“Not obviously. Not everything you see out there is real, Alex. Do you understand that? He’s acting a part, I’m acting a part. That is the act.”
He crossed his arms. “So you don’t have feelings for St. James?”
I batted this away. “That doesn’t even matter. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be me? To have this pressure to be perfect all the time?”
“Fuck, Cassy!” he exploded. “I can’t believe you’d cheat on me!”
“Are you deaf? I haven’t cheated on you!” I hoped that Yumi and Antonio had left. It was a big house, but the bedroom door was still open and we were shouting.
He breathed fast. “Why are you lying?”
“You can’t be serious. I think you’re so in your head, worrying what everyone else thinks about me and therefore about you. Why can’t you just believe me when I say that Stephen is a friend? Yes, he’s good-looking and yes, I had a thing for him, like, two years ago. But it’s not like that now. Stop reading the gossip rags and stop listening to your roommate and fucking listen to me.”
We glared at each other for another minute.
“Or is that it?” I gained control of my voice as I struggled with my temper. “You’re ‘just’ a college kid. You’re not a superstar. So you sell my photos to tabloids. You make money off of me, just like everyone else.” God, the photo. Couldn’t Alex see that by releasing the MVA after-party photo he was helping the Sassy–St. James narrative?
“I’ve never done that.” He squeezed his fists. “I just don’t understand why I’m not your date to these things. You’ve never asked me to walk the carpet with you. Why is that? Are you ashamed of me?”
I rolled my shoulders back and tried to breathe evenly. “My Gloss life doesn’t even feel like my life, Alex. It’s all out for consumption. You should be glad that you’re not a part of this fucking circus. I’m a commodity and everything I’m a part of is, too.”
“And he gets it.” He stated it; it wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, he gets it because he is a part of it too. Being handled by like five different people. Every move we make gets dissected. And if I gain an ounce, I can get kicked out of my promotional deals. No one wants to buy soda from a fat pop star.”
“You’re joking, right? Cassidy, you’re so thin now. Like, unrecognizable-since-high-school thin.” I shook this backhanded compliment off and he said, in a monotone, “So I’m not part of your image.”
I avoided his gaze and resisted the urge to pick at the smooth new polish on my thumbnail. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m protecting you. Protecting us.”
“What if I don’t want to be protected? What if I want to share this overwhelming, big-world shit with you?”
My lip twitched. “I don’t want this life for you. Hell, I hardly want it for myself.” There. A thought that had been circling the bottom of my heart had emerged.
“I’d do it for you. I don’t care. All I care about is you, Cass.” He didn’t say it, but I could sense it: the I love you.
A pause, but to both of us it felt like a year. “I wish you could be a part of it, Alex. I do. But I don’t . . . I don’t think that I feel for you the way you seem to feel toward me and I don’t want you to get mixed up in all this if it’s temporary.”
He looked as though I’d slapped him. Everything was quiet while he absorbed this news.
I murmured, “I’m sorry. I should have told you this sooner.”
When he found his voice again, it sounded strangled. His words made everything feel cold. “I don’t think I can be your friend anymore, Cass. It’s just . . . I can’t watch you with someone else, and I can’t fight for a part of your life when there are so many other things going on, vying for your attention. It hurts too much knowing that I’m not a priority to you.”
Breaking up with Alex was a given, but losing his friendship altogether? That hurt. I swallowed, wishing to suppress the lump in my throat that was giving way to tears. “Listen,” I said, voice wavering, “I know this is the worst timing ever. And I’m sorry. But someone is going to be waiting on me, and I can’t let him down.”
Alex stepped toward me, and the light on his shirt grew brighter as he came nearer. I was just in eyeline with his chest when he spread his arms and gave me a warm hug, an Alex hug. I was wrapped up in all of him, hands clasped in front of my heart, so I couldn’t hug back. Swallowing thickly, I pushed away from him and patted his chest. “Don’t,” I said. If he hugged me any longer, I’d break. I wouldn’t be able to fix runny mascara.
The front door slammed and there was the thump of enthusiastic steps on the stairs. “Sassy!” called a familiar baritone.
Then he was in the bedroom doorway: Stephen St. James. In a tux.
25.
March 2002
L.A.
Cassidy
It must have looked like something, me in Alex’s arms, our eyes bright with emotion.
Stephen’s jaw tensed. Alex curled his arms tighter around me while I dabbed at moisture at the edge of my nose. Alex, always comforting me, even after we’d officially split. “Stephen,” I said. “How’d you get in?”
He shifted a small jewelry box in his hand. “A car was leaving as I drove up, so I slipped in the gate.”
“We were just having a quick conversation, and now I’m going to go.” Alex stuffed his hands in his pockets and started for the door. I glanced uneasily at Alex’s back as he withdrew, and Stephen reached out a long arm to bar him from leaving.
“A conversation about what?”
“About nothing. I don’t know you and I don’t have to answer you.” Alex waited for Stephen to move.
“Sassy means a lot to me. If you’re bothering her, I want to know.”
“Her name is Cassidy.”
They weighed each other with hard eyes. I tugged the bottom of my short robe before taking the box from Stephen’s hand, calling attention to myself to defuse the situation. “This is beautiful. Thank you, Stephen.” It was a coiled silver snake bracelet with emeralds studded through, heavy and clunky. It didn’t match the jewelry Gail had given me, but I made a split-second decision to appease Stephen by wearing his piece over hers. “I’ll get dressed and we can go.”
“You know what?” Alex said. “I meant what I said before. This is over. And I want you to remember that I left you.” He dashed a hand at his face and ran down the stairs.
I pulled the dress off the hanger and stepped into the bathroom to slip it on quickly, ignoring the body tape Antonio had left on the counter. “Never mind him,” I said to Stephen, and tucked my chin down because I knew it was wobbling. “Let him go. Help me with my zipper.” His fingers were silky as they stroked up my spine. Swallowing hard, I added, “Let’s not miss the red carpet.”
I’D BEEN WHISKED away to awards shows in limos before, but this was my first time arriving without the women who made me Sassy Gloss. I slipped into the back seat, careful not to crease the bottom of my dress, and was quietly contemplating how all of this had happened. Alex, my boyfriend, who likely sold my photos to tabloids; Alex, my bedrock, no longer my friend. Stephen, superstar, asking me to the Academy Awards. The next album, the chosen second single, Rose and her bruised spine, chiffon dresses in water, Merry and the house on fire. I wanted to lay my head in my hands but couldn’t risk smudging Antonio’s work.
“What’s on your mind?” Stephen asked, as he handed me a flute from across the expansive aisle.
“Hm?” After a beat, I shook my head gently and accepted the champagne. “Nothing, really. Thinking how weird life is.”
He raised his own glass. “Amen to that. Three years ago, when we were on Sing It, did you ever think that one day we’d be here?”
I knew he meant in a limo, cruising through Hollywood, about to get dropped off at the red carpet of all red carpets, surrounded by adulating fans. But I couldn’t help but look at him, the strong jaw and sharp cheekbones that the passing street lamps outside highlighted, his Adam’s apple sliding fluidly up and down his neck as he swallowed, the way that I had looked at his fingers throughout our time in that yellow room years ago, and how I’d ached to feel those hands on me. “No,” I whispered, the flute still in my hand. “I didn’t.”
“To grand life,” he said, clinking his glass against mine.
“To life being grand.” I tipped a sip down my throat.