“Did I hear you correctly? Did you just say ‘JBro’?” Brooke asked, convinced he’d made that part up.
“Scientology!” Julian nearly shouted before Brooke shushed him. “They think we’re Scientologists!”
Brooke’s mind was racing to take it all in. Rehab? Couples’ counseling? Scientology? JBro? That all those thing were lies wasn’t so upsetting, but what about the small kernels of truth? What “family source” had mentioned anything about John Travolta, a person Julian had actually heard from, although not in relation to Scientology? And who was implying—for the second time in this very publication—that she and Julian were having relationship problems? Brooke almost asked just that, but seeing the look of devastation on Julian’s face, she forced herself to keep it light.
“Look, I don’t know about you, but between Scientology, the world-renowned shrink who’s never met us, and JBro, you have totally made it. I mean, if those aren’t fame indicators, I don’t know what is.” She smiled widely but Julian still looked despondent.
Out of the corner of her eye, Brooke saw a flash of light and had a split-second thought of how strange it was to see lightning in the middle of a snowstorm. Before she could comment on it, the young waitress reappeared at their table.
“I, uh, wow,” she mumbled, managing to appear both embarrassed and excited at the same time. “I’m sorry about the photographers out there. . . .” Her voice trailed off in time for Brooke to turn and see four men with cameras pressed against the café windows. Julian must have spotted them before she did, because he reached over, took her hand, and said, “We need to go now.”
“The, uh, the manager told them they couldn’t come inside, but we can’t force them to leave the sidewalk,” the waitress said. She had that I’m two seconds from asking for your autograph look about her, and Brooke knew they had to leave immediately.
She yanked two twenties from her wallet, thrust them at the girl, and said, “Is there a back door?” When the girl nodded, Brooke squeezed Julian’s hand and said, “Let’s go.”
They grabbed their coats and gloves and scarves and beelined toward the back of the café. Brooke tried not to think about how gross she looked, how desperately she didn’t want the entire world to see pictures of her in her sweatpants and ponytail, but even more than that, she wanted to protect Julian. By some lucky miracle, their Jeep was parked in the back lot, and they had managed to climb in, start the engine, and make a right turn out of the parking lot before the paparazzi spotted them.
“What do we do?” Julian asked with more than a hint of panic. “We can’t go back to the house or they’ll follow us. They’ll stake it out.”
“Don’t you think they probably know where it is already? Isn’t that why they’re here?”
“I don’t know. We were in the middle of East Hampton Village. If you’re looking for someone you know is in the Hamptons in the middle of winter, it’s a damn good place to start. I think they were just lucky.” Julian drove east on Route 27, away from his parents’ house. At least two cars were following them.
“We could drive straight back to the city. . . .”
Julian smacked the steering wheel with his palm. “All our stuff is at the house. Besides, it’s too treacherous out—we’d kill ourselves.”
They were silent for a moment before Julian said, “Dial the nonemergency number of the local police and put it on speaker.”
Brooke didn’t quite know what his plan was, but she didn’t want to argue. She dialed and Julian began talking when a female dispatcher answered the phone.
“Hello, my name is Julian Alter and I’m currently driving east on Route 27, just past East Hampton Village. There are a number of cars—photographers—chasing my car at unsafe speeds. I’m afraid if I go home, they’ll try to force their way into my house. Is there any way an officer could meet me at the house and remind them they would be trespassing?”
The woman agreed to dispatch someone within twenty minutes and after giving her the address of his parents’ home, he hung up.
“That was smart,” Brooke said. “What made you think of that?”
“I didn’t. It’s what Leo told me to do if we were anywhere outside of Manhattan and we started getting followed. Let’s see if it actually works.”
They continued driving in circles for the full twenty minutes before Julian checked his watch and made a right onto the smaller country road that led out to the open pasture land where the Alters’ home sat on an acre and a half. The front yard was large and prettily landscaped, but the house was simply not set far enough back to evade a telescopic lens. They were both relieved to see a police car sitting at the intersection of the farm road and the driveway. Julian pulled up next to it and lowered his window; the two cars following them had now become four, and all rolled to a stop following them. They could instantly make out the sound of cameras clicking as the officer made his way over to the Jeep.
“Hello, sir. I’m Julian Alter and this is my wife, Brooke. We’re just trying to get home in peace. Can you please help us?”
The officer was young, probably in his late twenties, and he didn’t look particularly annoyed at having his New Year’s Day morning interrupted. Brooke offered a silent prayer of thanks and found herself actually hoping the cop would recognize Julian.
He didn’t disappoint.
“Julian Alter, hey? My girlfriend’s a huge fan. Couple of us had heard a rumor your folks live out here, but we weren’t real sure. This their place?”
Julian squinted at the man’s name tag. “It is, Officer O’Malley,” he said. “I’m happy to hear your girlfriend’s a fan. Do you think she’d like an autographed album?”
The clicking from the cameras continued, and Brooke wondered how these pictures would be captioned. “Julian Alter Arrested in Drug-Fueled Drag Race”? Or “Officer to Alter: We Don’t Want Your Kind Out Here.” Or maybe everyone’s favorite, “Alter Tries to Convert Police Officer to Scientology.”
O’Malley’s face lit up at the suggestion. “I’m sure she would,” he said, blowing on his hands, which looked red and chapped. “I think she’d love that.”