Reality jane, p.14
Reality Jane, page 14
At LAX, awaiting the arrival of my baggage, Toni took one look at Grant, then one look at me, then another look at the two of us, and her balloon began to slowly deflate. She would now be sharing me.
“Have you slept with him yet?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“Actually, no. Not sure we’re ready yet.” I had no intention of spoiling what Grant and I had together by blabbing about it.
“If the sex sucks, the relationship sucks. How do you know you like him?”
“Toni, I like him. . . a lot.”
I pulled my sweater tighter as Toni peeled away from the curb at the airport, the roof of her Beemer convertible tucked neatly into its compartment, the breeze whipping my hair onto my face.
“What if he has a small shlong? That’s grounds for Dumpsville,” she said, wagging her finger at me, completely certain of the truth behind her statement.
“He doesn’t,” I said.
“What about Alex-hotty-host? You like him. You should give him a chance!”
“He’s done,” I said, wondering if that was true.
“Why? What happened?” Toni’s face contorted in disappointment. “I’ve been prancing around here, proud of your scandalous behavior. And now you’ve gone all goody two-shoes on me and settled for just one man? Oy! I give up.”
“Well, first, he has a girlfriend. And, second, I heard from one of the chambermaids that she’s like eighteen.”
“So?”
“So, he’s like thirty-six.”
“So? And what the hell does a chambermaid know?” Toni grunted. “Next thing you know, you’ll be consulting Star magazine for stock tips. Anyway, you should at least confront him before you dump him,” she said as we sped down Lincoln Boulevard toward my apartment.
It had all happened so fast. The show ended—or should I say collapsed—in Paris after Dominic leapt out of the closet. Grant, the boys, the mutts, and I were picked up in a van about an hour later and driven back to base camp, where an emergency meeting was called. Grant and I were at the center of it, explaining in detail our ridiculous day. The after-party, which at this point was all I really cared about, was about to become an after-thought, when Naomi decided to end the show on a high note and broke the bank with an elaborate bash featuring endless amounts of booze. This is where I discovered Alex’s duplicity. Mid-shot, the sleazy French maid, who had had her eye on Grant, revealed that Alex and she were “amis,” and that he had told her all about his 18-year-old Slovakian model-girlfriend who lived in Milan hauling in $3,000 a day, and that they were still together. I wanted to slap him, but I couldn’t—he’d already caught a plane back to LA for a gig starting the next day.
This was not altogether horrible. I still had Grant, and Grant was certainly no consolation prize. Before hearing any of the Alex-related rumors, I had been leaning toward Grant as the man to choose. Our van ride back from Paris put me over the top. He was scrumptious, and very much a gentleman. Plus, he was the commitment type. I could just tell. He and I sat alone in the backseats while the other two crew members, up front, played video games, the heirs’ pooches Tofu and Steak nestled blissfully on their laps. It was probably the happiest those dogs had ever been—they weren’t stuffed into a purse or choking on dried sea-kelp doggy bones.
Finally, with some alone time, Grant and I got to know each other. He told me about his surf trips, his three years in Chile on an oregano farm, his family, his start in the biz, working his way up the ranks as a camera tech, and now owning and running a small company with a full set of camera gear and lighting equipment. There was nothing about him I didn’t like. Not one single red flag appeared.
At one point during the drive, he stopped to let one hand drift across my chin, while the other pulled my body tight against his. I’d forgotten whether or not he was a good kisser—I couldn’t remember from our drunken night together. But in this pristine moment, in the back of a white crew van, it was all coming back to me: his gentle touch, his meandering kiss. It was sexy and intimidating, and probably wrong to let it happen here in the van, with people and dogs only inches away. But I acquiesced, hoping the rattle of a van, bouncing on its hinges, would drown out the sound of our kisses.
“More,” I whispered, unveiling my sultriest tone.
Grant pressed his lips against my ear and communicated to me in an exquisite fusion of kissing, breath, and whispers. I soaked it all in. After much smacking and twisting, we finally pulled away and stared at each other, cheeks touching, my legs resting on his. Content.
After the show ended, Grant and I spent two extra weeks touring France. With Craig, for the most part, replaced, and Alex mostly forgotten, I had in Grant a man who was better than any before him. Now, my only issue was that itty-bitty thing called a career.
As far as I could tell, I was unemployed. Karl had already lined up his producers for the edit suite, and I hadn’t talked to Naomi in ages. She had been too busy.
The honeysuckle glistened as Toni pulled her car into the driveway of my sunny one-bedroom. For the first time ever, Los Angeles felt like home and not some temporary stopover. I couldn’t wait to settle in and have a little girl-talk with Toni while sipping wine on the porch.
As I dragged my bags up the front walk, the phone rang. I stopped to suck in the moist salt air—we were a mere seven blocks from the beach.
Never one to miss a call, Toni fumbled to get the key in the door as quickly as she could, and ran to grab my phone. “Jane, it’s for you,” she said, disappointed.
“Who else would it be for?” I laughed.
I gently placed the phone on my ear and gave a soft “hello,” assuming it was Grant calling to say that he missed me already.
“J. . . a. . . n. . . e?” the caller said in a high-pitched drawl, the grating hum of an eleven-year-old boy entering puberty. “How are you, Sugar Blossom?” It was Danny. “I have great news. Karl wants you to produce the wedding! I’ll be supervising to make sure everything’s perfect! I’m so excited.”
Supervising?
“What wedding? How did. . .? Are you. . .?”
Danny, please tell me you’re not suddenly my boss!
I cleared my throat in an attempt to understand. “So, wait. . .” I was about to launch into the whole supervising thing. Then it dawned on me.
“Dagmar and Dominic are still Quitsville, right?”
“Honey,” he said condescendingly, “Sally and Matt. The assistants. One of the surveillance guys, in an act of brilliance, recorded them the entire month in France. We’ve got reams of footage of the little lovebirds together. So Karl persuaded Matt to propose to Sally, and now the network wants to pay for their wedding. It’s a great twist for our show. We have our happy ending. It’s the big payoff.”
“What?”
“Yeah, the network saw our killer surveillance footage and dished out a million dollars for the wedding. For. . . the. . . rights! It’s going to be a two-hour special that airs after our last episode.”
“A million dollars?” I said, still stumbling over my words. I was completely floored. “Two-hour special?”
First of all, it was my “act of brilliance” that had recorded the two little lovebirds. Second, who gets a million dollars and two hours of primetime to tie the knot just for showing up? I wanted to say all this, but nothing came out.
“Yes, my little French Fry. Those two assistants are now millionaires, and soon to be famous millionaires at that. CRP-TV believes that, once the Dagmar show is a hit, people will be fawning all over their two assistants. They’re going to steal the show! Karl says the various networks will come to blows over the chance to air their wedding. Now, no one can touch it. It’s all ours. Anyhoo, babe, are you in?”
“Uh, well, I just, I’m not. . .” I couldn’t. Only in Hollywood could these things happen: a glitzy over-the-top wedding for two former assistants, and Danny, suddenly, my SUPERVISING PRODUCER!
“Sweet Cheeks, whaddya say?” Danny whined. “I need an answer today!”
The idea of Danny as my boss made rubbing balsa wood up and down my naked chest sound pleasant. But somehow, I said yes. My student loan wasn’t about to pay itself off.
“Peachy. Can’t wait!”
Click.
Sun guns and flash bulbs blasted the side of my face. Row upon row of cameramen and reporters pressed tightly against the long velvet rope, thousands of lenses pointed in my direction. It was my first time on one of Hollywood’s illustrious red carpets. My knees buckled. It was the Grammys.
Is this what fame feels like? I thought, smiling large for the band of paparazzi and tossing my hair so curls framed my face. I probably should have been ducking somewhere near the limos, or chauffeuring one, but I couldn’t help but revel in this small taste of fame.
“Someone get that blonde out of the shot?” a producer barked.
“Moi?” I said sheepishly, glancing side-to-side to help grumpy-producer-man find his real target.
Justin Timberlake stopped to talk to E! while I hovered over his shoulder in awe, catching my reflection in the frame of someone’s wide-angle lens.
“Jane, this is crazy! They think we’re celebrities,” Toni beamed, probably believing it.
Usher brushed my shoulder in a full-court strut down the red-rug runway. I sidled up to him. With all the pappa-nazis yelling at him, he hardly noticed the extra body moving in stride with his. I was just about to snap his photo when his publicist bulldozed me.
“Ouch!” I bellowed into my kneecaps, picking my purse up off the ground. “You could say sor—”
“Let’s go, babe.” Naomi popped out of nowhere, linking one of her elbows in mine and the other in Toni’s, racing us away from Usher’s entourage through a sea of celebrities. “Okay, girly-girls, keep abusing your tickets and I’ll put you in the nose-bleeds.”
“But Naomi, I just heard Ryan Seacrest ask who we were!”
“And I’m Jenny from the block,” Naomi teased as she straightened her black blazer to fit her cleavage and flipped her chocolate brown hair off to the side of her curvy body. “Fifth row. Got it? I’ll catch up with you after the show.” She lightly shoved us into the Staples Center and toward the attendants. “Please help them to their seats. I don’t want them getting lost, again!” Naomi winked and quickly disappeared down the long corridor, en route to her boyfriend backstage, bigwig YBC exec Hank Griffin, who was the real reason we were all here.
“We’ll miss you!” I crooned in her direction while the usher began guiding us down the stairs with a flashlight.
We were barely fifteen minutes into the show and I was shifting madly from cheek to cheek. Fortunately, the Grammy soundtrack flooded the Staples Center auditorium, signaling a commercial break. Fingers clutching the armrest, I lurched from my seat, sprinted up the stairs with forearms folded to contain a bloated belly, and scrambled to the bathroom, praying to God to wire me a new bladder and somehow get me back to my seat before the start of the next number.
En route, Naomi instant-messaged me:
Bono’s next. Amazing! You gals hav’g fun?
Peeing!—Jane
Spaz!;) Don’t miss Bono!
It was my first Hollywood awards show. In my whole life, the closest I’d ever come to an event this big, or this cool, was an AC/DC concert in Edmonton. When the bells chimed and Angus Young began screeching Hell’s Bells, I couldn’t have imagined anything more exciting than sparking up my lighter. And as I swayed side-to-side in a pair of zip-around jeans and black concert t-shirt, it all felt so meaningful.
Despite having just two-and-a-half minutes to pee, fluff my hair, and race back, I made it back by a millisecond. The Grammys’ ushers had already placed a seat-filler into my chair—she looked so excited. Toni and I were fifth row center and thinking ourselves quite special, surrounded by A-list celebrities and rock stars.
“Excuse me, Miss.” I gestured respectfully for Ms. Filler to get up and out of my seat in the half-second before the show resumed. “I’m back.” I looked at her sympathetically.
She slipped out inconspicuously while I nearly took Snoop Dog’s foot out allowing her to leave. Toni was leaning sideways, trying to eavesdrop on the man who owned Purr Magazine, Brock Barrington, one row up and to the right.
“It’s pretty juicy,” she whispered. “Apparently, Brock is pissed. During the commercial break, when his three Kitten girfriends went to the bathroom, they put seat-fillers in their chairs. Then he kicked the fillers—three, you know, regular looking girls, dressed nice—out of their seats because, he said, “I don’t do dogs. I do Kittens!”
“Say what?” I responded in shock.
“Yeah, he’s a total asshole. And he’s old enough to be Grandpa to those porn stars.”
“Speaking of porn stars, I wonder how our little Lucy’s doing,” I said, leaning into Toni’s ear.
During my time in France, Naomi and Karl had the network’s legal department fire Lucy. They were able to prove that, because of her complete lack of professionalism, she was legally unable to fulfill her contract—there were at least two hours of temper tantrums caught on tape to back their claim up.
In the meantime, Naomi’s production company was on fire, with three reality shows in production at the same time. Naomi could barely keep up. To boot, she now had this famous mover and shaker boyfriend. I knew very few of the details. With all the Dagmar drama in France, Naomi and I barely had a moment for girl-talk, and hence hadn’t had our post-shoot chat.
Our Grammy tickets were a guilt gift from Naomi for ignoring her favorite Canadian protégé. Toni told me the tickets were free thanks to her highfalutin’ Hollywood exec boyfriend. Didn’t matter. I was just happy to be there.
“Shhh!” Toni whispered, pointing toward someone emerging from a shadow stage right. “It’s Bono! I love him.”
“Me, too,” I said, completely awed. I could practically touch him. “Do you think he’ll be at the after party? How cool would that be?”
“Jane, quiet!” She pinched my hand.
Toni wore a tight-fitting, copper-colored, floor-length gown that squeezed in her ’50s bombshell curves. She also looked very old Hollywood with her deep-set eyes and ample breasts. It wasn’t until my move to LA that I felt the need to classify women’s boobs. Now, it was part of just about every description, like: “Oh yeah, she’s nice, about 5’5’, red hair, fake boobs.” Toni’s brassy brown-blonde hair sprouted funky tentacles from her French roll. It was the kind of hairdo that either took hours of painstaking assembly, or two minutes, a bobby-pin, and a shot of tequila. With Toni, which one was anyone’s guess.
“Quit fidgeting.” Toni bumped me. “What are you doing? Your dress looks fine. God, this woman is amazing!”
Beyoncé was onstage, accepting her Grammy.
“It’s caught on my underwear,” I said. “Damn! Shouldn’t have worn these stupid. . . They’re snagging my dress. On the crotch!” I pulled my dress from where its sequins had velcroed to my underwear. “This is why women used to wear slips,” I whispered, attempting to straighten the run that afflicted my scant nylon swath. “Whatever happened to slips anyway? Do people still wear them?”
“They’re called Spanx! And I’m trying to listen!”
Despite a few snags below the belly button, I was looking satisfyingly Hollywood for a relative newbie. Toni had convinced me to wear one of my mom’s retro gowns I’d snuck from her dress storage last time I was home. The gown was slinky green nylon with a psychedelic gold pattern. It fit snugly, with a bold slit that zoomed high-thigh, a back that plunged past the curve of my spine, and halter ties that swung over my shoulders and trickled toward my rump. It was groovy. And thanks to its retro authenticity, it looked like a dress any of these rock stars or their dates could have worn.
“Hey, Toni, Antonio Banderas checked me out on my way back from the can. I put an extra hip-check in my walk just for him,” I giggled.
“Isn’t he like 100 now?” Toni poked me and belted out her signature laugh.
“I don’t care,” I swooned. “Ever since Mambo Kings and the way he crooned ‘Beautiful Maria.’ Yum!”
“Too funny. Did Melanie see?” Toni asked.
“Hope not,” I gushed. “They’ll probably be at the after party.”
None of the big stars from the Grammys were at YBC’s after party. So much for “Jane and Toni: Celebrity Insiders!” Somebody said they all went to the Vanity Fair party at Chateau Marmont. It was apparently the party to go to, but without some celebrity connection, we didn’t stand a chance of getting past security.
“That one—grab me that one.” I pointed while nudging Naomi. My plate was too full to add anything else.
“Just eat it,” Naomi said, stuffing a pink glazed chocolate truffle into my mouth. It looked like a Christmas ornament with a delicate and edible chocolate treble clef teetering on its center. “I need the room for that hazelnut thingy on my plate.”
Naomi dug into the pile of intricately decorated hedgehogs, which were surrounded by shelves of crystal and ivy. On the other side sat a giant chocolate fountain, burbling Belgian’s finest. Being with Naomi, here at the Grammys, momentarily reminded me of our time in Mexico. She had been relaxed there.
“They need bigger plates,” I sneered, stacking another pink treble-clef truffle on my overloaded plate.
“We should find Toni,” Naomi said as we shuffled past endless buffets of food. “And my boyfriend,” Naomi said, laughing as if she didn’t really care if we did or not. “By the way, how’s it going with Danny and our wedding special? I’ve been under a pile of legal mumbo-jumbo developing this new game show pilot for ABC.”
“Another new show?”
“Jane, honey, we’re always pitching,” she said in her best mentoring voice. “This biz is pitch or plummet. And I’ve got to make my millions before 50!”
“You’re my idol,” I said to Naomi, toasting her with my glass. “Can I be you?”
