SF Chapter 188: Vanity Fair Party
After the Oscars finally ended, Dani and his family headed to the post-Oscar party.
"Sis, I love you, but we've been together for almost four hours..." he said, shooing her away.
Claire looked in the direction he was staring and saw a beautiful girl walking toward them. She rolled her eyes.
"I'm leaving," she said. "Phil texted me that they're already outside, and they'll be able to come in soon."
He just shooed her away with his hand again, making her slap it.
After she left, Dani made a heart gesture toward the girl approaching him, then broke the gesture apart as if his heart had been shattered.
"Too bad for you, Dani," Scarlett remarked, though there was a smile on her face. "But I'm more than happy that Sofia won."
Soon after, another blonde girl approached them.
Dani hugged her. "Mandy, I just lost!" he whined. "Huh, nice shampoo." He quickly changed his mood.
"You're just taking advantage of me, aren't you?" Amanda gave him a mocking smile.
"That's obvious," he stated without shame. "That's what friends are for!"
"Okay, just don't mess with my hair," she said, giving his arm a light pat.
When he let go of her, she extended her hand. "Amanda Seyfried."
"Scarlett Johansson."
"Why am I not surprised there's another beautiful girl by your side, Dani?" Mandy pointed out sarcastically.
"Because you're one of my best friends. And because that's what the Oscars are for!" he replied.
But then Amanda took a better look at him. "Are you okay, Dani? You look like you've been through a war."
"Four hours, Mandy! Four long hours," he groaned.
"Let me give you an analogy. This was like when I slept with a very narcissistic girl. There are the happy moments at the start, then the amazing interaction..."
"...but then hours of listening to her praise herself!"
"So you don't want to be nominated again?" Scarlett raised an eyebrow.
"What kind of question is that? I'll only forgive you because you're my newest friend, Scarlett," he scoffed.
"Did you not get the part where I get laid?" He basically stated that the good things were worth the hassle.
"Yeah, right!" Scarlett smiled. "Is he always like that?" she asked the other blonde.
"No..." Amanda shook her head. "Normally, he's worse. Probably he's just tired."
"Hey!" he exclaimed, making the two laugh.
"Oh, right," Dani remembered. "I started negotiating two things, Mandy. One involves you, and the other one might involve you."
Amanda grew curious.
"The first one, I met Michael Clarke Duncan. Turns out he liked Easy A. So I asked him if he would do the promo video for the movie's DVDs."
"Michael Clarke Duncan..." Amanda muttered, trying to remember who he was.
Dani helped her. "The one who was in The Green Mile."
"The big... one?" Amanda asked in disbelief, trying to figure out how someone that big would fit into their promo video.
"Of course the big dude! The other one is Tom Hanks. God, Mandy, you're in Hollywood. Put it together!" he scolded her.
She just shot him an annoyed glare.
"How would he fit into it?" Scarlett asked, dumbfounded.
"I thought it would be funny to have him do the Pocketful of Sunshine scene," he revealed.
Dani tried to come up with a marketing slogan on the spot. "Not just for girls. Watch it! You're gonna love it!"
You could almost see every stage play out across Amanda's face: astonishment, then her imagining the scene, and finally she burst out laughing, having to put a hand over her mouth to muffle it.
"Jesus, Dani, how does your mind work?" she said between muffled laughs. "And the second?"
"It's about Mamma Mia!" he replied. "My screenwriting assistants would like Meryl Streep as the female lead. So I went over there and asked her if she knows how to sing."
"She said yes, but that it's not her specialty."
"Wow..." Amanda muttered. "You really are like that hyperactive little kid on a playground..."
"Now I can see how those four hours were torture for you," she added with mock pity.
Dani was suddenly hugged from behind. "Hey, handsome, want me to console you?" Prudence asked.
He grabbed her and pulled her around to the front, giving her a gentle kiss on the lips. "You're amazingly beautiful. And sexy, totally sexy!"
"Scarlett," Dani introduced her. "This is my girl, Prudence."
Scarlett stared in astonishment. "Wow, and you were openly flirting with me?" she said sarcastically, not bothering to keep it private.
Prudence slowly turned her head and called out to him a little coldly, "Dani!"
But her next words almost made Scarlett stumble.
"You didn't wait for me?" she complained.
"Not my fault, Prudence," he defended himself. "She called me. And at first, it was involuntary. A reflex."
"Oh," Prudence said. "In that case, it's okay." She shrugged.
He kissed her cheek. "I would've included you if anything had happened."
"Scarlett," Dani looked at her. "I'm an honest playboy. I make everything very clear to everyone involved."
"If I saw that we were moving past the flirting stage, I would've openly revealed that I wasn't 'single,'" he added, using air quotes.
"That... I can vouch for him," Amanda said, raising a hand.
Amanda was amused as she watched Scarlett trying to process what was happening. It's funny when it's not happening to you.
"I also flirted with Charlize Theron," Dani continued the conversation.
"Do you have any restraint, Dani?" Amanda inquired.
But he ignored her and gritted his teeth. "She called me a kid, just because of our age gap."
"Mandy," Dani said more thoughtfully to his friend. "I just thought about it some more. When I'm twenty-eight years old, I probably won't be so against being with an eighteen-year-old girl."
"Does that make me a better person than Charlize? An open-minded one?"
"Yes, absolutely," Amanda said dryly.
[Scarlett Johansson commentary]
"What do I think about Dani Harper?" Scarlett repeated the question that had been asked of her.
"He's incredibly talented. Almost outrageously so," she said. "My friends and I were talking about it a few days ago."
"Dani has had one of the biggest debuts in Hollywood, with three hits in a row. And that's coming off two successful literary series, at basically our age..."
"And it's kind of refreshing talking to someone with that résumé, who's ridiculously rich, but didn't mention it once during our conversation. At least with me, he didn't try to use it to impress me."
But then Scarlett became more critical. "That said, he's vulgar and has very little filter, if any."
"But he's very funny. So my final opinion is that he's a very interesting person."
"Oh," she added, almost forgetting. "About his unconventional relationship. As long as there are no lies, no pressure, and everyone involved knows about it... I prefer not to judge."
[Commentary ends]
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