“Let’s get dinner,” Tess suggested.
Selene made a face. “I haven’t found a single decent place to eat in this town.”
That stung a little. Tess thought that Baltimore, whatever its limitations, could put on a pretty good feed. “There’s Charleston, right here in the neighborhood.”
“Too much fish.”
“Do you like pizza-”
“I love it, but” – Selene patted her nonexistent belly – “I can’t risk it. I’ll be all bloated tomorrow. It’s got to be protein. Sushi is best, although I have to go easy on the soy sauce. Puffy eyes.”
“Well, I could do sushi,” said Tess, a little uncertainly. Hadn’t Selene just vetoed fish? Besides, Tess wasn’t big on raw things.
“Can I pick the restaurant?” Selene’s manner was coy and wheedling, her default mode.
“Sure.”
“And wherever I pick, you’ll go?”
“Yes.”
“Wherever I want to go?”
“Wherever you want to go,” Tess promised.
Which is how they ended up, not even thirty minutes later, in Selene’s driver-equipped car, headed for New York.
They were just about to enter the Holland Tunnel when Selene pulled out her iPhone and, with a quick glance at Tess, began sending what appeared to be the War and Peace of text messages. Lloyd could do the same thing with his cell phone, whereas Tess was reduced to playing a virtual Gary Cooper when she texted, laboriously tapping out yes and no.
“Change of plans,” Selene announced. “Nobu is mobbed. We’re doing Mexican instead of sushi.”
But when the Town Car stopped in front of what appeared to be a very ordinary diner, Tess was dubious.
“This? We had to drive two hundred miles so you could eat here?”
Selene laughed at her. “You’ll see.”
Selene pulled on her hoodie and donned a pair of oversize sunglasses, despite the fact that it was now 11:30 P.M. They went inside, passing through the bright, quiet diner and into a concealed staircase that led to a very different establishment beneath, a truly subterranean lair of cavernlike rooms. The bar was jammed with people waiting for tables, but the bored-looking hostess raised one eyebrow at the sight of Selene and said: “Of course.” The hostess, a ravishing creature in her own right, did not acknowledge Tess at all; she might have been a piece of toilet paper stuck to Selene’s boots which, now that she noticed, weren’t actual boots but spiked Mary Janes with knitted tops that reached just to her knees, worn with a skirt that barely covered her silky underwear. At least Selene was wearing underwear.
Come to think of it, Tess decided as she followed Selene’s twitching bottom, a piece of toilet paper might get more attention. After all, someone might have felt obligated to point out that trailing tissue to Selene, however discreetly, while Tess was invisible to this young, chic crowd. How could they decide so quickly that she was a person of no consequence? There was nothing outrageously wrong with what she wore. In fact, her black trousers and sweater, paired with flat-heeled boots, weren’t that different from what many of the diners here wore. Granted, most of the people dressed like her were men, but still, she was carrying the look. No, there must be something indefinably off about her, an unshakable whiff of hoi polloi.
Yet Tess recognized no one – except the young man who was waiting for Selene. But then, Buddhist monks, living in seclusion in the mountains of Tibet, probably knew of Derek Nichole, a pretty boy who had transformed himself into the actor of the moment by taking on a trio of foolproof roles – crippled man, developmentally disabled man, cancer-ridden gangster trying to make one last score so his small daughter would be financially secure. He hadn’t been nominated for an Oscar, but the consensus was that it was a matter of when, not if.
“Hey, doll,” he said, not bothering to get up as Selene slid into the semiconcealed booth. No cheek kiss, no hug, just the smallest of waves, the fingers barely lifting from the table. Tess wondered if it was film or fame that taught one to modify gestures that way. “I didn’t know you were bringing your mom.”
“Joke,” Selene assured Tess. “JOKE. I mean, Derek’s met my mom, and she’s a blonde like me.”
“I don’t know,” Tess said. “I could be your Baltimore mama. The city used to lead the nation in pregnancies to girls under fourteen.”
“Yes, but I’m twenty, so you would have had to have me when you were six.”
Tess waited a beat for Selene to declare again “JOKE!” When she didn’t, it seemed too late to correct her math skills. Yet Derek, his tone gentle, said: “The numbers go the other way, baby. You add fourteen to your age to figure out how old – well, it’s not important. Margaritas for everybody?”
“I’m working,” Tess said, “and she’s underage.”
Derek looked at Selene. “I thought you were coming to New York to have fun. You told me you had a late call tomorrow.”
She shrugged prettily. “I can have fun, within limits. I told you what the perimeters were.”
“Parameters,” Derek said. Again, he managed to correct her without being condescending or unkind.
“Isn’t that what I said? I’m going to the loo.”
She didn’t ask Tess to let her out from the banquette, just crawled over her as if she were a piece of furniture.
Tess started to stand: “I should-”
“Don’t be silly,” Selene said. “It’s a one-seater. Besides, you can see me from here. I don’t need that much guarding, not here. It’s Baltimore where all the strange shit is happening. Baltimore ’s the real problem.”
Tess settled for watching Selene thread her way through the crowd, then keeping an eye on the door marked CHICAS.
“She’s a good kid,” Derek said.
“Kid being the operative word. How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven, so it wouldn’t be exactly scandalous if we were dating.” He held her gaze. There were more handsome men in movies, with smoother, regular features, but Derek Nichole commanded one’s attention. “Look, it’s not like that with us. We’re pals. She wants to do what I did, careerwise, but it’s harder for girls. All the media wants to write about is the bad-girl stuff. I ran with a tough crowd, back in Philly, wiseguys, but nobody cared where I went, or who I fucked, as long as I didn’t break a bottle over somebody’s head. Her, that’s all they want to write about.”
“Poor thing,” Tess said, and it didn’t come out as sarcastic as she had intended.
“I told her not to sign up for this stupid television show. I said go do theater in the West End, make another independent film, but she began to worry that she didn’t know where her next Chloe bag was coming from, and she jumped at the paycheck. Now she’s got all this great attention from the film, and she can’t leverage it. She’s sewed.”
“Sewed?”
“Television shows require a minimum commitment of five years. And it’s one way. You commit to them for five years, but they’re not obligated to keep you. I made the same mistake, but I got lucky. The show I did ended up six and out. If it had been a success, I would have been stuck.”
“How did you do it?” Tess asked. “I mean, you weren’t much older than Selene when you…”
He smiled at her inability to find a tactful way to finish her thought. “When I went from a punch line to being touted for an Oscar? Let’s just say I was smart enough to know I wasn’t quite smart enough, and I found some people who understood what I wanted to do. Mentors. Or, Mentos as Selene calls them, and she’s not far wrong. The fresh-maker, right? Well, they made me fresh again, made me someone who had to be considered in a different light. The only thing they couldn’t change was my own stupid stage name. I meant to be Derek Nichols, but when I put my paperwork in, they misread my handwriting.”