Sweet Little Lies (20 page)

Jane was careful to leave out any references to Braden. Yesterday, Trevor had called her in for a meeting to figure out how to handle what had happened at Teddy’s. He said she owed it to viewers to tell as much of the truth as possible, without mentioning Braden’s name. She’d had to tell Hannah things like, “…then the guy I cheated on Jesse with showed up at the club, and things got kinda ugly….” Which was beyond awkward, but it was Trevor’s orders. She was going to have to repeat similar lines when she recorded the voice-overs for future episodes. The whole thing was a mess, especially since he couldn’t actually show Braden’s face in the fight scene at Teddy’s.

Hannah had been mostly silent, not responding to Jane’s story with her usual sympathetic comments.

This had been happening more and more—was Hannah mad at her?

“Hmmm.” Hannah stared at her computer screen. “Hey, I was looking through those menus for the Valentine’s Day party. They look really good.”

“Yeah, I agree. So what do you think?”

“About what? The menus?”

“No, about the minivacation idea.”

“Oh!” Hannah glanced quickly at the cameras. “I…uh…” She cut her eyes toward the cameras again, and then at Jane. She looked a little upset.

“Hannah?” Jane whispered. “You okay?”

Hannah didn’t say anything, but instead rose from her chair and hurried out the door.What is wrong with her? Jane thought as she ran after her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two camera guys scrambling to follow. She heard one of them swearing as he tripped on a cord, dropping equipment. Jane stepped into the hall and saw Dana. She looked a little frantic, probably wanting to know what the hell was going on.

Jane saw Hannah rushing into the ladies’ room.Good. The camera guys wouldn’t dare follow them in there. Jane went inside—and found Hannah leaning against the slick black sink in the empty bathroom.

“Hannah?” Jane’s voice echoed in the bathroom. “Hannah, what’s wrong?”

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“Everything.” Hannah looked at her with tears brimming in her eyes. Jane had never seen her like this.

“I’m so sorry, Jane.”

Jane blinked. “Sorry? About what?”

Hannah opened her mouth to speak, and then shook her head quickly. She reached into her shirt and extracted the mike taped to the inside of her bra. She unplugged it from the rest of the unit, and motioned for Jane to do the same. Jane reached around to her mike pack and flipped it off. Whatever Hannah had to say, she obviously wanted to say it in private.

“I have to tell you something,” Hannah began.

“Sure.”

“I…well…all those things I’ve been saying to you about Jesse? How you should be together? I didn’t mean any of it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Trevor and Dana told me to say that stuff,” Hannah blurted out. “They told me that I should convince you to stay with Jesse. They said that you could be kind of dramatic about your relationships, and that he was actually a great guy.”

“What?”

“I’m so sorry!” Hannah cried out. “I went along with it for a while because you seemed really into him.

But then I started seeing that maybe he wasn’t so good for you. It seems like he drinks a lot. And Saturday night I ran into him at Crown Bar with this girl.”

“What?”Jane’s heart dropped. Saturday was the day after she’d told Jesse about her lunch with Braden—and Jesse had almost crashed the Range Rover. “What girl?”

Jane heard someone opening the bathroom door. She quickly pushed it closed and twisted the lock. She ignored Dana’s muffled voice calling out to her and Hannah from the other side.

“I think her name was Amber,” Hannah replied. “Maybe it was totally innocent. I mean, I never saw them kissing or anything. But I just got this bad feeling.”

Jane tried to think. On Saturday afternoon, she and Madison had gotten Tucker at the SPCA shelter.

They had stayed in that night to help him settle into his new home. She and Jesse had made up over the phone in the morning, and he had told her that he was going to a Lakers game that night with his friends Howard and Zach.

“You deserve better,” Hannah said, her voice insistent now. “In the beginning, I didn’t care as much because I didn’t know you. But now I know you, and I feel like we’re friends. Real friends, not just pretend friends for the cameras.” She reached for a tissue and dried the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I signed on to do the show.”

“How could you have known?” Jane said, resting her head against the door. “It’s not your fault your new job came with a TV show on the side.”

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The way Hannah immediately looked away when Jane tried to smile freaked her out.

“Hannah, what else aren’t you telling me?” Jane asked. “You were just applying for the job, right?”

“I met Trevor at Coco de Ville,” Hannah explained, “at a party I helped organize for a magazine launch, when I was working for David Sutton. Trevor asked me what I did, and I don’t know how it happened, but we got to talking and I mentioned that I was looking for another job in event planning. Then one thing led to another, and he said he could probably get me in with Fiona if I wanted because he was friends with her. He also said that it just happened he was looking for another person for his show. Not like a fifth girl or anything, but someone to be in Fiona’s office, sort of hanging out with you.”

“Soooo…you came here to be on the show and pretend to be my friend,” Jane said slowly.

“No! I mean, I was just so happy to get this job with Fiona! I liked working with David, but there wasn’t any room for me to move up there. And then here comes this guy out of nowhere, telling me that he could get me an awesome new jobplus a part on a cool new TV show. It sounded amazing—at the time.”

“Yeah.” Jane remembered the night at Les Deux, back in August, when Trevor had made a similar, equally irresistible pitch to her and Scar. He was definitely hard to say no to. And he was definitely a pro at changing people’s lives—and trying to influence people’s lives. No, notinfluence . More like control.

Dana’s voice grew louder, and so did her knocks. They both ignored her.

“If you hate me now, I don’t blame you,” Hannah said miserably. “But I hope you can forgive me.

Because I really do consider you a friend.”

Hannah seemed to be genuinely sorry about it. And she seemed to care about Jane. Which was a rare commodity in Hollywood. Now that Jane and Scar were on the outs, it wasn’t like she had a lot of close friends these days.

“Yeah, I understand,” Jane said finally.

Hannah’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Really.”

As the two girls hugged, Jane thought about how the day that had started out like any other day had suddenly become really, really difficult. She and Hannah were going to have to face Dana’s wrath once they emerged from the ladies’ room. And, more important, Jane was going to have to have a serious talk with Jesse.

Late that night, Jane was woken up by a phone call. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, disoriented. The digital clock on her night table read 2:08 a.m. Who on earth could be calling her at this hour?Maybe it’s Jesse, she thought. She had called him earlier, right after work, but she had gotten his voice mail instead.

She couldn’t stop thinking about what Hannah had said about seeing him with “Amber.” She knew that he’d had plans to go out with his friends tonight (or she knew that was what he’d told her, anyway) but had hoped he’d answer her call. She still hadn’t seen him since their fight on Friday. Was he avoiding her?

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When Jane picked up her cell and glanced at the screen, though, she didn’t recognize the number. She decided to ignore it and let it go to voice mail.

Tucker was curled up at the foot of her bed, snoring quietly. She knew she shouldn’t let him sleep on the bed, but she didn’t have the heart to push him off.

Jane snuggled back under the covers, trying to get comfortable. Closing her eyes, she thought about the voice-over she’d recorded earlier that day, for the upcoming series finale.After I apologized to Jesse on New Year’s Eve, it looked like there might be hope for us after all. Now he wants to meet me to talk.

Could a new year mean a new Jesse, too?

Jane sighed heavily. She had been so full of hope that night at Beso. It had been her second chance with Jesse…a fresh start. And now look where they were. Who the hell was Amber? And where the hell was Jesse?

Just as she was slipping back to sleep, her phone rang again.Ugh. Whoever it was probably wouldn’t leave her alone until she picked up. And she didn’t want to turn off her phone, in case Jesse called.

“Hello?” she said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice. “Who is this?”

“Jane, I am sorry to call you so late. I don’t know if you remember me. It’s Quentin Sparks. I got your number from D.”

Quentin? D’s promoter friend? Jane had first met him at theL.A. Candy series premiere party and had seen him around at clubs a few times since then. Why was he calling her in the middle of the night?

“Uhh. Hey, Quentin. What’s up?”

“I’m at Teddy’s, and I’ve got kind of a situation on my hands. I thought you should come down.”

“What…sort of situation?”

“Your, uh, boyfriend’s here, and he’s, uh, had way too much to drink. He’s not in any shape to drive.

Photographers are out front, so I’ve got him in back. Can you come down and get him?”

“Ohmigod! Yes, I’ll be right there,” Jane said as she sat up quickly.

Quentin told her to meet him at the back valet. He was going to bring Jesse out from the Tropicana exit so that no one would notice. Also, one of Quentin’s friends—a paparazzi magnet—had agreed to leave out the front at the same time, to divert attention.

“Thank you so much,” Jane said as she rolled out of bed. “It’s so nice of you to do this for me.”

“Hey, any friend of D’s is a friend of mine,” Quentin said. “Besides, I can’t stand the idea of the press having a field day with this. No reason for people to get hurt.”

“Thanks again. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

Jane fumbled for the light switch and looked for her purse and car keys. Oh, and her clothes. She couldn’t show up at the Roosevelt Hotel in her jammies.

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Stay calm,she told herself.Don’t freak out.

She once again found herself thinking,How is this my life? A year ago she was in a long-term, long-distance relationship with her high school sweetheart. Now she was running out of the house at two in the morning to save her boyfriend from himself and the paparazzi. Her hands were shaking as she picked up some jeans and a T-shirt from the closet floor and slipped them on.

As Jane hurried toward the door, she heard Tucker wake up and give her a sad little whimper. She turned and hugged him quickly. “What? You think I should break up with him, too? It’s complicated, Tuck!”

Tucker whimpered again. Jane shook her head, feeling like a crazy person. Was she seriously talking to a dog about her love life? How desperate had she become?

Pretty desperate,she thought. Maybe she should ask Penny’s advice.

Her friends had been warning her for months about Jesse. And now, all their worst predictions were coming true. He was spiraling out of control. And it was all her fault. How was she going to turn him around—turnthem around—so they could get back to the way things were, before Braden?

Because she was in too deep with Jesse to get out now.

31

BEST FRIENDS ARE FOREVER

“Do you have, like, a minidress? You would look awesome in a minidress,” Gaby told Scarlett.

Scarlett eyed (or pretended to eye) the contents of her very spare closet. She knew exactly what was in there: about twenty pairs of jeans and the same number of tees and assorted other tops, mostly black.

“Nah, no minidress,” she announced. “I thought I’d just go with jeans and a T-shirt. Party’s casual, right?”

“You can’t wear jeans to the season finale party!” Gaby gasped.

“Why not?”

“Why not? Because…’cause you justcan’t , that’s all. Wait, lemme think. Maybe I can call someone to rush-messenger an outfit.”

Scarlett sighed. Maybe this was a bad idea, letting Gaby come over. It wasn’t like she could blame Dana this time, either. Tonight it was just Gaby and her—no Dana, no cameras, nothing.

Gaby had called the apartment this morning, asking to speak to Jane, and Scarlett had explained to her that Jane no longer lived there. (After all, ithad been over two weeks since Jane moved out. Hadn’t Gaby gotten the memo?) Gaby had pressed for details, and Scarlett must have sounded depressed or something, because the next thing she knew, Gaby was saying that she would come over after work so
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the two of them could get ready for the party together. And Scarlett had, inexplicably, agreed.

Now the two of them were hanging out in Scarlett’s room, their faces covered with some sort of overpriced, smelly paste that Gaby had described as a pomegranate-lemongrass mask. Gaby had also painted both girls’ toenails metallic white. The whole experience was a bit girlie for Scarlett’s taste. Still, it was nice having company. Even if the companywas Gaby.

Scarlett hadn’t been hanging out with too many people lately. She’d gone out with her trainer Deb and Deb’s friends a couple of times, and also Chelsea, the super-smart girl from her French novels seminar.

She hadn’t spoken to Jane at all. She hadn’t spoken to Liam, either—not since before that awful night at Teddy’s nearly two weeks ago. She had seen him at several shoots—two at USC, and one at a charity fashion show Dana had forced her to attend (Jane had been absent)—but he had steadfastly ignored her on all three occasions. Not that she blamed him. It hadn’t even occurred to her to try to reach out to him, to explain, apologize. She had figured it was way too late.