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AMANDA NATHAN TO ATTEND DYLAN HARDY FOUNDATION
OPENING GALA

February
27

Celeb-o-Matic

Looks like
Liam Brody’s ex is moving on to more classy and sophisticated parties! According
to a few event-planning sources, Amanda Nathan’s name has been last-minute added
to the exclusive guest list for the Dylan Hardy Foundation opening gala, hosted
at the Guggenheim Museum.
 
Not only
that, Dylan put in a specific request for where to seat Miss Nathan – at
his
table!

According
to its website, The Dylan Hardy Foundation is a charity providing disadvantaged
youth early engagement in the arts, primarily Shakespearean theater, which Hardy
has spent many years performing and often cites as his inspiration to pursue
acting.
 
Attendance at the gala is
expected to include the biggest names in New York arts and society, along with
many of Hardy’s own Hollywood friends.

Sounds
fun! And after being caught flirting for hours at a celebrity luncheon on
Saturday, this news also sounds like a confirmation that Nathan and Hardy are
exploring a possible - or rather,
probable
love connection.
 
We can’t
wait to watch this one pan out!

Amanda spent the three days between the luncheon and her
first date with Dylan in grueling preparation for it.
 
It wasn’t by choice – upon hearing about her plans to
attend Dylan’s foundation dinner before going with him for drinks, Thea Zeigler
had stepped in, inviting Amanda to the office for “just a little chat.”

This time, her smile wasn’t forced or awkward –
it was real, full of delight.
 
Pride
, even.
 
It made Amanda suspicious, but she disguised it as she sat
across Thea in her portrait-adorned office.

“I was so thrilled when Wendy told me that you’d be
going to Dylan’s charity gala.
 
And
sitting at his
table
? Oh, I just
wanted to type this whole situation in a memo and blast it to everyone in my
address book.
 
‘See what good
happens when you do exactly what Thea says?’” she tittered with delight.
 
“How grateful are you that I sent you
to that luncheon?”

Amanda blinked.
 
“Very grateful,” she answered, since that was obviously the correct
answer.

“Alright, now about the gala.
 
It’ll be a crowd very similar to the
luncheon’s, but bigger, with more cameras and media,” Thea said.
 
“How are you feeling about it?”

Amanda’s eyes shifted.
 
She wasn’t sure about the correct answer to this one.
 
“I’m… excited.
 
Especially after interviewing Dylan and
hearing so much about it.
 
He was
so passionate, it was kind of contagious,” she said truthfully, smiling at the
memory.

“Mm-hm,” Thea said, uninterested.
 
She clapped her hands together.
 
“Well, anyway, the reason I called you
here today was to give you a bit of…
training
,
if you will.
 
I just want to ensure
that you’re one hundred percent ready going into this event.
 
And by ready I mean perfect with
everything like posing for pictures, speaking with the media, remembering to
mention the magazine, promoting us in conversation – but in a non-pushy
way, of course! And I’ll tell you what to say,” she said buoyantly, as if that last
few sentences made the tasks less daunting.
 
“See, you’re representing June, which I’m actually quite
thrilled about, so
I
just want to
help
you
make us proud.
 
An event like this can raise your
profile immediately, and I just want to tweak you in all the right ways so we
can achieve that.”

Amanda stared, unsure of how she should feel about everything
Thea had said.
 
She was fairly
certain that she wasn’t pleased about having her speech so precisely dictated,
or about the fact that her first date with Dylan had become a night of work.

But she quickly forgot about all that when Thea
handed her a Carolina Herrera garment bag and a June Magazine tote, sending her
off to raid the beauty closet for “whatever looks like something you’ll need.”

“Fair exchange,” Amanda murmured to herself as she stood
before her bathroom mirror in the flattering Herrera gown.
 
It was the hypnotizing definition of
glamour with color blocks of different French cafe laces – black over the
bodice and taupe over three-quarters of the ivory silk trumpet skirt.
 
Providing a pop of color and a cinch at
the waist was a red belt, still striking and brilliant as it peeked through
from under the black lace.
 
It was
most certainly the first piece of clothing to take Amanda’s breath away.
 
She wished she could keep it, but of
course, she was simply grateful to have to opportunity to don it even once.
 
Before meeting with Thea, she’d settled
on wearing a black maxi-dress from Arden B. with a blazer, which probably
would’ve looked tragically casual for what she now realized was a black tie
event.

I think I’m getting
the hang of this
, Amanda mused as she applied just a little more of her favorite
lipstick.
 
If there was any
positive, lasting effect from Amanda’s brief friendship with Casey, it was her
recommendation of a bright red lipstick while shopping at MAC.
 
Red, Amanda decided, was no doubt her
color, which she never would have expected considering it was such a bold
shade.
 
But she was certain of
this, and though she was years from being expert, makeup was at least beginning
to feel less foreign to her.
 
Despite the intimidating vastness of June Magazine’s product-packed
beauty closet, she’d at least had the good sense and manners to pick only the
things she’d come to learn as essentials – a tube of Lancôme concealer, a
makeup brush, a palette of Dior eyeshadow and a bottle of hairspray.
 
Kelly had stopped by to toss a few
brands of primer into her tote bag, which Amanda graciously accepted, but
didn’t end up using, resolving to research its purpose whenever she next had
the time.
 

With one last look in the mirror, after tucking her
cell phone into her clutch with her lipstick, Amanda literally waltzed out the
door, her heels clicking in rhythm against the tiled hallway.
 
She kind of hoped her neighbors would
look through the peepholes and see her beautiful dress.

Her self-assurance had been considerable going into
the Lincoln Center luncheon, but the feeling tonight was something different
– heightened.
 
She didn’t
need the flattering words of a random tourist for a boost.
 
She truly felt unstoppable.
 
Less than three weeks removed from her
breakup with Liam, she’d found her own apartment, landed a job and gotten a
date.
 
Not only that, after days of
rehearsing, she’d perfected Thea’s etiquette training, certain she carried a
grace not too far below any Upper East Side heiress.
 
And as a bonus, she was convinced her appearance was at
least ten times better than it had been at the luncheon, when she was sure she
hadn’t looked better in her lifetime.
 
Topping herself had never been so pleasing.
 
Amanda grinned as she pushed through the front doors of her
building.
 
Better late than never
, she thought as she realized that for the
first time, she possessed confidence, which was apparently a more significant
asset than she would ever have imagined.

Her smile remained as the paparazzi cameras flashed
around her, following her as she crossed the sidewalk to her town car, opening the
door for herself before her driver could.

CASEY
MULREED: WORKING ON TOP SECRET TELEVISION PILOT?

The Pop Source

March 3

Will 24-year-old Casey Mulreed soon be adding writer,
producer and director to her impressive resume?

Sources report that Mulreed has spent over a year silently
shopping a semi-autobiographical pilot about growing up in Hollywood to premium
cable networks like ZINC and Cinereel.
 
There were no takers for the rookie writer’s script for a reported
multitude of reasons, the biggest one being its similarity in content to a long
awaited project by TV giant Tom Vogel, which is also set in New York and about
life as a celebrity.
 
However, sources
say that just last month, a premium cable network finally took the bait and has
since been working with Mulreed to cast and produce a full season.

Mulreed, whose spotless image recently took a hit
thanks to a viral video in which she describes herself as a substance abuser,
has been lying below the radar in the past few weeks.
 
Sources claim that the Hollywood princess has been spending
most of her time in Manhattan’s Midtown, finalizing the deal on her one-hour
drama at the offices of her new network.

No word on the plot yet, or whether Mulreed plans on
starring, but we look forward to whatever project this starlet has been
passionately fighting to produce for so long!

- Chapter 14 -

“You’re already smiling, Amanda! Do you know
something we don’t know?”

Keeping her posture despite leaning into the
microphone, Amanda was lively as she answered the silly question.
 
She was still bubbling with excitement
from seeing the Guggenheim Museum for the first time, and from walking the red
carpet alone but with such an apparent cheer that some women around her felt
compelled to smile and pose alongside her, their arms all locked around each other’s
waists.
 
The spirit of the event already
had her beaming.

“Um… you know, technically I might,” Amanda laughed
as she stood at the end of the long carpet.

“Ooh, what is it that you know?” the reporter cocked
her eyebrow, a knowing glint in her eye.
 
She gave a playful look.
 
“Does… it have to do with your,” she cleared her
throat.
 
“Somewhat
closer
than usual relationship to the
man of the hour, Dylan Hardy?”

Amanda burst out laughing.
 
She hadn’t anticipated being asked that kind of question on
a red carpet at the Guggenheim, but at least the wording of it fit the scene
somewhat.
 
The reporter laughed
with her, albeit a bit nervously.

“It has to do with the
interview
I had the pleasure of doing with Dylan.
 
He actually glows when he talks about
this,” Amanda answered, trying not glow herself as she thought about his
breathless and never-ending stories Dylan had told her on the day of the
luncheon.
 
No one made run-on
sentences completely delectable the way he did.
 
“I got to know a few great stories about why this foundation
is close to his heart.
 
Like how he
never saw Shakespeare on any stage until he was sixteen, which seems late
because he was in Romeo and Juliet when he was seventeen.
 
But according to him, that one year in
between was spent completely fixated and nonstop rereading all the Shakespeare he
skipped through in school.”

“That is too cute!” the reporter cooed.
 
“Give me some other fun facts.”

Amanda thought for a moment then smiled.
 
“You’ll just have to look for them in
June Magazine next month!”

Walking alongside her chattering picture buddies from
the red carpet, she headed into the event, onto the Guggenheim’s vast rotunda
floor at the bottom of its spiral walkway, which wound up the circular outer walls
of the room till it reached the domed skylight ceiling nearly a hundred feet
from the ground.
 
She wanted to
spend another second admiring it, but it was hard to take her eyes off of the woodland
scene before her.
 
She reminded
herself that she was indoors as she stared out at the space encircled with
20-foot white wisteria trees, the twenty circular tables centered with candles
and slender glass vases two feet in height, boasting stalks of towering green
flowers and leaves.
 
The dreamy
lighting made her feel as if she were in a high exposure photograph.
 
It was all so distracting that it took
awhile to notice that her friends from the red carpet had suddenly fallen
silent.
 
She turned to see them huddling
over one iPhone.
 
From a yard away,
she could recognize the website on the browser as HDU.
 
Her heart stopped, convinced whatever
they were reading somehow had to do with her.

Joining their huddle, she realized that she wasn’t
quite wrong.
 
The article wasn’t
about her, but might as well have been.

COPS CALLED ON IAN MARSH IN
SCARSDALE, NY

March 3, 7:13PM

Posted by derpityderp