The Accidental TV Star (21 page)
Read The Accidental TV Star Online
Authors: Emily Evans
Hannah came and removed the check, allowing Sara to get closer. The camera zoomed in. I stood there with my jaw slightly ajar. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t correct my idol and I didn’t move. If the director was going for a stunned surprised look, she did the right thing by not warning me. Sara moved on to congratulate Will and I sank back to my chair in a daze.
“Cut,” the director said, “That’s a wrap. Great show, everyone.”
The contestants converged on Will and me, everyone exchanging numbers and congratulating everyone else. I hung out and exchanged contact information with everyone who didn’t have my number and we made plans to meet up before I left town. Left town? Was I still leaving town? I needed to talk to Garrett. I needed to talk to the Herringtons. I headed for the door.
“Wait, Marissa,” Hannah said, and caught up to me. “You finished the final episode. Here’s your check.”
“Check? Fan favorite?” I smiled. “That’s awesome.”
“No, your per episode stipend.”
“I don’t get that. I’m on the college credit program.”
“No. Once you switched to being a contestant, you became salaried with the studio.”
Oh. I’d wanted the college credit. I opened the check. My eyebrows lifted as I read. Five thousand dollars. I wanted the check. People on TV were seriously overpaid. The envelope crumpled in my good hand. “Thanks, Hannah.”
“No problem,” Hannah said, and backed off. “I’ll catch up with you later about the details for next season.”
I didn’t correct her. I opened the door and walked down the hall to the exit. When I got out the glass doors, I ran. I ran all the way to the parking lot, to the Audi the Herringtons had lent me, and drove back to their place. Hollywood had taken me to the highest high, lowest low, and now offered me a completely different route. I didn’t know the right move to make.
***
“You look wiped out,” Mrs. Herrington said, as I came in the door.
“I am.”
“We didn’t expect you back this soon. Ash’s out picking up a cake for dinner.”
I spit out my news. “I won fan favorite.”
Mrs. Herrington grinned and hugged me. “Of course you did.”
“They want me to guest host next season.”
Her face brightened. “Wow.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s Mr. Herrington’s area of expertise. Let’s go talk to him about it.”
Mr. Herrington was home early. He tended to make it home around seven each night, which Ashley had said was an enormous change. I followed Mrs. Herrington to the living room.
Mr. Herrington sat on the sectional sofa with Bray on his lap, an open laptop on one side, and a bowl of sliced oranges on the other. Bray scrunched up his face, rejecting his dad’s attempts to get him to eat fruit.
“Honey, Marissa got voted fan favorite and they’ve asked her to guest host on the show.”
Mr. Herrington pursed his lips and nodded. “Let me make a call.” He phoned someone at the studio while Mrs. Herrington and I took seats. Bray grabbed for the phone and his dad tilted it out of reach.
We only heard his side of the conversation. “Uh. Huh. Yes. What are the terms?” He hung up and turned to us. “The studio’s pursuing the guest host idea in lieu of cancelling the show.”
“You can’t cancel
Scoop Out
!”
“We don’t want to. And we don’t want to lose Sara Sims. She’s enormously popular. We want her and her loyal fans back in the fall. They’re offering you the job, given the enormous fan support.”
“I live in Texas.” I shook my head, trying to imagine
Scoop Out
without Sara Sims, trying to understand what the studio meant. “I’m her biggest fan. I’d never steal her job.”
“That’s not what we’re asking. We need a guest host because Sara Sims can’t be relied on. This will help Sara too, and she’s approved it.”
I doubted she’d had much choice. I had to ask. “Did you arrange this?”
“Nope. This one’s not on me. As another route, we considered her daughter Hannah, but the director says she’s refused all attempts to get on camera and while she’s knowledgeable about cooking, she has no real interest in it.”
“Hannah’s going to be an artist.”
Bray knocked the bowl of oranges over and gurgled.
Mr. Herrington moved them out of reach and nodded. “If you don’t have an interest in something it shows. This doesn’t mean university goes on hold. We’ll expect you to take classes to broaden your culinary knowledge. I understand from Ashley that you plan to open your own restaurant one day.”
“Yes.”
“And I’ll insist you have time for business classes too. You need to understand management even if you delegate. We have to get Studio Three back in hand.”
“Can I think about it?” I felt heat in my face. “Will I get paid?”
Mr. Herrington handed the baby over to his wife. “Let me get some more details.” He took his phone out of the room. He returned not ten minutes later, carrying a banana. He took the baby back and tried to get him to take a bite. The baby gummed it and sputtered.
Picky little thing. I’d have to research some baby food recipes and see what would tempt him.
“I got the scoop, if you’ll forgive the pun. Turns out, the video files you sent to save Garrett clinched the job offer. It was in a recipe folder that gave the studio a look at your homemade cooking videos. They want the rights to the videos for marketing. And they’re prepared to order twelve episodes, guaranteed at twenty-five an episode for you.”
“That’s nice, but twenty-five bucks won’t pay for gas here. Honestly, I’d do it for free, for the exposure if I lived here, but I won’t stay and mooch off you guys.”
“Twenty-five thousand an episode, Marissa. It’s a fraction of what they pay Sara, but I think the deal’s fair.”
I sank back against the cushion and tried to wrap my head around the number.
“They’ll pay for the rights to the videos on your phone too. We’ll blur out the Fry Hut logo. Ashley will sign a waiver for the few she’s in. The studio is also keenly interested in the at home ones with your brothers. They called them, ‘too cute.’” He used air quotes. “And we’ll have to get a waiver from your mother to feature the boys.”
That amount of money was beyond my comprehension. It didn’t comfort me. I felt shocked. I looked at my nails, the unpolished rounded edges. “Do you believe I can do this?”
“Marissa, this is business. If you couldn’t do this, they wouldn’t offer you the position. And of course, when you finish school and open your own restaurant, finding backers won’t be a problem with this on your resume.” His phone went off and he glanced at the screen.
Mrs. Herrington said, “Go ahead and take that, Hon. I’ll talk to her.”
He left the room, leaving me with Ashley’s mom and Bray, who’d grown fussy now that the banana he didn’t want was leaving the room.
“I don’t know what to do. I think I should go home and go to college, stick to my plan.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that decision.”
“You know my family, where we come from. Just going to college will be a big deal.”
“This isn’t about your family. It’s about you and what you want.”
My stomach tightened and I briefly closed my eyes. “Do you believe I can do this?”
“Marissa, where is all this doubt coming from? Has LA done this to you? Your mother has thrown a thousand worries at you and I’ve seen you counter each one. I’ve never known you to doubt yourself.”
“Some people I know, that I cared about, didn’t believe in me.” I didn’t say it was my dad who didn’t know me at all, or my ex who I thought knew me well.
“What does Ash say?”
“That she’ll have dinner at my restaurant after she gets off work at her architecture firm.” I waved my hand in the air. “But that’s Ash.”
“And Garrett?”
“He’d back me tomorrow.”
“I can tell you a million positive things, but Marissa, it’s not me who has to believe in you. It’s not LA, it’s not your parents. It’s you. Just you.” She slapped me on the knee. “Now tell Mr. Herrington your decision. Do you want this job or not?”
Emotions churned inside me. I tilted my chin. “I’d like the opportunity to try.”
Mrs. Herrington grinned.
Epilogue
My family had flown in yesterday and I put them up at one of the suite hotels. I’d paid. The whole thing was crazy, but we were going to Disneyland tomorrow and would hit the rest of the tourist sites during the week before they went home. Mom was still worried, but Ashley’s mom had spent a long lunch convincing her that she and Mr. Herrington would look out for me. I’d stay with them until we moved into the dorms at UCLA.
Garrett had met my family, but I’d asked him to give us this week to do family stuff. His star power might have helped with the lines, but the screaming fans would have freaked my family out. Tonight was our last date until my family went home, and our first real dinner date. I wore a peach sundress and my hair loose. He wore khaki slacks and an eggplant-colored shirt and picked me up in a limousine. I was really excited about that, mostly because he wouldn’t be driving.
I started breathing faster the second the car rolled over a curb and onto the parking lot.
“I wouldn’t have hit that curb,” Garrett said.
He would have. “Garrett! You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.” My voice rose in excitement. We were at Sara Sims’s restaurant. The place was like the pictures on the internet but with high ceilings, darker lighting, and more candlelight. I loved it.
The Maitre d’hotel led us to the center table set with a white tablecloth. I poured over the menu and Garrett let me take thirty minutes to order. Garrett laughed. “I promise we’ll come back.”
“Will we?”
He captured my hand, “Aye.”
Dinner was amazing, my date was fantastic, and I couldn’t wait to get him back to the limo. The second the door closed behind us, I scrambled onto his lap. “Thanks for a lovely evening.”
Kiss me.
Garrett brushed his hand along my cheek, a tender move that made me lean forward, close enough that his clean cologne became part of my air. I kissed the side of his neck and his hands fell to my hips.
“Before I take you back to the Herrington’s, there’s something I want to show you at my house.” He stroked his hand up my back.
I kissed his neck again and answered him between kisses. “Okay. But we can’t be long, not while my family’s visiting. Mom watches the clock.” I reached the top button of his shirt and raised my hands to toy with it.
Garrett rolled and put me flat on the leather seat. He sank onto me, his weight on his arms. He lowered his mouth to mine. I dug deep and turned my head aside. “It’s dark in here. Talk to me.”
“Marissa.” Garrett sounded pained.
“Good enough.” I cupped his face and pressed upwards to find his lips. His mouth pressed on mine. Warm tingles started at my lips and flooded my body. His mouth moved to my neck, and he rolled again, pulling me on top of him.
My body sank into his and I murmured into his ear, “You’re a fun date, Garrett.”
He put his hand behind my head and lowered my face to his for another kiss. A kiss that didn’t end until the car went through the gate at his house. The engine turned off and I rolled away from Garrett, landing on the carpeted floor of the limo. I looked up at his grinning face, my body shaking.
Garrett didn’t make a smart remark though. He held out his hand and helped me out of the limo.
Walking in together felt like coming home. I crossed the foyer and went to the kitchen. There, I ran my fingertips over the cool granite counter. “You want me to make you something?” I asked the question in a teasing tone, but I wouldn’t mind. I’d missed cooking for Garrett. No one was as appreciative as him or as willing to try my more experimental efforts.
“No. No. Sara Sims’s restaurant was wonderful.” A fleeting expression flickered across his face. “Well, another time, you can come over and cook.”
I walked back to him with a grin and took his hands. “It was amazing. The cream-based pumpkin soup. Yum. The way the entree stacked on the vegetables. Beautiful.”
Please make me stop talking about food. Please grab me and kiss me again, a nice long one that the driver won’t interrupt.
“We’ll go back again. It’s something you said to me once. In the pool. Did you really have a poster of me?”
On my bedroom wall. Inside the door of my school locker. As a screensaver. “Yes.” I looked into his light green gaze. “Staring at your poster, into your eyes, convinced me to come to LA. I called Ashley and asked about the job offer while staring at you. A younger you, clad in a toga, but still you.”
“I’ll wear that for you sometime.”
Yes.
I laughed.
“I want to show you something in my room,” Garrett said.
“I’m sure you do.”
“Trust me, Marissa.”
I followed him up the stairs. What I saw made me sink down to a seated position on the edge of his bed. My own eyes stared back at me from a new
Scoop Out
promo poster on his wall. Oh wow.
“I’ll need you to autograph it.” He grabbed a felt tip pen from his beside drawer.
I swallowed and scrawled,
To Garrett, All my love, Marissa.
Other books by Emily Evans:
The Accidental Movie Star
The Prince with Amnesia
The Boarding School Experiment
Do Over
The Kissing Deadline
Epic Escape
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