CHAPTER 14
Cate
After I slept with Joe that first time, the floodgates opened. We saw each other nearly every day, but always in secret, at my insistence. I told him that I didn’t want any drama—and that was true.
What I didn’t tell him was that I knew his interest in me had a shelf life, and I believed that whatever spell I’d managed to cast over him would be broken the second people found out about us—and the truth about me. There was no way that his feelings for me could withstand the scrutiny of his inner circle, let alone the tabloid press and millions of people obsessed with the Kingsley family. Eventually, it would be pointed out to him—or he would otherwise figure out—that we just weren’t compatible in any real way. In the meantime, our secret also felt like an insurance policy against public humiliation. I might very well fall in love with Joe, but I wasn’t going to let the whole world watch me crash and burn when the inevitable happened.
For days, which then turned into weeks, I remained vigilant. Other than Elna, I didn’t tell anyone about Joe. Not Curtis or Wendy or even my mom when I took her to lunch for her birthday and knew the news would make the best gift, even better than the diamond cross necklace I’d given her. I just couldn’t take the chance that Chip would find out and somehow try to sabotage me. It was sad—tragic—that his abuse rendered my relationship with my mom so superficial, even strained. If he weren’t in the picture, I truly think I would have been sharing everything with her. She would have been the first call I made when Joe and I met on the beach, and when he showed up in Paris. But I’d long since learned that I could only be so close to her and that there was really nothing I could do until she was ready to leave him. You simply can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.
Meanwhile, I was super careful with the paparazzi who occasionally lingered outside Joe’s building. Whenever I spotted anyone even vaguely suspicious, I’d walk on by, returning only when the coast was completely clear. Sometimes I’d just head home for good, which had the added benefit of driving Joe crazy. It’s not that I wanted to play mind games with him, but I was keenly aware of keeping a level playing field. So no matter what I was feeling, which was getting to be quite a lot, I did my best to appear blasé. It was the only way to protect myself.
I think the concept of a completely clandestine relationship intrigued Joe at first, as he mentioned several times that our hiding felt romantic. He also loved getting one over on the tabloid press. Based on stories he’d told me, his relationship with the paparazzi could get contentious, but even when it didn’t, Joe still wanted to win the cat-and-mouse game.
A cynical part of me wondered if Joe liked skipping all the wining and dining and going straight to the bedroom. I mean, what guy wouldn’t like having no-strings-attached sex, especially if you knew the relationship couldn’t go anywhere?
Eventually, though, he started pressuring me to go out in public with him. It was reassuring, evidence that he really did like me, but I still dragged my feet, wanting to live in our limbo fantasyland for as long as I could.
Then, one night, when he begged to take me out to dinner, I finally relented. As we left his apartment and walked openly through the streets of SoHo and then into Tribeca, I was more than a little apprehensive, hyperaware of all the double takes and outright stares. At one point, I even trailed a few steps behind him, just to play it safe.
“What are you doing back there?” Joe said, laughing, seemingly oblivious to the attention that followed him everywhere.
I shooed him ahead, but he insisted on waiting for me. Even after I caught up, though, I tried to appear as if I wasn’t really with him. But by the time we’d settled into a back corner of the restaurant with chips and salsa and a pitcher of margaritas, I could feel myself start to relax. Joe must have noticed the change because he reached for my hand across the table, giving it a little squeeze.
“See?” he said. “Look at us. Totally under the radar.”
I glanced around and had to admit that he was right. The restaurant was packed, but nobody was paying any attention to us. It was an advantage of a trendy downtown spot; the crowd was too hip to stare at a celebrity.
“So, what do you think about doing this more often?”
“Going out to dinner?”
“Yes. And just—making things official.”
“And what does that entail?” I said. “A press release?”
I was making a joke, but apparently it wasn’t such a far-fetched concept. “Well, not a press release per se,” he said. “But maybe a statement of some kind…”
“Wait. Seriously?” I said, nervously reaching for a chip.
“Well, yeah,” he said. “You know, we could just issue a brief statement confirming our relationship.”
“And why is that necessary?”
“It’s not necessary. We can always stick to ‘no comment’ if you prefer…but sometimes silence backfires.”
“How so?”
“People draw their own conclusions about what’s going on.”
I swallowed, feeling a wave of nervousness, and suddenly wishing we were just back in his apartment, hunkered down on the sofa, still playing make-believe.
“Look. I really don’t care what anyone thinks,” he continued. “I just want to be able to do things with you.”
“We have been doing things,” I said with a knowing smile.
He smiled back at me and said, “Yes. And I’ve greatly enjoyed those things. Believe me. But I’d like to do other stuff, too. Go to dinner and events and parties and ball games.”
I nodded, listening, thinking.
“I want to take you to the Hamptons for the weekend. And go on vacations…and I want to meet your friends and family. Especially your mother…Have you told her about me?”
“She’s heard of you,” I said, smiling at him.
He laughed, then said, “You know what I mean…. Have you told her about us?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I want to meet her…and I want you to meet my mother, too.”
My stomach turned a somersault as I tried to decide which scenario I dreaded more.
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know, Joe—”
“Okay, I don’t want to rush you…but can we at least stop hiding? And just tell everyone the truth?”
I lowered my voice and leaned toward him. “You mean that we’ve been fucking for two months? That truth?” I said, mostly just to throw cold water on my feelings. But I think I was also testing him.
“Jesus, Cate,” Joe said with a laugh. “Do you have to say it that way?”
I shrugged and said, “Well. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“No,” he said, reaching for my hand. “We’ve been making love.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my hand away, saying, “Ugh. Please don’t ever use that expression again.”
He laughed, then said, “Okay. Well, regardless of what we call it—I don’t kiss and tell….”
“Bullshit,” I said with a smile.
“I don’t!”
I took a sip of my margarita, then licked some of the salt from the rim of my glass. “So, you’re telling me that you never talked to your guy friends about what it was like to fuck Phoebe Mills?”
“Ugh! Stop saying that word!”
“Okay, fine. What it was like to have sex with Phoebe Mills?”
He blushed and looked away.
“Yep. That’s what I thought.”
“Okay. You got me there,” Joe said. “But that wasn’t a real relationship.”
“What was it, then?”
“It was mostly just sex. I mean, we did have fun together, but…”
I gave him a “gotcha” smile.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
“I’m not looking at you like anything,” I said.
“Yes, you are. Do you think less of me?”
“No. Why would I? You think I’ve never had ‘just sex’ before? With no strings attached?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking intrigued. “Have you?”
I nodded and said yes, of course I had.
“Wait. Is that what we’ve been doing?” he said with a look on his face that I couldn’t read. “Are you using me for sex?”
“Yes,” I said, raising my glass. “Sex and margaritas.”
Joe smiled and said, “C’mon. Be serious. Are we…a couple?”
My heart was now racing, and all I wanted to do was say yes. Instead, I said, “I thought we weren’t doing labels.”
“It’s time for labels, Cate,” he said, giving me one of his smoldering stares, which further undid me. “Are you my girlfriend?”
I took a deep breath, reminding myself that there was no way this was going to end well. But I still nodded, feeling my first wave of hopefulness that maybe we could be somewhat of a normal couple, at least for a little while.
—
Early the following morning, after rolling out of Joe’s bed to head home and shower for work, I was ambushed right outside his building by a beefy man in a black leather jacket. For one disorienting second, I actually thought I was being mugged. Then I saw that his weapon was a camera and realized, too late, that I was under a different kind of assault. Blinded by a flash, I raised my purse to my face and bolted down the block, debating between the subway—which had been my original plan—and a taxi, which would make a cleaner getaway but was more uncertain at this hour. I opted for the latter, praying that I’d get lucky and find one.
As I swiftly walked to the corner, the guy kept perfect pace, at one point even circling in front of me, shooting me straight on as he ran backward, taunting me.
Hey, honey, what’s your name? Click, click. Can you give me a sexy smile? Click, click. How long have you been fucking Joe? Click, click. Are you a whore? Click, click, click.
It was ironic—since I had used the word fucking last night—and I suddenly realized that on some level I’d been trying to preempt what others might say about it. If I said it first, it would hurt less. But hearing him say it still felt degrading, and it didn’t help that people were staring at me as the cameraman and I bobbed and weaved all over the sidewalk. At one point, I tripped and almost fell, stumbling into a gray-haired man in a suit—who had the nerve to shoot me a look of disgust—mumbling that I needed to watch where I was going. As if he couldn’t plainly see that I was being pursued.
When I got to the intersection, I stepped out into the street, frantically searching for a taxi as the guy kept taking pictures and firing off rude questions. It was unbelievable how relentless he was, but what shocked me more was that not a single person stepped in to help. Instead, they just kept coming and going in the crosswalks around me.
Finally, a lone Good Samaritan who was out for a morning jog intervened. She was young and petite but had a fierce expression, and I watched with awe and gratitude as she stepped between me and the cameraman, yelling at him to leave me alone. It was just enough interference to allow me to flag down a taxi.
Sliding into the backseat, I gave the driver my address, realizing I was in a full sweat and on the verge of tears.
“Are you okay, miss?” he asked as we made eye contact in the rearview mirror.
“Yes, thank you. I’m fine,” I said, wiping my eyes and catching my breath, all the while thinking, Holy shit.
As we made our way uptown, I told myself that I had probably overreacted—that nothing truly terrible had happened. Yes, a sleazy photographer seemed to know what was going on between Joe and me—and was now in possession of what were certainly hideous photos. But what could he really do with them? Who would want to publish those without more concrete proof that I was tied to Joe? And even if they did make their way into a tabloid, so what? I hadn’t committed a crime. Joe and I were both single adults, and we’d only done what a million other single adults in the city had done the night before. What was the worst that could happen?
By the time I got back to my apartment, I’d talked myself off the ledge enough to call Joe and fill him in. But I left out some of the details, including the word whore.
“Oh, Cate. I’m sorry, baby,” he said.
He had never called me baby before, and I was surprised by how much it comforted me.
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
“Yeah, it is,” he said. “I should have gone to get a cab with you.”
“You offered,” I said—because he always did. “Anyway, that would have made it worse.”
“Maybe,” Joe said. “But I still wish I had been there for you. I’ve been dealing with these assholes my whole life. At the very least, I should have prepped you better.”
“How would you have done that?” I asked.
“I don’t know—there are just some tips….”
“Such as?”
“Such as…never run.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause it’s like running from a bear. It just amps everything up and makes it worse. You have to stay calm. Pretend they’re not there…. Plus, you don’t want them to think you’re flustered. They get off on that. Pictures sell for a higher price if you look pissed or upset…which is why they talk shit. You just have to ignore them.”
“Okay,” I said, taking mental notes, but thinking that was probably easier said than done. “Well, I just wanted to let you know….”
He must have heard the reluctance in my voice, because he said my name as a worried question. “Cate?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t be scared,” he said.
“I’m not scared,” I said, lying through my teeth.
—
That night, I returned home from work to the strong aroma of pot and the sound of Elna and Curtis laughing in the living room. As I put my bag and keys down in the kitchen, I rounded the corner and saw them both sprawled out on the sofa in a cloud of smoke, watching a Mary J. Blige video on BET. Elna’s bong sat on the coffee table between them, along with a box of Wheat Thins and an empty container of hummus. Clearly, they’d been at it for a while.
“Ahhhh. There she is,” Curtis said, glancing up at me.
“Yep. There she is,” Elna echoed.
“Hey, guys,” I said with a substantial sigh as I kicked off my heels and plopped down on a floor pillow on the other side of our coffee table.
Curtis ignored me, staring at Elna. “Does our girl here know how much trouble she’s in?”
Elna smirked, then shrugged. “I don’t think she does…but maybe…. Always hard to tell with her.”
It was one of their favorite schticks, talking about me as if I weren’t in the room, though to be fair, we all did it to one another.
I rolled my eyes and shot Elna an accusatory look. “So you told him?”
“Lady,” Curtis said, waving his finger in my face. “She didn’t tell me shit. You’re on freaking Page Six!”
My stomach dropped just as I noticed the newspaper on the coffee table. Sure enough, Curtis held it up and waved it in my face. “Extra, extra! Read all about it!’
I pushed his hand away and groaned. “Do I even want to see it?”
Elna gave me a glazed look, then slid the bong across the coffee table toward me. “Well, you might want to hit this first.”
“Shit. Is it that bad?” I said, refusing the bong and reaching for the paper instead.
“I mean—” Elna said as Curtis held it out of my reach. “It’s not that bad—”
I groaned, then said, “Okay, gimme that thing.”
Curtis shook his head and patted the spot on the sofa next to him. “No. You come here. I can’t stop looking at him.”
“Him?” I said, getting up and moving over to the sofa. “There’s a picture of Joe?”
“Yep,” Curtis said. “Looking fine as hell.”
As I sat down, squeezing between my friends, I saw the headline—Joe Kingsley’s New Fling—along with three photographs laid out sequentially. The first was a medium-range shot, taken last night, of Joe and me walking into his building. He was holding the door open for me, one hand on the small of my back—which wasn’t terribly incriminating. But the second shot—a close-up of me in broad daylight, leaving Joe’s building, wearing the same jeans and top, with messy hair and a bewildered, busted look on my face—told a different story. In the third photo, I was standing on the corner, holding my purse up to my face. The caption spelled everything out for less discerning readers: Former model Cate Cooper takes “walk of shame” after steamy night with Joe Kingsley.
“Ugh,” I said, putting my head in my hands. “Unreal.”
“I’ll tell you what’s unreal,” Curtis said, pausing dramatically. “What’s unreal is that I had to read about this in the paper! Why didn’t you tell me? What is going on here?”
“Okay. Calm down,” I said, then summarized the order of events as succinctly as I could. I told him that I’d been seeing Joe since Fashion Week and hadn’t told him sooner because I didn’t quite believe it was going to last, and I didn’t want to get his hopes up.
“Well, they’re up! Way up!” Curtis said. “I’ll never forget the way he looked at you on the beach that day. How serious is this, anyway?”
I hesitated, then told him the truth. “I don’t know. I mean, he called me his girlfriend last night—but…I can’t imagine that it’ll last for much longer.”
“Yes, it will!” Curtis said. “And remember—I call dibs on your wedding makeup.”
I shook my head and said, “See? That’s the reason I didn’t tell you—”
“She has a point,” Elna said.
“I’m serious, Curtis. No more wedding talk! That’s not going to happen.”
“Okay. Well, how about just regular everyday makeup?” he said, tapping his finger on the middle photo. “If you’re going to be in the tabloids, we’re really going to have to up your game.”
“Jeez, Curtis! I didn’t know I was going to be photographed! This guy totally ambushed me.”
“Clearly,” he said, cracking himself—and Elna—up.
“Stop it, guys,” I said as our phone started to ring.
Elna answered it, made a few seconds of small talk, then handed it to me, mouthing, It’s your mother.
“Oh, God,” I whispered. “Does she know?”
Elna put her hand over the receiver and said, “Well, it was sort of hard to understand her through all the hyperventilating, but yeah…I’m pretty sure she knows.”
Bracing myself, I took the phone and said hello as my mom began firing off giddy questions: Is it true? Did you spend the night with Joe Kingsley? What’s going on? Chip said you’re on Page Six!
I confirmed that the statements were true, feeling certain that Chip had found a way to disparage me to my mom.
Sure enough, the next words out of her mouth were “Chip said it was a one-night stand?”
I bit my lip, now feeling hurt and defensive in addition to everything else. Of course my mom believed Chip’s negative spin. In the end, she would always choose him over me. Always. But pride still made me come back at her. “No, Mom. It wasn’t a one-night stand. We’re seeing each other,” I said, walking a fine line between defending myself and dangerously overblowing my relationship with Joe.
“Oh, wow. That’s incredible!” she said. “Have you met Dottie?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know, Mom. I doubt it. We’ll probably break up soon—”
“Can I please meet him before you do?” she said, clearly having no faith in my staying power.
“I don’t know, Mom,” I said again, just wanting to get off the phone.
“C’mon, Cate! You know how much I love the Kingsleys.”
“I know, Mom. But he’s a real person,” I said, trying to put into words what I had grappled with over the past couple of months.
“I know he’s a real person,” she said. “What does that even mean?”
“It means he’s not who you think he is…. He’s just a regular guy.”
“Well, according to People magazine, he’s also the Sexiest Man Alive.”
I sighed and said, “Mom. Please.”
“Okay. But do you think I could get my picture taken with him? At some point?”
“We’ll see,” I said, thinking that at the rate she was going, there was no way I’d let her get anywhere near him.