Adulation (18 page)

As far as Danny Masters was concerned, he was as related to Artie Gold as he was to Raj or anyone else.

Danny said none of this out loud, however, and hastily continued his story. “Anyway, I talked to this woman for maybe five minutes tops—and I know what I’m about to say is like a bad soap opera line, but I swear I felt this connection to her.”

“It may be a bad soap opera line in that the words to describe it have become banal, but the experience is as real and authentic as can be.”

“You would think that, you quack.”

Raj chuckled softly, acknowledging his friend’s teasing. “So tell me about this connection.”

Danny’s memory conjured the woman he believed to be Sunny, and his body reacted: his heartbeat sped up, his spine tingled, and his blood rushed. But it wasn’t the frantic feeling that came when he thought about or saw Charlene. There was no adrenaline rush, no instant erection, no ravenous craving. Thinking of Sunny stirred a deep longing, however.

“It felt like being ten years old and lying in the grass with your dog,” said Danny. The image came to him at that moment. To his surprise he felt tears come to his eyes.

Raj sat still, legs crossed, almost statue-like, and allowed himself to absorb the words.

“That’s quite an analogy.”

Danny pinched the space between his brows and the bridge of his nose to hold the tears at bay. Not that he had never cried in front of Raj. And despite his crackpot psychology, Danny liked that Raj never made him feel like a fool. He couldn’t say the same about past guidance counselors, school psychologists, and even the shrink he was court-ordered to see following the Incident.

But he didn’t want to be so vulnerable right now. Maybe because he was just too damn tired. He’d not been sleeping well.

“Leave it to me to fuck it up, though,” he said.

“What happened?”

“She was at the premiere. During the Q and A, I said something really stupid, something about my fans being wannabes—I swear it was like some ventriloquist guy sitting behind me, working my mouth with a string—and she took exceptional offense to it.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because she came up to me after the Q and A and told me so. Then she called me a jackass and a failure and walked away.”

“A jackass
 
and
 
a failure?”

“That’s not even the best part,” he said. “The best part is that someone standing behind her recorded the  moment for posterity on his goddamned smartphone and posted it on goddamned YouTube. It’s got about twenty-five thousand hits now. Maybe more. Which isn’t much in the Kardashian scheme of things, but still.”

“That’s quite a cosmic response to one blunder, don’t you think?” said Raj.

“Fuck yeah,” said Danny, taking out a cigarette. He knew he couldn’t smoke in the building, but liked that Raj let him hold the cigarette or act as if he were smoking it. “What gives?”

“Is it possible that you’ve subconsciously sabotaged a relationship with your soul mate?”

Danny dropped his chin to his neck and folded his arms. “Come on, you know I don’t believe in soul mates any more than I believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.”

“There’s no Tooth Fairy?”

“And why would I deprive myself of such happiness?” he asked, already knowing the answer. He’d been over these reasons with Raj and all the shrinks before him. His fears of inadequacy, of being a fraud, of being incapable of letting anyone in enough to see the real him lest they run in horror. Of not deserving to be fully pardoned for his sins. For his crime.

“What’s the woman’s name?” asked Raj.

Danny shrugged sadly. “I never got her name.”

Raj raised his eyebrows. “Now that is interesting.”

Danny looked at him with feigned disgust. “You would think so.”

“You won’t even allow yourself to know her name, much less spend the rest of your life with her.”

“Look, some goon came over and started in with all the fan nonsense before I could get her name. How is that my fault?”

“Your subconscious invited it.”

Danny looked at Raj skeptically. “Sure.” He paused for another few beats, putting the cigarette inhis mouth and taking it out again when he realized he couldn’t take a drag. “It gets better. I tried to makean apology on this fan forum, and got into a battle of words with one of the participants.”

“Just one?”

Danny nodded. “Goes by the name of Sunnyside. A lot of people have been trying to get in on the

conversation, but I only responded to the one.”

“Why is that?” asked Raj.

Danny paused again, as if about to take a leap.

“Because I’m pretty sure it’s her.”

Raj looked amused.

“I know it’s crazy, but there you go,” Danny added, knowing full well Raj didn’t think it crazy at

all.

“People misrepresent themselves all the time on the Internet,” said Raj.

Danny looked at him, confused. It didn’t seem to be the logical response to his last statement. And yet he wasn’t sure what he was about to counter with would make much sense either. “They misrepresent themselves in person too.”

“How so?” asked Raj.

“She was sweet as pie outside the theater. Shy, unobtrusive, funny. Then she calls me a jackass and a failure. I mean sure, I deserved to be called a jackass, but a
failure
? What the fuck? Then when I try to apologize, she lacesinto  me even more. Then when I finally message her privately—and had I known you could direct-message people, I would’ve,” Danny rambled, “she leaves me this message that says, ‘You don’t want to get to know me.’ I mean, what the fuck is up with that, Raj?”

Raj’s eye contact with Danny was unwavering, making Danny increasingly uncomfortable as he fidgeted in his seat, craving his cigarette.

“What do you want, Daniel?” asked Raj.

Danny stared out one of the windows and into the smoggy skyline.

“It was my birthday a few weeks ago.”

“Happy birthday.”

He nodded in acknowledgment. “Charlene flew out from New York just to be with me, then flew back the next morning.”

“Did you see her while you were in New York?”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t get our schedules to mesh,” he lied, and stared out again. “The birthday sex was incredible.”

Raj didn’t respond.

“I’m forty-five now,” said Danny seconds after Raj’s nonresponse became unbearable yet again.

“What does forty-five mean to you?”

He shrugged. “It’s a number.” He wasn’t sure if he really believed that; he just didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t even sure what the question meant, but didn’t want to ask.

“Did you set an intention for your birthday?” asked Raj.

Danny shrugged again. “What’s the point?” He put the cigarette in his mouth again, then took it out just as quickly and tapped it nervously on his thigh.

“The point is to make your life the way you want it to be. Setting the intention alerts the Universal Life Source, who gladly responds to your thought vibration.”

“Do you know how silly that sounds, even coming from
you
? Especially since I know you believe

it.”

Raj chuckled again. “Mock all you want, Daniel. The more you resist, the more you reveal.”

“I’ve had a pretty remarkable life, don’t you think? I’ve got more money than God, I’ve got a Tonyand three Emmys, and if the critics are correct, I’m gonna score a hat trick with an Oscar, although Iprobably jinxed it just now by saying that. I’m fucking every man’s dream girl, and I’ve got the greatestdaughter that I totally don’t deserve. Far from being a failure. So why would I sabotage meeting onerandom woman one random day on one random street?”

“Because you decided a long time ago that you don’t get to have it all. But the little girl lived,

Daniel.”

A wave of nausea washed over Danny.

“So did you,” said Raj. “But you’re not really
 
living
. You’re cluttering up your cosmos withanother interview, another appearance, another photo op. You’re writing another script, another plot,another scene. You’re taking another trip, dropping another grand, but you’re not seeing the treasurewithin, the one that has no dollar sign attached and is more dazzling than the greatest diamond on earth. Danny Masters is an apparition.”

Danny was floored.

He stared past Raj, who sat still, unfazed by the silence.

Without announcement or any kind of gesture of hug or handshake, Danny stood up and walked out,got into his car, and drove for at least an hour without any  distraction of radio or phone or even thecharacters who constantly chattered in his mind. He hadn’t even smoked the cigarette he’d been sopreoccupied with in Raj’s office; in fact, he’d forgotten where he put it.

Finally he pulled off to a scenic overlook and killed the ignition after closing the top of theconvertible. He sat motionless and stared at the ocean, a palette of beauty out of his reach.

Raj’s words haunted him.

The little girl lived, Daniel.

Danny Masters is an apparition.

He wept alone behind tinted windows, the pain squeezing his heart so tightly he believed it wascapable of killing him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sunny Smith

I
 
PUT TOGETHER
 
an outfit from the clothes I had purchased in the city and tried to recreate some semblanceof the fab hairstyle Luc had given me, this time with a lot of texturizer and moderate success. I only hopedthat Josh wouldn’t try to run his fingers through my hair; he’d have to clean them with a Wet Wipeafterward.

He was talking to Angela at the cash wrap when I entered the store at five minutes before seven,and he seemed pleased to see me. In fact, his eyes widened and a smile came over his face—not themanagerial cheerleader smile, but something more genuine, not unlike the way Danny Masters had lookedat me. But Danny’s was more like contentment, like listening to a satisfying piece of music. Or had I madethat up? Perhaps I was remembering the moment as I wanted it to be and not as it had really happened.

Josh held every door open for me and drove us to Nocello’s in Northport in a red Subaru. Normally I didn’t ride in the same car with my date, but I had a vial of pepper spray, not to mention that Icould threaten a mega  harassment suit against him if he messed with me. But something told me I couldtrust Joshua Hamilton, despite Georgie’s warnings to the contrary.

I hadn’t been to Nocello’s since Teddy and I attended a wedding reception there; the place hadgotten a makeover both in decor and menu. Josh put on his managerial façade, called the server “guy,” andordered a glass of chardonnay for himself and a cosmo for me after asking what I wanted.

We engaged in polite small talk until the server took our orders, and then Josh unloaded the bigguns, practically demanding my life’s story. I gave it to him in truncated clips, stopping at my divorce.

“I’m divorced too,” he said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied.

“Why didn’t it work out for you?”

“I can’t have children,” I said, washing my self-blame down with a forceful sip of my cosmo. “Atleast, that’s where the trouble started. After that, well...let’s just say my husband really wanted to be afather.”

“And this upsets you because...” said Josh.

I looked at him, stupefied.

“Look, having kids is way overrated. They suck the life force out of you every minute they’re notasleep. I mean, sure, sometimes in a good way, but...”

I went from stupefied to horrified—suddenly Georgie’s warnings were going off like foghorns inmy head.

“Don’t get me wrong—I love mine,” he backpedaled. “I’m just saying that everyone tells you it’sthis beautiful thing and you should love every minute of it, but it’s not and you don’t, not all the time.”

He noticed my expression and frowned. “Oh, don’t tell me I blew it just because of that. Look, I’mbeing honest. And I love my kids—really, I do. But parenthood is manual labor. You’ve got to know that.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” I said, deadpan.