“We should get a drink sometime and just, you know, let it rip,” Jane suggested.
“Ha, yes, that would be great.” Esmé stepped closer, whispering, “She was a piece of work, huh? Nothing like what I expected. Very... restrained. Sort of robotic maybe? And her assistant running interference all the time—ugh.”
“Celebrities have to build walls—all these people want a piece of her, and she’s so busy.”
“But she has people to do everything for her!”
“Yeah, and then she probably feels like an asshole for not doing it herself. I don’t know, I sort of liked her.”
“You’re a lot more generous than I am. I think this job has completely burnt me out on over-the-top bougies.”
As Jane drove home, she decided that if she were being honest, she mostly agreed with Esmé’s assessment of Lauren Baker. You would hope she’d be flashing her million-dollar smile, laughing her robust laugh, dazzling you, rather than marching around her estate, with grim determination, from one task to the next. America’s Sweetheart had turned into a ruthless businesswoman, promulgating her brand and raking in cash.
Lauren seemed intelligent, observant, and perhaps a little sad. Maybe she had demons from her childhood she was still wrestlingwith. Maybe she was self-critical despite all her success. Maybe she was wounded and hardened by the inevitable misogynistic backlash that at some point all of America’s Sweethearts had to endure. Maybe she hated being the custodian of her own brand, and the fact that the brand was herself made it feel like a kind of spiritual prostitution. Or maybe she was imprisoned by the idealized version of who Lauren Baker was—a person Lauren herself never could be, maybe never wanted to be. Or maybe Jane was doing that thing that people do to movie stars: projecting her own pathologies onto them.
The freeway traffic was clotting and as Jane slowed down, she realized she’d been so lost in thought that she’d missed her exit. Now she’d have to quickly cut through three lanes of traffic to make the next exit. As soon as she put on her turn signal, the car in the next lane slowed down, and the driver motioned for her to merge. Jane waved a thank-you, grateful for little acts of kindness, these small graces. Not everyone was an asshole. One could cling to a little bit of hope.
Teddy, hunched over the stove, tending his pots—one with his Irish stew, another with mashed potatoes—was in a kind of fugue state and didn’t hear Jane enter the kitchen. This was one of the meals he made that he was most proud of. It checked all the boxes: Irish, hearty, masculine. The meat—beef rather than the more traditional lamb—was doused in Guinness, and Teddy was drinking a bottle of it as well.
“Hey, Teddy,” Jane said softly, so as not to startle him.
“Oh hey, Jane!” He was flushed and sweaty from the heat of the stove. Jane leaned in and gave him a light kiss on his cheek. He smelled salty, yeasty, cannabis-y. With the pungent scent of the aromatics and Guinness simmering in the stew, it was a heady blend.
“How was your day? Dinner is almost ready.”
This was so domestic. Teddy seemed to get pleasure from cooking for her, even when he wasn’t seeming to get pleasure from her company. Perhaps this was the sort of dynamic that cemented long-term relationships?
“It was fine. Big A-list rom-com star, initials LB.”
“Lauren Baker?”
“Maybe. Yes. She had us work on a kid’s closet that was borderline obscene, but you know, all the insanity is getting normalized for me.”
Teddy chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know about that, my Oppositionally Defiant Jane.”
“Yeah, you’re right... I’ll probably never get used to it. Esmé told me she’s leaving, going to work at a social media company.”
“She bugged you anyway, right?”
“I ended up liking her, actually...”
Teddy raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“She was just hard to get to know. How was your day?”
“Eh.” Teddy poked at the mashed potatoes with a wooden spoon.
“What?” Jane rested her chin on his shoulder.
“Let’s talk about it over supper.”
As Teddy spooned a chunk of meat into his mouth, Jane noticed a bandage on the inside of his forearm, peeking out of his long sleeve.
“What happened?”
Teddy rolled up his sleeve, revealing a long strip of gauze and lots of medical tape. “I wanted a big reveal, but—I need to keep the bandage on for another couple hours.”
Of course. It was a tattoo.
