Fame

by Susan X Meagher

  ***

  Piper and Delta were lying on the floor of the cabin, working on the trick Haley had started to teach him. “Nap time,” she called, chuckling when Piper lay down with Delta tentatively climbing onto her chest, giving Haley a puzzled look.

  “I had him do it three times in a row earlier today,” she sighed. “We’ve got to wait for him to lie on his side again, then I’ll try to get him to associate lying down with the command.”

  After a quick knock on the door, Tim’s assistant popped his head in. “There’s going to be a delay on your flight back, Piper. The family is leaving the island, and they’re going first.”

  “The family?”

  “Meredith and the kids are leaving. So, you probably won’t be able to take off until seven thirty.”

  “No problem,” she said. “Does Charlie know?”

  He blinked at her a few times. “How else would I have known where you were?”

  “Good point,” she said, standing to walk over and give him a pat on the back as he turned to leave. “Do you know where Charlie is?”

  “She was going into the dining hall when I last saw her.”

  “Thanks.” She picked up Delta when they were alone and said, “I’m surprised the kids are leaving. I thought they were here for a while.”

  “Ten minutes ago, Meredith told me they were staying another week.” She stared at Piper for a second. “Then she saw you and changed her mind. Got any ideas why?”

  “Um, yeah, I think I do.”

  She didn’t say anything else, prompting Haley to say, “You don’t have to share your secrets with me, Piper. I’m sorry if I was prying.”

  “No! You weren’t,” she said. Then she took in a breath, and said, “Tim surprised me the other day with a pretty private conversation about his and Meredith’s relationship.”

  “What?” Haley said, marveling.

  “Yeah. It…well, it turns out he knew she was into me, and he was basically…giving me the go ahead.”

  “Oh, wow.” Haley let out a breath, surprised that Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Marriage had that kind of arrangement. Then she cocked her head when she noticed the look on Piper’s face. “What else happened?”

  “Mostly that. He wanted to let me know about their arrangement. But I told him I wasn’t interested, and he probably told her.” Her mouth opened, then she shut it for a second. “I would have told you what happened, like I did about the flirting stuff, but nothing came up that affected you and me, so I thought I should keep it to myself.”

  “It’s all right, Piper,” Haley said, kind of charmed not just by Piper’s efforts to be so upfront, but also her lack of interest in gossip for its own sake.

  She shook her head slowly, looking completely baffled. “Maybe seeing me again just pissed her off.”

  Haley nodded, but she was sure that wasn’t it. The way Piper had entered the door that afternoon was exactly the way she would have come in if they were dating. Like she not only belonged there, but that she was a frequent, very welcome visitor. Meredith had probably decided that Piper had refused her offer because of a lowly bird trainer, and no icon of beauty could stand to have that rubbed in her face. Smirking, she twitched her head toward the door. “Let’s go find that sister of yours. It sounds like we have time to sit down and have a leisurely dinner.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ON A WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, JUST after lunch, Piper was in the hair and make-up cabin, organizing Charlie’s extensions for her afternoon call. The door swung open and a wide-eyed PA stood there, panting.

  “They need you in the production office,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Me?” Piper pointed at herself with her thumb.

  “Now,” the young woman said, turning to run back out.

  It was a short dash to the production cabin, where Charlie, looking slightly alarmed, sat at a round table. On one side of her, Tim leaned back in his chair, not disengaged, but clearly not as agitated as the woman Piper had run into on their first day at the Honolulu airport, who sat directly across from Charlie. Piper searched her mind, trying to think of her name, but all she could recall was that she was a PR flack for the studio, and her last name was a major European city. Rome? No. Lisbon? No. London? Yes. Ilsa London.

  Charlie’s gaze went to Piper, and in a fraction of a second Piper could see her start to relax. “I screwed up, Pip,” she said. “It was—”

  “That’s an understatement,” Ilsa snapped, interrupting her.

  Without greeting or preamble, Ilsa whipped out a photo of Charlie lying on the floor, stark naked, hands crossed over her vulva. She bore a sexy smile as she looked right at the camera, making it clear she’d posed.

  Piper struggled mightily to keep her expression neutral, even though her stomach was flipping around like it was in a washing machine. There were things you should never have to see, and your little sister’s desire-filled face was way up on the list. But despite the context, there was something weird about the photo. Then it hit her. This photo was old. Really old. Charlie couldn’t have even had her driver’s license when it had been taken.

  “My quickie with Adam Hill,” Charlie said, her face now colored with embarrassment. Piper placed the photo on the table face-down, then grabbed the empty chair next to Ilsa and pulled it around so she could collapse onto it.

  “How did this—?”

  “The little jerk wants Tim to basically give him a job for life,” Ilsa cut in.

  “Job for life?” Piper asked. “What—”

  “He wants Tim to guarantee he’ll find jobs for him on all of his future projects. If he doesn’t get a firm promise, he’s going to post this online.” She cast a malevolent glance at Tim. “But Mr. Banks won’t play ball.”

  Tim had been gazing at his tablet computer, but he looked up long enough to say, “Not going to happen.”

  “You’re leaving us all exposed!” Ilsa shouted.

  “All?” he said, his voice never rising from calm disinterest. “Explain to me again how this is going to hurt my movie.” Then he turned to Charlie and his gaze as well as his voice softened. “I feel bad that you’re so exposed here…” Wincing, he tried again. “I wish this hadn’t happened, Charlie, but I can’t give in to extortion.”

  “He just wants a job!” Ilsa yelled, her face turning a stroke-worthy shade of pink. “He isn’t demanding to be the director of photography. The twerp just wants to make rent! Make him a driver, a second unit best boy, a boom operator! It doesn’t matter what the job is, just promise you’ll give him one!”

  “If it’s so easy, you do it,” Tim said, not taking his eyes off his tablet. “I’m sure you could use an assistant.”

  “Do I get a vote?” Charlie asked. Her voice was a little quieter than usual, and definitely calmer than Ilsa’s.

  “No,” Ilsa snapped. “You lost your vote when you posed for this jerk.”

  Piper clamped her hand onto Ilsa’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Mostly she wanted to get her attention, yet she wasn’t at all concerned about causing her some discomfort. When the woman tried to brush the hand away, Piper let some of the pressure off. “My sister’s got the only vote that counts.”

  “Your sister?” Ilsa stared at her for a second, blinking in surprise. “I thought you were fucking her.”

  Putting on what she knew was a mean-looking smile, Piper said, “Obviously, my sister is into men.” Composing her expression, she turned to Charlie. “What do you want to do?”

  “Call the police,” she said, not missing a beat.

  Tim looked up from his tablet. “I don’t think that’s—”

  “No fucking way!” Ilsa shouted, yelling over Tim. “You were playing with fire, and you got burned. You’re not going to drag the studio into this because of your stupidity.”

  Piper grabbed her again, this time not letting up when Ilsa tried to pull away. “My sister isn’t stupid. All she did was have sex, something I think all of us have done. She was barely in high school
when this happened, by the way. I suppose you’ve never made a childish mistake?”

  “I never let a creep take my picture when I was naked,” she said, finally yanking her arm from Piper’s grasp.

  Piper was just about to say that Ilsa probably didn’t have many offers, given she was such an asshole. But she fought to control her anger and make a calm, mature statement. “Anyone you’re intimate with can screw you over. Charlie’s not to blame here. Adam Hill is.”

  “Thanks,” Charlie said, her eyes filling with tears. “Maybe you should move over here,” she added, patting the empty seat next to her.

  Glad to get some distance, Piper got up and moved around the conference table, settling next to Charlie, who immediately reached over and took her hand.

  Tim put his tablet down and said, “Look, I know it’s tempting to try to punish assholes who do things like this, but going to the police will make it worse. I say we let him post the photo, then ignore it. No comment at all.”

  “You can’t do that,” Ilsa insisted, her voice rising. “If you don’t comment, the studio will.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “And what exactly will you say?”

  “Well…” She screwed up her features like she was passing a kidney stone. “We’ll say it’s not her. Millions of girls look just like this.”

  Tim took the picture and flipped it over, quickly covering most of it with his tablet, revealing only Charlie’s face. “If that was true, millions of guys would be really, really happy.” He shot Piper a look. “Lots of women, too.”

  “It’s clearly Charlie,” Piper said. “That’s a ridiculous position to take, Ilsa. You need to come up with a better option if you want to keep the police out of this.”

  The door opened, and Meredith Legrand entered, looking like a cool breeze even in black yoga pants and a tank. Her hair was pulled into a pony tail, with a baseball cap tugged down low, dark glasses covering half of her face.

  She took the chair next to Ilsa, looked at the photo when Tim slid it over, then placed her hands flat on the table. “Where are we?”

  “Charlie wants to call the police, Ilsa wants to deny it’s Charlie, and I want to ignore it,” Tim said.

  Meredith looked at Piper. At least her head was pointed in Piper’s direction. Her glasses were so dark it wasn’t possible to see her eyes. “Piper? Your vote?”

  “She doesn’t get one,” Ilsa snapped. “She doesn’t have a multimillion dollar investment in this movie.”

  Meredith removed her glasses, pointedly ignoring Ilsa’s comment. Then she tilted her head, gazing into Piper’s eyes. “Well?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. Charlie was squeezing her hand, but she didn’t want to automatically mirror her choice. This was important, and she wanted to offer advice she’d considered carefully.

  “I understand why Charlie wants to call the police. I do,” she said, turning to look into her sister’s eyes. “But I can also see that ignoring it might be a good tactic.”

  “What’s your reasoning, Tim?” Meredith was running the meeting now. No doubt about it.

  He wasn’t playing with his tablet any longer. Posture erect, he faced her and said, “I’d like to ignore it completely. No comment from me or Charlie or the studio,” he added, casting a dismissive glance at Ilsa. “If we don’t play the game, it’ll blow over.”

  “Probably true,” Meredith said. “But you’ll have a rough week or two.”

  “I don’t think you can stop me from going to the police,” Charlie said, her voice rising and growing stronger. “This is about me. If I let this jerk get away with it, I’m publicly stating I’m ripe for screwing with.”

  “You are,” Meredith said, looking at Charlie like she would one of her own children. “Once you’re in the public eye, you’re a moving target. You’ll suffer some flesh wounds no matter what, Charlie, but you’ve got to carefully pick your battles.”

  “I’m picking this one,” she said, fire in her eyes. “I’m not going to lose my virginity to some jerk only to have him blackmail me. This is the battle I’m picking.” She folded her arms over her chest, with her chin sticking out like it had when she’d been a toddler refusing her vegetables.

  “My guess is the studio can use the morals clause in your contract to get you to comply with just about anything they want to do,” Meredith said, her deeply sympathetic expression surprising Piper. As she turned to Ilsa, Meredith’s gaze hardened. “But they’d be incredibly stupid to try that. You don’t want your lead actress to lose focus during a very expensive shoot.”

  “You also don’t want your summer tent-pole young-adult movie to have its star caught exposing herself like a teenaged street-walker!”

  Charlie’s hand tightened around Piper’s arm, preventing her from getting up to rattle Ilsa’s brains. But Meredith’s calm, sure voice distracted her from her rage.

  “Everyone poses naked,” she said, so dismissive it would have been funny if Piper hadn’t been focused on vengeance. “I think you should hire the best PR firm in the world and have them work their magic. Someone can find a way to turn this into good publicity.” She took another glance at the photo. “This could have been much worse. Some women look awful when they’re trying for beguiling.” She gave Charlie a wry smile. “You have a great sex face.”

  “I don’t care if the whole world sees my sex face,” Charlie insisted. “I want that asshole in jail.”

  Piper shook her head, sure that wasn’t the right course of action. “I think we need to escalate this process. Ilsa’s right—in that the studio’s got a massive investment they have to protect. We need some decision-makers involved.” She turned to the sour-looking PR flack. “No offense.”

  “Agreed,” Meredith said, standing. She turned to Tim and said, “Do you need me to stay? I promised the girls I’d fly right back so we can get manicures this afternoon.”

  “Um,” he took a look at his watch. “I was hoping to get back to work, but we’re a little up in the air here…”

  Meredith looked at her own watch, frowning as she thought. “I can spend another hour and still make the little princesses happy.”

  “Thanks,” he said, smiling at her like she’d just taken a huge weight off his shoulders.

  “Anything for you,” Meredith said, grasping the shoulder of his shirt to pull him outside. Before the door closed, Meredith had her arms around him, and was placing a very hot kiss to his lips. Piper definitely didn’t want the kind of relationship they had, but it truly seemed to work for them, and that was really the point of a relationship—doing what worked for the people involved.

  ***

  After Tim, Charlie, and, eventually, Ilsa left the room, Piper stood and used the white board to go over the possible options and all of the outcomes she could predict. Meredith watched her cooly, nodding every once in a while. She held up a hand and pointed at a sentence Piper had just written. “Add ‘possibility of internal leaks’ under that.”

  “Internal?” Piper asked.

  “Definitely.” She picked up the beautiful fountain pen she’d been playing with, never having taken the cap off it. Tapping her lower lip with the gold tip, she said, “When you have people on staff who don’t make much money, the kind of cash the tabloids offer to get them to leak can make a quick payday become a risk they’re willing to take.” She shrugged, like it was no big deal. “Not that I blame them. When someone offers you three or four year’s salary…”

  “I never would have thought of that,” Piper said, with her stomach starting to churn. “That really gives me pause.”

  Meredith got up and took the marker from Piper’s hand. Just being that close to her made Piper want to back up, but she compelled her feet to stay right where they were, just close enough to smell the sexy perfume Meredith wore in the middle of the afternoon. What must she have smelled like when she was looking for action?

  “If I can impart one bit of wisdom I’ve gained through my own
trials and tribulations with the public, it’s this.” In a bold hand, she printed, “Trust the trustworthy,” underlining the last word. “Assume everyone will sell you out, Piper. Don’t give information to anyone you aren’t sure of. Emphasis on sure.”

  “But I don’t know any of the players. I’m sure I can trust Charlie, and I’m sure Tim won’t do anything to hurt the movie…” She almost choked on that last bit, but it was the truth. Tim wasn’t necessarily on Charlie’s side.

  “Good,” Meredith said, patting her on the back before she returned to her seat. “Everyone but Charlie has a separate agenda. Your job is to cut the best deal you can, while protecting your sister. Don’t try to make friends,” she said, gathering her things and slipping them into her obviously expensive leather bag. “Keeping Charlie safe and sane is going to be a big job.” She moved to the door, resting her hand on the knob for a moment. “I might be wrong,” she said, a smile starting to form, “but I think you’ve got the right instincts to be a good manager.” Her smile was bright and full, which made Piper almost swallow her teeth when Meredith added, “Just be cagier the next time someone wants to sleep with you. Trust me,” she said, her voice taking on that stunningly sexy tone. “Others will try, and some of their fragile egos won’t allow them to take it in stride.”

  ***

  After taking a full five minutes to hyperventilate, Piper was finally able to think straight. She’d replayed Meredith’s words many times, but it took a long while to find them funny—at least the part about other people having fragile egos. Dragging her kids off the island when they wanted to stay wasn’t great evidence of a rock-solid self image, but Piper didn’t hold that against her. A lot of Meredith’s image, the thing she made her living with, revolved around her looks and her sex appeal. Having someone not jump at the chance to sample it had to get under her skin.

  The part of the conversation she found more unsettling was Meredith’s comment about Piper having the goods to be a manager. She wasn’t at all sure that was accurate, but Meredith had enough experience to know…