Fans of the actors, in large part fans of Jack Hamilton, showed up in droves when filming locations were leaked to the press. Barricades and fleets of black Suburbans were required to shuttle the cast back and forth, and security was out in full force as fans jostled to get a glimpse of their favorite Sexy Scientist Guy. Although in the past Hamilton has usually been willing to pose for pictures and sign autographs, reports from those working inside the closed set say that having the fans around this time really seemed to cause a problem. He’s reported to have said they were breaking his concentration, and once even went as far as to demand that the fans be removed from a location before he would come out of his trailer. But trouble on set or not, the film has wrapped, and the studio is hoping for a quick turnaround and release, likely to capitalize on the continued success and interest in Jack Hamilton and the renewed interest in Adam Kasen, former golden boy and confirmed Hollywood bad boy.
TMZ
Redhead out on the town, but where’s her Scientist Guy? Last night our photographers caught up with Grace Sheridan as she left a restaurant in West Hollywood. Reports inside said she met with her manager, Holly Newman, and the writer for her hit show, Mabel’s Unstable?, Michael O’Connell, before leaving alone. She didn’t answer any questions, but when asked about her are-they-or-aren’t-they boyfriend, Jack Hamilton, she was visibly upset. Reports that he has plans to stay in the Nevada desert indefinitely, even though filming has ended on his new movie, Soldier Boy, certainly has set tongues wagging about the future for this couple, the worst-kept secret in Tinseltown. With Sheridan’s new solo success and her outspoken views on beauty standards, does she need the Scientist Guy?
The same night Sheridan dined with friends in Los Angeles, Hamilton was spotted in the VIP section of Lush, which seems to have become the actor’s nightly habit. Seen out almost every night on the town, the formerly private actor seems hell-bent on embracing the Hollywood culture of live fast and hard.
Are they or aren’t they? Wasn’t that the question everyone wanted the answer to, including yours truly.
I sat back in my seat, closed out of the window on my phone, and promised once more to never ever, ever, ever google myself again. Or Jack. Neither. Both. Never. I pulled out of the parking garage on Wilshire after a grueling session with Megan, looking everywhere for tan sedans. All clear. Never googling again.
Who are you kidding?
Okay, I won’t until tomorrow.
Again, who are you kidding?
I knew I would do it again later today, so this was just a little lie I told myself—a lie that made it easier to rationalize inside where the crazy hides that I somehow now had a life where I could google myself. Myself!
Flights of fancy aside, let’s go back to the question on deck.
Are they or aren’t they?
Sadly, all evidence would point to aren’t they.
Since the night Jack left for the desert we had not spoken, something that I could scarcely believe. But that’s how it happens. A day becomes two, two becomes five, a freaking week goes by, then two? And then the ludicrous becomes real. At that point, it’s just semantics. Who’s gonna be the one to reach out? Who’s gonna be the bigger person or the weakest weenie? Apparently, we were both semantic.
If someone had told me six months ago that Jack and I would break up without even a phone call, I’d have said no way. Never happen. Not to us. But were we broken up? See, that’s the thing of it. When shit goes bad, sometimes you can get bogged down in it, wrap yourself in it, but still not know. I’d analyzed the he saids and the she should haves, but in the end, I still didn’t know. But if I stepped back from it, then yes, we were probably broken up.
I winced even as I thought it, so I rolled down the windows and breathed deep, getting a little hit of smog to clear my head.
A boy and a girl meet, fall in love, and hide their romance because of boy’s fan club. Girl breaks his heart because she’s an idiot. Boy and girl get back together. Boy and girl have sex, have sex, have more of the sex. Girl gets TV show; boy drinks. Girl gets famous over sixteen pounds. Boy drinks more; girl lets boy leave one night knowing this can’t possibly be the end. Girl sweeps up glass. Boy doesn’t come back.
And in the interim, girl kicks ass. Is girl enjoying it? She’s trying to.
The show was a hit. It continued to gain momentum, and by the middle of the shortened summer season, a full season had been ordered. Same writer. Same cast. New director. Hee-hee.
We went into production on the new season almost immediately, and I threw myself into the work—creating, owning, listening, and responding. Michael’s writing had hit new strides, taking Mabel and the entire cast into places as an actress I was terrified of, which made it all the more exhilarating when I did go there and didn’t shy away.
Professionally, I was killing it. Personally, I was a ghost town.
Jack had texted me—twice, in fact, since the first time. First to tell me congratulations on the show getting picked up, that he hadn’t missed an episode, and that he was proud of me. The second time, weeks later, he texted me a picture of a television. On the screen? The Golden Girls.
I responded both times, but he never texted back. What could I glean from these texts? He was keeping tabs on what I was up to and that he was as happy as I was about the Golden Gs being back on TV Land.
He called one night too, late. After 3:00 a.m. When I answered, he said nothing. But I could hear him breathing.
“Jack? Hey, you there?”
Breathing.
“Jack, you okay?”
Heavy breathing.
“Seriously? That’s what you called me for?”
Groan.
Yeah, I may have let him finish. I mean, come on. And I did only a few things on my end, just a few. But we never spoke. He never said a word. I cried afterward.
So are we or aren’t we? Seriously, someone please clue me in.
I kept tabs on him as much as I could through the Google stalking and the little bits Holly knew. He’d finally responded to her, signed on to do the next Time movie, and then went back to not answering his phone when she called. She eventually got him on the line, told him she wasn’t going to work with him this way and that if he wanted another manager he could find one. He relented but let her know in no uncertain terms that he was on a break until the Time sequel started shooting this fall. He didn’t want to do any interviews, he wasn’t doing any TV appearances, and he essentially wanted to be left alone until he had to do promotion for Soldier Boy, to which he’d already agreed to do.
He wanted to be left alone, wanted to do his thing and not apologize for it, and that was it. He was like Howard Hughes meets Charlie Sheen, with a side of Dylan McKay. So Holly did what he asked and didn’t point out that his behavior was beginning to garner him a reputation, that it could cost him future jobs. She knew if he fired her, there would be a huge line of people interested in representing him—he was still a very much in demand movie star. And in her way, even if they weren’t speaking, as long as she worked with him she could still keep the tiniest of eyes on him. And in the tiniest of ways, it made me feel better.
And through the tiniest of hints, I believed he was also letting me know he didn’t want me to contact him. He knew Holly well enough to know that she’d tell me everything, let me know he was okay but she’d also relay that he didn’t want anyone contacting him. So I didn’t.
And it was killing me. Because in the middle of all of this—this drama surrounding Jack and how he was choosing to deal with the pressure—I got left out in the cold. I lost my boyfriend. I was pissed, sure, but I was hurt, and more than that, I was lonely.
Seriously lonely. I missed the fuck out of Jack. My house felt too big, my bed felt too wide, and every time I saw a bag of Chex Mix, my heart broke a little more. Like the melba toasts at the bottom of the bag, I was broken into pieces. And kind of tossed aside like the pretzels no one wanted.
I longed to be able to share with him wh
at was going on with me, how I had my own pressures and problems to deal with, not to mention needing someone to celebrate these successes as they happened. I’d lost my biggest cheerleader, my shower partner, and the guy who made me laugh louder and moan deeper than anyone else ever could, all at the same time. And oh my God, it hurt.
The street blurred in front of me as tears made their way from the pit of my stomach and out through my eyeballs. I pulled over as soon as I could, wracked with sobs as I let it wash over me: the overwhelming sadness mixed with my very real fear that it was over and my George would not be holding my boobies up in the shower ever again. I cried until I was hoarse, until my eyes were puffy and swollen, until I looked like I’d been hit in the face with a shovel and then backhoed with mascara goo.
But even in this moment, my radar was up, and when I saw a tan sedan turning around on the side street, I gulped my emotion down and pulled back out into traffic. I wiped my nose on my sleeve like a kid would do and hoped like hell it was just a tan sedan filled with normal people and not vultures and their cameras . . . who would sell a story with a title like “The Redhead Breaks Down.”
Are they or aren’t they? Could you be broken up and not know it? Could you be broken up even if you were still in love with him and you were pretty sure he was still in love with you too? I had no answers.
I lost the sedan in traffic and made my way back up into the canyons. I’d google Jack as soon as I got home to make sure nothing new was going on. Ironic that the same tan sedans I hated were also the only way I knew what he was doing, how he was doing. I was buying into the system that contributed to the very issues he was having so much trouble dealing with. And watching him deteriorate, watching him make an ass of himself? It was really hard.
Michael came over for dinner that night. He wanted to run through some ideas about making changes for a few of the later episodes. Now that we had a full season of thirteen episodes to work with, he was able to really delve into some of the other characters, making it a true ensemble piece.
Did any other lead actress have such a close relationship with the creator and head writer of the show? Probably not, but they probably also didn’t have the history Michael and I had. Since Jack left, Michael had stepped even more into the role of big brother. He checked in with me sometimes even more often than Holly, who was going to try to stop by after work as well. These two. They were keeping me busy, keeping me occupied. It was sweet, really.
As he tore lettuce for a salad, Michael told me about an incident during their vacation in Fiji, the “someplace tropical” he had hinted at.
“So this poor girl, who had just spilled an entire tray of mai tais all over the place, was just trying to clean up—clean up the table, clean up the floor, and clean up, well, my lap.”
“Your lap?” I laughed, reaching over him to grab the tongs.
“Yeah, it kind of went, well, all over my pants.” He grinned, turning red.
“And let me guess, when she went in to clean, Holly had something to say about it?”
“She really did. She was not having it.” He laughed and grabbed an avocado to slice for the salad. I watched him for a moment, his smile continuing as he thought about it and about the girl he was in love with. God, I missed that look. For the second time today, tears sprang to my eyes, and I turned away, not wanting Michael to see me upset. The timer went off on the oven and, wiping my eyes a bit, I grabbed the oven mitts to take out the chicken I was roasting.
“You need help with that?” he asked.
“Nope I got it,” I said, keeping my face turned away. I pulled out the dish, but eyes blurred, I caught the edge of the oven, my hand slipped, and down went the chicken. I tried to catch it, but missed, and the casserole dish shattered on the floor.
“Son of a bitch!” I stared at the mess at my feet. Throwing the mitts aside, I kicked the chicken, stomping my feet. “Son of a bitch!” I slammed the oven door and turned in a circle, repeating the same curse over and over again. Tears streamed down my face, and the chicken was now chicken hash under my shoes as I vented and raged. That poor chicken—it had no idea. “I just feel . . . so goddamned . . . helpless! It’s like he’s driving toward a cliff, and I can’t do a thing about it,” I sputtered, sinking to the floor and looking up at Michael, who was holding the salad and watching me unravel.
He put down the salad. “Aw, Grace, I know.” He pulled me up from the floor and wrapped his arms around me. I literally cried on his shoulder, ankle-deep in chicken and temporary insanity and scared to death. Through my sobs I heard the clicking of heels across the floor and looked up to see Holly. She looked at us, looked at the mess, and smiled ruefully.
“Well, fruitcake, looks like we’re ordering in tonight.”
I might have cried on her shoulder as well.
When I packed the two of them off that night, the kitchen had been cleaned. Michael had taken the broken dish out to the garbage while Holly and I mopped the floor. After my meltdown we ended up ordering pizza and ate it on the floor in the family room while watching mindless television and laughing, keeping things light.
I’d let it all out tonight, my frustrations and my fear, and now I was exhausted. Turning out the lights, I headed back to the bedroom, my gaze automatically going to his side of the bed. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and crawled under the covers. I tossed and turned for a few moments, finally slipping across to his side, to his pillow. The sheets had been washed numerous times since he’d left, but if I closed my eyes and breathed deeply enough, I swore I could still get a hit of my Brit.
Tucked in and cried out, I sunk into sleep. I was not at all prepared for the call that would come in at 2:37 a.m.
“Grace?”
“Hmm . . .” I mumbled, running my hands through my hair, trying to wake up. Holly was on the phone. At 2:37 in the morning. Why the hell was Holly calling me at 2:37 in the morning? I sat up in bed.
“Why the hell are you calling me at 2:37 in the morning? What’s wrong?”
“Grace, take it easy.”
“Why would you tell me to take it easy? What’s going on?” Panic gripped me as I got out of bed and began to pace.
“Shit. I didn’t even know if I should call you or not. To be honest, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Holly! Tell me what you know or—”
“Jack got himself into a fight at some club. He’s pretty messed up.”
I covered my face with my hand. Oh no.
“It’s a mess, Grace. Cops are there, photographers are there, there are already people who were in the club posting pictures of it. It looks like fucking chaos. That’s about all I know. One of the guys he was with called me when they took him in.”
“Wait, took him in? Took him in where?”
“I think your boy got himself arrested.” She sighed. “I honestly don’t even know what to do at this point.”
I closed my eyes tightly and breathed deep.
“I do.” I reached for my pants. “I’m going to Vegas.”
eighteen
I stopped for gas just outside of Las Vegas. I put the nozzle into the tank and leaned back against my car, looking at the dawn beginning to creep over the desert.
I had flown out of the house approximately seven minutes after hanging up the phone with Holly. I threw some clothes in a bag, grabbed my purse, and got in the car. Got back out of the car, went back inside for my shoes, and was on the highway in moments.
I didn’t have a clue what I would find when I got there, or what kind of reception I would get, but I was barreling down on the city of sin with determination. Something Jack had said to me when he came to see me in New York kept zinging around in my head: “I’m in this thing with you, a willing participant, and you can’t decide for both of us.”
Smart guy. He was totally right, though, and I had shut him out and shut him down last year when I went through my own meltdown. Granted, I hadn’t been in a bar fight, but I had been just as out of my mind as he s
eemed to be. I scrolled through my phone, checking the newsfeeds on all the gossip sites. Ugh, it was everywhere.
As breakfast came to the East Coast, people tuning in to their morning talk shows were getting their first taste of the events of the night before and how their Super Sexy Scientist Guy was a barroom brawler. Holly managed it as best she could, but she said only that there would be a statement later in the day. While I drove across the desert, she blew up the phones at the LVPD, finding out anything she could.
She called to tell me Jack hadn’t been charged. Yet. He was at the local hospital, being treated for injuries she’d been able to confirm were “non–life-threatening,” but that was it. I had no idea what shape he’d be in when I got there.
My phone beeped. I had a new text from Holly.
Talked to communications director at the hospital. You’re good to go. She said drive around and go thru the ambulance bay. No press back there. Call me later, fruitcake. Xo
I finished filling up the tank and got back on the road.
My navigation system took me straight to the hospital, and as I drove to the back entrance, I could see a gaggle of photographers outside the main doors. Keeping that in mind, I parked as close as I could to where the ambulances were housed, then used them for cover as I made my way to the back door. The fact that I was using anything for cover, rather than just entering the hospital the regular way, brought home to me one more time how far outside the regular way things were.
I was recognized by a hospital security guard immediately, and he ushered me to the elevator. “Your boy’s up on the fifth floor. Just tell them at the desk who you are,” he said, nodding as the door opened.