by Amy Finnegan
I take the paper, which he’s already opened to a particular article: A VENOMOUS EMMA TAYLOR? “What the …” I begin, and Brett just motions for me to read it.
Don’t cross Emma Taylor if you know what’s good for you—that’s the warning making its way around Hollywood’s dating circles. A source close to Troy Dawson, Taylor’s ex, claims Dawson won’t go anywhere he suspects Taylor might show up. “Troy would kill me for saying it, but it seems like he’s suddenly afraid of her,” said the friend.
And now it appears that the girl formerly known for her mild Southern manners is also using a few scare tactics on her most recently departed, Brett Crawford. The two had planned a getaway to Lake Tahoe together before Taylor suspected he was cheating on her and canceled. “Emma’s on attack mode,” an insider said. “Brett wants her back, but she either talks trash to him or ignores him altogether. The set of Coyote Hills is a war zone right now.”
This is unfortunate for Executive Producer Steve McGregor, but our studio source tells us that all the on-set drama is only increasing our chances for some hot and steamy TV.
Crawford’s camp insists that the couple maintains a close bond, while Taylor’s publicist declined to comment on her very uncharacteristic behavior. But one thing is crystal clear to everyone around her: sweet little Emma Taylor is all grown up.
So watch your backsides, boys, a new queen bee has left her hive and she’s not just a lot of buzz anymore—she’s out to sting someone.
I have to admit that I like the part about Troy; it isn’t my fault that he’s so transparent. But the rest of the article is totally absurd, so I crumple it up and throw it back at Brett. It bounces off his chest and hits the floor.
“What is wrong with these people?” I ask. “How can last week’s tabloids say I’m desperate for you to love me, and this one claim I’ve transformed into a killer black widow?”
“Queen bee,” Kimmi says. She’s pacing to the side of us while talking on her phone, and apparently eavesdropping as well.
“Whatever,” I reply. I’m glad Jake isn’t around to see how irritated I am because I’ve been pretty calm about gossip lately. It’s hard to ruin my mood these days; I sort of flutter around like I have wings on my back.
But in a butterfly sort of way, not a queen bee.
Brett grabs the tabloid article off the floor, flattens it in his lap and scans it. “They’ve made me look like a pansy, scared that a chick who doesn’t even weigh a hundred pounds is gonna do what, say mean things to me?”
“She weighs more than that,” Kimmi says. “I’ve peeked.”
“Get lost!” Brett replies. He jumps out of his cast chair, steals Kimmi’s cell, and ends her call, which is clearly just to annoy her since she can now eavesdrop even easier.
“Oh, look, Kimmi! A Diet Coke!” I say, but she ignores me and whacks the side of Brett’s head. He whimpers and rubs the spot, making me laugh. “I have no idea where that article got this war zone stuff. We all get along perfectly fine.”
“Exactly! That’s my point,” Brett says, missing my sarcasm. “We’re tight, right? So you should come with me to that charity auction this weekend. I won’t even sit by you. We’ll just casually chat and laugh once in a while—no touching, I promise. And we’ll be with tons of friends. Then these stupid rumors about you being a hormonal diva who hates me for hooking up with every random chick in sight—which I haven’t done even once since I moved to Tucson—will disappear. You’ll be in L.A. the night before the auction anyway.”
We’re doing official publicity now. Brett must have checked my schedule.
After several minutes of this, I realize he’s right. We just need to be seen having a friendly conversation. So I agree and invite a bunch of my own friends to come along. Jake can’t go because he’ll be in New York as usual, but Kimmi plans to come, which surprises Brett.
She ended things with Payton in a pretty spectacular way in Tahoe—something to do with a league of Laker Girls who showed up on their boat, one of which ended up in Payton’s cabin—and according to Brett, Kimmi is now desperate to avoid him.
* * *
Brett must be right because Kimmi doesn’t show up at the auction after all, but it turns out to be a lot of fun and gives me some ideas for a future fund-raiser for my own foundation. I auction off a few movie scripts with my personal notes in them, and Brett donates ten pairs of worn-out jeans with his autograph on the back pockets. We hopefully throw the tabloids way off by smiling and laughing together, and Troy even walks by me once and casually says, “Hey.”
And I say it back, as confident as I’ve ever felt around him.
By the end of the day, I’m happy I went. And the best side effect? The next flock of tabloid articles contradict one another so completely that people are starting to question every article since Bremma began. Hooray!
But my mom … holy crap. She’s been asking way too many questions about boys, and after this weekend in L.A., she finally traps me into a conversation I’ve been trying to avoid. “Yes, Mom, Troy was at the auction,” I tell her. “And there wasn’t any drama at all.”
A long pause. “All right, well, that queen bee story is still bothering me.”
This is the third time she’s brought it up.
“Your dad and I have been talking, discussing how quickly you left Los Angeles after The First Family wrapped, as well as your other odd behaviors during that time. Changing your number and such. And now we wonder if … if you might’ve been scared of Troy for some reason—not the other way around, as that article suggested.” I remain silent, surprised that she’d connected so much. “Emma, please be honest with me. I’m truly worried. And your dad … well, he’s jumping to all sorts of conclusions and ready to beat that boy to a bloody pulp.”
“What? Dad? No … no, listen. Troy just …” My heart is on hyperdrive.
“I need some answers,” Mom says. “And quickly.”
“He sort of stalked me, okay?” I blurt out. “After we broke up. It started with a lot of weird phone calls, then he chased me in my car once. And then—” Dad will freak if he finds out about the window episode. Under his business suit, my dad is still a good ol’ country boy, and Southern justice is no joke. “Then after the fight at Club 99, I told Troy that I’d tell the press every crazy thing he did if he doesn’t leave me alone.”
I guess I have a bit of the dirty South in my blood too.
I wait for my mom to berate me for how poorly I handled the situation, but she stays quiet for so long that I wonder if we’ve been disconnected. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she finally asks, almost whispering. “I would’ve helped you. Somehow.”
“Because you and Dad were right about him,” I reply. From the beginning, my parents said that Troy gave them bad vibes, but I was flattered by his sweet words, and his thoughtful gifts, and I liked how his confidence made up for my lack of it. And who listens to their parents, anyway? “I felt stupid, you know? And I was afraid you’d call the police. I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to go through the media frenzy that would’ve created.”
“So instead you put your life in danger?” Mom says. I’m on the phone with her for another hour after that, being reminded that I am naive, that I am irresponsible, that I shouldn’t “take the law into my own hands.” And I should never, ever keep secrets from my mother, because she obviously manages my life so much better than I do.
But she does seem to genuinely care as she lectures me this time, and not only about my career. At least this part of the conversation feels sort of nice.
Just when I think we’re wrapping up, Mom asks if Rachel knows any of this, and I say that she doesn’t. “Good. Keep it that way,” Mom replies. “A rumor just reached me that her mother was approached by Celebrity Seeker a few weeks ago. Trina denies speaking to them, but that’s suspiciously close to when they learned about you having a crush on Brett—laptop wallpapers and all—for the last decade. Besides Rachel and Trina, who else knew about that?”
It was awkward, and more than a little embarrassing, but he was cool about it.
“Mom,” I reply, “I’m sure I’ve told a lot of friends over the years. Girls talk about their crushes all the time without thinking about who’s going to gossip about it.”
She sighs. “You can’t afford to not think about what you say,” she reminds me. “There are too many people out there who could betray you for money and attention.”
“But what am I supposed to do, judge every person I meet by their potential to stab me in the back?” I ask. “I wouldn’t have any friends at all.”
This ends our conversation because she doesn’t have a good answer. Days later, though, I still can’t stop wondering if Trina could be a source for Celebrity Seeker. I can totally see it.
But Rachel? No way. I’m the only traitor in our friendship.
Right?
Jake
Brett is messing with me. Whether or not he’s doing it on purpose is still to be determined, but either way, he’s pissing me off.
When Emma finally admitted that she’d had a decade-long crush on Brett, I had laughed it off as if it were funny—at least while I was with her. And it really wouldn’t be a big deal if she wasn’t going on all these California trips with him. But Brett always returns with stories that don’t quite mesh with the way Emma repeats them to me.
What she doesn’t know is that it was actually Brett who first told me about Celebrity Seeker’s discovery of her “obsession” as they called it—a full two days before she did.
“See, dude, I told you!” Brett had said, pointing out the online article that he’d pulled up on his phone. I’d been studying in my dressing room that day, for a business management test, and it seemed like he tracked me down just for this. “Remember when we went to dinner at El Loro Feliz, and I was convinced that Emma had a crush on me? Well, she admitted it the day we went to the motocross, but made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. It’s common knowledge now, though, so I can tease her about it all I want.”
I still figured it was all garbage, but I took his phone anyway and scanned the article, throwing in some laughter for good measure. “Isn’t this written by the same tabloid that you called total crap just a week or so ago—something about Emma not going to Tahoe with you because you’d been cheating on her?”
“Well, yeah, that article was all lies,” Brett said, taking his phone back. “But when we’re in L.A., Emma is a different chick. She’s tempting me to break my number one rule—don’t date your costars—and just go for it. Or at least I’m starting to ask myself, why not?”
Had his “why not” been more than a rhetorical question, I would have given him more than a few answers to it. That is, if I were actually allowed to talk about what’s been going on between Emma and me.
Since we’re not officially together, it wouldn’t really be wrong for her to be flirting with Brett just as much as she flirts with me. Wasn’t I the one who told her it was normal to play the field? But haven’t Emma and I … haven’t we already agreed that we’re more than friends? That we like each other a lot?
Brett has to be exaggerating. That’s all.
The one thing I know for sure is that I’ll be in an eternal state of limbo with Emma if I don’t do something to move things forward, right now. I come to this conclusion one night when I’m in New York, and I call her before I can think better of my impulse. “I just finished my very last, totally humiliating modeling job,” I tell her, “which included enough hair gel to hold up the Brooklyn Bridge. So guess how I want to celebrate.”
“Go to Disneyland?” she asks.
“Close! I want to go on a date.”
Emma laughs. “Wow. That’s … ambitious.”
“With you,” I tell her. “A real one, where we actually call it a date. This Friday, the night before the press junket. But don’t worry, the same rules will apply. I’ll be good.”
With only a week to go before the premiere, kissing Emma now could definitely mess everything up. I may not understand her concern for Rachel’s feelings, but I’m doing my best to respect it. Well … the no-kissing part, at least.
“Oh,” she says, then there’s silence while I wait for the verdict. Yeah, it’s stupid to make her call it a date, since we’ve pretty much been dating for months anyway, but it’s about time she recognizes that. “What do you have in mind?”
Sweet. This might actually happen. “I want to pick you up, at your front door—not on your back porch—and I want to take you, in an actual vehicle, to somewhere other than the river that runs behind your house.”
“Hmm. Maybe,” she replies, which isn’t exactly the enthusiasm I was hoping for. Why does everything have to be such a process with her? Why can’t she just go? “There’s a bit of a problem with that noble idea, though, because my mother thinks Rachel’s mom is now a source for Celebrity Seeker. So if you and I are seen together before I tell Rachel about us, there will be heck to pay. And I—”
“Don’t want to take that chance,” I say. “See, that’s the part I’m having trouble with.”
“Jake, it’s not that I don’t want to,” Emma hurries to tell me. “I’m just afraid that—” She draws a breath. “Okay, you’re right. I’m being stupid. This Friday?”
I’ll take that as a yes. “Yep, Friday. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
All right, so we’ve booked an official date. That’s progress. But the next morning on my flight back to Tucson, I’m still a little ticked off that I had to talk her into it. More like guilt her into it. So with a wounded ego and my emotions in overdrive, I somehow get myself into a situation on the plane that leads me into a bit of a trap—with Miss Texas.
By the next day, I know I’m in trouble. And by that night, when Emma apologizes to me for “being so paranoid,” I realize I’ve made a serious mistake.
When Friday finally comes around—the day of our date—I completely zone out, thinking everything is over. We’re shooting outdoors at a high school football field, and even though it’s now October, today is so hot it feels like fire is falling from the sky. The principal cast is taking cover under a production tent, and I’m stuffing my face with rocky road ice cream.
“What’s up with you today?” Kimmi asks Emma, who also seems distracted.
Emma jolts as if she’s been asked something too personal. “Um. Well … the junket is tomorrow. And the premiere is only a week away. I always get nervous before this kind of stuff.”
Or maybe before she goes on a date with a guy she’s not supposed to be seen with?
In a skintight peach tank top and black running shorts, Emma has her feet propped up on a small table and looks impossibly delicious as she rolls a cold water bottle down the back of her neck. I’m starting to think self-control is overrated.
“Why?” Kimmi asks, chucking her full bowl of ice cream into the trash. “You’ve seen the rough cut of the first episode. And even in that state, it was good. Amazing, actually.”
“But it’s impossible to predict audience response,” Brett says. “Are you nervous, Jake?”
My head whips away from Emma, and I know he’s caught me staring at her. “I wasn’t until I had a crazy dream last night,” I say, grasping for the only reply to hit my brain.
“Interesting,” Brett says. “Spill, dude.”
Emma sits straight up in her chair. “Cool, a dream! Let’s analyze it.”
I wipe my mouth with a napkin and say, “It’s kinda lame, but have you ever had one of those dreams that for some idiotic reason, yo
u forget to get dressed, but you keep walking around anyway, while people gawk at you?”
Everyone nods with understanding smiles, even Kimmi. “When I finally wake up,” she says, “I always try to figure out why I spent the entire day being laughed at, and didn’t even think about putting clothes on.”
Brett gazes at her in wonder. “Wow, you dream? I thought only humans did that.”
She gives him an appropriate-for-the-moment hand gesture.
I glance around at the crew members in the tent with us and lower my voice. “But this dream was different. I showed up at the studio—au naturale, remember—but instead of people staring at me, they just acted like I was supposed to be that way for the scene, even though everyone else was completely dressed. And when I freaked out, McGregor said, ‘Deal with it. It’s your job. We need this for ratings.’ Then the episode aired, and there I was, in all my glory on national television. The censors went crazy—fining the network millions—so the series was canceled and everyone blamed me.”
My audience laughs, but I don’t think the dream is all that funny.
“I know exactly what your dream means,” Brett pipes up. “You’re afraid people will see you for who you really are—that soon, all your faults will be exposed to the world. And you can totally count on it. I mean, I made a few mistakes that the tabloids blew out of proportion, then within a matter of months, my job offers were cut in half. It’s as if everyone thinks I can’t act anymore just because I haven’t grown up as fast as I should have.” Brett shakes his head, glancing to where McGregor is planning out a shot with the director of photography. “That’s why I’m nervous about the premiere. I don’t want critics to say that McGregor’s ‘risky hire’ was just as dumb as they thought it would be.”
The surrounding mood has taken such a sharp turn that the rest of us are speechless. Brett stands and scans our faces. “Jeez, who died?” he says. “And why is this taking so long? We’re roasting out here.” He leaves the tent and treks over to McGregor.