Fame

by Susan X Meagher

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By Susan X Meagher

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  November—Palermo

  January—LA

  ONE YEAR LATER

  By Susan X Meagher

  Fame

  Piper Campbell has spent the last fifteen years of her life raising her younger sister. Charlie is now an adult— and on the brink of stardom. Piper has done her very best to keep Charlie’s feet firmly planted on the ground, but she worries the temptation to become a diva will be too strong to resist.

  Haley Dillon could give Charlie an earful. When she was a young woman, she got involved with a break-out star and was quickly swept up into the maelstrom of her celebrity. Vowing to keep her distance from anyone connected to the spotlight, she finds herself once again enmeshed when Charlie’s world sucks her into its orbit.

  Piper swears she can keep her head even as she’s recruited into Charlie’s retinue, but Haley has been burned too many times to believe the vow of a woman who hasn’t yet experienced the seductive, entrancing power of Fame.

  FAME

  © 2017 BY SUSAN X MEAGHER

  THIS EBOOK ORIGINAL IS PUBLISHED BY BRISK PRESS, BRIELLE, NJ 08730.

  COVER DESIGN AND LAYOUT BY: CAROLYN NORMAN

  EDITING BY: LYNDA SANDOVAL

  FIRST PRINTING: JUNE, 2017

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

  THIS BOOK, OR PARTS THEREOF, MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9987907-0-1

  By Susan X Meagher

  Novels

  Arbor Vitae

  All That Matters

  Cherry Grove

  Girl Meets Girl

  The Lies That Bind

  The Legacy

  Doublecrossed

  Smooth Sailing

  How To Wrangle a Woman

  Almost Heaven

  The Crush

  The Reunion

  Inside Out

  Out of Whack

  Homecoming

  The Right Time

  Summer of Love

  Chef’s Special

  Fame

  Serial Novel

  I Found My Heart In San Francisco

  Awakenings: Book One

  Beginnings: Book Two

  Coalescence: Book Three

  Disclosures: Book Four

  Entwined: Book Five

  Fidelity: Book Six

  Getaway: Book Seven

  Honesty: Book Eight

  Intentions: Book Nine

  Journeys: Book Ten

  Karma: Book Eleven

  Lifeline: Book Twelve

  Monogamy: Book Thirteen

  Nurture: Book Fourteen

  Osmosis: Book Fifteen

  Paradigm: Book Sixteen

  Quandary: Book Seventeen

  Renewal: Book Eighteen

  Synchronicity: Book Nineteen

  Trust: Book Twenty

  United: Book Twenty-One

  Anthologies

  Undercover Tales

  Outsiders

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to Lynda Sandoval for her always sharp eyes and exquisite story-crafting instincts.

  Many thanks to Gemma for being both an early and a late reader, and to Catherine Lane for helping me wade through my jangled thoughts during my final edit. Sometimes you need a guiding hand to lead you through the forest of your own thoughts, and both Gemma and Catherine provided that.

  As always, my wife Carrie put in many hours of work to format the book and design the cover. I might not write the best books in town, but I think they’re among the prettiest, thanks to her.

  Dedication

  To Carrie, with whom I’ve spent two-thirds of my life. With luck, we’ll keep going until that number is a solid four-fifths. Whatever the number, being with her has been the highlight of my existence.

  Fame is a bee.

  It has a song—

  It has a sting—

  Ah, too, it has a wing.

  EMILY DICKINSON

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHOULD SHE TELL?

  Piper’s lips hovered over Jodi’s ear, flushed pink and bearing a slight coconut scent. Hesitating, she considered how well they truly knew each other. It was always hard to judge, even when you’d been vaguely intimate many times.

  Leaning back to assess her work, Piper had to admit she hadn’t nailed it. The left side was much trickier to handle. There were some cowlicks there, always threatening to leap out into a wing—something Jodi hated.

  Bending close again, Piper made tiny snips with her shears, focusing on individual hairs that might rebel. By the time she stood and used her fingers to fluff the hair out, searching for problems, Jodi was already fumbling around beneath the black smock.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” she said, obviously trying to find something in her purse despite not being able to see it. “Big night tonight.”

  “Yes, it is,” Piper said, sensing an opening in the conversation.

  “Jason’s going to be home in time for dinner,” Jodi continued, focused fully on her big night, without a thought to Piper’s. Her eyes danced with excitement as she delivered the punchline: “And the kids are staying with my parents.”

  “Ahh,” Piper said, in a conspiratorial tone. She punctuated it with a wink, then whisked the smock from Jodi’s shoulders, snapping it sharply to make the majority of the hair fall to the floor. After grasping a makeup brush, she delicately flicked away any trimmings that clung to Jodi’s neck.

  With a defeated shrug, Piper accepted that she’d missed her chance. Trying to shoehorn in her big news while a client was trying to leave felt like begging for attention, something she never did.

  Jodi whipped out her credit card and hustled over to the counter to pay. As Piper was sweeping the floor, Jodi returned, leaning in to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek—and slip her hand into Piper’s back pocket.

  Even though she’d been cutting hair for fifteen years, she still hadn’t gotten used to people putting their hands on her to leave a tip. There was nothing remotely sexual about her job, but she still felt a little like a prostitute whenever someone slipped cash into her pants. The back pocket was preferable to the front, obviously, but they both felt like invasions of her personal space. Shivering, she pulled away and smiled. “Thanks, Jodi. See you in six weeks?”

  “Sure will. Have a good night!”

  “I’m sure I will. You too.”

  As Jodi rushed out of the salon, Piper continued cleaning up. The place was jumping, with all five chairs occupied, and smock-clad
women stacked up, like flights out of LAX, waiting for the new shampoo girl. Rada, the shop’s owner, was frantically trying to keep things moving, but Piper longed to talk, to tell someone about her evening plans. She’d opened the shop that morning, beating her friends, Jess and Chelsea, by hours, but there hadn’t been a single minute between clients when they’d all been free to talk.

  Everyone knew about the premiere, of course. She’d been peppered with so many questions over the past months she should have been tired of the whole thing. But not talking about it today, the actual day, was disappointing. This would be the only time she got to enjoy a few spare watts of the bright lights, and she’d missed her chance to jabber about it with her friends.

  The alarm on her phone went off and she fumbled for it, swiping it off quickly. It was almost show time, and her heart beat faster in anticipation. Her life was going to change tonight—maybe permanently. She went into the break room, grabbed her things from her cubbyhole, and left via the back door. Not a minute to waste.

  ***

  Getting from Woodland Hills to the Hollywood Hills was never fun, but taking the 101 was usually better than getting stuck on the parking lot called the 405. The Santa Monica mountains provided much of the beauty, and at least half of the region’s chronic problems. The grade wasn’t all that bad, but it seemed like every truck more than three years old had a tough time maintaining speed going up, which slowed everyone down. And having a bunch of jerks in German roadsters running up everyone’s butts didn’t help. Add the fall wildfires and the winter mudslides to the smog trapped in the valleys, and it made you wonder why some visionary hadn’t bulldozed the darned mountains flat. Alas, they were a long way from flat, as Piper’s trusty little SUV could attest. Seventy-five thousand miles without a single breakdown, but it still strained to climb the Cahuenga Pass. Seconds after reaching the top, Piper whipped around a stalled gardener’s truck and started down the gauntlet of Mulholland Drive.

  The twisty, turny, up and down few miles led to some gorgeous homes as well as a few shacks no one could or would tear down—a fun drive on a nice day, but Piper had been thankful for her four-wheel-drive many times while trying to navigate Mulholland in a bad storm, when Mother Nature let pampered Angelenos know she was still in charge. It wasn’t rare to see cars costing six figures slip away from their parking spots in a deluge to careen down the hill like discarded toys.

  But this afternoon was clear and dry, with the setting sun warming Piper’s face as she squinted into it. A hairpin turn had her cruising down Charlie’s street, and she parked as soon as she found a spot. The rest of the support team had clearly beaten her, with the normally quiet street now filled with cars.

  After grabbing the tools of her trade, she approached the very average-looking white Cape Cod bungalow with periwinkle shutters, wondering what the over/under was on how long Charlie would stay. She’d bet a month, if the opening weekend grosses were over $15 million. Maybe forever if it bombed.

  The house was the essence of SoCal charm, the kind of home the Chamber of Commerce wanted everyone to believe was readily affordable. The kind of home Piper could only dream of. Four bedrooms, three baths, remodeled in the 90s to make it bright and open and add the requisite gourmet kitchen to die for.

  Her own house was fine. Really.

  But having your little sister own the house of your dreams was sometimes hard to swallow. Not tonight, of course. Tonight Charlie could have slapped her right in the face, and she’d still be grinning like a dope.

  The front door cracked open and Piper strode in, met by Margot, a freelance stylist Charlie had hired a few times, clearly hopping mad.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Her eyes were red from chronic allergies, skin splotchy from stress.

  “I had to work today, Margot.” She started for her sister’s bedroom, where the rest of the posse would be. “Charlie’s my favorite client, but she’s not my only client.”

  “That’s no excuse!”

  Piper rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored Margot. Charlie would be scrounging for jobs like every other young woman who dreamed of stardom if not for Piper’s financial support. Luckily, Charlie recognized that—even if the rest of her team had no sympathy for Piper’s divided loyalties.

  Entering the room, Piper made eye contact with her sister. “Wish I could have gotten away earlier…”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Charlie perched on a backless chair at her vanity table, professional-quality lighting framing the oversized mirror on the wall. “It’s silly to get ready too early, despite what some people think.”

  Margot blew in and started to fuss over tonight’s dress. She clearly wanted to be number one in Charlie’s heart, but she didn’t have a chance in hell of knocking Piper out of that spot. Ted, a friend who was a wizard with a makeup brush, had volunteered to help out, freeing Piper from having to do two jobs. That left three strangers loitering around the bedroom. When Piper raised an eyebrow in the direction of one of the strangers, a guy snapping photos, Charlie said, “Studio publicity team.”

  Piper nodded, not expecting to be introduced since Charlie probably hadn’t been either. People often announced themselves by their job titles, or not at all, which was kind of odd.

  The room was large for a bedroom, but having seven people in it was straining even its generous proportions. They were all working toward the same goal—boosting Charlie’s image in one way or another—but they weren’t truly a team, with each of them having their own game plan. It was all a little too frenetic for Piper, who needed a little personal time with her sister.

  Moving to stand in front of her, Piper squatted down until their eyes were level, just as she had when Charlie was a tiny tot. Tears came to her eyes, but she got the words out. The ones she’d started saying to a fierce little three-year-old as a joke, and were now a kind of incantation. “Ready to rip it up?”

  “Yeah.” Charlie struggled to remain stoic herself. “Let me…” She turned and said to the room, “We need some privacy, guys. Give us ten minutes.”

  The photographer edged closer, continuing to snap photos as the rest of the grumbling group departed.

  “You, too,” Charlie said, adding, “please.”

  He looked positively stunned at being thrown out, but he hitched his camera higher on his shoulder and walked out, closing the door.

  “Lock it,” Charlie instructed. “You know Margot will try to sneak back in.”

  After snapping the lock, Piper walked over and wrapped her arms around Charlie’s shoulders. She caught her little sister’s luminous gaze in the reflection of the lighted mirror. “How are you?” She drank in the bright smile and twinkling eyes that had launched the kid onto the screen when she was a toddler, and had kept her in the public eye—to a greater or lesser degree—for twenty years. But now, Charlie was at a critical point in her career. Sure, twenty-three was young in the real world, but not so much in Hollywood, the absolute antithesis of real. This was the first time she’d been the female lead in a movie, and it might well be her last if it didn’t hit—and they both knew it. “I mean…how are you really?”

  “I’m great. Really,” Charlie added, excitement bubbling up from her as a slow smile lit up her face. “We’re gonna hit,” she whispered. “I just know it.” Her confidence was pretty amazing, considering her age. Or maybe that’s why it was so vibrant. She’d had her share of career bumps and bruises, but hadn’t been knocked down often or hard enough to have lost her shine.

  “I’m so proud of you. This is…huge.” Piper placed a kiss on her cheek and squeezed her tighter. “Think about it. Everybody in America’s going to know your name by this time on Monday.”

  Charlie laughed. “That’s asking for a lot.”

  “Mark my words,” Piper said, releasing Charlie from the embrace, but leaving her hands on her sister’s shoulders.

  Charlie took a big breath in, then blew it out. She reached up and laid her hands over Piper’s. “I hope so. This is
just the first step, Pip. But it’s gonna be a big one!”

  ***

  Piper stayed in the room as the rest of the team got to work on Charlie. No matter how many experts she had on board, she trusted Piper above all. If Piper didn’t think a look was right for the given event, Charlie dropped the dress like a bad habit, regardless of who’d designed it or how difficult it had been to acquire. That often made Piper less than popular with the stylist, not to mention the designer, but she didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone else in Charlie’s retinue thought of her. In her mind, it was just the two of them, with some static from the others sometimes reaching her ears.

  Looking on as Margot tucked Charlie into the dress, Piper smiled, making sure her sister saw her reaction. It was a perfect look. Sexy enough to make people forget Charlie’s childhood and the zillion commercials where she’d played an anonymous kid, but not so sexy as to make her look like she was begging for attention.

  Her hair looked awesome after Piper’d finished it. Bouncy and shiny, a butterscotch-tinted halo. Charlie’s normal color was lovely, thanks to her fair-haired father, and the highlights Piper carefully maintained added a little sparkle. Charlie was gifted as a model and an actress and a personality, and she photographed fantastically. Now all she needed was butts in the seats this weekend, lighting the rocket she was strapped to.

  ***

  Charlie had been hanging out with a guy, someone she’d met at a club, but she’d done the smart thing and had chosen to walk the red carpet with the kid who played her younger brother. That made her look a little younger—which was a plus since she was playing a nineteen-year-old—as well as making her seem more available.

  One of her habits, a fantastic one in Piper’s estimation, was picking up bits of advice from more experienced actors, and incorporating them when they worked for her. Someone had told her to keep people guessing about her personal life as much as possible, and she’d managed to do that so far.