Prologue

I licked my lips slowly, provocatively.

George Clooney clipped his pen to the chart he was holding and looked at me curiously. “Is something wrong?” he asked, his head cocked in that devilish way he cocks it.

“Nothing that you couldn’t cure, doc,” I replied. I popped my tongue against my teeth on the word “doc,” as if I’d practiced it a lot.

I had.

I reached down to snap open the top button of my blouse. As I did so, I imagined my mother, four states away and still wearing the veil, gasping in horror and disgust. Then, I unbuttoned another.

George did his best to look intrigued. But since I’d done this a thousand times that very day, I think he was just bored.

“You appear to be healthy enough,” he said. He winked. “No, no,” I said, “I demand a physical.”

This time I winked. I released another button. I grabbed his tie, used it to pull him close to me. I could smell on his breath the garlic from the salad dressing at lunch. Men, I thought, They can actually eat dressing on their salad. I had vinegar. No calories. No fat. No carbs.

“Aren’t you dating Dr. Carter?” George asked. “And that new male nurse in radiology? And the hernia patient?”

“Not right now,” I whispered into his ear as I loosened his tie with one hand and ran my hand through his hair with the other. “Not at this very moment.” He nuzzled his rough skin against my cheek until his lips found mine. He pushed me down on the hospital bed. He was heavy against me. I moved my hands along his waist. His stomach was softer than I expected. Maybe he should drop the salad dressing, I thought. I was supposed to groan with pleasure, but the garlic and the soft stomach and the constant retakes were spoiling the mood.

I tried to think of something pleasing. I imagined the headline my publicist expected in the next Entertainment Weekly: NEWCOMER ADDISON MCGHEE AND RETURNING GEORGE CLOONEY REVIVE ER!

I yowled.

The director called “cut,” then sighed heavily. “Addison, Addison, Addison,” he said, shaking his head dramatically. “This isn’t HBO.”

Days later, I ran into George. He had the uncomfortable look of a man who can’t place a name. “Madison, isn’t it?” he said. I started to correct him. Then thought the better of it.

It was one of those parties after the Oscars. To get me in, my agent had to call in several favors – and create life-size posters of my new Sports Illustrated cover to mail to the party organizers. My agent had no favors left to get me a date.

“So, you’re doing all right for yourself,” George continued. “Sports Illustrated cover, eh? Gauze bikini?” I nodded and he sighed with relief at having gotten it right.

He turned to his date, an auburn-haired woman who looked brainy in the most willowy sense of the word.

“Didn’t you say you saw it on the newsstand?” he asked her. “No,” she said. “Well then,” he said, awkwardly. I gave a self-deprecating wave, as if to say that she had not missed much. “I don’t think it’s out yet, anyway.”

He repeated himself. “Well then.” “Who are you here with?” his date asked, smiling in what I imagine she thought was a we-girls-like-to-chat-about-our-guys kind of way. Of course, if my guy were George Clooney, I might like to chat about him too. Garlic, stomach, ill-advised return to ER and all.

I smiled gamely, raised my drink: “Just me and Jack Daniels,” I said.

I wasn’t serious about the Jack Daniels. Are you kidding? My parents would die. Plus, that’s 150 calories, right there. I was drinking Diet Coke, which I had thought I could pass off as Jack Daniels and Coke, if pressed. I had read that men now think it is very cool for women to drink manly drinks like that, even if heavily diluted with a non-caloric soft drink.

George had apparently not read that article. He looked a little shocked. His date looked more shocked. Surely, this reaction wasn’t about the Jack Daniels? Maybe the part about being dateless?

I nervously tugged at one of the dangling ringlets I had left around my face. (The rest of my hair was pulled up in what I thought was a casually sophisticated way.) I had spent virtually all my remembered life in America, but I never knew, at moments like this, if I had made some cultural faux pas, or if I was just naturally awkward and socially ill-at-ease in any culture.

Then Tom Hanks walked up, with his newest Oscar slung casually across his hip and with Rita looking bored on his arm. I was spared any further awkwardness, for suddenly I wasn’t even there. Well, that won’t last long, I thought. Someday, even Tom and Rita will know who I am. Someday.

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