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I just nod, and she jerks my elbow pointedly. “Your word, Raquel, not a nod.”
“I got it, okay? I understand. No looking around, no acting like a human. Only cyborg, Ben Huddleson-loving behavior from here on in. Check, check,” I say mockingly, making a tick mark motion in the air.
The lights flash just as she leans in to give me a stern lesson in being an adult, and I smile as she realizes she has less than thirty seconds to scram if she doesn’t want to mess up all of her perfect imaging work herself.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she warns, and I snort.
“Oh, I have no doubt.”
I turn and head for my seat, careful to avoid stepping on the train of my dress and tripping. Ben does nothing to help me, and I have to grit my teeth to stop myself from looking toward the back of the room to see if I can find Harrison. Just one little look into his comforting green eyes. That’s all I need.
Still, I resist. I know that if I don’t keep my word, Heidi would probably try to make it impossible for him to come to one of these things again, and I selfishly like being able to know he’s close, even if I can’t talk to him. I don’t know what I’d be like if he wasn’t here and I had no idea what he was doing.
I don’t know what that says about me—probably not good things—but I’m not accepting psychoanalysis at this time.
I finally settle into my seat, the bounce it gives under my weight a rude reminder of how big I’m getting these days, and scooch my elbow atop the table in an effort to find some much-needed chill space. Ben’s arm already occupies the spot in front of me, though—indicating very clearly that he’s sitting way too fucking close for no reason—and he steadies the muscles in resistance to my efforts. The man has miles of arm space already at this stupid table, but obviously I’m coming at this from a different angle than him—the one where I have a brain and am not a pompous, entitled, self-serving asshole with stereotypical misogyny as my baseline.
Dear God, please make this night end soon.
Harrison
If lasagna is layers of noodles, Hollywood is made up of layers of liars.
Innocent, vindictive, calculating, and pathological, this city’s got them all, and they don’t even have the good manners to mix in a little ricotta.
In fact, there’s no dairy to soften the blow. They’re all on strict diets that prohibit they consume it in any way.
I look down toward the front of the room, through the people between us, to the back of Raquel’s head, her perfect hair sweeping down and over her bare, silky shoulder. She keeps her arms tight to her body as Ben leans into her space aggressively, and I look harder, trying to see the expression on her face through the matter of her head—an impossible feat already—when the lights go down, making the sight of anything in the audience possible only for superheroes.
After a segment where a few of the actors in attendance introduce themselves, Gwendolyn Myer, one of the most successful female comedians in showbiz, takes the stage to emcee. I wouldn’t have known anything about who she was—I’m not exactly a huge follower of the celebrity scene—but she declared herself as such in the first sentence.
“I’d like to thank all of the important people here for taking time out of their busy schedules to be here to get a pat on the back tonight. It really is a hardship, as I’m sure the working class of America that’s watching from home will attest, to spend several hours in a chair getting done up by several professionals to come all the way out to the Shrine Auditorium, sit in a seat for hours on end, just to be told how amazing you are. Really, we thank you.”
I have to bite my lip to stifle a laugh as the crowd gives a halfhearted chuckle. Okay, so maybe I didn’t know who Gwendolyn was, but I obviously should have. She’s ruthlessly hilarious.
“Now that you’re here, though, let’s talk frankly. I mean, how much money did you spend to be here tonight? Could you have possibly donated it to a cause more worthy?”
The crowd titters again, this time with something that doesn’t seem a whole lot like laughter, and all the bodies around me scowl. Not one person in the studio audience is finding this quite as amusing as I am, but I can almost guarantee the people at home are.
Meanwhile, a decision comes down from an authority as music starts to play, cueing Gwen off the stage in a hurry.
The crowd claps as she goes, and man, this is a whole lot more interesting than it was watching the Golden Globes from my couch. There’s way more drama.
