“Music before noon,” Farrow says. “I’ve already started loosening his straight-laces.”
One hand on the wheel, I use the other to flip him off. “I love how you give yourself credit for the stupid things in life. It’s so generous of you.”
Farrow almost laughs, but we both suddenly grow quiet and serious. Two paparazzi SUVs flank my sides and abruptly cut me off from a right turn.
“Get off Market Street,” Farrow suggests.
“That was my plan.” I speed forty over the limit just to pass the SUVs. But they have a Honda friend ahead of me. The blue Honda slams on its brakes. Causing me to slam on mine.
Fuck.
I’m now boxed in. Like a rat in a trap.
I reach into my cup holder for my sunglasses, but Farrow is already handing me my black Ray Bans. Reminding me that he’s trained for these situations. He slips on a pair of black aviators.
Arms and cameras stick out of paparazzi’s rolled-down windows. I’m forced to drive at their speed, andflashespierce me from nearly every direction. My sunglasses dim the brightness but not my frustration.
Most days, I coexist with paparazzi fine. I’ll answer their harmless questions, sign their photographs that they then sell on eBay, and we respect one another enough.
Then they pull stunts likethisand I question the percentage of decent cameramen to the ones that’d run my family into a ditch for a grand.
“Do you want me to help you?” Farrow asks. “Or would you rather just let them capture photos of you glaring?”
I gesture to the windshield. “There’s nothing left to do.”
“I’m not Declan.” Farrow unbuckles, and he leans over the middle console. Towards me. My breath cages in my lungs, and I watch his arm slide across the back of my seat. With his other hand, he slams the heel of his palm on the wheel’s horn.
Blaring into the morning sky.
He extends his body even more over me. While I drive, he’s careful not to block my vision of the road, but I’m more concentrated on the fact that his shoulder brushes up against my chest. And one of his knees sits between my legs.
Farrow rolls down the driver’s side window. He turns his head, just slightly, our faces literally a breath away. Focusing on the paparazzi, he yells, “Tell the Honda to drive off or I’ll shutter Maximoff’s windows!”Shutter, meaning he’ll tape up sheets to block their money-shots.
The cameraman says, “One more minute! Get out of the way!” He makes ashoomotion to Farrow.
“Hey!Now or never,” Farrow threatens, his tone so caustic that I’m not surprised when the cameraman disappears inside his SUV. Moments later, the Honda takes a left.
Freeing the road.
Freeingus.
I speed off as quickly as I can. Declan never had thatkind of affect on paparazzi. It stuns me silent for a minute.
Farrow eases back in his seat, and I roll up the window. He picks up his papers, and I glance at him, then the road, then back to him.
He arches his brows. “Want to say something?”
“Where’d you learn that?”
Farrow snaps his seatbelt locked. “When you’re the bodyguard to the most famous woman in the world, you can’t be a passive bystander.”
My mom.
My mom is the most famous woman in the world. She’s the reason her sisters are famous. The reason I’m famous.
The reasonwe’re allfamous.
Lily Calloway is the origin to the public scrutiny, the media harassment, the paparazzi invasion in Philadelphia of all cities—but it’s nother fault.
