Compared to Jamie Lee, she practically oozed sophistication.
I typed my username and password into the site and paid my usage fee. In return, I was shuttled to a page with a non-watermarked, high-res version of the photo. I quickly downloaded it and did a little cropping to get in close on her face, then sent the photo off to Max.
That task done, I dug into Felix’s to-do’s. An hour later, I finally had them whittled down to an impressive spread for tomorrow’s paper. I did one last email check before leaving, scanning for any time-sensitive tips on celebrity happenings that night. One party in the hills, attended by all the usual suspects. Nothing really newsworthy there. A rumor that Courtney Cox was sporting a baby bump, which I filed away to check up on later. If it were true, I’d catch her at the farmer’s market that Sunday. And one reported sighting of Joan Rivers’ latest nose. Though, honestly, how you could tell one version from the next, I wasn’t all that sure. But I made a note to do the plastic surgeon rounds soon anyway. Those post-op, bandaged-like-a-mummy shots always sold well.
I was just doing my due diligence as an Informer employee by updating my Twitter followers with the latest on the Wedding Watch, when I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to find a purpled-haired woman in a pink, skull-printed baby tee hovering over my desk.
“She pick a dress yet?” she asked, squinting at my tweet on the screen.
Tina Bender was the Informer’s gossip columnist extraordinaire and reigning goddess of dishing dirt on everyone who was anyone in this town. Trace and Jamie Lee included. Tina and I had bonded immediately when I’d come on board two years ago. Not that we had much in common looks-wise, but I’d immediately admired her brash, tell-it-like-it-is style. Most days I wished I had half the guts Tina did.
“Nope. The dress is still up in the air. But you’ll be the first to know.”
“Damn. I’m short today and was hoping to pad my column.”
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “How about a top shelf actor caught swimming in the nude?”
Tine punched me in the shoulder. “Get out! Seriously? Who?”
“Trace Brody.”
“Dude.” She leaned in close. “You saw Trace’s wee willy winkie?”
I nodded. Not able to wipe the stupid smirk off my face as I recalled his picture-perfect body cutting through his picture-perfect swimming pool. True art, I tell ya.
“So dish.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Quarter roll or Kaiser roll?”
I choked back a laugh. “Um, definitely Kaiser.”
“Jamie Lee is so lucky.”
No kidding. I glanced at my desk clock. “I’ll tell you all about it over dinner? Chinese?”
Tina bit her lip. “Oh, I wish I could. But I’ve actually already got plans tonight.”
I tossed an eyebrow. “Hot lead?”
She shook her head. “Nope, tickets to the gun show with Cal.”
I grinned. “Gun show? Is that what you kids are calling it these days?”
Cal was the built bodyguard Tina had recently started seeing. And when I say “seeing,” I mean they spent every waking moment together, fawning over each other like a couple of teenagers. Most of the time it straddled that fine line between incredibly romantic and downright nauseating. But Cal was the first guy I’d ever seen Tina get serious about, so I cut her a little slack.
“No,” she clarified. “I mean an actual gun show. Cal wants me to start carrying. He’s going to help me pick out something.”
“You ever shot a gun before?”
She shrugged. “There’s a first time for everything. I’m just hoping they have one in pink.”
I grinned. “Good luck,” I said. “I’ll email you the Brody pics.”
“Awesome! And, hey do me a favor…” Tina looked over both shoulders for eavesdroppers before continuing. “If any leads come in overnight, forward them to me, huh? Allie’s been scooping me lately and making me look bad.”
Allie Quick was the newest edition to the Informer’s staff and had somehow landed herself in the position of Tina’s arch nemesis. Which, I guess looking at the two side by side would be inevitable. Allie was blonde, bubbly, and had the body of a Playboy bunny – basically the embodiment of everything Tina wasn’t. Personally, I had no beef with New Girl, but, then again, I wasn’t competing for page space with her either.
“Will do,” I promised as Tina sauntered off with a wave.
Which, I supposed, left me eating Chinese for one.
Again.
* * *
After picking up a carton of broccoli bean curd at the vegetarian place around the corner, I pointed my Jeep toward home. Which for me was a studio loft above a surf shop in Venice. While we were at least a block from the beach, my third-floor studio was high enough above the trendy shops and tourist attractions to afford me a prime view of the ocean at a bargain price. Okay, well from the bedroom, I had a view of a corner of the ocean if I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck around the head shop across the alleyway. But, if I climbed onto the roof, the view was priceless.
Which was what I did as soon as I got home.
I dropped my camera bag inside the door, extracting my Nikon and taking it with me into the kitchen. I stuck a fork in my back pocket for the bean curd and dug in the fridge for a bottle of chardonnay. Forgoing a glass, I kicked off my shoes and padded barefoot out onto the fire escape. Carefully juggling my takeout and my wine, I climbed up the short flight to the roof, plopping myself into a folding chair near the AC vent.
I dug into my dinner, then took a long sip of chardonnay, the cool liquid a perfect contrast to the spicy tofu as it warmed my insides. I leaned my head back on the chair, watching the sun paint pink, purple, and golden hues along the ocean’s surface. I inhaled deeply, catching just the faintest whiff of saltwater over the eau de car exhaust from the PCH.
I’ll admit, I hadn’t always been a fan of the California lifestyle. When I’d first moved here from Montana ten years ago, the city had thrown me into total culture shock. I was used to our family ranch, horses, skies so clear they looked like artists’ paintings, air so clean it smelled like fresh rain all the time. And quiet. Something that you could never find in L.A. It drove me nuts those first few weeks and made me so homesick I’d cried myself to sleep every night.
Of course, I was only sixteen then, dreams of gracing glossy magazine covers anchoring me in the city even as my heart broke for the quiet hills of home.
I’d been discovered by Hal Levine of the Levine Modeling Agency when, after a nervous breakdown over a Cosmo shoot, his therapist had suggested a nice, quite vacation at a Montana dude ranch. Hal had reluctantly agreed and spent the next three weeks getting saddle sores and mosquito bites. I’d taken a summer job at the ranch caring for the horses, who, after being ridden all day by overweight tourists, I had much more sympathy for than the saddle-sore city slickers. Hal had picked me out right away and handed me his card. At first, I’d chucked it. I mean, how many times have we all heard the stories of the “agent” luring the teenager into the city, only to see her face weeks later on the ten o’clock news? Besides, I was not what you’d call a girly girl. While the California girls had played with Barbie and taken ballet lessons, I’d been making mud pies in a pair of hand-me-down overalls. Being a supermodel was the last thing I’d envisioned for myself.
But, after a full week of Hal promising he’d make me famous (and after I’d googled him extensively to make sure he was a real agent and not some serial killer), I finally agreed to let him fly me out to L.A. for a test shoot.
Twelve years later, I was still here. Though my modeling days were a distant memory.
And that was the way I liked them.
I polished off my takeout and traded the carton for my camera, putting the lens to my eye as I began my nightly ritual of roving the neighborhood.
To the right, I had a view through the living room window of a woman with a baby on her hip and two kids slurping spag
hetti at a scarred dining room table. The Lopolattos. Not that I’d ever met them, but I peeked in on their lives at least once a day from this vantage point. I noticed the older of the two kids had recently gotten her ears pierced. Little gold stars. Cute. I popped off a shot as they caught the last rays of sunlight coming though the curtained windows. Mama Lopolatto looked tired today. Maybe the baby was keeping her up at night? The biggest commitment I had was to a house plant; I couldn’t imagine the responsibility of taking care of three little human beings. Poor mom.
I zoomed in, capturing the weary look on her face, a sharp contrast to the fresh chubby cheeks of the baby on her hip.
Many native tribes felt that having your photo taken would somehow steal your soul. Personally, I’ve always seen the truth in that statement. Maybe it’s not an actual act of larceny, per se, but a photo can break through those barriers we put up and freeze a moment in time where your soul does, in fact, reveal itself for all to see. It’s always amazing to me how the camera lens can see what the naked eye passes by dozens of times a day without noticing.
I turned my camera left, checking in on my neighbors to the south. A Russian couple occupied the top floor of the condo building. He was in some sort of international banking, and she was the twenty-years younger trophy wife. In fact, I’m not totally sure he hadn’t bought her and had her shipped in special order.
They were having sushi tonight, the wife’s favorite. Not that the husband ate much. He usually spent the bulk of his evening meal on his cell, shouting at whoever was on the other end. The wife silently ate her sushi, staring out the other windows.
I zoomed in on her face and clicked the shutter on my Nikon. The look on her face was wistful defined. I wondered what she was thinking. Was she homesick? Lonely? Daydreaming about some young Russian stud she left back home?
She glanced at her husband, and I shot a series of photos as her expression turned from wistful to downright sad. Then her face disappeared from my view as she ducked her head to take another bite of sushi.
Maybe someday I’d meet her. Walk over and introduce myself as her neighbor. She looked like she could use a friend.
I moved on to the beach below me, snapping shots of the few straggling tourists catching the last of the sun’s rays.
As the sky turned a dusky blue, I called it a night, turning in early in anticipation of a busy day on Wedding Watch tomorrow.
Chapter Three
My alarm went off at six sharp, the Beatles’ Revolution keeping me company as I grabbed a cup of black coffee and suited up for my morning run. I made a clean circuit down to the beach, along the Venice boardwalk (largely empty at this time of day), then back around to my apartment just as the sun was starting to warn of another scorching summer day.
I quickly showered, dressed in a pair of jeans, black tank top, and flip flops and hopped in my Jeep to get a jump on the happy couple’s plans.
Which ended up being plentiful. I trailed Jamie Lee through her final visits to the caterer (the star of the high-intensity cooking show Hades’ Oven), the florist (the star of TLC’s Flower Boss), and her wedding planner (the star of Bravo’s Wedding Wars). All three were top notch, all charged more than my yearly salary, and all were, as I found out, un-bribable for a sneak peek at their wares. Which sucked, but at least I caught a couple good pics of the bride-to-be licking frosting off her fingers as she exited the bakery.
While Jamie Lee dragged me all over town, Trace spent most of the day doing post production on his latest action piece, Held for Ransom, due out just in time for Christmas from Sunset Studios, a fortress so impenetrable as to be one of the only places on earth immune to my telephoto lens. But, as soon as Jamie Lee drove back home (speeding and talking on her cell phone, the naughty little fashionista), I parked outside the front gates of the studios and waited for Trace to make his appearance. I ate a granola bar, listened to the radio, and read the first three chapters of a mystery novel on my e-reader. It wasn’t until after dark that I finally got a glimpse of Action Hero, driving his big, black SUV off the lot.
I set my e-book aside and pulled my Jeep into step behind him. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one. Waiting along with me were four other cars carrying other hungry paparazzi. No big surprise there.
I joined the camera-toting crowd and immediately recognized a car carrying the guys from Entertainment Daily – our rival paper. Or, as we Informer staff affectionately referred to it, ED. (And, yes, we totally meant that kind of ED. You have no idea how many times I’ve seen them pull out their cameras, only to shoot blanks – or unusable close-ups of elbows, knees, and latte cups.)
Mike and Eddie were ED’s photographers. They were twins, sporting matching pregnant-looking bellies and scruffy beards, usually tinted orange with cheese doodle stains. They drove a beat-up Impala, smelled like day-old gym socks, and had, to the best of my knowledge, at least four restraining orders filed against the two of them. All from celebs they’d stalked. (Not that I hadn’t stalked said celebrities myself, but Mike and Eddie had yet to learn the fine art of subtlety.)
As we turned down Sunset, Mike made kissy faces at me from the passenger-side window of their car, passing me on the right. I choked down a gag reflex, stomping down on the gas pedal and pulling ahead of them at the next light. Eddie revved his engine, causing a cloud of black smoke to explode from his tailpipe, and pulled up even to me, narrowly missing a beamer double parked in front of a tanning salon.
My competitive side came out in full force as we chased each other through Hollywood, one eye on the competition and one eye on the back of Trace’s car, half a block ahead. Which finally stopped four blocks later, pulling to the curb at the Boom Boom Room, where Trace got out and handed his keys to the valet.
A move that caused a groan of disgust to bubble up in my throat. I had to ditch my own car fast if I wanted to get a shot of him going in, and the valet expense was not an option Felix would let me indulge in.
I made a hard left, illegally crossing three lanes of traffic, and shot into a gas station, pulling up beside the bathrooms where a homeless guy was taking a leak. Outside. On the door.
Welcome to Hollywood.
I ignored him, instead grabbing my camera and locking the doors behind me as I dodged a taxi and two Porsches crossing the street.
Miraculously, Trace was still outside the club by the time I reached the door. He was loitering, saying hello to his pals, posing for the camera, all while trying to look natural like he wasn’t posing. It was a skill all young Hollywood perfected their first month in the spotlight, and Trace was a master.
Just beyond the bounds of the velvet rope stood a dozen paparazzi who had gotten there before me, cameras all flashing at the same time, popping off shot after shot, some even daring to come precariously close to the actor’s perfectly chiseled face.
To Trace’s credit, he neither preened annoyingly a la the Kardashians, nor got pseudo-Russell Crow pissed. If a guy could be alpha manly and graceful all at the same time, Trace was it.
I vied for position among the other photo hounds, my camera to my eye. Unfortunately, it appeared as if everyone else’s editors gave them larger expense accounts than mine, though, as all the good spots had already been taken by those who valeted. Meaning I was stuck at the back of the pack of ravenous wolves all shouting, “Trace, over here! Look over here!”
Which, of course, he was veteran enough to know to ignore. Instead he made sure his “good” side was to the crowd, his nonchalant air betraying nothing of the awareness that he was being watched by dozens of eyes, popping off dozens of shots that would likely be seen by star gazers in dozens of countries by morning.
I caught a couple shots of his elbow, but with the jostling and my craptastic position it was hard to see anything of substance.
“Finally caught up with us, huh, Cammy?” Mike said, blocking my view with his Shamu-esque figure.
“Shove it, Mikey.” I know, lame. But, as I said, I’m not the best at coming up wi
th clever repartee on the spot. Besides, even if I had it would have been lost on Mike. Mike had the I.Q of a donut. Instead, I held my breath, ignoring his deodorant-defying stench as I jockeyed for position beside him.
“I’ll shove it to you all night long, baby,” he replied, giving me another kissy face.
Ew.
“In your wet dreams.” I stood on tip-toe, just grabbing a shot of the top of Trace’s head as he shook hands with the bouncer.
“Trace!” Eddie shouted, shoving a red haired guy with a camera around his neck out of his way. “Trace, you sample any of Jamie Lee’s goods before the honeymoon, man?”
“Real classy, Eddie,” I muttered.
But if he heard it, Trace was gentleman enough to ignore the comment altogether. Instead, he turned and gave the crowd one more I’m-not-posing-I’m-just-naturally-perfect smile, then slipped past the velvet rope into the club.
A collective groan went up from the crowd assembled outside. Myself included. A shot of Trace’s elbow was hardly the kind of stuff Felix put on the front page.
“And that’s all she wrote,” Mikey said, dropping his camera to his side.
“Hey, Cammy girl,” Eddie said. “Sorry you didn’t get a clear shot.” He snickered. Clearly not sorry at all.
“Better luck next time,” Mikey said, his features echoing his twin’s mocking grin.
“Say, if you want, we could let you stand in front of us when he comes out,” Eddie offered. Then followed it with a loud, “Not!” He giggled like a twelve-year-old at his joke.
“Real mature,” I mumbled.
Only I hated to admit that unless the twins took off, they had a point. No way was I going to be able to get a clear shot of Trace. The front of the club was packed with paparazzi that had all somehow managed to convince their editors that valet was a necessary expense. Either that or they were chancing the parking tickets in the red zones. Not something I could do unless I wanted to see my Jeep towed. I already had seven outstanding fines. Occupational hazard.
Hollywood Secrets Page 2