Friends & Fauxs Read online

  Lydia was as excited as an eight-year-old who’d overdosed on glucose. After spending her mediocre career wet-nursing lackluster B- and C-list celebrities, she had finally landed a bona-fide star, and she planned to ride Gillian’s ascent straight to the top. “Don’t forget, we’ll do a full interview with Shaun Robinson at Access Hollywood, followed by brief chats with Extra and USA Today; everyone else, we’ll breeze right by.”

  At the mere mention of press, attention-hungry Imelda perked right up. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? It seems to me that we should get all the press we can.” She had been practicing Paris Hilton’s “over one shoulder” pose and had it down to camera-ready perfection. With all of those cameras and microphones beckoning, this little twit was telling her to ignore them. Was she crazy?

  The “we” part did not go unnoticed by Lydia. “At this point I don’t want Gillian overexposed,” she patiently explained. “She needs to maintain the same air of mystery that’s worked so well for her.”

  “That was before, but now we’re talking about an Academy Award and worldwide press,” Imelda announced, as if this had somehow escaped everyone else’s attention.

  The last thing Lydia needed was a meddling, has-been mother trying to weasel her way into the spotlight. It was bad enough having to deal with the stage moms of teenage celebrities, but she could see that dealing with a well-seasoned cougar like Imelda made dealing with those women a walk in the park by comparison. Imelda only cared about Gillian’s career to the extent that it furthered her own cause.

  “This strategy has been well thought out,” Lydia replied with a glint of steel in her voice. “We want the Academy and the fans to always be left wanting more of Gillian, not feeling as if they’ve already had enough.” The agency had several strategy sessions and decided that this was the best way to go to ensure that Gillian not only brought home the gold statue, but also built a career that had substance and longevity. They’d gone over the plan with Brandon and Gillian, who were both in agreement, so she certainly didn’t appreciate being second-guessed by her client’s cloying mother.

  “I still think it’s important that people get to know her,” Imelda said, tossing her weave dismissively. She was not one who was easily put off. She suddenly brightened as an idea came to her. “Perhaps, as a surrogate, I could talk to the rest of the media on her behalf.”

  I’m sure you would love that, Lydia thought, barely holding back a smirk. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she answered simply, dismissing the subject, just as the driver opened the back curbside door for Gillian.

  Lydia said, “Remember, keep a smile on when you’re working the red carpet. You have to assume that you’re being photographed every single second. And you know photographs show up everywhere these days.” Lydia was like a boxing trainer prepping a heavyweight before a big bout as she finished laying out the game plan for Gillian’s dramatic entrance.

  Gillian emerged from the car to streams of popping flashbulbs, rolling cameras, throngs of reporters, and a line of eager fans, all anxious to catch a glimpse of the actress who’d rocketed from obscurity to fame literally overnight. Her long, tanned legs seemed to go on forever as she stood to her full six-foot height. She wore an Elie Saab couture dress that clung beautifully to her model-size frame.

  Lydia slid out next, ready to usher Gillian along the press rope and down the red carpet. Meanwhile, Imelda, who was supposed to exit past the carpet and meet them inside, had glossed her already MAC-covered shiny lips and was sliding over to pop out behind Lydia. Thinking quickly, and not wanting a replay of Gillian’s first premiere, where Imelda had weaseled her way right into interviews and then had the nerve to hog the microphone, Lydia gingerly pushed the door closed behind her, effectively slamming it in Imelda’s face. If looks could kill, Imelda’s hateful glare would have penetrated the tinted glass window and landed dead center between Lydia’s eyes.

  After escaping the mother-from-hell, Lydia guided Gillian over to Shaun Robinson from Access Hollywood, who was already set up and waiting for the interview.

  “Gillian, how does it feel to be nominated for an Oscar?” Shaun asked, as her cameraman pulled in for the requisite close-up.

  “I am so honored and tremendously flattered to be nominated along with the other amazing actresses in the category,” Gillian beamed. Her smile lit up the night, causing another flurry of flashes to capture the moment.

  “What do you think your odds are of winning?”

  Gillian chuckled. “Well, I’ve never been a gambler, so I’m not sure. I can only hope that my work speaks for itself.”

  “Where is your hubby tonight? He must be so proud of you.”

  “Yes, he is, and he’ll be here a little later.” Gillian hated talking about Brandon. She realized that many people believed that he’d bought and paid for her, and her career. She would rather believe that she’d made it based on her talent, though she’d never know since Brandon financed Gold Diggers, her first and only film, and poured even more money into her marketing, promotion, and press. His money also bought her a first-rate stylist and a hair and makeup team who were on call 24-7. These were perks that no first-time actress would have dreamed of, unless of course she happened to be sleeping with, or was married to, the financier.

  Ever alert, Lydia signaled for Shaun to wrap up the interview. For the same reasons as Gillian, she didn’t want any questions about Brandon included in interviews. It was important that Gillian be perceived as a serious actress, not a by-product of the casting couch.

  The photographers along the red carpet couldn’t get enough of Gillian as she reluctantly posed for a few shots. There was nothing more pathetic than those desperate celebrities who crawled along the red carpet posing with each step until everyone with a disposable camera had taken their picture.

  Once inside Gillian was whisked past the B-list celebrities and a cadre of hangers-on who were fortunate enough to know someone who knew someone, and therefore were able to get into the building but weren’t well-connected enough to actually make it into the coveted VIP section, which was where the real party would be. The whole scene was sharply ironic to Gillian, who vividly recalled being relegated to C-list status after arriving in L.A. With no connections, she’d barely made it past the front door and was then shunted to an uncool section of the club that was the social equivalent of Alaska. My how things have changed, she thought. Less than two years later, even though she was the exact same person, she was suddenly the reigning queen of Hollywood. Note to self, she thought: Easy come, easy go.

  “Congratulations!!” screamed Lauren and Reese. They both stood just inside the VIP room with Champagne glasses in hand, beaming from ear to ear.

  The three shared a group hug that was haunted by Paulette’s absence. They each had to wrestle their own demons as a result of Paulette’s untimely death.

  If only Paulette hadn’t been so upset by their argument, Lauren lamented; she might have been able to somehow stop the sabotaged Mercedes before it went plummeting over the rugged canyons off of Mulholland Drive. The sad irony was that the egomaniacal Max wasn’t worth nearly the high price they’d all paid for the affair. Of course, Mildred, Lauren’s socialite-cum-arbiter-of-everything-that-mattered mother, was of the very vocal opinion that her scurrilous niece, Paulette, got exactly what she deserved.

  As far as Mildred was concerned, it was bad enough that decades earlier Paulette’s mother, June, had soiled their illustrious family legacy, but for Paulette to plow even deeper into the gutter by having an affair with her cousin’s husband, and then plot to have his child, clearly demonstrated why both mother and daughter belonged on the other side of the family tracks.

  Whenever Reese looked into the mirror—something she used to do much more often—she was instantly reminded that while she escaped the tangled wreckage of the accident broken and battered, Paulette—her partner in crime—lay in a cold dark grave. The physical scars she bore, though no longer angry slashes across her once
flawlessly beautiful face, weren’t nearly as deep and damaging as the mental scar that no surgeon’s scalpel could ever repair. The scars were also reminders that the tragic accident could have been her fault.

  Paulette had been a take-no-hostages barracuda when it came to getting what she wanted, so she had no shortage of enemies whose ire she’d stoked and provoked on her rough trek from the wrong side of the tracks to being the owner of one of the hottest PR firms in New York and L.A. The fact that Reese’s ex-husband, Chris, was one such victim was due to Reese’s own brand of at-all-cost tactics. For years she’d schemed and connived and used every trick in the gold-digger handbook to separate as much of Chris’s NBA millions from his wallet as possible. Like a seasoned gold digger, Reese even used her son as leverage. Unfortunately, she’d also used Paulette. In fact, the two women were simpatico; they’d understood each other completely. They were opposite sides of the same rusted coin. While Paulette’s self-esteem had long ago been replaced by a pain that she sought to soothe with a steady diet of food, men, money, and material things, Reese had overdosed on self-esteem and had a supersized ego, which required perpetual care and feeding.

  “Paulette would have been so proud of you,” Reese said, with a tight smile that staved off her tears. Though she’d been hesitant to leave Rowe, she was glad that she had come to celebrate and be with her friends. She’d given Rowe his medicine, tucked him in, and sat at his bedside gently rubbing his head until he fell asleep, just the way he had done for her when she was in the hospital after the accident.

  “I know. If it weren’t for Paulette, I wouldn’t even be here,” Gillian said. Though famous for her cool (and beauty), she had her own demons to deal with. The source of her guilt and pain was unspeakable, and nearly unthinkable. She hadn’t told anyone of her suspicions that Brandon had a strong motive for murdering Paulette.

  She’d believed Brandon when he’d insisted that he had not laundered drug money through Sound Entertainment but was being set up. It was much more convenient to believe that those glorious millions he spent on her were legitimate than to kiss them all good-bye. When confronted with the truth, Gillian still clung to those millions rather than risk wrecking her gravy train. She hid the flash drive and never said a word to anyone, including Brandon. She buried her friend, along with the truth, and then married the man and his money.

  “Here’s to the success of Gold Diggers” Lauren said, meaning the film, though in Gillian’s heart she realized that though she had felt morally superior to Reese and Paulette, often calling them gold diggers, a character trait she’d learned to abhor after watching her mother slither from one wealthy man to another, it was quite possible that she was the biggest gold digger of them all.

  Chapter 8

  It never failed to amaze Charli how base and predictable most men were. They responded to stimuli as loyally as Pavlov’s well-trained dogs did to the dinner bell, she mused, while turning her back to a group of middle-aged men and flawlessly executing the Booty Shake, a stripper’s move that put Atlanta and the renowned club Stripper’s Joint on the map. It was considered the money move because the sight of a woman’s well-endowed buttocks rotating rhythmically to the beat of anything drove the human male species primally insane and, in the case of her customers, it also drove the money right out of their pockets. The gazed, fixed, partially open eyes, nearly drooling mouth, and the wide-open wallet were all familiar sights to Charli Kemble. She was the premier attraction at the city’s most noted strip club. She didn’t have the biggest butt—not in a southern city well known for ample, rotund backsides—nor did she have the largest breasts or longest weave, which were other necessary accoutrements for city strippers. What Charli did have in abundance was an uncanny command of her female wiles and rampant sex appeal. While most of the girls bordered on slutty in their lame and overt attempts to attract men—showing everything they had, in addition to what they’d bought—she took the opposite tack, letting her sexuality only allude to the mind-blowing erotic pleasure that a night with her surely promised.

  “That’s right, baby, back dat ass up!” one guy moaned, as he slid to the end of his chair nearly salivating. If only his prim and proper wife could have seen her ordinarily conservative, boring husband at that moment, she’d have been on the pole herself!

  Charli barely even heard his words of encouragement. She was very good at blocking out the slobbering bozos who sat drooling over her for hours while dispensing their hard-earned money like a well-tapped ATM. Instead, she focused on the large piles of cash that awaited her at the end of each night.

  She would never have imagined when she arrived in Atlanta four years ago that she’d be shaking her ass every night in front of total strangers, nor did she imagine that she’d be driving a Porsche 911 and own her own luxury condo downtown. The bad always seemed to come right alongside the good. Good, bad, or indifferent, she wouldn’t trade her sometimes-seamy way of life for the small-town existence her mother lived for anything in the world.

  Fortunately, her mom, Teresa Kemble, had no idea what Charli really did for a living. As far as she knew her daughter was a telemarketing supervisor for a telecommunications company, and since she never traveled to Atlanta, the hedonistic capital of the south, she never had to wonder how a low-level employee such as her daughter could drive an eighty-thousand-dollar car.

  “I need you in the VIP room,” Flash, the club manager ordered as Charli shimmied back into her clothes, hundreds of dollars richer.

  “My shift is up,” Charli replied without bothering to look at him. Flash was even slimier than his customers, if that was possible.

  “This ain’t no nine-ta-five, shawty. I got some ballers askin’ for you ’specially”

  “Not interested.” It was 2 a.m. and she’d been shakin’ her ass since eight.

  “It’s Lil’ Easy and his crew, and you know how generous the rappers are. The last time they was up in here Shaniqua walked away with at least two grand.” Flash waited, knowing that by waving dollar signs, the tide would soon turn his way. Eventually, a flash of cash worked for all the hos up in the club. They all started out stripping with some marginal scruples and a few limits, up until the right amount of money pushed both aside. He had to admit that, so far, Charli’s threshold was much higher than most. She was skinny by his standards, but she had something beyond tits and ass that was irresistible to his customers. If only she wasn’t so difficult, they’d both be richer for it.

  But two grand did get her attention. Even though Charli had a hefty bank account with well over six figures resting in it, she never felt as if she had enough. There was always a subconscious sense of doom that clung to her, a feeling that she’d never be prepared for all life might have in store for her.

  As much as she wanted to walk out the door and cleanse her mind, body, and soul of the residue from hours of entertaining the sexual fantasies of creepy horny men, an extra couple of thousand dollars for an hour’s work did have a certain cleansing quality in itself. How many people made two thousand dollars an hour? That was over thirty-three dollars a minute. All of a sudden, the cover-up that was going over her thong and pasties reversed course and slid off instead.

  “Be in VIP One in ten minutes,” Flash ordered, barely concealing a smirk. No matter how high and mighty, every ho had her price. For some of the hood rats that’d descended on Atlanta in the last ten years, all chasing rappers and athletes, the price was as low as the cost of tightening up a foot-long weave. Then, of course, there were women like Gillian, who had accurately assessed her assets and priced them accordingly. The next level were those sadly repressed southern belles whose perceived value went far beyond the physical, and included family history, educational achievement, and looks (to a lesser degree). Many of the women of this ilk in the Chocolate City couldn’t find their own G spots with a Google Map and a GPS device. They usually sold out for a husband who wore a suit and tie, two bratty kids, and a picket fence in the suburbs.

  Charli stop
ped off in the dancer’s green room, which was more puke-green than anything, to freshen up. In dim light the club took on the aura of naughty, high-class decadence, and the girls appeared to be on the exotic side of slutty. But turn on the lights, and the sexy lounge revealed its dingy walls, stained furniture, and cheap carpet. Worse yet, the girl whom men had felt motivated to trade in the wife and kids for, three hundred dollars ago, suddenly looked like a wrung-out addict on her last hit of crack.

  Juicy, a hooker who masqueraded as an exotic dancer, strutted through the door, cupping her 38-Ds. “Girrrl, you goin’ in the VIP room?” she asked Charli.

  “Unfortunately,” Charli answered. She kept her dialogue with the other dancers, most of whom resented her unearned popularity with the clients, especially those clients who were more sophisticated and usually had more cash, to a minimum.

  “What you mean, unfortunately?” Juicy responded with a well-practiced snap of the neck. “Most of us would kill to be up in there with Lil’ Easy and his crew.”

  Charli knew better than to answer. Juicy and her crew of skanks were always looking for a reason to check her. Charli was ruddy-brown with exotic, chiseled features and light brown hair, which she wore in a pageboy.

  Bunny, a ghetto chick from Bankhead, rolled her eyes at Charli and muttered, “Bitch,” for no good reason.

  After glossing her lips, brushing a bit of powder over her face, and running her fingers through her hair, Charli was quick to escape the hornet’s nest. She could feel the sharp daggers in her back as she left the room.

  When she and four other dancers walked into the VIP suite, it was set up with bottles of Veuve Clicquot on each table. Lil’ Easy and his hangers-on were slouched in their chairs smoking blunts and bobbin’ their heads to a remix of Lil’ Wayne’s A Milli. Like a hungry predator, Lil’ Easy’s hooded, bloodshot eyes took in every inch of Charli’s six-foot frame, fixing her with a lustful gaze. Without breaking it, he motioned for Flash to send her over to him.