Absolutely True Lies

by Rachel Stuhler

  “What?” I asked. He wasn’t worthy of pleasantries.

  “Hols, so glad you answered.”

  “What’s up, Jamie?”

  “I was kind of hoping you could help me out.” He instantly slipped into his charming mode, which had long since failed to move me. “I’m in a little bit of a pickle.”

  I swear I don’t take pleasure in the misfortune of others, but I smiled to myself. “Is that a fact?”

  “Yes, well . . .” Jamie paused, I’m sure waiting for me to ask, all a-flutter and panicked, what was wrong. Fat chance. “I don’t know what your plans are tonight.”

  “Very busy right now,” I said as I struggled to get Smitty into the cat carrier.

  “Oh . . . So I suppose you couldn’t take a few spare minutes and ride out to Temecula?”

  I hesitated, still unable to figure out what sort of game Jamie was playing. I’d never been to Temecula, but I was aware that it was an area south of L.A. known for vineyards and bed-and-breakfasts. I also knew it was roughly two hours away, and I’d already spent five hours in the car today. I was curious to see what favor Jamie wanted, but not that curious.

  “That’s not a few spare minutes, Jamie,” I replied. “What is it exactly you need?” Smitty leapt out of the carrier before I could latch it. I saw him shoot through the air and under my sagging couch. I’m sure he thought I was about to pack him off to Camille’s again.

  For at least ten seconds, there was dead silence from the other end of the line. Either it was killing Jamie to have to ask me for help, or he’d dropped the phone. I knew which was more likely. Finally, he sighed and said, “I need some money, and I need it tonight.”

  “What? Where are you?” Had he gotten drunk and impulsively bought a vineyard?

  “I’m at the casino.” Then he repeated, “I need some money.”

  And then I knew where the Dixsons’ half-million-dollar “incidentals” fund had gone and my paycheck along with it. This stupid prick treated his golden goose like his own personal piggybank, robbed her blind, and then expected everyone to rush to his aid. “How much is ‘some’?”

  “Fifty grand.”

  “You have got to fucking be kidding me.”

  “Hols, listen to me. I know that—”

  “Shut your mouth,” I said, throwing my hands up. I knew he couldn’t see my hand gestures, but they made me feel better. I’d reached my limit. “You’ve stiffed me on thousands of dollars and now you think I’ll just clear out my bank account to help you?”

  “It’s not that much money. You’re overreacting. You’ve been spending too much time with Daisy and Faith.”

  “Did you gamble away the five hundred thousand you stole from them?” I couldn’t resist asking. “Here’s a news flash, jerk-off, they’re going to have you arrested.”

  Jamie whispered, “I didn’t lose all the money at the casino. There’s an underground poker scene in the area. High-stakes, you know.”

  No, I don’t know. I haven’t a clue what high-stakes anything means because I’ve never made it above the poverty line in my entire life. I couldn’t believe that Mr. Hotshot Hollywood Agent was daring to ask me, once the recipient of government cheese, to loan him fifty Gs.

  “You have a lot of nerve calling me.”

  “Who else was I going to call?” Jamie asked. “Faith and Daisy hate me, and Deacon said he can’t help me from Milan.”

  The latter was almost certainly bullshit. Deacon could rectify this situation with a single phone call, so either he’d said no or he’d refused to take Jamie’s call. “What about your new pretty princess, Ariceli?”

  “She’s a high school student with no record deal. How is she supposed to help me?”

  “And thanks to you, I’m basically an unpaid intern.” Great. This was one more unpleasant bit of information I had to give to Faith. “You’re on your own, Jamie.”

  “They’ll kill me, you do know that.”

  Everything with these people was so overblown and dramatic. “They’re not going to kill you over fifty grand,” I said. “If you died, how would they ever get paid? The worst that will happen is they’ll . . . I don’t know, break your legs or something.”

  “Thanks for nothing, Holly.”

  “The feeling is entirely mutual, Jamie.”

  “I know how you feel about me, but don’t get lulled into their world,” he warned me self-righteously. “They act like they care about you, but they don’t. They’ll use you and just throw you away. They do it to everyone.”

  “I think you’re talking about yourself. Go to hell, Jamie.” And before he could do it, I hung up on him. I immediately tried to dial Faith, but the phone went straight to voice mail.

  I knew I should go pry Smitty out from under the couch, but I couldn’t seem to move. I was staring around my wreck of an apartment, unable to think of a single thing I should take with me to the Dixsons’. Sure, I needed a few changes of clothes, but aside from Smitty, no one missed me when I was gone. I rarely got mail that wasn’t a utility bill or addressed to Resident. And I knew, without looking, that my cupboards contained four plates, two chipped bowls, and no utensils that weren’t plastic. I had no assets, save a gifted diamond albatross that I couldn’t even sell.

  Faith had said that she hoped Daisy grew up to be like me, but how much had I really grown up at all? I was twenty-five years old and I didn’t own an iron or a fork. I was living in some state of arrested development, and only when everything started to shift under my feet did I finally see my life for what it was. It was depressing as hell.

  “Come on, Smitty,” I said, plodding toward my Goodwill couch. “We’re going for a ride.”

  • • •

  It was after midnight by the time I made it to the Dixson house. The guard was very sweet, even taking my bags out of the car. From inside the carrier, Smitty hissed at him, clearly not as big a fan.

  “Mrs. Dixson says you can choose between the guest wing and the guesthouse,” he told me. “She had Anna get both of them ready. All new sheets, food in the fridges, everything you’ll need.”

  It was really the only right way to end such an insane day . . . by stepping further through the looking glass. I stared up at the monolithic house, which despite being vacant of every full-time occupant was completely ablaze with light. I didn’t know if I could handle sleeping in that enormous palace by myself, so I said, “Guesthouse, please.”

  Little did I know that the guesthouse was larger than the home I grew up in. It was two stories all on its own, with three separate bedrooms, two baths, and a full kitchen. It was also tucked so far behind the pool and tennis court that I couldn’t see the main house. I stood in the doorway, mouth open, for a good ten seconds.

  “Are you all set?” the guard asked. “I have to get back to the gate.”

  “Oh . . . of course. Thanks.” I was still so startled I hadn’t moved past the front door.

  The guard must have seen the look on my face because he smiled and patted me on the back. “It’s crazy the way these people live, right?”

  “It sure is,” I said, finally working up the courage to set Smitty down in the living room. “Have a good night.”

  “You, too, Ms. Gracin.” He turned and headed back toward the house, leaving me alone.

  I moved around the guesthouse, checking things out. It was spotless in here and, even more disturbing, completely quiet. Especially in the last month, I had slept in a number of places, all of them noisy. My apartment building is always a little bit like a techno rave, and even the hotels had been boisterously loud at times. But here it was like a tomb.

  Smitty adapts far better than I. Before I had picked which bedroom to sleep in, he had jumped up onto an open windowsill and fallen asleep. In the still silence of Holmby Hills’s mansion row, it took me far longer to close my eyes.

  • •
•

  At 9:00 A.M., just as I stepped out of the shower, I heard a voice echo through the guesthouse. “Ms. Gracin, I have a package for you at the guard station.”

  I momentarily froze, wondering if someone had just walked in. But the voice sounded too canned, too tinny to be in the same room with me. Then I spotted the intercom on the wall. I walked over, intending to respond, but there were no fewer than thirty buttons and only a handful of them were labeled. The rest were color-coded in some way that probably required a manual to figure out. In the end, I had to throw on some clothes and make the five-minute hike to the front gate. Seriously, it took me five whole minutes.

  The guard on today’s shift was less talkative than the one from the night before. He handed me an envelope and then turned back to his book. It made me feel even lonelier. I was halfway back to the guesthouse when I opened the envelope and found a small, black plastic credit card. It was one of the unlimited Amex cards, and it had my name on it. I halted next to the pool, staring at the card in disbelief. Then I saw that there was a small note inside the envelope, which read, “Use this for whatever you need.”

  And if I thought the weirdness for the day was over, I was wrong. When I walked back inside the little house (I use the word little only in comparison to the main house), my phone was ringing.

  “Hello?” I said, out of breath, having sprinted the last few yards to get to it.

  “Good morning, Ms. Gracin,” came a different voice. This one was female. “I saw you were up and around. Do you need anything?”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, confirming that I had no idea whose number was calling. As far as I knew, I’d never heard that voice before. “I’m sorry, who is this?”

  “Anna. I am the Dixsons’ house manager. Do you require anything this morning?”

  “Um . . . I don’t think so.” When the guard had said the name Anna, I’d just assumed she was a maid. I’ve never met anyone with a house manager. I wasn’t even sure what that job entailed, aside from the obvious. Did she live in the house full-time? Or was she just on call twenty-four hours a day like everyone else seemed to be?

  “If you do, please call me at this number or press seven-two-nine on the intercom,” she told me. “And when you’re ready to head down to see Mrs. Faith, you can pick up the keys from the guard station.”

  “What?” I had left the keys to the rental car on the front hall table, figuring I’d need it for the foreseeable future. I definitely wasn’t going to stay at the Dixsons’ and let them see my rotting heap of metal. But as I turned to glance at the table, I saw only my purse. I had left the keys out, hadn’t I?

  Reading my mind, Anna replied, “Mrs. Faith had me return your car to the rental facility this morning. She says you can take one of theirs for as long as you need it.”

  So someone had just walked into the house without asking me. I didn’t know if that was normal in rich-people land, but it was disturbing. What if I’d been walking around naked? Didn’t they have a sense of personal space? “Uh, okay,” I said.

  “If you tell me which car you’d prefer, I can have Mike bring it around for you.”

  I didn’t know who Mike was or how many cars the Dixsons owned. “Why don’t you choose?” I suggested. “I don’t know much about cars.”

  “Of course, Ms. Gracin. It will be out front for you in ten minutes.”

  As I hung up, I wondered if I’d found a monkey’s paw or Aladdin’s lamp and just forgotten about it. Really, people lived like this every day of their lives?

  Even before I had my things gathered for the day, my phone rang again. I swear, I’d never been so popular in all my life. And it was another phone number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “Heya.” It was Axel. “Sorry to call so early.”

  I didn’t mind that Axel was calling me, but where had everyone gotten this new number? I hadn’t even learned it yet. “No problem, I’m awake. What’s up?”

  “I was wondering if you could do me a favor?” His tone was different than I was used to. There was no trace of the bubbly guy I’d come to really enjoy. Today, he actually sounded sad.

  “Sure. Tell me what you need.” A lot of people had been asking me for favors lately, and the hairstylist was one of the few I was happy to oblige.

  “I went and bought some of Daisy Mae’s favorite green-tea Kit Kats and I was hoping you could take them to her. It’ll cheer her up.”

  “Green tea?” Weren’t Kit Kats chocolate and cookie wafers?

  “They’re Japanese,” he said. “She did a mini tour through Asia a couple of years ago and she fell in love with them. When she’s feeling sick or upset, they always make her smile.”

  “Why don’t you take them down yourself?” I didn’t mind being the errand girl, but I figured Daisy might appreciate having one more friend to talk to.

  “Faith said she couldn’t have visitors.” I could tell by his tone of voice that he didn’t believe her. And he was right to have doubts. While a lot of rehabs do restrict visitors for the first few weeks, Dr. Chace had specifically asked to meet with Daisy’s friends. I knew they’d requested that a number of actors and actresses come down to Dana Point, but so far, no one had shown up or even responded. Maybe Axel wasn’t famous enough to be a “friend.”

  “Then I’m happy to. I’ll text you later and we can meet up.”

  “Thanks, bitch. I owe you one.”

  • • •

  Despite Faith’s suggestion that I be at Rehabilication by 9:00 A.M., I’d already learned enough about Daisy’s therapy schedule to know that on Mondays she wouldn’t be free until almost two. So rather than wait around all day, I decided to have an early lunch with Camille after running by Axel’s apartment and grabbing the very cool looking green-tea Kit Kats. I needed to reconnect with reality before I completely lost my mind. I just forgot to warn her about my new photographer entourage. She showed up in sweats, no makeup, and a baseball cap, and immediately wanted to hurt me.

  She wanted to go back home and change, but there was a free table at A Votre Sante, which almost never happens on a weekday during the lunch rush. I told her to put her back to the window and deal with it.

  “What do they want? You’re no one.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, sticking out my tongue. “And they know that. I’m guessing it’s because they can’t get a good sight line on Daisy.”

  “How’s the book coming?” she asked.

  “What book?” I laughed. “Daisy doesn’t remember anything and Faith tells stories like she’s reading them from a ship’s log. I now have five chapters and I’ve already used every word they gave me, except for the ums and uhs. Somehow I don’t think the information I have will be very appealing to their target audience.”

  “I heard about that Ariceli girl. Holy shit.” Apparently forgetting she was mad at me, Camille started to giggle.

  It was so nice to talk to someone with the right perspective on this situation. She was one of the few people I knew in L.A. who realized that this faux-reality was nothing more than a façade. I love the girl, even if she can’t get away from her loser, fungus-like growth of a boyfriend.

  “Oh my God, I forgot to tell you! I was the one who had to break the news. Faith had no idea.”

  “No,” Cam said, leaning so far over, her pigtails fell into her salad.

  “I swear. And Jamie stole at least a half mil from them before he left. Faith doesn’t know for sure because she has no idea how much money they have.”

  Just as Camille officially burst out into a fit of snarky laughter, I saw movement outside the little restaurant and realized I wasn’t going to get to finish my tuna salad sandwich. “Damn it,” I muttered, watching as Ben struggled to get past the paparazzi.

  Camille stopped laughing and glanced over her shoulder to see what I was looking at. Ins
tead of commiserating, she whistled. “Please tell me you know that gorgeous creature.” Until that moment, I didn’t realize I’d left out a big part of the Rome experience. Not that you can blame me—there was so much story to tell.

  “I think I’m dating him.”

  “What?” she practically shouted.

  Before I could answer, Ben lumbered over to the table and stared down at me, smiling sheepishly. “Hi.”

  “Hello there,” Camille said.

  “Um . . . hi.”

  “I swear to you, I’m not stalking you,” he said. “But there’s video of you on the Internet and I recognized A Votre Sante. And I live about four blocks away.”

  I looked back and forth between Camille and Ben, stunned. “There’s what, now? We’ve been here for a half an hour.”

  Camille gave him a knowing smirk. “And what were you doing trolling the gossip blogs?”

  Ben shrugged, still towering over the table like a giant. “Honestly, they’re the only way the crew has been able to get info on our show. We didn’t get any official word it had been canceled, that all came from the Internet.”

  Camille pulled a chair over from a neighboring table, not bothering to ask the occupants if they needed it. “Please, have a seat. I’m Camille.”

  Ben glanced at the chair but didn’t sit down. “I’m Ben,” he replied, shooting a look toward me instead of Camille.

  “Ben, really, have a seat. Don’t worry about the deer-in-­headlights look you’re getting from Holly. She doesn’t handle surprises very well.” She leaned over and whispered loudly (as though I wouldn’t still hear her), “I think she’s a little autistic.”

  I hate when she tells people that. It’s made me so paranoid in the past that I actually went for testing, and just so we’re clear, I am not autistic. “Stop saying that.”

  “Then start acting like a normal human being.”

  “I have to drive to Dana Point after lunch,” I blurted out automatically.

  “Oh . . . okay,” Ben replied, turning a little red. He glanced back at the door. “I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch. I guess I’ll see you around.”