A couple of hours later, we’re huddled in a booth at a Japanese restaurant in Astoria, clutching the escort résumé of one Caspian Tiddleswich, former male companion, current English actor sexy man. Every time our waitress comes by, we thrust the paper under the table, like we’ve got nuclear launch codes and she’s an enemy spy approaching.
“This is ludicrous,” I hiss over the table. “It can’t be the same guy!”
CiCi pounds back another shot of warm sake. “It’s not like it’s a common name, Clara!”
I massage my temples. “Well, what the hell are we supposed to do with this?”
“Call TMZ!” she trills.
I grimace. “Are you kidding? This could ruin somebody! And this isn’t like some jerk-faced politician spouting about the evils of feminism and abortion ruining American family values while he goes around boffing his interns. He could be a nice person!”
“Yes, but he’s a really famous nice person! And all those gossip places would pay a hell of a lot more for dirt on a famous actor than a politician!” She pauses for a moment, thinking. “Probably. I actually don’t know what the going rates are.”
Our waitress comes over and sets plates of tempura rolls, crab rolls, and sashimi on our table. We both smile stiffly at her, looking like cats that ate a flock of canaries. She smiles back, but looks a bit unnerved as she hurries away.
I pop a piece of crab roll in my mouth and chew. “Jeez,” I say through a mouthful of rice. “I just remembered I sometimes watch that show Poirot he does for the BBC. It’s really good.”
“Oh, yeah!” she says happily, picking up a bite with her chopsticks. “I’ve seen that! He’s really good in it. All sexy in a weird lizard man kind of way.”
I blink at her. “What...what does that even mean?”
She shrugs and eats her sushi. “I don’t know. It’s weird. He’s kind of odd-looking, but he’s really hot. I don’t get it. Wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers, though.”
Disbelief is the kindest emotion I am capable of giving her. “Okay, well, all I can see now is this pitiful little nineteen-year-old kid. Come on. We can’t sell that kid out to a tabloid.”
She thinks on that and swallows. “But he’s not a nineteen-year-old kid anymore. He’s got to be almost forty and stupidly rich with private jets and shit.”
“No more sake for you,” I say, and push the bottle away from her. “You always add ‘and shit’ to things when you start to get tipsy.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she huffs, taking a nibble of pickled ginger. “You’ve got to admit this is really cool. And he’s famous! Famous people are used to this sort of thing coming out! And it’s not like he doesn’t know he was an escort. He’s probably been expecting this to blow up for years! We’d probably be relieving him of two decades of anxiety.”
I gape at her. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Ever. In all of life.”
“Maybe not my best argument,” she admits. “You could seriously sell this, though. So much money! A pretty new apartment! Your real bed that isn’t a hideous corduroy couch!”
I’m stricken with a bite of tempura halfway to my mouth. My bed. God, how I miss beds. I can’t think of many things I wouldn’t be willing to do for the joyful comfort of my real, live mattress.
But could I live with myself if I ruined another person’s life just to better my own? Probably not.
Okay, really not. I just couldn’t do it.
Still, CiCi is right. He’s a big-shot actor. They’re used to this sort of thing, right? Or at least they expect it. It’s part of the gig.
I grimace at my disgusting line of thinking and set my chopsticks down.
“You look like you’re going to be sick,” she says, nonchalantly edging the sake bottle back her way.
“This is making me feel icky.”
“The sushi? Tastes fine to me.”
I blow out a frustrated gust of air. “No, the potential destruction of another human being, CiCi.”
Pouring me another helping of sake so as to distract me from noticing her filling up her own glass, she says, “Think about it. He probably did this escort thing because he needed the money back then. It’s not something he’s particularly proud of, considering he’s never mentioned it publicly that I’ve found online, but he did what he had to do.” She points her chopsticks at me. “That’s what you’re doing. You’re in a bad way. You’re just taking care of yourself. You don’t have to feel good about it, but you’re looking out for you.”
I scowl. “You know, I’d bet actual money that’s what drug dealers say when they recruit new drug dealers. If I had any money to bet, anyway.”
“I think your knowledge of the underbelly of the world is somewhat limited.”
“Yes! And let’s keep it that way! I don’t want to be a part of any underbellies!”
Sighing, she takes a sip of sake. “Well, what if it turns out Mr. Tiddleswich is actually a huge twat-wagon? What if he’s one of those actors who’s a complete prick to other people and makes everyone around him miserable? Like a reptilian-looking Jared Leto.”
“He doesn’t look like a reptile.”
“A little bit, he does,” she insists. “But seriously. Think about it—what if he’s a holy terror, and this coming out and knocking him down a couple of pegs is exactly what hundreds of poor crew men and women have been waiting years for? It wasn’t a terrible idea when it was a jerk politician. A jerk actor doesn’t seem like that big a leap.”
I prop my elbow up on the table and plop my chin into my hand. “It’s possibly the exhaustion, or more possibly the sake, but that actually made some sense to me.”
“YES!” she says. “So, should I email places? There have to be lots of gossipy sites that would eat this up.”
“NO.” I snatch the sake bottle away from her. “No emailing. But how about this—we do some research on him. The internet is full of creepy insider stuff on famous people. If he turns out to be some super-jerk, we can maybe reevaluate the possibility of selling this.”
Her eyelids are moving a bit slower than they should be. “I guess that sounds okay.”
“Promise me,” I insist. “No telling anyone anywhere that we have this. Or that we know anything at all about it.”
Sloshing her glass a bit, she juts her pinkie finger out at me. “Promise.”