Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
The Mother Road
Chapter One
STROKED
Meghan Quinn
Copyright
Published by Hot-Lanta Publishing
Copyright 2016
Cover design by Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae
Formatting by CP Smith
Cover model: Stuart Reardon
Photo credit: Paul Reitz with Love N. Books
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at
[email protected] This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
www.authormeghanquinn.com
Copyright © 2016 Meghan Quinn
All rights reserved.
Chapter One
**PAISLEY**
“What kind of fresh hell is this?” Finely manicured fingers snap in the air. “Hey, latte mule. Why don’t you haul your marshmallow hooves over here and try delivering me something that didn’t just seep like sewage from the barista’s asshole. And for the love of God, deliver it to me without panting like an out-of-work hippo.” Mocha-colored latte drops to the ground, rudely decorating everyone’s shoes and discoloring the laminate floor of the studio. “Why is it so hard to find competent people in this industry?”
Bellini Chambers.
Daughter of Buddy Chambers, millionaire, well known for getting humped by a pig on television and then suing the production company for “soiling” his reputation. Mind you, he didn’t have much of a reputation to soil to begin with. With the settlement, Buddy invested his money into a line of pizza stores – his business sense is on point, despite being humped by a pig on national television.
These weren’t just any kind of pizza stores. Ever hear of Peyton Manning buying a bunch of Papa John’s pizza shops right before pot was legalized in the state of Colorado? Well, you can say Buddy pulled a Peyton Manning.
Pothead Pizza and dispensary.
Buddy invested all his settlement money into the idea of providing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-type pizza toppings to all stoned potheads in Colorado. What kind of toppings are those? Think of the weirdest combination of food, got it in your head? Now times that by fifty and you have their specials.
Thin Mint and Italian Sausage Pizza
Bugle, Pretzel, and Skittles Pizza
Pumpkin Seeds and Chocolate Covered Kale Chips Pizza – that’s for the healthier potheads.
Oreo, Broccoli, and Doughnut Hole Pizza – that one makes me gag.
Attach a coupon for fifteen percent off a pizza when you purchase from the dispensary and stoned consumers with the munchies, willing to put anything in their THC-filled faces, and you have a million-dollar business.
Buddy now sits in his mansion in Malibu, sipping his PBR because he’s still the same pig-humped man, and rolls around in what I can only imagine is a velour jumpsuit two sizes too small for this rotund stature.
Bellini—his one and only daughter—became famous after the general population found their family to be interesting to watch. Three seasons later, Bellini is the star of the show, waltzing around in her Prada heels, Chanel sunglasses, and carrying her miniature schnauzer around in a purse designed by Hermes, of course.
People love to hate her. Americans tune in to her show every Thursday night just to see what kind of asinine, ignorant, and abhorrent filth will come out of her mouth. I’ve been guilty of partaking in such reality TV corruption.
“Carpenter? Where is the carpenter?” she shouts, looking around the room.
A nervous man walks up to her, his tuchas tucked under and his legs quivering in fear. “Um, Miss Chambers. I’m the set designer not a carpenter.”
“Whatever, Bob Vila.” She rolls her eyes. “What kind of wood did you use to make that bench? Is it oak?”
“The b-bench is a prop, ma’am. We didn’t make it. The studio provided it for the photoshoot today.” The poor set designer is sweating bullets, stumbling over his well-thought-out words.
“I specifically asked for a bench made out of African blackwood.” She points at the bench that would be well received in any park around the country. “Does that look like African blackwood?”
“I . . . I don’t know what African blackwood is, ma’am.”
Bellini sneers as she slowly, very, very slowly, scans the poor set designer up and down. “What kind of carpenter are you if you can’t tell the difference between an oak bench and one that is made from African blackwood? Did you go to a trade school made for squirrely little men who have atrocious social skills and smell like cheese? Was your major in fermenting your own Gouda under your armpits? Because I’ll tell you right now, the pungent dairy smell drifting from your sasquatch underarms is offensive to everyone around us.” She pauses and blows on her nails that were just freshly painted. “Now, if you’re not going to get me the African blackwood bench like I asked, then for the love of all artesian markets selling Gruyère, go serve up some crackers with those underarms of yours and get out of my face.”
She’s the devil incarnate.
I turn to Jonathan and shake my head. “I can’t do this.”
He sighs, puts his clipboard on a table next to us, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Paisley, you know I love you, right?” I nod my head. “Good, because you don’t have a choice, this is it.”
I lean closer and hiss at him. “You have got to be kidding me. This was the only job you could find me?”
“There were plenty of jobs, sweetheart—”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
“Because this was the only one that would actually bring you on board.”
“What?” I shout-whisper. “The only job in this entire industry you could find for me was an assistant to a reality star? How is that even possible? I have three years of production experience, specifically in sound mixing.”
“Yes, and those three years were washed away the minute the incident happened.”
The Incident.
There is always a pivotal turn in everyone’s life that tilts the axis of their world, sending them in a different direction. For some, this moment could be getting a raise, having a baby, finding the love of their life. For other
s, like myself, the moment could be a death spiral, flying out of control into an abyss of solitude where you have one hell of a time trying to claw your way out.
I made one mistake, and it caused the demise of my career, washed away three years of hard work making a name for myself in this industry—two and a half of those being a long-earned internship. Now, not only do I have to start from the ground up, but I have to work around a tarnished image as well.
You’re probably wondering what I did that was so bad I have to take a job as the assistant to the most over-the-top, self-centered human.
It’s simple. I forgot to turn off a microphone.
Yup, you heard that right. I didn’t click one single button. Just one.
Let me enlighten you about this business.
I was working for Good Morning, Malibu at the time, a local morning news station that goes into great detail about the surf report, celebrity parties in the hills, and what tanning lotion is best used for overcast days. Real riveting news, Pulitzer Prize type of stuff.
I was in charge of keeping track of Malibu’s very own Minnie Winston’s microphone. She’s a Botox-injected, leather-skinned, seventy-year-old phenomenon. Her bones screamed seventy, but her face was that of a thirty-year-old. In my opinion, from the way her face didn’t move when she laughed hysterically, she looked like she belonged in a horror flick shining a light on discarded and mutilated Barbie dolls. It was terrifying. Like, she spins her head around on her neck kind of terrifying.
But, weirdly enough, she is a Malibu staple, but she is also a loose cannon.
The Incident happened on a Friday morning. Minnie was in a rare mood that day, pretty sure she didn’t take her Xanax. I was anxious not because of the show, but because my grandpa kept texting me about a Pez dispenser I was bidding on eBay for him. He didn’t know how to work a computer, but texting apparently was right up his alley.
Before I go any further, quick side note: my grandpa means the world to me. I would literally do anything he asked of me. Growing up with the man sleeping in the bedroom next to me, we became best friends, inseparable at times. Other kids on the reservation would bike with their comrades, licking at their ice cream while directing teasing jokes at me. But it hadn’t mattered because my grandpa and I rode like pimps in our souped-up boxcar, taking down a sixty-four-ounce Slurpee with ease while listening to my battery-operated boom box, blasting none other than Queen.
Back to The Incident.
During production, we cut to the weather report just as I received a text from my grandpa asking about the soft-head Mickey Mouse Pez he needed so desperately to add to his ever-growing collection. I glanced at my phone for one second, without turning Minnie’s microphone off. You can see where this is going. She started swearing to her makeup artist about a visible wrinkle by her right eye.
While the poor weatherman was talking about the sunny weather and urging viewers to drink plenty of water in the heat, Minnie was raging about the application of wrinkle cream by using adjectives, nouns, and verbs like fucking, shit, and whore face.
Only one sentence was heard before I turned off her mic, but that was all it took. I was packing my box that afternoon and kissing my career goodbye. Word spread, of course, because the clip went viral, thank you, YouTube and Facebook. Social media was the nail in my career coffin and sent me packing with zero prospects lined up.
In case you were wondering, my grandpa did outbid PleazPassThePez65 in an epic bidding war over Mickey Mouse, so at least someone won that day.
I would like to tell you that during the time of my unemployment I spent time reflecting on my inner self, trying to improve my worth by taking other classes, continuing to educate myself, but that didn’t happen. Instead, I spent hours upon hours binge-watching Netflix while eating my weight in Thin Oreos—thin because I convinced myself they weren’t that bad for my figure.
It wasn’t until Jonathan, my best friend and roommate, came home one night with a girl while I was lying spread eagle on the couch, itching my inner thigh, and enjoying a can of tomato juice did he kick me in the ass and threaten eviction from the apartment we shared. (Technically I knew he wouldn’t throw me out, but I got his point.)
Wanting to get back in the game, I started my running routine again, which was much harder than I remembered—thank you, Oreos—and searched for jobs everywhere. Six months later, I have one option.
“What is the color of those walls?” Bellini shouts to whoever is in earshot. “Is that ceramic sand? I asked for mystical peach. Is this that carpenter’s fault? Doesn’t anyone know Pantone colors around here? The orange hues are too harsh; they will wash me out.” She starts to fan her face. “I can’t do this, someone get my dad.”
In an instant, the crew scatters away from her and starts searching for Buddy Chambers.
Jonathan grabs my hand and squeezes it sympathetically. “You know I would do anything for you, sweetheart. I would stick my neck out for you, and I did. This was the best I could find. It’s this or start spreading your legs over at Sunset Boulevard. And even though I know this isn’t the job you were looking for, the rent is not going to pay itself. I’ve covered you as much as I can.”
“I know.” I nod in agreeance. Taking a deep breath, I watch Bellini continue to snap her fingers at humans, demanding her father’s presence. “My grandpa better cherish that damn Pez dispenser.” I take a deep breath, accepting my fate. “Let’s do this.”
Jonathan beams at me and lets out a long, relieved sigh. “Awesome. This will be great, Pay. Just work with her for a few months, get some experience, and hopefully soon we will be able to scrub your record clean. The producer, Wally Rose, is well known for rotating his crews. If you prove you can handle someone like Bellini Chambers, and all the bullshit that comes with her, there is no doubt in my mind he will look at you seriously for other positions. Use this job as a test. If you do well, consider yourself on your way up in the industry.”
“You really think so?” I would do just about anything to get back in the game, to get behind a mixing board and start assisting with production again.
When I left the Pechanga Reservation in Temecula for college, my family scoffed at me, told me my pipe dreams were just that—pipe dreams. I should stay in the family business, the general store, and work to serve the community. Trying to earn a job in production wasn’t helping anybody, the great parting words from my father. The only person who believed in me was my grandpa. He funded college while I reached for the stars, hence ensuring I won his Pez dispenser. As I said, I would do anything for the man.
Once my family caught wind of The Incident, they made a great attempt to shame me and lure me back to Temecula, but I refused. Thank God for Jonathan; I owed him. Taking this job wasn’t just for me, it was for him. He’s worked just as hard and held my head above water while I tried to find myself. It is time to pay him back.
“I do think so, Pay, but you have to work hard. You up for it?”
I eye Bellini and start pumping myself up. Rich white girl, blonde hair, and bird legs with her own reality show: no problem. I grew up on an Indian reservation in one of the most materialistic parts of the country. I was called moccasin, dreamcatcher, and featherhead by my classmates from kindergarten through high school. If I can handle that kind of torture and abuse, what can this little Twinkie really do to me?
“I am. Thanks for getting me this job, Jonathan. I appreciate it.”
“Anytime, sweets. Now let me introduce you because I have some work to do on Backdoor Barbeque.”
Jonathan worked with Wally Rose on one of his other reality shows, Backdoor Barbeque. It is the reason why he was able to get me this job, but he also assists with other shows where needed. It is a bit of an incestuous pool of employees with all shows falling under Wally Rose’s belt. Right then and there, I tell myself I’m going to take this job seriously no matter what the pixie stick throws at me. I’m determined to begin my climb back up to my dreams, starting with Bellini Chambers.
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Chapter Two
**BELLINI**
It’s so hard being me.
I’m so popular, everyone wants to be me, and do you know what? I don’t blame them? How can I? If I saw such a specimen like myself walking down the streets of Rodeo Drive, I would strive to be just like me as well.
Just look at those cheekbones, smooth and perfectly round, framing the crystal blue of my eyes. I’ve accomplished the absolute ideal symmetry in my eyebrows thanks to the threading goddess at pagoda number nine in the mall. My hair looks like it’s been spun by Rapunzel herself into velvet tendrils of blonde, cascading perfectly to my shoulders. And don’t even ask me where I get it dyed, you dumb bitches, because you can’t find this color in a box. It’s natural.
I’m beautiful. I’m popular. I’m famous.
But most importantly, I’m rich, and what I found out when you’re rich is that you can get anything you want. With one snap of the fingers, you can have three people at your beck and call asking you how they can assist you while they try to stick their head as far as they possibly can up my perfectly bleached asshole.
“Where’s Daddy?” I shout. “How long does it take for a bunch of Cheetos-eating production skanks to find one single man? Hello, he’s the fat, balding one in the Burberry plaid pants!”
Ugh, yes, you heard that right, he wears Burberry plaid pants. He’s known for them now. Once Daddy earned his riches, he decided to make a fashion statement—be a style icon—and since Nick Jonas could pull off the Burberry print, Daddy thought he could too. All my dad’s life decisions are based around the Jonas Brothers, as in his words, they are a proper boy band, one to emulate. Hence the over-the-top karaoke machine in our living room, stocked with songs from the main squeezes in my father’s life. In my opinion, they are a cheaper, yet more attractive version of Hanson.
But like I was saying, it’s so hard being me.
You can’t imagine the amount of pimply faced tweens—boys and girls—that come up to me on a daily basis, asking me how they can obtain the kind of perfection I exude. Do you know what I tell them? I pat their little chunky, pockmarked cheeks and say . . . you can’t.