CHAPTER 40
“Mrs. Ty Rusk.” Devin said it out loud, seeing how it sounded. “Well, you’d never actually get married,” Reid corrected her. “You’d just be dating. And even that would just be for the press.”
Devin nodded. “I get it,” she said. “It keeps all of those tabloid types off your back.”
“Right,” Ty said. “All you have to do is go out with me to a few dinners, a few premiers, a couple of parties.”
“We’d pay for your expenses, of course,” Reid added. “And when Ty is done shooting in New York it would mean you’d need to move to LA. You could work for me, so you’d have a job. It would be a good way for you to get into the business.”
I’ll say, Devin thought to herself. She looked at Ty and Reid, seated across from her on the couch in Reid’s house. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
“That’s my girl,” Reid said happily as Ty broke into a grin. “I had a feeling we could count on you.”
He retreated to the kitchen and returned with three glasses and a bottle of champagne. Deftly removing the cork, he poured the bubbly out and handed glasses to Ty and Devin.
“To the two of you,” he said. “May your love never die.”
Devin and Ty laughed at the joke and they all clinked glasses.
“I can’t thank you enough for doing this,” Ty told Devin. “It will make life so much easier for me. I can focus on my work instead of on who to take to the Oscars.”
“We’re going to the Oscars?” Devin said excitedly. “No way.”
Ty nodded. “As long as you promise not to slap Joan and Melissa on your way in,” he said.
“We’ll have to come up with a good back story,” said Reid. “You know, to explain how you two got together.”
“Always the producer,” Ty joked. “How about this? You hired Devin to do some work for you while you were here for the summer. I came out for a weekend, met her, and fell in love. It’s pretty much the truth, so we’ll both sound genuine when we talk to Entertainment Tonight.”
“Now how are you going to break this news to Pamela?” Reid asked Ty.
Ty cringed. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Who’s Pamela?” Devin inquired. “A girl you’re supposed to be seeing?”
“Eew,” said Ty, making a face. “What a horrible thought. No, it’s even worse than that. She’s my agent.”
“She’ll be pissed that he’s not shacking up with some Hollywood name,” Reid explained. “But frankly, I think this is even better. Devin could be any girl in America. Your fans will eat it up.”
“Once they stop hating me,” Devin said.
Ty took her hand and kissed it. “They’ll just have to accept our love, darling,” he told her. “There’s no other woman for me.”
I’ll bet there isn’t, Devin thought as she smiled back at him. How dumb did he and Reid think she was, anyway, pretending that Ty needed her to pose as his love interest so he could concentrate on work? If they had any balls, they’d tell her it was because they were fucking each other and needed a beard.
Ultimately she didn’t care. She had what she wanted. Or at least she would once she was in LA and working with Reid. Her plan had actually worked out much better than she’d hoped. She’d thought that if she gave Ty the bullshit story about having married a fag, he might decide to spill the beans about himself and Reid. But this was even better. She would just play dumb and collect the payoff.
What about Raymacher? The question popped into her head, dampening her mood somewhat. She’d promised the columnist proof that Reid and Ty were ass bandits. But if she delivered it, they wouldn’t have any need for her. Suddenly, the irony of her situation dawned on her. Ty and Reid were only good to her as long as they weren’t exposed. If everyone knew they were queer, she’d be out of the picture.
This was going to require some thinking. But she could pull it off, she was sure of it. After all, hadn’t she managed to fool Ty and Reid so far? Now she would simply have to use the same cleverness that had gotten her this far on Raymacher.
“We should start slow,” Reid said, drawing her attention back to the moment. “Devin, you should go into New York next week and have dinner with Ty. Go somewhere romantic but out of the way. I’ll pull in a favor or two and make sure a photographer from the Post just happens to snap some shots of you two together. I guarantee you you’ll be all over Page Six the next morning. We’ll let it go from there.”
“Should I warn my publicist about any of this?” asked Ty.
Reid shook his head. “Absolutely not,” he said. “We want him to be just as surprised as everyone else. It will make it look more realistic if reporters call him for comment and he has no idea what they’re talking about.”
Ty looked at Devin. “You’re sure you’re ready for this?” he asked her.
She laughed. “Please, if I could handle Zane’s mother, I can handle some reporters,” she said. “Trust me, Greta Mulholland was one tough bitch.”
“Besides, we’ll be there to help her,” added Reid. “Just think of it as an acting job. You’re starring in your very own life.”
“I just hope the reviews are good,” remarked Ty.
Devin stayed for another hour, then excused herself on the pretense that she was tired and needed to get to bed. After saying good night to Reid and her new boyfriend, she got into her car and drove home. As she drove, a plan began to form in her mind, and by the time she pulled into the driveway of her parents’ house, she knew what she was going to do.
“Hi, honey,” her mother said when Devin walked into the kitchen. “How was your night?”
“Fine,” replied Devin shortly.
Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, clipping coupons from one of the numerous supermarket circulars she collected each day. Already a tidy pile of slips sat in front of her, papers she would exchange later for ten cents off of toilet paper and a dollar off three cans of select Progresso soups for Devin’s father’s lunches. Her thriftiness angered Devin. She didn’t need to use coupons, she just liked to. As a child, Devin had shuddered each time her mother had handed her bundle of perfectly trimmed coupons to the checkout girl at the local A&P, convinced that the pimply faced teen who listlessly punched in the savings would think them poor. They were, she thought, just a step away from food stamps.
Devin left the room quickly. Her father was in the living room, where the sound of the Red Sox game he was watching filled the air with a false sense of excitement. A quick glance at the screen and at her father’s closed eyes and open mouth showed that at the bottom of the sixth inning, both the Sox and her father were out. She passed through and made her way upstairs to her room.
She picked up the phone and dialed C.J. Raymacher’s office.
“Well, it’s about time,” the columnist said when he heard her voice. “I was beginning to think you were turning out to be a dead end.”
“You shouldn’t assume anything,” Devin said coyly.
“What have you got for me?” Raymacher asked her. “Photos?”
“Better,” replied Devin. “The inside story on Ty Rusk’s new mystery girl.”
Raymacher groaned. “What girl?” he said, sounding irritated. “And who gives a fuck? The guy’s a homo. That’s what you’re supposed to be getting the dirt on.”
“Relax,” said Devin. “The girl is me.”
Raymacher paused a moment. “What kind of shit is this?” he said. “I sent you to out the guy, not fuck him.”
“Oh, I’m going to fuck him, all right,” said Devin. “But not the way you think. Just listen.”
She told Raymacher about her new deal with Reid and Ty. When she was finished she concluded by saying, “So what do you think? How much would the story of the woman who was hired to protect Ty Rusk’s image be worth to you?”
Raymacher chuckled. “You’re an even bigger bitch than I thought,” he said. “You want me to pay you for your story?”
“If you don’t, I imagine the Star or the National Enquirer would be more than happy to,” answered Devin coolly.
“How much?” Raymacher said.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” said Devin.
“No fucking way,” snapped Raymacher.
“Why not?” Devin said. “You offered Monica Lewinsky twice that for her story.”
“She blew the goddamned president of the United States,” said Raymacher.
“And I’m giving you the hottest story in Hollywood,” Devin retorted. “Do you know how many copies of that magazine you’ll move when this comes out? You’ll make your money back just on your sales at Seven-Eleven alone.”
Raymacher sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. But you’d better come through on this one.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Devin said. “I’ll do my part.”
She hung up. Always make sure you have the last word, she thought happily as she took off her shoes and lay down on the bed. It had been a good day, especially now that Raymacher was playing into her hands. At first she’d considered telling him that they were wrong, that Ty wasn’t queer after all. But she knew a longtime muckraker like Raymacher would be on to her as soon as he saw pictures of her and Ty together. Her only option had been to let him in on her secret. That way, not only would he feel he could trust her, but she could get more money from the deal. With both Raymacher and Reid paying her off, she was going to be sitting pretty.
Coming home for the summer, she thought, wasn’t turning out to be so bad after all. With a little more luck, she would be out of Provincetown by fall and would never have to set foot in it again. Good-bye, boring house. Good-bye, boring family. Good-bye, boring life. It would all be behind her.
“And hello, Hollywood,” she said happily.