Chapter 22 #2
Cuddly actor Ted Levy has reportedly been hitting the gym hard in a bid to get trim for his latest movie role.
After hiring a personal trainer, a friend of Levy’s tells us that he is also embracing the Sirtfood Diet, which cuts out processed foods, sugar and full-fat diary and encourages its followers to drink green tea and eat, among other polyphenol-rich foods, parsley, turmeric and kale.
‘Ted hasn’t really cared too much about his physical appearance until now,’ the friend says.
‘He is moving in different, starrier circles, and this has made him have a rethink. But he is now finding himself in the public eye more than ever, and with that comes a certain amount of attention. The diet is definitely for the demands of his next movie role, and he wants to build muscle quickly, but he is also definitely feeling self-conscious about his body image. Having a model girlfriend has probably put things in perspective, too.’
A rep for Levy tells Goss Weekly: ‘Ted has made a number of minor lifestyle changes because he is prioritizing his health. No more, no less.’
As predicted, some of the Tedettes are going a bit berserk about it all.
‘Our boy is changing, a lot. Too much,’ writes Violet on the group’s Facebook wall. ‘Never thought I’d see the day he would hire a personal trainer.’
‘Like WHO even IS he any more?’ This from Maxi.
‘This is outrageous,’ notes Layla. ‘Don’t tell me for one second this isn’t Alice Andre’s doing.’
‘If AA wants a Hollywood hottie, she should LEAVE HIM THE FUCK ALONE and go get one. She could have anyone. Why is she doing this to him?’ Juliet is properly seething.
Molly, meanwhile, has pulled together a picture of a shirtless male model with a six pack, and superimposed Ted’s head on to it. The effect is unsettling, to say the least. ‘Ted ready for the beach,’ she captions it.
‘A DIET. Green tea. Insanity,’ adds Maxi.
‘He gon’ drunk the Kool Aid,’ says Fifi. ‘Totally Hollywood now. Gross.’
Unable to get on to Alice Andre’s private Instagram page, Maxi, Juliet and Layla have already released some of their ire on to her Twitter page.
‘You fucking skinny whore, do you ever stop throwing up your green tea?’ Layla has already posted.
‘I could snap your twig arm in two seconds’ flat, dick for brains,’ Maxi has posted.
‘Keep away from Ted Levy. You are completely poisoning him with your sick anorexic bullshit,’ Juliet has tweeted at her. ‘Take your control freak ass somewhere else and make someone else’s life a misery you cunnnnnt. #fucksforfame.’
I’m drawing a certain weird comfort as I watch the girls take down Alice Andre in public. But something approaching shame soon snuffs it out.
I go back on to the fan page on Facebook.
‘OK, Den Mama here,’ I write underneath their comments.
‘TIME OUT. Everyone needs to calm down. Ted will still be the same guy, kale or not. Just healthier as well as talented.’ I’m not sure I believe it myself, but I too need convincing that this new person isn’t such a bad thing.
Sam Blum, one of the guys who has shown up in Ted’s basketball-playing photos on Facebook, has a mid-century furniture shop on Davies Avenue. I recognize him the second I walk in the door.
‘Hi,’ I say, a little too brightly and loudly, making him start as he reads a magazine over his morning coffee. Like me, like me, please like me.
‘Hi,’ he says, making just about enough effort to not seem rude. ‘If you’re looking for anything, just …’ He points his two thumbs at himself.
‘Just browsing,’ I tell him, trying to gather myself. The word is enough to make him retreat right back into his magazine.
‘Actually, do you have any of those spider coffee tables, the teak and glass ones?’ I prattle away. I’ve come prepared.
‘I do not,’ he says, the mere sniff of a sale enough to lift him off the stool. ‘But maybe I could try talking to some of my suppliers, see what’s coming through.’
I panic that I’m about to commit to buying an antique against my will. ‘Well, I’m just visiting here, I don’t really have anywhere to store one. I just like the look of them, really.’
‘Cool accent,’ Sam finally says.
‘Aw, thanks,’ I coo sweetly. Maybe meeting Ted through a friend is a better idea than meeting him through Naomi. ‘I’m here just trying some playwriting for a while.’
Sam nods, blankly.
‘In fact, I am brand new here and just trying to break in to that whole theatre scene. If you know of any companies that are any good, I’d love some pointers.’
‘I think the Roadhouse Players are meant to be OK,’ he says falteringly.
Bingo. I’ve seen Ted there in old YouTube clips.
‘Well, I might give that a go,’ I say, trying to put my allure on full-blast. He nods blankly, glad to be of service.
I push further. ‘I don’t know too many people in this town yet …’
‘Oh.’ He holds up his left hand. ‘I’m married.’
‘Oh no no, I don’t mean it like that!’ I laugh. ‘But if you do happen to know anyone who goes there, or knows more about it …?’ Yet more blank staring. This absolute fucker. ‘It can be kind of hard to walk into those places if you don’t know anyone.’
He grimaces. ‘What little I know about actors, they have no problem walking into a room full of strangers. It’s kind of the job, no?’
I smile sweetly and paw a few sideboards before I leave, making a mental note to laugh about this with Sam much later on, when I meet him through Ted.
‘He has this ex …’ Naomi is talking about Stevie over breakfast and getting plenty worked up.
I’m back in therapist mode, which makes me feel a little more useful.
‘She’s just a horrible person, you know?
Just constantly on his case about not seeing enough of his two daughters.
’ She then launches into a spiel about how the Ex, she who will not even be given a name in this instance, is constantly wanting money, wanting paperwork, wanting court appearances, wanting him to see more of his kids.
‘Honestly, that’s a real bitch, right?’ She’s near foaming at this point.
‘You don’t even know the woman!’ I tell her. I keep forgetting that Naomi has next to no experience with dating, or with other people’s baggage.
‘I’m just going on what he’s saying about her. I mean, he knows her pretty well.’
‘Hold up,’ I say. ‘Maybe give the woman a break.’
‘Yeah, I know that, but she keeps bugging him for child support, all the time.’
‘Is that not a normal part of all of this?’
‘It probably shouldn’t be, when Stevie is between jobs at the moment—’
‘So,’ I interrupt her. ‘He’s not just bad-mouthing the mother of his children, which I think we can both agree is poor form in and of itself, but he’s bad-mouthing the woman that is effectively raising his children on her own?’
This pretty much shuts her up.
‘Let’s not forget she is also paying to raise his children single-handedly? I mean, that doesn’t sound right, does it?’
I think Naomi was expecting her chips to be pissed on a bit once she mentioned Stevie’s ‘between jobs’ situation.
She wasn’t expecting this … chip waterboarding.
I know I am being horrible, taking the shine off her new romance like this, but it’s like scratching an animal bite until there is blood.
Stevie is a complication too far in my life right now, and I need him gone.
In celebration of her sixteenth birthday, Maxi has shared yet more Ted fan fiction.
On the morning of her wedding to Ted Levy, Max threw open the windows of her mansion in Toronto and listened to the birds singing in the trees, and watched the sun stream through the window.
It was already a perfect day, and getting to marry the love of her life would only make it even more perfect.
Their wedding day arrived in a whirlwind of excitement.
Maxi stood in the mirror examining the delicate lace of the dress flowing around her, her heart was racing as she thought about the moment she would finally walk down the aisle to Ted.
She clutched her bouquet tightly, smelling in the fresh flowers.
The moment she had dreamed of for so long.
But then, a new story on News.ca gives everyone in the Tedettes group a surprise. A bit of a kick in the fanny all round.
TED LEVY HITS BACK AT TROLLS
Toronto actor Ted Levy has issued a stern diktat to trolls who have targeted him and his loved ones on social media.
Via a media statement issued Thursday by his agent Henry Schaffer, Levy said:
‘My fans are really awesome, and are usually so appreciative of my work and respectful of my privacy, and that of my family and friends.
‘Yet it has been brought to my attention that a small number of people have overstepped the line, and have directed personal abuse at people close to me.
No one deserves to be harassed in this way simply because of their association with another person.
It has caused a lot of anguish and I have had to move out of my own home as a result of it.
‘I wouldn’t normally address this situation but this nasty behaviour needs to be called out. There is no place for it within my community of genuine fans. Please be kind with your words. All I want to do is to share some laughs and great filmmaking with you all.’
Levy and his reps have declined News.ca’s request for further comment.
Layla is not best pleased. ‘That’s AA brainwashing him all over again! Can this asshole of a girl not fight her own battles?’ she writes on the forum.
‘He probably does need protecting from crackpots though,’ Violet replies. ‘The guys who go through his garbage and stuff.’
‘I dunno, you guys,’ Maxi chimes in. ‘I think it’s kinda romantic, what he wrote.’
The Harry Potter lampshade is driving me slightly crazy the more I look at it. Though it is better and decidedly cheaper than Jesse’s bachelor lair on the 18th floor, I did not come to Canada to live under the merchandise of a boy wizard. I am here, supposedly, to start the rest of my life.
I hear Naomi and Stevie downstairs, laughing through the sizzle sounds of cooked breakfast. He leaves not long after in a flurry of doorstep kisses and bye-byes. ‘You’re happy for her,’ I say into the room. ‘You are.’
Elliott has somehow found me through my new Facebook profile and friend requested me.
He has kept any picture of himself off his profile, posting instead a number of ocean views as profile pictures.
Elusive, and yet somehow cooler than everyone else falling over themselves to curate the perfect version of their lives.
I accept his request, and ignore his simple ‘hey’ message. He’s not the only one who can be elusive.
For some reason, and in spite of my best efforts not to, I’ve woken up thinking about the entire life I ran away from. I promised myself that this trip to Canada was all about moving forward, never looking backwards. And yet.
My phone is full of missives from my old life, most of which I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge before now.
I consider listening to a few seconds of a voicemail from my mother; something I’ve withstood temptation on for months.
‘You complete and utter stupid fucking idiot …’ she begins by way of salutation, which is pretty much the end of that.
I cut her off, thankful for the expanse of ocean between us.
According to Facebook, my old colleague Francesca has escaped the bunker for a whole month and is spending the summer with Her Three in a Tuscan villa. She has posted an album of forty-five pictures, mostly of hydrangeas and umbrella cocktails.
Brigitte has posted a picture of her, Carrie and Marianne in Victoria Park.
My friends have never looked happier. Whether it’s the autumn sun or plain personal fulfilment, Carrie in particular is as radiant as someone fresh out of a spa weekend.
I feel a dull ache as I think of what things might be like had I stayed in London.
Had I not blown up our friendship with two manic thumbs on the detonator pad.
To think of Carrie and me bonding over motherhood and our two fat-legged little babies is almost exquisitely painful, like a sort of unrequited love.
And, because I am in the mood for full-blown masochism, I take an amble over to Johnny’s Facebook page, my first look in months.
He has updated his profile picture, removing the one of the two of us from a trip to the Lake District.
The new picture, inexplicably, is of Marvin the Martian.
The work wife Melanie has liked it, in any case.
After that, I spend the morning going through my usual routine – checking Ted’s social media, checking his family and friends’ social media, checking for any kind of Twitter mentions from people who might have met him in passing – when the doorbell rings.
No one ever comes to visit, except Stevie.
Grudgingly I move to answer it, all the while batting away the idea that I should be winding whatever this is down and thinking about a return to London.
These days, I am always dressed in something vaguely cute, fully made-up and blow-dried, in case Ted ever decides to make a spontaneous visit to the house. Which is just as well, because as I open the door I come face to face with Alice Andre.