Authors: Jennifer Buhl
Shooting Stars (27 page)
It goes as splendidly as planned: Zac accepts the flowers, and laughs. Simon and Moss take stills. And after we give him the roses, Margot and I shoot video.
Back to our cars, everyone is upbeat, and we lazily follow Zac home.
As I resituate myself into an available parking spot outside Zac's apartment, I hear, “Hey. Hey.”
I look up and the smokin' hot movie star is beckoning me to his door. I hurry over without my camera, but titillation passes immediatelyâhis face is full of angst. Zac is not calling to invite Mrs. Robinson up.
“Were you trying to set me up back there?” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone in Hollywood is calling me gay at the moment. And you go and give me flowers.”
“Oh no, Zac. That was really,
really
not the intention. You're obviously not gay. You're so straight. And so hot,” I add.
He nods. Waits for me to go on.
“You shouldn't read PerezHilton. He's an ass.”
About every other day on Perez's blog, Zac gets called gay because he's so pretty. That's gotta be hard on any twenty-year-old, famous or not, gay or not.
“Well, Perez is gonna have his story of the month,” Zac says.
I tell him, at least five more times, that everyone knows he's not gay, and equally as many times, he's hot.
He eventually goes back inside, believing that we meant no malice, but not looking happy. Margot and I feel especially awful: Perez can be spiteful; Zac is as virile and hetero as they come. With ten years of weathering, he's the next Brad Pitt.
The next day, Perez doesn't use the photos, although they do run most everywhere else (sans gay comments). It's the Zac set of the week.
Simon says celebrities have short memoriesâ“Zac'll be over it in a week, Jen”âalthough a few days later I hear that he ran out of basketball practice with the ball in front of his face.
And, I'm betting The End is near.
* * *
The end of the year is near too, which means Katherine Heigl is about to get married and go on her honeymoon. In all likelihood,
Cabo a la
Jennifer
is not gonna happen. Katherine's publicist hasn't called, but my old days of corporate due-diligence compel me to follow up.
For weeks, I've been working Heigl every Saturday or Sunday or both. Her honeymoon is only one month away now;
did she forget she told me I could come?
Every time I see her hasn't been the right time to bring it upâeither there are other paps or the mood's just dark. To me, it feels like a giant white elephant is always with us, but I'm not sure celebs think enough about their promises to paparazzi to notice the beast.
It's past four and I've wasted an entire sunny Saturday sitting in my car waiting on Katherine. I'm at the bottom of her hill where we always sit when we wait on her, near Adrian's house, but I think she might be taking my advice about sneaking out the back of her subdivision. Next time I'll have to sit right on her houseâintrusive, but no other choice.
At dusk, I'm about to leave when Adrian comes out. He wasn't my target, but I figure I'll follow him anyway. Besides, this may be the last time I'm on his doorstep: Heigl is moving after she gets married.
He goes to Silver Lake, not far, and parks on Sunset outside my favorite vegan restaurant, Flore. This happens to be where my friends and I are meeting in an hour, which is very inconvenient because I'll have to delay our dinner plans or he'll think I'm stalking him. I lean out my car window to shoot, not even bothering to get out. I hope he notices how little effort I'm putting forth. Maybe if he thinks I'm not impressed he'll be more likely to want meâ
even celebs
gotta want what they can't have, right?
Adrian stops before he enters and stares at me for a long time, like he did the first time we met outside Tropicalia. Finally, I put my camera down. “Too much of the same pose doesn't sell,” I say.
Damn, can't we just forget about this movie star business and spend the rest of the evening together?
He keeps staring at me.
“What?” I say.
He's still staring at me. His eyes flirt and his expression teases. They say he wants me. (Seriously!)
Leaving my camera inside, I slowly get out of my car and walk over. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
He raises his brows. He's enjoying the attention. “You haven't called,” I say.
He's confused. Yes, how quickly promises to paps are forgotten.
“The ride-along? I have no desire to be in your documentary. I did it for
your
interview.”
It finally registers. “Oh, yes. Yes. I'm gonna call you. I will.”
I keep his eyes for several more seconds, neither of us speaking, then turn and leave while he watches me go.
I smile at my nice touch: I left first. That's not how paparazzi do it.
* * *
The next Saturday, I get Aaron to work Heigl with me. I need the power transfer that comes when we outnumber the celeb.
At around noon, she comes out, and we're on her exclusive. She parks on Hillhurst and walks toward the Mustard Seed, another fabulous restaurant I frequent. The time is now.
I am shooting videoâit gives me an excuse to talkâand Aaron is on stills. Just before Katherine turns into the restaurant, I put down the video and say, “Just wondering, Katie, is it still possible for me to photograph your honeymoon?”
“Oh,” she responds cheerily, “you should just call my publicist.” It's like she just plumb forgot.
The next day, I call her publicist.
“Hi. I'm a celebrity photographer friend of Katherine's,” I begin. “
Katie
wanted me to call you about her honeymoon. She was thinking it might be nice to have someone she knows photograph it.”
“Oh, right. Of course,” says the publicist. “Hang on a second.”
I am on hold for no more than a minute. Then the publicist returns
and tells me that the agency has decided that Josh and Katie deserve some privacy on their honeymoon. “She's just been so bombarded of late. So many photographers.”
“Well, Katherine Heigl's the hottest new star. I'm not surprised.”
“You know, one paparazzi even had the nerve to follow her into a salon while she was having her nails done.”
“Oh, really? That's awful.”
Ouch
. I feel the punch to my stomach. I thought Katie had enjoyed my company at the nail salon. I thought we were, at least, “work friends.” Aaron's wordsâ¦
With that, I hang up the phone, go immediately to the Internet, and book a flight to Bangkok for five days later. My bank account has spare cash for the first time in years, and instead of going home for Christmas, I've decided to fly to Thailand with my backpack. It's the end of year-one as a papâa year of fifty-to seventy-hour work weeks; a year of mental exhaustion but overall true professional accomplishment (
I'm a damn good pap
); a divine year, but all in all, a year I'm happy as heck is over!
Happy Holidays, Hollywood!
Chapter 17
I still aspire to meet someone, and fall in love, and get married, but that is a very high risk scenario, and I want a baby now. I'm thirty-seven.
âTina Fey in Baby Mama
Coconut, pineapple, and mango helped re-juice my half-empty self as I took reprieve in Southeast Asia. Throughout the beauty of it all, however, there was but one thought that repeatedly consumed my mind's every idle moment and burned like a red-hot branding iron in my gut:
ROTTING EGGS.
OK that might be a little vulgar, but it's not preposterous. At thirty-six, I still hoped for a husband, I still hoped to fall in love, I still hoped for a child one day. But it was far from a sure thing, and that constant ticking of my biological clock was reminding me: time was running out. How was it that despite my relentless pursuit of happiness, I was left with no one? I was wanting to love so badly, my heart hurt physically.
But instead of facing the music, I extended my trip twice. I found it took six weeks before I could again face lifeâand celebrities. Upon returning to the States, I discovered what was new this year:
â¢Â  There is a recession. Bartlet says mags have slashed rates and lower paychecks are on the way. My thought is, that's a plus: any guys grossing less than thirty grand will be forced out of the business, and even if my paycheck is cut in half, I'll still make more this
year than I have in the last ten. I won't like it, but I can survive a drop.
â¢Â  Adnan is officially dating Britney. Despite most paps being foreigners, the beat on the street about the new couple is very American: Adnan's a prick but an opportunist, and “good on him” for playing to his advantage.
â¢Â  There is a pap-festation. I didn't think we could be more, but the sky's grown darker. I'm told that Heigl has moved to daily gangbang status, and we've savaged Zac and Hayden to the limit.
â¢Â  I am rusty. Simon says this happens with even two weeks off. I was lucky to get a set of Hayden on my first day backâspotted her outside of Whole Foods (since she doesn't tolerate doorstepping anymore). It sold, but my pictures were less than professional. I blanked on my settings and was shaking like an old lady. The worst part was my lack of
style.
The only thing I could think to say was, “Hi Hayden, I've been on vacation for two months,” to which she did not respond, “Oh, I've missed you. Tell me about your trip.”
â¢Â  And, the biggest news of all: Forget about the Year of the Rat. I declare that this will be the Year of the Baby.
* * *
A few weeks after getting back into the swing of things, I run into Adrian. Instead of the humorless stare I've gotten the last few times, he greets me with a giant
Hey, how are you!
smile that sets off his four thousand sparkly-white teeth and
those lips.
He even initiates conversation: “You're changing it up,” he says. Today, I have my video camera versus my still.
I walk backward, video rolling, feeling like a proper celebrity reporter. We are in the parking lot of a strip mall.
“Your pictures aren't selling, so I thought I'd try video,” I say cheekily. Then my voice turns serious. “Adrian, I have an important question for you.”
“Sure.”
He appears in a fabulous mood. I suppose this could look good to a first date, which he seems to be on. Before arriving at our present location, the strip mall, Claudia and I first followed Adrian to an apartment complex where he picked up a girl and greeted her with a “new acquaintance” hug. She looked petrified. He didn't look nervous enough to be remotely interested in her, but you never know.
I continue, “You're doing a documentary on the paparazzi. Based on what you've learned, do you believe we are to blame for Britney and her situation?” (Britney is currently being hospitalized for something or other.)
Adrian responds ineloquently, a pattern I notice when he hasn't memorized lines. His bottom line is that the paparazzi are “partially to blame.”
I follow up with a question I've been planning ever since I heard the Adnan story: “And what do you think of Adnan, the paparazzo who's dating Britney?”
Adrian continues to poorly express himselfâ“It's strange. Post-modern. Weird,” he saysâbut gives me the perfect segue into my follow-up question.
First, I peer over the video screen and grab his eyes. After a dramatic pause, I ask, “Would
you
ever date a paparazzi?”
In perfect movie-star style and brilliantly on cue, Adrian stabs my eyes right back and says, “
You're
kinda cute.”
We flirtatiously continue the piercing stares for a few seconds longer while the forsaken date, who has way overdone her hair, makeup, and clothes for a one o'clock lunch, refuses to look anywhere but the ground.
Before he steps into the restaurant at the corner of the mall, he says to me, “I owe you that ride-along. I always keep my promises. I don't know if I have your number anymore. Give it to me again.”
“You're gonna call me?” (The video is still rolling.)
“I'm gonna call you,” he assures me.
So I give him my number for the
third
time, and he plugs it into his phone. I shrug to myself. He probably won't call, but it doesn't hurt to dream.
* * *
Bartlet and Simon have stopped calling me Jennifer. They now refer to me only as “Jen-Full-Sixty” (as in my 60 percent cut of my photo sales), like I am greedy. But if you don't need a partner, or if a partner actually impairs you and gets you busted by the celebrityâwhich many of them doâwhy not take the full cut and be successful at the same time? Hey, they wouldn't question a man doing that.
But, as I've said, working solo too frequently destroys the soul. The negative energy that circles me each day
does
penetrate, and I need support. Thus, I am thrilled to have made a new friend. Abbey is my age, petite, and has a pixie hairstyle that accentuates a delicate and beautiful face. Her looks don't match her character, though: she is tough, with a manly voice and a heavy step. Abbey is a lesbian but tells me not to call her thatâ“I'm a dyke,” she explains. Her partner, an equally adorable and minuscule Asian girl, holds the female role in their relationship.
Abbey works on staff for TMZ and shoots video. Since I shoot mostly stills and TMZ isn't a pap agencyâalthough it does
buy
our material, it doesn't
sell
its own video to anyone else, and it only hires “video paps”âthe two of us can easily share information. We met a couple of weeks ago outside the Beverly Wilshire Hotel waiting on Rihanna and hit it off so quickly we speak several times a day already.
This afternoon, after a nasty, multi-car Lindsay Lohan follow from the Valley into Beverly Hills, Sid, a hulk of a guy from West Coast Wing who doesn't like me for who knows what reason, comes over to bully me. He spouts fallacies about how I drove poorly and blocked his car on the follow, hollering out these inaccuracies for others to hear. He wants people to think I was out of line, that I didn't obey “the rules,” and hopes they'll use it against me.