The only—only—thing that was (almost) saving the day was the fact that Liam was here. Working, but still.
“Are we ready for the soup course?” her mother said.
“Fine with me,” her father replied. “Vichyssoise?”
“No, lobster bisque. I had the caterer make it with skim milk, of course.”
“Of course.”
Scarlett slurped down another oyster (okay, so maybe they were kinda good) as she felt her cell vibrate in her pocket. Great, a Dana-gram. Obviously, the yellow-tricycle story hadn’t cut it.
But when she glanced at the screen, she saw that it was a text from Liam.
DID THEY HIRE THESE PEOPLE 2 PLAY YR PARENTS OR R U ADOPTED AND DIDN’T TELL ME?
Scarlett stifled a giggle. She snuck a peek at Liam, who was behind the camera next to the massive stone fireplace. She could tell that he was trying to keep from laughing, too.
Underneath the table, she quietly typed: NEVER SEEN THEM B4. IM JUST HERE 4 THE OYSTERS.
Liam typed back: HOPE THEY TASTE BETTER THAN THEY LOOK!
WHY R U HERE? DID DANA MAKE U WORK? Scarlett typed.
A moment later, Liam typed back: BEN ASKED 4 THE DAY OFF AT THE LAST MIN SO I OFFERED 2 FILL IN.
Oh, Scarlett thought.
Staring at the bowl of lobster bisque that her mother had just set down in front of her (ew, pink soup?), Scarlett weighed Liam’s statement. Liam had offered to work on Christmas Eve. Did he do this because he had nothing better to do? Or because he was a really, really nice guy and he wanted to help Ben out? Or because he wanted to be in Aspen…to be near her?
Stop it, Scarlett told herself. You’re being an idiot. Yeah, like the guy seriously gave up his holiday to work, just so he could watch your lame family eat pink soup and have nothing to say to one another.
Her cell buzzed again. SO R U COMING 2 MY PARTY? Liam had typed.
Scarlett smiled. “Maybe,” she said out loud, before she realized what she was doing.
“Maybe what, Scarlett?” her father asked her.
Scarlett glanced up sharply. Everyone in the room was staring at her, including Liam, who was obviously trying hard to keep a straight face.
“Uh…yeah…that is, maybe I’ll have more of that, um, delicious soup,” Scarlett managed to say.
Trying to recover her composure, she quickly tucked her phone back in her pocket. Texting with a cute guy in the middle of a shoot was way too dangerous!
6
CREATIVE EDITING
Trevor Lord leaned forward and studied the magazines fanned across his desk. Again. Each cover line and photo made him clench his jaw a little harder.
L.A. CANDY STAR
MORE TART THAN SWEET
JANE’S BETRAYAL
IS L.A. CANDY STAR
PREGNANT
WITH JESSE’S BABY?
DID JESSE’S DRUG HABIT DRIVE JANE
INTO HIS BEST FRIEND’S BED?
SEE JANE CHEAT!
And on and on. Each headline was insulting, attention-grabbing, and sure to sell issues. And sure to cause problems for the show.
How had everything spun so out of control? With his golden girl at the wheel?
He might’ve expected trouble from the other girls. Scarlett was stunningly beautiful, but she was way too smart, opinionated, and out-there to appeal to a general audience; Trevor had to edit out most of her real personality just to make her even remotely accessible. Madison was the perfect Hollywood cliché, with her dyed-to-the-max platinum hair and penchant for shopping, partying, and guys. But she was constantly bugging Trevor for more airtime; so far, he’d managed to keep her at bay with carefully worded compliments on the theme of “quality over quantity.” Gaby had proven very entertaining, with her ditzy personality and natural talent for getting just about everything wrong. Sometimes she seemed too over-the-top even for reality television.
But Jane…Jane was his find of the decade. Sweet, natural, and vulnerable, she was a person everyone could relate to. She was pretty, but not too pretty. She liked to go out, but she didn’t like to get wasted or do drugs. She worked hard. She was loyal to her friends. She came from a close-knit family.
Even her flaws were relatable. She procrastinated. She made mistakes at her job and got into trouble with her boss. She had arguments with her friends about dumb stuff. She didn’t have the best judgment about guys and went on bad dates once in a while.
Right after the L.A. Candy series premiere in October, Trevor knew that he had a hit on his hands—and that Jane was largely responsible. Viewers loved her. After a couple of flops (fine, so everyone was sick of listening to amateurs sing Rihanna covers and watching strangers hook up on tropical islands), he was back on top as one of Hollywood’s hottest reality producers.
Then things went from great to amazing when Jane and Jesse started dating, and with absolutely no intervention from Trevor. He couldn’t have picked a better boyfriend than the bad-boy son of superstar actors Wyatt Edwards and Katarina Miller, who was always in some tabloid with a starlet on his arm. Jesse also liked to party hard. As in, in-and-out-of-rehab hard.
But Jesse had apparently cleaned up his act when he met Jane. It was love at first sight, and their chemistry was undeniable. Everyone seemed to want to tune in to their romance: Hollywood playboy falls for the girl next door. It was a reality producer’s dream come true.
Trevor clutched his stress ball tighter. He had known that Jesse would eventually crash and burn. Once an addict, always an addict. But Trevor figured that if and when the time came, he would do some creative editing to make sure Jane and Jesse’s romance continued its course, from breakup to makeup to breakup to makeup, without the unwholesome tarnish of Jesse’s issues. The L.A. Candy cameras never showed Jesse misbehaving at clubs (drinking too much, disappearing to the men’s room to do God knows what), and they never would.
But Trevor hadn’t seen this coming: It was Jane who had screwed up. Big-time. Virtually overnight, the “reality producer’s dream” had turned into a nightmare. With Jane and Madison gone, the shooting schedule was total chaos. Trevor and Dana were frantically improvising new and interesting ways to film Scarlett and Gaby: Scarlett Christmas shopping…Gaby taking a boot-camp fitness class…Scarlett checking out the spring courses in the USC catalog with a fellow student…Gaby taking her pint-size, overgroomed dog out for a walk. And filming the two girls together was beyond challenging, since most of those scenes consisted of Gaby having one-sided conversations while Scarlett mocked her and made sarcastic remarks under her breath.
How long would they be able to keep this up? Where the hell was Jane? (She’d been photographed at LAX yesterday, but she didn’t seem to be at her apartment, and she still wasn’t answering his calls. Her parents weren’t answering his calls, either.) And what was he going to do with her when she finally resurfaced? He had a story line on his hands that everyone knew about but that didn’t make sense for the show. There could be no mention of Braden, since he refused to sign a release. Which meant that there could be no mention of Jane cheating on Jesse with Braden. There could be no mention of the Gossip scandal, either. In the L.A. Candy universe, tabloids didn’t exist. And neither did half-naked pictures of a nice girl like Jane.
“Trevor?”
He rubbed his eyes and glanced up. Melissa, one of the PopTV publicists, was standing in the doorway. He had ordered his entire team to put in overtime, and many were working today despite the fact that it was Christmas Eve. “Yes? What is it?” he snapped.
“Yeah, hello to you, too. Listen, you’re gonna be a little nicer to me when you see this.” She held up a file.
“What is it?”
“Ratings from the last episode. You know, the episode that aired after those, uh, lovely photos came out?”
Trevor stared intently at her. “And?”
“Our ratings nearly doubled.”
“Let me see that.”
Melissa handed the file to Trevor. He opened it and scanned
the figures quickly. His pulse quickened, and he sat up straighter. Four-point-six million? Did it really say 4.6 million?
Trevor’s lips curled up in a slow, satisfied smile. “You just made me a very happy man.”
“Yeah, yeah. Until the next crisis,” Melissa joked.
“No, no. The crisis was good. The crisis made our numbers go up.”
“Any publicity is good publicity, right?”
“Something like that. Now, go back to your office and break these down some more. I want them within the hour.”
Melissa peeked at her watch. “It’s almost eight and I’ve got a red-eye to New York to visit my family for Christmas.”
“Well, you’d better get busy, then.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
As Trevor watched her leave, he closed the file and thought about what this meant. As always, his brain operated simultaneously in two realities: the real reality and the L.A. Candy reality. Trevor realized that at this moment in time, these two realities were actually working in sync and in his favor. The real reality (Jane, Braden, Jesse, the Gossip scandal) boosted and would continue to boost ratings, while the L.A. Candy reality airbrushed—and would continue to airbrush—over any and all the ugliness, painting Jane in the same soft, golden glow that had morphed her into “America’s sweetheart.”
This was good—all good. Now all he needed was to find Jane. And figure out how to choreograph the next few episodes.
Trevor picked up the phone and got back to work.
7
IT’S KINDA COMPLICATED
Lacie hit the Pause button and pointed to the giant plasma screen. “Oh, yeah, that dude,” she said, cracking up. “Did you ever go out with him again?”
“He seems like kind of a dork,” Nora piped up. “But he’s H-O-T.”
Jane sighed and leaned back on the couch, where she was sandwiched between her two baby sisters. Lacie, sixteen, was to the right of her, wielding the remote. Nora, fourteen, was to the left, hugging a massive bowl of nacho-cheese-flavored popcorn. It was Christmas night, and the three girls were watching episode after episode of L.A. Candy in their family room. Lacie and Nora had TiVo’d all of season one so far, and were now making Jane sit through them as they grilled her about various details.
“Yeah, that’s Paolo,” Jane said, wishing she didn’t have to relive that particular date. They’d had zero chemistry—and to make things worse, she had partied too much at Madison’s the night before and had thrown up on the way home. “No, no second date.”
“See, I told you,” Lacie said triumphantly to Nora.
“Yeah, well, she’s gone on second dates with dorks before,” Nora shot back. “Remember that guy she went to the Homecoming dance with? And what’s-his-name from the track team, Rob, Bob?” She shook with laughter, practically rolling off the couch.
Great, Jane thought. Why do little sisters have to remember everything?
“How come your new boyfriend isn’t on the show?” Nora asked. “Braden?”
Jane managed to fudge an explanation about Braden being too busy (and to add that Braden was not her new boyfriend) because she didn’t feel like explaining that Braden had steadfastly refused to sign a release to be filmed. And as far as Trevor was concerned, if someone couldn’t be filmed, that person didn’t exist. Sometimes Jane would mention Braden while filming, but they would never use any of that footage.
On the floor nearby was the carnage from this morning’s present-opening frenzy: wads of brightly colored wrapping paper, ribbons and bows, empty boxes, and stray gifts. Across the room, the eight-foot-tall tree looked as beautiful and Christmassy as always, decorated with family ornaments. She especially loved seeing the angel she’d made in second grade, out of white felt and cotton balls, hanging in its coveted spot on a high-up branch.
Still…Christmas felt different this year. Lacie and Nora had been their usual giddy selves this morning, ripping open presents and screaming about their new cell phones, iPods, Sephora gift certificates, and the rest of it. Their parents had tried to put on their best happy faces—her mother oohing and aahing over the diamond earrings from her father, her father modeling the goofy apron from Nora that said, DANGER: DAD GRILLING ON BARBECUE. But Jane had caught the two of them sneaking glances at her, looking stressed and worried. And disappointed. That was the hardest part, the disappointment. Jane had let her parents down by cheating on her boyfriend and causing a national media scandal.
Lacie hit Fast-forward, then Play. Gaby appeared on the screen, answering phones at Ruby Slipper, the PR firm where she worked.
“Okay, so what about your friend Gaby?” Lacie said. “She seems nice, but is she really that dumb?”
“Like that episode where she microwaved her True Religion jeans because the dryer was broken? Did the show tell her to do that, to make people laugh?” Nora asked.
“Gaby’s really sweet,” Jane said vaguely. “Hey, you guys wanna watch a movie or something?”
“Movie?” Lacie burst out. “Are you crazy? We have more episodes to watch! And we have soooo many questions to ask you!”
“Alanah and Ainsley might come over later, ’cause they wanna talk to you about the show,” Nora added. She picked a piece of popcorn out of her purple-tinted braces. “Oh, and they want Jesse Edwards’s autograph. You can get that for them, right?”
Lacie craned her head to glare at her little sister, her hazel eyes blazing. “Nora! Are you slow or what?”
“Lacie, be nice!”
Jane glanced up and saw her mother standing in the doorway. Maryanne Roberts frowned sternly at Lacie, who pulled her long blond hair over her face and mumbled, “Sorry,” under her breath.
Maryanne was wearing a salmon-colored silk robe, Jane’s Christmas present to her, as well as a pair of fuzzy pink slippers from Lacie. She set a tray of steaming mugs on the coffee table. “Hot chocolate,” she announced to her daughters. “What are you watching?”
“L.A. Candy, what else?” Nora replied. She pointed to the screen. “Hey! Ha! That’s when Jane gets drunk at that club and flirts with that Australian guy!”
“Austrian,” Lacie corrected her.
“I did not get drunk!” Jane scoffed. Did Nora seriously have to say that in front of their mom?
“Okay, girls, enough,” Maryanne snapped. “Jane could probably use a break from all this stuff. Why don’t we watch one of the twenty thousand DVDs Santa brought you for Christmas?”
“Santa, right.” Nora rolled her golden brown eyes.
“Good idea,” Jane said quickly. “I’m gonna change into my jammies first. Back in a sec.”
Her mom was right—she did need a break from all this stuff. Five days in Cabo hadn’t done the trick, after all. Seeing her family was a lot harder than she thought it would be. Not to mention seeing them watch the show.
She hadn’t had much time to herself since driving up to Santa Barbara in the middle of the night two nights ago. Her parents had been so happy and relieved to see her, but they had a lot of questions: Was she okay? Where did she disappear to? Had any reporters followed her from L.A.? Later, after dinner (their family had a tradition of making a Swedish feast together on Christmas Eve, because her mom was half Swedish), her dad had called her aside and asked her if she was having second thoughts about being on the show. Jane hadn’t had a good answer. All she’d managed was, “I don’t know, Dad. Maybe?”
Which was the truth.
The second Jane got to her bedroom, she closed the door and flopped down on the bed, which she’d forgotten to make this morning. The breeze through the open window was pleasantly cool and carried with it the sounds of the surf outside. Her cell was on her nightstand, with a full mailbox. She used to love her phone; now she hated it. Over the last couple of days, she’d somehow managed to listen to all thirty-one messages that had accumulated during her time in Cabo, as well as a few more that she had received since then. They were basically variations on the same theme: her parents, Trevor, Fiona, Sc
ar, and others asking her where she was and if she was okay and could she please call them immediately? There had been some messages from Diego among the bunch, saying he was so, so, so sorry that he hadn’t known about the photos of Jane and Braden being leaked to the magazine until it was too late. D worked as Veronica Bliss’s assistant at Gossip, and from the sound of it, she wasn’t a very nice boss. Or, Jane could now attest, a very nice person.
Reporters had called, too, offering her the chance to tell her side of the story. Yeah, right. Likely they just wanted to trick her into saying too much about Jesse and/ or Braden, then twisting her words and printing more crazy headlines.
In addition to her daily “where/how are you” messages, Scar left a few confusing ones about Madison. Jane remembered the note Scar had left at their apartment, saying, I have to talk to you about Madison ASAP. What was that about, anyway? Jane figured she would find out soon enough. She planned to return to L.A. the day after tomorrow. Maybe Scar would be back from Aspen by then, and they could talk in person? They were long overdue for a heart-to-heart.
There were no messages from Jesse. Or Braden. None. Jane had checked and double-checked, and bitten back her disappointment each time. Why hadn’t they tried to contact her? On the other hand, why was she so surprised?
She wasn’t sure how she felt about either guy these days. She missed Jesse, missed the way things were before everything fell apart. But she couldn’t deny that she was also attracted to Braden.
Not that she was in a position to choose one or the other. Jesse was likely never going to speak to her again. And Braden’s silence spoke volumes. He was a low-key person who valued his privacy. Why would he want to be friends with—much less date—a publicity magnet like her, especially after what had happened?