Pamela
S WAS LATE, as usual.
In our first month of dating, S had announced that he was going to make sure I always knew where he was. He'd held his iPhone in his palm, screen facing outward so I could see it. He pressed on my contact and, with an intentional and animated tap of his finger, hit "Share location."
"See," he'd said. "No secrets."
From then on, whenever I opened the map on my phone, S's picture would appear in a small icon on the screen.
This gesture had surprised me. Of all the things I wanted to know about S, his exact location at any given moment was fairly low on the list. Still, I'd taken it as an offering, a sign of his willingness to share in a more general sense: his life, his emotions, his experiences.
Nearly three years later, I'd often find myself using his shared location to figure out when he'd actually arrive to meet me, since his own estimates were usually off.
S was born and raised in New York and inexperienced at navigating the freeways and traffic patterns of LA.
"Just don't bother trying to go anywhere anytime between three thirty p.m. and eight p.m., okay?" I'd explained.
"Okay," he'd said, putting on his sunglasses and giving me a quick kiss. "I'll text you when I'm finishing up my day." S always seemed spread too thin when we were in LA. There were too many meetings, too many phone calls, too much traffic.
It was silly, really, that he was coming back home to the Eastside of Los Angeles from the Westside, since the party was on the Westside and we were already late. I checked S's location. He was going to be at least another hour, and after texting him, "you're going to be super fucking late," I resolved to take my time getting ready. I poured a large glass of red wine, showered, and wrapped my hair in a towel. I added big fat wings of eyeliner to the corners of my eyes, lined my mouth with a deep mauve, applied extra-gooey lip gloss to my lips, and slipped on a black strapless tube dress that clung to my ass with purpose.
I wanted to wear a boot or something casual as a shoe, since this party was hosted by S's agency, not mine. I didn't like the idea of appearing too dressed up or too sexy in a crowd of people who, I knew, would treat me like arm candy no matter what I wore. But I couldn't find a shoe that looked right with the hemline of the tube dress, so I gave up and put on heels with straps that crisscrossed up my ankles and calves. They hurt, but these, I decided after texting pictures to a few friends, were my best option.
Once I finished inspecting myself in the mirror, I took the heels off and lay down on our bed. I knew the outfit was sexier than I'd planned on, but it felt like some kind of insurance at this film-industry party. Dressing up and performing the role that everyone expected from me was comfortable. Beautiful girl should show up looking beautiful, right? I thought. Worse than arm candy is being invisible, right? Right? Nicki Minaj blasted from my phone. "Got a bow on my panties because my ass is a present," she sang.
Now that I'm ready, might as well take a couple of selfies. I tilted my chin down, held up my phone, and checked myself on the screen as I clicked away. A text from S appeared at the top of my reflection: "15 minutes baby! Traffic was insane."
I ignored him with a swipe of my finger. I selected one of the selfies, posting it on Instagram. "All dressed up, no place to go," I typed, and threw my phone down next to me. I stared at the ceiling while Nicki continued to rap.
S arrived a few minutes later, all crinkled laugh lines and warmth. I eyed him, annoyed, as he climbed onto the bed next to me. "You're an hour and a half late, asshole. It's rude." We'd had this conversation countless times before, and I was worn down by it. Who cares, anyway? I had a nice time getting ready, I thought. Besides, here he was, better late than never, smelling like the best kind of sweat and smiling at me, ready to love me up. What was the point of making a big deal of this right before a party where we'd be surrounded by hundreds of people? I wanted us to feel connected and maybe even have some fun, for fuck's sake. Let it go, I told myself.
"I'm sorry, seriously, okay? I got the timing wrong. But I'm here now and I wanted to come home to see you and … have some time," S said, pulling up my dress without taking his eyes off my face. He kissed my nose, and I giggled and then frowned. "Rude!" I said, and S laughed and began edging his way down my body.
"I'm so happy to see you," he said, and he sounded so genuine I couldn't help but feel a wave of love wash over me.
Later, S lay on my stomach and I wrapped my arms around his head, watching his curly hair rise and fall with my breathing. Eventually he got up and went to the bathroom, and I strapped my heels back on. As we headed out the door, switching off the lights and setting the alarm, I threw on a brown leather trench over my dress. "I just don't want to be cold," I told myself.
The party S's agency was hosting was at a big fancy house owned by a former Beatle. Early on in our relationship, I'd told S that I hated parties like this. And he told me he hated agents. "They're talentless and do nothing and ugh … just the worst." Still, I struggled to understand his attitude to the film industry. I'd watch him take calls with his wireless headphones, laughing and sucking on his Juul, and I'd wonder: Had he been seduced by Hollywood or was he just working the system to succeed? The voice he used for these work calls was unfamiliar to me; even his laugh was different. The idea that he might actually enjoy the boys' club of agents, producers, and actors bothered me. I was surprised at how repelled I felt watching him work sometimes. Or is this just him being good at his job? I wasn't sure.
On the cab ride over, I felt uneasy. "Hey," I said to S. "Don't leave me tonight. Like, obviously, we can go have our various conversations, blah blah. But just, like, when we're walking around? You know?" I put my hand on his knee.
"Okay, sure," S replied, giving me a kiss on the lips. "No problem." He looked handsome, dressed down in a crew-neck sweatshirt and black Timbs, the hair on his face at just the right length to accentuate his strong jawline.
One night years ago, before S and I had started seeing each other romantically, he met me and a group of my friends at a hotel party. "Come by and hang," I remember texting him. It was all casual, but I knew how much I liked him the second he walked in the door. He was wearing black Timbs then, too, the same ones he wore to the courthouse when we got married.
I'd been drinking a lot that night and feeling light and fizzy in a good way. Even though we didn't look at each other much, I always knew where S was in the room. I could feel his attention on me, even when I stole a quick glance and found him looking straight ahead, talking to someone else. I was shaking my hips to the music, knowing S was watching, when a guy came up and asked to take a photo with me. "Sure!" I said, bending over to put my drink down. He was thin and had an accent. I took him for a European tourist.
I never liked how guys would find ways to touch me when they took pictures with me, but I was used to it, and so I'm not sure if I even flinched when I felt this guy's fingers wrap around the other side of my bare midriff. My attitude was, Ask them not to touch you and it makes the whole interaction last longer, so why not just get it over with?
"Hey, no touching," I heard S say from behind us. I swiveled around to see him, leaning against a couch. He shook his finger and furrowed his brow.
"Sorry," the guy said, dropping his hands from my body instantly. I'd never been with a man who interjected himself in that way before. My boyfriend before S would never speak up when someone approached or touched me. I assumed he meant to be respectful, showing that he knew I could handle these kinds of situations on my own, which I'd always thought I appreciated. In that moment, though, watching S, all relaxed yet assertive, telling this guy to back the fuck off, I thought, Wow, well, this is nice.
In the years since, we'd gotten together and our careers had changed. The movie S had recently produced had been well received by critics and performed well at the box office. People wrote articles about Oscar buzz and, when the film was snubbed, important directors S admired tweeted angrily about the "injustice of the Academy." When paparazzi pictures of us were published now, they described S as "a successful producer" and even sometimes linked to a trailer for his movie. It was everything S had been working toward for over ten years, and I was proud of him.
I, on the other hand, had decided to stop being an actor, at least for the time being. I'd auditioned for just two roles in two years, a tiny fraction of the number of auditions I'd been doing when we started seeing each other. "I only want to do projects that I can produce or be a part of on a creative level," I told everyone, which was true, but it was also true was that I no longer knew what the fuck I wanted from Hollywood.
No one in the industry knew why I'd stopped acting, and most assumed it wasn't by choice. Actors and models couldn't possibly want something else, they figured. Every woman wants to be rich and famous for being desirable. I couldn't fault them for thinking that way. Hell, I'd thought that way for most of my twenties.
Despite my better judgment, it bothered me that the people at this party would look at me as a failure or nothing more than a piece of ass. Even though I thought they were assholes, it frustrated me that I'd lost their respect. On a good day, I'd call people sexist who condemned a woman for capitalizing on her body. On a bad day, I'd hate myself and my body, and every decision I'd made in my life seemed like a glaring mistake. Mostly, though, I knew I was a whole, complex person with thoughts and ideas and things I wanted to make and say. I wanted so desperately to prove them all wrong. I just hadn't gotten the chance yet.
I liked being in control, and I'd learned that an actor's control was limited. It was also true that for some time I'd been battling a serious depression that was, at least partially, the result of years of making myself digestible for the same kind of men that S now laughed with over the phone.