Hollywood Girls Club (2 page)

The humiliation was horrifying. Celeste had spent the last two years prancing around town talking about nothing but her next big part in Damien’s next big film. For two years, through script rewrites, changes in director, and changes in locale, Celeste had held off doing any other film. Instead, Celeste waited for Damien and
Borderland Blue
. She’d been offered other roles. Roles for which other actresses were nominated and even won awards, fulfilling what was Celeste’s dream—to have an Oscar to sit next to her Golden Globe. But no, Celeste waited. She waited for Damien’s film, because he’d promised.

And now Brie Ellison was getting the lead—an eighteen-year-old wannabe who hadn’t even starred in a film.

Sure, her breasts were perky and she had great hair, but so did Celeste. Celeste had paid twenty-five grand just three months ago to have her breasts re-perked (a little maintenance in preparation for the bikini scenes). It wasn’t pleasant having stitches around your nipples.

How had this happened? Fury knotted in her stomach. Fury and anger and even fear. Fear that her career was over, fear that she’d never work again—fear that she’d lose everything she spent a lifetime working for and have to return to that beat-up trailer in Tennessee. Celeste’s heart hammered within her chest and she gulped big breaths of air. The money, the marriage, the house, the clothes—none of it meant anything if she didn’t have her job—her work—her career.

 Where the fuck was her agent in this colossal mess? It was Jessica’s job—not only as Celeste’s agent but also as her best friend—to protect Celeste’s business interests and to never let her get blindsided in the trades. Celeste obviously couldn’t trust her husband to look out for her best interests (at least whenever his cock was involved).
But her agent, one of her closest friends? What was going on?
Jessica had to have known about this deal; she was the president of CTA, the most powerful agency in town. Agents knew everything, every bit of business, gossip, and intrigue that went down, usually before all the players. And Jessica was the best.

“Jessica’s office,” Celeste commanded her hands-free cell.

“Jessica Caulfield’s office,” answered Kim, Jessica’s number one assistant.

“It’s me,” Celeste said. The bitchiness in her voice was barely contained.

“One moment, Celeste. I’ll get her.”

They’d better recognize her voice. She’d paid enough in commission to CTA over the last seven years to buy a Third World country. Ten percent of her $20 million quote combined with ten percent of first-dollar gross was big bucks.

“Cici—”

“What the fuck is going on, Jessica?” Celeste roared over the phone line. Fuck it. She knew she sounded shrill and high maintenance, but she didn’t care. This was her life, her career!

“Cici, the deal closed late last night, one A.M. I didn’t find out until two.”

“You could have called.”

“Someone leaked it to the trades; it wasn’t supposed to run today. I’m sorry, Cici. I swear we just didn’t get in front of the story fast enough.”

“I was bumped for someone younger and by my own fucking husband!”

“Cici, there are at least a dozen producers who want you in their films. I have three full-quote offers right now—pick one. We’ll run it tomorrow; it’ll look like it was your decision, not Damien’s—that you chose to step off of
Borderland Blue
for a better film.”

“I don’t like them. I’ve read them,” Celeste whined, her anger deflating. She wanted sympathy from her agent. And coddling. And a fucking good script.

“What do you like? What do you want to do?”

“I like
Borderland Blue
, Celeste whispered, “and I want my husband not to be such a backstabbing bastard.” Her bottom lip quivered—she was bumped and her marriage was most certainly over. A lump of sadness plopped into her heart and spread upward and grasped at her throat. She bit the inside of her cheek and willed herself to halt the tears that threatened—again.

“What about Lydia’s film?” Celeste finally asked. Lydia Albright was a close friend of both hers and Jessica’s and a mega-producer. One way to get back at a bastard was to do the film of his biggest competitor. Plus she’d rather spend four months on set with Lydia—someone she could trust—than be thrust into the arms of a producer she disliked and some project she loathed.

“She can’t make your deal,” Jessica said.

“What about a trick deal?” Celeste asked. “SAG minimum and more gross points?”

The silence from Jessica only confirmed what Celeste knew to be true. Working on Lydia’s film, with a trick deal, was a gargantuan gamble. Celeste hadn’t worked in two years and she would forgoe her $20 million fee on the possibility of Lydia’s film,
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
, becoming a success. The risk was obvious; did the public still love Celeste enough that she could open a blockbuster action film and earn her fee on the back end?

“If that’s what you want,” Jessica said her voice even, “I’ll call right now.”

Celeste sighed and the iron-gripped fear in her belly relaxed its tightfisted grip. The slightest smile crossed her face. At least Jessica still believed in Celeste and her box office strength. “I’ll call Lydia. You call the attorneys and start drafting the deal.”

“Anything else?” Jessica asked.

“I want a producer’s credit, too,” Celeste said, the wind whipping her golden locks around her face.

“Not a problem. Call me after you talk to Lydia.”

“Got it.” Celeste said and Jessica was gone. There was one more call to make before she dialed Lydia. Another call to make Damien pay. Aside from taking the role in
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
, there was one other thing that would force Damien to experience a similar anger and pain that burned through Celeste.

For the second time, Celeste spoke to her phone, “Get me Frederick.”

“‘Allo; Frederick,”

“Lover,” Celeste purred.

“Oh, my Cici! I wondered if I might hear from you today,” Frederick said, with a hint of a question.

“It is a very big day.” Anticipation warmed Celeste’s skin and desire tingled up through her toes and legs.

“How big?”

“Black Card big,” Celeste answered, referring to the limitless credit card that Damien kept locked in his safe. Damien mistakenly believed Celeste knew nothing of the card.

“Oooh!” Frederick moaned into the phone. It sounded as if he’d come all over himself. “We just got some fabulous Christian Louboutins this morning.”

“Perfect. I’ll take twenty pairs.”

“He must be in very big trouble, your Damien,” Frederick cackled. “Back from New Zealand?”

“Last night.”

“You know, my boyfriend’s ex-lover is doing makeup on that set. For the actress, Brianna Ellison. You know her.”

Celeste’s heart beat kicked upward and humiliation swept through her body—she felt the heat on her chest and neck.

Of course Frederick knew about Damien and Brie. Everyone knew.

The film industry was a small town in a huge city. Everyone’s boyfriend’s ex-lover did makeup, set design, acted, wrote scripts, produced, gaffed, gripped, agented, or directed. Hollywood was six degrees of separation minus five degrees.

“Brie’s lovely,” Celeste hissed. “I hear she likes girls.”

“Interesting,” Frederick cooed. “I hear she likes cock.”

If Frederick were a woman, she’d rip his eyes out for that remark. But being a member of the catty-effeminate set, Frederick could say whatever he wanted. The exchange was fair trade because Frederick would pay Celeste back with a juicy tidbit of Brie gossip once Celeste finished dropping fifteen grand in his store. And if Frederick really wanted to help Celeste, he’d start spreading some wonderfully salacious lie about little Miss Brie Ellison—perhaps something in the gonorrhea or methamphetamine family?

“I should be there in twenty minutes.”

“Darling, for you I’d wait forty. Ciao.”

Celeste took a quick check of her reflection in the rearview mirror and then balanced the steering wheel with her knees. She grabbed her purse from the passenger seat. The vial had to be in her Chanel bag somewhere. She dug through her purse tossing aside her credit card case, make-up, and cigarettes. She just needed a teensy weensy sniff to keep her alive. There wasn’t a Starbucks on the way, and with so much shopping to do and so little sleep (silly her, she’d cried into her Egyptian cotton towels for three hours), she just needed a jolt. She dug into the pretty white powder with her pinky nail.

Sniff. Sniff.

Celeste wiped under her nose and glanced in the rearview mirror one more time. Still perfect.

Chapter 2

Lydia Albright and Her Alexandra Neel Pumps

Lydia Albright’s movie was falling apart. Her star, Bradford Madison, was incarcerated; her director, Zymar, was in Bali stoned on Thai sticks; and the studio, Worldwide Pictures, was pulling the plug, stopping the money—shutting her down.

 With more than a billion dollars in box-office ticket sales and an overall deal at Worldwide, Lydia was currently
the
biggest producer in Hollywood. But the box office Gods were unkind to Lydia’s last film—
Until the End
. The movie cost the studio more than $175 million to make, and the ticket sales grossed only $125 million worldwide. The studio would make another $100 million in DVD sales, but still, these were not the numbers that Worldwide considered a success. And in a town where “How much money have you made for me lately?” was the mantra, Lydia knew that her next film—this film—
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
, had to be a hit.

She slid off her Alexandra Neel pumps. Her fingertips tingled with the anxiety sliding through her body. Lydia paced barefoot in front of the wall of windows in her office bungalow on the Worldwide lot. One glance into the mirror on the north wall of her office (placed there to help her chi) showed her that while her fair skin looked exceptional for thirty-eight (ahem, forty-two) a frown creased her forehead, and the shadow of dark circles (that she’d tried desperately to conceal this morning with Laura Mercier’s thickest formula) still resided under her blue eyes.

She hadn’t slept well last night—hell she hadn’t slept at all.
How was this happening?
The last forty-eight hours might have ruined
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
’s chances to ever make it onto the big screen.

Weston Birnbaum was dead.

 And with Weston’s sudden death came the reign of the dreaded Leprechaun. Arnold Murphy. Murphy would take over Worldwide as President of Production and not only would Arnold mean the end of Lydia’s film, but also the end of her career at Worldwide.

Lydia dropped into the chair behind her desk. The warm earth-toned art and deep-red walls that Lydia’s interior designer had promised would keep Lydia calm were not working.

Fucking Murphy. How could they name Arnold Murphy president of production?

Arnold was Lydia’s staunchest enemy, and an insufferable pig. “The little leprechaun” was the term Lydia had originally coined for Arnold, and it fit: He was short, fat, and balding, with wisps of red hair. It would be tit for tat now, wound for wound. This time, Lydia knew, Arnold was in the ideal position to deal her the deathblow.

Six years. For six years Lydia had worked on getting
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
into production. Finally she had the right director (albeit he was currently incommunicado in a Balinese brothel), the right actor (he’d make bail), and the right studio head. Surprisingly, finding the right studio head had been the trickiest piece of the puzzle. Nobody wanted to make this film—well, nobody but Lydia and Weston Birnbaum. Weston was the executive who’d finally said yes and gotten the accounting department at Worldwide to start cutting checks. God bless Weston.

 Lydia glanced at the
Daily Variety
lying on her desk. Well, that Weston Birnbaum, whose cock Lydia had sucked (and it was a big fucking cock) at the Four Seasons two months ago—not an unpleasant experience, although Lydia rarely sucked cock anymore, at least not to get her movies made (she’d discontinued fellatio for film when she stopped being an actresss)—now that wonderful man was dead. A massive heart attack. Lydia’s best friend, Jessica Caulfield, had called Lydia at four A.M. yesterday morning.

“Two of them,” Jessica said. “Asian twins. I think you’ve seen them. Did you see
Dancing Dog, Hidden Windmill
?”

“Shit.” Lydia sighed. “Who will get it?”

“At the same time. One sucking his cock, the other sitting on his face.”

“There’s no way they’d bring in Arnold, is there?” Lydia asked, horrified at the prospect of her nemesis heading up the studio that funded the majority of her films.

“Fuck no,” Jessica said. “He lost more money than any of them. Can you imagine? She was sitting on Weston’s face, and he had a massive coronary. Jesus and the police,” Jessica continued.

“I’m fucked if it’s Arnold,” Lydia said, alarm bells ringing in her ears. Just when all the pieces for her film were finally in place, why did Weston have to die?

“It won’t be Arnold.”

“I’m so fucked.” Lydia sighed again.

“Not as fucked as Weston.”

And there it was in today’s
Daily Variety
. Proof that short men with Napolean complexes could run movie studios. Lydia skimmed the headline again: WORLDWIDE MAKES MURPHY MOVIE MOGUL.
And now my movie is soon to be in the shitter.

Lydia spun her chair around and looked out the windows at the tower of power— Worldwide’s corporate headquarters. A thirty-six-story structure of glass and steel the glass phallus-shaped building dominated the Worldwide Pictures lot. Arnold might already be in the top corner office, looking down at Lydia, knowing the fate of her film, savoring her demise—the prick.

“Arnold Murphy on one,” Lydia’s first assistant Toddy called out.

There were three assistants total: Number one, Toddy, answered phones and took care of scheduling; number two took care of everything Toddy didn’t have time for; and number three, Lydia’s personal assistant, took care of every detail of Lydia’s life, including scheduling her yearly mammogram, her monthly spa retreat, her weekly micro-derm, her biweekly therapy, and her almost daily mani-pedi.