“Have you ever been on TV before, Sophia?” Trevor asked her.
Sophia shrugged, which Trevor took to mean no.
“Well, it’s not a big deal. It’s reality, so you just have to be yourself.”
Sophia began playing with her bottom lip—was that a nervous habit, or a gesture she used to get a guy’s attention?—then smirked at Madison again. “Be myself. Yeah, that’s what Madison does. I’m sure I can do it, too.”
Madison looked away.
Definitely intriguing, Trevor thought.
Chapter 16
Or Maybe You’re Just Being Delusional, as Usual
“And . . . that is a wrap! You are très, très belle, ma chérie! I could take pictures of you forever!”
Scarlett smiled politely at the Maxim photographer, an overly energetic French guy named Maurice, as she rose up from the round, silk-comforter-covered bed. The view out the window of their hotel suite was stunning, although Scarlett was so exhausted from the nearly day-long shoot that she could barely appreciate it.
One of the nameless wardrobe assistants handed Scarlett a terry-cloth robe, which she slipped on over her “outfit”: black lace La Perla lingerie and nude lace-up stilettos. Actually, this was one of many outfits she’d worn over the course of the shoot. First, they had shot her by the hotel pool in various bikinis (the stylist had let her pick her favorites from a rack of over fifty, all noticeably lacking in fabric on the back side) and a shocking amount of body oil. The second shot had taken place in one of the hotel’s lounges, with Scarlett sitting at the bar . . . standing behind the bar making drinks . . . then actually stretched out on the bar. (She had insisted that they clean it, twice. She had been to enough bars to know that they weren’t the most sanitary of places.)
Their last location had been the suite, rented for the day by Maxim. Scarlett had overheard her hairstylist saying to one of the assistants that the five-thousand-a-night room was often occupied by newly single male celebs needing a temporary residence. The fact that it was just upstairs from a club that was frequented by hot girls who liked male celebs, single or not, was a bonus. The hairstylist had added that one of her clients had moved in during a nasty divorce and liked it so much he stayed for nearly a year. (Scarlett hoped it was at a discount.)
When they first got up to the suite, the Maxim art director had explained to Scarlett that they wanted two shots there: one on the bed and one in the glass shower with the door all steamed up. Bed? Glass shower?
Scarlett had immediately turned to the PopTV publicist, Melissa, who had not said anything to her before about beds or showers; in fact, when Melissa originally told Scarlett about the Maxim gig, she said something about a “classy shoot” that showed off Scarlett’s “natural beauty,” and how it was all a “great opportunity” to get Scarlett “out there.”
Okay, so maybe Scarlett had promised to have a better attitude about PopTV and L.A. Candy. But she wasn’t an idiot, and she wished everyone would stop treating her like one. There was nothing “classy” about posing on a bed or in the shower. (The shower photo, “the most important one of the day” according to the Maxim art director, was going to stretch across the first two pages of the article with HOT CANDY or some similar title imposed on the steamed-up glass.) And there was nothing “natural” about two inches of padding in one’s bra cups. Obviously, PopTV had wanted the August cover for Scarlett because it was going to increase their show’s male viewership, and most guys weren’t too interested in classy or natural.
Scarlett had eventually agreed to the bed shot but not the shower shot. Aside from Liam and the rubber ducky next to her tub, no one was gonna see her like that, soaping up. Melissa, Maurice, the Maxim art director, the stylist, and a few others from the magazine on set gathered around to discuss what to do. Thirty minutes, four phone calls, and one bagel (snatched from Scarlett’s hand by Melissa: “Eat after the shoot”) later, the shower shot was killed.
And now the bed shot was done. Finally. Scarlett said a hasty good-bye to everyone, thanked Maurice, and went to change. She was cooking dinner for Liam tonight, and she couldn’t wait. Not the cooking-dinner part—her culinary skills had not magically improved since she and Jane had Caleb and Naveen over last week—but the Liam part. She hadn’t seen him in days, due to their busy schedules, and she missed him big-time.
Unfortunately, she was also long overdue to have a conversation with him about . . . well, recent events. She wasn’t looking forward to that part of the evening.
On her way out of the hotel, she saw a familiar figure sitting in the lobby, scrolling through her phone. A familiar, unwelcome figure. Should she try to sneak by and avoid a confrontation, or . . .
“Scarlett? What are you doing here?”
Scarlett sighed. No escape. “Hey, Madison. So nice to see you, too. I could ask you the same thing.”
“I have a meeting. Maxim is doing a shoot here today, and it was the only time I had in my schedule. I’m talking to one of the editors about doing the August cover,” Madison said smugly.
“Oh, really? That’s funny, because I just finished the shoot . . . for the August cover.”
Madison’s eyes blazed. “What? What are you talking about? The girl from the PopTV press department definitely said August.”
“Maybe she got it wrong,” Scarlett suggested. Or maybe you’re just being delusional, as usual, she thought.
“Look, this is my cover, and you’re trying to steal it from me!” Madison said angrily.
A young woman standing nearby was looking at them with a little too much interest. That’s all Scarlett needed, for some eavesdropping stranger to call the tabloids with a hot tip about the two of them arguing over the stupid August cover.
Scarlett fake-smiled, shifting gears. “I’m soooo late for a dinner date,” she told Madison apologetically. “I’ll catch you later, okay? Good luck with your meeting!”
With that, Scarlett turned and rushed out the door, trying not to laugh at the stunned expression on Madison’s face, and savored her tiny victory.
“Hey, these fish tacos are great! I thought you said you didn’t know how to cook.” Liam was seated next to Scarlett at her apartment, scarfing down the tacos she had just made.
“I don’t. This is all I know how to make. And the main ingredient was in the freezer twenty minutes ago,” Scarlett said, secretly pleased.
Liam grinned and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you, too. I wish the semester was over already, and we could spend more time together.”
“That’s, like, in a month, right?” Liam said, taking another bite of his taco.
“Yeah, I’m counting the seconds.”
“I’m gonna teach you how to wakeboard this summer.”
“Wrong, Ferguson! I’m gonna teach you how to wakeboard this summer.”
Liam laughed, then kissed her again, this time on the lips. Scarlett twined her fingers through his long, light brown wavy hair, then pulled him closer. She had wanted to prepare him a special dinner, complete with candles, wine, and romantic music in the background. It was a little cheesy for her taste, but she wanted to make up for being so MIA lately. (Jane was out with Caleb, so they had the place to themselves.) And to put him in a relaxed, happy mood before she had The Talk with him about Naveen.
She had been avoiding the issue for a while, and she really couldn’t put it off any longer. For one thing, she knew that the episode featuring the Caleb-Naveen dinner party (as well as Jane and Caleb’s official “first date” at some fancy Italian restaurant) was airing next week. After it aired, the blogs would be buzzing with insane headlines like: THE NEW BOYS OF L.A. CANDY and SCARLETT’S NEW MAN?
But more important, one of the big tabloids had hit the stands this morning with a trashy piece about Scarlett and Naveen filming together, going on dinner dates, and becoming an item—compliments of a “source close to Scarlett.” WTF? Where did reporters get this crap? L
iam apparently hadn’t seen the article yet, judging from his pleasant mood tonight. But she couldn’t exactly keep him away from magazine stands, bookstores, grocery store aisles, and the internet.
“Soooo.” Scarlett sat back in her chair and began fiddling with her napkin. Just get it over with, she told herself. “You remember those two guys Janie and I know from high school? Caleb and Naveen?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve never met them. But I saw their pictures in a magazine at my dentist’s office, remember?” Liam said wryly.
“Um, right.” Add “dentist’s offices” to the list, Scarlett thought. “Well, I wanted to tell you . . . that is . . . Trevor kind of made us invite them over for dinner last week,” Scarlett blurted out.
Liam frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Trevor said he wants us to hang out on camera as a foursome because there needs to be guys on the show,” Scarlett babbled on. “He said it’s not good for ratings that Jane isn’t dating anybody, and I’m dating you, except you can’t be on the show, so as far as the public is concerned, I’m not dating anybody, either. Except now Janie is dating Caleb.” She didn’t stop to voice her opinion on the subject, namely, that she wasn’t thrilled, and she hoped her best friend wasn’t going to get hurt—again. “That’s going to be on the next episode. And so is the dinner party with the four of us. And I just wanted to let you know that dinner party was totally innocent . . . well, except when Jane and Caleb started making out in the kitchen. But Naveen and I are friends from a long time ago, and you know that Trevor is always looking for a story. It’s just, you never know how Trevor’s gonna edit stuff, right? And then this crazy article came out today, but it’s all made up, and—”
“Wait, what?” Liam put his fork down and pushed his plate away. “What article?”
“One of the tabloids lied and said Naveen and I hooked up,” Scarlett explained. Was it her imagination, or was she talking really, really fast? “Which we never did! I mean, not never, because we did kind of have a thing in high school. But it was high school, and it only happened once. Now we’re just friends. I mean, we’re barely friends. We’re only hanging out because Trevor is making us.” She leaned closer and gazed into Liam’s blue eyes. “You understand, right? This is my job, and it’s not like I’m choosing to hang out with these guys.”
She stopped and took a deep breath, waiting for Liam to nod sympathetically and tell her that he understood completely. But he was looking at her with a weird, tense expression and not saying a word.
“What? Say something. You’re not mad at me, are you?” Scarlett said.
Liam sighed. “No, I’m not mad at you, Scarlett. But you should have told me this stuff before. And yeah, I get that this is your job. But do you have to pretend you’re dating this guy for the show?”
“I’m not! Trevor just wants us to hang out, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, what does that mean, ‘hang out’? What does Trevor mean by that?”
“I have no idea what goes on in Trevor’s mind. Well, maybe I do, but I’d rather not think about it. The point is . . . I’m not Trevor’s puppet. He can’t make me do stuff I don’t want to do. And I absolutely, positively don’t want to even pretend to date Naveen. I want to date you. I am dating you.”
Liam regarded her silently.
Scarlett grabbed his hand. “In a perverse, mixed-up kind of way, maybe it’s a good thing that Trevor’s into his make-believe head games about me and Naveen. Maybe this way, he won’t give me a hard time about dating you.”
“He’s giving you a hard time about that? Still?”
Scarlett shrugged. “He’s not happy that I’m dating someone who can’t be filmed. It was the same thing with Jane and Braden. Not that they were dating, exactly. But you know what I mean.”
“I guess? God, this show is really messed up.”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s a job. A good job with serious money. And I’m lucky to have it.” When Liam gave her a strange look, Scarlett quickly added, “I wasn’t saying that because you don’t have a . . . I mean, I need the money to pay for tuition so I don’t have to freeload off my parents. And someday, after I graduate, I’ll have a way better job where I won’t feel like I’m living in a fish bowl. I mean, you know this is totally twisted, right? There’s my real life, like tonight. Then there’s my other life, in front of the cameras. And then there’s my third life, after Trevor’s done editing my scenes and they air on TV.”
Liam cracked a smile. “Yeah, that’s twisted, all right.”
Scarlett leaned over and hugged him. Liam hugged her back. Good. He was okay. Things were going to be okay between them.
“I’m gonna change the music. What is this? You getting sappy on me?” Liam said after a moment, extricating himself from their hug and walking over to the CD player. He pulled a CD case off the shelf and studied it. Scarlett could tell that the subject of Naveen and Trevor and the rest of it was closed. Which was fine with her. “Hey, we’re still on for this Saturday and Sunday, right? For your birthday surprise?”
“Yes, we are, sir,” Scarlett said, digging into another taco. “What are we doing? Can you give me a tiny hint?”
“It’s going to be amazing. Other than that, you’re not getting a single hint, so don’t even try.” Liam pulled out a cream envelope peeking out from between two CDs. “What’s this?”
“NOOOO!” Scarlett leapt to her feet and grabbed the envelope out of Liam’s hands. He looked totally confused. “It’s . . . um . . . it’s a surprise I have for you! So you can’t look, okay?”
“O-kay.” Liam cocked his head. “What kind of surprise? My birthday’s not till September, you know?”
“It’s not a birthday surprise. It’s a different kind of surprise. Just be patient, please? I promise I’ll tell you soon.”
“You’d better.” Liam slid his arms around her waist and hugged her again. Scarlett crammed the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans as she nestled in closer, hugging him back. She couldn’t believe he had come this close to seeing the return address on the envelope. She had hidden it on the CD shelf yesterday, quickly and carelessly (obviously), because it was on the coffee table and Jane had almost picked it up.
It was Scarlett’s first acceptance letter, from Columbia University in New York City. She had danced a little victory dance around the apartment when she read it. Then grown very subdued when she realized that she had a choice now. She could leave USC this fall if she wanted to.
The problem was, she didn’t want to leave Liam. Or Jane.
What was she going to do?
Chapter 17
The Perfect Guy
As Jane drove out of the underground parking garage of her apartment building on Tuesday morning, she spotted four—no, five—cars pulling away from the curb. Paparazzi. The tinted windows and absence of plates were telltale signs, not to mention that these same five cars had been following her almost every day the past few weeks. She thought one of them might be the creep that had bumped her car from behind when she was on her way to meet up with Braden.
It was so odd . . . these men, whose names she didn’t even know, followed her all day long. (And presumably the other L.A. Candy girls, too. Scarlett had been complaining bitterly about the ones tailing her around town.) They “accompanied” Jane when she went to work, dropped off her dry cleaning, shopped for groceries at Whole Foods—and of course, when she filmed. There seemed to be more and more of them at the PopTV shoots lately, particularly the outdoor shoots. Dana and Trevor were not happy about this for a couple of important reasons. First, the paparazzi often wandered into the frame and scenes had to be reshot. The PopTV crew got into frequent, sometimes violent arguments with the paps about this, and just last week, the network had to replace several expensive digital cameras that had been broken during a tussle in order to avoid a lawsuit. Second, the photos were sold to the tabloids, and they documented the girls’ activities, outfits, and so forth in a slightly different, more accurate way th
an the show. Whereas Trevor took liberties with editing—say, patching together two scenes from a month apart into one “seamless” scene that pretended to take place on the same day—the gossip rags could print images of these events as they really happened. Magazines were getting more savvy about this sort of thing, as was the public. Which made Trevor and the other network execs extremely tense.
Jane continued driving down the street, stopped at the stop sign, and made a left. She watched in the rearview mirror as each of the five cars turned left behind her. Three of them didn’t even bother to heed the stop sign. She was on her way to film a quick scene at a café in West Hollywood with Hannah, after which she had an eleven o’clock meeting at the office with Fiona (off camera), after which she had a lunch date with Caleb in Beverly Hills (on camera). She wasn’t thrilled with the idea of showing up at the café shoot with a party of five—or more, since sometimes, there was more than one pap per car, or alternatively, once she showed up at a location with a group of them in tow, more would magically show up, easily doubling or tripling their number. Really, it was insane.
A few minutes later, Jane reached Sunset Boulevard. Since the incident en route to Braden’s in late March, she had gotten savvier. She had learned through experience that making a bunch of quick turns didn’t lose them; it simply made them drive more recklessly and ignore obstacles like red lights and pedestrians. She had also grown to appreciate stop-and-go traffic, especially on Sunset at this time of day. If she switched lanes at just the right moment, she could usually split herself off from a car or two that might be stuck in a slow line of vehicles. And if she could manage to get one or more of them in front of her, she could turn off onto a side street that they had already passed.
Using these methods, Jane managed to whittle down her “entourage” to one SUV by the time she reached the café and parked on the street. Unfortunately, she saw that there was a small group of paparazzi already waiting for her in front of the café. Just beyond them, she saw some PopTV crew members setting up, looking annoyed.