli. Cole’s publicist. I’m sure you know who I am.”

  I gulped and started to sweat. What was she doing there? Why was she answering his cell phone? Maybe I was right, and the Tattletale photos of her and Cole together had meant something. Now I felt like an idiot. It would look like I was calling him because I was infatuated or something.

  “Hi, Ivana,” I said, trying to sound as friendly and innocuous as possible. “I was just calling about—”

  “Tattletale.” Ivana completed my sentence for me.

  “Yes, I—”

  She cut me off.

  “I was going to call you about that too,” she said smoothly. “But I see you’ve beat me to it.” I couldn’t read her tone of voice. It was very even, not hinting at what she was thinking.

  “I was just calling to apologize to Cole,” I stammered. “I swear, I had nothing to do with this. Nothing happened with me and Cole, and I wanted him to know that—”

  She cut me off sharply again.

  “Cole and I just got out of bed, Claire,” Ivana said smoothly. My heart dropped in my chest. “He’s in the shower, so I’m afraid he can’t take your call at the moment. Besides, I think you’ve had quite enough to do with Cole Brannon.”

  “But . . .” I started to protest weakly. My God, they were sleeping together.

  “I believe he’ll draw whatever conclusions he will about you and your moral character,” she continued smoothly. “As for me, I’d appreciate it if
you’d refrain from contacting either one of us in the future.”

  “No, Ivana, you don’t understand,” I said quickly. “I swear, I had nothing to do with this. Let me explain . . .”

  “No, let me explain,” she said, her voice suddenly taking on a menacing tone. “I am disgusted with you. I am disgusted at your willingness to take such blatant advantage of my generosity in granting you an interview with Cole. You’d better hope to God that your little story in Mod is perfect, or I’ll have my lawyers on your ass faster than you can imagine.”

  “But—”

  “Now you listen to me,” she said, cutting me off, her voice slow and deliberate. “Never call me again. Never contact Cole again. I can’t imagine a reporter behaving more unprofessionally, and I am disgusted by you. If you ever contact either of us, I will make it my mission to make your life miserable, understood?”

  “But . . .”

  “Cole Brannon would never look twice at a woman like you,” she hissed. “Good day, Ms. Reilly.” She hung up the phone before I could say another word. I sat stunned for a good few minutes. I had no idea what else to do.

  Cole Brannon hated me. I was sure of it. And he was sleeping with Ivana Donatelli after all. I could hardly believe it. I had just started to believe that it was possible he was telling the truth. But I should have known better.

  I fought back the tears that welled in my eyes. But eventually, they overflowed. There’s only so much one person can take in a single morning.

  *

  At just past 4 p.m., after a dozen more voice mails from various reporters and producers had pushed me beyond the limits of my patience, I did what I should have done a week before. I stood up with all the fury I had accumulated over the course of the day, and, without saying anything to Wendy or anyone else, I marched directly to the fashion department to find Sidra.

  “Well, look who’s here,” she purred as I turned the corner into her office. She was wearing a black pantsuit and five-inch heels—she had her long legs stretched out, her feet propped up on her desk, when I stormed in.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded without any pretense. My voice didn’t sound like my own, but then again, I wasn’t feeling much like myself.

  Sidra looked me slowly up and down, then a slow smile spread across her lips (which looked like they’d been injected with another shot of collagen in the past few days). She slowly swung her legs down to the floor. I clenched and unclenched my fists.

  “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” she said, batting her eyes innocently. She lazily reached over with one long, perfectly manicured finger and pressed a button on her intercom. “Sally, Samantha,” she said, still looking at me with a little smile. “Come into my office. You’ll never believe who’s here. It’s Tattletale’s new ‘It’ girl!” She removed her finger from the intercom and looked me pensively up and down. “You certainly don’t look like an ‘It’ girl,” she said with a sly smile.

  “Screw you,” I said. I was so angry, it was hard to breathe. Sidra raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.

  “What?” she asked innocently. “Profanity from the mouth of Cole Brannon’s new love interest? How inappropriate!”

  Just then, Samantha and Sally appeared in the doorway, standing so close together they looked like Siamese twins. Like their fearless leader, they were both decked out from head to toe in fashionable black—Sally in Prada, Samantha in Escada. I wondered for a moment if Sidra called them each morning to issue a Triplet Dress Code for the day. That would explain why they all arrived at the office late, nearly always looking like they’d come off the couture assembly line.

  “Claire!” Samantha purred. “We just couldn’t believe it . . .”

  “. . . when we saw you in Tattletale.” Sally finished the sentence that had apparently initiated in the brain they shared.

  “I know,” Sidra joined in with a smirk. “It was quite a shock to all of us. I never would have expected such a thing.”

  “Just stop it!” I barked, feeling my face heat up with anger. “Do I look stupid? I know you did this!”

  “What?” Sidra feigned shock. “Moi? Why on earth would you think such a thing?”

  By this time, Samantha had walked over to Sidra’s left side, and Sally flanked her right side. For a moment, as I stared at them in their matching black designer uniforms, they reminded me eerily of old pictures of Saddam Hussein and his two evil sons.

  “I don’t know,” I responded. “I don’t know why you would do it. Jealousy maybe?”

  “Me? Jealous of you?” Sidra’s laugh was cold and heartless. She was immediately joined by lifeless chuckles from her two disciples.

  “Why are you out to get me?” I demanded. I was starting to feel outnumbered again. It reminded me slightly of elementary school, and I had sudden vague memories of being ganged up on and excluded from kickball games by the “cool” kids. Sidra laughed again.

  “My, my, my, this is going to your head, I think,” she said coolly. “The universe doesn’t revolve around you, Claire, dear. Just because something happens, it doesn’t mean anyone’s out to get you.”

  “Why, then?”

  “You’re playing with fire,” Sidra said, leaning forward, her voice low and menacing. “And you’re going to keep getting burned until you learn to walk away.” Sally and Samantha nodded their agreement as Sidra leaned back, looking satisfied with herself.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. I could hear my voice rise an octave to soprano. “I’m not playing with anything. I never was. If I remember correctly, your sister was screwing my boyfriend. You know as well as I do that I didn’t sleep with Cole Brannon.”

  “Oh, it didn’t look like that to me,” Sidra said, smiling knowingly at me. Samantha and Sally tittered in unison. I clenched my fists by my sides.

  “This had better be the end of this,” I said finally. I exhaled and felt suddenly weary. “Fine, you’ve gotten me back for whatever offense you’ve imagined. But now we’re even, okay? Whatever I’ve done to you has surely been canceled out by this.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sidra singsonged slyly. I ignored her.

  “Just stop this now,” I said wearily. “I’m serious. You’ve gotten what you wanted. I’m mortified. Pat yourself on the back. Mission accomplished.” As Sidra and I stared at each other, our eyes locked in some kind of juvenile staring contest, I felt some of the anger go out of me. This was ridiculous. We were grown women, and we were acting like schoolchildren at war on the playground. “Just leave me alone, Sidra,” I said finally. “I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine.”

  “Deal,” she said icily. As I turned and started to walk away, she called after me.

  “Oh, Claire? Would you like me to give your regards to Tom?”

  I froze in my tracks but didn’t turn around.

  “He’s having dinner at my parents’ house tonight,” she continued. “My sister thought it was time she brought him home to meet the family.”

  The words hit me like a cold slap across the face.

  “Yes, give him my regards,” I said softly without turning around. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  I walked away, leaving Sidra and her designer henchmen behind in their weird little world that I wanted no part of.

  The Ingenue

  The night the Tattletale story appeared had to have been the worst night of my life. Wendy was nice enough to stay with me, but even her comfort didn’t help much when I saw my face splashed across Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, and two editions of the local news. Friends I’d gone to high school with in Georgia called, drawling in excited tones about how they couldn’t believe “Little Clairey Reilly” had hooked up with Cole Brannon. My mother called to chastise me yet again, just in case I hadn’t gotten the point that morning, and even my little sister Carolyn called to tell me, “Everybody knows, Claire. It’s just soooo embarrassing for me.”

  Life ev
entually started returning to a semi-normal state. I never heard from Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight again, and although I kept a close eye on Page Six and Tattletale for the next few weeks, there wasn’t another mention of me. I started to breathe more easily.

  Although my mother hadn’t apologized, she was at least starting to act more normal. Well, normal for her, which might not necessarily qualify as normal in anyone else’s world. Still, she was back to her old ways, nagging me about finding a husband before I hit thirty (geez, I still had four years to go!), picking at me for being so career-oriented, and criticizing me for putting on a few pounds.

  The next few weeks of work, however, were hellish. There was a sudden chill in the air when it came to me securing celeb interviews for Mod. Publicists who had always called right back were suddenly no longer available; interviews that had been set in stone were mysteriously canceled; and I caught coworkers gossiping about me in the break room three times.

  On top of that, it was pretty rotten to have everyone believe I’d gotten laid by the hottest guy in America when in reality, I hadn’t had sex in so long I probably wouldn’t remember how to anymore.

  Each week I struggled to meet deadlines I’d never had a problem with before. I spent hours waiting by the fax machine for responses to interview requests—sometimes for faxed interview answers from celebs who were suddenly “too busy” to talk to me—and I worked late most days to overcompensate for the fact that my career seemed to be going steadily downhill.

  Perhaps the worst work-related fallout from the whole Cole incident was that Margaret still seemed to believe the Tattletale story and treated me as though she expected my behavior to mirror that which the tabloid had attributed to me.

  When I told her I was having trouble securing an interview with Orlando Bloom, who really shouldn’t have been a problem, she had winked at me and said, “I’m sure you can come up with a way to convince him.” When Jerry O’Connell canceled an interview with me, Margaret suggested wearing sexier lingerie. With Hugh Grant, her suggestion was to show a bit more cleavage.