Almost Famous, a Talent Novel

by Zoey Dean

  “Grandes fêtes!” Coco hyperventilated. “I can’t believe she fell for it!” She looked at Emily seriously. “That was even better than your Freakberry impression!”

  “Wait, wait, wait! Emily, puh-leeeez do more impressions!” Becks cried.

  “Well . . .” Emily pulled the arms of her sweatshirt way down so it looked like she had no hands. Then she stood with her hand on her right hip, her left leg jutting out. “Totes!” she said.

  “BECKS!” Coco and Mac screamed in unison.

  “That is me!” Becks exclaimed, lifting up her sweatshirt arms to reveal that she’d tucked her hands inside. “Do more!”

  Emily leaned her head down, getting into character. Then she popped her head up and tucked her hair behind her ears. She mimed twirling bangles on her wrists and checking her iPhone. Then she flipped her hair behind her back in one brisk motion and stared intently at her friends. She spoke in a slightly deeper, more business-like voice. “Girls, I have a plan!”

  Mac blushed. Coco and Becks laughed. “Mac!”

  “Don’t do me!” Coco crossed her arms and shook her head in tiny, rapid back-and-forth motions. “I’ll be too embarrassed!”

  Emily crossed her arms and stared right at Coco. “Okay. I won’t do you.” She shook her head in the same tiny, rapid back-and-forth motions.

  Coco covered her face in mock embarrassment.

  “I have others,” Emily said. She slowly curled her hand into a paw and made cat sounds. “Meow! Thanks for coming to my par-tay.”

  “Kimmie Tachman!” Becks and Coco cried. The girls had been to Kimmie’s Sweet Thirteen party earlier that week. She had dressed as a sexy lion and had gone around making cat noises all night.

  “That’s exactly how she does it!” Coco cried. “It’s sort of adorable, actually.”

  Becks, Coco, and Mac all started making paws and lion noises.

  “Stop!” Coco puffed out her cheeks like a blowfish, then let out the air. She crossed her legs, twisting her ankles and pointing her toes. She looked like she was about to explode—her face was bright red and tiny beads of sweat glistened on her forehead.

  “Meow!” Emily said again, making a paw.

  “No, seriously, people, stop!” Coco spoke through clenched teeth. She was squeezing her fists tightly and her eyes were closed. “I’m serious!” Her breaths came in short pants, like Madonna’s.

  And then Mac realized—

  “Oh, Coco,” Mac said calmly, knowing that she had to call out the obvious. “Please tell me you did not just pee yourself!”

  Coco turned an even brighter shade of red.

  “Ew!” Becks yelled, cracking up even more.

  “Just a drop!” Coco pleaded. “Nothing anyone would actually notice but me.”

  “And me, apparently,” Mac pointed out.

  “Okay, fine,” Coco said, blushing. “When I laugh really, really hard, sometimes a little just comes out. I can’t help it. Last year it happened at dance practice.”

  “Gross!” Mac said, and threw a green silk pillow at her friend.

  “I know!” Coco laughed and threw a pillow back. “I’m gross! Can we please talk about someone else now?!” she said, shuffling into the bathroom to turbo-change.

  “I have a secret.” Becks said, jumping to her friend’s rescue. She sat on her knees on the green carpet and the girls turned to face her. “It doesn’t leave this room,” she said slowly, and everyone nodded. She waited a few seconds, relishing the attention. “I’ve never kissed a boy.”

  Coco rejoined the circle and everyone groaned. None of them had kissed boys. Besides, the only datable boys at BAMS were Lukas Gregory and Hunter Crowe. They were best friends and water polo players, with really good fashion sense (Diesel jeans and plain tees) without being gay about it. All the other boys at BAMS were either (a) jerks, (b) immature, or (c) all of the above.

  “That’s right, these lips have never touched a boy,” Becks went on, pointing to her naturally Angelina Jolie- esque pout. “But until they do, I have my ways. And that’s what you really can’t tell anyone.”

  Very slowly, Becks reached for her Pinkberry yogurt. “Pretend this is Austin,” she said, referring to her next-door neighbor and crush. They’d grown up together, and this year he was starting at Bel-Air Prep. Becks drew the dessert close to her lips, and then she slowly opened her mouth and proceeded to slobber all over the frozen yogurt, making a mess of her face as she moved her lips over the fro-yo dome. By the time Becks had finished displaying her talents, there was just a messy puddle of melted frozen yogurt.

  “Oh God, are you trying to make me pee again?” Coco asked.

  Emily smiled, but resisted teasing anyone or laughing too much at their expense. Well played, Mac thought approvingly of her young star.

  “Come on, Mac, don’t you have any secrets?” Becks asked, putting down her mangled fro-yo and lying on her side.

  “Yeah, we always tell you everything!” Coco squealed.

  “Well,” Mac said casually, “even after I win social chair I’m still going to hang out with you girls all the time. I have no interest in hanging out with anyone else at BAMS.” Mac shrugged as if she’d just revealed a deep, dark secret.

  “DUH!” Coco screamed.

  “BIIIIIIG SHOCKER! Tell us something we don’t know!” Becks commanded. “I want truly confidential information!”

  Emily, Coco, and Becks stared at Mac wide-eyed. “Sorry, chickadees, you know everything about me,” Mac replied nonchalantly, twisting the strap on her blue Splendid pajama top.

  “Fine,” Becks sighed. “I give up. And I’m tired.”

  “Me too,” Mac said, realizing she’d lost the chance to revive her social chair strategy talks. They flicked off the lights and crawled under their Italian linens in the guest beds that housekeeping had wheeled in earlier that day.

  Mac closed her eyes, grateful that she’d managed to dodge the what’s your secret question. There was nothing she hated more than feeling vulnerable. And there was no faster way to become social roadkill than to be an open book.

  Mac was half awake, half asleep, listening to the gentle hum of Coco’s sound machine and thinking about how if she could just get social chair, her life would finally be complete when . . . it happened.

  Brrrrrrt!

  Mac Armstrong farted.

  Mac’s heartbeat instantly raced at triple speed. She prayed that everyone was still asleep.

  “Mac, was that you?” Coco squealed, sitting up, the whites of her eyes visible even in the dark.

  “Maaaaaaaaaaaaaac! How could such a large sound come out of such a teeny girl?” Becks hollered, tossing a silk pillow at Mac.

  “Oh, Mac, it really does reek in here,” Emily said softly.

  Mac blushed when she heard Emily’s voice. Surely Mama Armstrong had never farted in front of her hotshot clients. She waited until the giggles subsided and the last of the pillows had been flung. “Fine. I’m lactose intolerant.”

  “Aha!” Coco exclaimed. “That’s why you always get soy lattes!”

  “No more Pinkberry for you!” Becks decreed.

  “I’m sure we can all sleep better knowing my systems are working,” Mac said. “But I need my beauty rest.” She slipped on her baby blue Bliss satin eye mask. “Good night!”

  “It was a good night until you farted,” Becks teased.

  Mac sighed. But in the darkness, she smiled to herself. It was great to have good friends. Friends who had your back no matter what. This was going to be a great year. The Best Year Ever.

  CHAPTER TWO

  emily

  Monday September

  6:35 AM Style hair per Xochi’s instruction to look bed-head chic. Leave bangs alone

  7:25 AM Leave for school

  8 AM Homeroom with Mac

  AT SOME POINT TODAY: Figure out where classes/ lockers/lunchroom/my life at BAMS are!

  Emily took one last sip of her Moroccan mint tea latte and set the barely touched drink in the cup
holder of the Toyota Prius. Mac’s mom’s assistant, Erin, had picked up the Inner Circle from Coco’s hotel and was driving them to school in the Armstrong family staff car. Mac sat up front, and Emily was squished into the backseat between Coco and Becks. There was a fresh copy of Variety for Mac and the L.A. Weekly for Coco, who read the arts section to stay on top of dance performances she wanted to attend.

  The Prius sailed along Stone Canyon Road, past eucalyptus trees and colonial-style mansions, and houses with names like La Cigogne and Jolie-Vie. Erin’s weird flute music was playing on the CD player, but Emily was (almost) used to it by now, and it was (almost) relaxing and spa-like. It would have been a very peaceful ride, except for the fact that Emily’s stomach was thrashing, and she felt as nervous as the day she’d auditioned for a major Hollywood movie.

  And then she realized: She was auditioning.

  Today was her tryout for the part of New Girl at Bel-Air Middle School. And, as Emily put her hand on her leg to stop it from shaking, she realized just how badly she feared being cast as The Girl Who Clearly Doesn’t Belong in Bel-Air. Or worse: The Snob, which was how she’d been cast in Iowa, because no one had understood that she was really just shy. Today was her fresh start, riding to school with the coolest girls in Los Angeles, and she didn’t want to blow it.

  She bit her lip and inhaled, thinking of how every year before this she’d walked to school with Paige, her best friend, stopping on the way for chocolate French crullers at Winky’s Donuts. She barely registered the Prius passing Demi and Ashton’s Lexus hybrid SUV, or that Erin was turning onto famous Mulholland Drive. Emily didn’t even notice the crystal-clear view of the Valley below, or the tourists who had stopped along the side to take pictures on the legendary road.

  She only looked up when she heard Mac announce, “Time to bounce!”

  Erin pulled over in front of an iron gate, wide open to reveal a redbrick driveway lined by pebbled walkways. Erin could have just turned up the driveway, but Mac had already explained that she didn’t want their first steps on campus as eighth-graders to be clunky exits from the Prius. She wanted their first steps to be Le Strut.

  As Emily took in Bel-Air Middle School, she almost stopped breathing. BAMS didn’t look like a school—it looked like a large Spanish palace, with blazing pink bougainvillea hanging from its white walls. There was a giant grassy courtyard in the center, lined on all sides by white archways. It was perched on an incline, shrouded by eucalyptus trees overlooking Bel-Air on one side and the Valley on the other.

  “Wait till you check out the view from up there.” Mac slipped on her Gucci aviators.

  “Now, be nice to all the awkward girls!” Erin said cheerfully, blinking her catlike green eyes. Erin was twenty-seven, but something about her always made her seem like a dorky sixth-grader.

  “Girls, do you have everything?” Mac turned to the backseat and looked them over.

  “It’s all good,” Coco said confidently, undoing the top button on her sleeveless vest and grabbing the oversize Dolce & Gabbana zebra print satchel at her feet. Coco’s style was sophisticated, with a dash of eccentric.

  “Yeah.” Becks yawned loudly, rubbing her eyes and picking up her orange and black North Face backpack, the one Mac was never able to wrangle away from her.

  Emily bent down to retrieve her real red Gucci bag. On Emily’s first day in L.A., she’d bought a knockoff on Hollywood Boulevard, but Mac owned the real version, and had insisted Emily take it to school with her—something about the knockoff’s buckles being obvio-faux. Emily felt a flash of awe—not to mention fear—over carrying an accessory that cost more than her mother’s car.

  Emily closed the door of the Prius and saw that the Inner Circle were already walking toward BAMS. To anyone else they just looked like bored girls who’d rolled out of bed, grabbed their expensive bags, and gone to class. But Emily knew her friends worked hard to get that look—it was Le Strut in action. Mac was in front, holding her iPhone at arm’s length and pretending to check her messages. Becks and Coco were walking arm in arm, laughing like they were going to a party. Which meant that Emily, still by the Prius . . . was all alone.

  “Mac! Wait up!” Emily screamed, running on the pebbles toward her friend.

  Mac paused in her tracks, clutching her purple Mulberry Mabel bag, but she didn’t turn around.

  But Emily didn’t have time to worry about how uncool it was to scream in public or to chase after someone—she was too terrified of walking into school all alone and looking like a loner. Or worse.

  “Sorry, I thought you were going in without me,” Emily said, sliding into step next to Mac.

  “I know you’re nervous, but for your own sake, don’t do it again,” Mac hissed. “First impressions are everything. And early buzz on you is very good.”

  “How do I have buzz? It’s the first day of school!” Emily stammered. Sure, people in Iowa snap-judged you all the time—that wasn’t new to Emily—but at least they waited until school started.

  “I’ve been posting about you on the BA intranet,” Mac said. “Just little notes like how everyone is totally gonna heart you.” Mac cleaned her aviator sunglasses on the inside of her C&C pastel pink tank.

  “Thank you, I guess?” Emily was starting to wonder if she needed social training wheels.

  “You have to control your own press,” Mac explained. “Otherwise people just believe whatever they hear.” She sighed. “I’m just trying to keep you L.A. cool.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. Mac always made a distinction between Los Angeles and the rest of the word, as though the bar of humanity had been slightly raised for the City of Angels.

  As their feet crunched on the pebbles, Emily focused on her BFF bangle, which she had finally convinced Mac to let her wear, despite the fact that it was “très summer camp.” She could feel her right leg shaking slightly, and she was extra glad Mac had insisted she wear Mella flip-flops instead of heels.

  Just before they walked through the main archway and onto campus, Mac paused. “In Hollywood, whenever the talent begins a project, she gets a start gift from her agent.” She reached over to Emily and handed her a silver chain. “This is yours.”

  Emily looked down and realized there was a silver ring on the end. Emily daintily examined the ring. It was engraved INNER CIRCLE on the inside.

  “It’s custom-made by Sydney Evan,” Mac said matter-of-factly. Mac lifted up her own chain with a silver ring dangling from the end, to reveal that she had the same one. “We all have them. Inner Circle, ring, get it?”

  “Mac, I don’t know what to—”

  “No worries, babe,” Mac said, waving her away. The girls walked in silence to the end of the driveway, a hundred sets of curious eyes watching them. When they reached the white pavement of the campus, they stopped in front of a giant fountain of Neptune. Mac turned to Emily. “I hate to bail on you, but all the social chair candidates have to go register in the main office.” She tapped her purse, where her social chair posters were poking out, rolled into long thin tubes like museum prints.

  “I have to check in for dance team captain auditions,” Coco added.

  “Yeah, I’m supposed to go to the athletic office, to ask about surf team funding,” Becks chimed in.

  Emily desperately wanted to say, Can’t it wait? but she knew it was waaay too soon to get all Velcro on her new friends.

  Mac pointed to Emily with her iPhone. “Don’t worry—I’ll text you the 411 on what you need to know. See you in homeroom.” With that, Mac, Becks, and Coco skipped off, leaving Emily clutching her Gucci bag, all alone.

  Emily took a deep breath and picked up her new, Mac-gifted iPhone, pretending to check her messages. Not that she had any. Paige was definitely not allowed to bring a cell phone to school, which meant she would be incommunicado until 2:30 p.m. Central time. Emily sat by the Neptune statue, hoping she would blend in. She checked the weather in Bel-Air: 78 degrees.

  From behind her Gucci glasses (also from the
Mac Armstrong lending closet), Emily peered out at her new school, wondering if everyone she saw was judging her the way she was judging them.

  She spotted Ruby, standing in a group of girls whom she recognized from Kimmie Tachman’s Sweet Thirteen birthday party. They were all wearing tight jeans and flowy tunic tops, in a close circle around Ruby. Ruby looked like a pop star with her glamorous flatironed blond hair, tight jeans, sparkly white tank top, and orange Creamsicle tan. She was standing on a step in the center of the group, holding a cordless microphone, singing a fiery song, like she was channeling Gwen Stefani.

  Wham BAMS

  Thank you, ma’am

  You made me who I am

  You taught me what I know

  Not just a school

  BAMS, you rule!

  The song was a little batty, but Ruby looked like she was having the time of her life. Girls were smiling and nodding as Ruby sang. Even guys (cute guys!) in jeans and Reef sandals were nodding along.

  When Ruby finished, she put the microphone down and giggled to her friends, who were clapping enthusiastically. The cute surfer guys whooped.

  “Thanks, guys,” Ruby said, fake-humbly. “That’s a track from my new album. It’s dropping this fall, and it’s a taste of what you’ll hear at ExtravaBAMSa ... if I get elected social chair.” She winked playfully at the boys.

  Emily watched Ruby in awe. She’d never heard someone debut a song from an upcoming album at school. Apparently, she had a lot to learn about Bel-Air. She surveyed the crowd, hoping she didn’t stand out in her James jeans and red Shadow Stripe racerback tank, all alone.

  Emily had wanted to wear a dress—her only L.A. outings with the Inner Circle had been to VIP parties, where everyone wore designer cocktail dresses—but Mac had insisted the smartest strategy was to dress down. Emily realized Mac was right (as usual). Before her was a sea of sandals and cotton. No one looked like they were trying to be stylish, and yet . . . everyone looked amazing.