Absolutely True Lies

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Absolutely True Lies Page 26

by Rachel Stuhler


  “Hi,” I said to her. “Could you tell Mrs. Dixson that I’m ready to go home now?”

  The green-eyed vixen gave me the same blank stare as her day-shift counterpart. “Um . . . Mrs. Dixson left to check into her hotel two hours ago. And her instructions were very clear about not calling to disturb her until tomorrow—she was very tired.”

  I pulled out my cell phone, trying to hide my frustration. One of my earlier activities had been downloading endless new apps and games over the rehab center’s free Wi-Fi. Among them was Uber. I pulled up the app and asked for a fare quote back to my apartment, thinking this would be the easiest way home. Until I saw that the ride would cost $150. Even if I could charge it, I couldn’t waste that on a one-way trip.

  Camille was going to kill me. “I’m going to need to wait in the lobby for a couple of hours until someone can come pick me up.”

  “Our café is open until ten,” Green Eyes said brightly. “You should try our award-winning crème brûlée.”

  • • •

  If I thought my night was going to get any better after I left the Dana Point rehab center, I was wrong. Camille was, indeed, pissed when she finally got down to Orange County, but the grumpy ride home got even worse when she dropped me off at my apartment.

  I knew something was wrong the instant I walked up to the second-­floor landing. There were clothes and shoes strewn all over the concrete, and I nearly dropped poor little Smitty—locked in a cage under my arm—when I realized that the mess was the remains of my luggage. Whatever idiot was responsible for our baggage being retrieved from the airport had apparently decided it was perfectly acceptable to leave my suitcase outside and unprotected. My building had a security gate, but as usual, someone had propped it open. The words BITCH and WHORE (spelled HORE) were written on my door with lipstick, and scratched underneath in the peeling paint was the suggestion GET BETTER SHIT. I agree, nameless thief.

  Luckily, all of my important documents were in my carry-on, so I wasn’t worried about someone selling my passport or driver’s license, but my souvenirs were gone, including my peace offering to my mother, the blessed Vatican rosary. The irony of someone having stolen a rosary was not lost on me, and I only hoped the recipient of said religious artifact would appreciate it. Mostly, I was just annoyed that I had to spend twenty minutes outside in the dark, rounding up my unmentionables.

  But the hits just kept on coming. By the time I got to settle properly into my apartment, it was after midnight, and I stupidly decided to listen to my messages before scarfing down stale cereal and going to bed. I should have done so at Rehabilication, but I have a remarkable ability to ignore anything that makes me uncomfortable. I almost let the messages go until tomorrow, but I forced myself to hit play.

  There was the embarrassed, mostly silent message from Vaughn that basically said, “Ummm . . . yeah, I’m sorry, let’s talk tomorrow”; the confused, slightly hurt message from Ben wondering what had happened; one from my mother asking if I’d landed all right (dammit, Camille); and finally, a message from Jamie that nearly stopped my heart.

  “Heyyyyyy, Hols . . .” it began. Even before the third word, I knew that Jamie had been drunk when he left the message. “Listen, about that check . . . er . . . We’re havin’ some problems with the budgeting and stuff and . . . yeah . . . You don’t want to cash that thing just yet. I’ll get back at ya soon.”

  I sank onto my aging, sagging couch and Smitty sauntered over and settled into my lap. If I stayed on this job for another month, I’d probably be homeless.

  • • •

  Not surprisingly, Jamie didn’t return my calls the next day. I did go to the bank my paycheck was written from, only to discover that less than several hundred dollars remained in the account—nowhere near enough to cover my salary. I exchanged my euros and was thankful not to have spent that much in Rome. At least I had five hundred dollars in cash and a tiny bit of room left on my credit card until I could resolve this money debacle.

  I tried to reach Faith, but her phone was off all day, going directly to voice mail. I figured I would see her the next day at Rehabilication, but unless I reached her today, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to get there. My car has a ninety-minute time limit, and driving down to Dana Point from my apartment would far exceed that. I was willing to bet my engine would explode somewhere around Long Beach, leaving me nearly an hour from my destination, not to mention without a way to get back home. I knew I could always ask Camille for help, but I didn’t think that was fair, nor was I in the mood to see her. She’d warned me about not getting that check before Italy, and the last thing I needed right now was an “I told you so.”

  So that left me with renting a car, but I was dangerously close to maxing out my credit card. I’d never charged more than three hundred dollars at any one time, and now I was inching ever closer to the seven-thousand-dollar limit. The minimum payment was low enough, but I still needed my paycheck if I had any hope of putting a dent into that bill.

  I knew I needed to be frugal, but staying cooped up in the house all day would only make it that much easier to obsess. I made the executive decision to find a cheap place for lunch and then “splurge” on a matinee movie. I was midway through my BBQ chicken pizza when a bartender switched one of the overhead TVs to the E! Network, which was right in the middle of E! News. I was sliding off my chair to request a channel change when the screen cut to a shot of Jamie, playfully squeezing a beautiful and familiar looking Hispanic teenager.

  “Can you turn that up?” I found myself asking the bartender.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  On TV, Jamie and the unnamed girl were beaming at each other like old pals. I had a bad feeling about this.

  “So tell me, what prompted this switch?” the perfectly coiffed interviewer asked, shoving a microphone in Jamie’s face.

  “It was a mutual decision. Daisy has been looking to take her career in a new direction, and while I wish her nothing but the best of luck, pop music is really my home. I’m excited about working with Ariceli and securing her future in the music world.”

  I knew I’d heard the name before. I didn’t know the whole story, but I remembered hearing that Ariceli was discovered from a YouTube video of her singing at her high school dance. She’d gotten more than a million views in the first week, and now every record label was tripping over themselves to get to her. As for Jamie, apparently the years he’d spent molding Daisy’s career had meant nothing more to him than a paycheck. At the first sign of trouble, he’d bolted to the next moneymaking warm body that entered the room.

  This was exactly what I’d been trying to point out to Dr. Chace. The only people in Daisy’s life who truly seemed to care about her were a makeup artist and a hairstylist who didn’t rate a dinner at La Pergola or a room in the fancy hotel. Everyone wanted a piece of her, but only so long as that piece paid constant dividends. Daisy had a ten-year, wildly successful career that had benefited hundreds of people. I had wanted to believe that those around her would continue to rearrange deck chairs until the Titanic sank out of sight, but they’d fled as soon as her ship sprung a leak. Aside from her mother and the opportunistic doctor, no one was even trying to plug the hole.

  The worst part of this realization about Jamie was that it reminded me of Vaughn. As soon as Daisy was arrested, Vaughn had been concerned about his next job. He’d moved on before she was even released from jail. I didn’t understand him, and I was increasingly confused as to why I had been attracted to him, or if I still was.

  I’d tuned out the television for a few seconds, but just as I drifted back, I heard the anchor say, “. . . doubt that we’re getting the full story from Daisy’s camp or Jamie Lloyd. E! News has confirmed that Nickelodeon has canceled Daisy’s show and recalled the crew from their Rome location shoot. At this point, rumors that Daisy escaped Italy only hours before her bail was revoked remain just that. In other
TV news, NBC’s fall lineup . . .”

  The anchor kept talking, but I stopped listening. I wasn’t particularly upset, I was just sad for Daisy. She was being hung out to dry. I suppose the only consolation was that for the next several weeks, she was probably shielded from all the bad news. At least, I hoped she was. I didn’t imagine this kind of media pressure was conducive to recovery.

  I spent the rest of the day wandering around town with no particular direction. I went to see a mildly funny movie about an old man, his ne’er-do-well grandson, and a mischievous dog, bought a new book, then hit up a grocery store for supplies. I played blind and dumb in the checkout line as two teenagers giggled over the horrible tabloid photos of Daisy. The girl’s so gorgeous, I couldn’t figure out how they’d gotten such terrible pictures of her. The whole time I was silently counting the ever-shrinking amount of cash in my wallet. I knew I should’ve stayed home and spent the day working through a box of frozen veggie burgers, but after all of this drama, I had to believe everything would work out. I had to believe I would get paid.

  I was watching a fantastically terrible, yet addicting, TV movie at ten that night when my cell phone rang. Even before I knew who was calling me, I didn’t want to answer. The list of people I didn’t want to talk to was growing ever longer. But I saw that it was Ben and I couldn’t ignore a second call.

  “Are you all right?” he said, altogether bypassing hello. “By the time I got up yesterday, everything had gone to hell. I tried to call you as soon as I found out you were gone.”

  “It’s a long story,” I replied, not sure what to say to him. I wouldn’t have put it past Vaughn to have told Ben that we’d kissed, to spite me or to make him crazy. Even if he didn’t know already, I’d have to be an adult and tell him myself. I just didn’t think it was appropriate to have that conversation over the phone. “But I’m fine. Are you back in L.A.?”

  “No, I’m actually at the Fiumicino airport with the rest of the crew. They gave us a full day to pack up.”

  “Wow, fancy. I got about fifteen minutes. And that’s fifteen minutes’ notice coming out of a dead sleep.”

  “I’ll be back home tomorrow,” Ben said hopefully. “I’d like to see you.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to see him or not. I felt like I did, like we had a real connection that might lead to something bigger. But I also knew I had just screwed things up, perhaps beyond fixing. And that made me want to avoid the situation until that became its own solution. Maybe I was a malfunctioning robot after all.

  “Gee, I’d like to see you, too, but I’ll be down in Dana Point, working with Daisy. I probably won’t get home until late. And I’m sure you’ll need to sleep after trekking around the globe for half a day.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and I knew Ben wasn’t pleased with my response.

  “You’re right,” he said finally. “But I want to see you soon.”

  “Of course. Just travel safe and I’ll see you in L.A.”

  There was another pause before he added, “I miss you, Holly.”

  I put my head in my hands and sighed deeply, away from the handset. “See you soon, Ben.”

  As I hung up the phone, I couldn’t decide if I was going to hell for my actions or if I was already there.

  • • •

  Ultimately, I did have to rent a car the next day, and I chose a Dodge Charger because it was only four dollars more expensive and wouldn’t make me look like a pauper in front of the rich folks. Because of the traffic on the ever-nightmarish 405, it took me almost three hours to get to the rehab center, and I had to stop four times along the way to pee. It was, however, truly thrilling to drive a vehicle that smelled nice and had a working air conditioner.

  Ten minutes inside the door, I was even more dubious about Dr. Chace’s methods. One of the brunette fem-bots settled me into a table in the “Zen Garden” just before Daisy ran out of the building, and directly toward me, at full speed.

  “Holleeeeee,” she squealed, extending the last vowel far longer than anyone over the age of twelve ever should. “Oh, my freaking God! I have been missing you like crazy, crazy, crazy!” Daisy spoke so rapidly that she didn’t even pause to take a breath until after the third crazy.

  “Hey, you,” I replied as she squeezed me into yet another extremely awkward hug. “You look . . . happy.”

  Happy wasn’t the word for what I was witnessing. Though Daisy was fortunately wearing a shirt that covered up her enormous breasts, she was still wearing far fewer clothes than I would have thought proper in a place like this. She actually looked pretty cute—that is, if she was about to head off to a high school gym class. Her jersey shorts were an inch below her ass, and her obscenely tight Rainbow Brite T-shirt showed off the bottom of her midriff.

  And her behavior just seemed odd. I’d now seen Daisy in both the thrall of her medicine cabinet and the crash of narcotic withdrawal, and this didn’t look like a girl who was coming down off a serious addiction (or forty). In fact, she seemed just as high as ever. As soon as Daisy pulled away from the hug, she started bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet like she couldn’t stand still, even for a few seconds.

  “Are we gonna talk today?” she said, bouncing harder. I didn’t get to answer before she rushed on. “Because I have learned so, so much in therapy and I can’t wait to talk all about it.” I started to reply, but again, motormouth outpaced me. “Holly Bear, I know now that God wants me to help kids all over the world with addiction. That’s my calling and I need to listen to Him.”

  Never mind that Daisy had only been in rehab for about forty-­two hours now and couldn’t have possibly had more than two therapy sessions. Never mind that she was clearly on some form of chemical substance. What I wanted to know was when, in the last two days, little Miss Nymphomania had found religion.

  “Okay . . .” I said, blindsided by this somehow shinier version of Daisy. “Then let’s sit back down and get to it.”

  “Do you like iced tea?” she asked, making no move to take a seat. “Because I didn’t think I liked iced tea, but then I came here and they try to get you to lower your sugar intake—I think to help detox your body or whatever. And the first time I tried it I was like, yeah, whatever. But then the second time I was like, whoa, this is de-lish.”

  I stared at Daisy, thinking that if I had to endure this manic behavior for the next several hours I might use the award-winning crème brûlée torch to light myself on fire. “I do like iced tea very much.”

  “Then we should totally get them to bring a pitcher of it out here,” Daisy replied. “But first Mama says you gotta go talk to her and Dr. Chace about boring business stuff. I’ve gotta go do meditation for a little while and then we can work and you can meet my new boyfriend!”

  I had no idea how Daisy could possibly make it through a meditation session without vibrating her way out of the room. I was also more than a little astonished by her comment about the new “boyfriend.” Ben was my first real date in two years and Daisy had a boyfriend after a day and a half? And who in their right mind would want to date a fellow drug addict?

  I left Daisy to her meditation and headed back to the lobby to see if I could find Faith and, I hoped, get paid. Or have a conversation that didn’t move at the speed of light.

  • • •

  “That can’t be,” she said, shocked. I also noticed that she threw an embarrassed glance toward Dr. Chace. I hadn’t wanted to bring this up in front of the doctor, but Faith insisted that Chace needed to hear “everything” that was going on, good or bad. “That’s the incidentals account, we always keep half a million in there. You know, for emergencies.”

  I abhor those must-be-nice people, but in this case, it really must be nice. My emergency fund was two twenty-dollar bills stuffed into an old sardine can in one of my kitchen cabinets. “I’m sorry, Faith, but I went to the bank myself.
There was only a few hundred dollars left.”

  “And Jamie called and left you that message?” Faith started pacing the room, biting her nails. “What do you think he meant by that?”

  “I don’t know. But I can tell you, he was pretty drunk.”

  “Well, that’s unacceptable. I’ll make sure he takes care of this today. How much have we paid you so far?”

  This was not a conversation I was hoping to have with her directly. One of the reasons people have agents and managers is so that they don’t have to make these deals for themselves. The closer your relationships to your clients, the less effective you are in negotiating with them. But Faith had asked me a direct question and it wasn’t like I could just ignore her.

  “Based on the first payment and the Miami expenses that were never reimbursed, I’ve cleared about three thousand dollars,” I said, trying to remain strong. I really didn’t want to upset Faith, but I wasn’t going to relegate myself to the poorhouse to make her feel better.

  “Three thousand? Out of how much?” An expression of horror was beginning to dawn on her face.

  “Fifty,” I replied, looking down at my feet.

  Faith didn’t speak for another few seconds. She anxiously walked the length of the room several times, then went over to her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “I’m so sorry, Holly. I’ll get this settled right now.”

  Faith’s cell was off, and as she booted it up, I came to a mortifying realization—she didn’t know about Jamie representing Ariceli. I didn’t know what to do, if I should say something or keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t my place to deliver that kind of news, but she deserved to know, didn’t she? How could Faith or Daisy begin to rebuild a career without all the information? Dammit, I hated that man.

  “Jamie’s got a new client,” I blurted out.

 

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