Shooting Stars (2 page)

By 10:32 p.m., I am getting seriously sick of waiting for Ned Hartnett. Come on already, I think, jiggling my legs up and down impatiently. I’m not the kind of person who’s very good at sitting around for too long. I’m always on the go, always after that elusive perfect shot. I eye the buffet that is situated below me. It looks good. Really good, considering I only got through one slice of pizza before having to race out the front door. Hardly anything on the buffet has been touched, because hardly anyone in this town eats. Maybe if I just . . .

No, I can’t. I can’t risk being noticed. Not after waiting this long. What if Ned Hartnett turned up just as I was being kicked out? Ugh. Where is he? Who shows up to a party after 10:30 p.m., anyway? Kind of rude, no?

That Ned Hartnett— I’ve never understood him, anyway.

He’s always been so reclusive and reluctant to get out there and meet his fans. What’s so hard about it, really? You leave the house, you smile for the cameras, you wave at the adoring crowds. And it’s not like he’s reclusive because he’s one of those mean teen stars, already sick of the biz at sixteen, 8

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who secretly hates the public. He’s really nice when he’s not holed up at home. I simply don’t get the guy.

I’m starting to seriously consider leaving when something makes me stop twitching and start listening. Instinctively, I know someone’s arriving and I sit up, instantly on high alert.

The noise levels rise slightly and an almost palpable energy falls over the room. The hairs on my arms stand to attention.

He’s coming. He’s here. I know it. I just know it.

As nonchalantly as I can with my heart racing, I get up and lean against the wall. Sunglasses camera, check. Faux-Pod, check. Real camera, check.

I’m in a good position—

a few feet from the door—

but

there’s no way I’ll be able to use my real camera in this situation, so I reach into my hoodie pocket and bring out my only real choice to night: the fauxPod. Usually I’d be taking hundreds of shots per hour on my real camera, but to night I’ll just have to restrict myself, since I have to be discreet. I slowly bring the fauxPod up closer to my face. If anyone notices me, they’re just going to assume I’m searching for some track or another.

All set.

And then there he is. Ned Hartnett.

The noise levels in the room rise several decibels as everyone sees him enter. Ned Hartnett. My eyes do a quick once-over. He looks good. Fine. Healthy. Hot (cough . . . where did that come from?). So the rumors . . . maybe they’re simply not true? Hey, it’s happened before.

Outside, I can hear the paparazzi going crazy. “Ned, Ned!

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Over here! Ned!” they call out as one. But as he takes a step inside, then another and another, slowly their voices die away.

He’s out of range now.

But not where I’m concerned. Because, right now, his head is turning toward me. Me and my fauxPod. Keep turning, keep turning, keep turning, I send messages out to him via the universe.

And he must receive them, because he keeps turning, just like I need him to.

Snap, snap, snap. I start taking shots that will probably be useless because of the poor light, but I take them anyway, hoping I won’t miss a thing. And he’s still turning, turning, turning . . .

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Something’s wrong.

Now that Ned’s face is in full view, I keep clicking, because that’s what I was born to do, but all the while, my gut is telling me something’s not right. Something . . . huh . . . What is it?

I can’t quite put my fi nger on it. It’s Ned all right, but it’s not him. He looks different. And it’s not an out- of- shape thing; it’s something else that stops me in my tracks. It’s his expression.

There’s something about his eyes. About his face. I see so many stars up close every day, I’m familiar with their every glance: how they breathe, how they move, how they look at their partners (I’m an excellent breakup predictor).

The thing is, I’d taken some shots of him last year— shots 10

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that no one

else had gotten—

but the Ned Hartnett,

here

to night, I don’t know. There’s something that’s changed about him since I took those pictures, and it’s set off my radar. The drug rumors might not be looking like they’re very substantial, but there’s defi nitely something going on with this boy. A whole bunch of thoughts fl it through my head—

cosmetic

surgery? Nose job, maybe? Could be, though there was nothing wrong with his nose before. Not that having a perfectly fi ne nose has ever stopped anyone in Hollywood from getting a nose job, of course.

Someone stalks in through the door after him. Fantastic.

It’s his father. Matthew Hartnett is well known for being the pushiest parent- manager in the business and his title is well deserved. A few good shots under my belt, I lower my camera as he elbows his way in and blocks my view of his son.

No one is interested in shots of Matthew Hartnett.

I’m just about to shove my fauxPod back in my pocket when something that passes between father and son catches my eye. Fast as a whip, my gut tells me to bring it out again.

And that’s when, only a few steps into the doorway and thirty seconds into the party he’s arrived at over two hours late, Ned Hartnett does the fakest faint I’ve ever seen and ends up lying spread- eagled on the marble fl oor.

Ned Hartnett, what ever you’re up to, I think I love you.

Snap, snap, snappity- snap.

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2

I manage to keep shooting right up until the ambulance arrives and Ned Hartnett is loaded onto a stretcher and carried outside. I get it all— his coming to, his father fretting over him, holding his hand, and asking people to step back every fi ve seconds (and lapping up every minute of the attention).

Then there’s Ned being helped up onto his feet, plus his second faint as well, which, in my opinion, is even faker than the fi rst one.

Over the year and a half I’ve been a paparazzo, I’ve seen plenty of actual fainting by women who’ve starved themselves for three days to fi t into a dress and then gone out and walked the red carpet, not quite making it all the way. Real fainting isn’t pretty. Real fainting is stumbling, eyes rolling 212-47604_ch01_1P.indd 12

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back, and unfl attering fi nal poses. And Ned Hartnett? Well, funny how he does fainting quite prettily. It’s all very Sleeping Beauty, and, frankly, I’ve lived in LA too long to believe in fairy tales.

I don’t bother following the stretcher outside. The hungrier paps are still out there with their real cameras that will take crystal- clear shots. My shots from inside will be grainier and darker but worth a hundred times as much as theirs, and I’m eager to get home now to see how much I’ll be able to add to my online piggy bank to night.

When my night’s produced just the usual unexciting, general shots that I’ve taken while out and about, like of celebrities picking up their dry cleaning, I usually upload them straight onto this website called papshotsrus .com, where they sell to the highest bidder for a small cut. It’s easy, quick, and low contact, which is good, because sometimes contact means people freaking out about my size and age.

But to night I won’t be selling through a website, and no one will be freaking out about my size or age, either. To night, I know the person who passed on the tip— Melissa, a newspaper editor I work with now and again— will want these shots exclusively. It’ll be an easy sale, and I won’t have to share a portion of my earnings.

When the path clears, I slip outside, avoiding the other paps, and make my way around the side of the venue, where it’s quiet. I stow all my gear away, unlock my bike, and am on my way home in minutes. I take a familiar route through 13

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as many back streets as I can, since it’s now almost midnight. My dad might not be here this week to enforce a curfew (not that he would anyway), but the LAPD can if they feel like it. There have been a few times over the past year and a half that they’ve used the minors’ 10:00 p.m. curfew to hustle me off when I’m being particularly annoying to one whiny star or another.

Luckily, I avoid any run- ins with the law, and within the next ten minutes I am back home at the two- bedroom apartment I share with my dad. I lock up my bike as fast as I can, fi sh out my fauxPod, and take the stairs two at a time. I still have my backpack on and am downloading my shots onto my laptop when I get the editor, Melissa, on her cell.

“Jo?” she says groggily, obviously already in bed. “I take it the tip paid off?”

“And then some. Ned Hartnett arrived and then fainted.

Twice.”

I hear her sit up in bed. “You got it?”

I check out the shots that are fl ipping up, one by one, onto my computer screen. “Yep. And they look goooood.”

“Send them through. I’m going into the offi ce now and we’re getting this out tomorrow, even if it kills me.” I laugh. “I’m sure it won’t.” I know this editor well, and she is one tough nut. I’d bet several of my internal organs that these shots will be on the front page of her paper tomorrow.

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“I hope so. Now, let’s talk money,” she says as I hear her pulling on clothes and a belt buckle being done up.

★ ★ ★

The money we decide on (after a little negotiation) is more than satisfactory, and when I’m off the phone and have sent the shots directly to Melissa, I bring up my savings spreadsheet. This is my piggy bank. And the money I’ll add from to night, plus the money that my dad will add (he matches me dollar for dollar), means I am much closer to my goal than I was this morning. In fact, I am now more than three- quarters of the way there.

My goal? It’s simple, really. Photography classes that will take me across three continents in three years and hone my skills in what I really want to become— a portrait photographer. And when I say “portrait photographer,” please . . . I’m talking Annie Leibovitz, portrait photographer to the famous and infamous, and not Kiddifoto, making babies sit in pump-kins and look oh so cute at the mall.

Don’t get me wrong, being Zo Jo is great and everything. On nights like to night, it’s exciting and innovative and the chase can be a lot of fun. Plus, it’s in my blood: my dad is a paparazzo from way back. Where this industry is concerned, he’s royalty. He’s not on the circuit as much as he used to be now that he’s traveling to and from Japan all the time, trying to establish himself in the industry there 15

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and take it to new levels, but any paparazzo who’s been working for more than fi ve minutes still knows who he is.

And who I am.

Dad loves being a paparazzo and he’s superproud that I’m in the game alongside him. Papping is his everything and he wants it to be my everything, too. And sometimes I feel like I’m almost there— like to night, scoring those great shots of Ned Hartnett. It’s times like these that I have to mentally pinch myself to remember it’s not my dream like it is my dad’s. My dream is photography classes— but there’s no way I’m giving up the paparazzi game right now. The money is too good and I’ll need it for school.

Speaking of school, I’d gotten a call from the school counselor, Ms. Forman, this afternoon. She’d said she was checking on how the summer vacation photography workshop I’d taken had gone ( just okay, nothing special), but I could tell she was really checking up to see if I’d be back at school in the fall. The thing was, I’d gone through this phase a while back where I fell asleep a little too much at my desk and my grades were starting to slip. When the school found out why this was (too many paparazzi hours— late nights and little sleep), I became an “at- risk” student and developed an unwanted close relationship with Ms. Forman. She was always quizzing me about my grades— which actually weren’t too bad, since I’d managed to pull them up again— and my friends. Okay, fi ne.

So my friends were kind of non ex is tent (I went to school on a be-there-only- when- you- absolutely- have- to basis).

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Anyway, however many times I told Ms. Forman I wasn’t going to drop out of school (hardly— I couldn’t wait to grad-uate and go on to study something I actually loved), she didn’t seem to hear me. Thus, the checking if I’d be back in the fall, which was getting closer.

A knock on the wall makes me jump slightly. Wendy must be home. I knock back, letting her know that I’m still awake, and within a few seconds, I’m IMing my next- door neighbor and cousin. When my dad decided he’d be working more in Japan, he bought the apartment next door and gave it to Wendy rent- free in exchange for keeping an eye on me during the weeks he is away. Like approximately 95

percent of people living in West Hollywood, Wendy once wanted to be an actor. Now she’s a fl ight attendant who works the LA- to- London route. She only covers fi rst- class cabin and is really pretty and really tall. In fact, her legs are probably the same height as I am. No doubt about it, she got the good genes.

Me? I got the short genes. My dad, Australian, isn’t tall, and my mother, Japa nese . . . sorry, boring. Who wants to talk about their parents? The point is, I ended up a ge ne tic shrimp. On the evolutionary scale, I’m crawling back to the sludge. Still, being tiny comes in handy at times, to night