by Robin Palmer
“I can’t believe Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi just called me utterly refreshing!” I squealed. I looked down at her plate, where some leftover pancake was floating in syrup. “And you eat bread, too!” Pancakes weren’t technically bread, but they were in the bread family.
She gave one of her long tinkly laughs and sounded just like she did in Wizard Academy. “Of course, I do, darling. Life is not worth living without bread—never forget that. It’s as important to remember as taking your makeup off before you go to sleep, no matter how many scotches you’ve had to drink.”
I scrambled to pull my advice notebook out of my bag. “Would you mind repeating that, please?” I asked. “I recently started keeping a notebook of advice, and I think that definitely needs to be in there.”
She gave another tinkly laugh. “An advice book! How marvelous! I do hope that the young girl, what’s-her-name, who is playing my great-granddaughter in the movie I’m about to do, is as wonderful as you.”
“Oh, she is,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was talking to Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi in person! Laurel was famous, but Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi was FAMOUS-famous. The whole thing was making me nervous. I just hoped I didn’t start sweating under my arms, because that would’ve been super-embarrassing.
“You know her, dear?”
I nodded. “Our bedrooms are right next to each other. She’s my frister. That’s a combination friend/sister,” I explained.
“I love it!” she boomed. “What a marvelous word!” She leaned in. “So she’s not like that girl I worked with on Sister Swap—the one who ended up getting in all that trouble with the law?”
I knew who she was talking about—Taylor Tompkins, whose mug shot seemed to be on the cover of the gossip magazines every week because she was always getting arrested. “Oh no—Laurel’s like the complete opposite,” I replied, relaxing a little. Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi was so nice it was hard to remember to be nervous. “She’s so nice. And pretty boring compared to most stars. I mean, her idea of a fun Friday night is alphabetizing her bookshelf and making labels for file folders.”
She smiled. “Well, as long as everyone is aware that it’s in my contract that I get more close-ups than she does, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.” She stood up. “Sadly, darling, I must get going. As I get older, they seem to keep me a little bit longer in the makeup chair with each movie. I do hope you’ll drop by to say hello if you come to the set.”
“Actually, I’ll be there later today!” I said excitedly. Maybe Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi could help me out with this crush stuff. A woman who had been married six times had to know a lot about boys.
“Magnifique!” she cried, which I knew from Beatrice was French for “Magnificent!” She leaned down and kissed me on both cheeks. “Ta for now, then!” she trilled as she walked out.
“Ta!” I trilled back. Unfortunately, because I wasn’t used to trilling, I ended up spitting all over myself.
If the rest of the trip was this exciting, I’d definitely be getting my period, because according to Marissa, excitement—in addition to embarrassment and drama—was also known to bring it on.
chapter 7
Dear Dr. Maude,
GUESS where I am right now? You probably won’t guess, so I’ll just tell you. In the car on the way to Olympus Studios! Don’t worry—I’m not coming to stalk you. I’m going to the set of Laurel’s movie. Anyway, the reason I am writing this to you now is because, as usual, I need some advice.
Remember how I told you that Laurel was acting all movie star–like when we got to L.A.? Well, first things got better over the weekend, but now it’s gotten worse. WAY worse. She’s been on the phone pretty much nonstop with her manager, and her agent, and her publicist, on account of the fact that even though she hasn’t even shot the kissing scene with Austin Mackenzie, there’s all this buzz around Hollywood about how awesome she is in the movie (which they haven’t even started shooting yet!) and how it shows a whole new side to her, and suddenly she’s getting all these offers for other movies. And I get that this is her job and all, but every time I say, “Um, Laurel?” she gives this annoyed sigh before she says, “What, Lucy?” and sounds just like Mom does after I’ve been asking her a lot of questions. She didn’t even listen when I tried to tell her about meeting Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi at breakfast this morning. (Is that not the best celebrity sighting ever? Not only that, but she LOVES the fact that I eat bread, because apparently not many people here in L.A. do.)
Do you have any advice about what I should do to fix this? Because I still have five days to go, and if I wanted to be ignored all the time, I could have stayed in New York.
yours truly,
LUCY B. PARKER
Even with Laurel back to being kind of a jerk, I was still excited to be in Hollywood. As we drove down Melrose Avenue, I looked out the window and gasped. “Oh my God! There’s the Hollywood sign!” I yelled.
Laurel barely glanced up from her phone. “Huh? Oh. Yeah.” She went back to e-mailing or whatever she was doing, other than ignoring me.
My face got hot, and I slid down in my seat. I probably sounded like a total tourist. But I was a tourist! And therefore it was okay to act like one. Just because she had seen the Hollywood sign nine million times didn’t mean I couldn’t get excited about it.
Her phone rang again. She looked at the screen. “It’s Howard—I need to take it,” she said.
I sighed as I slumped back against the seat. She “needed” to take every call—from Howard, from Marci, from Jaycee. But what she really needed to do was stop acting like she was some famous star. Even though she was. As she yakked away, I looked out the window and took in the sights. Palm trees, shiny fancy cars that didn’t have any scratches or dings like Dad’s old Saab did, more yippy dogs with sunglasses. At least I had interesting things to look at while I was being ignored.
Finally, the limo drove through a pair of iron gates and I shouted, “Oh my God—I can’t believe I’m at the world-famous Olympus Studios!” Laurel gave me a Do-you-not-see-I’m-on-the-phone-so-can-you-PLEASE-keep-it-down? look.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, slumping back down.
Once the limo let us out and Laurel and I walked to the hair and makeup trailer, we passed a bunch of buildings that kind of looked like New York City (it had a bodega and everything), but brighter and cleaner. Laurel explained that they were sets, and because they shot lots of movies and TV shows at Olympus, there were lots of different kinds. We saw one that was supposed to look like the Wild West (no bodegas there—just a saloon) and one that Laurel said was supposed to be Paris on account of the fact that the signs were all in French. Not only that, but all the people we passed were dressed in different costumes. It was like Halloween, but with grown-ups smoking cigarettes and drinking Red Bull.
Every time we passed a truck, I’d say, “Is that the craft services truck?” because (a) I was dying to see one in person and (b) I was hungry. But Laurel was too busy texting to answer me. Finally, we got to a trailer that said LAUREL MOSES—HAIR & MAKEUP, and she turned to me. “The producer wants to see me, so I’m going to leave you with Roger and Maya, okay?”
Fine with me. At least they’d be nice to me. The first time I had met them, back in Northampton, Roger had fixed the haircut that Mom’s friend Deanna had given me after the Straightening Iron Incident, and Maya had given me a makeover. After a round of hugs, Maya gave me the once-over. “Your hair is really growing,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess,” I sighed. “But it’s still not anywhere close to being down to my butt,” I said.
Roger clucked. “But I see someone decided to cut her bangs herself.”
Laurel had warned me about how upset Roger got if you touched your own hair. And an angry bald man covered with tattoos was sort of a scary sight. “Sorry. It’s just that they were really getting in my eyes
.” That plus coordination issues equaled lots of bumping into things.
“Sit,” he said, pointing to the chair. “I need to do some damage control.” After he fixed my bangs, he decided to give me a full trim. “So what’s new and exciting?” he asked, snipping away. “How are things going with you and Laurel?” One of the only reasons I’d want to be famous was so that I could have someone do my hair every day. Well, that, and the baked goods baskets that Laurel said people sent you when you were nominated for awards.
I shrugged. “They’re fine.”
He stood back to look at my hair. He was only halfway done, and already I looked much better. I looked definitely thirteen instead of twelve and a half. He turned to Maya. “Let’s give her a little blush, shall we?”
Maya pulled out some brushes and little jars and started dusting blush on my cheekbones. Mom thought I was too young for makeup, and I didn’t really like it anyway because it felt sticky and I usually ended up smearing it on account of my coordination issue, but (a) Mom wasn’t around because she, too, had dumped me, and (b) it’s not like I had anything better to do. “I hate to tell you this, honey, but that was not a very believable-sounding ‘fine,’” she said.
I sighed. Even though Roger and Maya worked for Laurel and not me, I felt close enough to tell them what was going on with Laurel. “Well, the minute we got to L.A., Laurel went from Laurel-normal-girl to Laurel-Moses-teen-superstar. And even though she’d been totally normal all weekend, now she’s on the phone all the time, and she keeps shushing me and acting like I’m totally embarrassing her like some dorky younger sister just because I’m all excited about being in Hollywood. And when I try to talk to her about something important”—like, say, about whether she thought that what I had on Blair was a crush-crush or a fake-crush—“instead of paying attention to what I’m saying, she’s texting with Marci.” Saying all of it out loud made me realize how used I had become to having Laurel in my life. I had really come to depend on her as a frister . . . which is why this change in her bummed me out so much. I could feel the tears start welling and snuffled to keep them down.
“Oh honey, that happens every few months—usually when she’s working on a movie instead of the show,” Roger said.
“Yeah, you know how everyone on TV really just wants to be a movie star?” said Maya.
Roger fiddled with my hair some more. “She’s got a lot riding on this. But don’t worry—she’ll stop soon enough,” he said.
“Really? You think so?” I asked. I wasn’t so sure. “Because I’m feeling like a total tagalong.” This must have been what Marissa and Alice must feel like on account that they were tagalongs. Oh no—was I Laurel’s Marissa? Was she sitting there that very moment telling the producer how annoying I was? Was she just being a really good actress all those times she said she was glad I was there with her and pretending to be nice to me because she thought it would help her karma or something?
Roger put some product in my hair. “I don’t think so—I know so. That girl could soon enough survive without you nowadays as she could without the two of us,” he said. Wow. I didn’t want to sound conceited, but my hair looked really good. Like, so good I didn’t even put my purple flower back on (I had kind of become addicted to wearing it). “And believe me, I’m a hairdresser—we know about these things.”
After a half hour sitting on the film set, I took out my advice notebook. If you ever get to go on a film set, make sure you bring a book to read, because next to watching your frister organize her sock drawer, it’s the second most boring thing in the world. I’d been on a film set only once before, back in Northampton, but even though I’d been there for only five minutes before the Hat Incident, it had seemed pretty interesting. But it turned out that Laurel was right—all you did was wait. For the gaffers (the guys who handle the lighting) to fix the lights. For the camera people to move the cameras. For the movie director to fight with the director of photography about where the lights and cameras should be set up.
And to make everything worse, within my first hour there, I had ruined three shots. The first when, not knowing the director had called “Action,” I had scraped my chair on the ground as I was moving it in order to get a better view. The second because I had yelled, “I don’t think these headphones are working” (you had to wear headphones to hear what was going on because the actors were so far away, and so they piped in the sound from the giant fuzzy microphone, which was called a boom, that was hanging above them)—again, not knowing the director had already called “Action.” And the third because I had accidentally walked into the frame when I was coming back from the bathroom.
I was seriously considering going back there to hide when I saw Marci walk on set. Laurel had described her perfectly—perfectly blow-dried red hair, super-high heels, her mouth all puckered like she had just sucked on a lemon—and even though Laurel had said that Marci wasn’t nice, I smiled. Finally—someone to talk to. “You must be Marci,” I said after she click-clacked over to where I was sitting.
“I am. And you would be . . . ?” she snapped.
“Lucy B. Parker,” I said, holding out my hand. “Laurel’s frister. That’s a combination friend/sister.”
“Oh—you’re that Lucy? Her stepsister?” she demanded as her fingers flew across the keyboard of her iPhone. She didn’t even bother to look at me. My smile faded. The way she said stepsister sounded like it was a disease or something. After that I didn’t even bother to try to talk to her, even though she sat right next to me on set. As soon as Laurel was done doing her scene with Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi (who didn’t see me waving at her, and went back to her trailer before I even got a chance to go over and say hi), Marci rushed up to her and started chattering away, leaving me alone. Again. Laurel didn’t even look my way or anything.
As I sat there trying not to pick my cuticles, even though it was a nervous habit and I was very nervous about sitting there by myself, looking like a loser, a bald guy, who looked to be Alan’s age, with ears that looked like jug handles, plopped down in the folding chair beside me. “Hi. I’m Sylvester Benjamin-Morgan,” he said in an English accent.
“Hello. I’m Lucy B. Parker,” I replied.
“So are you one of the actresses in the movie?” he asked.
I snorted. “No way. I’m just here to support Laurel Moses. We’re fr—almost stepsisters.”
His eyes lit up. “Oh really,” he said. “So, Lucy B. Parker. What’s that like?”
Finally—someone to talk to. I was so happy not to feel completely invisible, and so wanted to keep him there as long as possible so I didn’t feel like a total friendless loser, that I started at the beginning—about the Hat Incident and how I really didn’t like Laurel after that, but then how we bonded at the ice-cream place, and about how I took her to the mall because she hadn’t been to one before. Occasionally, he’d jot something down on the little notebook in his lap, which seemed a little weird, but I knew from movies that English people were really smart, so he was probably the kind of person who was always taking notes so they could study all the time.
As I was telling him about how organized Laurel was, Marci came click-clacking over. “What are you doing here, Sylvester?” she demanded. “I told you there was no way I would allow you access to Laurel?”
“Oh wow—you two know each other?” I asked.
“Know each other? Sylvester Benjamin-Morgan is only the sleaziest tabloid reporter in all of Great Britain?” she yelled. Was she telling me? Or asking me?
I could feel my face getting hot. Oh no. I had totally screwed up.
“I’d say ‘sleazy’ is a bit strong, love,” he said, as he backed away from her, and then took off running.
Laurel walked over to us, and the knot that was forming in my stomach got tighter. “What’s going on?” Laurel asked.
Oh double no. Laurel hated the sleazy tabloids even more than an unorganized drawer. “Nothing. I was just—” I started to say, my voice q
uivering.
“She was just giving an interview to Sylvester Benjamin-Morgan?” Marci said.
Laurel paled. “You were what?”
“I wasn’t giving an interview to him!” I cried. “I was just talking to him.”
“About what?” she demanded.
“About . . . us. How we met and stuff,” I said nervously. Maybe Marci had been exaggerating—maybe Sylvester wasn’t from a sleazy tabloid. Maybe he was from People or US Weekly. That would only be partially-bad instead of bad-bad.
“Lucy, he’s the one who wrote the story about how I was an alien from another planet,” Laurel said.
Oh, this was definitely bad-bad. I slunk down in my chair so far I fell off it completely. Marci turned to Laurel. “Didn’t you tell her that she’s never to talk to reporters without an adult present?”
Oh, please. Marci was only twenty-four. That was hardly an adult.
“I didn’t know I was talking to a reporter!” I said, swiping at my eyes, which were now filled with tears. “I just thought I was talking to . . . I don’t know . . . someone who was being friendly to me.”
“I can’t believe you did that, Lucy! My dad is going to freak when he hears this!” Laurel was turning purple she was so mad, which was one of the few colors she didn’t look good in.
“It’s not like I did it on purpose!” I yelled, the tears really coming now. I reached into my pocket, but all I found was a scratchy napkin from Starbucks instead of a soft tissue.
Marci pointed into the distance toward a short bald guy with glasses. “Laurel, there’s the writer from In Touch with People? You need to go talk to him? You can yell at her later?”
Before I could say, “But it was a mistake—I don’t deserve to be yelled at!” or even “How many times do you want me to say it? I’m sorry,” the two of them had stomped off.
