Outside In Read online

  “Because it is stalking, you idiot,” he said aloud, forcing his attention back to his paperwork.

  Unless…The scraps of colored message paper faded again into the background as his mind took off once more. Unless…he was destined to be with the soy latte girl, but circumstances beyond the control of the universe had cut their initial meeting short, and it was up to him to reconnect with her so that they could marry and create—out of their extraordinarily passionate and satisfying physical union—the singularly exceptional (and cute) child who was destined to grow up and save the world. If that were the case—and who was to say it wasn’t—then he was much less of a stalker and way more of a hero. Surely, if the fate of the world rested on his ability to get the phone number of the cute girl with the coffee-ordering problem, then he had no choice but to sit in Starbucks every morning for as long as it took to complete his mission.

  “See?” he said to himself, finally able to turn his attention to his work now that he had a really solid plan in place. “That’s not the least bit crazy.”

  “Hamilton Morgan on two,” squawked the black box on his desk.

  “Got it!” he yelled through his closed door, smiling at Marjorie’s frustration and annoyance and wondering idly if that joke would ever stop being funny. He quickly decided it would not and turned to the far less joyful task of picking up Hamilton’s call.

  “Hamilton, how are you?” asked Michael, adding for his own entertainment, “And what fresh hell do you have for me today?”

  “What fresh what?” stammered Hamilton, either genuinely not understanding or taken aback by the truth inherent in Michael’s question. “Oh! What fresh hell! Ha ha! That’s good—I’m gonna have to use that!”

  “Yes, you do that,” said Michael, a little disappointed that his barb had been deflected so easily. “Seriously, though, Hamilton, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

  “Great news, my friend—great news! We are going to be working together!”

  “We are?” asked Michael warily.

  “Yes, we are. Your favorite client and I had a very successful dinner last night, and I am pleased to say that she now has twice as many good men in her corner. I think you probably know what I’m getting at here, don’t you, my friend?”

  “I think I do, my friend, but why don’t you tell me anyway?” said Michael, wanting to hold on to his denial for one more brief, heavenly moment.

  “The lovely Sapphire Rose has asked me to work as her manager—with you staying on as her agent, of course. She is fiercely loyal to you, Michael, and I want you to know that I intend to work with you, not against you.”

  “Why would I think anything else?” asked Michael, wondering if Hamilton actually believed that the underhanded stunt he had pulled yesterday with his “secret meeting” counted as teamwork.

  “Well, you wouldn’t—and that is exactly my point!”

  “Oh good,” said Michael. “I was hoping you would have a point.”

  “Well, I think we both have a point,” said Hamilton, suddenly serious. “We have a point of focus—a point of energetic coming together, if you will—and that point is Sapphire Rose. I want you to understand that I understand that you have had the pleasure of working with her for some time now and that you and she probably have a way of working with which you are both comfortable. I want you to know that I have no intention of changing that—at least not the parts that are working. I think we will all get a clearer sense of our collective direction as we get deeper into our weekly work sessions.”

  “Our weekly what?”

  “Oh, right! I forgot to mention to you one of the great ideas that Saph and I came up with last night. First of all, I want to make clear that what I am about to say is in no way a criticism of the way you have been conducting your business.”

  “Of course,” said Michael, knowing full well that people only say that right before they criticize the way you conduct your business.

  “Well, Sapphire has been feeling that she hasn’t been getting quite enough attention. Again—I don’t blame you, Michael. I realize that it is the nature of the agenting biz that the sheer number of clients which you are required to service at any one time cannot help but interfere with your ability to give real quality time to any one person. Obviously, that’s where I come in. I make it a policy to take on no more than five clients at any one time, so each one gets plenty of individual attention. You see, what makes my side of the business different—”

  “Right, Hamilton—I do have a fairly good working knowledge of how the managing biz works. In fact, I am thrilled and delighted that Sapphire has someone else on her team to work toward giving her all of the attention she wants.”

  “The attention she deserves, Michael.”

  “Yes, Hamilton, let’s hope we all get what we deserve.”

  “Amen, my friend.” Hamilton paused for a moment to highlight the profundity of their shared mission and then continued. “So, it works better for our girl if we meet her at work for our little weekly powwow. That way, if there is anything we need to address with anyone on her behalf, we can do it immediately. How are Mondays at six a.m. for you?”

  “Six a.m.? In the morning?”

  “Unless you know of a six a.m. in the evening.” Hamilton chuckled at his own joke, then switched gears as if to signal the end of a shared amusement. “Seriously, though, I realize it is early, but Sapphire gets to work that early almost every day and she has felt alone in that for far too long. We all benefit from her efforts, and I—well, she and I—feel that having that kind of support at the very start of her week will go a long way toward making her feel that we are really on her team.”

  Michael debated the merits of arguing with Hamilton about his ridiculous plan but decided that he just didn’t have the time, energy, or interest. The truth was, he didn’t see himself as a part of this dysfunctional little ménage à trois for very long anyway—threesomes so rarely worked out in the long run—so he decided he might as well ride it out for the sheer entertainment value. Besides, the early hour would allow him the double benefit of missing traffic and making it back to Starbucks in time for his stalking—um, coffee.

  11

  Kate stood in the doorway of her home gym and stared at the treadmill. Her head was so foggy from the stress of another sleepless night spent waiting for Hamilton to come home that she was having trouble remembering how to work the damn thing—or why she had ever even cared in the first place. When her phone had rung at two a.m., she had jumped at it, hoping it was Hamilton calling to apologize and tell her that he was on his way home, but the voice on the other end of the line had been Sam’s, letting her know that she would finally be given the dubious honor of showing her ass to the world. Her call time was two p.m., which meant that the actual ass showing could happen anytime between then and the anticipated wrap time of two a.m. the following morning.

  So here she stood, trying to communicate to limbs that were weighed down with the heaviness of depression that it was imperative that they get on the scary-looking machine and walk miles to nowhere on the rotating belt. Her limbs weren’t buying it. Somehow her legs knew what her brain was refusing to compute: something bad was happening.

  Kate leaned against the doorjamb and allowed herself to slide down the edge until she was sitting on the floor, her coffee cup cradled in both hands for warmth and security. She felt adrift and confused. Hamilton hadn’t called or come home last night, and her anxiety had morphed into a profound ache deep in her belly. For most of the night she had been as jumpy as a cat, trying unsuccessfully to stay a step ahead of her fear with manic tidying of her already immaculate house, carrying the portable phone with her from room to room so that it was never farther than arm’s length away, running to the front window each of the countless times that she thought she heard Hamilton’s car driving up.

  “No wonder you are tired, you idiot,” she said out loud into the oppressively empty house, letting her head fall back against the doorj
amb. “You probably covered ten miles last night.”

  Normally, covering ten miles on an empty stomach would have been cause for celebration and a sanguine trip to the bathroom scale, but this morning, Kate was having trouble remembering why being weak from overexertion constituted a victory.

  “Maybe because Hamilton isn’t here to remind me,” she said again aloud, eliciting a tiny chuckle of recognition, which far too quickly evolved into tears. Hamilton isn’t here to remind me. Hamilton isn’t here. Kate put her coffee cup down on the floor next to her, its weight too much to bear. How was she ever going to perform today? How was she going to stand up, much less work out, take a shower, drive to the studio, and stop crying long enough to do her scene? She certainly didn’t possess the strength required to hold in her stomach and position her legs in such a way that her cellulite didn’t show. Maybe they could just use a mannequin—or better yet, maybe they could get a body double with rock-hard abs and legs, and then she could get a spokesperson contract for a fat-burning diet pill and do countless interviews about how she eats like a pig and doesn’t exercise “but still, the weight just falls off!” Without Hamilton here to guide your career, you’ll be lucky to get that, Kate reminded herself—on the off chance that her marriage crashing to a halt wasn’t enough to sustain her depression.

  “You know what? You’re probably just overreacting,” Kate said, gathering the superhuman strength required to lift her coffee cup, hoping that if she could just get a little bit of the caffeine into her system, it would give her the unimaginable amount of extra strength required to actually stand up. “Of course, overreacting or no, you have now officially become the crazy lady who sits on her floor and talks to herself.” That, combined with the image of Hamilton’s face should he come home to see her like this—slumped on the floor in her ratty sweats, teeth and hair unbrushed—gave her the impetus she needed to force herself into some semblance of action. No workout, perhaps, but at this point, getting herself into the shower was an inspirational accomplishment.

  When she dragged herself into the makeup trailer a few hours later, she could tell by the look on Paige’s face that the undereye concealer and fake smile she had painted on before getting out of her car weren’t fooling anyone.

  “Oh shit,” said Paige, rushing down the trailer’s narrow pathway and pulling out a chair for Kate as if she were an ailing elderly person in the grips of a fainting spell. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, huh? Then why do you look like your dog just died? Oh god—your dog didn’t die, did it?”

  “I don’t have a dog.”

  “Oh, thank god,” said Paige, sinking into the chair that she had pulled out for Kate. “It sucks when your dog dies.”

  “Did your dog die?”

  “Yes, when I was ten years old, and I am nowhere near over it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said, enjoying her crazy friend and her first authentic smile of the day.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Paige said, sitting up and pointing an accusatory finger at Kate. “You are not distracting me from finding out what has turned your beautiful face into a swollen tear duct.”

  “It’s nothing. I just didn’t sleep last night.” Kate hated to lie, but what was she going to say? That her husband may have left her for the crazy woman in the next trailer? That even if he hadn’t actually left her, he had taken time out of his busy schedule to let her know that said crazy woman was far more talented and economically viable than she was? That would be great. And the capper would be when she asked Paige not to share with anyone what was arguably the juiciest piece of gossip of the year (well, maybe of the week, this being Hollywood and all). It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Paige, she just didn’t trust herself to know what to say in a way that wouldn’t come back to haunt her. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, but I’m not going to push it. I mean, seriously, if I were you I would have lost it a hundred times already over all of this ridiculous Sapphire scheduling bullshit, so I’m just going to pretend that that’s the problem, and I am going to shut up and do your makeup.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” said Paige, pulling a frozen eye mask out of the mini fridge behind her and placing it over Kate’s face. “You do know that I am lying, right?”

  “Yes…and thank you,” said Kate, concentrating on keeping her mouth shut, as Paige’s kindness and genuine concern threatened her resolve to keep all of her pain to herself.

  “Coming up!” called Sam, opening the door and stepping into the trailer. “We need an estimate on Kate. We’re gonna be ready on set in fifteen.”

  “I just got her in my chair,” protested Paige.

  “I’m not even due in for fifteen more minutes,” added Kate, taking off her eye mask and pointing to the wall clock.

  “I hear you, and everything you say is true,” conceded Sam. “It is also true that we finished the last scene sooner than we expected and if we don’t get you prettied up and out there in thirty, they are going to skip your scene and move on to the next one. Is that what you want?”

  “What I want is the standard hour I get to do Kate’s makeup.”

  “And I want a pony, but we don’t always get what we want, Paige.”

  “Don’t be a wiseass, Sam.”

  “Don’t be a prima donna, Paige. We need her in thirty. Yes or no?”

  “Thirty isn’t enough time. Whose ass is on the line if she doesn’t look good?”

  “Well, actually, it is my ass on the line,” said Kate, beginning to feel like a kid caught between fighting parents. “Today it is quite literally my ass, so, theoretically at least, no one will be looking at my face anyway. What if we put my hair up, do a quick face paint, and send me on my way?”

  “Great,” said Sam.

  “Wait!” said Paige. “Kate, you have a right to take the time you need to be comfortable, you know. They’ll wait for you.”

  “No, they won’t.”

  “Sam! You’re not helping.”

  “I’m trying to, believe it or not. The new scheduling mandate is making everyone crazy, and we need to get done what we need to get done. No exceptions.”

  “Unless you are Sapphire Rose.”

  “Now you’re catching on.” Sam held up a finger to pause the conversation while he listened to his headset for a moment. “Got it…I’m with them now…Yes, she’s in the chair…Twenty-five minutes to camera?” He said the last bit into his mouthpiece, but he looked toward Kate with raised eyebrows that said “Are you in?” Shrugging her apologies to Paige, Kate nodded to Sam, who said, “We’re good here,” and headed out the door.

  Paige shook her head but went to work anyway, quickly pinning Kate’s hair in a tousled updo and applying her makeup in record speed.

  “What?” asked Kate when Paige had gone twenty minutes without saying a word.

  “Nothing,” said Paige.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Bullshit? You got to say ‘nothing.’”

  “Yes, because nothing was wrong with me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Be that as it may, you are chomping at the bit to tell me what is on your mind.”

  Paige paused for the briefest of moments. “Damn it! Damn me and my inability to have a private thought. Here is the deal, Kate: I can’t stand to see how they are treating you. You have more power here than you think.”

  “I don’t want power, Paige. I just want to get this scene done and go home and crawl into bed.”

  “Kate, you can still crawl into bed, after you—”

  “Paige, please…”

  Paige inhaled deeply, as if readying herself for a standard women-in-power diatribe, but the tired pleading in Kate’s eyes stopped her. “Okay, enough said—for today.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door and they heard Sam’s voice call, “They’re ready for you!”

  “She’s coming,” called Paige, handing Kate her lip
pencil. “They can wait two minutes for you to look less like the undead.”

  “Less like the undead, huh?” said Kate, quickly coloring in her mouth. “You make me feel like a pretty, pretty princess.”

  “I’m just doing my job, Your Highness.”

  Kate handed back the pencil. “Seriously,” she said, “thank you.”

  “Seriously,” Paige answered, “you’re welcome. Now go get dressed—I mean, undressed—and I’ll meet you on set.”

  Kate was laughing as she headed out the door.

  Kate’s laughter stopped abruptly when she turned the corner and almost collided with Hamilton as he exited the trailer closest to the set—Sapphire Rose’s trailer.

  “Kate!” Hamilton exclaimed, as if he were surprised to see her there—on the set of her television show.

  “Hamilton,” Kate said, somehow able to keep her voice relatively calm, although inside her head there was a screaming cacophony of pain, blame, and unanswered questions.

  “I am so glad to run into you here,” he said, taking her by the arm and steering her away from Sapphire’s door and toward her own trailer. “I was worried about you. You didn’t answer any of my messages.”

  “You didn’t leave me any messages,” Kate said definitively, for once sure of her position. “I had the phone right next to me all night.”

  “You did? How sweet.” Hamilton kissed her on the cheek as he opened her trailer door for her and followed her inside. “Were you worried about our little tiff?”

  “Hamilton, it was more than a tiff. You didn’t come home last night—and you didn’t call.”

  “Sweetheart, of course I didn’t call. I didn’t want to wake you. I e-mailed you several times, though, so that you wouldn’t worry.”