I fell in love when he played the cowboy thief in Thelma and Louise. He’s still a heart throb, only eight years younger than I am. And now he’s bought a mansion in a town down the road from my little beach house. I read it in Carmel magazine this week.
His new house is 100 years old. My beach house is 100 years old. His hangs over the Pacific Ocean. Mine does not. His is made of stone. Mine is made of stucco. I believe his is somewhat larger than mine.
My girlfriend says I need to step up my wardrobe in case I run into him around town.
“I don’t think he shops in thrift stores,” I said.
“You might run into him on the beach,” she said.
As if.
Brad Pitt has been in the news all along: his relationship with Jennifer Aniston, then his relationship with Angelina Jolie. Brangelina. The kids they adopted. The kids she gave birth to. The fall-out. The divorce.
The movies: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ocean’s Eleven. Ocean’s Twelve. Ocean’s Thirteen. The Big Short. Moneyball. A bunch that I haven’t seen.
What is it about famous people that gets the rest of us excited to meet them? I’ve only ever met J.K. Rowling and Sully Sullivan (pilot that landed a jet on the Hudson River). He lives in the same town that I do. She came to Orinda to sign books when she only had three Harry Potter titles.
My beach town is next to Pebble Beach, where hundreds of celebrities show up to golf every February. If I play my cards right, I could be an unpaid volunteer and stand out in the weather, shushing people and keeping them from breeching the rope barriers. Maybe someday. Maybe not.
Famous folks show up at the car shows in August. I’ve never seen them. Movie stars eat in local restaurants. I don’t eat out too much down there.
Since Brad’s new place is in Carmel and I’m in a cheaper zip code, I may never bump into him. But it’s okay. I have an 8 x 10 glossy of him right here on the magazine cover, next to the plate of homemade goodies that my neighbor gave me when I dropped off a small bag of store-bought chocolates.
That’s the thing about my beach town. We help each other out with garbage cans, flower pots and taking in the mail, feeding the cats, and reporting dog escapees. I’m not around too much for some of the jobs, but I’ve been known to rescue empty plastic pots from the trash so that my neighbor can take her potted plants to the farmer’s market and swap them for free vegetables.
That’s my neighborhood, widows swapping succulents for organic carrots. No one living in stone mansions overhanging the ocean on a matching rock outcropping. No movie stars (although my succulent-growing neighbor has a movie-director daughter).
Hey, maybe I’m more Hollywood adjacent than I thought.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 