Starlit: A Novel

by Lisa Rinna

It didn’t help that Calvin’s member was undersized to begin with. To make matters worse, no matter how much sucking and pumping she’d done, he’d stayed soft for the first five minutes she’d worked on him. She presumed it had to do with the fact that he was overworked, overweight, and over fifty, but to give him the benefit of the doubt, she was willing to buy into his excuse that he was devastated over losing the Best Director Oscar yet again. But, hey, everyone knew he was the long shot, right? So it had to be something else. One thing Susie knew for sure, from experience: it certainly wasn’t her technique.

  She always carried Vitamin V in her purse, but somehow, knowing the dude had popped a baby blue made it seem like cheating, so she hated to dole them out. In this case, there wasn’t enough time, anyway. They were only a few minutes from their destination, and they’d be laughingstocks if he walked into the party with a tent in his pants. Well, if all else failed, she’d put a Mentos in her mouth. That always did the trick.

  Luckily, it was soon evident that wasn’t necessary, because by the time they turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard, she had her validation: he was stiff and stoked. Thank God.

  She could tell he was close to coming, too, because he’d finally shut up about all the changes he’d made to the latest draft of M*A*S*H*U*P, such as moving the story locale to Iraq and making Corporal Klinger a full-blown Don’t Ask Don’t Tell tranny. As she swallowed and smiled, he gasped. “I’m going to have to give Hot Lips more scenes! A helluva lot more scenes.”

  “And lots of close-ups. Right, big boy?” She pressed her palm hard against his pants as she zipped him up slowly.

  “Yeah … yeah! Whatever!” Calvin groaned so loudly the limo driver glanced in the rearview mirror. Susie caught his eye and gave him a wink. Too bad for him, she thought. Had Calvin not folded, she would have slipped the driver a note suggesting he swing by her place after he dropped off Calvin at home later that evening. But now that Calvin was committed, she’d certainly be going home with him. Tonight and every night until shooting began.

  With her mission accomplished, she made a mental note to have her agent, Josh Gold, call him in the morning to finalize negotiations.

  Susie shook her head sadly, thinking about how she was going to be spending her nights leading up to the shoot. Why couldn’t Calvin have been better endowed? Oh, well. Once they started production, she’d find some willing playmates on the set.

  Here’s hoping my costars are straight, she thought. The male ones, anyway.

  She leaned back, satisfied. There was certainly an advantage to swinging both ways.

  Susie was still touching up her lipstick when they pulled up in front of the Sunset Tower. As soon as the limo came to a complete stop, a car crashed into them from behind, tossing her onto the floor of the car, Calvin on top of her. They could hear people screaming outside as they both scrambled onto the backseat, but neither of them realized that Calvin’s shoe was wrapped in the train of her Versace gown until they heard the loud rip.

  “Son of a bitch!” she cursed, but he was laughing, to the point where she thought he’d bust a gut. She couldn’t understand why. Calvin was just about to tell her when the back door flew open on her side.

  “I knew it! You bitch! I couldn’t believe it when I saw you on the TV sitting beside this old asshole at the freakin’ Oscars!” Jared Connolly didn’t wait for Susie to reply before lunging over her toward Calvin.

  Susie sighed in disgust. Like Jared, many of her other lovers got upset when she walked out on them. Sure, it hurt, but they eventually manned up and moved on. At only twenty-three, Jared had been her youngest conquest, at least since she’d turned thirty-five (and that was in real years, not the age she claimed to be in public). Sure, she’d had fun with him. Heck, he’d had more staying power than any other manboy she’d known—and that was saying a lot, considering her cougar status among Hollywood’s young community of stud-pup actors. But two weeks ago, she’d set her sights on M*A*S*H*U*P and Calvin, and she hadn’t returned Jared’s calls since. That was life; business trumped pleasure. Good-bye, Eveready; hello, sore jaw.

  Jared had taken her kiss-off particularly badly. Already, she’d had to change her cell number because he called constantly and left heartbroken messages. She’d also beefed up the security at her place in Bel Air because of the many times she’d found him waiting for her outside her gate. She’d even had Jared banned from the set of Dana Point, but he always found a way to sneak onto it anyway, since his show, the teen drama Valley Boys, was also shot on the Royalton lot, in the building next to hers. Clearly, Jared had yet to move on.

  Well, enough was enough. Now that she had a role in M*A*S*H*U*P, she wasn’t going to let Jared ruin it for her. Before he could hit Calvin, she grabbed hold of her young conquest’s balls and twisted them—hard.

  He was screaming in pain as the Sunset Tower security goons grabbed him from behind and lugged him back out of the car. As the photographers’ cameras flashed furiously, it dawned on her: This is the Oscar incident everyone will be talking about tomorrow.

  Susie fashioned her face into a look of shock. Then, chest thrust forward, with one foot angled in front of the other, she began her ascent from the car.

  She was already out the door when Calvin called after her, “Susie, don’t! Your lipstick—honey, you look like a clown!”

  Chapter 3

  TALLY HAD ALREADY unloaded almost half her tray of champagne before she even made it to where her targets, Sean Penn and Johnny Depp, were standing. By then, they had crushed their cigarette stubs into the gravel and were heading inside. They barely glanced at Tally as each grabbed a flute of bubbly from the tray.

  She was disappointed, but then she noticed that Johnny had left something behind: his invitation to the Governors Ball. Apparently, he had folded it so that it would fit in his jacket pocket, and when he’d pulled out his silver cigarette case (which, she’d read somewhere, had once belonged to Hunter Thompson), it had fallen out. She watched as the program flittered around in the brisk evening breeze for a few moments before a gust picked it up and blew it under the tall box hedge flanking the twenty-foot stainless-steel letters that spelled out the words VANITY FAIR. Although the heat lamps were on, the light wind made it feel chilly out, and everyone else began meandering back inside, too.

  Perfect, she thought. I can retrieve it without anyone seeing me.

  Tally put down her tray on a nearby table and crouched by the hedge. With one hand, she held herself steady as she probed the ground behind the shrub closest to her. She came up empty.

  Damn it.

  Figuring no one was around to see her, she got down on her hands and knees and crawled behind the hedge as far as she could, grasping frantically around the roots of the bushes, until she found what she was looking for.

  Bingo.

  She couldn’t wait to add it to her other treasures. Maybe someday, when she, too, was famous and other celebrities would clamor for invitations to her dinner parties, she’d invite everyone who’d contributed to her scrapbook over and show them her collection, and they’d all have a good laugh as they reminisced about that night at the Oscar after party, and—

  “Having fun?”

  A man’s voice interrupted her daydream. Tally froze, almost afraid to look up, figuring she was sure to get canned for acting like such an idiot.

  Calm down! Just calm down. She tried to think of a way to explain herself. Finally, it came to her: Act natural.

  She took a deep breath, set her face into a demure smile, and stood up.

  She recognized the man behind the voice immediately as she came face-to-face with the sloe-eyed, chiseled-chinned Dr. Sam Jeffries from her favorite primetime medical drama, Intensive Care—otherwise known as Gabriel McNamara. He was taller than he seemed on television. And blonder. And even more adorable.

  When she’d first walked onto the deck, he’d been sitting by himself at one of the tables in the back corner of the garden. She’d just presumed he’d gone in, like t
he others, and because it was dark except for the twinkling white lights strung along the balcony, she hadn’t seen him approaching as she’d pursued the fallen invitation.

  Now Gabriel’s slate-gray eyes moved down her body, slowly, from head to toe. If he’d had X-ray vision—and his penetrating gaze made it feel as if that might be possible—he’d have seen that her heart was racing at a million beats per minute.

  He took her hand in his own, turning it palm up and revealing the engraved card. “Ah, so what do we have here?”

  Tally tried to relax, but she was shaking like a leaf at his touch. “It’s just a piece of paper.”

  “Man, the management in this place has gotten a lot stricter since I worked here. They actually make you crawl around on the ground and pick up litter?”

  “What? Wait … you worked here? But—but you’re Gabriel McNamara!”

  “Shhh. I don’t need the tabloids getting hold of that one.” He put his finger to his lips. “So, you know my name, but I didn’t catch yours.”

  “Me? Oh.” Gabriel McNamara wants to know my name! Tally couldn’t believe it. “It’s Tally. Jones.” She stuck out her trembling hand for him to shake.

  “Nice to meet you, Tally Jones.” He held on to her hand for a moment longer than he could have, as if he didn’t want to let go. A warm tingle went up her spine.

  Finally, he pointed back to where he’d been sitting. “Hey, I saw a trash can over there, if you want to dump that.”

  Reluctantly, she came out of her trance. “Oh! Um, no, that’s OK. I have this.” Sheepishly, she pulled out one of the plastic baggies she carried in her pockets just in case she came across a celebrity souvenir. Later, she’d tag it with a waterproof Sharpie, scribbling the date, location, and name of the donor.

  “Wait …” He started laughing. “Are you planning on selling that invitation on eBay or something?”

  “No!” she answered, slightly embarrassed. “What do you take me for, some kind of creep?”

  “Well, you do have to admit it’s kind of strange to keep a random scrap of paper.”

  Strange. Gabriel McNamara just called me strange. Before she could help it, one tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another. She felt like a total loser.

  But she wasn’t a loser. She was a girl with a lot of talent and a lot of persistence.

  Regaining her composure, she looked up at him. “Strange? Well, I don’t think it’s strange to keep an invitation to the Governors Ball. It’s a momentous event that, as an actress, one day I would love to attend. Which is why I’m keeping this. You know, as a memento. Maybe you just think it’s strange because you take all of this for granted.”

  There! She’d told him off.

  Or, more accurately, turned him on. The kiss he gave her felt like an electrical charge running through her veins. Her body surged forward, as if compelled by some stronger force, to satisfy some unquenchable desire.

  Slowly, he let go of her, and she remembered to breathe again.

  “Consider that a memento. You know, something to remember me by, until we run into each other again. If your acting is as good as your kissing, I’m sure we will.”

  With the grace of a big cat, he strolled back inside the restaurant. Tally stared after him, then down at the Governors Ball invitation. Something told her that she’d remember the kiss long after the thrill of her souvenirs had worn off.

  Looking back at the doorway where Gabriel had reentered the party, she barely noticed the bearded man she’d served earlier shake his head sadly before going inside.

  Chapter 4

  EVEN AS BONE-TIRED as Tally was the day after the Vanity Fair party, she knew she couldn’t skip out on her acting class that night. Her teacher, the renowned drama coach Randall Littlefield, had many hard and fast rules, and rule number one was that a student could never, ever miss a class, even once. That meant banishment, without exception.

  Another rule was that your performance had to be authentic. Otherwise, you were a phony, and Randall let you know it, in no uncertain terms—and those terms usually left you in tears, if not ready to forget your dream of being an actor altogether.

  Because of their teacher’s illustrious reputation in the industry, Tally, Mandy, Sadie, and Randall’s other students sucked it up and stuck it out, no matter what. The serious ones, anyway. After all, rumor had it that he had once made David Duchovny cry during scene study. That story always ended with “And yet he persevered, and look where he is today!” Who could argue with that?

  So, where the heck is Sadie? Tally wondered, as she glanced at the door for what felt like the hundredth time.

  The two of them were to do a scene together that night. It was a well-known Meisner improv, in which Tally was to show up at Sadie’s door and proclaim that she had cancer. They had worked hard on it all week, realizing that it might just be the best bit of theater they’d done all year. Only a wreck would keep her from showing tonight, thought Tally.

  Already, Randall had announced that the class should move through their usual warm-up exercises. The students were all barefoot—which, according to Randall, kept you grounded to the earth as well as to your emotions—and positioned in a circle around their teacher as they recited a series of tongue twisters in rapid succession.

  Obviously, too rapidly for Mandy. Somewhere between “Rubber baby buggy bumpers” and “Freshly fried fresh flesh,” she leaned over to Tally and muttered, “It sounds like an insane asylum in here! You know, he does this just to run out the clock.”

  Tally nodded but kept her lips moving. She, too, had always suspected this was the case and wished they could skip the tongue twisters as well as the physical warm-up, which, had it taken place at a party, would have been called a group grope. One hundred dollars per lesson was a heck of a lot of money to spend for the privilege of babbling “mamala-mamala-papala-papala” over and over, week in and week out, and occasionally getting eviscerated by Randall for doing it wrong.

  Just thinking about how much money she’d already spent this year, moving from Randall’s beginner workshops to the intermediate class, made Tally lose her place in the warm-up, and she groaned out loud.

  “Stop, stop!” Randall commanded, and glared over at her. “Tally, you’ve taken the whole class off its rhythm. Perhaps you should do ‘Get Grandma’ by yourself. Twenty times, please.”

  Great. Tally took a deep breath. “Get Grandma great Greek grapes. Get Grandma great Greek grapes. Get Grandma great Greek grapes—”

  Unsatisfied, Randall interrupted her. “Your elocution! Make it flow trippingly off the tongue.”

  Tally nodded and doubled her effort to speak clearly.

  Around her fourteenth “Get Grandma,” she saw Sadie inching her way toward the circle from stage right. To cover for her, Tally moved in closer to Randall and, with all the precision she could muster, recited the phrase again with gusto, trying to hold Randall’s attention.

  Too late. Randall had seen Sadie, too. “You! Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here after class has started? If this isn’t important to you, don’t show up at all, because you are wasting space in my class.”

  Sadie blushed. “I’m so, so sorry, Randall! Traffic—”

  “You bore me. Just shut up and sit down there.” Randall pointed toward the theater seats, in the dark abyss beyond the stage. “I’m sure you bore your classmates, too. So that you don’t waste any more of their time or mine, you’ll perform last. OK, first up, someone who won’t disappoint me. Sadly, in this class, there are only a few of you … Erik, darling, do me proud. God, I love watching you in profile! What was your assignment? Jerry in Betrayal? Oh, I know you’ll just be wonderful. Go for it—”

  The air reeked of anxiety as everyone scrambled to take a seat in the audience. Tally wondered which one of them would be the first to be sacrificed on the altar of Randall’s razor-sharp tongue and hoped he wouldn’t save all of his venom for Sadie just out of spite.

  Fortunately for Sadie, but u
nfortunately for everyone else, Randall tore apart every performance, one by one. Glancing over, Tally noticed that Mandy had chewed her nails down to the quick. Randall’s tirades reached their peak as one trembling student who’d had the audacity to take on The Vagina Monologues struggled through her turn onstage. “Atrocious! I know Eve Ensler. Eve Ensler is a friend of mine. And you, Mia Antonelli, are no Eve Ensler! This has given me a headache. All right, students, take a five-minute break.”

  As a group of traumatized aspiring actors stumbled out the door to smoke, Tally nudged Sadie. “So, why were you so late to class?”

  Sadie’s face lit up. “Because I got a job. Full-time, and not a waitressing gig, either!”

  That distracted Mandy. “Where? At the Sunset Tower?”

  “No …” Sadie drew the word out, trying to build the suspense.

  After worrying about when Sadie was going to show up for class and sitting through Randall’s rants, Tally was already on her last nerve. “Sadie, if you don’t just tell us what the heck you’re talking about, I’m going to kill you!”

  “OK.” Sadie relented. “You remember how Jeff asked me to stay late and close, right? Well, I was there till, like, five in the morning, cleaning up around the booths, and guess what I found stashed under one?”

  It was Mandy’s turn to prod her. “We give up. Jack Nicholson?”

  “No, something better.” Sadie paused for dramatic effect. “Josh Gold’s iPhone!”

  Mandy squeaked. Of course, she and Tally knew who Josh was.

  Just as Randall turned around to see who would dare make such a sound in his classroom, all three girls ducked below the row in front of them. Tally felt as if Randall’s eyes were burning a hole through her. When she felt the coast was clear, she whispered, “So—what did you do with it?”

  “I took it to Jeff, and he was so appreciative of my discretion that he actually let me return it to Josh.”

  “Omigod! You actually walked into ICA?” Mandy asked excitedly.

  “Yes!” Sadie was practically glowing. “How many times have I passed that big glass office tower on Wilshire and prayed Josh Gold would step outside, right that very moment, and discover me? Well, he did.”