CHAPTER EIGHT
Hard Pressed
Adam wasn’t the first actor I ever dated. I had one blind date in college with an older guy I met online who said he was an actor but didn’t mention until we met in person that he worked exclusively in porn, or “adult films,” as he called them. Then there was Sebastian, a friend of my post-college roommate, who asked me out and then asked if I could help him get a review of his student film on the website I was working for. at the time. He was cute and I was all on board, until I came home one night and caught him sleeping with my roommate.
But my most long-term actor boyfriend prior to Adam was Jordan Ruiz. A former sitcom kid, Jordan fell on hard times as soon as he grew out of his boyish looks and started shaving. To his credit, he avoided most of the typical child-star traps. He completed high school and studied communications at USC. We met working on the school paper, The Daily Trojan. I was the features editor and he wrote movie reviews. In the summer he did stage plays and low-budget indie films. Some of them were good. But just because Jordan didn’t become a junkie or rob liquor stores didn’t mean his early success hadn’t left scars. Image was everything to him, especially his own. When he had the chance to upgrade from unemployed journalism grad to publishing empire heiress, he took it. At least he had the decency to break up with me first. I should have learned my lesson then.
Jordan went on to host a weekly syndicated entertainment show on TV. We ran into each other from time to time at events and hugged it out like old pals. He was always nice and friendly, but I could read the silent relief on his face. He probably went home afterwards and congratulated himself for making the right choice in dumping me all those years ago. I should have thanked him. He opened my eyes to reality of show business.
Both Jordan and Adam made me feel lesser, like they were doing me a favor by being with me. For guys like that, attention is a currency. They collect it, hoard it, and dole it out as a favor when they feel like it. Getting caught up in their personality vortex could be a rush. I would feel grateful for even a moment of consideration. It was easy to lose sight of the fact that in a normal, healthy relationship the feeling should be mutual.
It had been three weeks since that first, whisky-laced kiss with Nick, almost a month of long phone calls and shared meals and marathon make-out sessions on my couch. So far, all the time we’d spent together had been within the walls of my apartment. It had become our routine. He’d show up at my door sometime after sunset and we’d eat takeout or watch a movie or listen to music. Then we kissed and talked for a while until he left, always right before things start getting good.
Already I could tell Nick was different. He acted as though he was the one who was lucky to be with me. Which was ironic, considering he’d achieved a level of fame either of my ex-boyfriends would have killed for. Fame wasn’t something he relished, though; it was the inconvenient by-product of being an actor. Even with all his success, Nick remained humble and self-deprecating. He didn’t talk about himself much. When I asked him about his past or growing up in Seattle he tended to change the subject, or shift the focus back to me. It was a refreshing change, though I hoped one day he’d feel comfortable enough to be more open with me.
“ID please?”
My thoughts of Nick and Adam and Jordan were interrupted by the appearance of a security guard at the gated entrance to the Sony lot, where I had a press conference to attend. Startled into the present, I pried my driver’s license from my wallet and handed it to him. While the guard searched his computer for my drive-on pass, I read over the details in an e-mail from the studio publicist. I was there to cover a press conference with the cast and crew of the teen horror flick Haunted House Party. All I had to do was sit in a room with a bunch of reporters asking questions and record everything with my personal digital recorder. Later on, I’d transcribe it all and write up a piece for the site. I could ask a question if I wanted to, but it was perfectly acceptable to sit in the back and not say a word.
It was a nice change to be on familiar ground, where I knew the rules and what was expected of me, in contrast to the uncharted wilderness of my new relationship with Nick. We hadn’t yet defined anything between us, hadn’t put a label on it. I was ready for more. I knew I wanted to be exclusive. I really wanted us to have sex. But I wasn’t sure how to tell him any of that. In the movies he was so expressive and emotive, you could always tell what his characters were thinking. In real life he was much more difficult to read.
The guard handed me a slip of paper for my dashboard and a visitor’s badge, then directed me to the designated parking lot. I followed the posted signs to the sound stage where the press conference was taking place. The cavernous space was set up with rows of chairs and a long table at the front for the talent. A few people I knew were already there, hanging back near the food table as usual. The same people from the same outlets tended to show up at events like this, and we were always eating together, so we’d become like co-workers. I probably saw them more than my actual co-workers at Hollywood Beat. Technically, we were all in competition with each other, writing up the same material aimed at the same audience. But most of us didn’t get paid enough to worry about the big picture. In the room, there was usually an atmosphere of camaraderie among the press.
Of course, there were always people you didn’t want to run into. I saw one of them on the other side of the room, Tim Belvedere. He was a freelance writer and a friend of Adam’s, or what passed for a friend in Adam’s circle. Tim was a mediocre writer who somehow always found work despite a limited knowledge of cinema, which encompassed almost exclusively James Bond, Batman, and crime films set in Boston. He hit on every attractive actress he interviewed, used words like “shiggles” (an unfortunate portmanteau of “shits” and “giggles”), and wondered aloud why there was no such thing as “straight pride week.” The world of entertainment reporting was infested with guys like that. I lowered my head and took a seat in the back so he wouldn’t see me. He sat in the front row.
A few minutes later the studio rep introduced the panel, lead actors Connor McNamera and Tammy Aquino, plus the director and writing team. According to the reporters I talked to earlier, Connor had been caught cheating on his pop star girlfriend with Tammy during filming. I didn’t keep up with the rumors, and neither did Hollywood Beat, so I wasn’t under any mandate to ask about it. There were others there who were, though, so I braced myself for the awkwardness to come.
Right on time, a studio rep introduced the talent and they took their places behind tented cards with their names. There would be a 30 minute Q & A session followed by individual interviews with specific outlets. I didn’t have any one-on-ones scheduled, so I’d be done when the press conference was over.
The first question was for the actors. A woman from an Italian TV channel took the microphone and asked, “What was your working relationship like on set?” This was a warm-up question, a hint of where the press conference was going. The questions would keep getting more direct until the studio finally had to step in. Connor and Tammy played it off, answering in generic terms and defusing the subject with humor. Neither came close to discussing anything remotely personal or romantic. They’d been well coached.
As I’d predicted, the reporters in the room didn’t let up. With each question my chest felt tighter.
“Have you two kept in touch since you wrapped the film?”
“Tammy, do you have a special man in your life or are you off the market?”
“What about you, Connor? Is it serious between you and Cherelle?”
I squirmed in my seat. I’d always hated this kind of rumor-mongering, but now it felt personal. I kept seeing Nick up on the platform, promoting some future project, having to answer questions about me. Neither of us wanted to be in that situation, but as long as we were together it was only a matter of time.
I raised my hand. An assistant came to me with a microphone and whispered a warning, “No more personal questions.” I agreed wholeheartedly.
I waited for Connor to finish talking around the subject of the last question, then stood up and spoke into the microphone, “I’d describe this film as ‘80s slasher meets John Hughes.” My voice echoed through the room, amplified by the mic. The entire panel visibly relaxed and nodded in agreement. “Could you talk about those influences and how they informed your artistic process?”
The director, ignored thus far, jumped in to talk about his “vision.” The two writers filled in some additional background. The next couple of questions were also about the film. The push for tabloid fodder ceased for the time being. Still, the whole spectacle had rattled me. I wanted to go home and take a shower.
As soon as the last question was asked and answered I checked my audio files and confirmed everything sounded okay. Satisfied, I headed straight for the door, and almost made it. As I was about to exit, someone called my name.
“Katie!” Adam always called me Katie around his friends, so that’s what they called me too.
“It’s Kate,” I corrected. “Hi, Tim. What’s up?”
“Not much, but I hear there’s plenty going on with you.”
My stomach, already queasy, performed a routine worthy of an Olympic gymnast.
“Don’t believe everything you hear. You know Adam’s a pathological liar, right?”
“Whoa. Feisty. I like it. What are you doing now? You want to get a drink?”
“I want to go home,” I said. It was a more polite dismissal than he deserved, but there were other people around and it wouldn’t have been professional for me to tell him off right there. It also happened to be true.
“So you hook up with Nick Archer and now you’re too good for us regular people? Frankly, I’d say he could do better.”
A girl I sort of knew, a blogger named Heather, passed by and perked up at the mention of Nick. “Wait, you hooked up with Nick Archer?”
“I . . . Uh. . .” I fumbled around for whatever answer would get me out of the conversation the fastest.
“Becca!” Heather grabbed a friend and brought her over to join us. “This is Becca. She loves Nick Archer too.”
She said it like Becca and I should form a fan club together.
“Hey.” I gave her an awkward wave.
“Becca, Katelyn.” Heather ran a teen blog called Movie Crush. We’d spoken a few times at previous events, but I caught her reading my name off the press credential around my neck before she introduced me to her friend.
“Oh my god, don’t you love him?” Becca said brightly.
I was starting to think I might, but that probably wasn’t what she meant.
Becca continued, extolling the virtues of my sort-of-maybe boyfriend. “He’s so hot. Did you see Spy Love You? So good, right?”
“She *slept *with him,” Heather clarified, pointing at me.
“No. Way.” Becca looked me up and down, assessing the validity of Heather’s words and my potential as a rival. I wished for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. The truth was, Nick and I hadn’t slept together yet. My feelings were complicated enough without getting into semantics with fangirls. I should have rushed to deny it, defended myself, stopped the rumor before it spread. Instead I froze. I depended on words for my livelihood, but they always seemed to fail me when I needed them most.
“Yep, she gets around,” Tim interjected. I shot him a look that could melt steel, but he continued, unfazed. “She dated my friend Adam too. You might know him, Adam Banks?”
“Adam from SpankBanks? That’s cool,” Heather said, because of course she’d heard of Adam.
Becca wasn’t quite as savvy. “Who?”
“You know, the YouTuber? The guy who does the videos?” Heather bit her lip suggestively and I wanted to throw up, right there on her Tory Burch flats.
“Oh! Wow. You’re friends with him?”
For once I appreciated Tim’s tendency to drop Adam’s name in the presence of fame-obsessed women he wanted to fuck. I was quickly forgotten. The girls continued sniffing around Tim for more information on Adam and he was happy to provide details. Unnoticed, I left them to their mating ritual and took the welcome opportunity to slip away.