Absolutely True Lies (5 page)

“We’ve placed you in an oceanfront balcony suite in the Versailles building, per the request of your . . .” She threw me a look, faltering in her businesslike façade for the first time. “Your . . .
fellow guest.
” The woman cleared her throat and continued resolutely. “I hope you know that privacy is very important to us here at the Fontainebleau. Your party absolutely will not be disturbed by either photographers or fans.”

“Oh . . . thank you,” I replied, figuring that’s what I was supposed to say. I was expected to worry about these things, right? I was starting to wish there was a manual to consult for these kinds
of questions, just so that I wouldn’t get caught looking stupid. After this experience, perhaps I’d write one:
Diving into the Celebrity Pool, a How-to Guide
.

“Should you need anything at all, please do not hesitate to contact me,” she charged on. Despite her words, I got the feeling she had no interest in ever hearing from me again. We approached the elevators, but Minka shook her head and steered me to the left, down a small hallway. I was almost blinded by the Florida sunshine streaming through the windows and glinting off the hotel’s endless marble surfaces. I found I had to shade my eyes just to keep them open. “We will have an attendant or concierge on duty twenty-four hours a day to
service
your needs.”

Her last sentence was enunciated so strangely, I couldn’t help but throw her a look.
Service
our needs? I had a feeling there was more implied in her words than I wanted to know. Maybe that was her issue, I thought. If celebrities stayed at this hotel all the time, maybe their bad behavior caused all sorts of problems for the staff. But Daisy was an eighteen-year-old born-again Christian; aside from failing to curb her dog, I couldn’t imagine her trashing a hotel suite.

We reached a smaller elevator and Minka nodded for me to enter. She placed a key into a slot at the top of the row of buttons, then turned it. The elevator doors had barely begun to slide closed when she snapped her head to the left,
Exorcist
-like, to stare me down.

“Are you related to Miss Dixson?” she asked, being far more forward than I would have thought proper for such a “private” hotel. I could feel her appraising my relative worth, measuring it against her own. Suddenly, I was a little afraid to be alone with her.

“Um . . . no, I’m working with her,” I replied politely, hoping we could leave it at that.

Minka looked me up and down and frowned, apparently finding me unworthy to have such access to a person as famous as Daisy. “Well, you’re not her personal trainer,” she said with mild disapproval.

“Maybe I’m her personal
psychic,
” I shot back, perhaps a bit too defensively. “What does it matter to you?”

“Of course,” Minka responded snidely. “I’m sure you’re quite . . .
indispensable
to Ms. Dixson.”

If we hadn’t reached our floor at that very moment, I might have slugged her. But the elevator dinged and the doors glided open, and I stepped out into the hallway, hoping to soon be rid of my shadow. Minka dropped my room key into my palm, unwilling to make actual physical contact with my bare hand. I wondered if she was germaphobic or just a bitch.

“You will need to swipe your key card in the elevator to reach both this floor and your own,” she told me, continuing on to the suite door and knocking loudly. “It’s Minka from the hotel staff,” she called. “I have Ms. Gracin here for you.”

I could hear Daisy’s yappy little dogs begin to chirp long before I heard footsteps approaching. Jameson flung the door open.

“Well, hello there, Minka,” he said, offering her a wink. The three dogs swirled and yapped at his feet, but Jamie didn’t acknowledge their presence.

“Hello, Mr. Lloyd,” she replied, blushing and looking away.

Jameson threw me a look and nodded in a way that made me feel he was calling attention to his prowess. “Thanks for taking such good care of our girl.”

Minka flushed a deeper shade of red, then giggled. Honest to God, she actually giggled. “My pleasure. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

I was pretty sure I knew what she was willing to do. It also explained her immediate and intense dislike for me, but little Miss Minka needn’t have worried.

“Yep, thanks for your help,” I said loudly, pushing past Minka and stepping into the suite. “You’ve been fantastic. Bye.” I deliberately closed the door, waving as her scowl disappeared into the hall.

“Hols, glad you made it,” Jameson said, shaking my hand. He frowned. “You really look like shit.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking around him to take in the largest hotel room I’d ever seen. It was beautifully decorated but in a way that didn’t lend itself to any particular style. There were couches and lounge chairs that didn’t appear to be the slightest bit comfortable, but which I’m certain were designed by someone of note. Someone who could charge the GDP of a small country for his or her services.

“Oh my God, oh my God, you’re heeeeeere!”

The squeal came from the balcony as Daisy dashed inside and made a beeline for me. Although it was nearing seven-thirty, she was clad in a bikini so tiny a gynecologist could have done an exam around it instead of having to take it off. She bounded toward me, and I tried really hard not to get an eyeful of her enormous boobs as they shimmied and bounced with each step. I’m totally not into women, I swear, but at that moment, she was almost more boob than woman. It was hard to look anywhere else.

“Thank you soooooo much for coming!” Daisy exclaimed, throwing herself at me. I tried to hug back gingerly, but she just pressed herself more firmly into me. I was creeped out not only by her relative nakedness but also because this was the most flesh I’d encountered in the last eighteen months.

“She’s been talking about it nonstop,” Jameson said, smiling. “I’m so glad we decided to bring you out.”

“Glad to be here,” I responded. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m
surprised
to be here . . . but glad. I certainly wouldn’t have imagined this yesterday.”

“I’m sorry we all have to stay
here,
” Daisy said, throwing her agent a dirty look.

“Daise,” Jameson chided, “the Fontainebleau is a five-star hotel. You love it here.”

The scathing gaze he got in return clearly said,
You don’t know me as well as you think you do, buddy.
“No one stays here anymore,” she
replied petulantly. “It’s
so
wasteful, Jamie, and so over.” Daisy turned to me and explained, “These hotels are all about decadence and luxury, and regular people just can’t afford to live like this anymore.”

Anymore? I didn’t need to ask the price of this particular suite to know that no one in my family, even if they’d saved up for five years, could have
ever
afforded to stay here. Although it was slightly moving that Daisy was at least trying to be socially conscious. It wasn’t her fault that she was bargain-challenged.

“Very thoughtful of you.”

“Nowadays, everybody’s into bungalows,” she continued, nodding. “Mariah totally won’t stay in a hotel unless there aren’t any available bungalows.”

That made more sense. It wasn’t that she actually wanted to develop a social conscience; she just wanted to look like she had.

“Maybe I care more about your security than Mariah’s people do,” Jameson said, shrugging. “I just wanted you in a place where a shooter couldn’t get a good line of sight. Sue me for being concerned.”

Call me crazy, but I was concerned that
he
was concerned about shooters and their lines of sight. Who wants to shoot a teenage girl who makes high school comedies and sings about puppy love and buying your first car?

Daisy rolled her eyes but offered him a little smile. “You’re always so worried, Jamie,” she teased him. “It’s very sweet, but really . . . I can take care of myself.”

“Of course you can,” Jameson said, his tone dripping with condescension. It was so pronounced that I quickly looked to Daisy, worried about her reaction. But if she took any notice of the subtext of his words, she sure didn’t show it.

“Anyway.” Daisy giggled, turning back to me. “Are we gonna start working now? I’ve been making notes about all the stories I want to tell you, and I just can’t wait. We are going to have so much fun, I swear.”

I was exhausted, starving, and in desperate need of a shower. The last thing I wanted to do right now was listen to Daisy endlessly talk about herself. But I knew I couldn’t refuse; my only consolation was that she’d been tired and bored fifteen minutes into our first conversation, so this session probably couldn’t last that long.

“Sure,” I said. I wondered what the bathtub was like in my room. And if (with a big enough tip) room service would deliver bath-side. “I just need to run to my room and grab my notebook and recorder.”

I hadn’t even taken two steps toward the door when Jameson stopped me. “Oh, that’s not necessary. Go on and get started with Daisy and I’ll have Minka bring up your things.”

When Minka had said she was here to do whatever we needed, I doubt that meant rifling through my haphazard luggage for a digital tape recorder. But if Jameson was the one asking, I knew she’d climb thirty-seven flights of stairs if the elevator took too long.

“Let’s go talk in the bedroom,” Daisy said, already leading the way. “It’ll be like a slumber party.”

I reluctantly followed, hoping this slumber party would involve a few more articles of clothing.

CHAPTER 5

People make a big deal about celebrity feuds, but I swear, there’s rarely anything to them. The tabloids have been saying for years that I’m “at war” with the girls from that ABC Family show, but really, we couldn’t be closer. Just last year we went on a joint charity mission to Uganda and helped build a school for underprivileged kids.

Don’t think of us as stars. We’re just young women trying to find our way in this crazy town. How can I hate the only other people who understand how strange and difficult my everyday life can be?

B
y 11:00
P.M.
, I’d heard every story about Daisy’s ongoing friendship with the buyer from Fred Segal (important because she always knew about a change in inventory before anyone else) and the 48,000 other teen celebrities she hated because they copied her signature look, didn’t invite her to their premieres, or, occasionally, just looked at her disrespectfully.

As for the actual story of her life, she remembered hardly anything. All of the autobiographies I’d read had detailed stories about every stage of the person’s life, from childhood through the writing of the book. The most detailed story Daisy told me was about her obsession with Julien Macdonald’s clothing line, starting with his journey replacing Alexander McQueen as creative director at
Givenchy, going off on his own as a designer, through every piece that walked during his latest runway show. I didn’t have the first clue how I was supposed to translate these nonsensical words into a memoir people might buy. Also, she never put on another stitch of clothing for the entire conversation.

“So tell me about grade school,” I asked her at one point, trying to steer things back toward a useful subject.

“What about it?” We’d been talking for an hour and she was tying dozens of pink bows in Ariel’s fur. The other two dogs had smartly run for their lives when she pulled out the doggie brush and I hadn’t seen them since. If I’d known what article of furniture they were hiding under, I might have joined them.

“Well . . . people will want to know everything about you, including where you went to school, when you first decided you wanted to act . . .”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged, brushing out a knot near Ariel’s right ear. “I went to school for a few years, and then I got my first show. I’m not sure how it happened.”

I tried something easier. “Okay . . .
where
did you go to school?”

Daisy shrugged again. “Somewhere in Savannah, I think.” The dog yelped and tried to jump off the bed, but Daisy held the pet’s writhing body tight against her and kept brushing. “Can’t you ask my mom this stuff? She’s got all that crap.”

“Sure.” I nodded, making yet another note for Faith. After just an hour, I had nearly a full page. So far, Daisy had forgotten the names of every director she’d worked with and everything they’d ever said to her. As far as Daisy was concerned, only her acting and vocal genius were responsible for her rise to fame, and everyone else was just there to make money off her. She referred to the executive producer of her show on Nickelodeon as “the hot dog guy” because he’d once told her he liked Pink’s. Everyone in L.A. likes Pink’s.

“Great,” Daisy exclaimed. “Did I tell you about the Grammy ­after-party in Hollywood last year?” She didn’t wait for me to ­answer.
“I was wearing Stella McCartney and those girls from E! were
so
jealous because they were clearly wearing off-the-rack . . .”

And so it went, for more than three hours.

By eleven, I could tell her interest was waning, and I was so hungry I was ready to take a bite out of one of her yelpy dogs. When Jameson peeked his head in and said, “You ladies about done for the night?” I nearly leapt off the bed and ran screaming back to my room. My room, which I had yet to see.

“Totally.” Daisy sighed. “We’ve put in a real day’s work.”

We really hadn’t, but I wasn’t about to argue. “I’d say I’ve gotten enough for today,” I told him and nodded. I stood up and stretched, stifling the urge to yawn.

“Perfect,” Jameson said, checking his watch. “I was worried we were going to be late.”

“Oh,
shoot,
” Daisy said, wiggling off the bed. “Is that club thing tonight? I thought it was tomorrow.”

“I told you three times it was tonight.” The more he insisted on talking to her like a kindergartener, the more irritated I was with him. Granted, Daisy wasn’t exactly a Rhodes scholar, but he certainly wasn’t helping things by talking down to her all the time. “And Sharla and Axel have been here and ready to go for the last half hour.”

“Do they want me to wash my hair?” Daisy asked, frowning.

“No, just go on out to Axel and he’ll take care of you,” Jameson replied, snapping his fingers at her. “Now scoot.”

I didn’t want to seem too excited, but all I could think about was room service food. A hamburger and French fries, and maybe a giant piece of chocolate cake for dessert. I didn’t know anything about Sharla, Axel, or a club opening, and to tell the truth, I couldn’t have cared less.

But Jameson was getting very good at thwarting my planned escapes.

“You can head to Sharla first,” he told me.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, looking behind me to make sure he wasn’t talking to someone else in the room. But the only eyes looking back at me were Ariel’s.

“Axel will do Daisy’s hair first, then you two can switch.” Jameson seemed to survey my appearance and then frowned. “I hope the dress will fit. A six was the biggest they had.”

He said
six
like it was a plus size.

“I’m going with her?” I asked, still a few steps behind. I was ignoring the implied disapproval of my weight, and also trying not to think about how many pairs of Spanx it would take to get me into a size-six dress.

“Of course,” he said, eyeing me strangely. “We didn’t fly you across the country to leave you alone in your room all night.”

“Oh . . . thanks.”

“Now get on out there,” he said, patting my ass lightly.

I think I jumped about a foot when Jamie touched me. “Um . . . I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“I’m not a Playboy bunny or a pro football player,” I responded. “So please don’t pat my ass.”

Jamie laughed, obviously missing the point. “Oh, Hols . . . I
know
you’re not a Playboy bunny. I’ve dated a few, believe me . . .” He continued to laugh, even wiping a tear away from his eye. “Now get out there. Sharla’s waiting.” As I left the room, he still couldn’t stop laughing. It was great for my self-esteem.

Maybe now is the time to mention that I hate clubs. Not just hate—loathe and abhor. I can handle the occasional bar when it’s not too loud or crowded, and I’m all about nice restaurants and charity events. But stick me in a small room with four hundred drunk people swaying to music I can feel vibrating up through my legs and I want to kill myself. I would seriously rather swallow jagged pieces of glass than spend hours getting liquored up to grind against some greasy guy I don’t know. And don’t tell me the guys
are different in Miami; it doesn’t matter where they’re from, they’re always greasy, and they can never keep their hands to themselves.

I thought about arguing these points to Jameson, but I knew they would fall on deaf ears. This was the job I had signed up for, and I had to be willing to make a few sacrifices. Besides, maybe there would be food at this club. If not, I could make do with a bucket full of maraschino cherries.

•  •  •

I
walked out into the living room, where a gorgeous, model-thin black girl and a man in skinny jeans were animatedly talking to Daisy. After only thirty seconds, the man (who I immediately assumed must be Axel) already had Daisy’s hair portioned out and was curling it at lightning speed.

Sharla spotted me and waved me toward the chair. “Come on over, Holly.”

The last time I’d had my makeup done was for my senior picture, and that woman had made me look like an unemployed Cher impersonator, so I was a little nervous about this whole situation. Of course they made Daisy look amazing—she was naturally stunning, and at eighteen, no matter what you do to your body, it pretty much looks the same.

“Hi,” I said shyly, climbing into the chair next to Daisy. Before I could say “nice to meet you,” Sharla was attacking my face with all sorts of brushes and powders I’d never heard of. I had to stifle a feeling of claustrophobia as she leaned so close that I could make out each and every one of her pores—a huge feat, since they were tiny and well disguised.

“Glad to have you aboard, Holly.” Sharla smiled, revealing an enormous set of teeth that bordered on horsey.

“Thanks for doing this,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“Are you staying with us the whole time in Miami?” Axel asked, speaking for the first time. There was something that seemed inten
tionally haughty about his tone, and while that should have made me dislike him, I had this sudden desperate desire to earn his approval. This almost certainly meant that he was gay, as I never have this kind of visceral reaction to straight men.

I looked to Daisy, unable to answer that question on my own.

“She totally is,” Daisy answered quickly. “Holly will be so much fun to play with.”

I have never felt more like a Raggedy Ann doll in my life.

“Then please—pretty, pretty
please,
let me teach you how to pluck your eyebrows. We all love Frida Kahlo, but she would have been more successful if she didn’t look like a Cro-Magnon peasant girl.”

“Sure,” I replied, trying hard not to blink as Sharla practically tore one of my eyelids out of my head to apply eyeliner. “I’ve never been very good at it.”

Axel laughed. “You didn’t need to tell me that, sweetie. I have eyes.”

•  •  •

W
e left the hotel just after midnight, and despite the late hour, the paparazzi were still hanging around the entrance. I wondered if Jameson had made them aware of Daisy’s schedule, or if there was always someone from each tabloid waiting for pictures, should she happen to go out. It didn’t seem like an efficient system to me, but I also didn’t understand why people wanted pictures of her eating dinner at a restaurant in the first place.

I will say this for Axel and Sharla—I looked amazing. I was corseted so tight inside the tiny dress that I could feel my heartbeat in my liver, but seeing my nearly unrecognizable figure in the lobby’s mirrors was worth the pain. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly heavy, but I was a little too pleased with my unnaturally narrow waist and enormous cleavage. The instant I saw myself, I decided that this designer was someday making my wedding dress. That is, if he or she knew how to work with more than a yard of fabric.

As we took our first few steps outside, Daisy was immediately flanked by two enormous bodyguards she seemed to know quite well but whom I’d never seen before. I couldn’t even tell when and where they’d appeared, it happened so suddenly. One minute, our little group was just five, and then a moment later, we were seven. The ridiculousness of this teenage girl’s entourage was starting to dawn on me. I spend most of every day completely alone; I suddenly realized Daisy was probably only by herself when she slept.

And if I thought the level of media attention was absurd before, once we reached the club, it was
insane
. There were throngs of people, packed together like sardines, as far as I could see in any direction. And since everyone seemed to have a camera, it was almost impossible to tell who was a fan and who was paparazzi. If any one of us spoke on the walk from the SUV to the club, I wouldn’t have heard it. It’s also unlikely that I would have seen it—or anything—with the endless flashes bursting in front of my eyes. From where I was standing, the club might as well have been pink-and-purple speckled.

Three steps inside the door, so many things happened at once, I could hardly process them all. On stage, the DJ gave a loud shout-out to Daisy, prompting the crowd to go wild. At the same time, our group was herded up to a VIP level above the dance floor, and before we reached the room, all of us but Daisy were banded with red paper strips and she had a black X scrawled across the back of her hand. This relieved me somewhat, as I hadn’t been able to figure out why an underage girl was parading into a club in full view of the cameras. I figured no one would stop her from actually drinking, but I just couldn’t imagine she’d be dumb enough to do it while people were filming her.

“What is this place?” I yelled loudly to Daisy as we settled into a large red velvet couch.

“New club, just opened,” she shouted back. Jameson walked by us and handed her a large plastic cup with
MOUNTAIN DEW
on the side. “They paid us fifty grand to show up.”

“Fifty grand?” I asked incredulously. No wonder she could afford to hire a biographer—she could cover my salary with one night’s work. If you could call this work. “What do you have to do?”

“Nothing much,” Daisy said. “We just need to hang out for an hour or two, I’ll walk over to the balcony a couple of times and pretend to dance, and then we can go home.” She seemed to remember something, snapping her fingers for Jameson, who handed her a cell phone without a word. “Oh, and one more thing.”

Daisy set down her cup and turned so that her back was to the main part of the room. She raised her phone and put on a bright, fun smile. I’m sure there was a photo click during some portion of this, but I certainly wouldn’t have heard it. “Selfies!”

I hate the word
selfie
. It’s a tween’s word, rammed into our cultural consciousness and now spoken by everyone from the president to the Dalai Lama. I know it’s a perfectly legitimate word these days, but I refuse to utter it out loud. “Who are the pictures for?”

“My tweeties,” Daisy answered, never taking her eyes away from her phone. She tap-tapped for all of one second before passing the phone back to Jamie. It was lightning-quick.

“You already got that up on Twitter?” I asked. “You’re fast.”

At this, Daisy and Jamie turned to each other and laughed, sharing their first moment of true camaraderie in front of me. “I don’t handle my own social media. What am I, a hobo? Or a reality star? I have people who handle these things.”