For blaue-banane, mattyfresh, DutchLuv and the inimitable Greys has become my life. Your words continue to inspire, and I hope to be worthy of all praise.
This chapter would totally suck without traceit. If it sucks anyway, it's not her fault.
18
Seriously, I am not a morning person, and for once my body agreed with me; the sun must have been up for hours before I was awoken by my cell phone ringing with an especially shrill, piercing tone. I opened my eyes, stared blearily at the clock next to the bed, turned over to look at Will. I'd always loved the way he slept, from the first time I'd watched him like this, loved the openness in his face, the softness, the innocence of his expression, and it was so new, so strange to feel these things and not fight them, but I was going to be different now, I knew I was, better. Smiling, I reached out to stroke his hair, then froze. I realized that I'd turned my phone off yesterday, and that particular ring was the emergency ring only ever used in the direst of circumstances. It was, in fact, the same ring that had preceded the news of my mother's death.
This jolted me out of my sickening (seriously, I'm really sorry about that) haze of infatuation, and I rolled out of bed, very undignified, tangled in the sheets. Will slept on, oblivious, which was a good thing. Kneeling down, practically crawling on my hands and knees, I searched through the various items of clothing for the jeans he had stripped off me last night. I found them under the bed for some reason and retrieved my phone from the pocket, answering it quickly.
"Hold on," I whispered. "Just one second."
I grabbed the first thing to hand, which happened to be Will's cardigan from the night before. It was as oversized on me as his shirt had been, as modest once buttoned, and far softer and warmer since it was made of cashmere. None of this really registered, however, as I pulled it on with no consideration for the delicacy of the fabric and left the room as stealthily as possible, using my clever little doorknob trick. Then I tiptoed down the hall, ignoring the cold wooden floorboards beneath my feet, my heart pounding in fear because in all the years I'd had that emergency ring, it had only ever been used three times before and answering each of those calls had revealed horrible, horrible news.
"Okay. Talk," I said, voice urgent, once I reached the living room and it was safe to speak at full volume.
"Jesus, Norah, just let the phone ring why don't you?" Odessa Goldsmid, my publicist/assistant/friend exclaimed, her familiar voice, husky with the cigarettes she was constantly chain-smoking, sounding strangely foreign after over a week without it shouting something at me.
I did some quick math in my head (never easy, but especially difficult at 8 a.m.), and came to a startling conclusion. "Dess, it's 5 a.m. in Los Angeles! Why are you awake? What's wrong? What's the emergency?"
"Believe me, I know what time it is," Odessa drawled. "I'd still be asleep if not for my damn dog, always with the barking, christ! But in the end it's a good thing… Are you anywhere near your laptop?" Laptop. That meant some kind of bad press, and that… Was something I could live with. It was fine. It would be fine…
"Yes, just a sec." I snagged my computer from the coffee table and opened it while sitting crosslegged on the couch. Unlike me, it woke up almost immediately. "Okay, I'm on. What's happening?"
"Go to the Keeping Tabs website," Odessa directed.
I felt my stomach drop and my heart stop, reminding me of my confrontation with Kurt the previous night. Keeping Tabs, in case you're unaware (lucky lucky you) is the slimiest of all possible slimy tabloids. It's below People, Us Weekly, In Touch… It's maybe slightly more reputable than the National Enquirer, but really it depends on the day. Bad press was one thing, but if there was something about me on the KT website, I knew it would be bad on an apocalyptic scale.
And oh god, if only. Apocalyptic would have been a blessing. This was so much worse, and it was right at the top of the website with a huge flashing banner headline (and by the way, did I call it or what?). My heart, which was now beating in fluttery, uneven bursts, sank further and further with every word I read.
x x x
Norah Castle's "Private Pain"?
Summerview chanteuse Norah Castle is famously incommunicative about her personal life, so much so that she has never been conclusively linked to anyone (though rumors have persisted about encounters with actor Michel Delaine, indie frontman Elliott Edrington and basketball phenom Chris Cassetti). Many celebrities have praised her for her success in this, as well as her integrity and honesty.
KT can exclusively report that Norah has everyone fooled.
The pictures below, special to KT, clearly show Norah Castle in a steamy encounter last Wednesday with married high-school teacher William Schuester in his office at William McKinley High School in Lima, OH. We're impressed!
Castle's rep confirms that she is currently in Lima, but will not comment on the photos, saying only "Ms. Castle experienced a personal tragedy recently, and hopes everyone will have the decency to allow her to mourn in private." Doesn't look like she's bothering to do anything in private…
See more pictures and read our exclusive coverage, including interviews with people close to the scandal, in the latest issue of KT, available today! And remember… As the situation unfolds, we're Keeping Tabs on it!
x x x
There were three pictures, each of me sitting on Will's desk, facing the camera, my face clearly visible with my legs wrapped around him. It was obviously me, and it was obvious what I was doing: the ecstatic look on my face really said it all. The only small mercy was the fact that Will was unidentifiable, but considering the fact that he was identified in the text I didn't think that would make much of a difference.
"Oh god," I choked out. "Oh god. Oh god, Odessa, how the fuck did this happen?"
Dess laughed, genuinely amused. "I could ask you the same question; I thought you were at a funeral."
"I was," I muttered.
"Some funeral," she quipped, and I wished she was with me in person so I could wrap my fingers around her neck and just squeeze.
"Dess, what are we going to do?" I asked, voice breaking, utterly distraught. My reputation mattered to me, kind of, but not as much as whatever it was I'd barely started with Will. Breaking this news to Will on top of everything else I had to tell him… It was a nightmare.
"Hell if I know," she sighed. "I'm already on my way to the office. Blake and Desmond are meeting me there, we're going to strategize. But you need to get a copy of the issue, babe, because the actual article is far worse."
"How is that even possible?" I demanded.
"I can't even tell you. Seriously, you just have to read it," Odessa answered, and my mind reeled. "But we need to talk. I need to know how much of this is true so we can do damage control."
"Okay," I answered, knowing the drill from previous comparatively minor tabloid emergencies, feeling slightly calmed by the familiar routine. "Go."
"Pictures?"
"Real."
"Depiction?"
"Accurate."
"Identification?"
"Accurate."
"Teacher?"
"Yes."
"In his office, fortheloveofgod?"
"Yes."
"Married?"
"Technically."
"Jesus," she breathed, ending her interrogation. "What were you thinking?"
"Now isn't exactly the best time to get into it," I snapped.
I heard her take a long breath and realized she was smoking, inhaling so deeply I could almost feel the smoke in my own lungs. And honestly? I'd quit smoking five years ago but at that moment I would have killed for a cigarette, would have kissed her full on the lips just to suck the smoke out of her mouth and into mine, and I don't care how desperate that sounds. Some situations just call for nicotine, and this was one of them.
"Fine," Dess agreed, amenable for once, maybe due to the note of panic in my voice. "Tell me later. I'm going to get that Cohen kid, the mean one, to send a Cease and Desist order to KT. But it's not going to help much, might get the pics off the website… His name removed, maybe, since he's a private citizen. But the print version is already on the stands."
"Please, Odessa," I begged. "Whatever you have to do."
"Don't worry, Norah," she soothed, which only made me worry more; Odessa did not do soothing very effectively. "We'll take care of it."
I suddenly realized that when she said they'd take care of it, she really meant they'd take care of it for me, fix it for me, make it right for me. And why wouldn't they mean that? They were my team, making things right for me was their job. But I didn't care about containing the scandal for myself, and I needed her to understand that.
"Dess, listen. This is very, very important. Whatever plans you're making, forget about me. Throw me to the dogs, I don't care. But don't let this ruin Will's life."
There was a long pause, and somehow even the silence was incredulous. "Are you kidding me?"
"Not even a little," I swore. "Whatever you have to do. This will get him in trouble with the school… When that Cohen kid is done terrorizing the bastards at KT, send him here. I can't… He… This is just a nightmare."
"Yeah, especially since I was going to spin it as 'dirty married teacher seduces innocent ingénue'. You have the rep to pull it off," she pointed out.
My tone was utterly final as I said "No way in hell. Never. Reverse it. Tell everyone I'm a nymphomaniac and I raped an innocent man, I don't care. Hang me out to dry. I'm serious."
"Why?" Dess demanded. "What the hell kind of pr rep would I be if I did that to you? My job is to save your career, save your image, not destroy it."
"No," I snapped. "Your job is to handle my career and image as I direct. My career, my image, my directions. The only kind of pr rep you'll be is an unemployed one if you ignore me on this, Dess." And I felt horrible for threatening her, but I also knew I truly meant it. I had never felt so frantic, never given her such important instructions; it had never been so important that she follow them.
"What is going on with you, Norah?" she asked, her tone that of the girl I met my first week in LA, the girl with whom I'd split the rent for a couch in someone's living room until we could afford to share a studio, the girl who was my friend, not the fearsome pr agent that girl had become.
"I can't… Really, I can't explain it right now," I whispered. "But I'm serious, Odessa. Please. Keep him out of it."
"Based on the pictures he's pretty clearly in it." Dess muttered, defaulting to coarse humor to restore our equilibrium. "Okay. I'm here, better go… Hopefully Blake and Des have something, because if I can't besmirch this bastard's reputation I got nothin'."
"Keep me informed," I ordered or perhaps begged. "Text me every second or I'll be calling you at least that often."
"Yeah yeah, I know… You want to be Keeping Tabs on it. Ha ha. But seriously, get a print copy. It's worse."
And then she hung up.
I buried my head in my hands, hearing a ringing in my ears, my heart pounding painfully in my chest and what the fuck was I going to do? What the fuck could I do? Even by celebrity standards, this was a scandal of epic proportions. It was bad enough, what I had been hiding from him, but this… More than anything, I wanted to run to him, take comfort in his arms again (which was quite a novel sensation, by the way; I'd never felt the need to do such a thing in a time of crisis before), but first I had to figure out how to explain why I needed it. How to come clean, how to break this news to him. It's not that I didn't believe everything he'd told me the night before, but that… Had been about me. This was about him, and I knew that made it different, more difficult to forgive.
More than anything, I feared that this time I'd make my confession to him and he'd be unable to overlook it, unable to say what I most wanted to hear, unable to bear my company any longer. This literally had the potential to destroy his life, ruin his career, and surely that could make even someone as kind as Will hate me forever. Just twelve hours ago I could have lived with it (very unhappily, but still) but now… It hadn't even happened yet and the very thought that it might caused me physical pain.
As I was sitting there on the couch hyperventilating and being useless, there was a knock at the door. My instinctive reaction was to run and hide, assuming reporters had found me, but then I remembered that members of the paparazzi never knock; they wait for you to leave the safety of your home, all unaware, and then ambush you. I crept to the door and looked out the peephole, and a feeling of relief rushed through me, helping me get a reign on my panic.
I threw open the door. "Emma, thank god!"
TBC
Sorry for the cliffhanger, but really I'm too nice to you guys with the constant updates and all. I need to abuse my readers more.