The way my cheeks suddenly filled with heat, I totally believed him. I’m sure there were stick-figure bimbos all over Hollywood who had swooned under that very same grin.
I quickly looked away, clearing my throat. “Well, when we get to the studio, just leave the talking to me, okay, Honest Abe?”
“You got it, boss.”
* * *
Sunset Studios was like a miniature city plunked down in the middle of Hollywood and enclosed by a ten-foot-high brick wall. Outside the gates, panhandlers, men wearing five coats and pushing shopping carts and ladies of the evening (or in our case, afternoon… somehow even worse) stood at every corner. Inside, the place was so clean and wholesome looking, it fairly sparkled. Which was a sure sign 99% of it was fake.
Cement warehouse buildings squatted down one side of the studio, housing the sound stages of hit TV shows, while the other half of the lot was filled with building facades for movie locations. A New York street, complete with brownstones and subway stairs that led to nowhere. A dusty main street in the Old West, complete with hitching posts. A quaint, tree-lined suburban street where you expected the Beaver to pop his freckled little face out of a tree-house at any second. And through it all a tram full of tourists being given the Sunset Studios tour snapped pictures of every lamppost, mailbox, and production assistant on a coffee run.
Beyond the side gate was a small parking lot where Cal and I traded our gas guzzler for a small white golf cart - the studio’s main mode of transportation. Cal took the wheel and quickly navigated our way through the sound stages until we found one with a huge pink “Pippi Mississippi” sign tacked to the front. Cal parked behind a wardrobe trailer and led the way inside.
The interior of the warehouse was dark, and I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the change. The place was a maze of ropes, cables, and electronic equipment, all leading to a series of strategically placed sets that looked like oversized dioramas. I spotted the hallway of Pippi’s junior high, her prissy pink bedroom, and the video arcade where she and her girlfriend hung out after school, the latter a buzz of activity as grips positioned lights, sound guys adjusted mics, someone lifted a camera onto a moving track, and no less than three women in overalls fluffed, primped, and powdered the blonde in the center - Jennifer Wood.
Beside her stood her two co-stars: a redhead whose name I couldn’t remember, and a brunette I recognized as being in the backseat of Jennifer’s limo with her when the infamous boob shot had been taken. Lani Cline, reportedly Jennifer’s best friend.
“That her?” Cal asked, stabbing a finger toward Jennifer.
I nodded.
“We need her alone. Got any ideas?”
I shrugged. “Give me a minute.”
“Back to one, everyone,” shouted the director, an overweight guy with glasses and a nose that could rival Dumbo’s. The crew scurried off the stage like cats being doused with a hose. Jennifer walked to a spot on the floor marked with an “X” in blue electrical tape, her co-stars a step behind her.
“Speed.”
A guy with a black clapboard stood in front of the camera, then dropped the little arm, marking the tape.
“And… rolling!” the director shouted.
A bell went off somewhere, and silence hit the set, all eyes on Jennifer.
“Chloe, I can’t believe you told Ryan about my diary,” she said to the brunette.
“I’m so sorry, Pippi! But I didn’t know he’d read it to the whole school.”
“Now no one will ask me to the spring dance. I might as well be- God, Lani, you’re doing it again!”
“Cut!” the director yelled. He slipped off his canvas chair with a groan, slowly ambling up to his star. “Jennifer. Sweetie. What is it now?”
“Lani’s totally standing in my light!” Jennifer said, pointing an accusing finger at the brunette.
“I am exactly where I’m supposed to be!” Lani shot back. “If you’d bothered to be at rehearsal, you’d know that.”
“I don’t need rehearsals to know that you’re totally making a shadow on my face. You need to move back.”
“Any farther behind you, and I’d be invisible to the camera!”
“Good, maybe then they wouldn’t have to see that zit growing on your chin.”
Lani gasped, her hands flying to her face.
“Jeeze, nice kid,” Cal mumbled in my ear.
I waved him off, shushing him as the director yelled, “Makeup!”
One of the ladies in overalls immediately descended upon the brunette with a pot full of flesh-colored goo, as the girl ducked her head, her cheeks a bright pink.
“And can we get another light in here?” the director asked, pointing toward Jennifer. “Everyone else, take five,” he said with a resigned wave of his hand. As he walked away I could hear him mumbling to himself, “Or ten, or twenty. Not that it matters, we’re so far behind already…”
The crew scattered, and Jennifer happily sauntered off set.
I nudged Cal in the ribs. “I’m going in.”
I did a quick jog over the camera tracks, watching Jennifer as she slipped out the side door. A minute later I followed, squinting in the sunshine, a harsh contrast to the darkened set. I spied Jennifer a few feet away, sipping an iced latte. Though, where she got it from, I had no idea. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, let alone a Starbucks. The magic of being a teen-ebrity.
“Hey? Jennifer, right?” I asked, approaching the actress. I noticed Cal move off to my right, trying to blend into the scenery. Luckily, Jennifer didn’t seem to notice, too engrossed in her creamy drink.
“Yep,” she answered, slurping through her straw.
“How’s the shooting going?”
Jennifer shot me a wary look. “Fine. Who are you again?”
“Samantha Stevens. I’m on that new Steven Bochco show, two doors down,” I said, waving my hand in a very vague direction.
Luckily, Jennifer didn’t seem to need specifics. “Oh. Right,” she said, between sips. “Yeah, I heard that’s a really cool show.”
“Well, it’s no Pippi Mississippi.”
She shot me a wan smile. “Right, like the Emmys are gonna be calling me any day now.”
“Hey, you won a Kid’s Choice Award! That’s awesome. Besides, you’re wicked popular,” I said, laying it on thick. “I see your name all over the place.”
“All over kid’s lunchboxes.”
“No, just the other day I was reading about you in the Informer,” I said, carefully gauging her reaction. “In Tina Bender’s column.”
Jennifer snorted. “That trash?”
‘Kay, if people didn’t stop dissing me this way, I was likely to get a complex.
“Not a fan of Tina’s, huh?”
Jennifer shook her head. “That’s putting it mildly. Let’s just say, if she got hit by a bus tomorrow, I wouldn’t be crying any.”
That’s it, she was off my Facebook friend list.
“I saw that bit she ran about you at the Martini Room,” I said, goading her on. “So mean!”
Jennifer nodded vigorously, her blonde bangs bobbing up and down. “I know, right? She said I smoked ‘Mary Jane’? I didn’t even know what Mary Jane was. I had to google it!”
“But you were holding the joint,” I couldn’t help myself from pointing out.
Her face reddened. “Kinda, I guess.”
“So…” I worded my next question carefully. “That party at the Martini Room, that was the night before last, right?”
She shook her head. “No, the afterparty was the night before that. Two nights ago I was at Ashlee’s housewarming party.”
Bingo. Houston, we have an alibi. “Ashlee… Simpson?”
“Well, duh!”
I hated teenagers. “How late were you there?”
She shot me a look. “Why do you care?”
“Well… I was there, too! Just wondering how we missed each other.”
Jennifer shrugged. “I dunno, maybe one. All th
e champagne gave me a headache.”
The perils of being a star.
Unfortunately, one was late enough. Okay, it wasn’t totally outside the realm of reality that she could have snuck out, made the call, then snuck back in. But I found it unlikely she could have done it at the party without someone noticing the robotic voice emanating from the next room. I remembered the way Max had poked his head up over the partition when I used it. It wasn’t something you heard every day. Never mind the fact that the call had come from PW Enterprises and not ‘Jen’s Cell Phone.’
A PA picked that moment to pop his head out the stage door. “Miss Wood? They’re ready for you.”
Jennifer sucked the last of her latte through the straw, then set her empty cup down on the ground. “Gotta run,” she said. “Catch you later, Sylvia.”
“Samantha.”
She gave me a bored look that clearly said, “Who cares?” then pulled open the side door.
“Nice meeting you!” I called after her.
But she was already inside.
Automatically, I picked up Jennifer’s cup and tossed it into the nearest garbage can.
“Any luck?” Cal asked, joining me as I walked back toward our golf cart.
“Not much.” I filled him in on Jennifer’s story. “So far all I know is people aren’t fond of me and everyone goes to better parties than I do.”
“Cheer up. It’s not everyone who has their own stalker.” Cal threw an arm around my shoulders. It was a casual gesture, but it made me acutely aware of the heat coming off his skin.
“Gee. I feel much better now,” I countered, trying to decide whether I liked or disliked that heat.
Before I could come to any solid conclusions, he pulled away and hopped in the golf cart again. I joined him and held on to the white roll bar as he deftly maneuvered through the sets.
“Okay,” Cal said, “so Katie doesn’t own a computer-“
“So she says.”
“-and Jennifer was at Ashlee’s house.”
“So she says.”
“Any way to check that out?”
“I was just about to do that.” I grabbed my cell, quickly dialing Marco’s number. He picked it up on the third ring.
“Fernando’s salon, how may I help you?”
“Hey, Marco, it’s Tina. Listen, party at Ashlee Simpson’s two nights ago. Know anything about it?”
“Does Coach make handbags? Of course I do!”
“Were you there?” I asked, mentally crossing my fingers.
“Well, no,” he conceded. “But my friend Maddie’s friend Dana’s boyfriend Ricky was. He’s in Ash’s latest video.”
“Perfect! I need to know if Jennifer Wood was at the party. Think you can find out?”
“I’m on it, dahling!”
“Love ya,” I said, doing a smooch into the phone before flipping it shut. Then turned to Cal. “Alibi checking in motion.”
“Great. Who’s next on our list?”
I looked down at my watch.
“Uh, actually, I think I need to call it a day.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Got a hot date?”
I scoffed. “Hardly. I have to get home to my aunt.”
“The lady with the track suits?”
“You were spying on me last night!”
“I was keeping an eye on you.”
“Through binoculars.”
“Yes.”
“Aimed at my windows.”
“Yes.”
I shook my head, indignation oozing from every pore. “That is such an invasion of privacy.”
“That’s my job,” he calmly replied, pulling the golf cart up to the lot and switching it out for the Hummer.
“Well then your job sucks!”
“Says the girl who publicly trashes people for a living.”
“Hey, those people deserved to be trashed. You do stupid stuff, someone’s gonna point it out,” I replied, hoisting myself back into the truck.
He shot me a look. “Remind me to behave around you.”
“Yeah, well you can start by ditching the binoculars, buddy,” I shot back.
* * *
We rode the rest of the way home in silence. A long silence. It was rush hour in L.A. We were lucky to move an inch in twenty minutes. I was seriously jonesing for my Rebel when we got stuck behind a pileup on the 101. How easily I could have weaved between the cars and simply zipped my way home. Instead, I was stuck in a tank, getting dirty looks from every eco-friendly Prius driver who passed us.
By the time we pulled up to Oasis Terrace, I was tired, hungry, and really had to pee.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” I said, throwing open the door and dropping the two feet to the ground.
“I’ll walk you in.”
“You really don’t need to,” I protested.
“I’d feel better if I did.” And before I could stop him, Cal had beeped the car locked and was already following me up the front path.
“Look, I’m a big girl. I think I can walk myself to my front d-” But I trailed off as we approached the condo.
The door was open. The wood splintered near the handle as if someone had kicked the thing in. Hard.
I felt my heart jump into my throat, the breath suddenly knocked out of me as my mind latched on to one horrible thought.
Aunt Sue.
Chapter Seven
Cal reacted immediately. In an instant his gun was in his hands, held straight-armed out in front of him, his stance low and guarded, one hand holding me back as he slowly approached the door.
Not that I was going anywhere. In fact, my entire body felt frozen with dread, my feet suddenly encased in lead. My breath sped up as I watched Cal slowly push the door open and ease inside the condo.
God, if anything happened to Aunt Sue…
No. I didn’t even want to think about that. I shut my eyes, giving myself a mental big-girl talk, then followed a step behind Cal, adrenaline backing up in my chest at what horrible sight might greet me.
The kitchen was trashed. Cupboards open, pots and pans strewn all over the floor, broken glass in the sink, an entire box of spaghetti noodles dumped over the counters. And the living room hadn’t fared much better - coffee table overturned, vases smashed, sofa cushions slashed, the stuffing bulging grotesquely out their sides.
I watched as Cal slowly circled the room, then entered the bedroom on the left, Aunt Sue’s. I held my breath, tension building in every part of me.
“What in God’s name happened here?”
I jumped. And may have even peed my pants a little.
I spun around to find Aunt Sue standing in the doorway, her eyes bulging behind her bifocals.
“Oh, thank God!” I rushed her like a linebacker, squeezing her in a hug that had her making strangled little gurgling noises in the back of her throat. “You’re okay!”
“Of course I’m okay,” she mumbled, disentangling herself.
I sniffed back a tear of relief. “Where were you?”
“At Hattie’s. I was trying to get her lasagna recipe, but the old bat wouldn’t let it go. Said her mother brought it from the old country. Baloney. I know for a fact she got that sucker off the back of a Ragu jar.”
I couldn’t help it. I hugged her again.
“What happened here?” she asked, her gaze pinging around the room, unsure where to focus.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I think someone broke in.”
“Wait, what was that?” Aunt Sue asked. “That sound?”
I froze. But before I could answer her, Aunt Sue picked up a frying pan off the counter and lunged toward me, screaming like a banshee.
On instinct, I ducked.
Unfortunately, the guy behind me didn’t.
“I got him!” Aunt Sue yelled, a sickening crunch filling the apartment as her frying pan connected with his nose.
“No!” I grabbed Aunt Sue’s arm, pulling her back.
Cal grabbed his nose. “Sonofab
itch!” he groaned.
“Oh, God, Aunt Sue, that’s not the intruder. That’s Cal.”
She cocked her little pink head to the side. “Who’s Cal?”
“My bodyguard.” I grabbed a towel from the kitchen, quickly pressing it to Cal’s nose, which was oozing red stuff all over the linoleum. Not good.
“Are you okay?”
“I think she broke it,” he said, sounding like he had a cold.
“Why do you need a bodyguard?” Aunt Sue asked.
I snatched the frying pan from her hand. “Because someone’s been threatening me. Do you need to sit down?” I asked Cal.
He shook his head. “Ice.”
I picked my way over the broken debris on the floor, filling another towel with cubes from the icemaker.
“Who’d want to threaten you?” Aunt Sue asked, her wary gaze still ping-ponging between the frying pan and Cal.
“Someone who doesn’t like my column. Here.” I handed Cal the icy towel. As he switched them out, I got a good look at his nose. Yikes. Marcia Brady had nothing on this guy. He was right. I think she broke it.
Cal winced as the cold hit him. “Thanks.”
“Sorry,” I said. Then nudged Aunt Sue in the ribs.
“Sorry,” she echoed.
Cal looked from Aunt Sue to me, to the fry pan. “That’s it. I’m charging Felix double.”
* * *
Three hours later we’d eaten pizza for the second night in a row - much to Aunt Sue’s delight - managed to clean most of the broken glass off the floor, and I’d explained as best I could to Aunt Sue what was going on with my creepy caller turned vandal. Not that I was entirely convinced she’d remember by tomorrow.
After promising that I’d call a locksmith to fix the front door, I tucked her into bed with Tom Brokaw in the background to lull her to sleep.
I came back out into the living room to find an open bottle of wine, two full glasses, and Cal trying to shove the stuffing back inside the sofa cushions.
“It may be time for a new couch,” he said.
Hollywood Scandals Page 7