Sweet Little Lies

by Lauren Conrad

  Madison’s smile vanished. She got her stuff and rose to her feet. “I’m sorry. You’re so right,” she said quickly. “Come on, let’s go inside and get away from that jerk. You wanna rent some DVDs from the clubhouse? And later we could go to that party my new lifeguard friend invited us to.”

  Jane shook her head. “The photographer’s a sign, Madison. I can’t run away from it anymore. I have to go home,” she declared, heading back inside.

  “Whatever you say, Jane Ho,” Madison joked.

  Not funny, Jane thought.

  2

  JUST ANOTHER GUY

  Scarlett Harp tried not to swear too much as she stuffed her clothes into a suitcase. Christmas in Aspen? Who celebrated Christmas in Aspen? Well, probably a lot of people, she thought, but she wasn’t the Christmas-in-Aspen type. It had been her parents’ idea to rent some posh condo there and spend the holiday on the slopes. Mr. and Mrs. Harp—actually, Dr. and Dr. Harp (he was a plastic surgeon; she was a shrink) didn’t believe in “sentimental” traditions like decorating a tree or hanging stockings on the mantel. Every year they spent the holidays in a different vacation spot. Last year had been the Bahamas. The year before, Paris. And Hawaii before that.

  It was bad enough that Scarlett had to pack for a trip she didn’t want to go on. The worst part was, she wasn’t alone. There were people in her bedroom watching her. Lots of people, in fact. A director, two cameramen, a sound guy, and a producer. And Gaby, her annoying costar, who had been sent over by Trevor to be Scarlett’s stand-in friend and keep her company while she packed. Translation: Jane and Madison were MIA, and the show was desperate for footage, so Trevor and another producer, Dana, were setting up scenes that were totally bogus. So much for L.A. Candy being a reality show. Scarlett would never hang out with Gaby unless she was forced to. Which she currently was.

  Gaby was sitting on the bed, trying to make conversation and commenting on Scarlett’s clothes—90 percent of which were jeans and T-shirts.

  “Ooooh, that top is so cute!” Gaby pointed to a purple tee that Scar was rumpling into a ball and shoving into her suitcase. “What do you call that color? Eggplant? Violet? Magenta?”

  “Purple,” Scarlett grumbled. “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be today?”

  “Nope, all yours. Hey, what time’s your flight? I could use a mani-pedi, couldn’t you? You wanna see if we can get in somewhere after lunch?”

  Gaby glanced over at Dana, no doubt to see if her mani-pedi comment had registered. Scarlett knew that the panic on Dana’s face meant she’d caught it and was thinking that if they wanted to find a salon to film in, they would have to call and set that up now.

  Scarlett held up her nails, two of which were broken. “No, I’m good. You go without me.”

  “Well, that’s no fun!” Gaby complained.

  Scarlett’s cell phone buzzed in her back pocket and she grabbed it quickly, thinking it might be Jane—finally! She had been trying to reach her best friend for the last five days, leaving dozens of frantic messages: Call me! Where are you? I’m so worried about you! Call me! There were other messages, too—along the lines of Get away from that crazy bitch Madison ASAP! Scarlett couldn’t remember the exact wording.

  Her face fell when she saw the name on the screen. It was yet another text message from Dana. CD U SLOW DOWN W/ THE PACKING? AND BE NICE 2 GABY PLZ.

  Scarlett sighed. Dana was fond of texting Scarlett directions in the middle of a shoot, telling her to do this or say that. Not that Scarlett ever actually did what Dana asked. Scarlett didn’t do nice. She believed in saying whatever was on her mind, and if it came out a little harsh—well, the truth hurts, people.

  The thing was, with each episode of L.A. Candy she watched, Scarlett was growing increasingly frustrated by the disconnect between her TV self and her real self. The way Trevor edited the footage made Scarlett seem like a shy, quiet bookworm. Every time she was in a scene with Jane or the other girls, Scarlett ended up with almost no lines—just stuff like yeah and no, thanks and bye, gotta get to class! Sure, she looked good, with her long, wavy black hair, emerald green eyes, and five-foot-nine, gym-toned bod. But she sounded like she had nothing to say. Which was the exact opposite of who she was.

  “Okay, guys, we have to break for lunch, and then we’ll head over to LAX,” Dana called out. Hmm, why doesn’t she just text everyone? Scarlett thought as the crew slowly started removing their equipment from her room.

  Gaby pouted. “Why is this taking so long? I’m starving.”

  “There’re some leftovers in the fridge, I think. Help yourself,” Scarlett offered. The show usually had chips and pretzels as part of their craft service, which was hardly “lunch.”

  “’Kay.” Gaby jumped to her feet and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  Scarlett sighed again. This was such bullshit. If only Jane were here, things would be different. They’d be watching lame Christmas specials they had TiVo’d or doing last-minute shopping together at the Grove while fake snow fell around them. Scarlett could spend Christmas at the Robertses’ house instead of jetting off to Aspen; Jane’s family was actually normal (in a good way) and nicer than her own family. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts didn’t sit in total, icy silence at the dinner table, CNN in the background, cutting quietly into their forty-dollar rib-eye steaks. They didn’t spend more time on the phone with their patients than with each other. They didn’t psychoanalyze their children with comments like, So, Scarlett—do you think your choice to go to USC rather than Harvard or Columbia has to do with your unconscious fear of success?

  Where was Jane, anyway? The note Jane had left for Scarlett in the apartment five days ago said that Madison had taken her to Mexico to get away, and that she’d be back soon. The problem was, Madison was the person who had orchestrated the whole Gossip scandal in the first place, and Jane had no idea.

  Before disappearing with Jane, Madison had whispered in Scarlett’s ear that Jesse Edwards was the one who had leaked those photos to Gossip. So Scarlett had gone to Jesse’s house to deliver a few choice words she had for him, personally. When she got there, Jesse told her that Madison was the guilty one, that Madison had tried to convince him to leak the photos to Gossip, and he’d refused (despite being beyond furious about his girlfriend hooking up with his best friend). And Scarlett had believed him. He was a drunk, ungrateful, publicity-hungry man-whore. But on this one crucial occasion, he had been telling the truth. She was sure of it.

  Desperate to track Jane down, Scarlett had asked Gaby if she knew the location of Madison’s parents’ condo…or had any contact info for the Parkers. But Gaby had been clueless, as usual. Although it was surprising that she wasn’t more informed, since she and Madison always seemed to be hanging out. Scarlett had also Googled the Parkers but had turned up nothing. Which was kinda strange, given the fact that they were supposedly zillionaire real-estate developers or whatever. Maybe they preferred to keep a lower profile than their daughter, who would happily attend the opening of an envelope if there were cameras there.

  Whatever. As soon as Jane returned, the two of them were going to straighten out this whole stupid mess about Madison and the pictures. And they would work on getting their friendship back on track. So many things (and people) had come between them in the last few months: the show, Madison, Gaby, Jesse. Their lowest moment was probably when Scarlett had to find out about Jane hooking up with Braden from a damned website. She and Jane never used to keep secrets from each other.

  Alone in the room, finally—the crew members seemed to have spread out into the hallway—Scarlett walked over to her desk, in search of her passport. She would need it if she ended up having to go to Mexico herself and drag Jane home. As she was rifling through the topmost drawer, she heard a voice behind her.

  “Hey, you doing okay?”

  Scarlett turned around. It was Liam, one of the cameramen. Well, not just one of the cameramen. Scarlett had had a secret crush on him for the last few weeks (speaking o
f secrets). It was secret because, according to the PopTV rules, the “talent” wasn’t allowed to get involved with the crew (not that a crush was the same as getting involved, but the former could always lead to the latter). It was a secret, too, because Scarlett didn’t really have crushes. She had a long and perfectly happy history of hooking up with guys once, maybe twice, and then never seeing them again. It had always worked for her. It was certainly better than relationships, like Jane’s disasters with Jesse and her high school boyfriend, Caleb Hunt, who had (in Scarlett’s humble opinion) strung her along long-distance when he started college and then broken up with her with some very original excuse like “I love you, but you deserve better.” (Scarlett’s theory was that Caleb had been cheating on Jane at Yale, but that was all it was—a theory. She’d never found any proof.)

  Liam, her noncrush, was standing there watching her with a friendly, concerned expression. Wow, his eyes were so blue. The same shade of blue as the bandanna that held back his long, light brown wavy hair, and the same color as the soft, faded tee that accentuated his slender but well-sculpted torso. Scarlett had tried to ignore him all morning during filming. But now, alone with him in her bedroom, she found it was not so easy.

  “Hey,” Scarlett said, turning back to her desk. “I’m great, thanks. I’ll be even better when this shoot’s over.”

  “No, I meant because…Jane. I’m sure you’re worried about her.”

  Scarlett hesitated. Liam was the only person on the crew who had been thoughtful enough to realize this. And she hardly knew him. In fact, they had barely said more than “hi” to each other since he joined the show in September. “Um, well, yeah.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine. And this whole stupid media circus—it’ll blow over as soon as the next national emergency happens, like some It Girl gaining five pounds or Leda Phillips wearing something ugly to the Wuthering Heights premiere.”

  Scarlett cracked a smile. He was funny…and nice…and cute. Great. “They remade Wuthering Heights?” she said lightly. “Why?”

  “Dunno. Leda Phillips is Catherine, and Gus O’Dell is Heathcliff. So lame compared to Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, right? And even lamer compared to Emily Brontë’s novel.”

  “Charlotte Brontë,” Scarlett corrected him.

  “No, Emily. Wanna bet?” Liam held out his hand, grinning.

  Scarlett frowned. Then she picked up her BlackBerry (courtesy of PopTV, so they could always reach her…gag) and looked up Wuthering Heights on the internet. Hmm. Emily Brontë. Damn!

  So Liam was funny, nice, cute, and knew his Brontë sisters. It was a dangerous—and irresistible—combination, especially for a voracious reader like her. (She plowed through novels in their original Spanish or French or Italian, just for fun.) Actually, she had seen Liam reading some of her favorite books during breaks: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez one time, and Middlemarch by George Eliot another. It was one of the reasons she’d noticed him.

  “Yeah, okay, it’s Emily,” Scarlett admitted. “What, you a SparkNotes fan?”

  Liam laughed and pretended to look hurt. “You don’t think I can read a whole novel?”

  “Well, maybe a short one. Like a novella.”

  “Oh, that’s—”

  Their conversation was interrupted by footsteps: Gaby wandered in and sank onto the bed, chomping down on what looked like cold pepperoni pizza. “Whatcha talking about?”

  “Nothing, just grabbing the rest of the stuff in here.” Liam picked up a rolled-up electrical cord.

  Scarlett smiled and gave a little wave as she watched Liam walk out of her room. He’s just another guy, Scarlett told herself. So why did she feel a warm, nervous, giddy feeling in the pit of her stomach? What the hell was that feeling, anyway? Maybe she ate something bad? She eyed the pizza in Gaby’s hand and couldn’t recall when exactly she had ordered it. She watched Gaby take another bite…and said nothing. As long as Gaby was eating, Gaby wasn’t talking. And that was a good thing.

  Later that day, Scarlett was sitting on the airplane just before takeoff when her cell rang. She looked at the screen but didn’t recognize the number.

  GOT UR NUMBER FROM CALLSHEET, HOPE ITS OK. SHH DONT TELL DANA. MY ROOMMATES AND I R HAVING A NEW YEARS EVE PARTY. IF UR BACK FROM ASPEN AND WANT 2 COME TEXT ME AND ILL GIVE U THE ADDRESS. MERRY XMAS. LIAM.

  Scarlett felt her heart race and her palms get hot. Flying always did that to her—didn’t it? She scrolled up and down, rereading the message. Why was Liam inviting her to his party? Was he just being polite? She reread the message again, trying to translate it, until the flight attendant announced that everyone had to turn off their portable electronic devices in preparation for takeoff. By then, it didn’t matter, though. Scarlett had the message memorized.

  3

  IS THAT THE GIRL FROM THAT SHOW?

  Jane hurried toward baggage claim, eager to get out of LAX as quickly as possible. With Christmas only two days away, the place was packed. Good—she would be able to slip in and out without anyone bothering her. Her baseball cap and oversize Chanel sunglasses would keep her anonymous. Or scream, “I’m a celebrity in hiding.” Jane never thought she would actually crave anonymity, but she did. Now more than ever.

  She felt her bikini bottoms chafing against her hips. In her rush to leave the Parkers’ condo, she had slipped her jeans on over her bathing suit, practically running out the door with her hastily packed suitcase into the waiting cab. She glanced at the clock on the departures-and-arrivals board: 4:15. If she had stayed in Cabo, she and Madison would be catching the sunset on the beach…or mixing margaritas in the kitchen…or making plans for the evening. Jane had grown accustomed to the slow, lazy rhythm of their days, their carefree routine. The way Madison made Jane breakfast every morning (coffee, yogurt, and fresh fruit arranged in the shape of a smiley face), talked her down whenever she was in one of her funks, entertained her, distracted her, comforted her. Madison had been a perfect friend.

  Jane passed an airport newsstand and turned her head to avoid catching a glimpse of the tabloids. She prayed her face was no longer plastered on any of them, but she didn’t want to risk looking. For a brief second, she had the impulse to turn around and get on the next flight back to Cabo. But she knew she couldn’t, and besides, Madison had probably taken off herself to meet her parents for the holidays in…Where exactly did Madison say she was going? Jane had asked her several times, and Madison had been vague about it. New York? Boston? London? Some island somewhere? But that was Madison: always full of fun, fabulous, half-formed plans.

  As for Jane, it was time to face the music. Hopefully not all at once. Her immediate goal was to get to the apartment, unpack, repack, grab the Christmas presents she’d bought for her family, then jump into her car and drive up the coast to Santa Barbara. And at some point she might have to listen to the thirty-one messages that were waiting for her on her phone. She assumed it hadn’t taken long for her voice mailbox to fill up.

  If she was lucky, maybe Scar would still be in their apartment, and they could talk in person. She knew that the Harps were headed to Aspen at some point, but she wasn’t sure exactly when.

  Rounding the corner, Jane passed another magazine stand—and stopped in her tracks. There was her face, up and down one of the racks, on the cover of Talk magazine. It featured a photo of her with the cover line, L.A. CANDY STAR CAUGHT IN LOVE TRIANGLE.

  Jane bit her lip, trying not to freak out.

  Just days ago, she had been a rising star, “America’s sweetheart,” a normal girl with normal problems whom everyone could relate to and wanted to see on TV week after week. A few issues ago, Talk had dubbed her “Hollywood’s Newest It Girl.” And now what was she? A slut who cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend? It didn’t get much worse.

  How had her image gone from good to terrible in such a short time?

  Jane had to get out of LAX, ASAP. She saw the sign that said, BAGGAGE CLAIM, and hurried toward it.
Once there, she scanned the crowded carousels, trying to figure out which one would have her bag. Within a few minutes, she spotted her baby blue rolling suitcase rounding the nearest carousel. She picked it up and turned to go. That was easy, she thought.

  She heard them before she saw them.

  “Jane!”

  “Over here, Jane!”

  Jane whirled around, knocking her suitcase over. There were four in all: three photographers and a fourth guy with a handheld camcorder. They must not have noticed her at first.

  “Jane, have you talked to Jesse?”

  “How do you feel about the photos being released?”

  “Is it true that you leaked your own photos?”

  “Jane, why did you cheat on Jesse?”

  They were shouting at her, their voices so much louder than the background noise of flight announcements and crying toddlers. Everyone around them turned to stare at her. She heard nearby murmurs—“Who is she?” “Ohmigod, is that the girl from that show?” “Jane! Isn’t she that actress?”—and saw people pulling out their cells and snapping pictures of her. Jane felt frozen in place—trapped.

  Then she took a deep breath and remembered what to do. She picked up her suitcase, walked briskly past the shouting photographers and ogling crowd, and headed through the sliding glass doors in the direction of the taxi stand. With her hat over her eyes, her sunglasses in place, and her head held high…-ish.

  “Jane, just one smile!”

  “Come on, Jane…don’t you like taking pictures with your clothes on?”

  They followed her all the way to the taxi stand, seemingly frustrated by the way she kept turning her face away from them. At one point they began holding their cameras only a few feet from her eyes and flashing. She could barely see where she was going.