Trashed

by Alison Gaylin

  Simone’s pulse sped up a little. “Um . . . what?”

  Matthew moved past her, turned on the TV.

  There was Meredith Vieira, sitting in front of an image of Chris and Lara, the words “Golden Couple: Tarnished” underneath. He flipped the channel: one of the camera-phone photos of Chris and Julie with the Asteroid’s logo stamped over it, a voice-over saying, “A tabloid has unearthed exclusive details of . . .” He switched again: footage of Clara, holding each other on the Beverlido’s red carpet, waving to the cameras. “Get all the juicy details in next week’s Asteroid.”

  Try as she might, Simone couldn’t get her jaw to close.

  “I’d say you are very damn good,” Matthew said.

  Kathy said, “Agreed.”

  “How . . . how do they know so soon? The story isn’t out ’til next week.”

  “We posted a teaser on our Web site,” Matthew said. “Plus our PR department leaked the camera-phone pics.” He grinned. “Check out next week’s Asteroid for the real untold story.”

  Elliot said, “Bet you feel like talking to yourself. I know I would.”

  Nigel strolled in. “Which station are you on?” Elliot asked him.

  “Fox.”

  Matthew flipped to the local Fox affiliate, and sure enough there was Nigel in a dark blazer and tie, speaking a mile a minute, his eyes darting from the photogenic female anchor to the camera, as if he expected one—or both—to draw a gun when he wasn’t looking.

  “What can we learn from all this?” the anchor asked him.

  “Do not trust a soul. Or should I say a soul mate.”

  “Strong words.”

  “Strong but true.” Nigel took a breath. “Think about it. If the beautiful Lara Chandler isn’t safe from betrayal, is anyone safe? Is anyone really?” He stared into the camera, his pupils pinging back and forth. “Remember, more exclusive photos in next week’s Asteroid . . . plus a transcript of Chris and Dylan’s dirty Dumpster tryst!”

  As the anchor shifted to another story, Elliot turned to Nigel. “That ‘Is anyone safe?’ bit. . . . That gave me chills.”

  “Thanks. I’m rather proud of it myself.”

  Matthew flipped stations to a bemused-looking Caputo. “They were friends—that’s all,” he was saying. “Lara was on set a lot, too. Chris is a devoted husband.”

  “Look at that little smirk,” said Kathy.

  “He is so loving this,” Matthew said. “This movie’s going to be bigger than all his dad’s films combined.”

  “God, yes,” said Kathy. “If Terrence were alive, I’d call him for a quote.”

  Matthew flipped the channel again, and at last Simone saw Julie. . . .

  As a voice-over described the “stunning young new-comer who rocked the foundations of Hollywood’s happiest marriage,” the camera showed live footage of Dylan Leeds walking from an office building to her car, a group of reporters shouting at her. Despite the heat, she wore a dark trench coat, huge sunglasses over her eyes.

  “A star is born,” said Matthew.

  Was Simone just rationalizing, or did Julie look pleased with herself? Her hair gleamed in the sun; she’d obviously had it together enough to get it washed and styled that morning. Her makeup looked perfect too—the innocent pink lipstick . . . and . . . was she smiling, just a little bit?

  “All right, back to work,” said Nigel.

  Kathy said, “Can’t we at least see Greta Glass’s take on this?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  His cell phone trilled. He headed into the hallway.

  Simone was staring not at Julie but at the shouting reporters. Among them was the Interloper’s Neil Walker. Like Julie, Walker wore dark sunglasses. But unlike Simone’s high school friend, he was not smiling at all.

  Simone thought, Maybe I am good.

  But as Simone sat down at her computer, she felt that bracelet on her wrist and she closed her eyes, unable to think of Asteroid sales or Julie’s newfound stardom or even Walker—though he had looked so wonderfully annoyed. All she could think of was Keith Furlong the previous night, his red contorted face as he punched that tree . . . and the fact that Destiny had been nowhere in sight.

  Nigel swept back into the reporters’ room, folded up his cell phone, and said, without preamble, “Were you at the Blake Moss party last night?”

  Simone cleared her throat, shook the image of Keith out of her head.

  “Well, were you?”

  “Uh, yeah, I . . .”

  “Should have told me. Yes, you should. My source tells me both Clara and Dylan were in attendance?”

  Simone sighed. “Yes.”

  “Well,” he said, “what do you have for me?”

  LARA’S TRAGIC MISTAKE: “I TRUSTED DIRTY DYLAN!” “I . . . um . . .”

  “Out with it.”

  “You wouldn’t believe what I saw Lynzee de la Presa doing with that shipping heir from the TV show.”

  Nigel rolled his eyes. “Lynzee blows random blokes in public every time she drops a little X. Claims it helps warm up her vocal cords. It’s old news, and we’re a family publication.” He peered at her. “I want to hear about Chrylanara.”

  “Seriously, Nigel. There isn’t much to tell. Wait! Jul—Dylan gave me some hot leads about other stars. Get this, in the women’s bathroom at Hyde—”

  “Not interested. You’re telling me you didn’t even notice any palpable tension between Chris, Dylan, Lara, or all of the above?”

  “No.” She honestly hadn’t. And as for Julie backstabbing Lara, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Nigel. There was something so hypocritical about it—betraying someone to reveal a betrayal.

  She had to draw the line somewhere.

  “Right, well, ring her up now then. The Interloper is going to be all over this. We need more in this issue, and we need it to be exclusive.”

  “But . . . who knows if she’ll say anything?”

  “Make her.” He glared at her. “Call her up and let her know how sodding, pissing awful you feel about all the bad press she’s been getting.”

  Simone rolled her eyes. “All right.” Before she’d left the party, Julie had given her a card with her home phone and cell number on it. She may as well call. Odds were she’d get voice mail, leave a message. I’ve seen the news. How are you holding up? What was the harm in that?

  She took the card out of her wallet. Dylan Leeds, Actor, it read in feminine gold script. She’d call the cell number first, then the home phone. She’d leave messages at both places, and Nigel would be satisfied.

  But when Simone called Julie’s cell, she answered after one ring. “Thank God it’s you, Simone.”

  “Hey, uh . . . I’m so sorry about all this bad press.”

  “I’m on the corner of Beverly and Pico. How fast can you get here?”

  Simone looked at Nigel. “I guess I can be there in about . . . ten minutes?”

  He raised his eyebrows at her and mimed applause.

  “Great,” said Julie. “Look for a black limo.”

  Simone shoved the business card into her back pocket, threw her microcassette recorder into her purse, and hurried out the door.

  Exactly ten minutes later, Simone pulled up to the corner of Beverly and Pico, but she didn’t see a limo anywhere. She parked her Jeep, got out and walked to the edge of the sidewalk and waited, staring out from the residential street corner as if she were peering over the edge of a cliff, looking for a ship that was lost at sea.

  She did say Beverly and Pico, didn’t she?

  A thought slithered into her mind: What if this was some kind of trap? What if Julie had found out that she worked for the Asteroid and she’d lured her here to . . . to what? Paranoia. It was an occupational hazard, wasn’t it? No wonder Nigel was the way he was.

  Simone’s cell phone trilled.

  She looked at the caller ID. “Holly?”

  “You still have that bracelet, right?” Holly’s voice was sharp, agitated. She didn’t sound like she�
�d slept, but at least she wasn’t slurring her words.

  Simone crossed the street, looked up and down again. Nothing. “Yes.”

  “Okay, listen,” Holly said. “Do you know anyone, maybe at the tennis club or something, who has any connections with the media?”

  Simone gulped. “Why?”

  “I know who murdered Emerald.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Keith, Simone.”

  Simone felt the name like ice against the back of her neck.

  “The police still won’t listen to me, but I know it’s him, and I need to get it out there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He hates Wayne, hated that Emerald loved her dad so much, and he hated that bracelet most of all, because it was Emerald’s favorite.”

  Simone remembered the Devil’s Road party, the cold way that Furlong had stared at her wrist. Where did you get that bracelet?

  “It would be just like him to kill Emerald, take her bracelets, and give his other girlfriend the bracelet he hated the most.”

  Good thing Dessy never showed. I’ve a feeling she would have gotten it a lot worse than my tree. “Holly,” said Simone, “did Keith ever get violent with Emerald?”

  Three blocks up, a black limo screeched into view, just as Holly breathed, “He scared her.”

  “I gotta go,” said Simone. “But you’ll be around later, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” she said, “because I do know somebody in the media you can talk to.”

  Just as she ended the call, the black limo pulled up beside Simone and jolted to a halt. From the same direction the limo had come, Simone saw a huge SUV traveling at top speed. The limo’s back window cracked open to reveal Julie’s face. “Get in fast,” she said.

  FOURTEEN

  Forget about fastening her seat belt. Simone barely had time to close the door before the car was careering down Beverly, then hurling into a series of sharp right turns that made her regret the buttered bagel she’d eaten that morning. “Sorry,” Julie said. “It’s the paparazzi.” Simone peered through the back window, saw a long black telephoto lens aimed out the window of the SUV. “What do they want pictures of?” she said. “The back of the car?”

  “Really, what a bunch of freaks.” Julie was still wearing the black trench coat and shades. On the other side of her sat a dark tower of a man who appeared to have been molded out of iron. His head was shaved and gleaming. His hands looked as if they could crush bricks with ease. “Simone, this is Maurice,” Julie said. “He’s Chris’s bodyguard, helping me out for the day, right?”

  Maurice gave Simone a slight nod, which struck her as more polite than dismissive. He was so powerfully built that his every gesture carried a slight threat; obviously, he was aware of that.

  “Hi.” Simone looked at Julie. “How are you holding up?”

  “Good as can be expected. I mean, I figured maybe after the movie came out I’d start getting recognized, but . . . not this, you know what I mean?”

  Simone hadn’t planned on saying it, but looking at her onetime classmate in those black oversized sunglasses, she couldn’t stop the question from coming out. “Julie, between you and me . . . is it true?” She could practically see Nigel applauding. Brilliant, love. Between you and me. Earn her confidence.

  Julie took off the shades. Her eyes were calm and dry. “Let me tell you something, Simone,” she said. “I don’t screw men who belong to other women.”

  Someday, she is going to win an Academy Award.

  The limo made a U-turn so sharp it was more like a V, and the SUV was history. It sped back up Beverly again. Simone groaned. “Where are we going?”

  Julie gave her a halfhearted smile. “I’ll buy you lunch afterward, okay?”

  Eventually, the limo pulled into the parking lot of a Century City building. Maurice stretched, then began to slide out of the car. As he unfolded his large body, it was much the same effect of someone snapping together a submachine gun.

  “Nice of Chris to lend Maurice to you,” Simone whispered.

  Julie rolled her eyes. “You don’t even know.”

  Simone looked at Julie. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Why would you want to get mixed up with Chris Hart?”

  “I told you,” she said. “I don’t screw men who belong to—”

  “Be honest with me, Julie. Please.”

  Julie waited for Maurice to leave the car, and then she spoke so low that Simone strained to hear her. “Me and Chris. It’s different than you think.”

  “What do I think?”

  But then Maurice was back, holding the door open for them, saying in his deep voice, “We don’t want to be late.”

  “I’m really sorry about this, Simone,” Julie whispered. “But I need a friend right now.”

  Simone nodded. What else could she do? They were standing on a small, hastily constructed wooden stage outside the Century City offices of Julie’s manager, Randi DuMonde. And they were about to hold a press conference.

  On the other side of Julie stood Randi wearing a red linen suit and a facial expression that could intimidate cops, dictators, serial killers. Simone hadn’t really gotten a good look at Randi at the party, overwhelmed as she’d been by the spontaneous porn going on behind her. Now, though, she saw that Randi was a spectacle in her own right—a perfectly coifed, expertly made-up, aging pageant queen of a woman, who carried her two-hundred-plus pounds with a scary grace. Large as she was, she was the type of person you couldn’t imagine ever breaking a sweat. She was that cool, that in control. “Randi, meet my friend Simone,” Julie said. “We went to high school together.”

  Randi’s grip was viselike, and when Simone looked into her eyes, she saw fire. To say she was up for a fight would have been a terrific understatement. Randi was lit up like a chandelier at Caesar’s Palace. She turned to Julie. “Ready to kick butt?”

  “Yes, Randi.”

  “Good girl.”

  Also onstage were Maurice, a few publicists and lawyer types, and, next to Simone, Nathaniel. “Bet you wish you were passing dim sum to Nelson Mandela right now,” he said.

  Simone nodded. “God, yes,” she said. “You do a lot of these things?”

  “Press conferences? A few. It’s like standing in front of a firing squad, only it takes longer and you can’t smoke.”

  Simone looked down at the bank of microphones and TV cameras, at the print reporters gathering directly in front of the stage, shoving cassettes into their recorders, testing the microphones. She gulped.

  Nathaniel said, “Why do I feel like I should be holding a bucket of chum?”

  Simone’s gaze passed over the logos on the TV cameras. She saw Legal Tender on one and backed up, so she was standing partly behind Julie.

  “Let’s get this party started,” said Randi.

  She walked up to the microphone and thanked everyone for coming. Simone watched her, speaking so clearly in that red suit, all coiled power. Simone leaned into Nathaniel. “She’s loving this, isn’t she?”

  He nodded. “More than life itself.”

  As Randi continued to speak, Simone checked out the print reporters. Matthew was there. She locked eyes with him for a moment, and he winked, which put her a little more at ease . . . until she saw the man standing next to him.

  Neil Walker. He winked, too.

  Randi said, “If the Asteroid opts next week to run this libelous story, Ms. Leeds’s legal team is prepared to take action.”

  Simone glanced again at Walker. He gave her a pleasant smile.

  “And now, Ms. Leeds would like to read a prepared statement.”

  Julie walked up to the microphone. She had removed the trench coat and was wearing a sleeveless linen dress the color of peach yogurt. She moved with studied tentative-ness as she took the typed page out of her purse and unfolded it, her hands trembling slightly. When she cleared her throat and spoke, her voice was soft,
fragile. Simone remembered how Julie had looked at Blake Moss’s agent— that calculated desire—and thought, She can definitely act.

  “I am deeply shocked and saddened by an upcoming tabloid article linking me romantically with Chris Hart,” Julie said, each word punctuated by what sounded like a thousand popping flashes. “I . . . respect and admire Mr. Hart. I would never do anything to break up a marriage, let alone a marriage as close and solid as his and Lara’s.”

  Julie wiped a tear from her cheek.

  The reporters were riveted; every eye in the group was fixed on her face . . . every eye, that is, except for those of Neil Walker. When Simone met his gaze, he held it, engaging her in a staring contest that—ridiculous as it was—she refused to lose.

  “Questions?” Julie said. A few dozen hands went up, including Walker’s.

  You wouldn’t dare.

  The first question came from a USA Today reporter, who said, “Miss Leeds, what were you and Mr. Hart talking about behind the Beverlido?”

  Julie cleared her throat. “Work,” she said. “The film we’re in, Devil’s Road, hits theaters a week from today.”

  “But why would you be having a business discussion in an alley?”

  “It was a sensitive business discussion.” Julie brushed away another tear.

  Simone thought, She is better than Kathy Kinney.

  Then Julie pointed to Walker.

  “Ms. Leeds,” he said, “despite what you are going through, you look absolutely beautiful.”

  Oh, give me a break.

  “Thank you. What a lovely thing to say.”

  Walker said, “Can you please tell us the identity of the young woman standing next to you?”

  Simone stopped breathing.

  “This is my manager, Randi Du—”

  “No, ma’am. We all know Ms. DuMonde. I’m talking about the woman on your other side.”

  “Oh, this is Simone. She’s one of my oldest and dearest friends, and she’s here for moral support.”

  “So, you’re saying she isn’t a member of your legal team.” His gaze probed Simone’s face. “And she’s not with the press.”

  “No,” said Julie. “She’s not.” A pause followed—probably only a few seconds long, but it may as well have lasted days, weeks, centuries.