You Think It, I'll Say It(37)
What a surprise, what a tremendous relief, that Kelsey has broached the topic on her own. It’s actually a double surprise, because Scott is her TV costar; he has nothing to do with the movie. Nina strives not to sound pleased as she says, “Yeah, I did hear about that. How are you doing?”
Without warning, Kelsey bursts into tears—her beautiful face crumples in on itself, and rivulets cascade from her blue eyes.
“Oh no,” Nina says. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
Kelsey sobs, says, “I’m just—” and then waves her left hand instead of speaking. She stands and walks to a shelf, where she pulls a tissue from a box between artfully arranged books. She blows her nose and, as she walks back to the couch, says, surprisingly coherently, “I swore to myself I wouldn’t cry. But when I talk to you, I feel like I’m hanging out with one of my girlfriends from high school.”
“Well, being upset about a breakup is natural,” Nina says. “You are human.”
“I’ll tell you the truth,” Kelsey says. “Scott and I were secretly engaged. Also, I was pregnant.”
Oh, Astrid, Nina thinks. You’re welcome.
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Kelsey is saying, “but we were both really excited. And so he proposes, and Scott isn’t a super-emotional person, but the proposal was incredibly sweet. He said he was so happy he’d found someone else who was grounded and had good values and he wanted us to be a team and support each other in the crazy world of L.A. Five weeks later, I miscarried, and literally the next day he moved out. I’m not even exaggerating. Then those paparazzi pictures show up of him with Amanda St. Clair, and you can tell they were staged because they’re totally dressed up, practically smiling at the camera while they make out, and it’s like, What the hell? Fine if he didn’t really want to be with me, but I have no idea why he had to rub it in my face.” Kelsey makes an enormous sniffing noise. “At some point, he’s being such a sociopath that I really am better off without him. But when he proposed, it felt real.” Kelsey has been gazing into the middle distance, but she turns her head to the left, making eye contact again with Nina and says, “The baby was due in early March, and that’s why whenever someone brings up the Oscars, all I can think about is stuff with Scott. I would have been majorly pregnant for awards season.” She frowns a little before adding, “Is it weird I’m telling you all this?”
That Kelsey will retroactively declare everything she just said off the record is a possibility so terrifying that Nina almost can’t breathe. Not that it will be exactly, explicitly binding even if Kelsey does, but it would be kind of shitty of Nina to take advantage of Kelsey’s na?veté, plus Gloss & Glitter will want to maintain its friendly relationship with Kelsey’s publicist and agent and the rest of her professional constellation. Of course, Gloss & Glitter—Astrid—also will be disgustingly thrilled to break the news of Kelsey’s miscarriage, which is why Nina must proceed very, very carefully.
In a light but sympathetic voice, she says, “It’s not weird at all. What you went through—that sounds so hard.”
Kelsey says, “Not to be, like, too personal, but have you ever had a miscarriage?”
Nina shakes her head.
“They’re brutal,” Kelsey says. “I used to think of them as not such a big deal, but they’re completely awful. My ob told me I could have a D&C in his office or I could wait at home and pass the fetus naturally, and he made it sound like six of one, a half dozen of the other, but I definitely should have had the procedure.”
“I’m sorry,” Nina says again. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s like going through labor. You have real contractions that are super-painful, and you even have to push, but all that comes out is tons and tons of blood. And, you know, the gestational sac. My bathroom looked like a murder scene. Scott is really squeamish, and I swear that if he hadn’t seen all that blood, we’d still be together.”
For several reasons, Nina thinks, Kelsey needs to stop—for one, because the more detail she goes into, the more likely it is she’ll want to retract everything. Also, the readers of Gloss & Glitter will be enthralled/concerned to learn of Kelsey’s miscarriage but concerned/grossed out to hear about its effluvia. And finally, listening to Kelsey is making Nina feel an urgent need to check the sitter’s texts and confirm that Zoe is okay.
“That does sound awful.” Nina furrows her brow—kindly, she hopes. “I can’t even imagine. Are you and Scott in touch at all?”
Kelsey shakes her head.
“But filming for season three of Copacetic starts next week, right?”
Kelsey shrugs. “I know. And what can I do but cross that bridge when I come to it, right?”
“Sorry to—” Nina hesitates, then says, “Is it okay if I use your bathroom?”
Kelsey’s guest bathroom looks nothing like the guest bathroom in Nina’s mother’s house—Kelsey’s is very clean, with lots of white marble surfaces (surely, the bathroom where she bled so voluminously is nearer to her bedroom). Nina sets down the lid of the toilet, sits, and pulls her phone from her pocket.
She has been crying since you left, reads the first text.
Followed almost immediately by: She will not take any food