Not Without You. Harriet Evans

took an hour to style. Not me and Patrick with our arms round each other, laughing like we’re old friends or young lovers. No, the picture that runs on the front of Us Weekly, as the headline in TMZ, E! and every gossip website in the States, back home in the UK, on the front of Heat the following week, that’s re-Tweeted by everyone, is of me looking down in horror at the sweat stain under my arm, my face contorted into a twist of panic. SOPHIE’S STINKY SURPRISE! screams a tabloid the next day, like I’ve lost control of my bowels in front of the Queen, not just got a bit sweaty in the 90-degree heat of a muggy LA. You’re not allowed to sweat if you’re a star. It was only me who did, not those other stars gliding by, untouchable, beautiful, perfect, glittering in the golden evening light.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      A WEEK AFTER Armpitgate, tired of the uncertainty, annoyed by everything else, I ask George to stay over, and he says yes. I can hardly believe it. I think he’s being nice to me because I want him more and more at the moment, I can’t stop myself, and of course – duh – he loves that. Like every time we fuck it pushes everything further away. He’s also being nice to me because he wants me to do something for him. I’m not stupid, though I think he thinks I am. But mainly I think he’s being nice to me because Armpitgate is bigger than anyone could have realised. In fact, it’s a total disaster.

      But it’s a mistake, having him in my pretty white house. He’s like John Huston; I should have killed a bear and had it mounted on the wall to make him feel at home. He’s too big and hairy and … there, in my space. He arrives late, after dinner with some old buddies (I’m never asked, and I don’t want to go anyway), and he stinks of cigars and meat grease: I can smell it on his skin. I lie there watching him take his black silk shirt off and suddenly I wish he wasn’t here. I don’t know why.

      So we don’t have sex and I can tell he’s pissed about it. He paws at me a few times and kisses my neck, says, ‘C’mon baby, c’mon.’ But I yawn, tell him I’m tired, I have an early start. I keep seeing the video camera by the side of the bed. I notice it more than I do in his room. It looks out of place.

      ‘That’s a shame,’ he says eventually. He lies in the white bed, naked, playing with himself. I think he’s going to go next door and jerk off in a minute.

      I watch him, my arms crossed. ‘George, Patrick said something at the awards about a nude scene. Did you discuss it with him?’

      The hand under the sheet stops moving. ‘What? No.’

      ‘Don’t lie to me.’

      ‘I’m not lying to you, Sophie. I wouldn’t discuss stuff like that with Patrick Drew. He’s a pansy. He’d never agree. I thought you’d be totally into it though.’

      ‘So you do want a sex scene.’ I pull the sheet over myself, yanking it away from his body. He clenches his jaw and sits up. ‘Why didn’t you ask me? I’m not doing it, I can tell you that straight off.’

      ‘Why are you being so uptight?’ George is looking impatient. ‘It’s not that big of a deal. I thought you liked your body. You certainly act like you do when I’m filming you.’ He reaches out and tweaks one of my nipples. It hardens instantly. ‘Come on, honey. You’re acting crazy.’

      I hug my arms tightly to me. I wish I wasn’t naked. ‘George, I’m not—’

      ‘It’s a shame, that’s all,’ George interrupts. ‘I know you don’t do full-frontal, and I wouldn’t ask you to. I respect you, you know that.’ He leans in towards me and lowers his voice, even though we’re alone. He strokes my ear and neck with his fingers, lightly dusting my skin, and I sigh a little, half-closing my eyes. ‘Baby, I just want you to think about it. It’s only your tits. You’ve done it before.’

      ‘I feel funny about it. I want to move on. Not start doing this kind of stuff. And I’m – I’m nearly thirty.’ Yeah, right.

      ‘Listen, think about it. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want. It’s that I think it could be really great. Provocative. If we can get the mask right, it’ll be like he doesn’t know it’s his fiancée showing him her tits – he thinks you’re just some stripper. You’re in control. That’s why you take your clothes off. You see? I think the audience would totally get that.’

      They’re always saying that, I’ve noticed lately. Because of course we all know women who are in control are notable for the way they always take their clothes off.

      Then he adds, ‘You’re hot, baby.’ He kneels on the bed and rubs my arms. His cock starts to harden. ‘You’ve had a crappy week, that’s all. Been hiding away here too long. You haven’t seen enough people. You need … some release. Mmm?’

      I push him away and lie down, turning my back to him. ‘Sorry. No. No to all of it.’

      As he gets up and stalks into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him, I turn the light off and stare into the dark. He’s right, I am hiding away. Festering. I’ve been to George’s, been to Tommy’s office, been to the Malibu Country Mart wearing my sunglasses and cap, but I haven’t put my face on and got out there. I am still a bit mortified – I know it’s stupid. I’m sure you’ll agree that, in the great scheme of things, it’s not really that big a deal, is it?

      Yet all around me, people are treating Armpitgate as if it’s something terrible. I’ve had emails of sympathy from other celebrities. The worst kind of humiliation, one of them, an Oscar-winner who played my sister four films ago, wrote. More humiliating than, say, losing all your money and having to beg on the street? I don’t think so. I got a text from my co-star on Defence: Reload, an action star who is so far back in the closet he’s practically out the other side in Narnia. I really feel for you with what happened. Stay strong, Sophie. I keep getting messages of support from the public. I even got a card from Sara Cain, a picture of a fifties lady in a pink dress, her hands in the air and the caption in white ticker-tape strip above it: Sometimes Muriel wondered if it would just be easier to walk around in a sack. Inside she’d written, It was really nice to see you the other day. I’m sorry you’re having a crappy time. You don’t deserve any of this. Which was actually really nice and made me smile.

      Even Tommy said we should reschedule our original meeting and instead have a crisis meeting about Armpitgate, and when I told Artie, assuming he’d tell me Tommy was a madman, he said, ‘Maybe we need to discuss it. It’s going on too long. This thing has a tail.’

      Perhaps he’s right. It’s been a week and this one image, with my terrible expression and my body twisted into a crazy shape and that dark raspberry stain, has become a sort of meme for the current celebrity culture. The hidden message of it all is: Hah – see how stupid they look when it all goes wrong, and I’m the one getting a kicking. There’s a Tumblr page of Armpitgate mock-ups: me on the moon, me transposed over some aide in the Situation Room with Obama and Hillary waiting for news about bin Laden, me and Ryan Gosling and he’s saying, ‘Girl … I’d never let you go out without checking for sweaty pits.’ Ashley, my publicist, is on the phone fifteen times a day and her voice gets higher every time we talk. ‘Laugh it off. Laugh like you’re a sweet klutz and it could happen to anyone. OK? Don’t be annoyed, or irritated, or comment in any way. You come off like a prima donna. OK?? Laugh it off. It’ll go away.’ Pause. ‘It has to. OK????’

      But a week later it hasn’t gone away. Up on Hollywood Boulevard over the stars on the Walk of Fame they’re selling T-shirts and mugs emblazoned with that photo and the slogan, ‘I’VE LOST MY DEODORANT!