LITMIR.BIZ

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       2 JUST ANOTHER GUY

      Scarlett Harp tried not to swear too much as she stuffed her clothes into a suitcase. Christmas in Aspen? Who celebrated Christmas in Aspen? Well, probably a lot of people, she thought, but she wasn’t the Christmas-in-Aspen type. It had been her parents’ idea to rent some posh condo there and spend the holiday on the slopes. Mr. and Mrs. Harp—actually, Dr. and Dr. Harp (he was a plastic surgeon; she was a shrink) didn’t believe in “sentimental” traditions like decorating a tree or hanging stockings on the mantel. Every year they spent the holidays in a different vacation spot. Last year had been the Bahamas. The year before, Paris. And Hawaii before that.

      It was bad enough that Scarlett had to pack for a trip she didn’t want to go on. The worst part was, she wasn’t alone. There were people in her bedroom watching her. Lots of people, in fact. A director, two cameramen, a sound guy, and a producer. And Gaby, her annoying costar, who had been sent over by Trevor to be Scarlett’s stand-in friend and keep her company while she packed. Translation: Jane and Madison were MIA, and the show was desperate for footage, so Trevor and another producer, Dana, were setting up scenes that were totally bogus. So much for L.A. Candy being a reality show. Scarlett would never hang out with Gaby unless she was forced to. Which she currently was.

      Gaby was sitting on the bed, trying to make conversation and commenting on Scarlett’s clothes—90 percent of which were jeans and T-shirts.

      “Ooooh, that top is so cute!” Gaby pointed to a purple tee that Scar was rumpling into a ball and shoving into her suitcase. “What do you call that color? Eggplant? Violet? Magenta?”

      “Purple,” Scarlett grumbled. “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be today?”

      “Nope, all yours. Hey, what time’s your flight? I could use a mani-pedi, couldn’t you? You wanna see if we can get in somewhere after lunch?”

      Gaby glanced over at Dana, no doubt to see if her mani-pedi comment had registered. Scarlett knew that the panic on Dana’s face meant she’d caught it and was thinking that if they wanted to find a salon to film in, they would have to call and set that up now.

      Scarlett held up her nails, two of which were broken. “No, I’m good. You go without me.”

      “Well, that’s no fun!” Gaby complained.

      Scarlett’s cell phone buzzed in her back pocket and she grabbed it quickly, thinking it might be Jane—finally! She had been trying to reach her best friend for the last five days, leaving dozens of frantic messages: Call me! Where are you? I’m so worried about you! Call me! There were other messages, too—along the lines of Get away from that crazy bitch Madison ASAP! Scarlett couldn’t remember the exact wording.

      Her face fell when she saw the name on the screen. It was yet another text message from Dana. CD U SLOW DOWN W/ THE PACKING? AND BE NICE 2 GABY PLZ.

      Scarlett sighed. Dana was fond of texting Scarlett directions in the middle of a shoot, telling her to do this or say that. Not that Scarlett ever actually did what Dana asked. Scarlett didn’t do nice. She believed in saying whatever was on her mind, and if it came out a little harsh—well, the truth hurts, people.

      The thing was, with each episode of L.A. Candy she watched, Scarlett was growing increasingly frustrated by the disconnect between her TV self and her real self. The way Trevor edited the footage made Scarlett seem like a shy, quiet bookworm. Every time she was in a scene with Jane or the other girls, Scarlett ended up with almost no lines—just stuff like yeah and no, thanks and bye, gotta get to class! Sure, she looked good, with her long, wavy black hair, emerald green eyes, and five-foot-nine, gym-toned bod. But she sounded like she had nothing to say. Which was the exact opposite of who she was.

      “Okay, guys, we have to break for lunch, and then we’ll head over to LAX,” Dana called out. Hmm, why doesn’t she just text everyone? Scarlett thought as the crew slowly started removing their equipment from her room.

      Gaby pouted. “Why is this taking so long? I’m starving.”

      “There’re some leftovers in the fridge, I think. Help yourself,” Scarlett offered. The show usually had chips and pretzels as part of their craft service, which was hardly “lunch.”

      “’Kay.” Gaby jumped to her feet and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

      Scarlett sighed again. This was such bullshit. If only Jane were here, things would be different. They’d be watching lame Christmas specials they had TiVo’d or doing last-minute shopping together at the Grove while fake snow fell around them. Scarlett could spend Christmas at the Robertses’ house instead of jetting off to Aspen; Jane’s family was actually normal (in a good way) and nicer than her own family. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts didn’t sit in total, icy silence at the dinner table, CNN in the background, cutting quietly into their forty-dollar rib-eye steaks. They didn’t spend more time on the phone with their patients than with each other. They didn’t psychoanalyze their children with comments like, So, Scarlett—do you think your choice to go to USC rather than Harvard or Columbia has to do with your unconscious fear of success?

      Where was Jane, anyway? The note Jane had left for Scarlett in the apartment five days ago said that Madison had taken her to Mexico to get away, and that she’d be back soon. The problem was, Madison was the person who had orchestrated the whole Gossip scandal in the first place, and Jane had no idea.

      Before disappearing with Jane, Madison had whispered in Scarlett’s ear that Jesse Edwards was the one who had leaked those photos to Gossip. So Scarlett had gone to Jesse’s house to deliver a few choice words she had for him, personally. When she got there, Jesse told her that Madison was the guilty one, that Madison had tried to convince him to leak the photos to Gossip, and he’d refused (despite being beyond furious about his girlfriend hooking up with his best friend). And Scarlett had believed him. He was a drunk, ungrateful, publicity-hungry man-whore. But on this one crucial occasion, he had been telling the truth. She was sure of it.

      Desperate to track Jane down, Scarlett had asked Gaby if she knew the location of Madison’s parents’ condo…or had any contact info for the Parkers. But Gaby had been clueless, as usual. Although it was surprising that she wasn’t more informed, since she and Madison always seemed to be hanging out. Scarlett had also Googled the Parkers but had turned up nothing. Which was kinda strange, given the fact that they were supposedly zillionaire real-estate developers or whatever. Maybe they preferred to keep a lower profile than their daughter, who would happily attend the opening of an envelope if there were cameras there.

      Whatever. As soon as Jane returned, the two of them were going to straighten out this whole stupid mess about Madison and the pictures. And they would work on getting their friendship back on track. So many things (and people) had come between them in the last few months: the show, Madison, Gaby, Jesse. Their lowest moment was probably when Scarlett had to find out about Jane hooking up with Braden from a damned website. She and Jane never used to keep secrets from each other.

      Alone in the room, finally—the crew members seemed to have spread out into the hallway—Scarlett walked over to her desk, in search of her passport. She would need it if she ended up having to go to Mexico herself and drag Jane home. As she was rifling through the topmost drawer, she heard a voice behind her.

      “Hey, you doing okay?”

      Scarlett turned around. It was Liam, one of the cameramen. Well, not just one of the cameramen. Scarlett had had a secret crush on him for the last few weeks (speaking of secrets). It was secret because, according to the PopTV rules, the “talent” wasn’t allowed to get involved with the crew (not that a crush was the same as getting involved, but the former could always lead to the latter). It was a secret, too, because Scarlett didn’t really have crushes. She had a long and perfectly happy history of hooking up with guys once, maybe twice, and then never seeing

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