REED
Georgina strokes the stem of her glass. “Remember I told you Isabel’s PR person had contacted me a few weeks ago and said she didn’t want to do the skydiving thing, after all? That she decided she wanted to do a conventional lunch interview?”
“Yeah. I thought you said you were going to cancel the whole thing. You said you didn’t feel right interviewing Isabel, now that we’re together.”
“Yeah, and I meant that when I said it.” She grimaces. “Turns out, though, I never got around to actually cancelling. I started having this fantasy I could show up to the lunch, and tell Isabel we’re together, and let her decide if she wanted to proceed with the interview.” She makes an adorable face I’d caption,Sorry, not sorry. “And now I’ve dragged my feet so long on cancelling, I’m in a bit of a pickle.” She winces. “I’m scheduled to meet Isabel for lunch tomorrow.”
“Georgina Marie.”
“I know, I know. I’m a bad girl. It’s just that texting her PR woman to cancel feels so anti-climactic and unsatisfying compared to getting to tell Isabel, to her face, I’m your girlfriend, and then watching her expression as she puts two and two together and realizesI’mthe woman you were talking about in that surveillance video. Although, I promise, I’dnevermention the video itself or what I saw or heard in it.”
Ah. I get it. Georgina can’t help wanting that delicious moment of revenge for herself, every bit as much as I wanted the pleasure of making that PA scurry back to C-Bomb to let him know I’m the “boyfriend” Georgina mentioned during her interview of RCR. And you know what? I don’t blame her. Frankly, after the shit I pulled in that garage, I think it’s only fair Georgina should get to enjoy a triumphant moment like that.
“If I’m being immature and vindictive, tell me so,” Georgina says. “But the truth is, I want Isabel to realize, if she’s only marrying Howard to try to win you back, she’s going to have to go throughmeto do that.”
Oh, my gorgeous fireball. She’s a blazing pyre before me. Physically glowing with passion. “You know what?” I say. “Go for it.”
“Really?”
“Why not? Once your article about me comes out inRock ‘n’ Roll,Isabel will find out about us, anyway. You might as well experience the pleasure of telling her yourself, in person. But, if you don’t mind, I’d like to come along, so she understands we’re a team—that I’m as committed to you, as you are to me.”
“Oh my gosh! I’d love that.”
“Just be prepared for Isabel to get pissed off and feel like we’ve ambushed her.”
Georgina’s eyes ignite. “Yes, please.”
I laugh.
Georgina’s face flashes with mischief. “Actually, now that an actual interview of Isabel isn’t going to happen, I can’t see the downside of me asking her about Howard. I still haven’t been able to get a single actress who’s worked with Howard to talk to me on the record, although several of them have told Hannah and me horror stories,offthe record. CeeCee said she won’t publish anything based solelyon anonymous sources. So, I might as well go for broke and ask Isabel if she’s heard any of the rumors and see what she says.”
“Why not? Although I can’t imagine she’s heard a thing. Isabel is screwed up in a lot of ways, but I don’t believe she’d marry Howard if she knew any of that stuff, no matter what superhero franchise he’d offered her.”
“She’s truly never saidanythingto you about Howard being a creep?”
I shake my head. “Not in the way you mean. Sure, she’s always laughed about how obsessed he was with her, right from the minute he met her at her first big audition. She called him a ‘stalker,’ but she laughed about it.”
Georgina furrows her brow. “Isabel met Howard at an audition?”
“Yeah. It was her big break. He happened to be at the audition, by chance. Usually, that’s below his paygrade. But he happened to be there, and when he saw her, he immediately demanded the director give her the part.”
Georgina squints. “Did that audition happen before or after CeeCee’s fiftieth birthday party?”
“About a year after. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I’d convinced myself Isabel met Howard at CeeCee’s birthday party. I had this whole storyline in my head about that. But I guess not.”
“No. She met him at an audition. Howard wasn’t even at CeeCee’s party.”
“Yes, he was. I saw him in a group photo from the party. Hang on.” Georgina leaves and comes back with a color copy of the article, which she places before me on the kitchen table. “See?” She points to Howard’s face. “That’s definitely him. Plus, CeeCee confirmed he crashed her party and she was livid about it.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. I had no idea. I didn’t even know who he was that night, so I never would have noticed him. But I can’t imagine Isabel didn’t know who Howard was at the time. She was always savvy when it came to...”
I trail off, as my brain starts connecting dots. Suddenly, I remember that twenty-minute gap during the party when Isabel disappeared on me, and later told me she’d been in line for the toilet. Was she talking to Howard then? Did she contact him after the party, and stay in touch with him during that entire next year, working him, hustling her ass off, until he finally agreed to give her that first big break? And did she do all of this, while I was paying her fucking rent because I didn’t want her working for Francesca anymore?
Georgina sits in my lap and looks at the smiling group photo that includes Howard. “Maybe Isabel was in the same boat as you. Too young and naïve to realize she was in the presence of a hugely successfulmovie producer.” She runs her fingers through my hair. “Or maybe she was just too damned smitten with her gorgeous date for the evening to notice?—”
“No, she noticed,” I say, my jaw tight. “Trust me, she knew exactly who he was that night. Isabel is, and always has been, the most ambitious person I know. She’s always wanted to be a star, come hell or high water.” Again, my brain catalogs the countless times I felt like Isabel was lying to me, early on. The times I felt like what she was telling me didn’t add up. But since I was regularly lying to her, too—about my father, mother, childhood, lack of funds—I always let it go.
