The Year of Living Famously (27 page)

“What is?”

“Whatever you're accusing me of!” Now it was his voice that rose. “I'm not having an affair, Kyra! Not with anyone. I love you. You know that! I went out to dinner with Tania to talk about the scene tomorrow.”

“And what will the papers say about that?”

“Who the fuck cares what the papers say?” he bellowed.

We went on like that for half an hour. I had finally pushed him enough that Declan, who was never a fighter, who always told me I was right and left it at that, was screaming right back at me. We'd finally become the couple they had painted us to be in the papers.

 

Two days later, I went home to New York for the funeral of one of Emmie's best friends, Ruby. Ruby had been a gorgeous old woman—tall and willowy even as her face creased and crumpled. She was a decade older than Emmie and had been her mentor at the first literary agency where she'd worked.

Because of his filming schedule, Dec wasn't able to go with me and so there were only two photographers at LAX, and when I got to LaGuardia at midnight, there was no one. No photographers, no reporters, no personal assistants, no bodyguards. I loved it.

I went straight to Emmie's. There was a note on the kitchen counter in my side of the apartment.

In my old room, my double bed was still there (Emmie didn't “believe” in twin beds), and it was still covered by the
crazy pink-and-purple quilt I'd made during college. I'd washed it so many times that it was thin and soft as silk. I stripped off my clothes and crawled under it. The hum of the city lulled me like a mother's song. I fell into the hardest sleep I'd had in months.

In the morning, I woke early to find the city impossibly quiet. I peered out the window and saw that there had been a freak April snowstorm, the city now buried under a blanket of fresh snow. People always run for the cover of their homes when there's a big snow in Manhattan. They use umbrellas to keep the snow away, then they get to their apartments and stay there, letting the restaurants and shops go quiet. But I immediately found a pair of my old boots in Emmie's closet and went out to Central Park. My boots skidded through the wet, unshoveled snow. Tree limbs hung heavy with white; icicles clung to the bottom of park benches.

When I got back, Emmie was sitting in her living room, surrounded by her books, but for once, she was still—no entertaining, reading, laughing on the phone or making notes. She wore a pink flannel nightgown, which made her look oddly like a little girl.

“Kyra,” she said when she saw me, but her voice lacked its usual verve.

I crossed the room and sank onto the couch, hugging her tight. “How are you?”

“Devastated.” She sat back and crossed her legs daintily as if wearing a cocktail dress at the Ritz. “It's just more of the same. You would think I would be used to this at my age, but I'm simply not. I will never get used to this.”

“Of course not.” I rubbed her hand. I had always felt enormously ineffectual at comforting her. “Where's MacKenzie?”

At that, she smiled. If I'm not mistaken, she may have even batted her eyelashes at the thought of him. “He'll be here to pick us up in two hours.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I think I'll sleep until then if it's okay with you.”

“Sure,” I said.

She began to push herself up with her arms, but then she sat down again. “How are you, dear? I didn't even ask.”

“I'm fine.”

She cupped my cheek, peered into my eyes. “Is that right?”

“Sure, things are good. You know Dec has four new projects lined up since the Oscars and my designs are selling well, and the house is great. Well, it's fine, and—”

“No, how are
you,
dear?”

I took a breath. “It's tough right now. But I'm glad to be here.”

Emmie simply nodded.

 

I met Margaux for coffee later that morning. I was already at a table with two lattes for us when she walked into the shop. Her hair looked fluffy and beautiful, lying on the collar of her brown shearling coat. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes clear.

“So sorry about Emmie's friend,” she said. She hung her coat around the chair and sat down.

“Thanks,” I said. “Emmie is really down this time.”

“Still with MacKenzie?”

“Oh, yes. That seems to be what's getting her through it.”

“That's how it should be.”

Something in her voice, some wry tone, caught me. “What's going on with Peter and you? Any news?”

She laughed. “Yes. I've got news.”

“You're…” I gestured toward her stomach.

“No,” she said decisively. “I am not knocked up.”

“What then?”

“Well…let's see.” She scratched her head distractedly. “I'm going to be splitting my time between here and Colorado.”

I shook my own head. “Excuse me?”

“Denver.”

“Do you even know where Denver is?”

She laughed again. “Of course. The firm is opening an office there, and they asked me to head it up.”

“You accepted?”

She nodded.

“You gave me hell for moving to Los Angeles, and now you're moving to
Denver?
” I said.

“I'm not moving. I'll just be there a few days a week.”

“Why?”

“Ah, hell, Kyr. It's not working with Peter and me. It hasn't been for a long time, and this baby thing was crazy. Thank God I didn't get pregnant.” She took a sip of her latte. “We're separated. It's official as of two days ago.”

“Oh, no.” I reached over and squeezed her shoulder.

“Thanks, but it's okay. It really is. We're not meant to be together, not like you and Declan. So it's over. But I can't stay here in New York, at least not all the time. I need a major change. And then perfect timing—this job came up in Denver, so I'm doing it!”

“Hey, you'll be closer to me.”

“Exactly. I can help keep an eye on you guys. On Declan, if you need it. Any truth about him and these women?”

“No.” I felt definitive saying that. Now that I was away from it all, I could see it more clearly, and I knew Declan wasn't cheating on me. If only the papers would stop saying that he was.

 

At two o'clock, MacKenzie Bresner buzzed Emmie's apartment and, without waiting for a response, let himself in with his own key.

I was standing in the living room, wearing a black dress, waiting for Emmie to get ready.

“Hi,” I said, surprised. As far as I knew, I was the only person who'd ever been granted a key to Emmie's place.

“Kyra,” he said with affection, crossing the room to shake my hand, then hug me.

I hadn't seen MacKenzie in over a decade, but he was still a bear of a man, tall and big-chested. He had meaty paws for hands, which made it impossible to imagine him typing the subtle, heartfelt prose he was known for.

“How is she?” he asked simply.

“Hanging in there.” In truth, Emmie had looked pale and weak. I'd even suggested that she skip the funeral, but she adamantly refused.

Yet now, Emmie came into the living room, leaning hard on her cane, wearing a stylish, black St. John knit suit and a smile for MacKenzie that lightened her whole face.

“Dear,” she said to him. He pulled her into an embrace so tender I felt it was only right that I turn away.

I went into the bedroom and found a voice mail from Dec on my cell phone. “I miss you, baby,” he said, his voice low, clearly talking on the set. “Tell Emmie I'm sorry and come home soon.”

At the funeral, Ruby's husband, Gene, sat slumped in the first pew, his suit pooled around him as if he'd just lost twenty pounds in the last minute. When I spoke to him afterward, he said, “This is worse than the war. It's worse than everything I saw there.” The blue of his eyes were the only youthful thing about him. He was hollow, carved out by his wife's death, and it terrified me.

This is what we have to look forward to, I thought. Either Dec or I will have to go through this. Unless we're lucky enough (
lucky?
) to both die in the same car accident or plane crash, the way my parents had, one of us will lose the other. One of us will be torn apart.

Suddenly, I had to get back to L. A. It didn't matter that I detested the reporters or the bodyguards or the driving. It didn't matter about the cameras and the constant people. I needed to be with Declan above all else.

As soon as I could escape, I kissed Emmie and MacKenzie, got my bags from her apartment and went straight to the airport.

I
had called Denny from LaGuardia, and he was there to pick me up when I got to LAX. It was seven at night, the city starting to buzz for the evening. I was walking toward the car, when I saw the back door open. And there was Declan. I left the baggage on the sidewalk and ran to him.

 

If possible, the paparazzi were worse when I returned to L. A. The rumors about Declan's infidelities and our marital problems had only made the media more hungry for photos and video clips. They were there at every turn in the road, every trip to the fashion district, every restaurant we went to, every store we stopped in.

The feeling of being hunted goes something like this: it starts with a prickling along the back of your scalp, particularly behind the ears. You haven't seen them yet, haven't even heard any strange noises, but your body knows they are there. All your organs tighten. Your skin feels hot, electric. You swivel your head ever so slightly, but you see nothing.
You tell yourself to calm down, but your body ignores you, and your pulse starts flicking its fingers against your neck. Why did you tell Denny you could handle this one alone? You reach into your bag. Car keys. Fumble with the main key, trying to ready it in your hand.
Where is the car? Where is it?
You swivel your head again, this time with wider arcs, and then you see him. Behind a tree, shooting already. You check for wounds. You're okay. But you see the others. Not as discreet or sneaky as the one in the tree. The one in the tree was a scout, the runt of the pack. The others—the bullies, the ones who've done this longer—they charge now. Calling your name, then screaming it.
Where is the car?
Hurry, hurry. They move with you, in front of you, behind you, until you are surrounded. You try to smile at first, but you know you look like a grimacing, nervous girl. You let the grin drop from your face.
Where is the fucking car?
You make a mistake and ask them,
Haven't you got enough?
They keep shooting, calling your name. They are hunting you now for the sake of sport, not to feed their families, as they would have you think. They shoot you again, they brush close to you, they press their weapons in your face.
Isn't that enough?
you say again. But they won't stop. They want you to lose it. They want to shoot you dying. You've been told this. You've been instructed not to react. But it's so hard to hold on when you're bleeding. The car. There it is. You will live. You fumble with the key again, nearly dropping it before you finally slip it in the slot and escape inside.

 

“Do you believe me now?” I whispered to Declan one evening, as we drove away from L'Orangerie, where we had tried, once again unsuccessfully, to have a quiet dinner. I couldn't wait to get home. The house, although huge and filled with people, was a safe haven now. Unlike the restaurant. Despite Adam's prearrival sweep, five paparazzi ma
terialized outside when we got there. There were fifteen when we finally left. We had only decided on the restaurant that afternoon, and so it had to be true. Someone we knew was leaking our plans to the press.

Declan heaved a great sigh, the tires squealing as he tried to keep Adam and Denny, who were in the car behind us, in his sight and yet outrun a photographer who was following us in a blue Honda. “Fuck, love. I guess so. It's rather hard to believe. Who could it be?”

“Anybody! There are a million people who know what we're doing at any time. I mean, I thought it was Liz, but it can't have been her. She's been gone for a while.” I swallowed hard, trying not to let the disappointment about Liz creep in again. “But there's still Berry, Uki, Trista, your publicist, my publicist, then there's Tracy, the new security guys, Denny and Adam, Max, Graham, there's—”

“Whoa. Hold on, Kyr. Graham and Max would never.”

“And you say Berry would never, and Denny and Adam would never, but
somebody
is leaking this stuff. I can't live like this, always wondering who the hell it is.”

“All right, love,” he said. He stopped at a light and took his hand off the stick for a moment to stroke my hair. “It's all right. We'll pull them in and start asking some questions.”

The next day, Declan and I formed our good cop/bad cop team (I was the bad) and called in the members of our staff one by one. The house was quieter than usual, probably because word had gotten out that something was amiss.

Trista was first. “I don't know what you're fuckin' talkin' about,” she said in her charming way. “I come in, I clean this fuckin' place—for a lot less than my sister makes down the road—and I go home. I don't give a shit about you two.”

“Well,” Declan said when she'd left the room, “I appreciate her honesty.”

I had to agree.

Berry was next. She burst into tears when we told her why she was there.
Got her!
I thought.

But then she raised her head, wiping her eyes. “I can't believe you would think that of me!” she wailed. “Declan, I've worked harder for you than anyone I've ever been with. There's a code of confidentiality for personal assistants, you know.” I thought about telling her such a code was only for doctors or attorneys, but she continued, “I would never, never do something like that!”

Adam was next. Then Denny. They were both insulted, but they understood. They swore they'd always been close-mouthed when it came to our whereabouts. Ditto for the new security guys and Declan's second assistant.

Angela, Dec's publicist, came by the house, too. She seemed rather excited to be in on something so cloak-and-dagger, but no, it wasn't her, she promised. She would question her team, but she was sure none of the other publicists would do that.

My publicist said the same thing. So did my rep, Alicia, and Uki, who, in her soft way, swore she wouldn't do something so dishonorable.

Declan promised to ask Max and Graham about the matter, and when the day was done, we were no closer to figuring out who was the Judas. Declan trusted everyone's assurances. I trusted no one.

 

The staff began to resent me around the house. It was as if everyone sensed that Declan believed in them, while I simply believed that they were rooting through my underwear drawer when I turned my back. Trista was more hostile than usual. Berry gave me the very cold shoulder. Uki, whom I'd always had a warm relationship with, was downright frosty. Adam and Denny stopped telling me stories and
kidding me about my high heels and simply became the silent security men we paid them to be.

“Fuck 'em,” Bobby said when we talked on the phone. “You're their boss. Of course they're going to hate you.”

But I knew it was more than that, and it began to wear on me. I left the house as little as possible—it simply wasn't worth the strain of being followed—and yet the house was now wrought with tension and too many disdainful eyes.

A few days later, Declan left to shoot a few insert scenes in San Francisco. Now I had no buffer, just undisguised contempt.

Finally, I'd had enough of it. I told everyone to leave at four o'clock one day. I wanted to be alone—for once. Denny, still formal with me, said that he was getting paid to be here, and he would just stand outside the front door.

“Thanks, Den,” I said, using the nickname I'd called him for months, hoping it would remind him I wasn't the enemy, “but I need to really be
by myself.
Can you understand that?”

He considered me for a moment, then grunted in assent. “You'll set the alarm before you go to bed?”

“Of course.”

“You've got my cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“And my home phone?”

“Definitely.”

“And—”

“Den, please. I'm safe here.” And the truth was, I felt safe. Our house was the one place I knew that for sure.

He patted me awkwardly on the arm, then left. Berry, Uki and Trista followed shortly after. Declan's second assistant was with him in San Fran. The publicists and my rep were working elsewhere. And suddenly, I was blessedly alone.

I had new patterns to look over in my office, but instead
I took a stack of books out to the pool. It was a beautiful, early-May day—all sun and blue skies and seventy degrees—the way L. A. is supposed to be. I sat near the waterfall and let the sounds block out the noise in my head. I read an advanced copy of MacKenzie's new novel, which he'd given me when I was in Manhattan. It was a story of grief, told through the eyes of a man very much like MacKenzie, who lived in upstate New York and who had lost his wife after years of marriage. I became engrossed in it. I wanted desperately for the character to find love again at the end, and yet I wondered if such an ending would be believable. Doesn't a grand love come only once?

When the light started to wane, I finally closed the book and went inside to make myself a salad. I sat at the island, eating in the pristine silence of the kitchen. I began to feel lighter, more relaxed.

I poured myself a glass of merlot and brought the bottle and the phone into the sunroom. I put on a Lena Horne CD. We'd finally gotten some couches for this room—tan linen and plump with down. I sank onto one of them, took a sip of my wine and dialed Margaux's number.

“How are you?” she said, answering on the third ring. “I hope better than me because I'm up to my ears in boxes.” Margaux was moving out of the apartment she'd shared with Peter.

“I'm great,” I said.

“Really?” She sounded skeptical. Anytime I talked to Margaux lately, I'd been miserable about the hounding press, the potentially treacherous employees.

“I'm decompressing,” I told her.

“Does this involve a bottle of red?”

“Good guess. But mostly, I sat on my ass by the pool, I made a salad, and now I'm calling my best girlfriend.”

“Well, aren't you the everyday Jane.”

I laughed. It was precisely what I felt. “How's the packing going?”

“I am in the depths of hell.”

Margaux talked about the horrible task of dividing up her stuff from Peter's, and the fights over ownership of CDs and photographs. Silently, I prayed I would never have to do such a thing. If I could get a day like this to myself, even just once in a while, that would be enough to maintain my sanity, my marriage.

It was nearly black in the room when Margaux and I began to wrap up our conversation twenty minutes later, but the lights of the canyon shone prettily through plate windows.

“I miss you,” I said to Margaux. “I can't wait until you're on the west side of the country. It's the best side.”

“You don't really believe that, do you?”

“No, but it will be better when you're closer to me.” I smiled and lifted the bottle to pour myself another glass.

But then I heard a rustle from across the room. I froze. “Is someone there?”

“What's going on?” Margaux said.

A click of something small being dropped on the wood floor, then stillness. Too still.

“Who's there?” I said, my voice coming out hollow in the large room.

“Are you talking to me?” Margaux said.

I couldn't answer. Fear gripped me. I thought of the useless alarm system which I'd forgotten to arm when I came in from the pool.

I sat on the edge of the couch, peering through the darkness. The lights of the canyon now seemed pitiful illumination. I put the wine bottle on the floor and reached for the light on the end table. When I turned it on, the room burst into sudden brightness.

And there she was. The pool door, I thought. Had I locked it? But it didn't matter now.

“Amy Rose?” I said.

“I've come for Declan.”

 

She wore baggy khaki pants with mud stains on the front (probably from scaling our cliff) and a black cotton jacket. “Hi,” she said nervously. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Uh…” Had she just apologized for breaking in to my house? How did one respond to such a thing? “What are you doing here?” My hands were shaky, my legs twitchy. I wanted to bolt from the room, but she was blocking my way around our couches.

“Well, Declan wasn't returning my letters, and you weren't really listening to me, so I thought I'd just pop by.”

Right.
Pop by,
as if you're a neighbor seeking a cup of sugar. I tried to act as queerly nonchalant as she, but my body had gone cold with fear; my hands had begun to tremble.

“Declan isn't here right now,” I said. “So maybe we could schedule a time for you to meet him later.”
Yeah, later, when I've got you in a straitjacket.

She chuckled sadly, she raised a hand and smoothed her brown hair. “You won't tell him I stopped by.”

“Oh, believe me, I'll tell him.”

“No. I know you.”

“Do you?”

She took a step toward me, her hands moving inside her jacket pockets. I slid back on the couch.