Fame

by Susan X Meagher

  “That’s like washing your wash machine. Your liver doesn’t need to be cleaned.” She turned, revealing a smirk. “I’m going to play along, but I’m not giving up everything just to humor Charlie.”

  Haley gazed into her eyes for a few moments, seeing that Piper couldn’t maintain the look. “Does your sister believe you’re doing it for real?”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding guiltily.

  “Wouldn’t it be more supportive to really do what she’s doing? Why lie to her?”

  “I’m not lying…” She blew a stream of air out, making her lips flutter. “Okay. I’m lying.” Walking over to the refrigerator, she pulled out a pale yellow bottle. “I guess this is orange juice?” She opened it and took a big slug, then began to gag. After her coughing fit subsided, she stared at the label. “There’s cayenne pepper in this!”

  Haley took the bottle from her and read it. “This is your number two juice. You’re supposed to start with number one.”

  “It’s number two all right,” she grumbled. Taking another look in the refrigerator, she pulled out the proper bottle. “Oh, hell no. Kale, spinach, banana, kiwi and rice milk.” Her face had scrunched up into such a puss that her eyes disappeared. “I like bananas, but the rest of that sounds awful!”

  Haley stood right in front of her and stared into her eyes. “You agreed,” she said, not blinking.

  Sighing like she was breathing her last, Piper held her nose with one hand, while she chugged the drink down. She hadn’t spent much time in college, but she’d clearly learned some of the tricks of the trade.

  “You’re supposed to have the spicy lemonade in an hour. Get ready.” She spied Piper’s keys lying on the counter. “Want to lend me your car so I can get breakfast? I’m too nice to cook in front of you.”

  “What do you want?” she asked, looking a little like Delta when humans were eating.

  “It’s my ‘fuck it’ day, so I’d normally have pancakes or a waffle. Maybe a donut if I can find a great one.”

  “I’ll take you,” Piper grumbled. “I know a good place.” As she walked back to her bedroom, she added, “and in three days, I’m going to be in line when they open.”

  ***

  As Piper drove down Ventura Boulevard, she kept sneaking looks at Haley. She didn’t seem upset any more, but she wasn’t talking much. Knowing her, she was waiting for Piper to start spilling the facts, something she knew she had to do. Screwing up her courage, she said, “Here’s the whole story. Someone my mom knew had a sister who was a casting agent. She saw pictures of Charlie and told my mom to bring her in for some test shots.”

  For several long moments, Haley didn’t answer. Piper wasn’t even sure she’d paid attention to what she’d said. But then—

  “How old was she?”

  “Barely three. But the kid loved it,” Piper insisted. “She was always a little ham, and having a bunch of adults focusing on her and trying to make her smile was like crack for her. Since that day, she’s never had a prolonged dry spell. She even worked when she was a pre-teen, and that’s a notoriously tough time to get work.”

  “Your mom honestly didn’t push her?”

  “Not really. I mean, it was obviously my mom’s idea, but Charlie was all in from the very first. I’m sure it didn’t escape my mom’s notice that a little extra money would come in handy, though.” She wrinkled up her nose. “Charlie’s dad had flown the coop by then, and getting him to pay child support was like wrestling a snake.”

  Haley was silent for a minute, obviously taking in the info. “I hope your mom didn’t push her,” she finally said, “even though every child actor I’ve met was coerced in some way or another.” She let out a sigh. “But if I had a kid who wanted to act or model, I’d let them.” She met Piper’s gaze. “But I wouldn’t like it.”

  “It’s been great for Charlie. It’s made her more confident, bolder.”

  “A confident actress? Doesn’t exist.”

  “Yes, they do,” Piper said. Frowning, she added, “Do you know all of the actors in the world? Some are pretty nice people.”

  “I know all I want to know,” she said with a clear note of finality.

  Piper turned into the lot where the scent of pure deliciousness wafted into the car, layered on top of the sweet smell of jasmine that had been planted as a hedge. Her mouth was watering when she said, “I think I’ll wait out here. I might leap the counter and grab a handful.”

  “Be back in a sec,” Haley said, giving her what finally looked like a genuine smile. Her first of the day.

  After a few minutes, she came back with a white sack. She buckled her seatbelt, then took out a devil’s food donut, frosted with chocolate along with some coconut sprinkled over the top.

  “Damn, that looks good,” Piper said, almost tasting it when Haley took a bite.

  “It is good,” she admitted. “I’d like a caramel Frappuccino, too.”

  “Of course you would,” Piper grumbled, but she started to drive again.

  “Can I ask about your normal diet?” Haley said.

  “Um. Sure. What do you want to know?”

  “How do you stay thin? I’ve never seen anyone eat the junk you do and not have an extra twenty or thirty pounds hanging around.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I eat horrible stuff, but not often. It takes a while for my system to wake up, so I usually just have coffee for breakfast. Then I start work and am usually so busy I don’t get much lunch. And if I do, I’m guilt-tripped into eating what the other girls have. Like a salad.”

  “Ooh, the horrors!”

  “I don’t like them,” she said, shrugging. “So I don’t have anything I really want until dinner. I guess I’ve proven you can eat two thousand calories for dinner if you don’t eat much else.” She let out a soft laugh. “I don’t think I could find a doctor who’d agree that was a good idea, but it hasn’t hurt me.”

  “So far,” Haley said. “I’m not sure I’d like to look at your arteries.”

  “Probably true. Charlie’s always after me to eat better, especially since our mom died of liver cancer. I’m sure she picked this company because of their claims about getting rid of toxins.”

  “Oh, Piper, that must have been awful for all of you,” Haley said, giving her a gentle pat on the leg. “Especially you, since you knew what was coming. Charlie was probably just confused.”

  “Pretty much.” She pointed to the left. “There’s your coffee. Mind if I stay on this side? It’ll take five minutes to turn around.”

  “I’ll be right back.” As she got out she said, “Then you can rush home to drink your spicy lemonade.”

  They got back to the house at eleven, just in time for another hearty meal of lemon juice, honey, cayenne pepper and water. But Piper drank it while sitting outside, with her feet up on a spare chair, and the sun filtering through the arbor. Given that Haley was by her side, she almost didn’t mind gulping down the world’s worst and most useless second breakfast.

  “So,” she said. “No one is as negative as you are about the biz if she hasn’t been burned. Wanna spill the beans?”

  “It’s that obvious?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been around a lot of actors, and writers, and every other kind of film and TV aspirant. That means I’ve also been around a lot of disappointed ones. What’s your story? Writer?”

  “No, no, I’ve always been an animal trainer.” She seemed to have trouble swallowing, then quietly said, “I was a star-struck little nerd from the Midwest, living out in Palmdale while I worked at Spike’s ranch. After he saw how good I was with birds, he asked if I wanted to train a crow for what was probably going to be a forgettable little film shot in Romania.”

  “Wow,” Piper said solemnly. “That’s a long way from Wichita.”

  “A very long way. I’d never been out of the country, so to be in a completely different culture, where not many people spoke English, was quite an education.”

  “But it was good?”

  “At fir
st,” she agreed. “Sadly, I was too naïve to know it wasn’t a good idea to fall for the star.” Her voice grew quiet. “Or that when an actor says they love you they usually mean until the shoot wraps.”

  “A guy?” Piper asked gently.

  Haley shook her head. “No. A woman. You’ve heard of her.” She sighed again. “You might actually know her. Alicia Lofgren.”

  “Ooh,” Piper said, with her memory kicking in. “You’re not the one who—”

  “I am,” she said, her cheeks coloring. “I fell for the hottest young actor in Hollywood. She was just my age, but more experienced sexually. At that point, her goal was to be relatively openly gay, while keeping the offers rolling in. She definitely wanted to work, but she wanted to fly under the radar.”

  “Didn’t work out that way,” Piper said, given that Alicia was definitely an A-lister.

  “Tell me about it. The movie took off so fast, catapulting her and her co-star to heights of celebrity they weren’t prepared for. It didn’t help that they were paired in the public’s mind, but they had to play along.”

  “Wait. You’re saying the romance with Pierce Clark wasn’t—?”

  “Totally fake. They barely spoke when they were alone. But the studio hacks pressured them they had to make people believe they were really in love to keep the fantasy going. They were too inexperienced to resist.”

  “Well, the whole world knows she’s gay now,” Piper said. “She’s in the tabloids all of the time, always with someone new. If an actress has a single lesbian inclination, Alicia Lofgren will ferret it out.” She shrugged, feeling a little guilty for knowing the gossip. “I see them when I’m waiting in line at the grocery store.”

  “Everyone does. Those rags turned my life upside-down. All to sell a few extra copies.”

  Wincing, Piper said, “So when Alicia and Tiffany Ambrose were caught making out during a photo shoot—”

  Haley gave her a perturbed look. “All these years later, and you still remember her name.”

  “She’s a supermodel,” Piper said, shrugging.

  “She was super good at hitting on my girlfriend,” she said, making a face. “Tiffany’s girlfriend and I were both dumped so those two jerks could be together for a grand total of two months. But Tiffany’s girlfriend was smart enough to leave town for a few weeks, while I was hounded into hiding in my apartment.” Her lip started to tremble, and she brushed away a few tears with an angry swipe of her hand. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to just be figuring out if you’re gay or not, while being referred to on gossip sites as the ‘spurned gal pal’ or ‘formerly close friend’? I was the hanger-on who looked like a sap.”

  “Damn, Haley, that must have been horrible!”

  “Really horrible,” she said, her expression making her look like she might be sick. “I’d only been with guys up until then, and I ran right back to them. I was sure I’d never get near another woman.”

  “You were really into her, huh?” Piper asked gently.

  “For the whole time we were on location in Romania, then for over a year in LA, we were a solid couple. We were living together until the movie hit, but then I had to step aside and let Pierce move in.”

  “Oh, damn.”

  “You think?” she said, bitterness infusing every word. “Alicia had to lie in the backseat of delivery vans to get out of the house to sneak over to my apartment. It was a fucking mess,” she said, closing her eyes. “But it was also exciting. Thrilling, really. Before the movie hit, we could go anywhere we wanted. She had money, and was poised to make a lot more, and we blew it on vacations and meals and anything that caught our greedy little eyes. All of my midwestern restraint flew away in a matter of weeks after we got together.”

  “And you loved her?” Piper put her hand on her leg and gave it a reassuring pat.

  “I think I did. She’s…she’s a very sweet woman, Piper. If she could just be a character actor, or even go to New York and do theatre, she’d be a lovely person. But Hollywood made her nuts. Absolutely nuts,” she insisted.

  “Maybe she was primed for being nuts.”

  “That’s a definite possibility,” she admitted, showing a slight smile. “At least that’s what my mom says.”

  Piper’s eyes began to close, afraid of seeing the look on Haley’s face when she asked the question. “Is that how your family found out about your…?”

  “Bad time,” she said briskly. “Very bad time.”

  Piper took her hand and held it to her chest. “I want to know you. Hearing about bad times is part of the deal.”

  She gazed at Piper for a minute, clearly trying to decide if she wanted to get into it—or if she trusted Piper enough to tell her. Thankfully, she began to speak. “I was a wreck. I’d never had my heart broken, had never trusted anyone like I did Alicia, had never given my family a single hint that I liked women—even though I ultimately realized that I’d been leaning that way for years.” She covered her face with her hands for a few seconds. “I was really good at ignoring hints about things I didn’t want to deal with.”

  “Your family must have taken it well, given you get along great now.”

  She was quiet for another minute, then nodded her head, like she’d made a decision. “My mom flew out here without warning.” Taking in a breath, she added, “She was afraid I was going to hurt myself.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “I hope she was wrong, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, Haley,” Piper soothed, leaning over to hold her in her arms for a few moments. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was bad,” she said, sniffling a little. “I was humiliated, Piper. Nationally. It’s hard enough to come out. But to do it on the cover of tabloids…”

  “But your family was supportive, right?”

  “Given they thought I might kill myself over Alicia, they got over whatever negative feelings they had about my being gay really quickly. At least my parents and grandparents did. Some of my aunts and uncles seem a little distant, but my cousins are all cool.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that. I like them already,” she said, trying to force her mouth into a smile.

  “They’re pretty awesome,” she admitted, smiling as well. “So, after my mom left, I had to struggle through the better part of a year until I was just another tabloid footnote.”

  “At least it didn’t last too long,” Piper said, trying to convey her sympathy.

  “Not long? How about the fact that I had to go to Romania for two more films? I was on set with Alicia for over eight more months, spaced over two years. It seemed like a decade spent with that friggin’ raven and his stand-ins, training them to recite lines.”

  “That bird really talked?” Piper said, eyes wide. “I thought—”

  “The lead raven, Copycat, could sound like a motorcycle, a hair dryer, a lawnmower… Just about any machine he heard. But getting him to imitate the damn baby took months. He finally did it, though,” she said, looking justifiably proud of herself.

  “Goddamn, Haley, when that raven started crying like the baby I nearly peed myself!”

  “Months of hard work. But since I wasn’t speaking to Alicia, and much of the crew was Romanian, I had nothing but time.”

  “Damn,” she breathed. “Two more movies with someone who’d broken your heart.”

  “Well, if I’m going to be accurate,” Haley said, with a grim look on her face, “one and three-quarters. Alicia was having trouble on the third movie. She and Pierce were fighting all of the time and she couldn’t concentrate.” Haley got up and faced away from Piper, holding onto the trellis with a hand. “Because actors believe they’re the sun, and all of the moons revolve around them, she blamed me. Her manager called Spike and told him my mere presence was throwing her off.”

  “Oh, shit,” Piper grumbled. “Well, at least you could escape from what must have been hell.”

  “Escape?” She turned and stared at Piper for a minute. “She effectively blacklisted me.” Sitting down on the
chair again, she leaned close and said, “Do you really think I prefer managing a doggie day care facility? Have you ever been on a movie set?”

  “Not really…”

  “They can be a pain, but they can also be fantastic, Piper. Great pay, lots of challenges, exotic locations, some really fun people. But Spike caved into what he viewed as a threat—a powerful manager telling him to get rid of me. I couldn’t get back onto a movie to save my life.”

  “God damn, Haley.” She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it would have been like to have your chosen career closed down because of one heart-breaking actress blaming you for her inability to do her job. “How do you stay so…upbeat?”

  “I have a good life,” she said, the certainty in her voice touching. “I’ve made a good life for myself. Managing a doggie day care is a fine job, Piper, even though it’s not as glamorous or as challenging as being on set. At least I’ll never again have to work in a dark, chilly castle in Romania during the winter.”

  “Wow.” She sat there for a few minutes, trying to soak all of it in. “I’m so glad you didn’t let all of that ruin things for you. Most young women would have gone back to Wichita and taken any job they could find.”

  “Trust me,” she said soberly. “People in Wichita remembered the tabloid story a hell of a lot longer than people in LA. There was no way I could have gone home.”

  Piper gazed at Haley for a minute, thoughts floating around in her head in a crazy jumble. “Um, not to pile on, but you weren’t exactly honest with me either, or you would’ve shared that story earlier. You’re not just a woman who manages a doggie day care. You’ve got a history.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she said quietly. “I just don’t like to talk about it.”

  “Uh-huh. But you expected me to talk about my sister before I was ready to. Let’s face facts here: most adults have things they don’t want to talk about. They reveal stuff over time.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She took in a breath. “Do you want to do a re-take?”