Absolutely True Lies (32 page)

“It’s going pretty well so far,” I told her. And then I finally asked the question that had piqued my curiosity more than a month ago. “Hey, do you know why people call him Benji?”

Daisy nodded. “Yeah, Vaughn gave him that nickname. He claims it’s because Ben always does what production needs, but I think it’s because Ben makes him feel insecure. But then, Vaughn always seems kinda insecure.” It was a remarkably astute observation from the Teen Queen.

As we talked about them, we both glanced toward the bar in time to see that Ben and Vaughn were standing next to each other. Ben leaned over to say something to Vaughn, and though we certainly couldn’t hear their conversation, the look on Ben’s face was nothing short of venomous. I found it irresistibly sexy. Next to me, Daisy giggled.

Suddenly, I remembered how odd it was that Vaughn was in New York in the first place. I’d thought about it earlier but had quickly been distracted. What
did
he have to do with the book?

“Wait, why is Vaughn even here?”

Daisy’s grin grew wider. “I’m the one who asked him to come.
I’m meeting with De Niro and his people on Wednesday and I told them I wanted to bring Vaughn on as a producer.”

This was an extra piece of the puzzle. No wonder he’d wanted me as his girlfriend; I may not have been a Fairgate, but he thought I’d gotten him a film producer job. “But you know he’s a terrible person, right?”

“Oh, definitely,” she said. “But you live in L.A. Everyone’s a terrible person. At least Vaughn is good at his job.”

“But why is he here tonight? These are all your book people.”

Daisy lightly tapped me on my cheek, smiling. “I did it for you. Axel and Sharla told me what happened in Rome. They were afraid you still liked him. And Vaughn can be charming, but not for very long. I thought you should have the opportunity to finish things. Or whatever that’s called.”

I couldn’t believe she went through all of this trouble just for me. “Closure.”

“Right, closure.” Daisy and I watched as Vaughn went back to the heiress. “You really dodged a bullet. He’s also pretty awful in bed.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not after everything I’d seen and heard in the last couple of months. But I was. I chose not to acknowledge her words.

“So you’re officially signed on to do ‘Back Alley’?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Yep,” she said. “After a page-one rewrite from the author of the book.” Daisy looked up at me and winked. So she had actually been listening to me.

A very handsome man in his late forties walked into the room and waved at Daisy. “Who’s that?” I asked, fearing that he might be her latest romantic conquest.

“Oh, that’s my new manager, Cy,” she replied, raising her champagne glass. “I’ve been trying to get him for years, but he’s always been a little out of my league.”

I could have sworn I’d just heard Dr. Chace telling the reporters at CNN that he would be representing Daisy. But he had talked continuously for ten minutes, so it was possible that I’d mixed things up. “What about Dr. Chace?”

Daisy laughed out loud like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “That moron?”

“That moron claims he just saved your life,” I said. It was only then that I noticed the glass of champagne in her hand. “And speaking of rehab, is it really a good idea to be drinking? Not only are you underage, but you’re an addict.”

In response, Daisy drained the last drops of liquid from the glass. She glanced around to make sure we were out of earshot before leaning in and saying, “Do you really think I went to rehab because I’m an addict?”

I did, in fact. I’d been privy to all of her recent manic highs and lows, and there were only two explanations that made sense—either she was a drug addict or she had serious mental issues. Or both. “Come on, Daisy. The pills? The cocaine on the Roman street corner? You have to know that’s not normal behavior.”

“Do you want to know a secret?” There was something different in her voice. It took me a moment to realize it was the same persona she’d affected in the jail cell. The one I’d found so frightening and soulless.

“Sure,” I replied. Actually, I didn’t want to know any of her secrets, but I was a little afraid to say no.

Cool as a cucumber, Daisy shrugged and winked at me. “I’ve never used cocaine in my life.”

If she was about to use that bullshit baby powder excuse on me, I was ready to walk right out the door. “I’m sorry?”

She shrugged again, staring across the room at her mother and the new manager. “I’ve wanted to get rid of Jamie for more than a year now,” Daisy began, sounding like a forty-five-year-old cocktail waitress rather than a teenybopper starlet. “I’m tired of recording these crap songs and working on my mindless show. But every time
I brought him a script I liked, he said it wasn’t time yet. Jamie was never very good at seeing the big picture, he’s only ever been concerned about the money coming in right now.”

“Then why didn’t you fire him?”

Her jaw set in a tight, determined line. “My parents signed a ten-year contract with him that didn’t expire until I was almost twenty-one. I couldn’t take two more years of his lying and mismanagement. Not to mention, I had three years left with Nickelodeon.”

I instinctively took a protective step back from Daisy; she was truly scaring me. “So you, what, faked a drug arrest?”

“All of it. I purposely left the medication suitcase in the back of our car on the way to the airport, I made everyone think I was losing my mind, and then I paid those kids to get cocaine all over me. I figured if the cops caught me red-handed, they wouldn’t bother testing my blood.”

“But you said Jamie made you take all those pills . . .” I couldn’t make sense of what was happening here. This was turning out to be the strangest day of my life. And considering the last couple of months, that said a
lot
.

“He did, but they’re pills. I’m not worried about taking ketamine or Demerol. They’re prescriptions.”

Okay, so Daisy wasn’t exactly the diabolical mastermind she imagined. “How did you get drugs into Rehabilication?” I had to ask. “That first day I saw you, you were high as a kite.”

Daisy patted me on the back patronizingly and laughed. “Oh, Holly Bear, there’s no easier place to score drugs than a rehab center. You just need to have money or to be okay with giving blow jobs. And I’ve got both covered.”

I was in shock. Everything I’d known about my last few months was a lie, a fabrication, or a misunderstanding. I just couldn’t believe that the Italian fiasco had been engineered entirely by a teenage pop star. “Wait a minute—when you asked to have your memoirs written . . .”

“
Please,
bitch,” she said, waving me away. “You knew the first day I wasn’t interested in talking about my stupid-ass TV show. I just had to keep things going until you really had something to write about.”

Holy Mother of God. This girl was positively Machiavellian. “I wish you’d told me that two months ago.” In spite of myself, I laughed. “This would have been a lot less stressful.”

“I am sorry,” she replied, actually seeming sincere. “But I couldn’t take the chance that you’d rat me out.”

“What’ll you do now?”

Daisy turned to me and smiled, her bright white veneers almost gleaming under the overhead lights. “I’m going to live, however I want. But first, I’m going to kick my mother and father the hell out of my house.”

“Oh,” I said, just remembering something. “Thank you for the bonus. I didn’t expect it.”

Daisy laced one of her arms around my back and leaned in to me. Without high heels on, she was so much shorter her head barely came to the top of my bra line. “Holly, you were the only thing that got me through this. You deserve every penny.”

From across the room, Ben caught my eye and smiled.

EPILOGUE

When I was a kid, I thought one bad day was the end of the world. If Logan P. called me a name and everyone laughed, I thought that would be my name forever and people would forget to call me Daisy. It sounds silly now, but I think we do the same thing a lot more than we’d like to admit. When a guy breaks up with us, we say, “I’ll never love anyone again.” But we do. When we don’t get the job we want, we say, “My career is over.” But it’s not.

Tomorrow is not today. And anything can happen tomorrow.

T
he day the book was released just happened to be my twenty-sixth birthday. I woke up that morning in my new apartment near the beach and wondered if anyone would buy it. Given that I was owed fifty percent of the royalties, this was no small consideration.

In the six months since I’d finished writing the book, a lot had changed. Daisy had guest-starred on an acclaimed HBO show as a junkie politician’s daughter and was practically a shoo-in for an Emmy nomination, and she’d just finished shooting that gritty drama with Robert De Niro. Less than a month after her appearance on
The View,
Deacon came out of the closet and announced that he was leaving his wife for a cabana boy he’d met in Acapulco nine years ago. Faith turned back to her faith and began selling
religious-themed jewelry on QVC. They were lovely pieces, and I’d even bought a few of them myself, mostly as a thank-you to my mother and a reassurance that I was no longer destitute. And Donnie and Camille are planning their wedding, which will include me in a lime green dress. I think she knows it’s hideous, but for her, I’ll wear it proudly.

About a month before the book’s release, Jamie was arrested for statutory rape. According to court documents obtained by CNN, Ariceli’s mother caught the two of them having sex in her hot tub. Jamie went to jail and Ariceli never did record an album. She tried out for one of those television singing competitions, but one of the judges felt she had a “skanky vibe” and she never made it through the first round. One good thing did come out of the arrest, though; as the reviews for the book started to pour in, Jamie’s actions lent a lot of credibility to “Daisy’s” words.

As for me . . . As I said, I no longer live in that hellhole on Diablorado Street. I have a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica, and on days when the smog isn’t too thick, I can actually see the ocean. Smitty spends most of his afternoons perched in the open windows, enjoying the sun and salty air. And in case you were wondering, I didn’t bother painting over Jamie’s cell phone number when I moved out. I figured he deserved a prank call or two.

Which brings me back to my birthday. I awoke to a wonderful breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and chocolate milk, prepared by my fantastic boyfriend. I’d like to say I enjoyed it, but I was really just counting the minutes until the bookstore opened.

“Do you think anyone will show up?” I asked. Daisy was going to sign copies at the store right down the street at 10:00
A.M.

“I’m sure they will,” Ben said, kissing the top of my head.

We got coffee (or my mocha-ice blended version of coffee, covered in whipped cream) and walked the six blocks to the store. Just before we reached the plaza, I stopped short and buried my face in his shoulder.

“Oh God, what if no one comes? What if the book sells ten copies?”

He kissed my forehead sweetly. “If the book sells ten copies, we’ll take that thirty dollars and have a moderately priced lunch. It won’t make any difference.”

Ben put an arm around my shoulder and resumed walking, giving me no choice but to follow. I just wanted to get this over with. I knew Daisy couldn’t really acknowledge who I was, but she’d asked me to stop by and say hello, just for good luck.

As I turned the corner into the shopping plaza, I stopped short and gasped. There was a line all the way around the block and an employee was shepherding people behind a rope.

“We’ll be letting everyone in for the Dixson signing in just a minute,” the harried employee called out to the restless crowd. “But please be patient and bear with us. I promise, we have copies for all of you.”

I tried not to add up my royalty check just from the people in the line, but I couldn’t help it. “Do you think all of the jobs will be like this one?” I asked Ben.

He laughed and kissed me. “God, I hope not.” He smiled and winked at me. “What’s the next guy’s name?”

“Right now, I don’t even care.”

In fact, there was a next guy, and more clients after that. But that’s a story for another time.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

D
espite the single name on the cover, it takes an army of people to make any book (or movie) reach an audience, and
Absolutely True Lies
is no exception. My gratitude spreads far and wide, but most especially to:

Jennifer Weinbaum Ray, my talented manager at Principal Entertainment, for keeping me employed/sane and helping me grow as a writer. Joseph Weiner of Miloknay-Weiner, for watching my back (in the legal sense). Doug Stewart, from Sterling Lord Literistic, for believing in me and this little book. Lauren Spiegel, my fabulous editor from Touchstone, who saw something special in Holly, and guided me to create the best version of this book. Thanks to my husband and son, for more things than I can count—unconditional love, unwavering support, and story times with crazy accents. To Diddy Riese, for making inspirational ice cream sandwiches I can’t stop writing about (and eating). And to my first readers, who suffered through endless drafts and self-doubt: Jamie Latta, Drew Weaver, Ann Sarnowski, Chrissy Bartz Brockman, Carol Gillis, and Lindsey McCann—your support means the world to me.

TOUCHSTONE READING GROUP GUIDE

ABSOLUTELY

TRUE LIES

RACHEL STUHLER

H
olly Gracin has learned that living in Los Angeles as an entertainment writer doesn’t come with any real perks. She makes little money and doesn’t get to write any fun stories about celebrities or attend any swanky events. To top it all off, the fledgling magazine she’s working for suddenly shuts down. Without a paycheck, a job, or a decent apartment, Holly is on the verge of moving back home to upstate New York.

Desperate and hopeful, Holly accepts a job to write the memoir of eighteen-year-old Daisy Mae Dixson, a Nickelodeon child star, blockbuster actress, and emerging pop star. As soon as Holly embarks on her ghostwriting duties, she quickly discovers that Daisy is not the sweet, wholesome girl that the public has lovingly embraced. Holly follows Daisy around the world as she travels on yachts, drinks heavily, is stalked by paparazzi, and fights with her own staff.

While accompanying Daisy around the clock, Holly struggles to write the memoir, a task made more difficult when she falls victim to the media’s gossip mill and then becomes embroiled in a love triangle. When Daisy has a very public meltdown, Holly must figure out a way for the book to repair Daisy’s image—without ultimately ruining her own.