Starlight (Peaches Monroe) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 2, 2013 by Mimi Strong Page A
Authors: Mimi Strong
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it. You’re the tits! You’re the boss, baby!
Me: Drunk?
Shayla: I think it’s someone’s birthday… somewhere! LOL!
Me: Have fun, and I’ll see you next Wednesday, if I don’t die of sexual frustration.
Shayla: Someone just called me Cuntzilla. Is that a compliment?
Me: Definitely.
Her next text was a photo of either her boobs or her butt, her flesh marked with a felt pen drawing of a penis. I’d like to say this was particularly shocking for a post-shift Monday night party at the restaurant she managed, but it was not atypical.
Tuesday morning, I insisted that I walk into the photographer’s studio ahead of Keith, so people wouldn’t know I’d been staying at his house. As far as they all knew, I was still dating Dalton Deangelo.
The same crew who’d been there Sunday were there again, plus about twice as many more people, though most of them were doing other shoots.
I said to the nice girl doing my makeup, “I guess I lucked out having my first shoot on the weekend, when it’s not so crazy around here.”
“It wasn’t luck,” she said, sounding like she had a truckload of gossip she was dying to unload, if only I’d say the magic words.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She looked left and right. “I shouldn’t say.”
“I’m sure if it’s important enough for me to know, Mitchell will tell me. He’s really sweet. Come to think of it, everyone here has been so nice. I’m just a wide-eyed yokel from Washington, in way over my head.”
She pursed her lips. Oh yeah, the pre-gossip lip purse.
CHAPTER 9
I was just about to crack the makeup girl. Any second now.
“You didn’t hear this from me,” she said. “Everyone was worried the photos were going to be a disaster. You-know-who had you come in on Sunday so there’d be fewer witnesses putting you here. They all had the big review on Monday. After a heated debate, they decided to move ahead with today’s shoot, but there’s a change. One change.”
I smiled sweetly and tried to make her feel good about giving me news that didn’t sound so good. A disaster? Because of me, no doubt. Coked-up starlets who showed up hours late were probably just fine, as long as they were skinny. But curvy me was going to ruin everyone’s reputation.
“I understand,” I said.
I understand.
The same phrase Dalton had sent me was so simple, yet vague enough to fit any heartbreaking situation. I understand , you say, as your heart and happiness shatters under the brutal sledgehammer of reality.
I closed my eyes and focused on not flipping out as she continued to work on my makeup. Flipping out now would get mascara in my eye, and I didn’t want that.
She wanted to tell me more details about Monday’s meeting, but I changed the topic, saying, “Are you from here? And if not, how long did it take you to get used to LA’s smell?”
“Oh, you have to get soy-based candles,” she said.
“For eating?”
“For burning. Regular candles put more toxins in the air.”
As she talked about the wonders of aromatherapy, I got more and more nervous about the one change she mentioned. What was the change?
Please, please let it be more airbrushing , I prayed.
My suspense over the big change didn’t last long.
I walked onto the set in my snazzy purple underwear to find the tallest, blondest man I’d ever seen. He wore a pair of purple briefs that were the size of a bow-tie, and he seemed to be smuggling an entire daschund inside the briefs. His golden abs went on for miles, like a giant, Christmas-stocking-sized, white chocolate Toblerone bar.
Reaching out to shake his hand politely, I said, “I didn’t know the human body had that many abs.”
“These ones are implants,” he said, pointing to the top row.
“No way! They look real.”
“You can touch,” he said, his accent sounding Swedish.*
*I watched all the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies in their original Swedish versions, plus that creepy-kid-vampire movie, so I’m
Me: Drunk?
Shayla: I think it’s someone’s birthday… somewhere! LOL!
Me: Have fun, and I’ll see you next Wednesday, if I don’t die of sexual frustration.
Shayla: Someone just called me Cuntzilla. Is that a compliment?
Me: Definitely.
Her next text was a photo of either her boobs or her butt, her flesh marked with a felt pen drawing of a penis. I’d like to say this was particularly shocking for a post-shift Monday night party at the restaurant she managed, but it was not atypical.
Tuesday morning, I insisted that I walk into the photographer’s studio ahead of Keith, so people wouldn’t know I’d been staying at his house. As far as they all knew, I was still dating Dalton Deangelo.
The same crew who’d been there Sunday were there again, plus about twice as many more people, though most of them were doing other shoots.
I said to the nice girl doing my makeup, “I guess I lucked out having my first shoot on the weekend, when it’s not so crazy around here.”
“It wasn’t luck,” she said, sounding like she had a truckload of gossip she was dying to unload, if only I’d say the magic words.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She looked left and right. “I shouldn’t say.”
“I’m sure if it’s important enough for me to know, Mitchell will tell me. He’s really sweet. Come to think of it, everyone here has been so nice. I’m just a wide-eyed yokel from Washington, in way over my head.”
She pursed her lips. Oh yeah, the pre-gossip lip purse.
CHAPTER 9
I was just about to crack the makeup girl. Any second now.
“You didn’t hear this from me,” she said. “Everyone was worried the photos were going to be a disaster. You-know-who had you come in on Sunday so there’d be fewer witnesses putting you here. They all had the big review on Monday. After a heated debate, they decided to move ahead with today’s shoot, but there’s a change. One change.”
I smiled sweetly and tried to make her feel good about giving me news that didn’t sound so good. A disaster? Because of me, no doubt. Coked-up starlets who showed up hours late were probably just fine, as long as they were skinny. But curvy me was going to ruin everyone’s reputation.
“I understand,” I said.
I understand.
The same phrase Dalton had sent me was so simple, yet vague enough to fit any heartbreaking situation. I understand , you say, as your heart and happiness shatters under the brutal sledgehammer of reality.
I closed my eyes and focused on not flipping out as she continued to work on my makeup. Flipping out now would get mascara in my eye, and I didn’t want that.
She wanted to tell me more details about Monday’s meeting, but I changed the topic, saying, “Are you from here? And if not, how long did it take you to get used to LA’s smell?”
“Oh, you have to get soy-based candles,” she said.
“For eating?”
“For burning. Regular candles put more toxins in the air.”
As she talked about the wonders of aromatherapy, I got more and more nervous about the one change she mentioned. What was the change?
Please, please let it be more airbrushing , I prayed.
My suspense over the big change didn’t last long.
I walked onto the set in my snazzy purple underwear to find the tallest, blondest man I’d ever seen. He wore a pair of purple briefs that were the size of a bow-tie, and he seemed to be smuggling an entire daschund inside the briefs. His golden abs went on for miles, like a giant, Christmas-stocking-sized, white chocolate Toblerone bar.
Reaching out to shake his hand politely, I said, “I didn’t know the human body had that many abs.”
“These ones are implants,” he said, pointing to the top row.
“No way! They look real.”
“You can touch,” he said, his accent sounding Swedish.*
*I watched all the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies in their original Swedish versions, plus that creepy-kid-vampire movie, so I’m
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