Nine Women, One Dress (12 page)

I was right—I wasn't able to make it through. By the third time she brushed by me and rose above the water looking like a Greek goddess of the sea, I pulled her toward me and kissed her. It lasted a few minutes, and I don't think I'd ever wanted anyone so badly or waited so long to act on it. I broke away.

“Should we go inside to continue this?” I asked, barely audible.

“I don't think we should continue, Jeremy,” she responded, completely audible.

“Why?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Why?” she responded, and seemed even more surprised. My desire began to wane. I didn't know what her deal was, but I was beginning to feel toyed with.

“Yes, why? Why are you all gaga over that idiot who can't see past his Ivy League rulebook and for me you feel nothing?” I had said it. I don't remember ever leaving myself so vulnerable in my life. She stopped for a moment to think. I felt very naked, and I think she did too as she crossed her arms over her breasts as she spoke.

“Jeremy, I've just had my heart broken, and I didn't like it. In fact I pretty much hated it, and I don't want to go through that again, at least not so—”

I interrupted her. “Natalie, I'm absolutely crazy about you, everything about you. Every minute with you leaves me wanting more. I promise I will not hurt you,” I pleaded.

“You say that now, Jeremy, and I'm sure you believe it, but down deep inside you like men, and I know that with the moonlight and the nakedness and all this pretending to be a couple you temporarily found me attractive, but I think you're just caught up in the moment.”

“
Hold on!
” I shouted. “What the hell are you talking about? I'm not gay.”

Her face turned ashen. She backed away from me and ran to get a towel. I ran after her. I was confused, but she just seemed angry. She was pacing around the room throwing her last few belongings in her suitcase. Finally she stopped.

“How could you?” she asked.

“How could I what?” I responded.

“How could you have lied to me like that? And for so long. You slept in my bed…and you brought me here and shared a room with me. I was naked in front of you!”

“I'm sorry…I thought you were just a free spirit—it's one of the things I like about you!”

“Really?” She seethed. “Well, I'm not. I'm not a free spirit! I'm a prude! I'm only a free spirit in front of my girlfriends! Thelma and Louise, remember?”

“I never told you I was gay!” I said, losing my temper a bit.

“You never told me you weren't!” she shouted, losing hers a lot.

She yelled at me without giving me the chance to defend myself. I kept thinking it would end up okay, but she was possibly the most stubborn person I'd ever met, and the night ended with her sleeping, I kid you not, in the bathtub fit for a king, with all the bedding and most of the pillows. The next day I didn't know what to say and she seemed to have said everything she felt, so we rode home on the private plane in silence. Except for one parting sentence—hers.

“Goodbye, Jeremy. I liked you better when you were gay.”

She took her own cab from Teterboro. In the limo home I consoled myself with one reassuring fact: although now she didn't like me in
that
way or in any way whatsoever, at least before she hadn't liked me in
that
way because I was gay.

He got me there on the pretext of needing a file for a client. The whole way over I secretly thought he'd remembered I had said the Carlyle was on my bucket list. Of course I'd said it picturing us listening to Sutton Foster at the Café, not in a tryst in a suite upstairs. Looks like I may have to write myself a new list!

I went to the front desk as instructed and asked for Mr. Winters.

The concierge said there was a note for me. “Suite 402” was written in the most familiar handwriting I knew, with a little heart drawn on the bottom of the card. That part was new to me. I pressed the fourth-floor button six times, but it didn't make the elevator go any faster.

Within seconds of entering the room I was naked between what felt like million-thread-count sheets. Arthur kissed me and then pushed back to the foot of the bed. This scene, of a woman being pleasured by a man and responding with reckless abandon, is being played out in the movies and on television more frequently lately. It must have something to do with the resurgence of the feminist movement. I thanked those young feminists in my head for making me slightly more comfortable with it, but still I tensed up. It's the reckless abandon that I've never been able to get a handle on. I just never felt comfortable enough with someone to let him do that. The few times someone had tried, I'd literally said, “No, thank you.” No, thank you, like I was turning down dessert.

Arthur must have sensed something because he returned to face me. He kissed me on the mouth. “What's the matter?” He kissed me again.

“Nothing,” I said, but I could hear the nervousness in my voice.

He must have heard it too. He smiled and looked into my eyes. “C'mon. It's me,” he said before heading down my body again. And somehow then I got lost in it.

An hour later, as I watched him sleep, I realized with a sinking heart that I would probably have to leave him. This was getting serious, for me at least. And he had yet to officially break it off with Sherri, although he promised he would. He opened his eyes.

“Arthur,” I said, very seriously, “tomorrow afternoon I'm going to meet with a headhunter.”

He laughed. “That's a setup for a sex joke if I ever heard one.”

“I'm serious, Arthur. I shouldn't be working for you anymore.” I sighed. “Partners shouldn't break the rules.”

He looked sad. “If you don't work for me, then I won't see you every day. I don't think I could bear it.”

Now I laughed. “You haven't even broken up with Sherri yet. She called three times yesterday.”

“I know. She's calling so often because I haven't seen her.” He sighed heavily. “I'm just trying to find the right time. She's not the strongest. I'm scared of hurting her.” I looked at him and rolled my eyes.

“You're right. I'll do it this weekend. You go to the headhunter, and by next week we will no longer have to skulk around.”

I felt completely content. Being with Arthur this way felt both so new and so old at the same time.

He laughed. “I'm going to miss the skulking, though. This has been my only skulking experience, and I have to admit, it's sort of fun.”

I laughed too. “It is fun. We still have a little skulking time left. I'm sure I won't get a job right away.”

“That's true.” He peeked under the covers and added, “I bet a lot of that depends on my recommendation.” And we were at it again.

I knew every line by heart. Every stage direction and scene description as well. I had rehearsed every part over and over, except of course for Jordana's. I had to concentrate hard not to move my lips along with the performance.

At that point I stopped running the lines in my head. I was distracted by the man next to me. He had a small notebook. Probably a critic. He wrote down three words. I tried to read out of the corner of my eye.

Over her head.

Over her head. Oh boy. Could he be talking about the maid? For the love of sweet Jesus, please let him be talking about the maid. Maybe he was from
Newsday
. We could survive a bad review from
Newsday
. As long as it wasn't the
Times
. Jesus—seven lines in and he already thinks she's in over her head. And she hasn't even slipped out of her southern accent yet. That usually doesn't happen till Act Two.

Daphne's husband entered the scene. His disdain for Daphne was palpable. As was the critic's disdain for Jordana. He wrote a word I'd hoped not to see.

Ambitious.

You may think of this word as complimentary. I knew it wasn't. I pictured his review.

Ms. Winston might have chosen a less ambitious role for her Broadway debut. One that didn't have her accent stray farther south of her native Los Angeles than, let's say, Pasadena.

Onstage, Reggie Beauregard took hold of Daphne's most precious snow globe—an antique replica of Niagara Falls—and threw it to the ground.

The critic and his companion hurried to the bar as soon as the lights came on for intermission. I sidled up next to them, ordered a martini, and searched Web images of New York theater critics on my phone. I nearly choked on my olive. The man standing next to me was none other than Brad Bentley, chief drama critic for the
New York Times
. This is a total nightmare.

“She is way too old for that part. The guy who plays Reginald could be her son,” said his crony. Bentley agreed as he ordered another scotch. Maybe he would sleep through the second act. What was I going to do? A bad review in the
Times
would devastate her. Too old for the part? I could not imagine the hell and Botox a remark like that would bring about.

He spoke to his friend. “At least you can leave. I have to stay for the second act!” His friend dismissed the suggestion, but I took it.

I ran from the theater as if it were on fire and hailed a cab. You may wonder what I see in this narcissistic prima donna beyond a meal ticket, but I love her. I do. There's something underneath the drama, underneath the ego, that speaks to me. We understand each other. And I'm her person. It's better being her person than being the person I am without her—an out-of-work actor who hasn't been cast in anything since
Titanic
, when my character's name was First to Drown. Well, I wasn't going to drown today. Today I was going to jump ship, and I was going to take my darling egomaniac leading lady with me.

I made all the necessary arrangements in the car back to the hotel. The second act was only fifty minutes long, so I had to multitask. The three-hour time difference between New York and L.A. helped. I called Jordana's assistant back home and had her arrange first-class tickets for the midnight flight to Paris and a suite at the Plaza Athénée. At three a.m., when the reviews came out, we would be sound asleep somewhere over the Atlantic. Thank god and her agent that she never signed that contract. I ran up to our suite, threw some essentials and half her wardrobe in my black wheelie bag, grabbed our passports, and was back in my seat before the finale.

In my absence Daphne and Reggie had returned from the Whitmans' dinner party, where Daphne had accused Reggie of groping the Whitmans' maid in the pantry. As payback he'd smashed every last one of her snow globes. This drove her mad, and the play wrapped up with Jordana wrapped up in a straitjacket, being taken away to an asylum. The curtain dropped. People clapped, mostly I think because it was over, and I hurried backstage during the curtain call to wait for her in her dressing room. She came bursting in, full of exuberance and hope. Actually, it wasn't hope—she was completely certain she'd been fabulous.

“Was I fabulous, darling? Tell me!” It was definitely a “Tell me!” not a “Tell me?” Already down to just her slip, she reached for the little black dress she was to wear to the opening-night party. She couldn't wait to take in all the accolades she was sure would be forthcoming.

I broke it to her gently. I knew it would hurt less coming from me. I'm her person; this is what I do.

“I thought you were fabulous, baby, really I did, but I sat next to Brad Bentley, you know, the critic from the
Times
—”

She interrupted me; her exuberance had turned to irritation. “Of course I know who Brad Bentley is. I wasn't born yesterday!”

“Well, he seems to have noticed that. And I'm pretty sure that he's writing that you're in over your head. I'm sorry.”

She sat down and breathed. She could be pretty clear-headed when it came to her own damage control. “The reviews will be out at three a.m., right?”

I nodded.

“Did you see anything else?”

“He wrote the word
ambitious
,” I said, in as humane a whisper as I could.

She grimaced. She knew that word was lethal. “We need to be as far from here as possible when that review comes out!”

“How's Paris?” I pulled out the wheelie bag I'd stashed before sneaking back to my seat and told her that everything was arranged. We went out the front of the theater to avoid the crowds that would be waiting by the stage door and jumped into a waiting car. She stripped off the little black dress that had been so full of promise when it had arrived, shoved it in the luggage, and threw on the disguise I had brought her: a Juicy Couture tracksuit and a dark brown wig.

“The show must go on!” she proclaimed grandly. “Without me!”

“JFK Airport,” I said to the driver as I marveled at her resilience.