Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
I meet Petra for lunch in the Arts District. I spot her from across the street, sitting at the restaurant’s window. When I join her at the table, she looks caught. She sits up tall and paints on a smile.
“Everything okay?”
“Of course. Have a drink,” she says.
“Uh-oh. Are we celebrating or commiserating?”
“Absofuckinglutely.”
I laugh. “Okay. Fine.”
“You might not have noticed but the table is set for three.”
“Liam?”
“Seriously? Liam would hate this place.”
Men in suits. White tablecloths and too much cutlery. “True. Someone you’re dating?” I raise my eyebrows, and then—so quick it almost didn’t happen—her smile falters then returns.
She laughs. “I’m not ready to date. Just fucking.” A waiter brings us each a Bloody Mary. “How’s the Vogue Q&A coming?”
“Almost finished,” I lie.
“Great. Well…” She leans in and pats my hand.
“As you know, we are on the receiving end of more and more calls and requests to share on the site. And one of those incoming calls—” She stops midsentence and beams at a spot just over my shoulder.
In an instant, every other diner in the restaurant swivels a head in the same direction. “Here she is! Perfect timing.”
I turn and recognize her immediately. “Natalie Hutton? She’s our lunch date?”
Petra doesn’t hear me. She’s already standing to greet the gazelle headed toward our table.
Natalie Hutton is Hollywood royalty. Beloved by men and women, she’s won two Oscars and can seemingly do anything, from dramas to musicals. Now she runs her own production company known for scooping up the film rights to every big new book.
Years ago, Oliver and I went to our first dinner party at L’Wren’s where a very loud woman named Maisie asked us all, with the intensity of a popular eighth grader high on her own cleverness, “Who’s your hall pass?
Let’s go around the table!” All around us, eyes twinkled while Oliver sunk into his seat and whispered in my ear, “Who should I say?”
I searched for an obvious, palatable name. “Natalie Hutton?”
—
“You must be Diana…” Natalie holds me by the shoulders and squeezes. “You’re stunning.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She’s even more beautiful in person than onscreen. Her skin glows, and her eyes sparkle. Her head seems a tiny bit big on her delicate frame, but this only makes her more mesmerizing. “You’re gorgeous too,” I stammer.
Petra smiles. “Yes, yes, we’re all very attractive. Really. Sit, sit.”
Natalie settles in and confides, “I was so nervous on the car ride here. I never get nervous. Ever.”
“What about?” Petra asks.
“Meeting you two, of course!”
“Us?” I ask. “That can’t be true.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” The smile completely slips from her face.
“No!”
“I’m kidding!”
Petra laughs and I try to.
“Petra has told me so much about you. About your story. And I’m really just so inspired.”
“She’s inspiring.”
“Can I gush?” Natalie leans in so close to me our foreheads are practically touching.
“Who was it? Maybe my hairstylist, Trish. She finds everything before everyone else. She played one of your interviews for me while I was in her chair. And there was something about it. I don’t know.
In this business everything is so artificial.
We’re all trying so hard to be authentic and real and we can’t, really. I was very impressed.”
“Thank you. That’s great to hear.”
“I love that not all the fantasies are overtly sexy. At least for men. I played one for Ryan onset and he looked at me like, what? And I said it’s not for you. It’s for me.
“We’re supposed to be so many things at all times.
And especially in bed. Demure. Virginal.
A tiger. We’re supposed to like sex but not talk about sex.
I’m in town shooting a romance. They’re making those again by the way.
And the director, I kid you not, pans the camera down as soon as my costar and I start to kiss.
As if sex was inconsequential. Not an actual part of the story.
But with any marriage, or dating, or fuck buddies, sex is a crucial, emotional part of the story.
It says so much about who we are. What our trust level is.
Where we are in the relationship. And he just glosses right over it.
Really. I mean, the pan down? Might as well put Vaseline on the lens.
Sorry. I’m oversharing. I do that when I’m nervous.
My publicist’s ears are burning somewhere.
She’s constantly biting her nails in the background. ”
“We love oversharing here.” Petra smiles.
“I want you to interview me,” Natalie says to me.
“For the site?”
“Yes. I want to share a fantasy. I think it’s so important to enter the conversation in a real sex-positive way. Is that why you started Dirty Diana?”
“I was definitely feeling a disconnect with my own life,” I tell her.
“Was that when you were living on the farm? I’m just trying to get in your head. I do that.”
“The farm?”
Petra squeezes my knee under the table. “You know. When you were working on your parents’ farm? Across from your father’s Baptist church.”
“The church?”
Petra stands. “I need the loo. Come with me?”
She practically yanks me up and out of my chair, dragging me behind her. In the restroom, as she reapplies her lipstick, I gape at her, unsure whether to laugh or panic. “The farm?”
“I can’t believe she brought that up. I told her you don’t like talking about that time in your life.”
“What time? My Baptist era?”
“I had to sell you. You know, every publicist takes some liberties. We’re selling a world. Your story.” Petra wears her usual, unflappable look as she fixes her lipstick in the mirror. “She’s even more gorgeous in person, isn’t she?”
“What exactly did you tell her?”
“It wasn’t her. It was on a call I had with her agents and I think even they might have embellished a little.”
“About which part?”
“That you were maybe a little more smalltown-religious-repressed? Churchgoing, had cows-as-friends-growing-up kind of thing.”
“Petra. I grew up in Los Angeles. In the Valley.”
“The Valley.” Petra pretends to shudder. “Not that far off, is it?”
“Um. I’m certainly not Loretta Lynn.”
“A coal mine! Dammit. That could have worked.” She blots her lips then turns to me.
“I’m kidding. Diana. Don’t look so serious.
Isn’t everything we do in life performative?
That’s the lesson I’m learning as I age.
” She turns back to the mirror, pulls at her face, sweeping everything up to her ears in the bathroom mirror.
“Even the ‘authentic’ bits. It’s all performance, really.
It’s the gist of your story that matters—after so many years, you began painting again, making art, connecting with other women.
Who cares where it all started? Hollywood loves what it loves.
Especially the heartbreak of a Texas woman worth rooting for.
” Even at lunch with a professional actress, Petra steals the show.
She turns and fixes my hair, smoothing down the layers around my face.
“Just enjoy lunch. These things rarely go any further. Let alone lead to an actual film getting made. Wouldn’t you like to have the undivided attention of a celebrity for an hour?
” Petra’s eyes sparkle. “Oooh, maybe that’s your fantasy. ”
—
I do have fun with it. Back at the table, we spend the next hour laughing and telling stories, and three Bloody Marys later, Natalie is all eye contact.
She leans in as I tell her about the beginnings of Dirty Diana and my first attempts at interviewing people.
And then a flash from a camera startles us.
Outside the window, a large bearded man in a beanie furiously snaps pictures of Natalie.
“Seriously?” She rolls her eyes. “Shit. Sorry.”
In the few seconds it takes me to figure out what is happening, she apologizes again.
“I didn’t think paparazzi would follow me from the set.
” Then a well-dressed woman, who must have been near the host stand this entire time, materializes and takes Natalie by the elbow.
She calls to me on her way out, “You’ll interview, right?
We’ll find a time this week. I’m obsessed. Honestly.”
And with that, she’s gone. The table feels suddenly empty. The vodka, the blur of her departure, something is giving me an uneasy feeling.
Petra asks for the bill. She squeezes my hand, excited. “Those pics will be everywhere if we’re lucky. Everyone will be wondering who you are.”
Of course—that’s the uneasy feeling.
—
“Do not freak out. Please do not freak out.”
“L’Wren.” Back in my car, I press the phone closer to my ear. “You can’t say that and expect someone not to freak out. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Everyone is fine. But okay. Freak out. It’s warranted.”
“What happened?”
“Lorraine knows about Dirty Diana.”
—
In the morning, I park next to L’Wren and we walk the girls into school together.
As Emmy and Halston skip ahead, L’Wren opens the link to the petition on her phone.
There are four signatures so far: Lorraine’s, of course.
Raleigh, and Tristan’s mom, which is to be expected.
She’s Renfield to Lorraine’s Dracula. But Hilary Ballard is the biggest surprise.
“She’s always been jealous of you,” L’Wren says.
“Remember when you got curtain bangs and she showed up in carpool with the exact same cut, but hideous, three days later? She’s obsessed with you. ”
“How did Lorraine even find out about Dirty Diana?”
“Oh god. There she is.” We both steal a glance at the entrance where Lorraine stands in her blazing yellow sundress and crisp white blazer, guarding the main entrance like a gargoyle. Raleigh gives her a quick hug before disappearing inside.
“Well…” L’Wren sighs. “There’s the evidence. Hat Lady must have used what she knew about Dirty Diana to sidle up to Lorraine. This school is worse than Anne Boleyn’s court!”