Dia of the Dead (5 page)

Missy didn’t look so good close up. Under the lights of the bathroom, every line and wrinkle was visible beneath her shoddy makeup application.  Missy looked older than nineteen. Older-than-my-mom-who-was-in-her-thirties older. It was like all the hard partying the gossip blogs liked to talk about had caught up and aged her a thousand years.  Her skin had taken on a sickly gray color and appeared sticky with swea
t
.

Taylor stood not far behind Reagan—who screeched a “bitch”-laden tirade at Missy—looking a bit green. She groaned and made an awful retching noise. Reagan’s rant was cut short by her bloodcurdling scream.

Taylor covered her mouth with her hand but chunks of pink gross—the same color as the mess on Reagan’s shoulder—dripped from her chin.

“I’m s-s-sorry, Reaga
n,
” Taylor said hoarsely. “When I see other people puke, I puke.”

Reagan turned on heel, shoved Taylor out of her way and fled the bathroom.

“Rae, wait!” Taylor called, running after her friend.

“Come on, Miss. Let’s get you to a seat and get you some water.” Amber approached Missy carefully and put her hands on her shoulders, ready to steer Missy toward the lounge area. 

Before Amber could help her side-step the first puddle of puke, Missy’s eyes crossed—rolling back in her head—and she collapsed.

“Not again.” Amber sighed. She kneeled over Missy, calling her name and lightly slapping her face. Missy didn’t respond. Amber looked to me. “Can you help me get her over to the couch? She does this all of the time.”

“Yeah. No problem.” I helped Amber lift Missy up and carry her over to the couch.

“I’ll get help,” I said.

“Thanks. I’ll stay with her to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.”

I took off to search for help.

“What’s going on?” Brendan leaned against the wall near the door to the ladies’ room.

“Reagan came out covered in puk
e,
” he smirked.

“Missy needs help.”

The smirk disappeared. He stood up, his eyes wide in alarm. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. She was fine—well, not fine-fine but like Missy-fine— then she like puked everywhere and collapsed.”

“She puked on Reagan?”

“No, that was Taylor.”

“Oh, gross.” He laughed.

“Amber said Missy passes out often but I’m gonna get some help.”

“I’ll go with yo
u,
” Brendan said, taking my hand.

I felt another small jolt of electricity. It wasn’t static shock. It took a lot of willpower but I managed to keep the goofy, I-have-a-crush grin off my face as we made our way to the stairs. We ran down the stairs and burst through the door, interrupting an angry conversation (if you could call it that) between Reagan and one of the club’s security guards.

“I want Missy Bolton out of here!” she screamed at a man that was twice her size in both height and width. A small crowd gathered around them. The guy did an excellent job maintaining a blank expression while Reagan called him every name under the sun. 

Seeing how upset Reagan was made me a little afraid of trying to get the security guard’s attention. But Brendan wasn’t as intimidated. He marched right on up to them, dragging me along. Reagan stopped, setting her eyes on me. I dropped Brendan’s hand immediately. The way Reagan glared at me, I felt the need to check myself for flames. Her face turned red and she let out an animal-like shriek.

Di
a
was totally dead.

I put aside my worries about my future in acting and tapped the security guard.

“Excuse me, sir. We need your help upstairs,” I said timidly.

“Go help the trainwreck upstairs and when you’re done, toss her out. Along with her friend. The girl in the stupid pink dress. You’ll know her when you see her.” Reagan sneered and stomped off.

Brendan and I followed security back upstairs. I went into the ladies’ room. A chair in the lounge was overturned, paper towels and trash were everywhere, and there was no sign of Missy and Amber. I heard a scream and followed it into the bathroom proper and walked in on a pretty one-sided fight. Missy had come-to and had Amber cornered between the wall and the sinks. She clawed at Amber, shouting things that weren’t words, just sounds.

I ran over to them and wrestled Missy away from Amber, trying to pin her arms down as I pulled her away. She growled and struggled against my hold but I was able to get her over to the door.

“Can someone open this?” I grunted, moving back while Missy thrashed against me growling. The door opened and I pushed her out into the arms of the security guard. She was his problem now.

I ran back to check on Amber. She stood in the corner trembling slightly. Her hair was tousled and her arms were covered in reddening scratches.

“Amber, are you okay?” I approached her slowly.

“Yeah. Yeah,” she breathed, standing up and checking her arms.

“What happened?”

“I don’t. . .I don’t know. It all happened so fast.” She shook her head.  “One minute she was passed ou
t,
then she was up and acting really weird—for her. She got this wild look in her eyes and they changed colors, turning darker like the pupil had overtaken the blu
e,
and she started shouting nonsense. Then she attacked me.”

Amber held up her arm for me to look at the scratches Missy left on her forearm.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I know. She didn’t do too much damage. I’ll be fine. Can you help me get Missy’s things?”

I helped her collect Missy’s things off the floor and put them back into her bag. I came across a baggie filled with small tablets similar to the ones Mason had earlier.

“Do you think these are the reason she’s acting so weird?” I walked over to where Amber stood, holding up the baggie.

“Huh?” Amber put down the paper towel she used to dab at her wounds in the mirror and turned to me.

“Do you think Missy took some of these?” I shook the baggie again.

“Oh. Those. She took some in the car on the way over. She was already waste
d,
but she mumbled something about wanting to take the party to the next level.”

“Do you think they could be why she flipped out?”

“I dunno. Probably. Missy’s a human pill disposal. She’ll take anything if she thinks it’ll help her party and then she’ll wash it down with as much booze as possible.” Her eyes widened. “Don’t tell anyone I said that!” 

“I won’t.”

“Good.” She turned back to the mirror where she continued patching up her wounds and smoothing her hair into place. She gathered her clutch from the counter and turned around.

“I guess I have to go check on Miss. I gotta make sure she doesn’t end up in jail again. Her career can’t take another hit like that.”

I handed her Missy’s purse.

“Thanks for your help, Dia. Maybe we can grab lunch sometime. My treat.”

“Really? I’d like that.”

“Great. I’ll call you to set something up.”

“Don’t you need my number?”

“Nah.
There are people.” She checked her appearance one more time. “I better get going. See you around.” 

She flashed a tired smile and left. I exited shortly after her, hoping to salvage the rest of the night and maybe even have a little fun.

“I can’t believe she kicked us out. I didn’t even get to dance with Maso
n,
” Kaci pouted. “What did you do?”

She glared at me from her seat in the back of our hired Town Car. I didn’t think Reagan would actually follow through on her threat but apparently I was wrong.

“I didn’t do anything. Brendan and I went to get help for Missy and she ordered the security guard to escort me out when he was finished tossing out Missy. I didn’t think she was serious.”

“You were with Brendan Baker. Of course she was serious. Didn’t Taylor tell you about that? I didn’t think you’d listen to me since you think I’m just a silly airhead—“

“—I do not.”

Kaci flashed me a look.

“Seriously, I don’t,” I said defensively.

“It’s all a part of the game, Dia. We’re actors. We pretend for a living. On-screen and off. It’s how Hollywood works if you want to have a successful career.”

Her expression was serious. I’d only seen her this way when she was in character. Addison Appleby was the catty queen bee of Romero High—she had to be serious while plotting Dia Muerto’s downfall. Kaci, on the other hand, was always joking around or flirting with Mason on set. “Airhead” was the first word that came to mind when someone said “Kaci Miller” though I’d never tell her that. She could be flighty at times…okay pretty much all of the tim
e,
but she had good intentions and a kind heart.

Her expression softened and she continued, “Since you’re new to this and as your best friend at Bixby, I thought I’d just go ahead and have your back. I told Taylor to give you some helpful tips about show stuff. Surely she gave you the deets on the Brendan Baker Debacle.”

“‘Brendan Baker Debacle’? She told me Reagan had a crush on him. I didn’t know it had a name.”

“She told you about Lola Matthews, right?”

“She mentioned the name—“

“— you didn’t hear this from me.”  Her cheek twitched and her eyes lit up. It was the look she got when she had a really juicy bit of gossip to share. “Reagan and Brendan used to date.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. For like a week. They broke up for whatever reason then Brendan started dating Lola Matthews who played Maddie’s sister Megan o
n
OMG
!
”

“
OMG
!
was one of my favorite shows a few years ago. I watched like every episode. I don’t remember Maddie having a sister.”

“She was written out of the show after the pilot was filmed. They told her the character
wasn’t working but the truth is once Reagan found out about her and Brendan, she had it in for the poor girl.”

“Wow. Were they like really dating? Her parents let her date-date an older guy?”

“He’s not that much older than her.”

“My mom would never let me date an older guy.  I’m not even sure she’ll let me date at all even though she said I could when I turned sixteen. I’ve been sixteen for two months and my mom hasn’t mentioned anything. My crush on Brendan is just a crush.” I sighed longingly. I caught myself drifting away on mushy thoughts of Brendan and sobered up quickly.

“Not that I want to like date him or anything. I mean, if he was interested then I guess maybe but—“

My rambling was cut short by Kaci’s giggling.

“Your crush needs to stay a crush.” Her smile faded until it disappeared completely. “Haven’t you learned anything from tonight? Reagan’s crazy. Especially about Brendan. I won’t say anything about this to anyone but you have to be careful. We’re already screwed.”

“How bad is it?”

“We’re leaving a party at 11:30 that, according to the invite, is supposed to be over at “question mark”. We’re totally effed.”

“I’m sorry, Kace.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it now. Just be prepared to pack up your dressing room if Mr. Bixby announces the show’s getting canned tomorrow.”

I sighed and looked out the window.

The rest of the trip back to Burbank was quiet. Kaci wasn’t chattering away; instead, she spent most of the ride sighing or checking her phone.  The driver dropped her off at her apartment building then headed to mine.

I didn’t wait for him to come around to open my door when the car pulled up in front of Helena Gardens. I thanked him for the excellent service and headed inside. The lobby was quiet for a Friday night.  Usually a few residents—fellow actors and actresses at Bixby—hung out in the lobby’s sitting area, running lines in front of the indoor waterfall. But the chairs were empty and the waterfall babbled quietly by its lonesome. Guess everyone else wasn’t thrown out of BB’s party.

I walked across the lobby toward the elevators, bypassing the desk where Alicia the apartment manager sat during the day. It was well after the regular nine-to-five business hours so an old episode o
f
Cumberland Height
s
had to keep an eye on things from the TV mounted on the wall behind the desk.

We lived in a spacious two-bedroom on the sixth floor. The place was practically free, a perk of being studio talent. The building was owned by The Bixbys and housed others who hadn’t quite had their big break. The place was clean and
well kept. It was definitely an upgrade from the crap apartment we had back in Santa Barbara.

Mom was waiting at the door when I arrived.

“Hey sweetheart, how was the party?” she asked with a smile on her round brown face.

“Blerg,” I grunted, trudging inside.

I threw my clutch onto the dining room table, took off my jacket, and draped it on the back of one of the chairs. I dragged my feet across the hardwood floors of the large room that served as the kitchen-living-dining room to the cream pit sofa. It was obvious mom had spent most of her evening there. Besides greeting me at the door in a pair of ratty sweats and one of my old community center day camp tees, her favorite blanket was balled up on the sofa, a bowl of popcorn sat on the coffee table and the TV above the fireplace was on some sappy romcom.