You Think It, I'll Say It(36)
The dog, a massive white Great Pyrenees, keeps appearing on either side of Kelsey’s legs, barking and sniffing, and Kelsey laughs and says, “Calm down, Chester.” To Nina, she says, “Sorry, he gets excited by visitors.”
“He’s fine,” Nina says and steps inside as Kelsey says to Chester in a tone of singsongy affection, “Can you just chill out for one minute? Can you?”
Chester barks, and Kelsey says, “I’ll put him in the kitchen.”
From the alcove inside the front door, Nina sees an impeccably decorated living room—two white couches, a glass coffee table with a vase of white tulips in its center—and beyond that a dining room and a swinging door, through which Kelsey and Chester disappear. The house is bigger than it looks from the outside, and Nina has the sense that no one is in it besides Kelsey, no housekeeper or assistant.
In Kelsey’s absence, Nina ponders whether she should enter the living room and sit down or continue standing near the front door. She opts for the latter, and when Kelsey returns, she says, “Oh my God, come on in! Make yourself at home.” Kelsey is holding two glasses of ice water, which she sets on the coffee table. She sits on a couch and tucks her legs sideways on the cushions. It doesn’t serve a purpose to think this, but since they last saw each other, Nina suspects that she has gained the exact amount of weight that Kelsey has lost, which is seventeen pounds. When Nina was pregnant, she actually gained more like thirty pounds, so she’s no longer as big as she was, but she’s still at the high end of her nonpregnant weight. All that stuff about how breast-feeding speeds up your metabolism is, she’s pretty sure, bullshit.
As for Kelsey, she’s now as thin as she could be without her thinness seeming alarming, or maybe it is alarming. Maybe in real life it’s alarming, but she still looks good on-screen. Her hair is white-blond, her eyes big and blue, her skin creamy—as creamy as a baby’s, or so Nina might have thought before giving birth to Zoe, whose eczema often causes her to scratch her own forehead while wailing, especially at bedtime.
As Nina sets her bag on the white carpet and sits on the other couch, Kelsey says, “This is so fun, right? How have you been?”
It seems safe to assume that, just as Nina and Kelsey have gained and lost inverse amounts of weight, Nina knows the exact amount about Kelsey that Kelsey doesn’t know about her—that Kelsey believes, insofar as she’s given it any thought, that Nina still lives in New York and works full-time at Gloss & Glitter. This interview was arranged via approximately forty emails among Nina, Gloss & Glitter’s executive editor, Gloss & Glitter’s on-staff celebrity wrangler, Kelsey’s publicist, and the publicist’s assistant, whom Nina imagines was also communicating with Kelsey’s assistant. The outcome of all the emails was that on Thursday, October 23, 2014, for the cover story of Gloss & Glitter’s February issue, Nina would interview—is interviewing—Kelsey from ten to eleven A.M. at her home, followed by a forty-five-minute walk around the Silver Lake Reservoir, after which Nina and Kelsey will immediately part ways because Kelsey has an important call at noon. (No fudge-making workshops for anyone this time.)
“Oh, please,” Nina says in what she hopes is a breezy tone. “Who cares about me? Congratulations on all the amazing stuff that’s happened to you.” As Nina pulls her digital recorder from the blue leather satchel she hasn’t used since she lived in New York and sets the recorder on the coffee table, she adds, “Your house is gorgeous.”
“I’m moving next week,” Kelsey says. “I’ll miss this place, though.”
“Where are you moving?”
When their eyes meet, Nina sees Kelsey’s wariness. “Up into the hills,” Kelsey says and gestures vaguely. “West.” Nina wonders if Kelsey has stalkers.
“Have you been back to Michigan lately?” Nina asks.
“I went for the Fourth of July, which was really nice and relaxing. But my schedule has been so insane lately that it’s easier for my family to come here. My new house has a mother-in-law suite, and I’ve told my family they’re welcome anytime. My parents are terrified of driving on the freeway, but even that, I’m like, You can Uber everywhere.” Kelsey smiles, and really, she’s so outrageously pretty that it would have been a waste for her not to appear on-screen. This is what Nina is thinking when, in her pocket, her phone vibrates. She’s sure it’s the sitter—in normal life, no one texts her anymore—and she’s also sure that she shouldn’t interrupt the interview just when it’s starting. Besides, isn’t Kelsey too famous for Nina to check her phone in front of her? Kelsey fondly adds, “As if Bill and Barbara Adams of Traverse City, Michigan, even grasp what Uber is.”
Nina fake-laughs, and her phone vibrates a second time. “So all the Oscar buzz has to feel good,” she says, and again Kelsey’s smile is guarded.
“Obviously, it’s really unpredictable how things will play out,” Kelsey says. “I mean, the film is still six weeks away from release. But it’s thrilling that people are responding to it so positively. And working with Ira Barbour was a dream come true. Walking onto the set every day, I had to pinch myself.”
“Are there any moments from the shoot that really stand out for you?”
Kelsey pauses before saying, “I’m guessing you know Scott and I broke up recently?”