Christopher Beha - Arts & Entertainments - A Novel

“What kind of juice are we talking about?”

Eddie paused.

“I’ll tell you during the interview.”

“Why don’t we call this the interview, and you can just tell me now?”

“I just need a little more time to prepare.”

“If you’ve actually got a story to tell, call me back. Right now I’m on deadline for a piece about Susan and Rex.”

He’d already missed his chance. If he wanted to get on the show, he couldn’t just wait until their story needed him. He needed to make a story for himself. He continued looking through his phone, as though the answer to his problem could be found there. After two minutes of mindless scrolling he came across the photo from Blakeman’s party, and he called the number that had sent it to him.

“Is this who I think it is?” Melissa asked. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”

“I’ve got a job offer for you,” Eddie said. “It’s an acting job, and it will pay pretty well.”

“What do I have to do?”

“For starters, I want you to come to the SoHo Cue and ask for my room. When you get here, I’ll tell you the rest.”

AN HOUR LATER, EDDIE answered a call from the front desk.

“Mr. Hartley, there’s a young woman here to see you.”

“Send her up,” Eddie said. “Have room service bring us a bottle of champagne. Just leave it outside. We don’t want to be disturbed.”

When he opened the door, Melissa stood in the hall wearing a short, high-waisted skirt and leather boots that came up to her knees. Her hair had been light brown the last time he’d seen her. Now it was dyed black, and her eyes were made up darkly to set off her pale skin. She was perfect for the role, Eddie thought.

“So you’ve got a job for me?” she asked. “What have you got in mind?”

“We’re going to have an affair.”

“You don’t need to pay me for that.”

“I don’t actually want to sleep with you,” Eddie explained, though it wasn’t precisely true at the moment. “I just want it to look like there’s something going on between us. I need to get my wife back.”

“You want to get your wife back by pretending to sleep with me?”

“We’re going to create a scandal. It’s the only way the producers will let me on the show.”

“You want me to go out with you, hold hands, kiss in public. That kind of thing?”

“That’s the idea.”

“I’ll be famous for sleeping with a married man whose wife is pregnant with triplets?”

“More or less.”

Melissa smiled.

“This is amazing.”

“I can’t offer you much money. But if it works out I’m sure you could turn it into something.”

“The money isn’t the important thing. Just tell me how you want it to work.”

“I think we’ll just hang around the hotel at first, until someone tips off the press. Once the cameras get here in a day or two, we’ll start going out together and pretend to be surprised.”

“I can get cameras here a lot quicker than that,” Melissa said. She handed Eddie her phone, pulled her skirt up half an inch, and undid a button on her shirt. “Take a shot of me.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Eddie asked as he handed back her phone.

“I’ve got twenty thousand people in my Teeser circle now. A lot of tabloid people are still following me from when I sent that last photo out.”

She posted the photo Eddie had taken with a message: “Wearing my best to meet *MrDrake at the Cue on Thompson.”

“Give it half an hour,” she said.

“Maybe we should do something with both of us in it?”

“Not yet. People will want to break the story themselves. We’ve let them know where to find us. The idea is that you’re trying to keep things under wraps, and I’m a little overeager.”

“You seem to have thought this out already.”

“I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for years.”

FOR WEEKS EDDIE HAD been expecting a crowd to appear in the lobby looking for him, and every time he came downstairs he was disappointed, even as he was infuriated to get back to his room and see his latest outing documented online. He seemed to be losing all his privacy without getting any of the attention in return. This time he imagined things would be different, and he was disappointed all over again when he stepped out of the elevator with Melissa into the empty lobby and no one was waiting there. They were in the revolving door before he saw the photographers out on the sidewalk, and the cameras caught a genuine look of surprise on his face.

“Don’t say anything,” Melissa whispered. “Duck your head and turn for the corner.”

“Does Susan know what you’re doing?” someone shouted as they stepped outside.

Eddie did as Melissa said and walked on without responding, but Melissa stopped and yelled back.

“It’s none of her damn business what we’re doing.”

She took Eddie by the arm and hurried him down the street while the photographers followed, shouting questions. They’d never bothered following Eddie before. Melissa led him on for two blocks before they stopped at a dimly lit Thai restaurant with loud electronic music playing inside. The photographers stopped at the door as Melissa approached the hostess and asked for a table in the back.

“Shouldn’t we be closer to the window?” Eddie said.

“If we sit in the window, they’ll take a few more shots before getting tired of us and leaving. If we sit in the back and make out, people at the other tables will e-mail our dinner order to StalkTalk, and the photographers will wait outside to catch us coming out.”

She didn’t even need to think about it. She just followed her instincts. Eddie had needed a guide like Melissa all along. When she’d said at graduation that she wanted to be an actress, this was what she meant. This was what she aspired to be. She’d never breathed air that hadn’t first been filtered by CelebretainmentSpot and Entertainment Daily. She kissed his neck for a minute while a woman at the next table took out her phone to record them. When Eddie felt a tongue edging into his mouth, he stopped.

“What are you doing?” he asked Melissa.

“People are watching us,” she whispered. “Don’t break scene.”

Throughout the meal, diners approached their table to catch a glimpse of them and take pictures. But no one spoke to them, even to ask for an autograph. They behaved as if Eddie and Melissa weren’t actually present, as though they were being projected on some screen. Eddie imagined Susan being treated this way. Had she learned to like the attention? How long did it take to get used to it?

For now, Eddie enjoyed his dinner. He’d been alone for weeks, separated not just from Susan but from everything, watching his own life on TV or reading about it online, waiting for the viewing public to decide whether he could see his wife. Eating curry with Melissa, he inhabited a scene again. He was playing a part, and he had an audience.

Melissa seemed to be enjoying his company, but this could have been good acting. Watching her across the table, Eddie saw her for what she was — a beautiful nineteen-year-old girl. He pictured her in a dorm room as the school year began, telling her roommate, “That guy in the Drake tape was my boyfriend’s high school teacher.” He imagined the odd satisfaction the tenuous connection offered her, and the sense of opportunity to build on that connection she’d felt when she saw him at Blakeman’s apartment. All that talk at the party had been part of her act. She’d never really wanted to sleep with him. She’d wanted exactly what she was getting now — to sit in a restaurant and know that every other table was talking about her. To know that there were people across the country she’d never met and never would meet who would read at some point tonight or tomorrow about what she was now wearing or eating and would take these facts as matters of interest to their own lives. He guessed she would have slept with him to get all that if it had been necessary, but it hadn’t been. Things had gone better than she could possibly have hoped.