Secrets of My Hollywood Life: There’s No Place Like Home (9 page)

“Hi, guys,” I say, smiling even though I feel dizzy from both their lights and what Nadine just told me.

“Kaitlin! Over here! Can you take a few pictures?”

“Kaitlin? Kaitlin! Kaitlin!”

Their voices sound grating at a moment like this. I can’t smile right now. I can’t get it together to pose. I feel bad, but
I always pose for these guys. Can’t I pull the diva card just this once? Larry the Liar is not there, but I recognize some
of the others. They are an aggressive bunch. The kind I can’t stand but tolerate so that they don’t make me miserable. They
yell the nastiest things if you don’t cooperate. Today, I don’t care. I wave once and follow Nadine quickly into the department
store.

“Nice, Kaitlin! Happy holidays to you too! Way to act like a movie star! You so aren’t one!”

Ouch.

I try to ignore their taunts and concentrate on Nadine. She’s going on about how torn she’s been about this decision and what
a great opportunity it is, but all I can think about is who her first client is. Is it someone new to Hollywood? Someone already
huge? It could be anyone! Everyone loves Nadine when they meet her. Miley is always telling me how lucky I am to have a great
assistant. Did Miley poach Nadine? When we reach the restaurant, the gang is waiting at a table on the terrace. The balloons
are for me—pearl, pink, and silver ones are bopping around in the light breeze. The table is set with the standard white tablecloth,
but I notice someone threw birthday confetti on there as well. A pile of beautifully wrapped presents lies near one of the
bamboo chairs. I’m touched, but I still feel so depressed. (Did Mom even say happy birthday to me?)

“Happy birthday!” Liz throws her arms around me, but she pulls back quickly, looking from Nadine’s solemn face to mine. “What’s
wrong?”

“Are you all right, Burke?” Austin asks and gives me a quick kiss. “You look pale.”

“You told her, didn’t you?” Sky asks Nadine quietly. She’s holding a huge bouquet of sunflowers, and she lets them drop to
her side. “I thought we were going to do it together.”

“I had to,” Nadine explains. “It was a bad morning.”

“You know Nadine is going to be a manager?” I ask Sky, looking from her to Nadine in confusion. I can’t believe Nadine told
Sky before me!

“Yes,” Sky says awkwardly, “because she’s going to be mine.”

“You’re Nadine’s client?” I freak out. Several well-dressed women sipping English breakfast tea at a nearby table give me
a disapproving look, but I’m too shocked by Sky’s bombshell to apologize. “You asked Nadine to be your manager?
You poached Nadine?
” My head is swiveling from Nadine’s embarrassed face to Sky’s sort-of-defiant one at warp speed. “How did you…​when did you…I
don’t understand why both of you…”

Austin pulls out a chair and I sink into the green cushion. I may never leave this chair again. At least I’ll have food, and
if I need a change of clothes I can walk inside and buy some comfy James Perse pants. I feel like the floor is dropping out
from under me. First my mommy issues flooded to the surface, then Nadine’s bombshell, and now Sky is taking my assistant?
No,
stealing
my assistant? “When did this happen?”

Nadine pulls up a chair next to me, leaning in so I can hear her every word. “I didn’t want you to find out this way, but
you cannot be mad at Sky,” she says, her voice insistent. “I adore you and I only want what’s best for you. You’re like a
sister to me.” Nadine’s eyes glisten. “I know you well enough to know why you’re mad. It’s not because I’m leaving, it’s because
I’m leaving to be Sky’s manager.”

“You think?” I fan my napkin out angrily and place it on my lap. I reach for the bread bowl, pulling out a warm roll and taking
a bite so that I don’t say anything I’ll regret, like: How could Nadine do this to me? Leaving me is one thing—I have to accept
that. She always said this was a short-term position, and she’s been with me for years. But now she’s staying in Hollywood
and taking on Sky as her client? I glare at Sky. “I should have expected this from you,” I say coldly and swipe some butter
from the tray with my knife. “Everyone warned me, but I said noooo, Sky’s changed! She would never stab me in the back again.
We’re friends now. Ha!”

Sky takes the seat across from me, and I feel like I’m about to be interrogated. “We
are
friends, K. I did this for both of us! You and I both know Nadine was wasting her talents spending her day picking up Marc
Jacobs tops from the dry cleaner and going on Pinkberry runs.” She looks at Nadine glowingly. “N here deserves to be a manager.
I saw it the first time she laid into you about your mom’s career advice. She can do this!”

I feel my cheeks flame. “Don’t you think I know Nadine is talented?” I look at Nadine, and my lip begins to tremble. “I always
knew you were going to do something great. Like work for the Obamas! I knew this day would come. I just didn’t think it would
be today.”

“Guys, it’s her birthday,” Austin says quietly, and for the first time I notice how good he looks, standing behind my chair,
one hand on my shoulder. He’s in an untucked navy blue dress shirt and worn dark denim jeans. “And she’s got a road test in
a few hours. Can’t we put this aside and deal with it tomorrow?”

Everyone looks at him. “No,” we say in unison.

Boys just don’t understand us sometimes. Once you take the cat out of the bag, you can’t cram it back in.

“I don’t think I’m up for taking my road test today anyway,” I tell Austin and look down at my white plate guiltily. “I don’t
want to do it in front of the media. Mom invited press to my driving test.”

“She did what?” Liz’s face is as dark as the indigo headband holding back her curly hair. She stands up, giving me a good
look at the drop-waist green Marc Jacobs dress she’s wearing. “Why?”

I look at the mountains again, staring deeply at a cool house on a cliff to avoid Liz’s piercing stare. “She thought it would
be good exposure.”

“
Celebrity Insider
filming your road test is good exposure?” Liz is stunned. “Kates! Why didn’t you try to stop her?”

“I did, but there were bigger things going on at the moment. She was in the middle of firing Laney, Seth, and Nadine this
morning when I found out!” I break off.

“KATES!” Liz’s head is going to spin off and land on Wilshire Boulevard. “You didn’t let her, did you?”

“I told her no! Just like I told her to call off the paparazzi,” I insist, my chin held high. Liz continues to stare me down,
as do the others. I look away. “But I’m not sure she’s going to listen to me.”

Sky shakes her head and tsks. “This is why you were so easy to pick on all those years. You are a wet noodle.”

“I am not a wet noodle!” I pause for a moment to order my breakfast from the waiter who has been patiently waiting for a break
in the conversation. (I order the Jarlsberg cheese omelet. Austin does the same. Sky gets egg whites, Liz a bagel with lox,
and Nadine, an omelet.) Everyone stares at me expectedly, and I realize I still have an argument to make. “I stand up to my
mom sometimes! Remember when I wanted to go to New York? Or do
Small Fries
? I got to go to Clark Hall for a few months, didn’t I? And to be fair, I didn’t actually let her fire anyone this morning.”

“But now you’re back to square one,” Liz points out. “When we came up with the Clark Hall idea to give you a few months of
normalcy, you
swore
you learned how important it was to have time for you. You said you wanted to be the best you could in front of the camera,
and happy when the camera was off. You said you were going to keep balance in your life, but look at you! Just a few months
of taping and you’re already letting your mom bulldoze you again.”

“It’s easy for you all to judge, but you don’t know what it’s like. How do you fire your own mother?” I look at Sky. “How
does anyone other than Sky have the guts to fire their own mother? Yes, I should, but she’s going to be crushed, and I can’t
stand that. So for now, I let her pile too much on, and then I make myself miserable in the process.” My chest is starting
to feel tight. I know this feeling and I hate it. I need to take deep breaths, but that’s impossible when you’re doing everything
you can not to start sobbing.

“I told you, if it will help you out, I’ll take the Eastwood project,” Sky tries to lighten the mood. But instead I turn on
her again.

“YOU don’t get to joke.” I point my trembling finger at her, the wide arm of my green sweater practically falling in my water
glass. Austin pulls it away. “I don’t even know what to say to you! You are so not keeping the Bob’s Big Boy clock!” Sky gasps.

HOLLYWOOD SECRET NUMBER EIGHT: The Bob’s Big Boy clock is a prop in our
Small Fries
characters’ dorm room. Yes, it’s kind of hokey, but the prop is our absolute favorite, and even though we hope our show is
around for a decade, we both joke about who will get the Bob’s Big Boy clock if we get the ax (that superstition thing again—actors
can’t admit when something’s going well!). Our set decorator, Bobby O’Shea, is a stickler for finding props that really speak
to the characters’ places in the college hierarchy (not to mention their wallets). Most set decorators I know do the same.
When you’re watching a TV show, I’m sure you don’t spend much time freeze-framing shots to see specific things on a character’s
nightstand, or what books are on their bookshelf, but believe me, everything on that set has been placed there with a lot
of thought. The cereal boxes that sit on top of our
Small Fries
mini fridge are rotated every taping. Taylor’s textbooks are ones that freshmen actually use at Brown University. Even our
dry-erase board notes, which can barely be seen behind the large potted plant by the dorm room window, are changed all the
time. Decorating a freshman dorm room may be relatively easy, but some shows I know—like
Mad Men
, which needs period pieces from the sixties, or
The Big Bang Theory
, which has tons of scientific gadgets—take a lot of planning.

“You can have the Bob’s Big Boy clock.” Sky is calm. “If that is what it takes to get you to listen to reason, K. We’re worried
about you.”

“We?” I question, squinting menacingly at the group. There are other traitors afoot.

“Yes, we,” Liz pipes up. “I hate seeing you like this. You’ve been so happy since you got this job.”

“She
is
happy.” Austin sticks up for me. “Especially today. It’s her birthday. Hint. Hint.”

“But if it wasn’t her birthday, she’d be miserable right now,” Liz points out, staring at me like I’m a specimen in her AP
science class rather than her best friend. “Ever since that Turkey Tasters event, I’ve noticed how unhappy you’ve become.
I think a lot of it has to do with your mom. All the stress she’s been under launching two stars on two TV shows has finally
caught up with her, and she’s lost her mind.”

“And your mom going loco is making
you
lose your mind,” Sky clarifies. “Two jobs? One hiatus? Seriously? She’s trying to ruin you. This”—Sky waves her hands wildly
in a gesture that is supposed to represent my life—“is not normal.”

“You’re all overreacting,” I scoff. “My life is normal.”

“Kates, we love you to pieces, but your life is not normal,” Liz says delicately and takes a sip of sparkling water. “You’re
going to lose
you
in all this work you’re doing, I just know it, and that scares me. You won’t have time for us.” She looks away.�� “I don’t
know how long we’re going to stand on the sidelines waiting for you to stand up to your mom. You made such strides this summer.
It’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen you. Next hiatus you’re going to be a zombie! And you might even lose some friends.”

“Is that a threat?” I’m not sure if I should be hurt or angry.

“It’s a fact,” Liz says simply.

“If you overextend yourself and blow both projects, your future offers will be ones that D-listers would turn their noses
up at,” Sky adds.

“Plus there is college to think about,” Nadine throws in. “We know you’re the tiniest bit interested in taking classes at
USC. Don’t deny it! I saw the essay on your desk.”

“That was private!” I gulp. Shoot. I was hoping no one would find it. That’s why I hid it under a
Sure
magazine. No one reads that anymore. “What do you guys want me to do? Tell Cameron no? Turn down
Ellen
? I can’t!”

“Start by changing your mom’s role in your life,” Nadine says simply. “She’s got to go. Just think of the things she’s gotten
you into! Remember that ‘Paparazzi Princess’ song? That wouldn’t have happened if your mom hadn’t made you go to a meeting
with that music mogul, TJ. Then there was the time your mom became obsessed with Alexis Holden and didn’t see how manipulative
she was.…”

“And then there was the time your mom wanted the Burkes to be on a reality show, or when she wanted you to come out to the
Hamptons for the afternoon even though there was barely enough time to get back into the city to do
Meeting of the Mind
s
.…” Liz ticks off each indiscretion on her short, silver fingernails.

I close my eyes tight, trying to block out the images. “Don’t all moms mess up sometimes?”

“No!” they say at the same time.

I throw my napkin down on the table. “I’ve had enough.” The waiter pours me another freshly squeezed orange juice, and I take
a huge gulp before continuing my rant. “She’s my mother. I’ve never once insulted any of your families.” Liz hangs her head
shamefully. “My mom may book me too many press commitments behind Laney’s back, she may not listen to me, and she may be overbearing.”

Wow, this really does sound bad, but I’m not letting on.

“But that’s for me to complain about, not you guys.” Even Sky is starting to look a little guilty. “She’s my family, and family
sticks together.” I begin to choke up, and I push my chair out from the table so I can leave. “And since you guys obviously
aren’t my family or the friends I thought you were, I think I want to celebrate my eighteenth birthday elsewhere.”

“We are your friends,” Sky insists, her chunky quartz Pippa Small ring smacking the table. “K, if you would just listen to
us, you’d see we have a plan.”

Nadine grabs my hand before I can walk away. “I want to be your manager
and
Sky’s manager. I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you that. I know I could do an amazing job, and you’d be so much happier.”

“Listen to her, Kates,” Liz agrees. “This is just the change you need.”

I look at Liz skeptically. “Really? Firing my mom is the change I need? How am I going to live with her after that?” I question
the group. “Bet you guys didn’t think of that. Or at least, it’s really easy to say when you’re not the one who has to do
it. Even worse, you really haven’t thought through the logistics at all. How am I going to afford Seth and Laney and now Nadine
when Mom has control over my money till I’m twenty-one?”

“But—” Nadine starts to say. Nadine’s neck is blotchy. She and Liz break out in hives when they’re either A) lying or B) very
nervous.

“Do you want to hire Nadine?” Sky asks bluntly. “That’s the big question. This is your career, not your mom’s.”

“My mom made my career!” I tell the group. “If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be sitting at Barney Greengrass right now. I’d
be at some mall in the valley buying Old Navy cords! You guys want me to just turn around and tell her ‘I’m sorry, I decided
I’m better off without you’? She’d be crushed. I can’t do that to her.” I grab my yellow leather bag. “Enjoy the birthday
cake.”

“Kates, wait!” Liz begs, but I keep walking, smiling politely at the waiter as he stares at me bewilderedly.

“Burke! Hold up!” Austin trails behind me and grabs my arm. “Calm down. Don’t let this ruin your day. You’re eighteen! We
should be celebrating.”

“Kates! Wait!” It’s Liz and Nadine again, but I’m already on the elevator down. Four more flights to go.

“Come on, K! Buck up and get back here. Let’s talk.” Sky is right behind them, but the doors shut and Austin and I are thankfully
alone.

I’m furious. “They pick today of all days to tell me everything that is wrong with my life?” I mutter more to myself than
to him. “I know I have to fix things, but was today the day to bring it up? I just want to get out of here and go to the DMV. ”

“Even with the paparazzi there?” Austin asks gently.