Almost Famous, a Talent Novel (10 page)

Mac’s phone buzzed again.

U GOT 5 MINS. LST CHNCE 2 SV YRSLF.

Two texts in a minute. Clearly Ruby wanted something Mac had.
The person who wants something is the person who travels
, Mac reminded herself of one of her mother’s pearls of wisdom. Although Mac was very desperate, she was grateful that she still had some cred, though she wasn’t sure what exactly that was, or what Ruby could possibly want from her. She waited four minutes and fifty-eight seconds and then flung open the door.

Ruby stood on the front steps, leaning on her shiny crutches, in the same red knit dress she’d worn for her acceptance speech video.

“What do
you
want?” Mac hissed. She spotted Ruby’s maid waiting in the circular driveway in a brand-new black Hummer with the engine still running.
Way to watch your carbon footprint!
Mac cringed when she saw the license plate: RUBYRKS. Some poor maid actually had to roll around town in that car.

“I just came by to say hi,” Ruby said, smiling brightly, as if it were a normal day after school.

“Hi,” Mac said flatly. “And ’bye.” She started to close the door.

Ruby put her hand out to stop the door mid-swing and then quickly re-balanced herself on her crutches. “You know, I never did find that assistant. Everyone who applied was a total idiot. And ExtravaBAMSa is the biggest event of fall quarter, and it’s just two weeks away.”

Mac rolled her eyes, wanting to hear nothing about Ruby’s Great Assistant Search or how
she
, not Mac, would be planning ExtravaBAMSa. “What does this have to do with me?” she snapped, staring right into Ruby’s big violet eyes. “You’re social chair.”

“Right, I
am
social chair,” Ruby said smugly. “But I’m so busy I don’t even have time to run my own life.”

“Well, maybe you can hire a life coach?”

Ruby looked at Mac seriously. “Look, people are morons. You’re the only person I’d trust to pick out goodie-bag swag. And if you were to interrupt me during my manicure, I’d know it was for a phone call I’d
have
to take.” Ruby was trying to seem nonchalant, but in her eyes Mac saw a glimmer of insecurity.

Mac paused to swallow this information.
Ruby wanted Mac to be her assistant
. She was actually standing in Mac’s driveway, saying this aloud.

“I got in over my head.” Ruby twisted the diamond-studded gold
R
that hung from a long gold chain around her neck. “I’ve never planned anything before, and I have to choose the menus and the caterers and the decorations. The list goes on and on.” Her voice sounded like it was about to crack. “Plus I have to approve all the groups. It’s a nightmare, and I can’t do it alone.”

Mac felt a pang. Before her dreams of being social chair had been shattered, she’d already planned exactly who she would hire for ExtravaBAMSa. Planning parties was something she loved doing, and it required the attention to detail and trend-savvy style confidence that Mac had in spades. But still: Ruby wanted her help as an
assistant
.

“Um, one question:
Why
would I want to work for you?” Mac asked, genuinely curious as to Ruby’s twisted logic.

Ruby smiled, looking relieved at the question. She took a deep breath, as though she’d rehearsed what she was about to say. She waited a beat, and then she spoke. “At the ExtravaBAMSa, in my finale speech, I’ll tell everyone the video was a fake, a joke that you were in on, and to look for more funny videos at my website. I’ll give you a shout-out, we’ll smile, and everyone will think we’re BFFs.”

Mac paused. For a brief, painful second, she imagined being bossed around by Ruby, or being seen publicly as an assistant, but then she realized that just
thinking about herself
that way was demeaning, and she shook her head. “Very tempting,” Mac said sarcastically.

Ruby leaned in so Mac could smell her Christian Lacroix rouge. “Be smart, Mac. I’ll let you help out with social chair. And I’ll make sure BAMS doesn’t hate you like they do now.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“What other choice do you have?” Ruby asked seriously.

Mac pressed her Chanel-glossed lips together in a thin line. First of all, Ruby didn’t have
that
much power at BAMS. Mac was sure the I.C. downfall had been her own fault. Secondly, Mac never allowed her reputation to be controlled by other people—and certainly
not
by Ruby Goldman. To demean herself by working for Ruby would be too humiliating and unbearable, even if it could (but it couldn’t!) mean her comeback.

“Let me think.” Mac paused for a second, twisting her Mintee bracelet. “Um, no.”

Ruby sighed. “Fine,” she said nonchalantly. “Figured I’d throw you a bone. Don’t say I didn’t try.” Ruby popped on her Mac-alike Gucci aviators and headed back to her Hummer. Mac thought she saw a flicker of worry on Ruby’s face as she hobbled off.

She closed her front door and made a mental note to donate all seven pairs of her Gucci sunglasses to Goodwill.

 

Mac had just wandered into the kitchen when her mother barreled in, dropping a pile of scripts with the Initiative logo onto the Sicilian-tiled island.

“What happened today?” Adrienne asked, slowly cocking an eyebrow at Mac. She stared at Mac in a way that meant she knew something was up. Mac felt sick to her stomach, realizing she’d also disappointed her mother in the Slumbergate disaster. “This morning Elliot’s assistant canceled our meeting. And then he didn’t return my phone call.” Adrienne glanced down at her BlackBerry. “We’re now going on seven hours and twenty-three minutes of radio silence.” No one in Hollywood waited hours,
plural
, to return a call from Adrienne Little-Armstrong. Not even Elliot Tachman.

Unless there was drama. Big Drama.

Just then Maude bounded into the kitchen, her fluffy golden curls bouncing, and taped a new Chess Champion certificate onto the cream-colored Sub-Zero refrigerator, next to last week’s Chess Champion certificate. “I won today, Mommy!” Maude exclaimed, pointing at her new prize. Mac rolled her eyes. Why did she always feel like a no-talent loser around her family?

Adrienne leaned down to kiss her youngest child on the forehead. “Wonderful, Maudey! Your sister and I are having a private conversation and I want you to tell me all about this after we’re done, okay?” Maude nodded once and immediately walked down the hallway to Adrienne’s office. She looked like an adorable little robot.

Adrienne turned to Mac, waiting for an explanation. “Well?”

Mac took a deep breath. “We kind of made fun of Kimmie, but not exactly—Ruby Goldman made it look that way because she taped our iChat conversation, stalker style. Anyway, that’s probably why E-Tach called off the meeting. And now everyone at BAMS sort of hates us, too, ’cause we said some mean stuff. Ruby’s giving us a chance to redeem ourselves, but it’s humiliating, and I’m not lowering myself for anyone,” Mac said in a rush.

Adrienne’s eyes narrowed, and she became very quiet in a way that Mac knew meant that she was upset. “Are you finished?”

“Yep, I’m ruined.” Mac lowered her voice. “And Emily’s just destroyed.”

“No, I meant, are you finished with this pity party?”

“Mah-um!” Mac said, pushing up the sleeves of her Ron Herman cardigan. “Be serious!” She had expected something along the lines of how pathetic Ruby was. Something that would actually make her feel better.

“I am being serious,” Adrienne said, cleaning her Tina Fey glasses on her Vince cashmere sweater. “Would you have said these things about these kids to their faces?

“It was a private conversation!” Mac huffed.

“Mackenzie, I always assume people are recording my conversations.” Adrienne put on her glasses.

“But you’re an agent!” Mac cried defensively.

“And that’s what you want to be, right?” Adrienne pointed out. “Always assume that everything you do on a computer could be viewed by the whole world.” Adrienne pulled out a very Post-it-noted script that she had to read for Davey Woodward. “I hate to break it to you, but that was just stupid, hon. Let this be a lesson to you.”

“A what?” Mac screeched. She hated the word
lesson
as much as she hated the word
curfew.

As if reading her mind, Adrienne sighed. “You’ve been the queen bee your whole life. Maybe now you won’t take everyone’s respect for granted.” She reached into her Birkin bag and pulled out a call sheet, which was a list of the two hundred people whose phone calls she had to return.

Mac’s jaw dropped. “Are you seriously saying that I should
humiliate myself
?”

“Look . . .” Adrienne glanced down at the long list of names and phone numbers, scribbling on them with her silver Tiffany pen. “Obviously Ruby’s very hurt, and she wants to know that you respect her. This town is all about treating people with respect.”

“But Mom!” Mac exclaimed. She took a deep breath to take her voice down a notch, because she knew her mom had a zero-tolerance whining policy. “You would never allow yourself to be disrespected in public!”

“Are you kidding me?” Adrienne put a hand on her Armani-draped hip. “Do you think I just showed up at Initiative and they rolled out the red carpet and said, ‘Welcome to the biggest agency in Los Angeles, please be a partner’?”

Mac shook her head, but Adrienne was already on a roll, like an army vet having wartime flashbacks. “Do you know how many months I spent pushing a mail cart before I had the
privilege
of answering people’s phones?” Adrienne waved her pen passionately. “Or how many peanut butter shakes I had to order before I had the
great honor
of attending a staff meeting? Or how many years it took me before I got my own e-mail address with my own name? Every day I had to order a chicken salad and then
take the chicken
out of the chicken salad!” Adrienne sighed and leaned closer to Mac, lowering her voice. “I even had to change my name because my boss,
Adrian
, didn’t like that he had the same name as a girl. So everyone in the company had to call me
Audrey
!”

Mac laughed despite herself. Her mother would never agree to something like that now. “But I don’t want to kiss Ruby’s butt just ’cause she’s social chair,” Mac said, staring seriously into her mother’s steely blue eyes.

“I’m not saying you kiss her butt—and don’t talk like that, it’s trashy.” Adrienne flicked a crumb off her sweater. “I’m saying you show respect instead of expecting the world to kiss
your
butt, as you so eloquently put it.”

Just then Adrienne’s cell phone buzzed. She picked it up excitedly. “Bleh. Clooney,” she groaned. “When is Elliot going to get over it and stop ignoring me?” She took a deep breath and then snapped into her
I’m so happy to hear from you
voice as she popped the phone to her ear: “Talk to me, Gorgeous!”

Mac waited until her mother had gone down the hallway to her office before she picked up her own phone. Ruby’s number was still in her call log. She typed a text as quickly as she could before she changed her mind:

OK YOU’VE GOT A DEAL

Ruby’s response came seconds later.

GR8. LET’S DISCUSS.... HAVE A FEW OTHER POINTS

Mac cringed, feeling like this story was not about to end well. She took a deep breath and dialed Ruby, remembering she had nowhere to go but up.

C
oco walked briskly on the dirt path leading to the BAMS organic garden, better known as End of the World. It was at the farthest corner of the school, past the tennis courts, past the eighteenth hole of the golf course, and past the teachers’ parking lot. It reeked of compost and alterna-kids. Cell phones didn’t even work there. It was like being in Tijuana, which was why Mac’s Wednesday night text to meet there had been such a mystery.

Not that Coco wanted to be in a high-traffic zone. She’d already been humiliated twice that day: first when she’d arrived at school and found a giant diaper Scotch-taped to her locker. Then, when she arrived in homeroom, she’d found a handwritten note on her desk that said,
Coco, I Depends on You
atop of a fresh box of Depends. Both times she had calmly dumped the offending material in the trash and pretended like it never happened. And like she couldn’t hear the cackles of laughter from people she’d previously considered her friends. But she was on a steady diet of pretending, and it was starting to make her sick.

Coco literally felt nauseated. She hoped it was just the smell of compost.

She trudged onto the dirt path, hoping she didn’t get any soil on her pastel pink Luella skirt or crisp white blouse. She tiptoed around tomato plants and cilantro beds until she arrived at the avocado tree where Mac, Becks, and Emily were already waiting. Becks had dark circles under her eyes, and Emily’s face was puffy, like she’d been crying. Only Mac looked oddly alert, like she was in an alterna-universe where they still had lives.

Mac stood in front of the avocado tree, wearing a yellow and white Loeffler Randall cotton canvas dress. The girls gathered in a semicircle around her, listening devotedly.

“Good news, girls. I’ve got a plan,” Mac said, clasping her hands together. Her wooden bangles clacked against each other. “I call it ‘Pax Rubana.’”

Coco arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. She wanted to believe this was her first double shot of hope in a very hope-free day. Then again, she’d known Mac long enough to be wary of any Mac schemes that had names. Seventh grade’s Mission Meet Suri Cruise and Take Public Transportation to Palm Desert came to mind.

“I did some peacekeeping with Ruby yesterday, and we worked out a deal,” Mac explained. “Basically, we help Ruby, and then she helps us.” Mac smiled proudly.