How to Sleep with a Movie Star

  Note to self: No more deep breathing in subway stations.

  I drowned the smell with another swig from the bottle.

  “How could I be so stupid?” I asked myself aloud after I’d taken a few more gulps. I was greeted with silence. I was already feeling the wine. There was no one else in the station, so I voiced my anger a bit more loudly. “How could I be so stupid?!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. This time my question was greeted with the echo of my voice off the cold steel of the subway tracks.

  A few seconds later, a middle-aged man in a suit descended into the subway station, looking at me like I was crazy as he passed by. He must have heard me yelling. To prove his suspicions correct about my mental state, I took another giant swig from the bottle. I let the smooth, warming wine slip gently down my throat, embracing the burning in my empty stomach as it settled. When I looked up again, he was staring at me. He looked quickly away when our eyes met.

  I laughed. I knew what I looked like.

  The subway came after what felt like an eternity, and the man in the suit disappeared into another car. I stepped into the door that pulled up right in front of me and settled into a cold, hard plastic seat. As the doors closed, I stared at the man across from me. He was about thirty, Tom’s age, and he was alone. I could smell his cologne from across the car, and it looked like he’d just shaved.

  I wondered if he was going on a date. Maybe he was going to see his girlfriend. Did she know that men cheated? Someone should warn her. Someone should tell her not to trust him.

  I took another swig without taking my eyes off him. His eyes widened in surprise as I tilted the wine bottle up for a refreshing gulp. I wanted to laugh. In my perfectly tailored black pencil skirt and my pink shell—the same outfit I had worn to interview Cole Brannon—I must have looked the complete opposite of someone who would be swigging wine from a brown bag in a subway car.

  Yeah, buddy, we’re all full of surprises. Nothing is what it seems.

  I got off the subway at Forty-ninth Street (my regular stop, out of habit) and stood aboveground, for a moment, just breathing in and out. I felt invisible. I hardly ever came to midtown during the weekends, and it was strange to see the streets so empty. I was used to rush-hour foot traffic as I made my way over to Broadway for work.

  I took one last gulp out of the wine bottle and tossed it in a garbage can. It was almost empty anyhow, and I was getting sick of drinking it. I was lucid enough to know that getting drunk wasn’t an answer to my problems—in fact, I’d never tried to solve anything that way before—but I didn’t see many alternatives. I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t face Tom again. I couldn’t stand to see his face. I hated him. With all my heart. And yet I loved him. With all my heart. I hadn’t realized it was possible to feel both things at once.

  “Wendy,” I mumbled, suddenly realizing that I could call her. She’d know what to do. I paused for a moment. Would she say, “I told you so”? Maybe. But probably not. She was my best friend. You were supposed to be able to turn to best friends in times like this, right?

  Not that I had ever suspected I would have a time like this.

  I fumbled in my big bag, pushing past pages I’d written just this afternoon about Cole Brannon, who was evidently a sex addict. He’d tricked me too. He made me believe he was a nice guy, when in reality he was a sex addict who was sleeping with Ivana Donatelli. And probably Kylie Dane too, despite his convincing protests. They were all scum.

  Note to self: Men are scum. Lying scum.

  I finally found my cell phone. With shaking hands, I pulled it triumphantly out of the bag. I leaned back against the wall of Katzenberg’s Deli, just outside the stairs to the Forty-ninth Street stop, to steady myself. Slowly, carefully, I dialed Wendy’s number.

  It rang and rang, four times. Then her answering machine picked up. Was she out? Damn. She was one of the last people in America who didn’t have a cell phone. There was no other way to reach her.

  “This is Wendy,” her voice chirped cheerfully into my ear. “Leave me a message, and I’ll call you back.” The machine beeped, and I paused for a moment.

  “Wendy, are you there? Wendy?” I realized suddenly that my voice was very slurred. Logic told me that drinking almost an entire bottle of wine on an empty stomach in a thirty-minute period would do that. But hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it? “Wendy, you were right. You were right all along. About Tom. You have to call me, okay? You have to call me. Because I need to talk to you. Please call me, Wendy. On my cell phone. Don’t call me at home. Tom’s there.”

  I was still repeating myself and slurring rather unintelligibly into the phone when her machine cut me off. Damned machine. Didn’t it know I needed someone to talk to? I held the phone away from my ear for a moment and stared at it, as if it might tell me where Wendy was. When I realized it wasn’t about to impart that information, I sighed and jabbed my finger at the End button. I tossed the phone back in my shoulder bag and leaned against the deli window.

  The moment I started to relax, images of Tom straddled by the naked, full-breasted brunette from the Christmas party flooded my brain.

  “No,” I said aloud, shaking my head and forcing my eyes open. I didn’t want to think about that. Not here, not now. I couldn’t.

  Suddenly, I knew what to do. I’d go to Metro, the bar Wendy and I went to after work every so often for happy hour. In fact, I’d had my slutty-boot-in-subway-grate debacle outside Metro. But that felt like eons ago. And they probably wouldn’t remember me.

  In any case, it would be a familiar place to sit down. And I knew I needed to sit down. I also knew I needed a glass of water and probably a nice cold shower, but it was clear that as soon as I sobered up, I’d start thinking about Tom again. I didn’t want to do that tonight. I wouldn’t think about him, and I wouldn’t cry again. The only way I could avoid that was to have another drink. Metro had drinks.

  I started walking in the direction of Broadway.

  *

  Metro was nearly empty when I staggered in the door. It was the first time I’d seen it like that. I’d only been there after work, when the happy-hour crowds threatened to overflow onto Eighth Avenue, which was always creeping by in a blur of taxis outside the darkened plate-glass windows.

  I surveyed the room as I stood in the doorway. A young couple was huddled together in a corner booth, looking into each other’s eyes. Yuck. Three thirtysomething women laughed and talked in another corner, all holding brightly colored martinis. A fiftysomething couple played pool in the back, and sitting at the bar was a man in a black shirt and a baseball cap, his back to me, deep in conversation with the bartender. I sat down at the opposite end of the bar, as far away from the man as I could get. I knew what I would look like. A single girl all by herself on a Saturday night, already drunk by 9 p.m., sidling up next to the bar.

  I’d look like I was trying to pick up a date.

  But really, if a guy tried to hit on me tonight, I might just turn around and punch him.

  It actually seemed like a good idea. I mulled it over for a moment. I could skip all the steps where he courts me, buys me dinner, buys me gifts, moves in with me, and then cheats on me. I could cut a whole year out simply by slugging him the first time we met.

  Too bad I hadn’t done that with Tom.

  The bartender raised an eyebrow at me and took a few steps closer. His friend, the broad-shouldered man in the black shirt, turned to look at me from the shadows at the other end of the bar. I snarled at him and sent him telepathic messages (which, of course, you’re able to do when you’re drunk).

  Don’t even think about it, buddy. Unless you want to get hurt. I have a mean right hook.

  “I’ll have the usual,” I said as the bartender approached. He looked at me in confusion, and I giggled. I’d always wanted to say that at a bar. “A Corona,” I said when I was done laughing. “And a shot of tequila.” If I was going to get drunk—okay, drunker—I might as well do it right.

  “Can I see som
e ID?” the bartender asked suspiciously. Damn. I was so sick of looking like I was sixteen. I fumbled in my bag until I found my wallet, which I pulled out triumphantly. It took me another full minute to grasp my driver’s license and pull it out from the plastic enclosure.

  “Aha!” I exclaimed as the license finally came out. I squinted for a moment until I could read the bartender’s name tag. “Here ya’ go, Jay,” I said with false cheer. I handed him the ID. He looked at it closely for a second, then handed it back with a strange expression on his face that I couldn’t quite interpret. Not that I had the energy to care. Maybe he looked strange simply because he was a man. They were all strange.

  “Okay,” he said. I watched him walk down to the other end of the bar, where he reached into the glass-front fridge and pulled out a Corona. He said something to the man in the baseball cap, who turned and looked at me for a moment from the shadows. I growled another telepathic message in his general direction. What are you looking at? Haven’t you seen a drunk girl before?

  “Here’s your drink,” Jay the bartender said a minute later, plunking the Corona down in front of me. He reached under the bar for a shot glass and pulled out a bottle of Jose Cuervo.

  “Ah, Jose, old friend,” I mumbled, prompting another strange look from the bartender.

  He filled the shot glass with the smooth, gold liquid, then reached down for two lime slices. He stuck one into the top of my Corona bottle and handed the other to me. “Here,” he said. He lifted a glass of soda in a mock toast. “Cheers.”

  I downed the tequila in one gulp and bit hard into the lime, my taste buds balking at the sour taste.

  *

  Three Coronas, two tequila shots, and four bathroom trips later, I could barely keep my eyes open, but at least I wasn’t thinking about Tom. Nope. I was thinking about what I wanted to drink next. I knew I’d end up with either a Corona, a tequila shot, or both, so it shouldn’t have been a hard decision, but somehow it was. As I strained my eyes to read the labels of the liquor bottles lining the back shelf—impossible, given my drunken stupor—Jay set down a tall, full glass of clear liquid over ice in front of me.

  “A drink from the gentleman,” he said, winking at me. Or at least, I thought he winked at me. I couldn’t see too well anymore. I examined the glass through bleary eyes. Vodka, maybe? Gin? I looked at it closely. I sniffed it. It was water.

  “Huh?” I mumbled as he walked away. Gentleman? What gentleman? And wasn’t that word an oxymoron? Why had I never thought of that before? Men weren’t gentle. They broke your heart. Even the ones who hugged you good-bye. They were probably just sex addicts who wanted to get in your pants.

  I looked down the length of the bar. The man in the black shirt and baseball cap was gone. I hadn’t noticed him leave. Who had sent me the drink? Was the bartender going crazy? Or was I the only one losing my mind?

  “Twice in one day,” said a deep voice suddenly in my ear, startling me. I jumped and nearly fell off the bar stool. A strong hand steadied me.

  “Twice in one day, what?” I mumbled crossly, swiveling on my stool to see who stood behind me. I almost swiveled right off the stool, but again, a gentle hand on my lower back kept me in place.

  “Twice in one day you sit a few feet away from me, and don’t even notice me,” said the voice in my ear. “I should be insulted.” I blinked as the swivel was complete. It was the guy from the other end of the bar, the guy who’d been looking at me from the shadows. What the hell was he talking about? Was this some kind of new pickup line?

  Obviously, I needed to get out more. I was used to the generally cheesy “So, were you born this beautiful?” lines that men had been using throughout the ’90s and the early years of the new millennium. But perhaps things had changed during my time with Tom.

  The man looked good—although blurry—in a black shirt and khakis, with a baseball cap pulled low, casting a shadow over the rest of his face. But, I reminded myself, men are scum. Scum. Maybe I should punch him.

  I squinted at him, and suddenly I realized that he looked familiar. Really familiar. It took another second for realization to fully dawn.

  When it did, I was mortified.

  There, in the familiar Red Sox cap, just inches away from me, was Cole Brannon. The movie star. The gorgeous, polite, perfect movie star. The sex-addicted, lying movie star.

  He grinned, waiting for me to say something. Damn those twinkling blue eyes. They’d sucked me in once, but now I knew his secret. I squinted at him. He’s a sex addict! Wendy’s words rang in my head.

  “Where’s Ivana?” I slurred. Aha! That would teach him. The jig is up, mister. I’m on to you.

  “Huh?” He looked at me closely for a moment, confusion suddenly etched across his perfect face. “Ivana? My publicist?”

  He was playing dumb. How coy. Like I didn’t know.

  “You know who I mean,” I said, trying to sound accusatory, but probably just sounding drunk.

  “Ivana, my publicist?” he repeated. He stared at me for a moment. Then he laughed. “You know, Claire, she doesn’t go everywhere with me. I’m allowed out alone once in a while without a chaperone.”

  I tried to make a face at him, but scrunching my eyes up only made me dizzy. I swayed, and he steadied me again.

  “Whoa, looks like somebody’s had a little too much to drink,” he said softly, his hand still on my back. I liked it there, I realized. But only because it meant I wouldn’t fall off the bar stool, which seemed like a pretty real possibility at the moment. Why didn’t they put backs on these things?

  “Not me,” I mumbled.

  “No, of course not,” he said solemnly. He looked suspiciously like he was fighting back a grin. He pulled up the stool next to me, keeping his hand on my back all the while to steady me. “Is this a typical Saturday night for you, then?”

  It took me a minute to realize he was kidding.

  “No,” I said stiffly. “It is not.” I tried my best to sound haughty. “Is it a typical Saturday night for you? What are you doing at my bar?” What was he doing here? Of all the bars in Manhattan, why would he have to wind up at the same bar where I was trying to drink my troubles away?

  “No, this is not a typical Saturday night for me,” Cole said, smiling with what I could have sworn was gentle pity. I was suddenly just lucid enough to feel embarrassed. “And I didn’t realize this was your bar.” I made a face because I was pretty sure he was teasing me.

  “Jay Cash, there,” he gestured to the bartender, “is an old college buddy of mine. I usually drop in on him when I’m in New York.” The bartender waved from the other end of the bar as I looked up. Cole looked at me for a minute. “Your turn.”

  “My turn what?” I asked grumpily. I’d already forgotten what we were talking about.

  “Your turn to tell me what you’re doing here by yourself, getting drunk on a Saturday night,” he said. “Even if this is your bar.” His face was inches from mine. I squinted at him and suddenly noticed that his blue eyes were flecked with gold. How cool.

  “I’m not drunk,” I said. He laughed.

  “Oh yeah, I can tell,” he said. “Totally sober.” He picked up the glass of water and handed it to me. “Here, have a sip.”

  I was too tired to protest. I took a long drink of the water. It actually felt good going down my throat. Better than the tequila.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Cole asked softly as I drank. I didn’t answer for a moment, too busy gulping down the water. Cole gently took the glass out of my hand when I was done, setting it back on the bar. I closed my eyes because I could feel thoughts of Tom rushing in, and I wanted to hide from them. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at Cole. He had an expression of deep concern on that perfectly formed face that I’d seen so many times in movie theaters.

  “When I got home from the office today,” I said, speaking slowly because I knew my words were all running together, “I found my boyfriend in my bed. Having sex. With another woman.” The mental im
age of the brunette bobbing up and down on him flooded back into my mind with all the clarity of a television show played on Tom’s precious high-definition TV that I’d bought him. But I’d never seen that kind of thing on Nick at Nite. If Gilligan had gotten it on with Mary Ann, he had done it off-screen. I swallowed hard.

  “Oh, no,” Cole breathed. He started rubbing my back with the strong hand he had there to steady me. I closed my eyes for a moment. His touch felt good. “Claire, I’m so sorry.”

  I shrugged, fighting back the tears that had suddenly welled in my eyes.

  “I should have known,” I said, sniffing. I felt a single tear escape and roll down my right cheek. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Don’t ever say that,” Cole said, gently leaning in. He put an arm around me. I remembered Wendy’s words again. He’s a sex addict! Did he think he was going to have sex with me?

  I struggled to pull out of his embrace for a moment, but then I stopped. What the hell. I could use the help staying upright. I leaned in to him.

  “Don’t ever say you’re an idiot, Claire,” Cole said as he hugged me. “Your boyfriend, he’s the idiot. To cheat on a woman like you . . .” Cole’s voice trailed off, and his pity somehow triggered the opening of my floodgates.

  “I let him live with me, and he never wanted to have sex with me!” I was rambling now through sniffles and tears. “And he said he was writing a novel, and he never worked or anything, and he was always in bed, and he treated me like I didn’t matter, and I don’t know what I was thinking.” I wasn’t making much sense as I continued to blubber unintelligibly. I realized that I was crying, hard. Damn. I’d come into Metro to forget about Tom, not to talk about him. But somehow, it was nice to tell someone. Finally. Someone who didn’t seem like he was judging me.

  Cole pulled me closer and rubbed my back as I sobbed into his shoulder. It felt good to be held. As his hand moved in small, gentle circles, I forgot that I was supposed to have a totally professional relationship with him. I forgot about Tom. I forgot that Cole Brannon was a sex addict. I forgot that he was a movie star who wasn’t supposed to remember who I was. Right now, he was just Cole. A friend. My friend who cared and wanted to listen to me.