Vanity
Page 32
Read on for an extract from Lucy Lord’s next book
TREACHERY
Tamara Gold pouted at herself in the mirror as she applied a third layer of mascara. The mascara was unnecessary, as the long, fluttery eyelash extensions were individually applied on a weekly basis, but Tamara had yet to learn the meaning of ‘less is more’.
Tamara had been a cute kid, whose red hair, pretty freckled face and slightly goofy grin had landed her many a movie role and legions of fans. The child star was smoking weed by the time she was 12, snorting coke at 13 and had been in rehab three times by the age of 15. She had been clean for nearly 10 years now, and intended to stay that way.
The adult movie star bore little resemblance to the child actress; so successful had her transformation been that few people remembered the goofy little redhead. The tiny frame that had enabled her to carry on playing 10 year olds well into her teens had not blossomed as well as she’d hoped, so Tamara – encouraged by her unscrupulous parents – had paid for her first breast implants herself the day she turned 16. The teeth came next – Hollywood perfect veneers corrected the gappy grin shortly after the boob job, and ‘preventative’ Botox three times a year kept her crooked dermatologist in the expensive brandy and cigars he favoured.
Freckles were out of the question for an adult movie goddess, so Tamara kept out of the LA sun, and had her slender (yet boobalicious) body spray-tanned twice a week by one of her many beauty therapists. The ginger hair was dyed a lustrous chocolate brown that now fell in heavy waves down to her most recent breasts, and contact lenses in a vast range of greens gave the impression that she had extraordinary eyes that lightened or darkened to match her mood. Only her parents and Jack, her fiancé, knew that they were really a sludgy shade of hazel. Tamara’s sexy, bee-stung pout was, of course, pure collagen, and two hours a day with a personal trainer gave her delicate frame the muscle definition that Hollywood now required.
In short, pretty much everything about Tamara Gold was fake. But the effect was stunning, and she knew it.
‘Tamara! Surely you must be ready by now?’ Jack Meadows, her fiancé, was rapping at the bathroom door impatiently. ‘Our first guests have arrived.’
‘Go greet them, then.’ Tamara checked herself out again in the multi-mirrored bathroom. ‘You’re good at that, with your educated charm.’ The final words were laden with bitter sarcasm.
She and Jack had met on the set of their first movie together, an enormously successful remake of Anthony and Cleopatra, in which they’d fallen deeply in lust with one another. Their on- and off-screen romance had been so widely publicised – the new Liz Taylor and Richard Burton – that they now rivalled Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as Tinseltown’s most high-profile couple. ‘Jamara’ didn’t have quite the same ring to it as ‘Brangelina’, though. ‘Tack’ didn’t even bear thinking of.
Tamara thought she loved Jack – as much as she could love anyone, damaged little girl that she still was – but sometimes he could be a real pain in the ass. He had been educated at Dwight, one of the most prestigious boys’ schools in New York, Princeton, and then – to cap it all – the Lee Strasbourg school of acting. He was respected, with or without her.
Whereas she had been a classic Hollywood car-crash kid, endlessly mocked in the tabloids, paparazzi constantly with their cameras up her skirt – even after she’d got clean, for chrissakes. Being with Jack gave her kudos. His kindness and decency also gave her the sense of security that had been lacking for most of her life. So she needed him.
But sometimes she just thought, ‘Screw you Jack, I can do this on my own.’
Now, having slithered into a tiny emerald green satin bikini that matched the brightest of her contact lenses, she looked into the mirror that reflected the mirror behind her, which gave her a perfect view of her perfect, tight little bottom.
‘Kiss my ass, Jack,’ she said, thrusting it out, patting it, kissing her own hand and then kissing her reflection in the mirror. ‘And all you fuckers out there can kiss my ass too.’
She took one more look at herself and smiled. Yes, she looked beyond fabulous, as her gay hairdresser was wont to say.
She was ready to face her public.
About the Author
Lucy Lord is a journalist and columnist who has written for The Times, Guardian, Independent, Evening Standard, Time Out and Arena. Her favourite pastimes are reading, writing, lying in hammocks, lunching on beaches and throwing parties. She lives in London with her musician husband.
Also by Lucy Lord
Party Night (Short Story ebook)
Revelry
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © Lucy Lord 2013
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Source ISBN: 9780007441747
EPub Edition © 2013 ISBN: 9780007441754
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