Hollywood Confessions (5 page)

* * *

As much as I was itching to get to Davies, I knew Felix was right. The best time to catch him would be at the studios tomorrow. And it would probably be a good idea to conduct the interview sans glitter. So instead of diving into my headline story, I hopped in my Bug and headed toward home for a much-needed shower.

I lived in a one bedroom on the bottom level of a fourplex on the outskirts of Glendale, tucked up against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was as rural as you could get in L.A. Which didn’t really mean
rural
rural, but trees lined the streets, the hills provided a backdrop of green when you could see them through the smog haze, and at night I only heard the distant hum of a single freeway instead of four. All in all, it was the most peaceful escape I could find on a tabloid reporter’s budget.

I parked in my reserved spot beneath our building and took the stairs up to my place on the ground floor. While the outside of the building was standard Southern California grey stucco, I did my best to make the interior my own. The brown renter’s carpet on the floor was covered in colorful throw rugs in shades of purple and pink. The free couch I’d gotten off Craigslist was covered in a white slipcover, accented by hot pink pillows I’d sewn myself, featuring little gold tassels at the corners. A vase of gerbera daisies sat on my pink coffee table, and I’d hand painted the plain wooden kitchen table and chairs with pink flowers and yellow smiley faces. My last boyfriend had said walking into my place was like walking into Barbie’s dream apartment. I’ll admit, it was a lot of pink. But pink made me happy. And if you can’t be happy in your own home, what have you got?

I set my keys down on the pink end table by the door and grabbed the stack of mail that had been shoved through my door slot while I’d been at work. A Macy’s bill, a Banana Republic bill, a Limited bill, and a coupon for half off graphic T’s at Old Navy. I ripped the coupon out, put it in my purse then shoved the bills into the heart-shaped cookie jar on my counter. Seeing bills did not make me happy.

I took a quick shower, removing most of the glitter (though a couple patches of stubborn wax still clung to my ankles) then dug into the refrigerator for dinner. Half of a pizza and a salad with low-fat dressing stared back at me. I did a mental
eeenie meenie minie moe
, but it was pretty clear which one was going to win out. I opened the pizza box and indulged in a Hawaiian with extra pineapple. While it always made me feel better about myself to buy salad, it usually just sat in my fridge until it wilted, died, and I went out to buy more. I mentally calculated how much time I had to do on the stepper at the gym to make up for the Hawaiian calories and decided it was well worth it.

I took my pizza into the living room and plopped on the sofa. Immediately my lap was filled with a white, fluffy ball of purring fur.

“
Well, hello, Mr. Fluffykins,” I said. Yes, out loud. Call me crazy, but I talk to my cat. I fed him a piece of Canadian bacon as he pawed at my thighs, creating himself a nice little nest. I flipped on the TV and went to my DVR, scrolling through my recorded shows.

“
Are we in the mood for Wolf Blitzer or Katie Couric?” I asked my cat.

Mr. Fluffykins cocked his head to the side and mewed.

“
Couric it is.” I selected the program and settled in to get my fill of what was going on in the news world that didn’t revolve around a teenebrity’s hair color.

* * *

I was jolted awake by a splash of water hitting my face and the sound of something slamming into the side of the building. My eyes shot open and I bolted upright in bed, adrenalin immediately pumping through my system. It was pitch-black. I blinked through the darkness, trying to get my bearings. Finally shapes came into focus…my Hello Kitty alarm clock, the flower-shaped mirror on my wall, Mr. Fluffykins dozing at my feet.

I was just about to write off my jolt as a bad dream when the sound erupted again. Water, hitting the side of my building with the velocity of a firehose. Instinctively I turned to the window… and felt water raining down on me.

I jumped up from my bed and watched as a stream of water shot through my window, landing on my pink bedsheets.

What the hell?

I pulled aside my plastic renter’s blinds and peered out into the yard.

Between my building and the fourplex next door sat a strip of grass. At current there was more mud than greenery, but a few patch of crabgrass looked hopeful they might become a lawn one day.

Apparently so were my neighbors, as a brand-new, industrial-sized sprinkler head jutted out of the muddy crabgrass, spraying a rotating stream of water at dangerous speeds between the buildings. I jumped back when it turned my way again, narrowly avoiding another power blast as it shot through my window.

Unfortunately Mr. Fluffykins wasn’t so lucky, getting the full force of it on his tail. He yowled and jumped almost as high I as had, running for the safety of the living room.

I quickly shut the window, making a mental note to visit my neighbors tomorrow morning. Then I looked down at my sheets.

Soaked.

Fab.

I grabbed a pillow and shuffled out after Mr. Fluffykins to the sofa.

Three hours and one fat, snoring cat later, I awoke with a crick in my neck, a pain in my side, and cat hair in my mouth.

Ick.

I looked at the clock. Six am.

I grabbed a cup of coffee then went into my room to survey the damage to my sheets in the light of day. It looked like I’d wet my bed. Several times. I stripped them off, trudged to the back of the building and threw them in the coin-operated laundry. I crossed the muddy lawn, now squishing wet beneath my fuzzy pink slippers, and banged on my neighbor’s door.

Two beats later a squat, Russian guy answered. He had a bald head, a paunchy middle barely encased in a bathrobe, and a cigar sticking out the side of his face. “Dah?”

“
I’m so sorry to bother you, but your sprinkler is turned up very too high.”

He beamed. “Dah. Is good sprinkler, no?”

I shook my head. “No. Is not good. Is pelting my bedroom window.”

His massive unibrow hunkered down over his beady eyes. “Too loud?”

“
Too wet. The window was open, and it soaked my bed.”

He grinned. “Ha! That wake you up, huh?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Oh, yeah. It wake me up.”

He nodded. “Okay, okay. I fix it. Promise. Today, I fix it.”

“
Thanks,” I mumbled, then trudged back home to take the longest, hottest shower on record. Seriously, if my paycheck didn’t afford an apartment upgrade soon, I might shoot myself. Or my neighbor.

I went with peach-scented body wash today, needing the pick-me-up, then did my hair and make-up, adding an extra layer of mascara to show just how serious I was about this Barker story. I dressed in a white denim skirt, pink tank top with ruffles down the front and a pair of silver roman-style sandals with glittery glass diamonds on the top. Totally cute. Totally hot. Totally going to get me into any place I wanted to go, press pass or no.

Which was good, because Barker’s production company, Real Life Productions, was housed on the Sunset Studios lot. The Sunset Studios were located off the 101, just west of Griffith Park, in the heart of tinseltown. They were the largest studio in town, taking up two full city blocks, and surrounded by a large cement wall topped by massive spiky iron bars. San Quentin was easier to break into than the Sunset Studios. It was the only fortress in Hollywood impenetrable by the average reporter.

Luckily, I wasn’t just average.

I grabbed a knock-off Juicy bag from my closet and matched it with a pair of big, black sunglasses. They looked just like Christian Dior shades, right down to the CD on the sides. I’d actually bought them at a gas station halfway between here and Oxnard, used a sharpie to obliterate the generic brand name, then glued on the sparkly “CD” with a hot glue gun. Not bad, even if I did say so myself.

Then, instead of jumping in my Bug, I dialed a car service and waited while it rang three times on the other end.

“
Elite cars, how may I help you?” a woman answered the phone.

“
Hi,” I said, giving my voice just the slightest nasally tone to it. “This is Paris Hilton’s assistant. I need a car to pick her up in Glendale at the Starbucks on Brand, and take her to the Sunset Studios in Hollywood.”

“
No problem,” the woman on the other end said, and I could hear the sound of a keyboard keys as she typed info into her system. “When you would like it?” she asked.

“
ASAP. She’s shooting a commercial there this morning.”

More typing. “Okay, we have a town car limousine that can pick her up in fifteen minutes. Will that be acceptable?”

“
Fabulous!” I said.

“
I just need a credit card to process the order, and I’ll dispatch him right away.”

“
No problem,” I said. Then rattled of the digits of the
Informer
’s account. Not that I was supposed to have unlimited access to such digits, but if Felix really hadn’t wanted me using it, he shouldn’t have left his card out where anyone could see it and memorize the number. Besides, this was a bona fide business expense. And not one I had the funds to cover, I realized, as the woman on the phone gave me the total.

I thanked her and hung up then wrapped a pink silk scarf over my head, put on my faux designer sunglasses, and hightailed it to Starbucks to wait for my limo.

It arrived exactly fifteen minutes later. The driver got out and opened the back door for me with a, “Good morning, Miss Hilton.”

I gave him an aloof nod, hopped in and promptly closed the partition between us.

Twenty minutes later, the driver pulled up to the front gate of the Sunset Studios. I held my breath in the backseat, thinking heiress-like thoughts.

The driver stopped at the guardhouse and rolled down his window. A guy with a clipboard who didn’t look a day over a hundred hobbled out of the tiny structure and up to the window. His skin was wrinkled and tanned to a crisp, like he’d spent one too many days on duty in the guardhouse without sunscreen. Or he really dug tanning beds.

I cracked the partition to hear the exchange.

“
Name?” the guard asked.

“
Elite car service. I’ve got Paris Hilton here.”

The guard looked to my tinted window, squinting in. “Can you have her roll her window down, please?” he asked.

I felt butterflies take hold in my stomach as I slowly rolled down my window, praying the guard was a nearsighted as he seemed. I gave him a little wave.