Chapter 1 #2
Halfway through filming their movie, a few months after Stone and I became exclusive, Shoshanna and Naomi’s assistant hatched a scheme to drum up interest in the movie by having Stone and Naomi “date.” Up to that point, he and I had kept our relationship private.
His friends didn’t know. I hadn’t even told my sisters.
So the plan wouldn’t even require Stone and me to stage a breakup.
The prospect of watching my boyfriend go into public places with “America’s Sweetheart,” not to mention the physical affection they would need to engage in to perpetuate the ruse, hadn’t been my favorite thing.
But since our relationship was so new, and with both their publicists convinced it was a prime opportunity, I hadn’t felt right vetoing the idea when Stone asked me.
To his credit, he made genuine efforts to ensure my comfort with the situation—short of not doing it, of course. He let me know exactly what was going on, detailing their plans at every turn.
I got texts at all hours that said things like:
STONE: Just warning you I need to kiss Naomi outside the restaurant when we leave. Shoshanna said it has to be on the lips. Sorry. *sad face emoji*
STONE: Shoshanna gave me a gold chain to wear with an infinity symbol on it. I have to tell people Naomi gave it to me and then always wear it. Sorry. *head smack emoji*
STONE: There’s an article coming out where Naomi got asked if I have a big *eggplant emoji* and she didn’t reply yes or no. (Shoshanna told her to just smile if someone ever asked her that question). Sorry. *green nausea face emoji*
That last one stung. At least no reporter had been gross enough to ask Stone whether he’d compare Naomi’s breasts to grapefruits or melons.
In truth, I got used to the situation quicker than I thought I would.
It helped that when their deception began, I had a busy life of my own.
My MBA program kept me plenty occupied, not to mention my family and friends, part-time job, and planning for a post-graduation career.
In a lot of ways, having what amounted to an incognito boyfriend, someone I didn’t have to account to my friends and family about, worked for me. Most of the time.
And while Stone and Naomi dined at the trendiest restaurants and strutted across red carpets all over the country, he and I enjoyed cozy nights in and trips to private destinations.
Stone and Naomi had been pretend-dating for eleven months, and we’d achieved a stasis that worked for all of us.
Stone got a girlfriend who grounded him in his non-celebrity life.
Naomi got to date an up-and-coming bad-boy type who helped modify her image.
And I got a relationship with someone fun that required minimal effort or accountability.
But even though I’d settled into the arrangement, that didn’t mean I’d never questioned it.
Because a year was a long time for no one to know the truth about us. No one except me, Stone, Naomi, and their handlers.
And Leo.
“Honestly, I don’t think I would have agreed to it either,” I told Shoshanna.
She caught the undercurrent of my words, the implication that it was the PR teams who’d made things harder when they moved the finish line midway through the race.
Instead of honoring the original plan to have Stone and Naomi end their “relationship” amicably after the movie’s premiere, they’d insisted on maintaining the deception, arguing that the positive publicity was worth it.
I was usually a cool cucumber, but it wears on a gal after a while when the entire world thinks your boyfriend is in love with someone else.
Which was why I’d planned to bring the situation to a head sooner than later.
But not like this.
“Well, I guess it makes no difference what we would have done in hindsight.” Shoshanna exhaled noisily, drawing me from my thoughts. “The only thing that matters now is that every troll on the internet thinks Stone cheated on Naomi with @theadventurousmiranda, and they’re out for blood.”
“Should I delete the post? Turn off comments?”
“I'll get us on a video call with the publicist within the hour. Let’s see what she says. The damage is done. I’m not sure if it makes you look more guilty.”
Exactly my thoughts from earlier.
A call from an unknown number interrupted us.
“Gotta go, Shoshanna. I’m guessing that’s Stone.”
Five seconds later, I picked up with a sheepish, “Hello?”
“Hey, darlin’.” Stone’s slow drawl came through the phone. “Happy Thanksgiving… Soooo, I’m guessing you hit that vodka pretty hard after we closed out last night?” He chuckled low, and I could picture him shaking his head. “How are you doing with all this?”
I might have just ruined his career, and he was worried about me. Damn.
It strengthened my resolve. No matter what happened between us, I needed to fix this.
During our call, the publicist, Lauren, told me to leave the post up but turn off the comments. Then we brainstormed ways to convince people that something true wasn’t (Stone and me) and something that wasn’t true was (Stone and Naomi). My head swam just thinking about it.
They asked me how Stone seemed, and I replied that he thought things would blow over soon.
Shoshanna and the rest of his team had guided his career to extreme heights practically overnight, so he had a lot of faith in them.
Also, he was a mellow guy in general. His amiability was something that had drawn me to him initially—the most authentic part of his otherwise curated image.
Shoshanna and Lauren spoke with Naomi’s people, and they decided the first order of business was to make sure the world saw Stone and Naomi together.
Then we'd convince the public that Stone and I were just friends.
Naomi would back us up, saying she knew me and had met me many times, and that would be that.
Then another photo showed up online.
Someone else had been on the beach in Maui.
They’d caught me and Stone in the background.
In that picture, he held me in his arms, wrapped in a towel.
I remembered the moment. We’d been sitting outside, waiting for the sunset.
I couldn’t recall seeing anyone near us.
The cabins were a quarter mile apart. But that was definitely my towel, and that was definitely the outside of our cabana.
In the photo, we gazed into one another's eyes. Like lovers. Harder to explain away than the couch selfie.
Shoshanna, Lauren, and I got on another call.
“We could say it was manipulated,” Lauren suggested.
Shoshanna shook her head. “That would work for a while, but since we know the picture is authentic, it’s too risky a strategy.”
“Why isn’t it enough for Naomi to say she doesn’t think Stone cheated on her? Like, if she knows me and all, shouldn’t that be adequate?” I asked.
Lauren tsked sadly. “When Naomi was a kid, her handlers did her dirty. They leaned into this bubbly, perpetually innocent version of her, so even as she aged, everyone assumed she could be taken advantage of. Being with Stone was working in terms of rehabbing that persona. She was finally being perceived as more of a grown-up. But if she goes on record as trusting Stone despite the photo evidence, they’ll assume she’s being manipulated.
The public tends to be cynical. It’s easy to buy the narrative that an upstart social media star used sweet little Naomi for his own gain. ”
“That doesn’t seem fair. I’ve met Naomi. She’s no dummy.”
“Welcome to being a young woman in the public eye.”
I grimaced.
Lauren pinched the bridge of her nose, adjusting the camera to display less of her nostrils. “We need the public to believe you and Stone are just friends. The pictures are just so damning.”
A thought occurred to me. I almost didn’t want to voice it out loud, but it refused to go away.
“Would it help if the public discovered that I’ve been involved with someone else for the past few years? If pictures are what it takes to persuade people, what if there were a bunch of me being cuddled up to a guy who isn’t Stone? Going places and hanging out with him?”
“You want us to stage photos with another man?” Shoshanna hummed. “I feel like it might backfire. Nowadays, folks are pretty good at sussing that out.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that. I’m asking what would happen if those pictures actually existed.”
Shoshanna glared menacingly at her camera. “Have you been cheating on Stone?”
I pffted. “No. Keeping things quiet with him has been a big enough pain in my ass. Trust me when I say I don’t have the capacity to maintain more than one secret relationship at a time.”
“Fair enough,” Lauren said, lips twitching. “Then what do you mean?”
“Stone may be my boyfriend. But he’s not the only man in my life. And I have plenty of photos to prove it.”