August 2001
NYC to L.A.
The thing about red carpets is: they are chaos.
When I was younger, before all of this, I used to see the best-dressed red carpet rankings in entertainment magazines that lived in dentists’ waiting rooms. Sometimes, when watching the Oscars’ preshow, you could see a star emerging as if by magic onto the carpet, posing with a perfected arm-bend and leg-shift and thousand-watt smile, and sashaying on down the line. Pop pop pop, camera flashes going off, a gentle and fawnlike blink, and the starlet is sauntering off to talk to Joan Rivers.
We had been on a few other red carpets before this one, but they were for smaller parties. Nothing could have prepared me for this.
As we emerged from the limo, I felt, rather than heard, the screams, a noise that almost physically pushed me back into the car. I kept myself from staggering and gazed at the ruckus. Ropes and barriers, erected on the edges of the carpet, segregated frenzied fans from the music elite, their arms outstretched, a sea of open mouths. The wide strip of crushed burgundy velvet that was laid out before us was the only calm path between our glistening car and the throng of news service cameras ahead. Someone escorted the four of us plus Peter to the awards backdrop for photos.
Though we’d been coached on how to be photographed for this type of opportunity, my knees quivered as we carefully choreographed hands and poses, sweeping our gazes out along the 270 degrees of shutterbugs so that every one of them caught a straight-on look. The photographers shouted, and while they kept their distance, their voices were oppressive, pushing at us from all sides, wrapping us in noise. My face was outwardly calm, poised, even a little smirky, as if this entire moment was amusing or beneath me, but inside my heart beat wildly and I could feel dampness under my armpits.
“Sassy! Sassy! Look here!”
“Rosy, Rose, where’s your smile? Smile wider, Rosy!”
Merry was next to me, and between clenched teeth she throatily growled, “Holy fuck, this is like a nightmare.” But it was like we were blanketed in the photographers’ screams and the words didn’t reach past our small, shared space. Her indignation was heard only by me, and maybe Yumi, who was on her other side.
Camera crews and interviewers from the channel were up ahead; this red carpet was a minefield of tasks to complete before we could sit down in relief. Rebecca Hamm, the main interviewer for the past three years, set her sights on us and waved us over. She peppered us with questions about our clothes, who we were excited to see, and if we had predictions for who would win Best New Artist in a Video. Rose, as usual, spoke for the group. I tried to keep my eyes trained on Rose or Rebecca but darted a quick glance over my shoulder to check if Stephen St. James had arrived yet.
Of course, I didn’t see all of this when it happened. Being on the red carpet is a disembodying experience. An invisible hand is guiding you forward, plying your mouth to smile, to laugh, to form words that you think the world wants to hear. You are affable, you are charming. If you are me, you give just enough sass to live up to your moniker. But in your mind, the world is just a blur, sped up like videotape on fast-forward. There were small moments that jumped out in surprising clarity: tripping on a stair and looking down to see that a strap on a sandaled heel had come loose, a hand brush from someone next to you that was surprisingly warm and intimate compared to the hands-off voice-directed commands given by various members of the crew, the sudden urgent need to pee after you’ve sat down in your constricting, corseted dress.
I watched these scenes on a tape a few days later, safely back in L.A. Unlike in choreographed music videos, where every movement was anticipated and planned, I found my motions embarrassing. I never looked directly at anyone, except Merry when her mouth moved, cursing out the photographers, and I’d given her a sharp glance of what seemed to be admonishment. When looking for Stephen, I gave the impression of being lost.
Even the decor of the theater came to me in detail after watching the televised program, curled up on a couch at Lucy Bowen’s house with my socked feet tucked under me. It was as if everything had been inked black and red when I lived it, but as the TV washed its yellow and blue glow over me, the world took on more color. Presenters and their beautiful dresses and smart suits. Gleaming shoes on glistening floors. The tiered seats with plushy backs, and the gift bags containing jewelry, designer water, glass bottles of perfume. We performed our second single, “What Did U Say,” to much fanfare. The ceremony was set up with a main stage, where presenters gave awards, and an attached secondary stage, which was spotlighted when performers were singing. We glittered and smiled from our point on the secondary stage after our song, and the spotlight stayed bright on us so we weren’t sure when to exit.
There we stood while the nominees for the Breakthrough Video were announced. We smiled stupidly, looking toward the wings for someone—anyone—to motion us to leave, but without squinting obviously into the shadows, we saw nothing, and waited for a lighting cue. Later, I could only remember the presenter because I focused on a forty-foot-tall enlargement of her mouth, filled with Barbie-pink frosted lipstick, on the screen in front of us. With a flourish, she slid open the envelope.
“Stephen St. James, for ‘Rockabilly,’” she announced, and we clapped, still on the stage, as awards music played. Merry elbowed us to get us to move—finally, there was someone trying to usher us off, but in the playback I could see that my rigid dress did not yield to her touch, and so I continued to hobble in one place on my tall heels in ignorance. The other Gloss girls were moving away, inching into the shadowy recesses of the side stage, with their arms outstretched as if to pull me along by an invisible rope. But I wasn’t budging.
Stephen walked up the steps toward the presenter, but instead of accepting the trophy, he detoured to the secondary stage, like maybe he’d assumed I was still standing there to congratulate him.
“Watch this part,” Lucy giggled, chewing a fistful of popcorn noisily. She’d invited us all over for a movie night, but Merry was with Grant and the other girls chose not to come. After being attached at the hip to the rest of Gloss for the summer, I was excited to spend time with anyone else. “Here.” She jerked a finger at her television screen at the moment the idea seemed to come to Stephen. He opened his arms for an embrace. The girl greeting him on that stage—me—had a look of surprise on her face, but she didn’t resist when he put his arms around her.
“Did he stick his tongue in your mouth?” Lucy asked, and, giggling, flicked a kernel into my hair. “Did he slobber?” I wiped my mouth in memory.
Quick as a snake, he’d dipped her and gave her a giant kiss on the mouth in front of the entire live studio audience—and the ten million viewers at home.
“WELL” GRANT SAID, climbing over the back of a booth and sitting down on the edge, balancing two drinks, “here’s to the Gloss girls, who don’t know when to leave a stage.” He handed Merry a glass of some amber liquid and clinked his beer bottle against it in a cheers-ing motion. “And here’s to winning the big one next year.”
Illuminated Eyes came and went with passing head nods in our direction, but Grant stayed behind, smiling crookedly at all of us, then pulled Merry to him and met his lips with hers.
Yumi blew a strand of hair off her face. “I’m going to go mingle,” she said, getting up and brushing off her pants.
We were at a Manhattan nightclub after-party, shmoozing, though I was still ruminating over what had happened at the show.
I left my purse and Alex’s camera on the table with Merry while I grabbed a drink. I sidled up to the bar, which was long, glittered with black mica, and packed with svelte bodies, but there was only one bartender that I could see. “Excuse me,” I shouted over the noise, but he slid farther down the bar, hands flying over bottles, dipping and pouring and shaking. I waited a minute as he slowly made his way up the bar, chatting effusively with clients and handing out glasses. As he approached, another body slid past me and stood in front of me, effectively blocking the bartender’s view. “Hey!” I said, tapping the offender on his leather-clad shoulder.
The ear, at first, was a perfect seashell that slid into view. Then a stubbly cheek, that beautiful nose, and two piercing blue eyes. “Oh,” I squeaked.
“We meet again.” Stephen gave a quick grin and turned back to the bar, ordering for the both of us. He handed me a gin and tonic. In the dark room illuminated by various neon sconces along the wall, Stephen’s eyelashes cast long, sideways shadows across the bridge of his nose and onto his cheek, giving him a boyish appearance. Instead of a battle-hardened cowboy, he looked like he could be a student at some preppy college.
“Thanks.” I liked Stephen—but did not like that kiss. I didn’t like the questions that it would bring up when I got home. I hated how flustered I felt around him—how he’d made me wonder if yes was no or no was yes—and how he’d made me feel like this ever since I first met him in 1999.
There was only one thing to do in this situation: evade. I drank the entire gin and tonic in a few unladylike gulps and raised the empty glass to him like a toast before moving off to the dance floor.
My feelings were complicated. He’d kissed me in front of that entire audience without even asking. But it was the heat of the moment, I thought. And another: Maybe he actually likes you.
Something bubbled up inside me. A curious finger of want. When he caught up with me, as I’d half expected him to do, and moved against me to dance, I acquiesced.
The music was loud, beating consistently. My shoes were sticky on the ground, dragging through dropped straws and the glaze of drinks already lost. We didn’t talk anymore, just danced. One song, two. We took a break to down some shots. I eyed him critically, wondering when he was going to give up and grind against someone else, but after we’d slugged whiskey together, he was on me again. After a few songs, Rose tipsily joined us, bouncing loosely to the beat.
The alcohol flowed into me, heady and light, loosening my limbs. I rubbed up against Stephen, and Rose rubbed up against me. I didn’t know where my feelings started and where they ended, as each stumbling bounce brought forward a myriad of feelings toward the two. Rose flung her arms around my shoulders and faced me, and I was surprised at how close she drew toward me as she danced, eyes closed, lost in the beat. After months of walking on eggshells to stay out of her direct line of sight, here was Rose, acting friendly as her lips brushed against my ear, saying something that I couldn’t understand. The vibration from her voice sent goose bumps down my arms. “What?” I shouted, and she tried again, but when I couldn’t hear her a second time, she shook her head and smiled. Stephen cut in and began to slide alongside my body, and I lost Rose in the crowd.
The alcohol was getting to me. I was confused, overwhelmed, and overheated. Without excusing myself, I lurched from the dance floor and groped my way to the restroom. Under the fluorescent lights, my skin was green. I splashed water on my face and tried to breathe deeply, swallowing the thickened saliva that comes before getting sick. The door banged behind me and a leggy brunette appeared in the mirror behind me. I had only a vague idea that she was sharing a sink with me, pulling paper towels out of the dispenser without having used a toilet.
She dabbed my forehead lightly with a dampened paper towel. “You okay?” she said.
I was able to squint to see her. “It’s you,” I said.
“You’re Cassidy, right? Do you remember me?”
I leaned forward over the sink, swallowing hard. “Mm, yeah.” The insect from the release party with the mandala tattoo.
She put a chilled hand on my arm. “I don’t know how much of this you’ll remember,” she said slowly, like she was talking to a toddler. “But I wanted to tell you not to get too close to Stephen.”
I twisted around on the sink, the ceramic jamming into my pelvis. “Possessive, much?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, almost kindly. She wadded up the damp paper towel and tossed it in the trash. “I’m just looking out for you. When we were together—”
“I can take care of myself, thanks,” I scoffed, pushing past her. “All I’m doing is dancing. I have a boyfriend!” As I walked out the bathroom door, I almost ran straight into Yumi. She grabbed my wrists.
“Shit is going down,” she whispered, worried. There seemed to be a very public argument happening in the middle of the dance floor between Grant and a tall, beautiful redhead. Yumi continued, “Marisa is giving him hell right now.”
“Oh shit,” I said, my tongue heavy in my mouth. “Is Merry okay?”
“We should probably round up the others and go.” She tugged on my hand.
“Go? It’s still early. I’m finally having fun for a change.”
She let go. “Well, I’m not. Everyone’s calling me Tasty. I’m going back to the hotel.” She began walking away.
“Remember, that nickname made us quarter of a million dollars,” I called after her, sounding a lot like Rose. Marisa pushed past me toward the bathroom I’d just vacated, but Grant didn’t follow.
Stephen had found a table of people to talk to, but when I emerged, he handed me another shot. Rose was nowhere to be seen. “Sassy! You’re back. Let’s show ’em how it’s done.” We got lost in the beat.
A REPETITIVE SHRIEKING assailed my ears.
Slowly, I realized it was a phone. I cracked one eye open a slit and reached out at the air, grasping nothing.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, she’s super hungover,” said a voice, and something was jammed into my hand. “Cass, it’s for you.”
My throat felt as though it had sandpaper lining. “Mmmph. ’Lo?”
“I was so worried,” said a male voice. It was familiar. Harried. Frustrated.
“Dad . . . ?”
“Not Dad. Alex. Remember me?”
I wiped a hand down the front of my face and remembered, suddenly, that I had promised to call him after the awards ceremony. Instead, I had slunk into the car with the girls and tossed drinks back at Slice, then danced with—
“Ohh. Shit. I’m sorry, Alex.” Cracking the other eye open as well, I saw that I was in a hotel suite, having apparently fallen asleep on the first flat surface that would absorb me. Yumi, who had handed me the phone, now wordlessly placed a glass of water and ibuprofen on a side table littered with our goody bag items, cellophane peeled away in a pile. I shuffled forward on my elbows, using the phone as leverage against the plush carpet, to reach Yumi’s act of kindness. Alex was still speaking, his voice loud enough that even with the receiver clapped to my shoulder instead of my ear, I could hear him clearly.
“When I hadn’t heard from you, I called my parents in Houston. They were watching it live, and they told me you were there, so I knew you’d actually made it to the show, but . . .”
“No, yes,” I croaked, gratefully sipping water.
“Are you okay?” he demanded. I took a languid inventory of my body. I was fully clothed, though missing shoes. The underwire of my bra was cutting deep into my rib cage and I rolled to my side, but the pressure of the ground against my belly had apparently held my nausea at bay; I moaned.
“Yes, no, maybe,” I whimpered.
His voice softened somewhat. “Did you overdo it? You know you don’t handle liquor well.”
I clutched at my stomach and slowly rolled myself into a ball, still on my side. “Ughhh.”
“Call me later,” he said, his voice rising at the end like he was asking—but not quite.
There was no way to hang up the phone, so I left it clasped under my hand until the dial tone began its intermittent growl. With a weak arm I hurled it away, skittering the receiver across the floor until it clattered to a stop, anchored by its coiled cord.
Yumi appeared once again as a pair of legs wearing white cotton socks. She stooped over to pick up the phone and set it back in its cradle. Then she perched on the edge of a chair nearby. I closed my eyes, wishing that the room would stop spinning, so I heard rather than saw her sitting there, studying me. “Are you all right?”
“Will you help me get this bra off? It’s cutting off circulation to my arm.”
She sighed and unhooked it, helping me to slither out of it.
“What’s this?” she said, dumping one of the cups out. A soggy piece of paper towel, damp with sweat, peeled away and floated to the floor.
“I’ono,” I mumbled. “Can we order some food? Need some Alka-Seltzer.”
Yumi ordered two plates of dry toast, poached eggs, and fruit bowls with a side of seltzer. I was able to pull myself to a sitting position but stayed cross-legged on the carpet and sipped at the water when it arrived. It was hard to look at the eggs, which glistened like gelatinous white fish on the coffee table, and when I averted my eyes I spotted empty McDonald’s bags on the side table. I was sure I hadn’t eaten any burgers last night. I cut my eyes over to her. “So . . . how much of an ass did I make of myself?”
Yumi was nibbling on a corner of her toast. “Not too terrible,” she said. “But I didn’t stay until the end. Peter had to drag you up here.”
“And the others?”
She glanced down and brushed crumbs away from her legs. “When I left, Rose was fine. Tipsy, but fine. Merry, however . . . She probably feels about as bad as you do right now. Maybe worse.”
I felt for Merry right about then, but my own self-pity won out. “Mmph,” I grunted.
“It’s probably going to be everywhere soon, if not already. Grant and Marisa Marcheesa had a huge blow-out fight last night.”
“Over Merry?” I sipped the water slowly. “Merry wouldn’t be stupid enough to get involved with him again after the tabloids ripped her apart earlier.”
“I don’t know. Both of them were yelling, though. I’m sure we’ll hear about it soon enough, if Merry’s involved.” She slid one of the plates closer to me. “Chin up. We fly back today.”
I WASN’T THE only one who emerged from the hotel room slightly hunched and wearing sunglasses; Merry was so pale, she looked blue. Yumi and Rose slipped on their sunglasses as well, to quell any invasive paparazzi. When we stepped out of the Suburban at JFK, Merry vomited on the pavement next to a trash can, bought a pack of spearmint gum immediately inside of the entrance doors, then cursed when the remaining change set off the metal detector. But once we were through to the terminal, we ducked inside a first-class lounge and waited without harassment for our flight to be called.
Throughout the flight I thought about Alex. We had maintained our friendship over years of physical closeness—the same schools, same classes, same homework, same hangouts—and now that our lifestyles were diverging, it was obviously going to take more work to keep the connection. Everything I did now was work—so should a relationship also be work? At what point do you say that it’s too much work?
I hated that I had doubts about us. He was my roots. He was the only one who seemed to know the real me. I couldn’t just throw that away.
Above all, he was a good person. He’d traveled all the way to Hollywood to bring me pizza and break it to me gently that he couldn’t go with me to New York—not that I’d minded, but he’d thought I would, and that’s what counted.
I made up my mind and hired a car to take me to Pomona. I needed to make things right. What if he was angry right now, still stewing, talking to Joanna or Edie about how I was cheating on him with Stephen St. James?
When the car pulled up to a corner of the campus, I realized I didn’t know where I was headed. Nervously pulling my hoodie up over my head and donning sunglasses, even though it was dusk out, I approached a couple and asked where I could find the dorms. “Follow this path and turn right,” the guy said.
“Thanks.”
When I turned away, the girl hissed, “I think that was Sassy Cassidy.”
“. . . Who?”
I speed-walked away and came to a dorm with an arched, and very locked, door. As I ruminated on how ill-thought my plan was, a girl swiped a key card to enter the dorm and I followed her in, removing my sunglasses to see. A guy with a shock of brown hair opened the door to room 202. I backed away. “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have the wrong—”
“Holy shit,” the boy breathed. “Holy shit!”
I pivoted on my heel to flee, but a second guy framed the doorway.
“Cass,” Alex said, in a strange voice. He breathed it, like he had been afraid that I was lost and that he was relieved I’d returned safe. The soft tenderness made my eyes water. How could I have been blindsided by the glitz and glamour when Alex was more genuine than anyone I’d ever known?
I was out in the hallway, one with many doors lined up on either side, all of them opening and closing, people walking behind me on their way around the building. I felt vulnerable, even with my hoodie rendering me anonymous from the sides and back. “Could I come in?” I whispered, clutching an elbow with my other arm self-consciously.
He took one hand off the doorframe, making an opening, but I found myself walking into him and wrapping my arms around his middle. He wrapped his arms back, giving me a bear hug. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears coming again.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said, soothing my back. We held each other like this for a few long moments before I remembered the other guy. I wiped at my face with the sleeve of my hoodie and discovered him sitting on his hands in a computer chair, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“Cass, this is Joseph, my roommate. Joe, my girlfriend, Cassidy.”
“Hi,” I said, extending my hand, before realizing that I had probably snotted on it. A self-conscious laugh bubbled out of my chest. He grabbed it anyway.
“Hi there.” Joe was grinning. “Oh man. We all knew that Alex has a girlfriend but he didn’t say her name, ever. I can’t believe this!”
To Alex, I said, “You didn’t tell people about me?”
He scoffed a little. “Are you kidding? No one would believe me. They’d think I was making it up.”
“But we have all those pictures from high school, and . . .” I trailed off. Pictures when I was ten sizes bigger. Pictures when I had crappy hair, pictures before my teeth whitening. All of those before pictures. I didn’t even recognize that version of me.
Alex must have sensed where my thoughts were going, or maybe he just wanted to talk to me without an audience, because he said, “Joe, do you mind stepping out for a little bit?”
Joseph seized upon this idea with gusto. “Oh, yeah. Cool.” His hand swept through stuff on his desk for his key card. “I’ll go grab a bite.” We waited a few awkward moments in silence while he laced his shoes and closed the door behind him.
“Are you hungry?” Alex asked. “I should have thought of that.”
I’d eaten a salad on the plane, chewing slowly and thoroughly on the iceberg lettuce, hoping to keep my stomach in good order. The thought of food still turned it over and I shook my head.
He sat down on his bed on his side of the room, and I sat next to him. We faced the thin aisle between his and Joseph’s beds, and I leaned into him, looking at the decor of the room. “This reminds me of the room I share with Yumi,” I said out loud. It was white, not lavender; the posters were of sexy movie stars—Joseph liked Angelina in Tomb Raider, apparently—but the setup was somewhat similar.
“I bet your room smells better,” he joked, his arm warm around me.
“I like the way you smell,” I said, burying my face in his shoulder. I was warm in my hoodie, but I felt more comfortable with it still on. A little security blanket. It was easy to talk into his shirt. “I’m a terrible person. I can’t believe I forgot to call you after the show.”
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “I was pissed but only because I was worried.”
“Did you watch it?” I was sure he had, but he shook his head.
“I only watched your performance and turned it off right after.”
“So you didn’t see . . . ?”
He understood the question. “I didn’t see it. I did hear about it.” His eyes were troubled. “I don’t know what to think now, either.”
“It was completely out of left field,” I said quickly. “I had no idea he was going to do that. And I swear, it’s the only time anything like that has happened.” I didn’t mention dancing with Stephen at the after-party. What Alex didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
He nodded distractedly. “I wondered . . . but I knew you’d tell me if something was up. Right?”
“Right. I’m not that big of an asshole and loser.”
“I don’t know, you stayed inside all winter break and baked a million cookies after you lost Sing It,” he said, cracking a smile. “Ow!” I had poked him in the side with a finger.
“My baking days are over.” I pulled back and rubbed at my eyes, which were now dry.
“Why, Cass? I liked your cookies.”
I shrugged. “Not allowed to eat them anymore.”
“That’s dumb. You can still make them for me. Ow!” I’d poked him again, but I was smiling this time.
I leaned back into his pillow, stretching out my legs. He followed suit, laying on his side to look at me. We were quiet for a minute. “You really are gorgeous,” he said.
“Oh, stop. I’m puffy and smelly. I woke up hungover and nearly puked on the plane ride back. I’m wearing the same clothes I had on in New York, so basically if you were to take off my hoodie you’d reel from the stink.”
“Is that so?” His fingers played with the edge of the sweatshirt, down by my hip. “Let me sniff.”
I gave a little squeak and crossed my arms on top of my chest. “I don’t think so.”
“Just a little one,” he said, sitting up and using more leverage to peel the corners up again, taking the edge of my T-shirt with it. My navel was exposed. I giggled and he used that as an excuse to pull the shirts up all the way to my bra line. He left me a row of kisses on my stomach, getting me relaxed enough to uncross my arms and touch his hair in response. We locked eyes.
“Are we okay?” I said.
Alex moved a little bit on the bed so our chests met. “We’re great,” he said, and his lips met mine.