Been There, Married That, page 30
“I vaguely recall being jealous over a tool belt,” I said. I’d brought her some water. She was busy tearing up the garage floor in the back of the house, on the alleyway. She’d found pipes in the wall; someone had lived in that little space years ago, and there’d been a bathroom, a doll-sized kitchen. Fin knew guys who knew guys who knew construction, and she supervised them. Lay down a wood floor, install a toilet, a sink. Wire the place and put up drywall.
When she gets tired, she plays the piano. Which is in the backyard. It’s unusual, but somehow it feels right, and we cover the Steinway when she’s not in use, but she’s in use a lot more than in the dead zone. Fin says the piano’s fine for now until we find it a permanent home. I have a feeling that means building her a shed in the backyard.
The neighbors like the music. They come over for margaritas and Led Zeppelin.
* * *
Did I tell you that Liz had navigated her Range Rover down Venice’s mean streets and proclaimed that my dad’s house had great bones and just needed a fresh coat of paint and a bit of interior work? Then she took it upon herself to decorate, tossing paint and carpet and drape samples on my desk in the semi-functional workspace I’d carved out. I paid for materials and labor, but she wouldn’t take a dime herself, even though Lucas had finally sold my book to a network I’d never heard of until they optioned my work. There are actually several networks I’d never heard of now. Nothing makes you feel as old as not knowing the difference between PEP and CRNCH and VGOR and, well, you get the drift.
Hey, as long as they’re buying, I’m selling.
Lucas called me the other day. “Guess what?”
“No,” I said.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Your book made the list.”
Lately, some of his clients are peeing at their book signings. One made herself throw up halfway through her reading.
“No!” I said.
I’d never be a literary darling; I’d sold enough books to write another. More than most, less than some.
I’d made the list.
Number eight with a bullet.
“What a pisser,” I said.
“Oh, about that, I got a call on a deal,” Lucas said. “As a spokesperson.”
“Me? Someone wants me as a spokesperson?” I was grinning, my cheeks heating up. Me! What could it be? Skin cream? Hairspray? Shoes?
“You,” Lucas said. “Good news is, it’s sixty grand for a year’s work of doing next to nothing.”
“The perfect job for me!”
“The bad news is…,” Lucas said. And paused.
Which is how I became a spokesperson for Pampers Adult Diapers. They’re quite comfortable, and I haven’t had an accident since.
What?
Like you wouldn’t.
I’m a spokesperson, y’all. That’s some adult shit. (So to speak.)
Oh, and FYI, if you’re interested, there’s quite a few schnauzer rescue organizations. I know, because that’s where I found Edgar. He’s a little older and a little not totally housebroken, and Pep and I are his biggest fans.
I got a call. I recognized but didn’t recognize the area code, like a phantom arm; this was a phantom number.
I answered.
“You gotta get me out of here,” my ex-husband said.
* * *
I flew to Tucson and rented a convertible Mustang because why not. I’d told Trevor I’d land at noon and would be at Madre de Tucson by 12:45 and I’d be waiting outside. As it turns out, a heat wave had gripped Arizona, and I’d been lucky to land. Most flights were grounded.
I rounded the driveway at the rehab entrance, and Trevor was already waiting outside with his little suitcase. He was shaved and his hair was clean and flopped forward in his eyes, and he looked like a little boy patiently waiting for Mom to pick him up from camp. He waved as I pulled in front, jumping up and down.
“Drive!” he yelled as he hopped over the passenger’s side. “I have a movie to make! We just closed on George!”
“I heard he was out—”
“Oh, not for that piece of shit, no, different movie. I’ve got the next Lawrence of Fucking Arabia. Fuck you, Harvey!”
“Harvey’s already fucked,” I said. “Did you run into him?”
“Yeah, he tried to grab my dick,” Trevor said. “Degenerate.”
“I thought you weren’t allowed any outside communication. How do you know you have a movie?”
“My coproducer got me the script. She knows a guy who works here. I guess they used to party together. He sold it to me for twenty bucks.”
“Trevor,” I said. “Who’s your coproducer?”
“Fin, you know that, right?” he said. “It’s fast-tracked; we’re shooting in Mexico in four weeks! Lightning has struck!”
“Trevor, isn’t Gio directing?”
“I love that dude!” Trevor looked at me, raising his sunglasses.
“You hate Gio,” I reminded him. “You called him all kinds of names.”
“Business isn’t personal, Ag,” Trevor said. “What did I always tell you? Didn’t you learn anything from being with me? Nothing is personal!”
“Except divorce,” I said. “Divorce is personal.”
* * *
We were driving the whole way. Eight hours, with luck. Trevor had screamed at his number-one and number-two assistants, but somehow the airlines weren’t cooperating. Maybe the number-three assistant would’ve made all the difference.
“How fast can you get there?” Trevor asked.
“We’ll be in LA by 7:00,” I said.
“Make it 6:30 and you have yourself a deal,” he said.
“I already have a deal,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s right.” The deal we’d made on the beach held. We’d share custody, but we all know what that meant. C’mon, I’d do the heavy lifting, and Trevor, Trevor would be just what he wanted (after I brought it up): Trophy Dad. He’d be fun and exciting and bigger than life, and Pep had incredible adventures in store for her. Perhaps Trevor would adopt me to go on his more exotic trips. Maybe he’d marry Kate Moss and we could all hang on a beach in Ibiza, even though I was over legal Ibiza age.
“Get me there by 6:15 and I’ll pay the rest of your legal bills.”
“Buckle your seatbelt,” I said as we drove into the Tucson Mountains.
Trevor looked out at the desert.
“Should we get back together?” he asked.
“No.”
“Right,” he said. “You’re right.”
Twenty minutes later, he was sound asleep.
* * *
Gabriela surprised me the other day by taking me to meet La Reina.
A privilege, she’d said, because as she’d told me numerous times, La Reina never met with white people. I told her I’d try to do my best not to shame her. We drove downtown and stopped in front of a small Spanish house with a tile rooftop off Crenshaw. Inside, Christmas lights were strung across the living room above a red velvet couch in front of a shrine to the Madonna and Baby Jesus. La Reina was younger than I’d imagined, a clairvoyant Selena Gomez. Gabriela held my hand and told me she would interpret. I was excited to see how this could possibly work, and once again, I regretted my poor Spanish. Except as it turns out, La Reina’s English was fine. Better than mine. She’d majored in English lit at Berkeley.
“You are healthy and … not unhappy?” she asked. I nodded, not unhappily. “Your daughter is healthy and not unhappy.” Pep had found her equilibrium for the moment—and her serve. She was killing it on the volleyball court. All the moms hated me and somehow dropped me from the email chain in punishment. Elation!
“Like mother, like daughter,” I said. “Will I find love again?”
“Yes. There is a good man. He will come.”
“How will I know?”
“There will be a few iffy men first,” she said, using the universal hand sign for iffy. “Stay off Tinder,” she said. “Your sister’s wrong about this.”
My thoughts ran to Gio. Was he enjoying an espresso and a cigarette and someone’s unhappy wife at a table outside Les Deux Magots? Thank God for Gio, whose cameo appearance in my life helped propel me once and for all over the wall … or the gate at the dead zone.
“La Reina, did I already let him go?”
“Four marriages?” she asked, her eyebrow raised. “Girlfriend, you’re kidding me, right?”
25
Oh, Oh, Mexico
The Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico, hot as balls and the first AD had to tape Fin’s ankle after she sprained it in a motorcycle stunt. She’s limping around, squabbling with Sami over dialogue, which sounds suspiciously like rom-com foreplay, and I wonder if either knows they’re falling in love. Trevor’s lounging in his producer’s chair, consuming a plate of precisely cut apples delivered on Gucci china by a sparkly new assistant who has no idea what’s in store for her. The team is gathered around the shot, our eyes glued to the monitor, hands over our mouths as dust spins through the dry air. Gio paces and hovers, paces and hovers, a general in khaki shorts and Chuck Taylors. And that leather jacket.
Dad’s fussing over Shu, who fusses over him in return, spreading sunscreen on his dappled skin. She’s landed a role as a mystic. Dad was right. She’s a next-level talent.
Trev’s on chew number twenty-five.
“You happy, Trevor?” I ask.
“Tell Sid he’d better write something nice about me,” Trevor says. “Tell him I need top billing. It can’t come from me; talk to him—”
Sid Glitch wanders by, his moleskin hoisted, sweating in his black turtleneck, shorts, and Birkenstocks. His toes are albino and long, the toes of a nocturnal marsupial. He’s writing a story on Trevor and George and Sami the Uber driver and Fin and Gio and the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride of How This Movie Got Made.
I pull Sid aside.
“Are you using?” I ask.
“I’ve been clean for months.”
“My sister’s not selling you anything?”
“No,” he says, and he blushed crimson, a rose atop a white, thorny stem. “We just talk. Your sister, she’s a natural storyteller. Incredible woman, really.”
I recognize that faraway look. I’d seen it since fourth grade. Fin had bagged another one.
“Sid, aren’t you…”
“Aren’t I what?”
I wanted to break it to him gently. “Sid, you’re gay.”
“What would make you think that?” he says, adjusting his glasses.
“You check all the gay boxes, my dude.”
“I’m from Brooklyn, Agnes,” he says as if that explained it before scooting off to Fin’s trailer to wait for her, heart in hand.
My phone beeps. Ulger sent me a picture, an oil rendering of a fawn from his cabin overlooking a Montana lake. He’s retired and taken up painting. He’s not terrible. Still not gonna fuck him, though.
* * *
In the distance, George revs his motorcycle (goldenrod version), circles the set slowly, then building, circles again, kicking up a sandstorm, a wall of 380cc sound, then the impossible—the man, the myth, the icon, stands up on his motorcycle.
The script supervisor gasps and flips through her pages. Standing on a motorcycle? No! She jabs at her script, her face a silent scream.
The extras, their faces covered in soot, heads wrapped in bandages, yell and gasp as he flies past—
“Cut!” Gio yells. “Cutcutcut!”
“Oh my God, George, you’re a genius!” Trevor hops up and claps wildly, his apple slices sliding off the plate. The assistant catches them and smiles at her boss.
“What the fuck?” Gio yells. “Who the fuck told you to do that?”
George grounds the motorcycle, laughing maniacally, then high-fives all the extras. Every single extra. Gio lunges toward George and grabs him around his shoulders, gesturing like Jackson Pollock painting a masterpiece.
A hyena’s laugh cuts through the dust, and Trevor’s waving his phone like a trophy, high above his head. “George, hey, George! George, look at this, dude! George!”
We’re all drawn in. We stare at his phone. Shaky TMZ video. Brentwood Country Mart. That Weaselly Fuck walks through the shot when suddenly his baseball cap blows off, revealing his head, his hair patchy as a newborn bird. Following on his heels is Petra, who scoops up the cap while wrangling sweet, normal-looking children. Braces, glasses, socks sliding down legs. Petra’s dressed in the same James Perse casual-yet-chic style as America’s Sweetheart; she’s even stolen her signature bangs.
“Jaysus!” George said. “What the heck happened to him?”
“Who cares? Motherfucker stole my Oscar,” Trevor says.
“What?” I ask. Stolen Oscar?
Pep is running in the dust and making friends while on school break. We have many school breaks; the more school costs, the less school. Behind her is Caster, whom Trevor is paying a bundle and who already has a few proposals—a cameraman, the second unit director, a local politician.
Fin steps away from the dialogue squabble with Sami and walks over.
“I’m suing that fuck,” Trevor is saying.
“Heck yeah, Trev,” George says. “Get your Oscar back!”
“Yeah,” I say, glancing at Fin. “Get your Oscar back, Trevor.”
Fin blinks. I see it, even under her Ray-Bans. She taps her fingers on her director’s chair, her rings shooting sparks in the relentless sun.
“He’s gonna lose the franchise!” Trevor says. “He’s bald as an egg!”
“What happened to his hair?” George asks, fingering his own rhapsodic strands.
“No one knows,” Trevor says. “Ari, David, Jeffrey, they all sent him to doctors; they can’t figure it out.”
“That’s weird,” Fin says, shifting her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose as she watches the tape. Rewind. Watch. Rewind.
“Yes, it is,” I say, glaring at her. “Very strange.”
“Oh, shit,” Fin says and laughs. “Oh, goddamn.”
“Looks like he’s going through chemo,” George says.
Fin laughs, slapping her lean thighs. “Oh, fuck! Oh, fuckity fuck!”
“Trevor.” Fin slaps his back, and he almost slips off the chair. “That was meant for you!”
“What do you mean?” he asks, on the edge of horror.
“I put Nair in your shampoo bottle,” Fin says. “After you had me arrested. Oldie but a goodie, man; he must’ve used your shampoo!”
“I would’ve lost my hair?!” Trevor runs his fingers through his hair. “You’re a fucking monster!”
“Guys, let’s just stop,” I say.
“You deserved it,” Fin says. “You put cameras up, you spying bastard! You glued my sister’s keyboard!”
“Did you glue her sister’s keyboard, Trev?” George asks.
“Pep!” I call out, interrupting. “Let’s go for a walk! You and me.” I stop and call back to Fin. “Fin! A word with the coproducer?”
Pep and I and Fin trudge toward bottles of water. And doughnuts. And frozen yogurt. And cappuccinos. Craft fucking services. The promised land.
I grab ahold of Fin’s arm. “What happened to the Oscar, Fin?”
“What do you mean, what happened to the Oscar?” Fin wipes her nose.
“I mean, what happened to the Oscar? That Weaselly Fuck didn’t steal it. He has two of his own.”
“All I know is, I hope I get an Oscar someday; that little guy gets top dollar, which comes in handy when your sister’s been busted.”
“You didn’t.”
“I told you, you didn’t listen,” Fin says. “Making money’s easy.”
I close my eyes. “Tell me you didn’t sell Oscar.”
“Remember I had a Russian cellmate a few trips back? The hooker-physicist? She taught me a few words. Right now, Oscar is probably sitting pretty on a yacht floating on the Crimean Sea.”
She paints a picture with her pianist fingers.
“All the Vlads want to get their hands on an Oscar,” Fin says. “If I run into trouble again, I know where I can get two more now.”
“No!”
“C’mon! Craft services!” Pep yells, releasing my hand, zigzagging toward the tents.
“Craft services!” Fin yells, chasing after her, dust plumes in her wake.
I stroll after them, brushing dust from my eyes, and readjust my diaper.
Acknowledgments
Immense gratitude to my team for their support (and patience): Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s Press, my literary agent, Victoria Sanders, Bernadette Baker, Shari Smiley, Andy Patman, and Stephanie Davis (only for 26(?) years). Thank you to Bardonna Café for your lattes and smiles and theOFFICE in Santa Monica for your silence (and Wade Gasque!). Thank you to Jessie Martinez at the George Michael Salon for sanctuary under the dryer. Thank you to everyone who thinks they appear in this book. Thank you to Josh Sabarra, Mimi James, Stacy Title, and Julie Jaffe for their enduring friendship. Thank you to my mother, Phillipa Brown, and my sisters Suzy, Mimi, and Julie, my brothers-in-law Ron and Marc, my nephews Frankie, Jonathan, and John Henry, my niece, Angelina, and the many members of my extended family. Thank you to Josh Gilbert, with whom I started writing, and whom I miss every day.
Finally, thank you to Glock and Peanut for being the very best dogs and Enrique the leopard gecko for his low-maintenance lifestyle.
Also by Gigi Levangie
Seven Deadlies
The After Wife
Queen Takes King
The Starter Wife
Maneater
Rescue Me
About the Author
GIGI LEVANGIE is the author of several novels, including The Starter Wife, which was adapted for an Emmy Award–winning miniseries starring Debra Messing, and Maneater, which was adapted for a Lifetime miniseries starring Sarah Chalke. In addition, Levangie wrote the screenplay for the movie Stepmom, starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. Her articles have appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Glamour. You can sign up for email updates here.
When she gets tired, she plays the piano. Which is in the backyard. It’s unusual, but somehow it feels right, and we cover the Steinway when she’s not in use, but she’s in use a lot more than in the dead zone. Fin says the piano’s fine for now until we find it a permanent home. I have a feeling that means building her a shed in the backyard.
The neighbors like the music. They come over for margaritas and Led Zeppelin.
* * *
Did I tell you that Liz had navigated her Range Rover down Venice’s mean streets and proclaimed that my dad’s house had great bones and just needed a fresh coat of paint and a bit of interior work? Then she took it upon herself to decorate, tossing paint and carpet and drape samples on my desk in the semi-functional workspace I’d carved out. I paid for materials and labor, but she wouldn’t take a dime herself, even though Lucas had finally sold my book to a network I’d never heard of until they optioned my work. There are actually several networks I’d never heard of now. Nothing makes you feel as old as not knowing the difference between PEP and CRNCH and VGOR and, well, you get the drift.
Hey, as long as they’re buying, I’m selling.
Lucas called me the other day. “Guess what?”
“No,” I said.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Your book made the list.”
Lately, some of his clients are peeing at their book signings. One made herself throw up halfway through her reading.
“No!” I said.
I’d never be a literary darling; I’d sold enough books to write another. More than most, less than some.
I’d made the list.
Number eight with a bullet.
“What a pisser,” I said.
“Oh, about that, I got a call on a deal,” Lucas said. “As a spokesperson.”
“Me? Someone wants me as a spokesperson?” I was grinning, my cheeks heating up. Me! What could it be? Skin cream? Hairspray? Shoes?
“You,” Lucas said. “Good news is, it’s sixty grand for a year’s work of doing next to nothing.”
“The perfect job for me!”
“The bad news is…,” Lucas said. And paused.
Which is how I became a spokesperson for Pampers Adult Diapers. They’re quite comfortable, and I haven’t had an accident since.
What?
Like you wouldn’t.
I’m a spokesperson, y’all. That’s some adult shit. (So to speak.)
Oh, and FYI, if you’re interested, there’s quite a few schnauzer rescue organizations. I know, because that’s where I found Edgar. He’s a little older and a little not totally housebroken, and Pep and I are his biggest fans.
I got a call. I recognized but didn’t recognize the area code, like a phantom arm; this was a phantom number.
I answered.
“You gotta get me out of here,” my ex-husband said.
* * *
I flew to Tucson and rented a convertible Mustang because why not. I’d told Trevor I’d land at noon and would be at Madre de Tucson by 12:45 and I’d be waiting outside. As it turns out, a heat wave had gripped Arizona, and I’d been lucky to land. Most flights were grounded.
I rounded the driveway at the rehab entrance, and Trevor was already waiting outside with his little suitcase. He was shaved and his hair was clean and flopped forward in his eyes, and he looked like a little boy patiently waiting for Mom to pick him up from camp. He waved as I pulled in front, jumping up and down.
“Drive!” he yelled as he hopped over the passenger’s side. “I have a movie to make! We just closed on George!”
“I heard he was out—”
“Oh, not for that piece of shit, no, different movie. I’ve got the next Lawrence of Fucking Arabia. Fuck you, Harvey!”
“Harvey’s already fucked,” I said. “Did you run into him?”
“Yeah, he tried to grab my dick,” Trevor said. “Degenerate.”
“I thought you weren’t allowed any outside communication. How do you know you have a movie?”
“My coproducer got me the script. She knows a guy who works here. I guess they used to party together. He sold it to me for twenty bucks.”
“Trevor,” I said. “Who’s your coproducer?”
“Fin, you know that, right?” he said. “It’s fast-tracked; we’re shooting in Mexico in four weeks! Lightning has struck!”
“Trevor, isn’t Gio directing?”
“I love that dude!” Trevor looked at me, raising his sunglasses.
“You hate Gio,” I reminded him. “You called him all kinds of names.”
“Business isn’t personal, Ag,” Trevor said. “What did I always tell you? Didn’t you learn anything from being with me? Nothing is personal!”
“Except divorce,” I said. “Divorce is personal.”
* * *
We were driving the whole way. Eight hours, with luck. Trevor had screamed at his number-one and number-two assistants, but somehow the airlines weren’t cooperating. Maybe the number-three assistant would’ve made all the difference.
“How fast can you get there?” Trevor asked.
“We’ll be in LA by 7:00,” I said.
“Make it 6:30 and you have yourself a deal,” he said.
“I already have a deal,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s right.” The deal we’d made on the beach held. We’d share custody, but we all know what that meant. C’mon, I’d do the heavy lifting, and Trevor, Trevor would be just what he wanted (after I brought it up): Trophy Dad. He’d be fun and exciting and bigger than life, and Pep had incredible adventures in store for her. Perhaps Trevor would adopt me to go on his more exotic trips. Maybe he’d marry Kate Moss and we could all hang on a beach in Ibiza, even though I was over legal Ibiza age.
“Get me there by 6:15 and I’ll pay the rest of your legal bills.”
“Buckle your seatbelt,” I said as we drove into the Tucson Mountains.
Trevor looked out at the desert.
“Should we get back together?” he asked.
“No.”
“Right,” he said. “You’re right.”
Twenty minutes later, he was sound asleep.
* * *
Gabriela surprised me the other day by taking me to meet La Reina.
A privilege, she’d said, because as she’d told me numerous times, La Reina never met with white people. I told her I’d try to do my best not to shame her. We drove downtown and stopped in front of a small Spanish house with a tile rooftop off Crenshaw. Inside, Christmas lights were strung across the living room above a red velvet couch in front of a shrine to the Madonna and Baby Jesus. La Reina was younger than I’d imagined, a clairvoyant Selena Gomez. Gabriela held my hand and told me she would interpret. I was excited to see how this could possibly work, and once again, I regretted my poor Spanish. Except as it turns out, La Reina’s English was fine. Better than mine. She’d majored in English lit at Berkeley.
“You are healthy and … not unhappy?” she asked. I nodded, not unhappily. “Your daughter is healthy and not unhappy.” Pep had found her equilibrium for the moment—and her serve. She was killing it on the volleyball court. All the moms hated me and somehow dropped me from the email chain in punishment. Elation!
“Like mother, like daughter,” I said. “Will I find love again?”
“Yes. There is a good man. He will come.”
“How will I know?”
“There will be a few iffy men first,” she said, using the universal hand sign for iffy. “Stay off Tinder,” she said. “Your sister’s wrong about this.”
My thoughts ran to Gio. Was he enjoying an espresso and a cigarette and someone’s unhappy wife at a table outside Les Deux Magots? Thank God for Gio, whose cameo appearance in my life helped propel me once and for all over the wall … or the gate at the dead zone.
“La Reina, did I already let him go?”
“Four marriages?” she asked, her eyebrow raised. “Girlfriend, you’re kidding me, right?”
25
Oh, Oh, Mexico
The Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico, hot as balls and the first AD had to tape Fin’s ankle after she sprained it in a motorcycle stunt. She’s limping around, squabbling with Sami over dialogue, which sounds suspiciously like rom-com foreplay, and I wonder if either knows they’re falling in love. Trevor’s lounging in his producer’s chair, consuming a plate of precisely cut apples delivered on Gucci china by a sparkly new assistant who has no idea what’s in store for her. The team is gathered around the shot, our eyes glued to the monitor, hands over our mouths as dust spins through the dry air. Gio paces and hovers, paces and hovers, a general in khaki shorts and Chuck Taylors. And that leather jacket.
Dad’s fussing over Shu, who fusses over him in return, spreading sunscreen on his dappled skin. She’s landed a role as a mystic. Dad was right. She’s a next-level talent.
Trev’s on chew number twenty-five.
“You happy, Trevor?” I ask.
“Tell Sid he’d better write something nice about me,” Trevor says. “Tell him I need top billing. It can’t come from me; talk to him—”
Sid Glitch wanders by, his moleskin hoisted, sweating in his black turtleneck, shorts, and Birkenstocks. His toes are albino and long, the toes of a nocturnal marsupial. He’s writing a story on Trevor and George and Sami the Uber driver and Fin and Gio and the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride of How This Movie Got Made.
I pull Sid aside.
“Are you using?” I ask.
“I’ve been clean for months.”
“My sister’s not selling you anything?”
“No,” he says, and he blushed crimson, a rose atop a white, thorny stem. “We just talk. Your sister, she’s a natural storyteller. Incredible woman, really.”
I recognize that faraway look. I’d seen it since fourth grade. Fin had bagged another one.
“Sid, aren’t you…”
“Aren’t I what?”
I wanted to break it to him gently. “Sid, you’re gay.”
“What would make you think that?” he says, adjusting his glasses.
“You check all the gay boxes, my dude.”
“I’m from Brooklyn, Agnes,” he says as if that explained it before scooting off to Fin’s trailer to wait for her, heart in hand.
My phone beeps. Ulger sent me a picture, an oil rendering of a fawn from his cabin overlooking a Montana lake. He’s retired and taken up painting. He’s not terrible. Still not gonna fuck him, though.
* * *
In the distance, George revs his motorcycle (goldenrod version), circles the set slowly, then building, circles again, kicking up a sandstorm, a wall of 380cc sound, then the impossible—the man, the myth, the icon, stands up on his motorcycle.
The script supervisor gasps and flips through her pages. Standing on a motorcycle? No! She jabs at her script, her face a silent scream.
The extras, their faces covered in soot, heads wrapped in bandages, yell and gasp as he flies past—
“Cut!” Gio yells. “Cutcutcut!”
“Oh my God, George, you’re a genius!” Trevor hops up and claps wildly, his apple slices sliding off the plate. The assistant catches them and smiles at her boss.
“What the fuck?” Gio yells. “Who the fuck told you to do that?”
George grounds the motorcycle, laughing maniacally, then high-fives all the extras. Every single extra. Gio lunges toward George and grabs him around his shoulders, gesturing like Jackson Pollock painting a masterpiece.
A hyena’s laugh cuts through the dust, and Trevor’s waving his phone like a trophy, high above his head. “George, hey, George! George, look at this, dude! George!”
We’re all drawn in. We stare at his phone. Shaky TMZ video. Brentwood Country Mart. That Weaselly Fuck walks through the shot when suddenly his baseball cap blows off, revealing his head, his hair patchy as a newborn bird. Following on his heels is Petra, who scoops up the cap while wrangling sweet, normal-looking children. Braces, glasses, socks sliding down legs. Petra’s dressed in the same James Perse casual-yet-chic style as America’s Sweetheart; she’s even stolen her signature bangs.
“Jaysus!” George said. “What the heck happened to him?”
“Who cares? Motherfucker stole my Oscar,” Trevor says.
“What?” I ask. Stolen Oscar?
Pep is running in the dust and making friends while on school break. We have many school breaks; the more school costs, the less school. Behind her is Caster, whom Trevor is paying a bundle and who already has a few proposals—a cameraman, the second unit director, a local politician.
Fin steps away from the dialogue squabble with Sami and walks over.
“I’m suing that fuck,” Trevor is saying.
“Heck yeah, Trev,” George says. “Get your Oscar back!”
“Yeah,” I say, glancing at Fin. “Get your Oscar back, Trevor.”
Fin blinks. I see it, even under her Ray-Bans. She taps her fingers on her director’s chair, her rings shooting sparks in the relentless sun.
“He’s gonna lose the franchise!” Trevor says. “He’s bald as an egg!”
“What happened to his hair?” George asks, fingering his own rhapsodic strands.
“No one knows,” Trevor says. “Ari, David, Jeffrey, they all sent him to doctors; they can’t figure it out.”
“That’s weird,” Fin says, shifting her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose as she watches the tape. Rewind. Watch. Rewind.
“Yes, it is,” I say, glaring at her. “Very strange.”
“Oh, shit,” Fin says and laughs. “Oh, goddamn.”
“Looks like he’s going through chemo,” George says.
Fin laughs, slapping her lean thighs. “Oh, fuck! Oh, fuckity fuck!”
“Trevor.” Fin slaps his back, and he almost slips off the chair. “That was meant for you!”
“What do you mean?” he asks, on the edge of horror.
“I put Nair in your shampoo bottle,” Fin says. “After you had me arrested. Oldie but a goodie, man; he must’ve used your shampoo!”
“I would’ve lost my hair?!” Trevor runs his fingers through his hair. “You’re a fucking monster!”
“Guys, let’s just stop,” I say.
“You deserved it,” Fin says. “You put cameras up, you spying bastard! You glued my sister’s keyboard!”
“Did you glue her sister’s keyboard, Trev?” George asks.
“Pep!” I call out, interrupting. “Let’s go for a walk! You and me.” I stop and call back to Fin. “Fin! A word with the coproducer?”
Pep and I and Fin trudge toward bottles of water. And doughnuts. And frozen yogurt. And cappuccinos. Craft fucking services. The promised land.
I grab ahold of Fin’s arm. “What happened to the Oscar, Fin?”
“What do you mean, what happened to the Oscar?” Fin wipes her nose.
“I mean, what happened to the Oscar? That Weaselly Fuck didn’t steal it. He has two of his own.”
“All I know is, I hope I get an Oscar someday; that little guy gets top dollar, which comes in handy when your sister’s been busted.”
“You didn’t.”
“I told you, you didn’t listen,” Fin says. “Making money’s easy.”
I close my eyes. “Tell me you didn’t sell Oscar.”
“Remember I had a Russian cellmate a few trips back? The hooker-physicist? She taught me a few words. Right now, Oscar is probably sitting pretty on a yacht floating on the Crimean Sea.”
She paints a picture with her pianist fingers.
“All the Vlads want to get their hands on an Oscar,” Fin says. “If I run into trouble again, I know where I can get two more now.”
“No!”
“C’mon! Craft services!” Pep yells, releasing my hand, zigzagging toward the tents.
“Craft services!” Fin yells, chasing after her, dust plumes in her wake.
I stroll after them, brushing dust from my eyes, and readjust my diaper.
Acknowledgments
Immense gratitude to my team for their support (and patience): Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s Press, my literary agent, Victoria Sanders, Bernadette Baker, Shari Smiley, Andy Patman, and Stephanie Davis (only for 26(?) years). Thank you to Bardonna Café for your lattes and smiles and theOFFICE in Santa Monica for your silence (and Wade Gasque!). Thank you to Jessie Martinez at the George Michael Salon for sanctuary under the dryer. Thank you to everyone who thinks they appear in this book. Thank you to Josh Sabarra, Mimi James, Stacy Title, and Julie Jaffe for their enduring friendship. Thank you to my mother, Phillipa Brown, and my sisters Suzy, Mimi, and Julie, my brothers-in-law Ron and Marc, my nephews Frankie, Jonathan, and John Henry, my niece, Angelina, and the many members of my extended family. Thank you to Josh Gilbert, with whom I started writing, and whom I miss every day.
Finally, thank you to Glock and Peanut for being the very best dogs and Enrique the leopard gecko for his low-maintenance lifestyle.
Also by Gigi Levangie
Seven Deadlies
The After Wife
Queen Takes King
The Starter Wife
Maneater
Rescue Me
About the Author
GIGI LEVANGIE is the author of several novels, including The Starter Wife, which was adapted for an Emmy Award–winning miniseries starring Debra Messing, and Maneater, which was adapted for a Lifetime miniseries starring Sarah Chalke. In addition, Levangie wrote the screenplay for the movie Stepmom, starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. Her articles have appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Glamour. You can sign up for email updates here.
