Paparazzi Ch. 01 of 02

When I got into the agency, Starla took one look at me and got a big grin on her face. "It looks to me like somebody got a lot of sympathy for his bruised face last night," she said with a smirk. I blushed in spite of myself. "Damn, how could she know?" I wondered. But I didn't try to deny it, and I think Starla was genuinely happy for me. I'd shared some of my frustrations with her about how things had been going with Kelly, and she was glad to see any signs of improvement.

We spent the morning reviewing the shots I'd taken of Jinx the other day. There were some we couldn't use for various reasons, but I'd managed to capture one that showed both Jinx's face and her hand shoplifting the watch, and another where she was charging at me with her hand upraised. "These are going to be dynamite," Starla said. "Frankly, I'm surprised we haven't heard from her agent trying to buy up the lot."

In this twisted town, you don't even have to publish pictures to make money off them. It's not uncommon for publicists or agents to buy up all rights to a set of embarrassing photos so they don't tarnish the reputations of the pampered personalities they represent. Of course there are some shots that are so hot that they're worth more on the open market than any one source can afford; likewise there are some personalities that no one will pay to protect. You can tell a lot about any individual performer's stock in this town by what actually gets into the media. It would be interesting to see if anybody stepped forward to protect Jinx.

It was another beautiful day in Los Angeles -- the city averages over three hundred days of sunshine a year -- so Starla and I decided to eat lunch in the park. We managed to find a bench that wasn't overtaken by tourists or seagulls and unwrapped our food.

I was still feeling good about last night and I guess that was what prompted me to get so personal with Starla. "So why is it that someone as hot as you hasn't found that white knight you're always talking about to take you away from all this ugliness?" I asked, gesturing ironically at the beautiful lake, palm trees and green grass before us.

She snickered at my little joke, but then her face took on a serious expression. "I could give you a smart-ass answer, David, but the truth is I don't really know what I'm looking for. I try not to show it, but I'm a pretty messed up girl."

I was embarrassed about my clumsy prying and tried to apologize, but she waved me off. "No, it's okay. I feel like I can trust you. To be honest, I feel more comfortable talking with you than just about anybody else I know."

I didn't know where that was coming from. I couldn't think of anything I'd ever done that merited her confidences -- except maybe not hit on her all the time.

"I don't have any shortage of opportunities to go out with guys," she went on, "but none of them has ever struck a chord with me. They're all so into themselves, trying to impress me with their credentials or their money or the size of their dicks. It's such a joke -- I haven't found a hero in the whole lot!"

She tried to smile at that, but I could tell that she was unhappy at the direction her life was going. Damn, who would think that someone as bright, talented and beautiful as Starla would be so unhappy with her life?

I didn't know what to say to try to make her feel better so I tried to change the topic back to work. Soon we were swapping disparaging remarks about Jinx McClure (Starla called her Jinx Mc-Clueless), and that seemed to lighten her mood.

When we got back to the office, Starla went to check her email and I went back to reviewing the shots we wanted, when the front door opened and a man in a cheap suit entered. He spoke to one of the secretaries and then came up to me. "Are you David Cowan?" he asked, and when I acknowledged that I was, he simply handed me a sheaf of papers and said, "Then you've been served."

Starla had come up behind me, and she put her hand on my shoulder.

I sat there stupidly. "Served? Served with what?"

The guy rolled his eyes. "It's not really any of my business, pal, but off hand I'd say you've just been served with a divorce petition."

I gaped at him. "There must be some mistake," I sputtered. "My wife loves me. Last night . . ." My voice tailed off -- that might be too much information.

The guy looked at me like I was a specimen pinned to a plate in a lab. "David Cowan, right?" All I could do was nod. "Sorry, pal, no mistake," he said, and with that he turned and walked out the door.

As I sat there stunned, Starla grabbed my arm and half dragged me into her office, away from the prying eyes outside. I glanced at the document in front of me, and the words "dissolution of marriage" seemed to jump off the page. I looked up at Starla. "I don't understand. Last night it was just like when we first got married. She was so loving and giving -- and now this?"

Starla looked at me sympathetically. "It was a farewell fuck," she said quietly. "It was her way of saying 'Sorry for dumping you.'"

As I sat there uncomprehending, Starla leafed through the papers. "There's a note from Kelly clipped on the back," she told me. When I took it, she made a point of turning back to her computer so I could read the note in private, but I read it out loud anyway.

David --

I'm with Sal Manucci now. You're a great guy but you don't do it for me like he can. Please just sign the attached papers so we can both move on with our lives.

Sorry I'm too much of a coward to tell you in person. I'll always have feelings for you. Hope you have a great life.

XOX

Kelly

Now I was just angry. "That's it? That's all she has to say after five years of marriage: that she's run off to live with her boss? What a fucking cliché! And you want to hear the best part? That last paragraph in her little note sounds exactly like something she was watching on some damned movie on the Lifetime channel last week. So much for 'sorry,' so much for our marriage!"

"She was acting, David," Starla said gently. "You have to understand: in this town, everyone is acting," Then she bent down and gave me a sisterly hug. "I'm sorry. You deserve better than this." Then she straightened up. "Why don't you get out of here? You don't want to sit around and have everybody gossiping about you. Come back tomorrow morning and I'll find a new assignment for you. Believe me, keeping busy is the best medicine."

I left, keeping my head down as I walked through the office. I didn't want to see any sympathetic stares, or, worse, hear any cynical snickers.

When I got home, things looked normal until I went into our bedroom. Everything in her closet, everything in her dresser, and everything of hers in the bathroom was gone. "Shit," I thought, "she must have waited until I left for work and then come back to clean out the place."

I wandered through the living room and kitchen but I couldn't find anything missing there. In an odd sort of way that made me feel even worse -- there was nothing we'd accumulated in our married life that she valued. I even found our wedding album. Clearly she didn't want any reminders of me. If we'd had a fireplace, I would have burned it.

I thought about going out and getting drunk, but I'd never been much of a drinker and this didn't seem like the best time to start. I hurt badly enough as it was; deliberately inviting a severe headache and an upset stomach didn't make much sense. Instead I wound up in my car heading up to Mulholland Drive. When I finally got up there, I parked at the Groves Overlook and got out and stared at the lights of L.A. I did this sometimes when I had something on my mind, probably because it made me think of Green's View overlook back in Sewanee. After a day like today, I needed the comfort of a little familiarity.

"Everybody in this town is acting," Starla had said. Like a sap I'd believed that Kelly still loved me, still wanted to be my wife. "My marriage was like a set in a movie," I thought bitterly. "Everything looks nice and normal until you peek around back and see it's all fake."

The view from the hills was beautiful, but this night the shimmering lights gave me no pleasure. "This whole damned town is a façade," I decided, "a sparkly thing designed to lure you in, get your hopes up and then smash them into pieces when you least expect it,"

It was then that I remembered my mother's prediction. She'd sure been right about Kelly; I was beginning to think she'd been right about everything. I drove back to the apartment more depressed than when I'd left.

When the alarm went off, I rolled over hastily to shut it off so it wouldn't wake Kelly. Then I remembered that I didn't have to be considerate of Kelly ever again, and my depression returned. But the buzzer was annoying so I shut it off anyway and then stumbled to the shower.

When I got to the office, I pulled out Kelly's petition to look at it again. We had no common property of any value, so that wasn't a consideration, and it appeared that Kelly wasn't interested in alimony, not that she'd get much anyway given our respective incomes. All in all, it looked like we'd be making a quick, clean break. Nevertheless, I decided that I was in no particular hurry to sign. I wasn't interested in reconciliation, especially not after yesterday's humiliation, but I decided that I wanted to drag my feet. It appeared that Kelly was in a hurry to get this done quickly, and the idea that I could throw a little sand in her plans gave me a small measure of satisfaction.

Just then Starla came out of her office and beckoned to me, so I headed on in. After closing her door, she came around the desk to sit beside me. "How are you doing, David?" she asked sympathetically.

I told her I had survived my first night alone and went on to describe what I'd found when I got home. "She had everything all planned out, didn't she?" Starla said caustically, and it made me feel better that someone besides me was angry about how I'd been treated.

"I bet you drove up on Mulholland last night," she said in a softer voice. She knew all about my habit of driving up there when I needed to sort things out. I told her I had but it hadn't helped. She nodded sympathetically, and then said, "The best thing for you right now is to stay busy. If you think you're up for it, I just got a new assignment and they specifically asked for you."

"I'll take it," I said quickly.

"Better wait till you hear the whole story," Starla said ominously. Then she explained.

Micki Morningstar was America's sweetheart, a pretty little girl who got her start in children's television and had successfully made the transition to a twenty-one-year-old TV and movie actress. Her only problem now, Starla told me, was that she had too much of a goody-goody reputation. "Virtue doesn't sell," was her agent's succinct assessment.

So Micki's agent had dreamed up a little made-for-the-tabloids scheme to show another, naughtier side to his nubile client. Although she was regularly seen on the arm of her steady boyfriend at parties and events, her agent wanted to stage a fake affair with a known "bad boy." It was a classic: paparazzo (me) snaps photos revealing Micki's affair with the bad boy; Micki's "good" boyfriend breaks up with her; the media goes into a frenzy; and when the furor is at its peak, Micki and her old boyfriend reunite to the happy tears of their adoring fans. It's what they call a classic Hollywood ending. The whole thing was so cynical that I felt dirty even thinking about it.

"But why would they ask for me?" I asked Starla.

"It's all about credibility," she told me. "You have a reputation as the hunter, the guy who can find his prey and get a shot when no one else can. That makes the whole affair story look that much more believable," she explained.

It was true that I'd had better luck than most at snapping hard-to-get photos. As a boy I'd spent many days prowling the Savage Gulf, shooting photos of birds and animals. I'd learned how to move silently through the forest, to climb trees and to keep motionless while a deer and her faun passed directly below the limb on which I perched. I'd been able to put that experience to good use on more than one occasion as a paparazzo.

But that didn't make me feel any better about this assignment. "So nothing about this is real: not the affair, not the rendezvous, not even the photography? What a joke!"

Although I didn't want to admit it, there was another reason I wasn't keen to do this particular job. After what Kelly had done, the idea of shooting an affair, especially one that involved play-acting, hit a little too close to home. Listening to Starla describe the scenario, I couldn't help thinking about Kelly's little lovey-dovey act the night before she so unceremoniously dumped me.

Then Starla gave me the really bad news: the agent setting up this whole charade was none other than Sal Manucci, Kelly's new bedmate!

"Manucci?" I howled, "Why the hell would he ask for me? Is he trying to humiliate me even more than he has already?"

"Calm down, David," Starla said firmly. "He could have something like that in mind but maybe this is his way of trying to buy you off. He took something of yours, now he's giving you something back. That's the way this town works."

I made an ugly sound in my throat.

"But what I really think" she went on, "is that Sal wants you because he needs to make his little drama as credible as possible. Selling the story to the public is the only thing he cares about."

"Well, he may want me for the job, but I see no reason to help that bastard out," I said.

Starla looked at me carefully. "You can refuse to do the job if you want, but it's not going to change a thing. Besides, do you want to let him know you can't face him, or do you want to show him you're able to function in spite of everything?"

I thought about what Starla was saying. It was a lot to swallow, but I decided that I wasn't about to cower in front of Manucci. I'd hold my tongue for now and get my payback later.

"Okay, Starla, I'm in," I said reluctantly.

The next day found me headed out to the "love nest" where the "good girl" and the "bad boy" were supposed to be holding their rendezvous. I wore my hunting camos and some sneakers that were good for climbing trees. "Might as well look the part," I muttered sarcastically.

I thought I'd been all over the greater L.A. area, but I was wrong. It's a good thing they gave me a GPS location or I'd have never found the place. It was way out in a canyon in the foothills of the Sierra Madres.

When I finally arrived I found enough people there to shoot a full-length movie. In addition to Sal, who'd dreamed up this mock assignation, there were the two lovebirds plus a couple of assistants, two make-up artists and even a director for the shooting. On top of that, the "bad boy's" real girlfriend and Micki's steady boyfriend also showed up. I guess they wanted to keep an eye on things, just in case. What a production!

The love nest, I learned, actually belonged to the president of the talent agency Sal worked for. I'd have to shoot the scene in such a way that it wouldn't be recognizable.

After a while, Manucci came up to me somewhat uneasily. "Listen, Cowan," he said nervously, "no hard feelings about Kelly, right? Life goes on, you know."

I had already told Starla that I wouldn't get into it with Sal now, so I just nodded and said, "Sure, Sal, it is what it is and business is business." He looked at me uncertainly, but a call from the director interrupted him and he went off to see what needed to be done. As far as I was concerned, the less I had to do with Manucci the better.

The scene was to take place in a pleasant little garden outside the house. The two illicit lovers were on one side of the canyon; I set up on the other. The director wanted me to shoot through the foliage to make it look as though I had caught them unawares.

The two "lovers" stood around chatting and drinking lattes until the director gave them their cue. Then, having handed off their coffee to an assistant, the two of them fell into a clinch that looked so real I started to get a hard on. I began shooting, using leaves and branches to frame my shots.

The director called for a break and the two stars instantly released each other and went back to drinking more coffee. Their respective make-up artists came rushing up to repair any damage their "passion" might have caused to their perfect looks.

The director came over to me. "Are you good or do you want to try something else that might make for a better shot?" he asked.

I looked around and got an idea. In less than a minute I managed to climb up into the limbs of a huge eucalyptus tree, using the knots and burls of broken limbs for footholds. Once I got up there I had a great view on the two young lovers through the limbs. We shot another set of poses from that angle before the director finally declared "That's a wrap."

Manucci went down to the house to check on his client, who had gone inside the house to refresh herself. The "bad boy" went over to reassure his real girlfriend, who didn't look very happy. I did a quick review of the shots I'd taken just to be sure nothing had gone wrong. Before I put my camera away and shinnied down the tree, I decided to get a few shots of the house and garden in case they were needed for backdrop on our "exclusive."

As I panned the camera across the house, my eye registered movement through one of the windows, and I used the zoom to see what it was. The angle of the sun was just right for me to look right into the back bedroom. There, out of sight of the rest of the crowd, were Sal and Micki locked in a clinch that put the acting of a few minutes earlier to shame. At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but then I began to fire off shot after shot as the two of them kissed and groped each other like long-time lovers. Then one of the assistants tapped on the door to check on them and the two hastily broke apart. Sal slipped into the bathroom, probably to adjust his hard on, I thought.

I sat there on the big eucalyptus limb, stunned by what I had just witnessed. Sal was having an affair with Micki? Oh boy, was Kelly going to be pissed when she found out! I knew I'd just been handed a chance for some major payback, but I needed to think everything out carefully.

When I got back to the office, Starla was eager to hear how the shoot went. When I showed her the "authorized" pictures I'd taken, she was impressed. "I was afraid these might look really phony and obviously staged, but they turned out great. If I didn't know better, I'd think those two really were canoodling in some love nest."

"Well, if you want to see some real passion, have a look at the other shots I took," I told her with glee, and showed her the photos I'd taken through the bedroom window. She looked at me in confusion until I explained, "These were taken after the shoot was over, when Micki and Sal thought nobody could see them." Then light dawned in Starla's eyes and she gasped, "So there really is an affair and she and Sal are carrying it off right under everyone's noses!"

She got a calculating expression on her face. "You really have to admire Sal's chutzpah," she said. "He has the audacity to set up a make-believe affair for his client while actually carrying on a real one with her. But that's not the half of it, David. It's considered a serious conflict of interest for an agent to have an affair with a client. Throw in the fact that Sal's some twenty years older than Micki and the "ick" factor gets even higher. Like I said, he's got a lot of balls to do this."

"But why would he bother with Kelly if he's got such a hot young piece of ass like Micki already?" I asked.