Hollywood Hit

by Maggie Marr

The Tattler was the newest, biggest celebrity news outlet eating up print rags and online distributors. With twenty-four hours a day of not only online celebrity news distribution but also a rich slate of reality shows à la Housewives they’d become the go-to for the worst kind of celebrity gossip.

  “So tell me…” Hannah leaned forward as though they were besties sharing a latte and a scone. “How is Nikki doing?”

  Iron bands closed around Cici’s rib cage.

  “Nikki?” Cici’s plastered-on smile didn’t slip but instead tightened. She glanced past Hannah toward the giant camera devouring Cici’s every move, every gesture, every word. This question was definitely off-limits, but with the camera guy already rolling and appearing half-asleep and Kiki—where the fuck was Kiki?—absent, there was no way for Cici to safely exit.

  Heat built in Cici’s chest. Rage over this moment, at the embarrassment and full-on fuckup by the studio PR team, by Kiki, even by Nikki. If Cici didn’t answer, she looked like an evasive bitch. If she told Hannah to stop the off-the-cuff questions and any portion of the tape leaked, she looked like a demanding bitch. And if she did what she really wanted to do and told Hannah Hendricks to fuck right off, then Cici looked like a prima-donna bitch. She was caught. Trapped. Without anyone to bail her ass out of this mess.

  “So kind of you to ask,” Cici said with her most genuine fake smile. “I love having her in Los Angeles.”

  Hannah shook her head from side to side and her eyes widened while the corners of her mouth turned down. “This thing with Jeb Schmaltzer must be so hard for her, especially after losing her mother not long ago.”

  Cici’s mouth went dry and her throat thickened. She didn’t speak of her sister Lacey, not in public—this was a well-known rule.

  “It was a difficult time for our family,” Cici said. She took a deep breath, and while willing her face to remain calm, she tried with her eyes to scream “Back off, bitch” to Hannah.

  “Was Nikki shocked when she discovered you were her aunt? Wasn’t that around the time she was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon?”

  The steel around Cici’s chest tightened. How had this woman discovered Nikki’s past? She and Ted had done everything in their power to make certain those facts would never be spilled.

  “Hannah, your concern for my niece is so kind. As you know from your research, those charges were dropped. It was self-defense against a dangerous man who—”

  “Was dating your sister at the time? He tried to assault Nikki while your sister was passed-out drunk, isn’t that true?”

  Cici’s breath shortened. The lights were so bright and sweat trickled behind her ear. She couldn’t breathe. Pain, as if from a white-hot fire poker, seared into the space behind Cici’s left eye. Hannah glanced down at a pad of paper on her lap.

  “Calvin Geckler is his name.” Hannah’s eyes darted up, beady little viperous eyes. “Do I have that correct?”

  Cici didn’t answer. She’d never met the beast of a man. She’d merely hired the lawyer to protect Nikki and Lacey and done everything within her power to get the bastard put away.

  “It seems Mr. Geckler got a prison stint in Tennessee after his attempted assault.” Hannah lifted her eyes from her horrible page of notes. “When is he out on parole?”

  “I have no idea,” Cici said. “My family is my priority.”

  “Indeed,” Hannah said and glanced down at the pad of paper on her lap. “I wonder if perhaps something similar might have happened in Jeb Schmaltzer’s backyard?”

  Cici wanted to reach across the two feet separating them and wrap her hands around the bitch’s neck.

  “Nikki is not a suspect in the Schmaltzer case,” Cici said with her voice firm but a smile on her face. She would fire Kiki after she kicked this bitch to the curb. Kiki was probably next door in the sitting area of Cici’s suite, chugging a bottle of wine. She’d become old and lazy and how had she let this happen?

  “Right,” Hannah said, innuendo laced her voice. Innuendo that implied 'you are such a good aunt, but I know that’s what you have to say.' “Not a suspect. But she’s not supposed to leave Los Angeles, right? I mean, the police department is most definitely classifying her as a person of interest, aren’t they?”

  “Hannah, our family will do anything and everything the police ask of us. It is imperative that Jeb’s killer be found. I appreciate your concern for my family, but truly, Hannah, I don’t want to take all your time on my personal life. Don’t you have anything you’d like to ask me about the film?”

  “Actually, Cici, I do. After the release of Concession to Her Delight, is it true you plan on starring in Jeb Schmaltzer’s last script? The script he was working on with your niece, Nikki? What’s it called?” Hannah did a fake head duck toward her notes. “Oh right, Boundless Bound?”

  Cici pulled a smile from the depths. “Hannah," she said, "I never know for sure what my next film might be.”

  *

  “Kiki, what the fuck happened in there? Where were you? I’m done with you and I’m done with this junket.”

  Kiki slouched on the chaise lounge in the suite delegated to Cici and her team.

  “Darling, I’m sorry. The woman completely bushwhacked me, and I—”

  “You what, Kiki? What did you do? You knew she was coming in, you knew when the interview was meant to begin. What you didn’t know was what outlet she represented. The Tattler, Kiki? How did they even get a slot on this junket?”

  “Darling, that is a question for your husband’s studio PR department.”

  “Ted? You want to lay this on Ted?”

  “No,” Kiki said and squinted. “Not directly on him, but on that incompetent flack he has running the studio PR department.”

  “Incompetence seems to be the theme of the day,” Cici shot out.

  “That man is the absolute worst. He scheduled the entire junket. He put Hannah on and also thought she was still with the Sarasota outlet, not with The Tattler. Darling, I have the e-mail right here.” Kiki scrolled down her iPhone.

  “Kiki, I don’t care if you have the entire e-mail tattooed to your ass. You are still meant to be in that room with me.” Cici’s arm shot out as she pointed toward the far wall. “You are meant to protect me from that shit, from that sideswiping, from my private life getting splayed all over the world.”

  “Darling, I am one woman and I can only do so much. If Ted’s political persuasions and billions can’t seal Nikki’s criminal files, then what would you expect me to do?”

  “I’d expect you to kick the camera man in the balls, knock over the camera, tell that bitch to get the fuck out and that the interview was finished.”

  Cici took a deep breath and tried… tried… to rebalance her chi. She was yelling, she was emoting, and both caused wrinkles and lines.

  “You knew you were going to have to get in front of this sometime,” Kiki said, her voice firm but soft. “Nikki’s past with her mother and with that horrible man was bound to come out.”

  Cici closed her eyes. Maybe the unpleasant details would come out, but not now, most definitely not now.

  “We won’t release the tape of the interview to her,” Cici said. “I know the studio has to sign off to release it and—”

  “Too late, my darling, her assistant had an iPhone. She taped the whole thing from the back of the room.”

  Chapter 17

  From Hot Mess to Green Light

  Nikki had been summoned. A summons she couldn’t ignore. She pulled her Toyota through the guard gate at Worldwide Pictures and past the palm trees and light brown stucco buildings. She angled toward Lydia Albright’s bungalow. Her aunt and her aunt’s powerful friends insisted that she come to the studio today because these infamous women were shipping her away from Hollywood. She’d caused a gargantuan amount of bad PR for Aunt Cici and now Nikki would be shuffled off somewhere far far away until the bad PR was no more.

  Nikki parked her Toyota in front of the Albright Productions bungalow. Chris
tina’s spotless white convertible glimmered in the sun. When was the last time Nikki’d had her Toyota washed? Seemed like an exercise in futility to wash such a battered car. She pushed open the squeaky car door. She stood and straightened her skirt. Crumbs from her scone rained from her shirt to the ground. Damn. She shouldn’t drink coffee and drive. She now wore a tiny mocha spot on her right boob. She tried—she truly did—to look put together and breezy. All the women who surrounded Nikki made looking good appear so effortless. Where Christina was all crisp linen and neatly upswept chignons, Nikki was crumpled sweaters and masses of unkempt, curly auburn hair. She shook her mane and patted her hand over her untamed locks.

  Nikki rolled back her shoulders and leveled her chin. Fuck ’em. If these women wanted to kick her ass out of Hollywood, let them try. She wouldn’t get out of this town without at least giving them the semblance of her best fight.

  Nikki entered the bungalow and cool processed air draped her body. The soothing noise of trickling water greeted her. Nikki sniffed… and sniffed again. The scent of eucalyptus wafted through the ductwork.

  “Nikki!” Christina walked from her office, poised and polished. Her black skirt contained no wrinkles and her white silk blouse not one latte spot.

  She gave Nikki the two-cheek greet. Nikki had always felt comfortable in the Albright Productions bungalow until today. The usual business of meetings and papers and phones felt oddly dulled.

  “They’re all in Lydia’s office.”

  Nikki’s belly lurched. All meant Aunt Cici and Aunt Cici’s former agent and now manager, Jessica Caulfield-Fox, and Aunt Cici’s best friend and Christina’s stepmother, Lydia Albright—all of them powerful, all of them real, all of them perfectly put together (no scone crumbs or coffee drips decorating their shirts), and all of them ready to throw Nikki out of LA.

  Nikki followed Christina to Lydia’s office as if following an executioner to a firing squad. They wouldn’t be mean or unkind—she’d met all these women before and they were gentle with her, but they were… they were… formidable. They scared the fucking bejesus out of her. What with their multi-hyphenate success, and their cut and colored hair, and their Nanette Lepore suits, and their box-office-bashing films, they encapsulated everything Nikki wished to achieve.

  She entered Lydia’s office behind Christina and where Christina glided across the floor, Nikki stumbled over the rug. Her hand shot out and clutched the chair beside the office door as she caught herself and prevented an imminent face-plant onto the floor.

  She smoothed her hand across her skirt and took a long breath. Yes. That was her entrance.

  “Hi.” Her eyes darted from Lydia with her black hair pulled away from her face to Jessica with her sharp green eyes that missed nothing. Nikki’s gaze finally landed on Aunt Cici, who scrunched her mouth up and raised her eyebrows at her niece’s graceful entrance.

  “I’ve done that before,” Lydia said and stood from behind her desk. Her smile was like a giant hug and Nikki’s shoulders relaxed with Lydia’s comment. She walked to Nikki and gave her a squeeze.

  “Hang tough, sweety,” Lydia whispered into Nikki’s ear so softly that no one but Nikki could hear. “Have a seat,” Lydia said and pointed at a chair next to Aunt Cici.

  Nikki settled beside her aunt. Her gaze flicked from one face to the next. She bit her bottom lip and waited for the hammer to hit her on the head. Jessica cleared her throat and leaned forward. A sweet smile was on her face, but Nikki knew from her aunt that Jessica could be as aggressive as a Rottweiler with a raw piece of flesh. Jessica was protective of Cici: her career, her image, her privacy. She’d steered Cici’s career to the meteoric heights Cici now inhabited.

  “Nikki,” Jessica said, “there’s something we need to discuss with you.”

  Nikki’s chest tightened and a chill rushed up her spine. “I already know why I'm here,” Nikki said. She sucked in her cheeks and her chin shot forward.

  “You do?” Lydia asked. A look passed between her and Jessica.

  “Bikram Shasta has reached out to you?” Jessica asked.

  “What?” Nikki scrunched her eyes and tilted her head. “Who is Bikram Shasta?” Nikki thought the name sounded like a soda pop from India.

  “Bikram Shasta is a film producer,” Lydia said.

  “I don’t know him.” Nikki tossed her head to the side. “What does Bikram Shasta have to do with me leaving LA?”

  “Leaving LA?” Cici leaned forward, and a sheet of golden hair fell from behind her ear. “What do you mean, leaving LA? Where are you going?” Cici clasped Nikki’s hand. “Why? What? You can’t leave Los Angeles.”

  Surprise rushed through Nikki. This meeting wasn’t an intervention about her messed-up life? These four powerful and put-together women weren’t all seated in the Albright Productions bungalow to tell Nikki that she absolutely didn’t have her shit together and must go?

  “I thought…” The hot, righteous anger that percolated through her chest over being shunned turned cool. She caught a quick breath and looked at first Jessica and then Aunt Cici. “I thought you wanted me to leave. That… that I was causing so much trouble… too much trouble… and I needed to go somewhere far away. Somewhere where there aren’t photographers and dead men in swimming pools and rock stars, somewhere that me being a complete fuckup doesn’t cause so many problems for you.” Aunt Cici’s hand looked fuzzy behind the hot tears watering Nikki's eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t cry. She didn’t want to cry here in front of Lydia and Jessica and Christina.

  “Oh, Nikki.” Cici grasped Nikki’s fingers between both her hands. “Oh, sweety, no. I don’t want you to leave.” She glanced over her shoulder at Jessica. “We don’t want you to leave.” Aunt Cici locked her blue eyes onto Nikki’s face and pulled Nikki’s hands toward her heart. “I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it.”

  Relief poured through Nikki and for a moment, she basked in the attention of her superstar aunt. The fear that had clung to Nikki with the thought of being thrown away and tossed aside slid from her.

  “Then why am I here?” Nikki asked. She raised her right eyebrow. “Why are all of you here?”

  Jessica glanced at Lydia and Lydia looked at Christina and Christina angled her chin toward Aunt Cici, and finally all their gazes locked on Nikki. Each woman wore her personal rendition of an uncomfortable smile.

  Jessica cleared her throat. “You’re familiar with the script Boundless Bound?”

  Nikki’s heart pitched upward and bumped into her throat. The calm she’d settled into broke loose with the mention of the screenplay.

  Familiar?

  Familiar wasn’t quite the right word. Familiar meant you had heard of something in passing. Familiar meant you kind of knew something. Familiar was not reading the script thirty-five times, providing four sets of detailed notes to the writer-director, meeting with the writer-director a half dozen times to go over the notes plus convincing, cajoling, coaxing, and hoping he would take your notes so that the script and story became better and tighter and more ready to shoot and attract cast and financing.

  No. Nikki was not familiar with Boundless Bound—she knew this screenplay inside and out.

  “Jeb Schmaltzer’s script.” With the passage of Jeb’s name over Nikki’s lips, an image of dead Jeb floating face-first in the pool catapulted through Nikki’s mind. She tried to shove the picture of that night way to the back of her brain. “I gave Jeb four rounds of development notes on the project. We were… he was…” Her mind swirled. The memories of that night not too long ago pushed forward, forced their way upward from the depths to which Nikki continued to expel them. Nikki pressed the fingers of her left hand to her forehead. “We were meant to discuss casting that night.”

  “It would seem that Jeb was appreciative of all your work,” Jessica said.

  Nikki pulled her hand away from her brow. She didn’t understand. They had never papered the deal. Jeb had never offered her any kind of credit on the film. She’d h
oped that if she proved herself either by attaching cast or finding financing that Jeb would give her at least a co-producer credit, and at most, if she proved herself of value in putting the film together (fingers crossed) a producer credit. They’d never had a formal conversation about Nikki’s compensation or credit.

  “Was there paper between you?” Lydia asked.

  Nikki shook her head. She couldn’t option the property and she didn’t have a film fund or a strong equity relationship other than Aunt Cici’s husband, Ted. She might have taken Boundless Bound to Ted eventually, but the script hadn’t been quite there. This last pass by Jeb had gotten the script close. They’d been nearly ready to attach cast and find the dough.

  “Jeb seemed to think you understood his vision for Boundless Bound better than anyone else,” Jessica said.

  “I don’t understand.” Confusion swept through Nikki and she looked across the room to Christina. “Will someone please explain what I have to do with Boundless Bound now that Jeb is dead and why we’re all here and what you mean when you say that I understood Jeb’s vision?”

  “Darling”—Aunt Cici clapped her hand onto Nikki’s thigh—“it would seem that Jeb wasn’t as nearly full of shit as I might have thought. He did find a producer. A producer with a fund.”

  “Bikram Shasta,” Jessica said.

  “Bikram optioned Boundless Bound,” Lydia said.

  “How does that impact me?” Nikki’s shoulders pulled upward and her back tensed. She loved the script, but her prospect of working on the project had died with Jeb.

  “Well,” Cici said, “Jeb left the rights to the script to you.”

  “To me?” Nikki jerked her head back. “Who does that?”

  “Jeb Schmaltzer,” Jessica said. “Seems it was a pattern. Every time he wrote a script, he added a codicil to his will.”

  “But why me?”

  “I’m guessing because you impressed him. You impressed him with your notes and how you envisioned the project.”

  “Your notes sure as hell impressed me,” Lydia murmured.