Absolutely True Lies (6 page)

Jamie crossed behind me, leaning in to my ear. Despite the level of background noise, I heard him pretty clearly. “We don’t even give her the passwords. Trust me, it’s for the best.”

Her “work” now done, Daisy picked up her cup and leaned back on the couch, yawning. I used to feel sorry for celebrities who couldn’t take two steps without a bodyguard and a camera in their faces, but my sympathy died in that Miami club. In fact, I was pretty angry. I practically lived in gangland, and she was getting paid to sit on a couch, drink soda, and fake-smile for her millions of fans on
the Internet. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so obligated to waste my night keeping her company.

Axel and Sharla, already with drinks in their hands, ran over to me.

“Dance?” Sharla shouted, holding out her hand to me. Axel hadn’t waited for us; he was twirling right there in the VIP section.

“No, thanks,” I answered her. I thought I had refused loud enough, but Sharla grabbed my hand and yanked me up off the couch. Either I was screaming for nothing or it didn’t matter what I wanted. I looked back at Daisy. “You coming?”

“Can’t,” she said. “Security issues. No one in their right mind would put a celeb in the middle of a dance floor.”

Perhaps some tiny bit of sympathy should have returned, but it didn’t. Maybe Daisy was forced to be bored out of her mind for a couple of hours, but it was for money. And I was stuck in a smelly, sticky, hundred-degree club where I didn’t know anyone and I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. I seriously wouldn’t have cared if cleaning the toilets was a requisite for Daisy collecting her fee.

So I made my way downstairs and out onto the dance floor, completely sober but wishing I was blackout drunk. I was tempted to grab a drink—Axel and Sharla sure seemed to be mixing business with pleasure—but I didn’t really know the rules for this sort of thing. If there
were
any rules. I was also afraid of getting wasted and calling Jameson a weirdo or, worse, telling Daisy I was starting to think she was a moron.

I was dancing for less than five minutes when a sweaty guy with a ponytail and a shirt open to his navel sauntered up to me and starting grinding against my leg. I resisted the urge to vomit on him, but the floor was so packed, I really had nowhere to go. It was even hotter out on the floor than upstairs, and as my body swelled a bit, I suddenly couldn’t catch my breath. People began looking wavy and out of focus, and their crazy gyrations didn’t help.

Axel spotted me trying to squirm away from Mr. South Beach and fought his way over. Without a single look to the other guy,
Axel wiggled between the two of us and began dancing with me. He had just put an arm around my waist when everything went black.

•  •  •

“O
-M-F-G, we are already on TMZ.”

These were the first words I heard, and while I recognized it as human speech, I had no idea what it meant. I slowly opened my eyes and discovered that I was on the couch in Daisy’s hotel room, completely encircled by the group. The second I moved, all four people leaned in and stared down at me intently.

“She’s awake,” Daisy said.

“Thank you, Daise, we can all see that,” Jameson replied.

I struggled to sit up, but Jameson shoved me back down. And I don’t mean that he gently moved me back to the cushion, he literally thrust me down.

“You shouldn’t move,” Jameson told me, in what was possibly the worst bedside manner I’d ever seen. “The club’s medic said we had to keep you lying down.”

I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t get a chance.

“I can’t believe that photographer managed to get the whole thing,” Sharla said, shaking her head. “I thought they weren’t allowed into the club.”

“There’s always some vulture with a cell phone pic or hidden camera,” Axel said.

“Oh, come on.” Sharla snorted. “
You’re
the one who’s always trying to get pictures with those MTV kids.”

“You look
so
thin in this picture,” Daisy said, holding up her tablet for me to see.

I moved my head around so that I could get a good look at the screen. I did, in fact, look quite thin, but I also looked like a strung-out inebriate being carried off the dance floor. It took only a moment longer before I saw the headline:
SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DAISY’S ENTOURAGE???

“I am so sorry,” I said, certain that I was about to be fired. So much for staying out of trouble.

“Why?” Daisy asked, laughing. She put the tablet back in her lap and started looking up other websites. “This is
awesome
. I want to see if X17 has the pictures yet.”

I struggled to sit up but only made it about halfway. I was still strapped into the tiny dress and felt breathless and dehydrated. “I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “How is this a good thing?”

Before anyone could reply, Jamie’s cell phone chimed and he answered it in the middle of the first ring.

“Yeah,” he said, his tone clipped. Jamie stared off, listening to the voice in his ear. I think Bluetooth devices are ridiculous, anyway, but it’s times like these that I really hate them. If Jamie just had the phone pressed to his ear, chances are we would have been able to hear at least
some
of the conversation. Instead, the four of us leaned in closer, waiting for some clue as to what was being said, but pretending we hardly even noticed the call. “Sure. . . . Of course not.”

“Perez Hilton is saying you’re my alcoholic cousin,” Daisy whispered to me. “Is this like the coolest thing that has ever happened to you?”

“Ugh, Perez is over,” Axel said. “No one reads him anymore.”

I know I lead a pretty sheltered life, but I’ve still had plenty of experiences that rate above passing out in a sweltering Miami nightclub and having the pictures plastered all over gossip websites. Call me crazy.

“Uh-huh,” Jamie continued. He rolled his eyes, but I couldn’t tell if it was for our benefit or his. “Yeah, I’m on top of it. . . . I’ll start making calls at nine
A.M.
 . . . Talk to you tomorrow.” He hung up the phone and then sighed, throwing Daisy a look of irritation. “Your mother is a pain in the ass.”

“That’s not nice,” Daisy said, not moving her gaze from the tablet screen. “I’ve asked you not to talk about her like that.”

“The day she earns a single goddamn dollar of her own money, she can tell me what to do,” Jamie shot back, grabbing a remote control from the coffee table. “Until then, Faith can shut her mouth.”

If anyone else was shocked by this exchange, they didn’t show it. In fact, Axel yawned broadly and leaned his head on Sharla’s shoulder. When Jamie flipped on the television, I used the screen as an excuse to look somewhere else.

“B-T-dubs, we made it on to CNN,” Jamie tossed out as he reached the channel. “Faith saw the teaser about five minutes ago.”

Axel snorted. “And how would your mother know what’s happening on the Communist News Network?”

Daisy shrugged. “She likes to know what lies the lefties are telling.”

I was momentarily distracted by Jamie’s idiotic text-speak, but it took me only a few seconds longer to realize what was going on. Pictures and/or video of me passing out in the club were about to be splashed all over the giant plasma screen. And watched in millions of homes in America—including my mother’s. The dizziness washed over me again and I had the urge to vomit on Daisy’s lap.

“I have to go,” I said, struggling to sit up. I attempted this a few times before I realized that the corset was too tight to allow me to bend at the waist, so I was forced to roll off the couch. “I can’t watch this.”

“Sweetheart, you shouldn’t be standing,” Sharla said, getting up and putting her arms around my shoulders.

On TV, CNN came back from commercial and a well-coiffed reporter smiled blankly at the camera. I tried to move quickly, maneuvering out of Sharla’s grip, but I was sick, exhausted, and trussed up like a pig—and about as fast as a Christmas ham.

“As we reported before the break, a member of Daisy Dixson’s entourage passed out tonight at a club in Miami, and we have the exclusive footage.”

I felt the bile rising in my throat and just made for the door,
somehow having the sense to grab my purse on the way out. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I managed to say between hyperventilating breaths.

“Do us a favor and don’t die in your sleep,” Jameson called after me. “This level of publicity helps us, but a death would really cramp Daisy’s Oscar chances.”

CHAPTER 6

Dating in Hollywood can be tough. We all work insane hours, but that isn’t even the hardest part. It always seems like everyone wants something from you. So when you find someone who really likes you for you, it’s important to hold on to them. I look at my mom
and dad’s marriage, which has weathered twenty-three years, and I have hope!

M
y cell phone started ringing at seven the next morning. I had been asleep for barely four hours and hadn’t thought to turn off my cell when I collapsed into my wonderfully comfortable bed. I knew who the caller was even before I glanced at the phone; there was only one person who couldn’t care less if I was tired or sick.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, pulling a pillow over my face to block out the sun. I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol last night, and I still felt like I was completely hungover. It wasn’t fair.

“Holly Ann Gracin,” my mother said. Her disappointment was audible. I immediately pulled the phone away from my ear and pressed the speakerphone button. The last thing I needed was Mom’s Western New York accent boring another hole in my already throbbing brain. “You have thirty seconds to explain yourself.”

“It’s not what you think—”

“You do know that I have to show my face at work Monday?”
Mom continued, sounding very sorry for herself. “Do you know what people are going to say?
Hmmmm?
” This time I didn’t even bother; she wasn’t asking my opinion. “They’re going to point and whisper behind my back that I have the druggie Hollywood daughter who got carried out of a nightclub in Florida!”

I wondered if she was more concerned about drugs or about the possibility that I might have gone “Hollywood.” “Mom, if they’re talking behind your back, they’re not really your friends.”

“Excuse me, young lady? Do you think this is
funny
?”

Actually, I did. “Of course not,” I reassured her. “But I swear to you, I’m not on any drugs. I wasn’t even drinking. I was just overheated and wearing a really tight corset.”

“That’d better be true,” she said, still all kinds of wound up. “Because if you’ve fallen in with those weirdo L.A. types, I will hire the best deprogrammer money can buy.”

No, she wouldn’t. My mother won’t pay extra for guacamole at Chipotle.

“You have nothing to worry about,” I told her. “If you want to blame anyone, blame the rich people who didn’t let me eat dinner last night. Listen, Mom, I have to go.”

“You have to
go
? Because you have better things to do than talk to your own mother? Honey, if these people don’t even let you eat—”

Oh, geez. “Mom, I always love to talk to you but I do have to work,” I lied. “Busy day ahead of me.”

“Fine,” she sniffed. “You just remember that I’m the only one who cares about you, Holly. Those famous people are only using you for your brain.”

“Yes, Mom.” I sighed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“You’d better believe you will—”

I like to think I hung up on her at that moment, but I suspect that’s not the truth. Though she never mentioned it again, I think I fell back asleep.

•  •  •

T
hat’s the last thing I remember until noon, when my room phone rang. I rolled over and picked it up, yawning into the receiver.

“Hello?”

“I hope I’m not calling too early” came the cool reply from the other end of the phone.

“No, Minka, not at all.” I could hear the judgment in her voice, and it made me want to push her smug little face into a brick wall. “What can I do for you?”

“I was thinking I could perhaps be of assistance to
you,
” Minka said. “I would be happy to send up Tylenol and a glass of orange juice or Gatorade. Or maybe you’d prefer an eye-opener? We make a lovely Bloody Mary.”

“No, thank you,” I replied, my voice dripping with saccharine sweetness. Of course she’d seen me on the news; she was probably monitoring every gossip site for news about Daisy and her precious Jameson. I resisted the urge to call Minka a sanctimonious bitch, though it was a close one. “What I would love is a cheeseburger. With fries and a chocolate milk shake. And
loads
of whipped cream.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I was pleased to think I’d momentarily stymied Frau Minka.

“Of course,” she said finally. “I’ll have the kitchen prepare that straightaway. I’ve just put in an order for Miss Dixson; I’ll have everything sent up to the Presidential Suite when it’s ready.”

“That’s not necessary,” I added quickly. I desperately needed some time alone before heading back into the Dixson Dramarama, just to watch twenty minutes of some awful
CSI
rerun and collect myself. Not to mention take an hour-long bath and scrub the funk off my skin. “Just have my food brought to my room.”

“It was Mr. Lloyd’s suggestion,” Minka stated, intimating that I had no choice in the matter. I could choose to stay in my room, but going upstairs was the only way I would ever see my food.

“Fine.” I threw off the covers and reluctantly got out of bed,
knowing that—for the second morning in a row—I hated the day just minutes after it began. “Thank you for your help, Minka.”

“Of course, Ms. Gracin.” She hung up.

I sighed and headed into my amazing bathroom, ready to longingly admire the tub from my view inside the glass-enclosed shower.

•  •  •

T
wenty minutes later, I stepped into the Presidential Suite, the room service cart about a foot behind me.

“Yay,” Daisy cheered, jumping up from the couch. “Holly
and
yummies!”

I was immediately dismayed to see that she was wearing practically nonexistent cutoffs and a bikini top. Did this girl have an aversion to being fully clothed?

“Any fallout from last night?” I asked, cringing.

Daisy shook her head. “No, we took care of it. Jamie issued a statement and it seemed to shut everybody up. Don’t even worry about it.” She ran up and hugged me tightly, before turning around and bounding toward the tray. “I thought you were never going to get here, Holly, I totally missed you!”

“She really did,” Axel said from the couch, painting his toenails black. “The first thing Daisy said when she opened her eyes was ‘Do you think Holly’s up yet?’ ”

While I was fast growing accustomed to the epic weirdness, I still did a double take. “I’m sorry, do you sleep with Daisy?”

As she sat down at the dining room table and somehow managed to cross her legs Indian-style on the chair, Daisy giggled again. “Of course he does! I’d get so lonely if I slept by myself!”

“Don’t you have three dogs?” I asked.

“Yeah”
—she nodded—“but it’s like, a monster bed. It can fit six people.”

I didn’t bother to ask how she knew that. I approached the table and sat down, trying not to bite the bellman’s hand off as he ar
ranged the food at an infuriatingly slow pace. The silverware had barely left his grasp before I snatched up the utensils and removed the plate cover. As soon as the mouthwatering cheeseburger was revealed, Daisy gasped.

“What is
that
?”

“A cheeseburger,” I told her as I crammed a handful of French fries in my mouth.

Daisy lifted the cover from her meal, and I tried not to choke as I saw what she’d ordered. Or didn’t order. All I can say for certain is, nothing on that plate resembled food. From the couch, I heard Axel
tsk
obnoxiously in my direction. This prompted me to pick up my burger and take the largest bite I could possibly manage without choking.

“Holly, I just cannot believe you,” Daisy exclaimed, seemingly truly upset. “Who eats
beef
anymore?”

“It’s so 2004,” Axel agreed.

“I love beef,” I said with my mouth full. “I pretty much worship steak.”

Daisy began picking at her own plate, clearly disgusted by my lack of enlightenment.

“You’re a vegetarian, then?” I asked. To be honest, I didn’t really care, but I realized this was good fodder for the book. Since she wasn’t interested in talking about any other part of her life that didn’t involve shopping or celebrity vendettas.

“Yes.” Daisy nodded. “But I’m also insulin-resistant.”

“And gluten-resistant,” Axel chimed in.

I took a long slurp of my heavenly milk shake while absorbing this. “So you don’t eat sugar . . . or bread.”

Again, Daisy nodded. “And soy does funky things to your thyroid, so I avoid that . . . Mom and Daddy prefer I stay away from nuts, just in case there’s an issue there. And
nobody
should be ingesting dairy.” She looked pointedly at the milk shake clasped tightly in my hand. I took another long, loud drink.

“What is that you’re eating?” I asked, nodding toward the red, soupy concoction on her plate. I’d been staring at it for the last few minutes and I still hadn’t figured out what it was supposed to be.

“Tomatoes and onions.” Daisy grinned, smacking her lips. “I’m so lucky I’m not allergic to nightshades.”

Lucky
wasn’t the first word that came into my mind. “Did a nutritionist recommend that for you?” I asked.

Daisy shook her head like I was being absurd. “No, it’s like a really famous diet.”

“From who?” I didn’t want to admit this out loud, but I’ve tried every diet known to man. I’ve eaten nothing but cabbage soup for three weeks, tried only bananas and milk, and subsisted on eleven pounds of Atkin’s-approved bacon slices. And I’d never heard of the tomatoes-and-onions diet.

“Um, only that gorgeous Brazilian model that died of starvation,” she told me. “It was all over the news. It’s a great diet, but obviously, she wasn’t eating enough of it.”

There were so many things I could have said in response to that, but I knew I’d be wasting my breath. “Did you order anything, Axel?”

He waved me away dismissively. “Today isn’t my day to eat.”

Since I was now devouring my carnivorous feast mostly to prove a point, it didn’t taste quite so good anymore. And knowing that Daisy and Axel were undoubtedly thinking about what a big, fat tub of lard I was made each bite a little more forced than the last. I finally gave up halfway through the burger, but I refused to abandon my milk shake. No dessert left behind.

Jameson and Sharla walked in the door, both talking rapidly. At first I thought they were arguing with each other, but then I realized Jamie had his Bluetooth in his ear and Sharla was talking into those iPhone headphones. These days, it’s so much harder to tell when someone’s a crazy person talking to their invisible Martian friends.

“Six dozen pink teacup roses—”

“The makeup trailer had better be fully stocked by the time we get there—”

“I did not say tonic water, I said
club soda—
”

“I cannot use a
brush
on her face, I don’t care what brand it is—”

Across the table, Daisy clapped her hands. “Oooh, today’s going to be so much fun!”

•  •  •

“S
o, what are we here for?”

I was standing on the beach in Biscayne Bay, watching as production crews put the finishing touches on a stage just feet from the ocean. Cameras were being set up at every conceivable angle, and I hadn’t seen Daisy, Sharla, or Jameson in over an hour. It didn’t seem safe to have so much electrical equipment that close to a huge body of water, but what do I know?

“Nickelodeon Kids’ Something Kick-Ass Awards,” Axel said with a yawn. He’d disappeared for forty minutes, but once Daisy’s hair was done, he was bored and looking for someone to cause trouble with.

“Really? That’s what it’s called?”

Axel gave me a look like I was missing a chromosome. “I don’t know what it’s called, but they’re all something like that. I bet Daisy doesn’t even know. She just knows she has to sing her latest song, blow kisses to the tweens, and hug Ryan Seacrest a couple of times.”

I was also starting to get the sense that Daisy spent most of her days sleepwalking through events and asking as few questions as possible.

Jameson walked toward us and snapped his fingers at me like I was a misbehaving puppy. “Hols, get over here.”

I was so irritated by his attempt to control me that I remained motionless and waited for him to come to me. The rebellious part of me likes to think he was subconsciously put in his place, but to
tell the truth, I doubt any part of his Neanderthal brain noticed the slight.

“Am I going to have a chance to work with Daisy today?” I asked.

“Aren’t you working with her right now?” Jameson asked me, waving his hands around at the frenetic preparations. “You’re getting unfettered access to her life. You can’t buy that.”

It was also completely useless without concrete personal information. I wasn’t so much writing a book
about
Daisy as writing a book
as
Daisy. And watching her from across the beach wasn’t going to make learning her voice any easier. “So that’s a no?”

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Jameson said, smiling tightly.

My stomach dropped and I almost barfed hamburger bits all over his thousand-dollar shoes. I was going to be fired, I just knew it. Last night, Jameson had held on to me in case they needed me to make a statement, but now that he’d handled my nightclub debacle, he was sweeping me under the rug.

In the three seconds before he spoke again, I tallied all of my worldly possessions, thought about what I could sell, and tried to add up how much of the original ten grand I’d already spent. What can I say—I can worry at light-speed.

“I was thinking you could spend the day with one of our execs from Nick,” Jameson continued, scanning nearby groups of people. “They’ve worked with Daise for years, and I think I’ve found you a producer who isn’t as easily distracted by shiny objects as our precious pop star.”

My first thought was,
Phew
.
My second thought was,
What a prick
. How Jameson got away with talking about his only client this way, I didn’t understand. “Okay,” I agreed, shrugging. “Whatever you’d like.”

Jameson spotted who he was looking for and waved the person over. I couldn’t decide if I thought this exercise would be a colossal waste of time or the best idea Jamie’d had to date. Plus, if this pro
ducer guy or girl was really boring, I could always slip away and have the night to myself. It was unlikely anyone would notice over the throngs of teenagers screaming and jumping up and down.