Jane added, “It’d be helpful to know what size he is now, so we can put all the stuff he’s outgrown into one pile.”
“Oh boy,” Kirsten said with a smile, “I have no idea how children’s sizes work. Maybe just sort by size and then I’m sure Lauren will have an opinion.”
An opinion? About Scotty’s clothing size? Wasn’t that an objective fact?
“Awesome!” Esmé exclaimed as Kirsten scurried off.
As soon as Kirsten was at a safe distance, Jane and Esmé looked at each other, then simultaneously burst out laughing.
By now, Jane was soothed rather than ruffled by Esmé’s bobbing ponytail, which was definitely a marker of personal growth. After a couple hours, they had almost every item categorized, though the sorting was complicated by the European sizes. The child had an unnerving amount of couture: Jane didn’t realize that Comme des Garçons and Kenzo and Moschino and Fendi and Gucci all made clothing for kids. He had five tuxedos: two black (one with a notched lapel and one with a shawl collar), a white dinner jacket, a red one, and a jaunty one in a houndstooth-pattern. How often did a child need to get dressed up? Of course, this one was frequently on the red carpet with his mother, and when he was, he was an ambassador of her brand.
Jane’s mother had shopped for her clothing almost exclusively at GapKids, which was inexpensive and pragmatic, and Jane remembered resenting this—but now, she appreciated it and credited it with giving her a desire for simplicity and order.
Esmé held up a little Tom Ford ensemble, whispering, “I have a very hard time believing a five-year-old boy cares about any of this stuff.”
“Right? But one thing I’ve learned, Esmé—anything is possible in LA.”
“One hundred percent.”
One section of clothing was girls’ party and princess dresses.
“What are these doing here?” Esmé asked.
“Maybe Lauren wants to make sure his playmates are acceptably dressed in case they’re seen in public, but who knows? Let’s leave them for the time being.”
“That chicory coffee did not agree with me. I feel like I swallowed a tree,” Esmé said, clutching her stomach. “I need to find a bathroom.”
Right then, Lauren herself, in leggings and a sports bra, looking like she had just gotten off a Pilates reformer, appeared in the doorway, stopping Esmé in her tracks. Lauren had on almost no makeup—the “no-makeup” makeup look—and perfect, pore-less skin. Was there a new dermatological technology that eradicated pores? Lauren glowed. No wonder the camera loved her. Her faithful assistant Kirsten stood a few steps behind her, like a lady-in-waiting.
“Hey! So excited y’all are here.”
Lauren was (of course) a y’aller. It went with her folksy Southern-girl persona.Y’allwas one of those turns of phrase being deployed with alarmingly increasing frequency. Memes had broken out like the measles on social media: “Burritos, y’all!”“Oscars, y’all!” “Use it or lose it, y’all!”Y’allcollapsed everyone into an amorphous lump of humanity, and it was patronizing in the same way as erudite politicians using the wordfolksinstead ofpeople.
One truism Jane had learned from her time in the entertainment business was that many of these performers with reputations for being super nice were actually mean and vindictive. When she was an assistant at the agency, clients would have snits about a trailer smaller than a costar’s, a late airport pick-up, a subpar hotel room, and she saw the same behavior when she worked for producers or studio executives. Sometimes she’d be the one who would have to call the car service or hotel to try to remedy the situation. Stars could turn everyone in their orbit into a kind of assistant.
Many of them attributed their success to merit rather than luck, which was a canard, because sometimes those with no discernible talents nonetheless achieved great success. Talent, determination—sure, they could help. But they weren’t all that was required. Also necessary was luck, and luck was capricious and chaotic. This awareness sometimes made it hard for Jane to muster the enthusiasm to pursue anything ambitious. To chase any dreams.
For now, she would give Lauren the benefit of the doubt: she did like her inane movies, and Lauren did have that preternatural glow about her.
“Hi, Lauren, I’m Jane. So excited to meet you, your movies were everything in my teens.”
Jane felt an upswell of bile in her throat. Had she really just used one of her other most hated linguistic tics,everything? As in, “this (fill in the blank) is everything.” “These jeans are everything.” “This TV show is everything.” “This donut is everything.”It was another fucking annoying meme. She might as well have said “y’all.”
“I’m Esmé, and same here—love those rom-coms!”
“That is so sweet! I wish we were still making movies like that now, but... it’s a whole new world.”
“Absolutely,” Jane replied. “The world is just too cynical now.”
Lauren took this in as if it were a profundity. Like all good actors, she was a good listener—or at least good at pretending she was listening.
“Tell me about it,” Lauren answered with the perfect note of wistfulness. “So, how’s it going?”
“Very well. We have a lot of questions,” Jane replied.
A flash of something—impatience?—crossed Lauren’s face.
“First thing is the sizes. What size is he now?” Esmé asked.
