Map to the Stars

I never dreamed my first encounter with an A-list movie star would involve hairy feet and a bowl full of tiny fish.

Mom and I stood a safe distance from the upholstered chair of
People
magazine's Most Beautiful Man of 1990-something in the living room of an opulent Hollywood Hills mansion. His in-need-of-some-manscaping feet were stuck in a mini-aquarium of hundreds of swarming fish and he jumped every time one took a nibble at a callus.

“How is this a thing?” I whispered to my mother. I hoped the chatter from the gossiping Ladies Who Lunch (plus a few men who looked even more groomed than their female counterparts) filling the room would be enough to drown out my question.

Mom shrugged, attempting to compose her face into something resembling a California-cool “been there, seen that” look. She didn't come close. Where we were from, people hosted home Tupperware parties, not home Botox-and-spa-treatments parties.

“Mr. Glick, would you like a pomegranate spritzer?” the beautician
working on the big-shot movie star asked, motioning to me as she lifted one foot out of the mini-aquarium and placed it on her knee so she could use a block of wood wrapped in sandpaper to scrub away the last of the dead skin the fish hadn't snacked on.

So. Gross.

I sucked in a breath and crossed the room, balancing my tray of mocktails in one hand. Apparently, alcohol and needles to the forehead don't play nice together. After spending half my waking hours at my grandmother's hair salon, I wasn't afraid of hard work, but I'd never waitressed a day in my life. Me plus a tray filled with deep red juice plus a room decorated entirely in white, PLUS intimidating Hollywood types, equaled certain impending disaster.

I exhaled carefully and used my free hand to grasp the stem of the martini glass. Mr. Movie Star grabbed it from me and took a sip. He made a face and handed it back. “What say we see about making this pack a little more punch?”

I didn't follow much celeb gossip, but my best friend, Wynn, was addicted to it and thus I knew a thing or two about Billy Glick's fondness for beverages with “a punch.” I swallowed a snarky comment and instead managed, “Um, sorry, sir. I'm, uh, I'm only seventeen so I'm not allowed to handle alcohol. The catering company said—”

Another waitress, who looked like she'd been plucked from the audition line for
America's Next Top Model
, stepped in and whisked the glass from me. “I'll see what we can find you, Mr. Glick.”

I turned back toward my mom, who was now applying fake eyelashes to a woman cradling a tiny dog wearing a satin suit. Mom could
apply fake eyelashes in her sleep after decades at the salon back home, but I don't think she ever had a designer puppy audience while she did it. Never had I felt so far away from sleepy Shelbyville, Georgia, home of the World Famous (well, relatively speaking) Pecan Festival. Before I could escape back into the kitchen, a group clustered in the corner called me over.

“Do you know how many calories are in these lettuce wraps?” one asked, motioning at the tiny plate she held.

“Um, hello. It's
lettuce
,” I wanted to reply, but I bit my tongue. I always have a whole host of perfect retorts that never make it past my throat. I'm basically the least confrontational person you'll ever meet, turning into a garden gnome anytime things get prickly. Stupid grin on my face, concrete legs.

When I hesitated, the women closest to me waved her hand in a dismissive motion. “Not to worry. We actually called you over for something else.” The man and woman next to her giggled and leaned in. “Okay, sweetheart, you've got us completely stumped and that doesn't happen often. We've got a thousand bucks riding on your answer. I say down your pants and my friend Ella here says bra. Which is it?”

I nearly dropped my tray. “Ex-excuse me?” I stuttered.

“Your spec script. Where've you hidden it? Your cater-waiter uniform doesn't leave many places, and we're baffled.”

I stared slack-jawed at them. “I'm sorry. I don't . . . spec what?” I'd been told in training to avoid eye contact with the guests and
definitely
not to speak to them unless to answer them about which vintage pinot
noir had been used in the cranberry meatballs, so I kept my voice low and glanced around the room.

The trio in front of me burst out laughing and the first woman said, “Oh, honey, you are just too cute for words. When did you get here? Yesterday?”

I couldn't tell if this was a rhetorical question or not, so I answered her honestly. “Um, five days ago.”

More laughter. The one named Ella elbowed the guy next to her. “We should go easy on this one. She's just a baby.” She turned to me. “Allow us to enlighten you. Spec script: a script written on speculation, i.e., not under contract with any production company or major studio. As in, one of two things every single one of your cohorts here has tucked on—or in—their person. The other option being a headshot, if they're of the struggling actor variety, versus the struggling screenwriter variety. Exhibit A. See the manicurist over there?”

I followed her head jerk to the corner of the room, where a small table was set up in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that showcased the valley below.

“Stack of papers rolled up between the OPI bottles and the gel dryer? Script. Now . . . waitress to the left of her. See the corner of her headshot peeking out from the top of those knee-high boots she's rocking? One quick unzip and that sucker's in the hands of the casting director she's passing a canapé to. That's how this town rolls, sweetie. Are you saying you really don't have either?”

I shook my head slowly. What planet had I landed on?

“Damn,” said the guy as Ella adjusted her short skirt so it rode
even higher on her thighs.

“Who wins this bet?” she asked.

The man shrugged and pulled out a wallet from the pocket of his fluffy robe. “You'll find a way to swindle me out of this somehow anyway. Might as well act preemptively.”

With a good-natured grin he counted out ten hundred-dollar bills into her palm while I tried not to ogle them. Nothing in my small-town-Georgia life had prepared me for any of this. The house, the people, and definitely not the hundred-dollar bills changing hands like they were sticks of gum.

“Um, could you excuse me, please? I need to refill my tray.”

I wove through the various spa stations set up around the room, beelining it to my mom so I could let her Southern drawl take me home for a minute or two. I found her in the kitchen, microwaving towels to warm the massage table.

“How's it going? Worth it to see the house?” she asked.

Mom knows how much I love anything and everything to do with architecture and, even if we hadn't been so desperate to make money—any money—she figured the chance to get inside a Robert Addison–designed house would be all the encouragement I'd need to don a waitress uniform.

“It's, um, different,” I managed. I didn't mean the house.
That
was awesome, with its futuristic look and floor-to-ceiling sheets of glass where any normal house would have walls. No chance any place in Shelbyville would ever have the high-tech NanaWall systems built into the folding doors leading from the kitchen to a back deck.
Probably no one there had even heard of NanaWalls, besides me with my lifelong subscription to
Architectural Digest.

Mom looked up from the stack of towels. “Well, it
is
Hollywood, Annie. What'd you expect?”

I
guess
I expected I'd spend my senior year at Shelbyville High and then head off for college, while still coming home every summer to hang with her and Dad and help out with the women who'd come from three counties over to have my mama “do them up good” at the Curl Up and Dye, voted Best Beauty Salon in Shelbyville for six years running.

Not this. Not moving cross-country and changing schools and jobs, all to get some space from what my dad did to us.

And I definitely did
not
expect Hollywood, which would never even have been on my mom's radar had it not been for the movie shooting in the next town over back home last spring and the promises her new producer friend Joe made about all the opportunities for a makeup artist in La-La Land.

The door to the kitchen swung open and party sounds assaulted us until it eased closed behind the spa company's owner. She surveyed the room and her eyes landed on my mom.

“I'm gonna pull you off that, honey. Billy Glick is complaining his face is feeling tight after his nightingale-droppings facial and I need someone to apply face cream.” She ducked her head into a bag and rooted around.

“Um, I'm sorry. What is a nightingale-droppings facial? Droppings . . . as in . . . poop?” my mom asked, while I dropped the spoon
I was holding.

“Oh, sweetheart, you have a lot to learn. We should do another training session before I turn you loose. Nightingale droppings are a secret of the Japanese geishas. They bleach the skin and exfoliate.”

I could never imagine my mother slapping bird crap on someone's cheeks. There were some women in Shelbyville who would do just about anything to keep up the image of a Proper Southern Lady, but that was one line even they wouldn't cross. As for me, the only thing I ever put on my face was Pond's cream and strawberry lip gloss.

The owner dropped the bag onto the countertop. “Damn. I swore the face cream was in here. He's gonna freak if we keep him waiting.”

My mom took charge. “Annie, grab my purse from the back closet. I've got some from my salon back home on me,” she told the ower. “Made with real Georgia peaches—he'll love it.”

She gave my mother a grateful look and nodded. A moment later, Mom pushed back into the party and I followed behind with a replenished tray. I was just working up the nerve to interrupt a massage in progress in the front hallway of the house when I heard the shout from the corner of the living room.

“Are you insane, lady? Did you really just put cream on my face that's been tested ON ANIMALS?”

Mom looked more surprised than she had when I'd told her I actually didn't ever envision a time I'd want to get my ears pierced. “I . . . I . . . I didn't know,” she managed. She seemed pretty rattled. As the daughter of the owner, no one ever crossed her at the salon. I guess Mrs. Tipton thinking her hair wasn't sufficiently hair-sprayed
to heaven was a world away from pissing off Hollywood royalty. The look Billy gave her was nothing short of venomous.

“Get out,” he spit.

“But, but . . . ,” she protested, while Billy stood and planted his feet, pointing his newly manicured finger in the direction of the door. My mother turned to the owner, who had reappeared from the kitchen. She looked from Mr. Glick to Mom, pursed her lips nervously, and turned her hands out in a helpless gesture.

Mom grabbed me by the arm and stormed past the owner and into the kitchen. She snatched her purse off the counter and dropped the face cream back inside. “Screw this! Annie, get your stuff.”

I glanced from the owner, who had followed us, to the
America's Next Top Model
waitress dispensing drinks from a cocktail shaker into martini glasses. This could not be happening. We could
not
afford to lose this job.

I opened my mouth to plead with the owner, to tell her how Mom had left the only job she'd had since high school and the only town either of us had known since birth. How we'd moved all the way across the country. How I'd had to change schools going into my senior year. Mom could NOT get fired for something so stupid. The dude had had bird crap on his face minutes earlier. Where did he think
that
came from? Poop fairies?

But once again, I couldn't say anything. I just stood there with my mouth opening and closing while Mom fished the keys to our Kia out of her purse and rattled them at me. “Annie. Come on!”

I sighed and untied my half apron, dropping it on the counter. We
were halfway across the marble floor when someone called after us.

A woman clicked toward us on towering heels. “Hold up, ladies. Look. I'm Billy's assistant. He's under a lot of stress awaiting news on the sale of his yacht. You understand. We wouldn't want this, er,
incident
to reach the tabloids. Here, I hope this makes up for things.”

She smiled at me as Mom reached for the paper in her hand. Mom took a brief look and then passed it to me. It was an eight-by-ten glossy Billy Glick headshot, signed, “Keep on keepin' on. Luv, Billy.”

Sigh.

Welcome to LA.