Page 3 of Insta-Hubby
“You really do look beautiful,” Maggie says, settling onto one of the champagne-tufted couches. “You do.”
“Thanks,” I say, putting a smile on my face. That’s something else I’m good at. Putting a smile on my face. And it’s not fake.
Not exactly.
Liam
I’m like a rock star, or so I’ve been told.
I’ve never seen it, but there is apparently a movie where the members of a certain very famous rock band are accosted by a group of fans, racing through the streets of London, running away from the group of shrieking women who just want…
I don’t know what they wanted. An autograph, a photograph? And I know the whole thing was staged for the movie - I mean, of course it was - but what were the filmmakers trying to portray there, exactly? Were those girls going to rip the band’s clothes to shreds and jump all over them?
What exactly washappeningthere?
So it was staged. As is what I’m doing right now. And I’m no stranger to things that are staged, arranged. Not fake, though you could call it fake.
Because every persona is fake, isn’t it? Is anything we show to the outside world really real?
So when my publicist thought it would be a good idea for me to recreated that iconic scene from that iconic movie I’ve never seen, I saidsure. Sounds good. Because even though it doesn’t sound too realistic for a bunch of girls getting their wet little panties into a twist over me and chasing me through Central Park, whatdoessound realistic is the idea of panties coming off. Very realistic.
So I’m jogging through the park, but I’m in a tuxedo. I check over my shoulder and there’s no fewer than twenty gorgeous young women chasing after me, some of them in little short black cocktail dresses and high heels, and I really do wonder how it is they’re able to run in those, and some of them are in jeans and t-shirts or sweaters, or a t-shirt of the college they went to. Some went to community colleges, some went to Ivy league universities. The girls running after me are of every ethnicity and some of them are a bit older than the others.
And what do they all have in common? They’re all chasingme, and they all know this is goingrightonto the internet.
I jog more steadily, my feet pounding onto the pavement with my black leather Converse, trying to keep up with Evan, my best friend and manager, riding a little Vespa and steering with one hand while he takes video on his phone of me and the girls.
When this goes live on my blog, will anyone think this was a real, candid situation that just happened to be caught on camera by someone who pulled up on a zippy little pink Vespa and just happened to be in the right place at the right time?
No such thing as being in the right place at the right time, I say. You’ve got tomakeshit happen, grab the day by the shoulders and shake it and if that doesn’t work, you’ve got to reason it into submission. Make it work foryou. Because just waiting to be in the right place at the right time is something the lucky bastards of the world just fall into, and if you allow yourself to just fall into the right thing, you might be waiting around your whole life to be in the right place at the right time.
Set the stage yourself.Makethe moment happen.
That’s what I’m doing right now.
I’ve been looking forward to this day for weeks now. My manager thought it’d be a cute thing for me to do, and I absolutely agreed, even though I’d never seen - and still haven’t seen - the source material.
And I should be having fun right now. Iamhaving fun, don’t get me wrong. Any guy would have fun doing what I’m doing right now, having these girls literally chasing me, even if it were staged.
But there’s a cloud over the day, because I can’t stop thinking about a discussion I had with my father over brunch earlier in the day.
“We’re coming up on 66th Street, boss,” Evan says, glancing down the jogging path we’re on. “You want to call it quits? Sidewalk’s coming up.”
The exit of the park is fast approaching, just past a little bend in the road and beyond a police barricade separating the street from the jogging path. I check behind me, and I’m expecting the girls to look tired, but they don’t. They still all look amazing. They’re all smiling. And I’m enjoying this little run with them.
“Nah,” I say to Evan, clapping my hands a few times, “let’s keep going.”
We approach the sidewalk and Evan honks as we hook a right uptown. It’s a bright day and the early spring sun is warm and feelssogood on my face, and as we proceed on our path on the sidewalk next to the park, tourists turn their heads and point, and locals scoff and hold their coats closer to their chests - I think I actually saw an elegant older woman literally clutching her pearls.
And I’m not gonna lie. It feels good to have all eyes on me.
The Upper East Side is my turf. It’s my home. It’s my playground.
But I don’t want it to be mywholeworld. I never wanted to be this sheltered rich daddy’s boy with a silver spoon in his mouth and a golden watch on his wrist. You know, there’s that old story of a man putting in years - alifetime- of work for a company and then getting a gold watch when he retires. But I was born with the gold watch. I didn’t have to do anything to earn it. Just my name and my pedigree and my family line in the gilded world of New York royalty gave me everything I’ve ever wanted.
But it wasn’t enough. It’s still not enough. It’ll never be enough.
So I’m running. Running away from something, or running toward something, I’m not sure. But I’m restless.
