Secrets of My Hollywood Life (8 page)

"Supportive," I say. "I guess I'm just surprised."

"We just don't want you to fall on your face," Liz explains bluntly.

"Well, thanks, I think," I say wryly.

As we walk downstairs, I can hear the commotion already. Paul's loud voice can be heard over everyone.

"NO ... NO GOOD ... NOPE. UGH ... TOO PAMELA ANDERSON."

Liz and I walk into the kitchen and see Shelly holding up several wigs. Paul and my mom are standing on the other side of the glass table nixing them one by one. Wigs, clothes, makeup, and hair supplies clutter the tile floor and marble kitchen island. The group sees me standing there and looks up.

"Hi, sweetie," Mom chirps. She looks at her watch. "Wow, you really slept late this morning."

"It's nine-thirty," I protest.

"We've been down here an hour already."

I look at Liz. She rolls her eyes and yawns without covering her mouth. That's when I notice Liz is still in her comfy white drawstring karate pants. She only wears those to class or bed.

"Your mom called us all last night," Shelly explains. She looks amused, her round gray eyes twinkling. "She told us about your
emergency."

"Well, it certainly is an emergency, isn't it, sweetie?" Mom grabs my arm and leads me towards the stool by Paul. She's wearing a pink PB&J Couture sweat suit and looks a little flushed. "We don't want you to make a fool of yourself next week," she adds.

"Mom, everything is going to be fine, I promise."

"Right, right. Did you talk to Laney?" she asks, still clutching my arm. Yes.

"She told you about the principal?"

"Yes."

"And the Hutch Adams script?"

"Yes," I sigh.

"What about..."

"Um, Mrs. Burke, why don't we show Kaitlin what we have for her to try on?" Liz suggests gently.

"Oh, right. Paul? Shelly?" Mom says distractedly. "Want to get Kaitlin started?"

Paul slides the wrought-iron stool over and I take a seat.

"Let me just say that despite the fact that I'm up early on my first day off in two weeks, I think this is a fabulous idea," Paul coos, as he brushes out my frizzy hair.

"You do?" I question.

"Yes, because now we
finally
get to have fun with you." Paul twirls my stool around. "No more dullsville. Shell, grab the wigs."

Shelly brings an overflowing box of rainbow-colored wigs over.

"We already started to go through them, sweetie," Shelly tells me. "We need something that won't stick out like a sore thumb." Shelly holds up a pile of blond wigs perfect for a drag queen. "These, for example, won't do."

"What length do you want, Kates?" Liz asks.

"I don't know." I twirl a strand of my waist-length honey-colored hair around my finger. "Same as now? What do you think, Mom? Redhead or brunette?"

"Brunette, sweetie. Redheads are a passing phase." Mom grabs a long brown wig with huge curls. "Look how pretty this is."

"Very Julia Roberts." Paul nods approvingly.

"Too adult," I argue.

"What about this one?" Shelly holds up a shoulder-length brown wig with blond highlights. The hair is pin-straight and smooth.

"Who would have time to iron their hair like that in the morning?" I ask. I mean, I would for
FA,
but normal people don't see their hairstylist every morning, right?

"Girls at our school do," says Liz. "Some get their hair blown out before class in the morning."

I shake my head. "No, no. I want something plain. I don't want to stand out."

"Yeah, because it so stinks to look like movie star royalty," Liz comments dryly.

I ignore the dig and start rummaging through the box. On the bottom, I find a short, straight brown wig. It's set in a bob. "What about this one?"

Paul frowns, then takes it from my hands, holding the wig out in front of him as if it's a piece of trash. He helps me put the wig on and shows me how to pin my own hair back so that it fits under the skull cap I'll have to wear. The wig fits pretty snugly, which is good. I turn around and look at everyone.

"Well?"

No one looks happy.

"It's mousy," Mom pouts.

I look in the mirror that Shelly holds up for me. My face framed with short brown hair stares back.

"It's perfect." I smile at my unfamiliar mirror image.

"I kind of like it," Liz pronounces. "Very Natalie Portman in
Closer."

Shelly eyes me carefully. She walks over and plays with some strands of the wig. "It's so
not
you. This could work, Meg," she tells my mom.

"I guess." Mom looks at me glumly. So does Paul.

"Paul, I'm not supposed to be glamorous. We don't want anyone to know who I am," I remind him.

"Whatev." He's not looking at me.

"I'll tell you what," I offer. "You can style me however you want for
The Tonight Show
next week."

"Anything I want?" he asks. "Even hair extensions?"

"Yes, anything," I laugh. "Now what's next?"

"Well, as dull as your hair looks, I can still tell it's you," says Shelly. She scrutinizes me. "Hmm ... let's try some contacts. If we're going for wallflower, then we've got to cover those beautiful green eyes of yours." She pulls out a box of contacts and hands me a lens. It takes me a few minutes, but I finally get one in. I look in the mirror. One brown and one green eye stare back at me. I pop the other lens in and turn around.

"Well?"

Everyone crowds around to get a better look.

"You look boooring," Paul moans.

Liz tilts her head to the side. "It's pretty convincing."

"You really can't tell it's me?" I ask excitedly. "Maybe we should try this disguise out." I head towards the door.

Shelly blocks my path. "We're not done yet. Try these." She puts a pair of thick oval tortoise-shell glasses on my face. Everyone
oohs.

"Now you definitely can't tell it's you!" Shelly exclaims incredulously.

"You kind of look like Jen Garner did on
Alias
-- when she was having an ugly disguise day," Paul utters slowly. I hope that's a compliment.

I look at Mom and Liz.

"You look ...," Mom starts.

"... like a nerd," Liz finishes flatly.

I grab Shelly's mirror. With the short straight hair, brown eyes, and glasses, I do look geeky. Nothing like myself.

"I like this look," I say defensively.

"Yeah, but you do want people to like you, right?" Liz twirls a strand of her shiny curly hair. "I have to be your friend! What are people going to think of me?" Paul snorts.

The front door slams shut. "I'm back," Nadine yells, striding into the kitchen with several thin Pepto Bismol pink plastic bags that have DISCOUNT WORLDstamped on them. She sets them down on the table. "I did
amazing.
I got, like, eight outfits for a hundred dollars."

"Child, the shirt I'm wearing costs more than that," Paul cries, thumbing his button-down gray silk Dolce and Gab-bana shirt. "What did you buy her? Polyester?"

"Yep." Nadine smiles and holds up a long-sleeved plain white V-neck top and a cheap-looking purple pleated miniskirt with a vinyl belt. Yikes.

"Does Kaitlin have to look ... well... poor?" Mom demands, wrinkling her forehead with worry.

I take the shiny black belt gingerly and try to buckle it around my waist. The plastic doesn't have a lot of give. I won't say it out loud, but I have to agree with Mom. Does anyone
really
dress like this? "Does this look okay?" I look down at my waist skeptically.

Nadine's eyes narrow darkly. "You look fine." She walks over and adjusts the belt so that it sits higher on my waist. "Plenty of people shop at Discount World. You can get some pretty good things there if you look hard enough."

"I guess you didn't look hard enough," Paul mumbles.

Nadine ignores him. "Clark Hall is a melting pot for kids from all over L.A.," she explains firmly. "Some people are going to dress really well because they have money and others are going to be dressed in outfits ten times worse than this one. Right, Liz?"

Liz frowns. "Yeah," she replies slowly, "but I don't hang out with anyone dressed like this. I have a reputation to keep up."

"And what type of reputation is that?" Shelly asks.

Liz takes the question seriously and considers for a minute. "My friends aren't as rich as Kaitlin and I, because even though I have dough, I hate when people think they're better than everyone else because of it. But my friends do have taste in clothing."

"I think you should hang out with the rich kids, sweetie," Mom advises. "You wouldn't have to buy a thing --"

"The Discount World clothes are perfect for Kaitlin," Na-dine interrupts. "We want her to fly below the radar. If she's too rich and wears her own high-end clothes, she stands out. Too trashy and she won't have any friends. The middle is the same clothes most of America wears. Like me." Nadine smiles pointedly at Mom.

That sounds reasonable to me. "Can I wear some stuff from the Gap too?" I suggest. "Gap ads are in all the magazines. They're like a symbol of normalcy."

"She could have a rich grandmother who sends her nice clothes," Mom offers.

"Express, Limited, New York and Company," Shelly rattles off the clothing stores. "That's where the new you would shop."

"Aren't those places in the mall?" Mom shrieks. If she ever shopped in malls, she's forgotten about it. She looks like she might faint.

"Mom, think of it as costumes for my greatest role," I suggest gently.

"Okay." Her face crumples.

"There's one thing we won't be able to change." I point at my fuzzy green slippers. "My freakishly big feet."

"That's for sure," Paul says with a smirk. "I hope Discount World carries size nine shoes." I punch him in the arm.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," Liz mutters. "No one will mistake you for vintage queen Kaitlin Burke with this wardrobe."

I love that no one will care what designer I'm wearing. It takes a lot of pressure off.

HOLLYWOOD SECRET NUMBER EIGHT:No matter how many squillions you make on a movie, you can't afford to buy a new outfit for every event under the sun. The majority of your wardrobe is borrowed. The only problem is that sometimes you'll go searching through your closet for that Marc Jacobs black tweed pencil skirt only to realize you don't actually own it.

"What about a name?" Liz points out. "Did you think of one?"

"Yes," I say. "Rachel Rogers from that Disney Channel movie
Mission Aborted.
I liked that character. Plus, I played a British spy so I can do an accent."

Liz looks at me smartly. "Okay, the film was cheesy, but the experience is about to pay off."

"Can you do a convincing British accent?" Paul questions skeptically.

"'Cuse me. Do you know where Mr. Hammond's flat might be?" I pronounce in my best British prose. "I'm new here."

"Not bad." Shelly nods. "Not bad at all."

"Well, now that we've got your disguise worked out, I'll come up with where you lived, went to school, parents' names, and all that jazz, and print you up a report tomorrow. You can memorize it before school next week." Nadine grabs her bible and begins furiously scribbling notes.

"Aww, look how happy our princess is." Paul smiles broadly as I grin ear to ear.

"I
am
happy," I admit giddily. "This is going to be fun." I pull out my Sidekick.

Saturday 2/28

NOTES TO SELF:

Call Seth about Hutch Adams script.

Buy jeans at the Gap.

Have Nadine go 2 B&N. Buy books on London 2 brush up on Britain (i.e. Tony Blair is the Prime Minister. The

Osbournes R so over. Guy and Madonna R still hot.)

Practice accent ( "Jolly" means good. "Bugger" is bad.)

BUY NEW NOTEBOOKS! GET PENS!

Eight:
Clark Hall

"Principal Pearson will see you now, Rachel." Clark Hall's school secretary points to the principal's office.

I take a deep breath and step forward. I don't think I was this nervous the day I met Brad Pitt!

I've only been at Clark Hall for fifteen minutes and already I need another swab of Bliss Underarmy antiperspi-rant. Rodney dropped me off at school early so that I would have a few minutes to poke around, but even with the map Liz drew me I got completely lost.

This place is
huge.
On
FA,
the local school we shoot at is a quaint old schoolhouse from the '20s. Clark Hall, on the other hand, is a sprawling campus, with five vine-covered brick buildings and outdoor walkways brimming with daffodils and roses. There are connecting archways that cover rows of shiny silver lockers, and what looks like a large outdoor patio full of shaded teak wood tables and chairs. After walking around aimlessly, since Liz wasn't answering my texts, I bumped into a gardener pruning roses. He steered me to the main office. I forgot to thank him before running off.

Today I've got my wig firmly glued to my scalp, my contacts in, and my glasses on. I think I look almost cute in my boot-cut dark denim Gap jeans, simple white button-down shirt, and slightly itchy polyester red sweater vest. But I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb.

"I don't know what you're worried about," Nadine had reassured me last night. I was trying my "first day of school outfit" on for the fifteenth time. "You
really
can't tell it's you. And you know I would tell you if I thought you could."

I know she would. All week long Mom, Dad, Nadine, Laney, and Liz grilled me on my knowledge of Great Britain, my family history, and why my parents moved to the States. (We're saying my dad is a visiting professor at UCLA. So I'm strapped for cash.) Everyone was supportive except Matt, who still thought I was insane. "Maybe they'll want to keep a Burke on
FA
after your career tanks," he said one night as I was practicing my accent. "Then they can just hire me instead."

"Come in, Rachel," a cheery voice calls as I open Principal Pearson's door. "I've been expecting you." A short, heavy-set woman with graying black hair lumbers towards me. She's wearing a red polka-dot dress that is too snug around the waist, reminding me of Mrs. Claus.