Fool Me Twice (25 page)

“Celebrity Seeker
claims that I’m dating Troy again,” I say as I skim the pages of the gossip magazine. Tabloids are scattered like fall leaves all over Rachel’s bedroom, and I want to rake them up and stuff them into trash bags. “How stupid do they think I am?”

I haven’t talked to Troy since he shattered my car window three months ago. Rachel doesn’t know anything about that, though. No one does, and I have to keep it that way.

“I’d feel bad for you, Emma, but some of us don’t have any guys to ignore.” Rachel has her back to me, admiring the collection of men who cover her otherwise lavender walls. Most of the space is taken up by carefully cut out magazine pages featuring a male model she calls The Bod. “And worse, the only guy I’m dying to date doesn’t know I exist. Literally.”

“I doubt he’s worth dying for,” I say. “If a boy looks like he belongs in a museum, there’s a pretty good chance his head is solid marble.”

Rachel huffs at me, offended, as if she actually knows him. Or even his name.

I leave her bouncy desk chair—great for girls with energy to burn—to study a close-up of The Bod’s face. “At the very least,” I go on with a teasing tone, “those puffy lips are airbrushed.”

Chancing a peek at Rachel, I find her bright-green eyes narrowed at me. “You know,” she says, “for someone who’s on
People
magazine’s Most Beautiful Young Celebrities list, you’re awfully critical of beautiful people.”

I suppose being my best friend for over a decade gives her the right to call me out on things like this. And Rachel is all about straight talk and honesty, which is usually a good thing.

My life doesn’t always feel genuine, even when cameras aren’t rolling.

Whenever I return to my hometown in Fayetteville, Arkansas, I expect the world to somehow seem real again, but work still has a way of taking over. Today especially, because a full five minutes hasn’t passed without me checking my e-mail. The final details for the new TV series I’m starting next month are being sent out today, including the casting choices.

The scent of coconut-and-lime body spray wafts toward me. Rachel snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Are you even listening?”

Yes and no
. She’s been going on about the endless charms of her paperweight soul mate. “All I’m saying is that guys who look like The Bod are usually the most overrated gimmicks on the planet,” I tell her. “And crappy boyfriend material. Trust me.”

I hear a screen door squeak open, and a canary-like chirp belonging to Rachel’s mom instantly echoes in the house. Trina enters the room and says, “Oh, Emma honey, have
we
got a big surprise!”

For as long as I can remember, Trina has dressed like she’s forty-going-on-sixteen. At the moment she’s in black skinny jeans and a plum tee with a glittery fleur-de-lis stretched way too tight over her five-thousand-dollar chest. Trina’s curly platinum hair matches her daughter’s, but everything about Rachel’s beauty is perfectly natural.

“You’re just gonna die!” Trina adds.

My mother is right behind Trina and shoots her a
please stop
look, but I seem to be the only one who notices. Typical for her, Mom is wearing a white button-down shirt and gray tweed slacks, looking like she walked out of a Neiman Marcus window display. She wouldn’t be caught dead in Trina’s leopard print stilettos. But despite being polar opposites, they’ve been going out for regular lunches since Rachel and I first met in a community acting class.

I sometimes wonder if Mom only does it to stay on the good side of a careless gossip who might be too close to me. Or maybe Mom just wants to keep up on what’s
really
going on in my personal life. She likely gets more from Trina, via Rachel, than she does from me.

Trina is still grinning so widely that every tooth in her mouth is showing, but my mom’s smile seems fake, and her lashes are batting way too fast to be simple blinks. “I just heard from the studio,” she says.

I only stare at her for a second. “But … why wasn’t I on the e-mail list?”

“I’ll forward you a copy, Emma. I always do.”

That’s not the point, and she knows it. I had asked her to tell the studio to put me on the direct list, and she obviously didn’t. Like a lot of parents in this business, my mom became my manager when I landed my first big job, so
everything
goes through her. But now
that I’m finally an official adult, I can hire a new management team if I want to, a team who would at least agree that I should know before the rest of the world—what’s going on in my career. Like me, Mom must realize this isn’t working anymore, but she hasn’t even mentioned the possibility of a new manager, like it isn’t something I’d consider anyway.

As if she could never imagine me making a mature decision without her.

Mom tacks on a sigh. “We should head home so we can discuss this casting.”

“I want to stay. Just tell me what the e-mail says.”

“I’m dying to know too,” Rachel adds. “We’ve been waiting all day.”

Trina whispers something to Rachel, then Rachel looks at me with her mouth half open, her eyes bulging. “Holy crap, Emma! You’re gonna FREAK!”

Perfect. Now even Rachel knows before I do.

“Can we borrow this room for a minute?” I ask.

Trina and Rachel appear disappointed by the request but finally step into the hallway, whispering again. My mom shuts the bedroom door and pulls out her phone. “I had hoped we were past this nonsense,” she mutters, “but you won’t believe who’s playing—”

I snatch the phone from her hand, open the e-mail from the studio, and read out loud. “Executive Producer Steve McGregor will launch the production of
Coyote Hills
in Tucson, Arizona, the second week of July … table read … camera tests … I’ll go back to that later … Okay, here it is: one male lead is still in negotiations.” Ugh. This is practically code for
casting problems
. “The remaining cast is as follows: Eden will be played by Emma Taylor. The
role of Kassidy will be played by Kimmi Weston.” I have no idea who Kimmi is, so I glance at my mom before going on. She’s never heard of her either. “And the role of Bryce will be played by Brett Crawford.”

I drop the phone.

I want to stomp on it. Scream at it!

Or possibly hug it and jump up and down.

I’m not sure which yet.

“You see?” Mom says. “This is why I wanted to tell you privately.”

My arms are as limp as overcooked fettuccini, but I manage to scoop up the phone. “Okay, yeah. Him,” I say, going for indifference. “A bit of a shock, but whatever.”

Mom puts a hand on her hip.
Here we go
. “Emma, you know how tired I am of dealing with high-publicity romances,” she begins, in full-blown managerial mode. “The last two years have been ridiculous, putting out one tabloid fire after another. You’re at a crossroads here and have a chance to prove yourself as a serious actress. Brett Crawford is the worst sort of boy for you to get involved with, so don’t even consider dating him.”

Does she really think
I
would want to go through all that crap again? On-set romances are usually total disasters, and not just for me. Until last spring I was on a primetime drama that, despite sky-high ratings, was cancelled due to conflict on the set. I played the president’s daughter, but the actor playing the president was caught having a real-life relationship with the actress who played the first lady—and unfortunately, she also happened to be our executive producer’s wife. It wasn’t pretty.

And it eventually shut the entire show down.

That was when Steve McGregor, the do-it-all executive producer/creator/director of
Coyote Hills
, called my agent to ask if he could meet with me to discuss his new project. It was the very day the cancellation of
The First Family
was announced, and I haven’t received a bigger compliment in the six years of my career.

McGregor is responsible for more hit dramas than any producer in television—his shows don’t even require pilots. I think his methods are brilliant, but some people say he’s a nutcase. For one thing, he’s already slated to direct about one-third of the first season, which either means the guy really is insane or he plans to live with a caffeine drip attached to his arm. McGregor is also notoriously secretive about who he’s considering for his cast or I would have already known about Brett. And he rarely takes time to screen-test a pair of actors—who he’s already familiar with—for chemistry. But I’ve worked with enough cinematic geniuses to know there’s no use questioning them. You just go along.

“Listen, Mom,” I say, trying to hide the likelihood that the pizza I had for lunch is about to land on her Jimmy Choo pumps. “This isn’t a big deal. I had a silly celebrity crush on Brett when I was, like, eight.” Well, it started about then, and went on and on. But his growing reputation as a guy who never commits, just loves whoever he’s with at the moment, has definitely dampened my enthusiasm. “That’s ancient history. I’m totally over him.”

Totally
may be pushing it. I might still watch his movies, a lot, and rewind certain parts that I think he’s especially amazing in. But is it so wrong that I think he’s the best actor of my generation? Isn’t it natural that I would be attracted to someone with so much talent?

Mom gives me a thin, cynical smile. “I noticed just this
morning that your laptop wallpaper is yet another picture of Brett Crawford.”

Yeah, well, about that… I also just like to
look
at him.

“The only time it’s been otherwise in the last ten years,” Mom goes on, “is when you’ve been dating some other Hollywood hotshot who thought nothing of dragging your name through the mud.”

Why did she have to bring
them
into this? “It isn’t my fault that they all cheated on me.
I
didn’t do anything wrong.”

Mom’s icy expression melts a little, and I realize I rarely see this softer look on her face anymore. She has brown eyes, mine are blue, but we share the same dark hair and small-framed bodies. I’ve never felt like she’s forced me into a life I don’t want—I’m the one who got the lead in a first-grade play and begged her to let me become a real actress—but it feels as if she sometimes forgets that I’m not just a client.

It’s all business, all the time.

“I know that,” Mom says. “And your dad and your closest friends know that. But the majority of the world looks at a girl who dates this same type of guy over and over, as someone who has very poor judgment. It just can’t happen again.”

How could she possibly think I pick losers on purpose?

When I first met Troy, who was my costar during the last season of
The First Family
, he was always smiling, laughing, joking around with me, surprising me with flowers or a dinner overlooking the ocean. But it isn’t exactly easy dating professional actors-guys who can fake their way through anything.

I look my mom square in the eyes and say, “I get it, okay? I’m totally done with Hollywood guys. Can we move on now?”

Someone sneezes. Rachel and Trina are just outside the door
and have probably been there this entire time, listening. Mom breathes a familiar sigh of irritation. “We’ll talk more when you get home,” she says. “And perhaps you can find a new wallpaper for your laptop?”

I nod and return her phone. “Don’t worry. I’ll be …” Fine is what I’d intended to say, but a vision of Brett Crawford sitting next to me in a cast chair—with his perfect surfer tan, blond hair that always falls in front of his eyes, and a smile that puts a hummingbird in my stomach—enters my mind, and I can’t speak.

“You’ll be
amazing
,” Mom says with a squeeze of my shoulder. “Steve McGregor didn’t even consider another actress for this part, and he always knows what he’s doing. You just need to focus on your career, not boys.”

Mom leaves the room, and Rachel soon takes her place. She shuts the door again and says, “Are you freaking out or what?
Brett Crawford?
This is fate!”

“It’s
ill
-fated, you mean.” I collapse into her bed pillows and throw one over my face. I’ve had several chances to meet Brett. A few times, I’ve even been in the same room as him. But besides the fact that he’s more than two years older and would have only thought of me as a silly little girl before now, I’ve intentionally avoided Brett because I don’t want to know the real him. “I have a perfectly happy relationship with my laptop wallpaper version of Brett Crawford, thank you very much.”

As things are, we never fight, he never cheats on me, and he doesn’t… scare me.

“Brett was in television for the first several years of his career, so why would he want to come back?” I add. “He’s been doing
great
in big-budget movies. He should stay where he is.”

Rachel plops into her desk chair. “Don’t you keep up with anything? It’s amazing how much more I know about your world than you do.”

It’s not such a bad thing that Rachel always knows more gossip than I do; Hollywood is practically her religion. When we met, Rachel had already been doing commercials since she was a baby in a Downy-soft blanket, so she was quick to make herself my mentor. But a few years later, when we were twelve, we both went to an open audition for what turned out to be an Oscar-winning film, and I got the part.

It was a lucky break. Right time, right place, right look.

Since then, I’ve done whatever I could to get Rachel auditions for other major projects, but nothing has worked out. And tension builds with every failed attempt. A few months ago she straight out told me, “How did this even happen? You have
everything
I want.”

Why doesn’t she get that I wish she had it all too?

No matter how different things sometimes feel between us, though, one thing stays the same: Rachel is the only friend I have who’s been with me all along—the only friend who keeps my feet planted firmly in the dark, rich soil of Arkansas. Even when I’m dressed from head to toe in Prada, with red carpet beneath me and cameras flashing from every other direction, Rachel is a constant reminder of where I came from. Who I really am.