Eventually you’re forced to quit, because the whole sex stigma affects your work from the bottom up. You can no longer score the best interviews because the publicists all know your reputation. They secretly wish they could be in the position to sleep with movie stars every day, so they’re pissed off at you and refuse to answer your calls. Your editors frown upon the reputation you’re spreading for the magazine. And the movie stars who don’t want to sleep with you start the interview off hating you because your exploits make their profession look bad.
It had happened to Laura Worthington, the girl I’d roomed with the first year I lived in Manhattan. She was an editorial assistant at Rolling Stone, and she was frustrated because, as the newbie, she was never sent out on exciting assignments. Once in a blue moon she got to cover a party, but most of the time she was responsible for editing the Billboard charts, fact-checking the feature editor’s always-sloppy work, and calling publicists to verify facts and figures. When the features editor was sick one day and Laura was sent out to interview Kirk Bryant, the floppy-haired, tattooed, and not-at-all-good-looking lead singer of an up-and-coming rock band whose single had just broken the Billboard Top Ten, she was thrilled and just a bit star-struck. Thirty minutes into the interview, which he’d conveniently moved from the Four Seasons lobby to his suite on the sixth floor, she was naked on his bed. Forty minutes into the interview, he was zipping up his pants and showing her the door. By the time she got back to the office, other editorial assistants were glaring at her suspiciously, and she realized that she didn’t have quite enough information to write an article about Kirk, as they hadn’t actually talked about anything. So she fudged the quotes and sat by the phone for a week, wondering why Kirk Bryant didn’t call. Two weeks later she enthusiastically spread her legs (“To help me forget about Kirk,” she told me with a sigh) for Chris Williams, whose band, Mudpile, had just catapulted from obscurity to being the most-requested band on MTV’s Total Request Live. Of course, she had to make up quotes for that interview too, as there wasn’t much time for work-related talk between the sighs and the moans. It was after another year—and eleven rock stars later—that Laura was finally fired. Now she answered phones at a talent agency in L.A. for seven dollars an hour.
I had always vowed that I would keep my emotions completely removed from my job. I wasn’t Laura. No crushes allowed. And here I was making googly-eyes at Hollywood’s Most Eligible Bachelor. What was wrong with me?
I chided myself for responding like a rookie to Cole Brannon’s charms. After all, it was his job to charm me if he wanted to appear to be a good guy in the media. Maybe he was just a friendly guy who wanted to come across well in Mod magazine.
I looked in the mirror and rolled my eyes at myself. I knew better. I needed to grow up and start acting like the professional I was and always had been. I’d done my job, I’d put him at ease. Now it was time for me to stop drooling—surely he saw enough of that every day—and get on with the interview. The sooner I got back to the office to transcribe the interview and type up the article, the sooner I’d get home to Tom, which is where I belonged.
Maybe Tom and I could actually have sex today—on day 31 of the famine—if I made it home early enough. After all, it was a weekend. Surely Tom had slept in, so he couldn’t claim exhaustion. Yep, tonight would be the night. The night for some serious lovin’. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? as Christina Aguilera would say.
I smiled at myself in the mirror with new resolve, turned away, and headed back through the bathroom door.
Cole was sitting just where I’d left him, and I tried not to admire the broad contour of his shoulders as I approached from behind. After all, the width of his shoulders and the beautifully sculpted way his whole body fit together were really irrelevant. Right?
“Hey there,” he said cheerfully, standing as I came up beside him. He waited to sit down until I’d settled into my chair. “I was starting to worry that you’d fallen in.”
I resisted the urge to laugh and instead tried to frown—professionally, of course. I imagine my expression must have come out oddly twisted and meaningless, for I could have sworn I noticed a flicker of confusion cross his eyes.
“Um, no,” I said. I warned myself to ignore those ridiculously gorgeous blue eyes. I needed to be professional. They were probably contacts anyhow, and what kind of vain guy wears colored contacts to brunch? I cleared my throat. “I’ve already taken enough of your time. Shall we get on with the interview?”
“Oh no, don’t worry about me,” Cole said in that perfect, musical baritone. “I love it here. It’s my favorite restaurant. And I’ve got nothing else to do today.” He leaned back lazily in his chair and grinned. I resisted the urge to smile back. I was Serious Claire and I would take that role, well, seriously.
“Unfortunately, I do,” I said with my best attempt at a frown. “This article on you is due tomorrow, so that means I have to get most of it written today.”
“On a Saturday?” he asked incredulously. He leaned forward, his blue eyes wide. “You’re kidding me! That’s no fun!”
“You’re telling me!”
“So there’s no escaping the charm of Cole Brannon this weekend, then, is there?” He grinned again. I made another face at him, despite myself.
“No, apparently not.”
“Well, let’s get to it, then, Little Lady,” he said. He gestured for our waitress. “But first we have to order. I can’t do an interview on an empty stomach.”
I laughed and looked down at the menu as our waitress approached. I couldn’t figure out why I thought it was so cute when he called me “Little Lady.” There was something in my head that told me his words should offend, but somehow they did anything but. They made me blush.
“Is Marge working today?” Cole asked the waitress who approached our table. I snuck a look up at him as he smiled at her.
“No sir,” she said shyly. “Today’s her day off.”
“That’s too bad,” Cole said with a grin. “You’ll have to tell her Cole says ‘hi.’” He turned to me and smiled. “She’s my favorite waitress. Reminds me of my mom.”
I smiled and nodded. This guy seemed so sweet. But was it all an act?
“Know what you want?” he asked me. As if I had to think about it. I always ordered the same breakfast at every diner I’d eaten in for the past several years.
“I’ll have two fried eggs, over easy, with hash browns and bacon, fried extra crispy, please,” I said. “Oh, and can you add cheese to those hash browns, too?”
Cole arched an eyebrow at me.
“I like a woman who can eat,” he said, smiling. “You know, I’ll have the same thing,” Cole said finally. “Oh, and a big pot of coffee for both of us. She looks like she needs some caffeine, doesn’t she?”
“Hey!” I said, mildly insulted for a split second before Cole flashed me another big smile. I grinned back before remembering my vow to be nothing but professional. “Ahem,” I cleared my throat as the waitress walked away. I was vaguely confused that she didn’t seem starstruck, like every other server I’d ever seen wait on a celeb seemed to be. But Cole seemed to be a regular here. Was it possible they were simply used to him? “Shall we begin?” I asked.
“Ready when you are, boss,” he said, settling his tall frame back into the chair again.
“Mind if I tape this?” I asked, although no one had ever turned me down. “It helps me make sure that I get every one of your quotes accurately when I’m writing the story later on.”
“Well heck, I don’t want to be misquoted,” he said. “Tape away.”
How to Talk to Your Dream Man
Two hours later I was on my way to the office, trying to stop glowing. I had managed to remain cool and professional throughout the interview—in which Cole had cheerfully covered everything from memories of learning to cook with his dad, to his first tentative foray into acting at Boston College, to his close relationship with his four-year-old nephew Nicholas, to his upcoming mo
vie Forever Goodbye, due out Labor Day Weekend.
It was like no interview I’d ever done before. Normally, the actors I interviewed had already done a thousand interviews just like mine before they ever sat down with me. As hard as I tried to make my questions unique and interesting, I usually got cardboard, cookie-cutter answers that sounded just as rehearsed as they probably were. But with Cole, it was different.
He laughed like he meant it. The corners of his eyes crinkled up when I teased him back. He was humble, and it didn’t seem fake. He watched me intently while we talked, whereas most other celebs I’d interviewed tended to scan the room repeatedly, rarely focusing their eyes on me. Cole had even opened up and grumbled to me about how he sometimes got annoyed when fans followed him.
“It’s not that I mind the fans,” he said sheepishly. “I really don’t. I mean, how cool is it to know there are people out there who’ve never met you but who like you anyway? But really, I mean, I sign autographs and chat with them for a while, but sometimes there are these girls who follow me, like ten paces behind when I’m at the grocery store or something. It’s just awkward, you know? I mean, what do you do? Turn around and ask them to join you? Pretend you don’t see them? I never know how to act.”
Cole Brannon was just real. There was no facade. There were no pretenses. He wasn’t acting. And that’s something I had never expected.
As we parted ways at the top of the steps to the Eighth Street station, Cole had given me a hug before I descended to the R train.
Now I couldn’t stop the scene from replaying again and again in my mind.
“I really enjoyed meeting you, Claire,” he’d said as we stood there on the sidewalk.
“It was nice to meet you too,” I’d said. Then he handed me a piece of paper.
“Here’s my cell phone number if you have any more questions,” he said, pressing it into my palm. “It will be easier than going through Ivana. She’s probably still in bed.”
“Um, thanks,” I said, my heart fluttering as I clutched Cole Brannon’s number. Was he flirting with me? No, I decided. He was simply being kind because he knew I’d be stuck working on the article all weekend. The biggest movie star in Hollywood couldn’t possibly be flirting with me.
“Okay then, Little Lady,” he’d said. “I guess this is where we say good-bye.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “Are you going to get back to your hotel all right?”
“I think I can manage without you,” Cole said. He grinned. I could feel my cheeks heat up.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” Cole interrupted. “You’re just easy to tease.” Then he hugged me. I mean, he actually reached out and hugged me, engulfing my five-foot frame with his muscular arms and chest, pulling me into an embrace that was much gentler than I would have imagined had I put any thought into what it would feel like to hug Cole Brannon.
Which, I was embarrassed to admit, I had. Was that inappropriate? I tried not to think about it.
I could still feel his arms around me as the subway rattled on belowground.
He’s a movie star. He dates other movie stars. And you are not a movie star. I kept repeating the words in my head, just in case I had forgotten.
I arrived at the Forty-ninth Street stop and reemerged into the daylight, clutching my shoulder bag full of notes and the tape recorder that held my interview with Cole. It had been a wonderful morning, but I was confident that the tape would be all that would remain of it. Mod would only do a cover story on an actor once, so I knew the closest I’d ever get to Cole Brannon again was a chance run-in at a movie premiere or a Super Bowl party, where he wouldn’t remember my name as I shouted questions at him from behind the ropes of the red carpet.
It was kind of a depressing thought. What a weird world I lived in where sometimes I got to know a person inside and out, only to have them disappear from my life forever. My friends back home envied my access to celebrities. But they never believed me when I told them my job made for the loneliest kind of life.
*
Three hours later, working at breakneck pace, I had managed to transcribe the entire interview, which added up to a whopping twenty single-spaced pages on my computer screen. Now all that was left was to turn the interview into a two-thousand-word profile of Cole Brannon. It wouldn’t take me long, I knew. I’d already started mentally formulating the article, trying to avoid being stirred by Cole’s deep voice in my headphones.
He had seemed almost too good to be true. Despite the flashy temptations of Hollywood, he truly seemed like he had remained grounded and normal. He was one of the only movie stars I’d interviewed who still shopped for himself rather than have a personal shopper pick out everything from his coats to his socks. He still got excited when he got free clothes in the mail from publicists trying to get him to wear their clients’ products.
“It’s like Christmas all the time,” he had exclaimed, shaking his head in wonder. He loved pulling his Red Sox cap low over his eyes, donning a plain, non-designer T-shirt and jeans, and sneaking out alone to movies, dinners, and malls, unrecognized. He was close with his former costars, including George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Anniston, Matt Damon, and Tom Hanks, but his best friends were the guys he’d grown up with and a few pals he’d met in college. He loved reading everything from Shakespeare to James Patterson to Dave Barry, but he hated reading celebrity gossip, because it was so unreliable and silly.
“No offense,” he had quickly added. “I promise I’ll read your article about me. But I know it won’t be gossip or fluff, you know? It’s different.” He loved cooking, surfing, and tuna fishing. And he was scared of spiders, he shyly admitted.
In short, he sounded absolutely normal, and dare I say it, perfect. The only problem I would have was picking and choosing from the many great details. I couldn’t fit them all in the article, although I would have loved to.
My fingers were poised over the keyboard and I was just about to start typing when the phone on my desk jangled loudly, breaking the silence.
“Shit,” I cursed under my breath, knocking my mug over and spilling coffee across my desk for the third time that week. I picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” I answered on the second ring, my heart still thumping from the scare.
“Claire!” It was Wendy, and she sounded accusatory. “You were supposed to call me when you were done interviewing Cole Brannon!”
“Oops,” I said, suddenly guilty. “I’m so sorry, I forgot.”
“You forgot to call me?” Wendy made a strangled noise. “So? What happened?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound innocent. After all, I was innocent, right? I’d just felt a bit attracted to the guy. It wasn’t like I had thrown myself at him. Or slept with him. (Although on second thought, perhaps I should have considered it. Talk about ending my sex drought with a bang! But I digress . . .)
“What was he like?” Wendy asked excitedly, talking a mile a minute. “Was he nice? Was he as cute in person as he is in the movies? Did he hit on you?”
“Slow down!” I laughed. “He was very nice. It was a great interview.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Wendy said. She giggled. “Interview, schminterview. I don’t care. What was he like?”
“He was very nice,” I repeated, although I knew Wendy would keep pressing until I gave her more.
“He was ‘very nice’?” Wendy repeated. “Very nice? Girl, you gotta give me something else to work with here.”
“Okay,” I agreed after a moment of silence. I sighed. “He was gorgeous. You wouldn’t believe how his eyes look in person. He talks about his mom and his big sisters like they’re his best friends in the world—and I think he really means it. He stood up every time I left the table, he laughs all the time, and when he hugged me, it was more gentle than you could imagine.” I was blushing before I finished the sentence. I’d just sounded like a smitten schoolgirl.
Wendy ga
sped and fell silent for long enough that I started to feel uncomfortable.
“Wendy?” I finally asked gingerly.
“He hugged you?” she finally squealed. “He hugged you?” I cleared my throat and immediately regretted telling her.
“Well, it was just to say good-bye, you know,” I said, trying to backtrack. “It was nothing. Just a professional hug.”
“A professional hug?” Wendy repeated flatly. “Claire, c’mon! There’s no such thing as a professional hug. He liked you!”
“Yeah, right.”
“Are you kidding me?” Wendy said. “How often have you been hugged after you do an interview?” Okay, she was right. Never. “Wake up, honey!”
“No way,” I said firmly. I was sure it didn’t mean anything. After all, that would be crazy, right? “I think that’s just how he is. He’s like that with everyone. You should read some of the articles about him that I found in the clip files. He charms everyone.”
“He charms the pants off everyone,” Wendy corrected quickly. “Don’t you read Tattletale?”
I rolled my eyes and tried to pretend that her words didn’t bother me.
“I don’t believe that,” I said softly. I knew exactly what she was talking about.
Tattletale, was so unreliable that our clipping service didn’t even include their articles. But I knew gossip well enough to know that it often contained a grain of truth. And the tabloid rag had reported twice in the last month that Cole Brannon was sleeping around with everyone he could get his hands on—from leading ladies to makeup artists to the nineteen-year-old craft service girl who had worked the buffet line on his last movie set.