“He was so frustrated about that,” she said. She gestured to the empty seat across from me. “Do you mind?”
I shook my head mutely and she sat down, setting the pot of coffee on the table.
“He never dated that Kylie Dane woman,” Marge said, wrinkling her nose. “He thought they were friends, until he realized her publicist was selling paparazzi shots of the two of them together, telling the press they were an item. And it was all that Kylie Dane’s idea! Can you imagine?”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” Marge said proudly, puffing out her chest. “He says I remind him of his mother. He talks to me all the time. The same thing happened with his publicist, you know. People kept shooting pictures of them together, and the rumors got started.”
“Really?” I squeaked. “But he really is dating his publicist, isn’t he?” I cleared my throat and backtracked a bit. “I mean, that’s what I’ve read. In the newspaper.”
“You really know a lot about Cole Brannon, don’t you?” Marge looked amused. She smiled at me. “Big fan, huh?” I paused, then nodded. Maybe she’d continue if she thought I was just a crazy Cole Brannon aficionado. “Nah, he was never dating her. It bothered him, you know. That publicist of his is a strange bird, if you ask me. She was in here once and kept stroking his arm, and he looked so uncomfortable. She didn’t even want him to talk to me.”
“Really?” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say. But I wanted her to go on.
“The next time he was in, I told him he should fire her,” the waitress continued. “She gave me the creeps. But he said something about her being the sister of someone he’d known in college. He felt loyal to her for some reason. He’s too damned nice for his own good, you know. But she seemed crazy, and I know crazy when I see it, honey.”
“Sounds like it,” I murmured. My heart was pounding. Could Marge be right? Could Cole have been telling the truth about Kylie and Ivana after all?
“The worst thing is, the same thing happened with that magazine girl in the Village too,” Marge continued. I blanched, and my heart sank. “He really liked her. He thought she was different. But she wrote some article in her magazine about sleeping with him. And he never slept with her. He’s a real gentleman, you know.”
“Maybe it was a misunderstanding,” I said so quietly, it was barely audible. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks in a furious blush. Marge laughed, and I blinked back my embarrassment.
“Yeah, that’s real likely,” she said with a snort. “Anyhow, he was real upset after that. I haven’t seen him since. Poor boy. He thought he’d finally found someone who he really connected with. Someone who didn’t want to use him. He should have known better, I guess.” I felt the blood drain from my face. I looked at her miserably.
“Thanks,” I said finally.
“Always happy to gossip, sweetheart,” she said with a wink. “I’ll go see if your food’s up. And hey, cheer up, honey. Whatever’s bothering you can’t be that bad.”
“You’d be surprised,” I murmured as she walked cheerfully away.
I sat at Over the Moon through two shift changes, drinking coffee and looking out the window at a Cole Brannon I could never have.
I thought about my life and what I was doing with it. I thought about Tom and thanked God he was gone. I thought about my job and considered switching career tracks altogether. I wondered for a long time how I’d managed to screw things up so badly.
But most of all, I thought about Cole—which wasn’t hard to do as he silently kept watch over the city, right outside the window.
The Red Carpet
I was exhausted. I stood along the ropes of the red carpet outside the Puck Building Saturday evening after a sleepless night, thrusting my tape recorder toward a seemingly endless parade of the same faces I saw every week at these events. Tonight’s was a black-tie benefit to raise funds for breast cancer research, and I’d dutifully pinned my pink ribbon on the collar of my white blouse. My legs were sweating in my gray boot-cut pants, and I was contemplating taking off my ridiculously uncomfortable heels to stand barefoot on the sidewalk. The only thing that stopped me was a huge wad of recently chewed gum about six inches from my left foot. Who knew what else lined the streets of New York?
As was the case with most minor events, the breast cancer benefit had attracted only a few members of the media. Several paparazzi photographers with big flashbulbs lined the carpet—they were ubiquitous in New York—but there were only three reporters other than me. One was from the New York Post—they covered everything that might potentially involve even a minor celebrity. Another was from Stuff magazine, as there was a rumor Brittany Murphy might show up, and she was, well, hot stuff. The third was Victoria Lim, my old friend from Cosmo, who had spent the first half hour apologizing profusely for not having called. She’d been busy with a freelance project she was doing for Vanity Fair, and work at Cosmo had her swamped.
She was sympathetic about the Cole Brannon story in Mod and assured me that she didn’t believe it. She had avoided the question when I asked her if it was a source of gossip at Cosmo. Then she quickly changed the subject to tell me about a fashion show she’d been to the week before, where the models had actually paraded down the runway in trash bags and stilettos.
“I thought that whole grunge look went out in, like, 1995,” she said.
“Is that even grunge?” I asked skeptically.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “What else do you call models in trash bags? Seemed pretty grungy to me.”
The breast cancer benefit dinner was being organized by Maddox-Wylin, a small book publisher, so I didn’t expect much of a celebrity turnout for the $1,000-a-head meal, catered by the four-star Luigi Vernace restaurant. But Susan Lucci was there. Katie Holmes had a table. Breast cancer survivor Kate Jackson (one of Charlie’s original Angels) came with a friend, followed by Olivia Newton-John moments later.
As the celebrities made their way gracefully down the red carpet, I held out my tape recorder and asked Chic questions that made me feel silly. They all answered them politely and moved on. I was starting to feel better, knowing that Maude Beauvais would be pleased with tonight’s unexpected treasure trove of celeb quotes.
And then I saw him, getting out of a limousine.
It was Cole Brannon.
He was coming toward me on the red carpet, and for a moment I thought I was hallucinating.
But he wasn’t a mirage.
There he was, larger than life, striding from his limousine toward the theater. Flashbulbs went off all around us, and there was an excited buzz to the media crowd. He was the biggest star to arrive that night.
I was suddenly breathless and moderately woozy, which I couldn’t entirely attribute to the sleepless night and lack of energy I’d suffered from in the last twenty-four hours. I suddenly understood the expression “He took my breath away.”
He was stunning in a tuxedo, his broad shoulders filling it out perfectly. He smiled for the cameras and made his way down the red carpet. The reporter from Stuff asked him a few soft questions and giggled at his answers. The girl from the Post asked him something and he shook his head, then said something softly to her, flashing her his gorgeous smile. A photographer shouted at him, asking why he was at the benefit. He answered in a low voice that his mother was a breast cancer survivor.
Then he turned and saw me.
I froze as our eyes met, and he seemed to freeze, too. I hadn’t expected this. I wasn’t prepared for it. A sudden stillness fell over the media crowd as Cole and I stood staring at each other for what felt like a small eternity. My face was on fire, and I could hear the whispers around me as photographers and reporters reminded each other that I was the girl who’d slept with Cole Brannon and written about it for Mod magazine.
Finally I spoke, breaking the silence between us. My heart beat so quickly, I feared it would jump out of my chest.
“Hi,” I said softl
y.
“Hi,” he said uncertainly, a guarded look on his face as he continued to stare at me. I took a deep breath and tried to slow my pounding heart.
“Cole, I am so sorry about the article in Mod,” I said, my words tumbling out quickly, almost on top of each other. I knew my face was bright red, and I could feel myself shaking. Cole was silent. He just looked at me. I couldn’t read his expression. “I swear to you, Cole, I had no idea. I didn’t write that article. One of the other editors there wrote it, I swear to you.”
Still looking at me, he was frozen in place, and he hadn’t said a word. I wanted him to say something, to tell me he believed me, to tell me he forgave me, but he didn’t. I took a deep breath and glanced around. Flashbulbs were going off all around us, but suddenly I didn’t care. Photos of us would probably land on tomorrow’s nighttime entertainment shows—and in Tuesday’s Tattletale—and rumors would crop up that something was going on between us again. But I ignored all of that. I needed him to know that I would never have hurt him intentionally. This was my one chance.
“You have to believe me, Cole,” I pleaded, probably sounding as desperate and pathetic as I felt. “I had nothing to do with the Tattletale thing either. I swear to God. I am so sorry that all of this happened.” I looked at him desperately, miserably hoping he’d say something. He was silent for another moment.
“I knew the Tattletale thing wasn’t you,” he said finally. “Usually their stories aren’t true.”
I sighed with relief, then realized he hadn’t said anything about the Mod article. He looked cold and distant, and I longed to reach across the rope and hug him, like we’d hugged that day that felt like years ago. But I knew I couldn’t. It was like a huge valley had opened up between us, and I didn’t have what it took to cross it.
“I tried to call you,” I said slowly. He looked surprised.
“You did? When?” It occurred to me, just for a moment, that it had to be a good sign he was still standing there.
“After the Tattletale thing,” I said desperately. “And after the Mod article came out. I tried your cell, but it had been disconnected. I tried the studio publicist, I tried finding your friend Jay, the bartender. I even tried calling Ivana.” He studied me for a moment. I knew I was being judged. My knees felt weak.
“She never told me,” he said softly, looking at me curiously. My heart was pounding. He looked like he was going to say something. My palms were sweaty, and I suddenly felt very hot and a bit dizzy. I blinked a few times and was again aware of the crowd around us, watching our every move and straining to hear our words. Cole leaned in closer, his breath whispering past my ear and sending a tingle through my whole body.
“Ivana told me I wasn’t the first actor you’d done this kind of thing with,” he said gently. “She told me you had a reputation for things like this. I didn’t know what to think.” He pulled away, looking at me with sad eyes. I gasped.
“What?” I sputtered. “Cole, I swear to you that’s not true. I’ve never done anything like that, I swear. This whole story has ruined my life. You have to believe me.”
He looked at me skeptically.
“Cole,” I said desperately. “I quit Mod the moment the story came out. I swear to you I had nothing to do with it.”
“You quit?” he asked, looking genuinely surprised. For the first time since he’d seen me, his face had started to relax a bit. But before I could answer, Ivana was at his elbow. I hadn’t even seen her coming. Her long, dark hair was tied back in a slick, glamorous ponytail, and she was dressed in a tight red gown. A huge diamond sparkled around her neck.
“It’s time to go now, Cole,” she said, coldly taking his elbow and steering him away from me. “You stay away from him,” she hissed under her breath at me. She was shooting daggers at me with her eyes, which were icy and dangerous. Cole gave me one last confused look over his shoulder and allowed himself to be led away.
I had a sick feeling as I watched him go that it would be the last I would see of him. His appearance at the benefit had caught me off guard, and I hadn’t said all the things I’d wanted to say. I hadn’t been able to convince him that I was telling the truth. He hadn’t believed me.
“You okay?” asked Victoria gently, snapping me back to reality. She squeezed my elbow lightly, and I looked up to see a dozen pairs of eyes staring at me. The reporter from the Post was furiously scribbling something in her notebook. I willed myself not to cry in front of the cameras.
“I’m fine,” I lied. I took a deep, ragged breath. Then I realized something. “I can’t do this anymore,” I said softly. It suddenly seemed so clear. Had I been living in a fog for the last few years?
“Do what?” asked Victoria.
“This,” I said gesturing around me. “This whole stupid celebrity thing. It’s not real.”
None of it was what it seemed. None of it was real. And none of it mattered. Who cared who Nicholas Cage was sleeping with, who Nicole Kidman had been spotted with, or where Ben Affleck had been seen out on the town? Why did it matter? What was I doing here, in the middle of this useless circus?
“What am I doing?” I murmured aloud to myself.
Just then, Chris Noth, whom I adored as Mr. Big on Sex and the City and as Mike Logan on Law & Order before that, stepped from a limousine that had pulled to the curb. The cameras swung toward him, and even Victoria turned away to try catching the latest star to arrive. For a moment I looked at him, debonair and polished in a slick gray suit, smiling that crooked smile that had always seemed so seductive. Suddenly, I didn’t care anymore. The feeding frenzy he’d created with his mere arrival seemed so ridiculous, even though I’d been one of those hungry feeders for the past five years.
There was nothing here for me anymore.
Without regret, I turned and walked away.
*
Wendy was working the late shift that night, so the apartment was dark when I got home. I poured myself a glass of pinot grigio and changed into sweatpants, a Bulldogs T-shirt, and my ridiculous-looking-but-comfortable Cookie Monster slippers. I sat down on the couch with my laptop, rewound the cancer benefit interview tape, and put on a pair of headphones.
An hour and a half and two glasses of wine later, I had finished transcribing all the celebrity quotes. I e-mailed them to Lauren Elkin, who edited Chic’s celeb section, and to Megan Combs, who handled celebrity fashion for Chic. I knew they’d both be able to use a lot of the quotes.
For the next hour, I worked on composing a carefully worded e-mail to Maude Beauvais, thanking her for her kindness in giving me a job as a stringer, but telling her that I could no longer work for her. When I hit Send a few minutes past midnight, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I didn’t know what I was going to do for work, but I promised myself it would be something self-respecting where my existence didn’t depend on gossip, celebrity, and the whims of publicists.
I turned the computer off, kicked off my slippers, put my feet up on the couch, and turned on the TV. I flipped aimlessly through the channels until I found The Blind Man, starring Cole Brannon, just starting on TNT. Thanks to my sleeplessness the night before, I drifted off before the second commercial break.
I dreamed of Cole Brannon.
*
I woke up to a series of knocks on our front door the next morning. I groaned and opened one eye, squinting at the clock on the wall. It was only 7:30. In the morning. On a Sunday. I rolled back over on my stomach, pulled the blanket over my head, and hoped that whoever it was would go away.
But the knocking continued.
“Wendy!” I mumbled halfheartedly. But I was already awake. There was no use in waking her up too.
The knocking had turned to an insistent pounding by the time I dragged my protesting body off the couch.
“Hang on!” I yelled at whoever was on the other side of the door. “It’s seven-thirty on a Sunday morning, for God’s sake!”
I slipped into my Cookie Monster slippers and sh
uffled hostilely toward the door. Whoever it was had some nerve beating down our door at the crack of dawn. Didn’t they know there was a depressed, unemployed woman here who needed her beauty sleep?
Mumbling under my breath, I shuffled across the kitchen, not bothering to stop and fix my hair or straighten my T-shirt. Whoever was at the door would be greeted by Nightmare Claire, complete with morning breath. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
I unlatched the several locks, swung open the door, and blinked into the hallway as my eyes adjusted to the light. Then I gasped.
It was Cole Brannon.
I froze. I couldn’t move. I just stared for a moment, my jaw hanging slack, my hand frozen to the doorknob.
“Oh my God,” I mumbled finally. I reached a horrified hand up to my head and realized the worst was true. I was sporting the worst bedhead known to mankind. My shirt was wrinkled and falling off one shoulder, and I was wearing Cookie Monster slippers. I probably had a string of drool dried across my face too. I reached up to touch the corner of my mouth, and sure enough, I did. I groaned.
“Good morning,” said Cole softly. He wasn’t smiling. He was wearing old jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt, and his blue eyes were bloodshot. He looked shaken.
“Oh my God,” I said again. Could this be any worse? I looked like I’d been run over by a train—or at least by a bunch of head-hunting Muppets who had left their conquests behind on my feet. I reached up again and smoothed my hair down as well as I could, but I knew it hadn’t helped much.
I took a deep breath in, then exhaled deeply. I needed to get ahold of myself.
“Would you like to come in?” I asked. I cast a furtive glance over my shoulder, trying to make sure that the apartment wasn’t too messy and that I hadn’t unconsciously scribbled “I love Cole Brannon,” or something equally mortifying.
The coast appeared to be clear.
“Um, no,” Cole said, surprising me. He took a breath. “I just need to know if you meant what you said last night.” He hesitated. “About not having anything to do with that Mod article.”