Fame

by Susan X Meagher

  You’ve hurt me deeply, Piper, by ignoring everything I told you was important to me. I regret letting you get so close, but that’s an error I can’t correct now. Just try to conjure up some empathy to leave me alone so I can lick my wounds in private. That’s the least you can do at this point.

  Haley

  Piper let the phone fall to her chest, then covered her eyes with the heels of her hands, pressing as hard as she could stand. Then she spoke, clearly and softly. “Who did you call to get Haley hired on the movie?”

  She didn’t hear a sound, so she ultimately removed her hands and blinked to clear her eyes, seeing her sister staring at her. It wasn’t clear what was going through her mind, but she looked a lot like she had the first time Piper caught her having sex in their apartment—both terrified and ready to defend herself.

  “Um, Tim told me about the birds, and then I said you had a friend who worked for Spike, then he said Spike was sending people over, and I said it might be cool to see if we could get Haley included.” She swallowed nervously. “I didn’t make any demands, Piper. I just told him about Haley and he got on the phone with somebody.” She reached over and grasped at Piper’s arm. “Did I screw up?”

  So angry she thought she might hit her, Piper tossed her phone at her sister, then got up. “I’m going to my apartment. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone.” As she walked, Delta followed behind, but she stared at him for a moment when she reached the stairs. “I’m not in the mood,” she snapped, then climbed the stairs alone, ignoring his puzzled, yet demanding yips.

  Charlie must have read the email, since she raced for the stairs, now standing there with Delta in her arms, looking up at Piper with a forlorn expression on her face.

  But Piper couldn’t bear to look at either of them. No matter what her sister’s motivation, she’d stuck her nose into Piper’s intimate life, effectively destroying it. That wasn’t something you could get past with just a pouty expression and an apology, no matter how sincere.

  ***

  Piper stayed in her apartment, stewing in her anger until she was so hungry she couldn’t hold out another minute. She’d heard the garage open a bit earlier, and hoped that meant Charlie was gone, but she hadn’t spent enough time in the apartment to know what it sounded like when a car left.

  Regrettably, Charlie was pretty much where she’d left her, now pacing near the house, with her big white headphones on. They were pretty good at cancelling noise, so she didn’t hear Piper approach. But Piper heard enough of her conversation to yank the phone from her hand and press the big, red “End” key.

  “What in the absolute fuck are you doing?” she yelled, easily loud enough to be heard in the alley.

  Stunned, Charlie just stared at her. Then she reached out and put her hand on Piper’s arm, wincing when Piper brushed it away.

  “I’m trying to get in touch with Tim, but his guard-dog assistant won’t let me talk to him. He can unwind this, Piper. We can fix it,” she insisted.

  “No, you can’t.” She handed the phone back, went into the kitchen and started to take a beer out. Recalling she was never going to let a drop of alcohol touch her lips again, she grabbed a bottle of sparkling water, opened it and drained it in a bunch of gulps. After tossing the bottle into the recycling container, she went back outside, rolling her eyes at the tap-tap-tap of Delta’s little nails on the tile floor behind her.

  She dropped onto a chaise, then scrolled through her phone, looking for a nearby place that delivered pizza. She didn’t care if it was good. She just wanted it fast and greasy. After dialing a number, she started to order, “Yeah, I want a large pepperoni—” But Charlie repaid the favor, taking the phone from her hand and cutting the line.

  “You have to talk to me,” she said, shivering with emotion. Her eyes were wide, and clearly bloodshot, like she’d been crying. “Let me take you out for something to eat. Something good,” she insisted. “We can go get some poke. There’s a good place—”

  “The first place Haley and I ever went,” Piper interrupted. “No thanks.”

  “Sushi?” She looked so hopeful, clearly trying hard to make up for her actions.

  “Fine.” Piper got up and waited for her sister to get her purse. “I’m not taking anything, so you’d better have money.”

  “I do, Pip,” she said softly. “I’ll drive.” She put the dog carrier on the ground, and Delta raced for it, wagging his little tail as Charlie zipped him in.

  “Are you sure you can bring him?”

  “Nobody cares,” she said, completely unaware that people who weren’t young and beautiful and famous sometimes didn’t get to bring their dogs into restaurants.

  They got into her tiny car, with Piper having to hold Delta on her lap, not her favorite way to transport him. But she didn’t want to drive, so she couldn’t complain. They didn’t say a word to each other on the short trip, winding up in the parking lot of a strip mall in Marina del Rey. Charlie led the way up an exposed staircase to the second floor, where industrious young men were setting the place up for dinner. Piper looked at her watch, seeing that they didn’t open for another fifteen minutes, but a guy raced out and greeted them warmly, bowing and leading them to an outside table with a beautiful view of the parking lot.

  Without looking at the menu, Charlie said, “Omakase for both of us. Sashimi for me, sushi for her. Drink?” she asked Piper.

  “Water,” she said.

  “Me too,” Charlie said. “Sparkling?”

  “Yes, yes,” the guy said, smiling so brightly most of his teeth showed. Piper had the impression the guy would have added bubbles by hand if he’d had to, but Charlie was going to get her damned sparkling water—along with anything else she wanted. The perks had started to fall upon her shoulders at an increasing rate. Soon she wouldn’t have to ask twice to be allowed to do just about anything she wanted. How could that be good for a young woman’s still-developing personality?

  Glumly, Piper watched Charlie talk to Delta, reassuring him that he’d get a bite of really fresh fish in just a few minutes.

  Then Charlie turned to her, her expression still the epitome of contriteness. “I found Haley’s address in your phone, so I went to her apartment, but nobody was home. Then I went to the shop, but they said she was going to be gone for months and they couldn’t reach her.”

  “Stop,” Piper said firmly, grasping her arm and giving it a squeeze. “I want you to stop interfering, Charlie. Right now. Permanently.”

  Clearly stung, tears came to Charlie’s eyes again and she sniffled a few times before wiping at them with the napkin. “I can fix this, Pip. It just happened on Friday.”

  “No, you can’t,” she said solemnly. “Not every mistake can be fixed. Sometimes things stay broken.”

  “But she won’t be mad at you when I tell her this was all my doing!”

  “Yes, she will,” Piper said, one hundred percent sure of that. “I screwed up once already, and Haley gave me another chance. I’m sure she’s too careful to do that again. And I can’t say I blame her.”

  “What are you talking about? How’d you screw up?”

  Their water was delivered, and Piper took a long drink, still dehydrated. “I didn’t tell her about you. She found out when she stayed over at my house, and I barely stopped her from cutting me loose by working my ass off to convince her your career wouldn’t affect us. Then I agreed to be your manager…” She trailed off. “That had to worry her, but she hung in and was really nice about it. But this?” She drew her index finger across her throat. “This is the kiss of death. Everything she hates about Hollywood in one big package.”

  “Why does she hate Hollywood? That’s…what’s that even mean?”

  Sighing, Piper said, “Bad history. She got her first taste of the biz when she was in a screwed up relationship with Alicia Lofgren.”

  “She was?” Her eyes got very wide, then she let out a laugh. “I’m not sure why that surprises me. Alicia goes throug
h lovers like I do socks. I’m surprised you haven’t been with her, Pip.”

  “Whatever,” Piper said, so tired she could hardly keep her head up. “This was before your time, but Haley and Alicia were together when they were really young. Haley thought they were going to be permanent, and monogamous, but Alicia was photographed humping Tiffany Ambrose in a parking lot during a photo shoot.”

  “Who?” Charlie asked, blinking slowly.

  “A really famous model.” She shrugged, “I guess she’s not famous anymore.”

  “I know everyone current, and I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Well, she was famous then. No one knew either of them were into women, so it was all over the tabloids.”

  “How did that affect Haley? I mean, I’m sure she was hurt, but—”

  “She was more than hurt, Charlie. The tabloids had been following Alicia for months, but they didn’t publish most of the shots they had of her, since they didn’t know they were holding onto scandalous photos. They obviously thought Haley was an assistant or something. But once they saw there was a story, they went back and saw they had hundreds of photos of Alicia and her scorned ‘gal pal.’”

  “Oh, God, she must have been devastated.”

  “She was. At that point, she hadn’t told anyone in her personal life she was with a woman, so everyone learned it by seeing pictures of her going to Starbucks with Alicia, with headlines like ‘Even at six a.m. Alicia and former gal-pal inseparable.’ It was sleazy and salacious, so it sold a lot of papers. But it also made Haley look like a stooge. The plain-Jane bird trainer gets dumped for the supermodel.”

  “Supermodel?” Charlie asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Tiffany was really famous,” Piper insisted. “Which just shows how easy it is to go from the top to the bottom!”

  “I’m sorry, Pip,” Charlie soothed. “Go on. Tell me why something that happened over ten years ago is going to get you tossed.”

  She thought for a minute, having to work extra hard to get thoughts through her aching head. “I think the whole thing made her feel like she’d lost track of who she was. She’d only been in LA a little while, and was kinda thrilled at the thought of getting in with a young star, working on films all over the world… You know. The whole life.”

  “My life,” Charlie said soberly.

  “Right. But Alicia got her fired from the last Quote The Raven movie, and she hasn’t been on a set since. Spike assigned her to the doggie day care, and she seems content there. It’s a steady job that has less excitement but more stability.”

  “She got her fired…?”

  “Yep. Alicia was screwing up and she blamed Haley. Like it was her fault Alicia couldn’t remember her lines.”

  “Jesus,” Charlie murmured.

  “See why she might be a little skittish about being too involved with the industry?”

  “No,” she said, blinking slowly. “She was with a jerk, but now she can be with someone wonderful! Someone who wants what she wants. I’ll just have Tim fire her from the movie and demand that Spike assign her to the shop again. She’ll be back at work tomorrow, Pip. I can make that happen,” she insisted, shaking her arm.

  “I haven’t even known her for a month,” Piper admitted, “but we’ve talked about everything. One thing I’m certain of is that she doesn’t let herself be made a fool of. She’d look stupid and flakey to Spike, as well as her staff at the shop.” She stared at her sister for a few moments, seeing how contrite she looked. But just because you were sorry you wrecked a person’s car, that didn’t help much when she needed to drive. “You screwed up, Charlie, and you can’t fix it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, tears filling her eyes.

  “I am, too. This just shows Haley that all of the stuff she hates about the biz is true; how easy it is to have your world turned upside down, how little power someone like her has when someone famous snaps her fingers, how Spike will always choose to make a powerful figure happy, no matter what.” She let out a sigh. “She’s been with him since she was twenty years old, but he told her to get her butt to Hawaii—or find a new job.”

  Charlie was not to be dissuaded. This time she looked very sober when she said, “I can make him change his mind, Pip. I’ll call Spike myself and explain that Haley had nothing to do with this. He can’t have found a replacement for her in two days! It will be better for everyone if she stays right where she is.”

  “I’m not going to have her jerked around any more, Charlie. It’s too late.” She let out a frustrated sigh, then cocked her head. “Why’s she going tomorrow? You and I aren’t leaving for two weeks.”

  “The animal wranglers have been in Hawaii for weeks already,” she said quietly. “They already had someone training the birds, but Spike said he could squeeze Haley in.”

  “Great. Just great,” Piper said as their server came out with beautiful little dishes with something pink and jiggling shimmering in the late afternoon sun. “She’ll love being jammed onto a team that doesn’t want her. That will be the icing on the fucking cake.”

  ***

  Even though the place was a long way from charming, the sushi was pretty awesome. Piper ate every bite of the eight courses, even managing to finish a couple of bites that Charlie couldn’t handle.

  Charlie had been on her best behavior, even refraining from giving Delta a five dollar bite of uni when Piper scowled at her. Now they were surrounded by other diners, with some young guys obviously recognizing Charlie. They kept trying to check her out without being too obvious about it, but Piper was sure one of them would gut it up and approach her at some point. She didn’t care. They’d had a good meal, and being interrupted now would be kind of a relief. It would give her a break from Charlie trying to think of ways to fix her mistake.

  “I know you’ve told me that Haley just wants a predictable life,” Charlie said, “but there’s more to it. There has to be. Hating Hollywood because of a bad relationship with an actress is like my hating food because I dated a jerk who was a waiter.”

  “Yeah, there’s more to it,” Piper admitted. “She thinks there’s a lack of…morality, I guess, that’s more common in the biz than in most industries. Everything is about looks and youth and using people up and spitting them out. She thinks that extends to relationships.”

  “That’s not fair,” Charlie said, clearly wounded. “Do you think all actors are slimy?”

  “Of course not. But relationships do seem hard to maintain. You can’t argue with that, Charlie. Whenever someone’s been with a spouse for over twenty years, everyone acts like they’re some kind of icons.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “That’s why I’m not going to get married until I’m toast. When I’m only getting offers to be the cute young woman’s mom, I’m going to find a husband.”

  “That’ll be twenty years!”

  “If I’m lucky.” She took a sip of her tea, looking contemplative. “We don’t talk about nuts and bolts often, Pip, but I’m not gonna lie. It’s hard to create the illusion of romance if you don’t feel it. I’ve been kind of in love with every single guy I’ve been paired with romantically. If I’d let myself, I could have had a fling with Aaron Evert.”

  “But you didn’t, right?”

  “No, but he made it clear he was available…”

  “I’m sure he was,” Piper said, slightly disgusted. “You know your father’s only in his early fifties. Do you really want to sleep with guys who could have produced you?”

  “Didn’t I just say I wasn’t interested? But even if I had been, I wouldn’t have done it. I’ve decided I won’t ever sleep with people I work with. Kinda got burned the first time.”

  “Do I even want to know?” Piper asked, truly afraid to hear the reply.

  A sly grin lit Charlie’s face. “I’m surprised you didn’t find out, but the first time I had sex was when I was on Misfits.”

  Piper blinked at her. Charlie’d been the hot, high school-aged daughter on a sitcom starr
ing Rick Jason, a very well known, notoriously rotund comedian, known as much for his drug use and his size as his comedy. Sputtering with anger, Piper said, “Rick Jason was thirty years older than you! Goddamned pervert!”

  “Not him!” Charlie said, giggling. “My little brother on the show, Adam Hill.”

  “That little kid? That’s who you chose to sleep with?”

  She shrugged. “He was a year younger than me, but he was already a player. I was probably a little young, but I don’t regret it.”

  “Good lord,” Piper moaned, slapping her hands over her face. “That’s like…” She shivered all over. “I can’t even imagine you and Adam doing it. He was so little!”

  “Still is. He looks just like he did when he was fourteen, which isn’t a great look when you’re twenty-two. Last I heard, he was bouncing around just trying to get work as a production assistant. Anything to keep a foot in the biz.”

  Piper couldn’t let go of the news, with images of her sister and a five-foot-two Lothario about to make her barf. “Please don’t tell me any more stuff like that. I would have driven myself crazy if I’d known what you were up to.” She sat upright. “Where was your damned tutor?”

  “We didn’t do it on set,” she scoffed. “We did it at a cast Christmas party at Rick’s mansion. Nobody missed us.” She started to laugh. “When you’re that age, the whole thing only takes ten minutes.”

  “Enough,” she said, sticking her fingers into her ears. “I’ll just repeat what I’ve been saying since you hit puberty. Never, ever have sex without a condom. Never,” she stressed. “If I ever find out you got an STD, I will officially feel like a failure.”

  “No STDs, no pregnancies,” Charlie said, speaking clearly and slowly. “I’ve been super careful, Pip, and I’ll continue to be.” She patted her on the shoulder and added, “Now let me carefully unwind Haley from this deal.”

  “Thanks, but no. I’ll see if I can speak to her before we get to Hawaii, but since she’s obviously blocked my number, that’s going to be tough. I just hope she’s generous enough to give me a third chance, but I’m not getting my hopes up.”