Bad Girls (44 page)

It was a natural route, model to actress, though not many succeeded: for every Charlize Theron and Cameron Diaz, there were many more who had never jumped the first hurdle, or – like Cindy Crawford or Elle Macpherson – had tried and then conceded defeat. Amber had never considered it herself. But then, she’d been focusing all her energies on just making it through the day, ensuring she had enough drugs to keep her medicated. Now that she was clean, she could feel energies rising up in her, longing to find an outlet.

The driver had located their destination, the offices of Clearwater Productions, a little cluster of white bungalows with louvered window shutters, surrounded by carefully landscaped banks of flowering cactuses and palms. It looked pretty enough to be a home, rather than one of the many offices of the production companies that had development deals with Paramount and worked out of their enormous studio space.

Amber alighted from the car and was nearly run down by two golf carts buzzing past. This was the way high-ranking people who worked in the studios covered the distances between soundstages and offices, zipping past the peons who had to walk. Amber did a double take when she realized that the driver of the second one was Matthew McConaughey, looking even more gorgeous in real life than he did on screen, tanned and golden. Even with his sunglasses on, he was instantly recognizable. And, clocking Amber’s beauty, he whistled as he went past, tipping the bill of his baseball cap to her in appreciation.

And that looked like the guy from
Twilight
next to him, in the check shirt, Amber thought as she crossed the street, looking out warily for more fast-moving golf carts driven by screen gods.

She couldn’t help smiling. It was lovely to be a pretty girl in the Hollywood sunshine, walking across the Paramount studio lot, movie stars whistling at you as they buzzed by. It was great to be in the moment, to appreciate life’s pleasures as they came along, without being so fuzzy and distracted by tranquillizers that it was all you could do just to put one foot in front of the other. And it was downright wonderful to be free of the endless worry all addicts had:
is it time for my next fix? Have I had enough, or do I need one more pill to get me through? And am I running out – do I need to ring the doctor now for a new prescription or can it wait till tomorrow?

She pushed open the door of Clearwater Productions, the clammy chill of air-conditioning hitting her as soon as she stepped inside.

I hope I look OK, she thought, but she could tell by the receptionist’s reaction to her that she looked more than OK. There was a shift in manner as the young man caught sight of her, a deferential homage to her appearance in his instant offer of green tea or mineral water while she waited. Amber wasn’t vain; but she knew that her beauty was her main currency, and she needed to assess constantly how its value was holding up.

Wrapping her feather-light Armani silk cardigan around her to ward off the cold blast of air-conditioning, she stepped through into the waiting room he had indicated. And then she stopped dead, amazed at how happy she was to see the girl sitting on the white leather sofa, leafing through a copy of
W
, wearing a tight white T-shirt and khaki miniskirt that showed off every curve of her body.

‘Skye!’ she exclaimed.

Skye looked up, her blue eyes widening at the sight of Amber.

‘Hey!’ she said, her reaction not as instantly positive as the other girl’s; there was pleasure in it, but also wariness. Skye was clearly remembering the terms they had parted on at Cascabel.

Amber took a deep breath, processing her own feelings. Skye was really nice to me, she remembered. She looked after me when I first came into Cascabel, when I was in withdrawal and feeling awful. And she lashed out because was jealous – Joe was mooning after me while he was having sex with her. I can’t blame her for that.

‘Let’s start again,’ Amber heard herself say, crossing the room to Skye. ‘Friends?’

Skye dropped the magazine, jumped up and hugged Amber, her head barely coming up to the taller girl’s shoulder.

‘I’m so sorry!’ she said, pulling back to look up at Amber. ‘I should never, ever have said it – it was in confidence – there’s no excuse—’

‘Forgiven and forgotten,’ Amber said, as the receptionist came in with her green tea. ‘Thanks,’ she said, flashing him a smile that clearly dazzled him.

‘Honestly,’ Skye said, rolling her eyes. ‘I thought
I
was good at getting guys to wait on me until I met you.’

She plopped back down on the sofa, curling her slender brown legs underneath her.

‘So! What’s up?’ she asked, leaning forward as Amber took a seat in the armchair across from her. ‘What’s been happening with you? Wait!’ Her pretty pink mouth opened in a perfect O. ‘What the hell am I
saying
– what are you doing here? Did they, like, let you out for the day or something?’

‘I left Cascabel early,’ Amber admitted. ‘I’m doing day therapy now.’

‘You’re kidding!’ Skye’s blonde curls tumbled over her face as she leaned even further forward, her blue eyes focused on Amber’s face. ‘What happened? Ohmigod, it wasn’t anything to do with me and Joe, was it?’

I can’t tell her anything about me and Dr Raf, Amber decided in a split second. I so wish I could – she’s the closest thing I have to a friend. But she let me down before when I told her a secret. And it’s not just my secret to share. Dr Raf could lose his licence.

‘I had some clashes with Dr Lucy,’ she said, amazed at her own capacity for lying –
well, not exactly lying, just taking the truth and twisting it a bit
. ‘And there was an awful lot of fuss after those stories in the press about you and Joe. Dr Raf had a lot of emergency meetings, and he asked Dr Lucy to take private sessions with me, and we really didn’t get on,’ she continued, inspired now by her powers of invention. ‘So I thought I’d leave and do day therapy instead. It’s all working out well. My new therapist is great, she really is.’

‘Jeez, it
is
all my fault, sort of!’ Skye said, her hands rising to her face. ‘I’m so sorry, Amber! The
idea
that you got stuck with that bitch because of me! She always hated you!’

Amber couldn’t help smiling. ‘She wasn’t my biggest fan.’

‘Are you
kidding
? She couldn’t bear the way Dr Raf looked at you! She was always gunning for you!’

Amber couldn’t help blushing at this.

‘I’m amazed Dr Raf put you with her,’ Skye said, shaking her head. ‘Men are such idiots. Oh!’ Another question occurred to her. ‘What about Petal? They didn’t let her stay, did they? That would really piss me off.’

‘No,’ Amber said. ‘They kicked her out the day you two left.’

‘Good.’ Skye sagged back on the sofa. ‘If that little bitch got to stay, I’d’ve been furious.’

‘She needed help,’ Amber pointed out, sipping some tea. ‘She was really messed up. All that dad stuff.’

‘OK,’ Skye said militantly, ‘but being messed up didn’t stop her spying on me when I was having sex, did it? And recording it! Who
does
that?’

‘You,’ Amber said promptly.

Skye froze in shock, momentarily stunned. Oh no, Amber thought in panic: did I just go too far?

And then Skye’s face cracked up and she burst out laughing. ‘You got me!’ she admitted through her giggles. ‘Oh God, I can’t smudge my makeup—’ She patted gingerly round her eyes.

‘But you know something?’ she went on, calming down. ‘Sure, I recorded the damn thing. But I was never, ever going to sell it. I mean, not after I got to know Joe.’

‘Really?’ Amber was taken aback.

‘Nuh-uh.’ Skye shook her head vehemently, her blonde curls dancing. ‘Crazy, right? I should’ve just got out of there the day after we did it – when I had it on tape – and taken it straight to the
Investigator.
They promised me this huge bonus if I did. There was a contract and everything.’ She sighed.‘Only I had to go and fall for Joe. What a moron. As if a huge movie star like him would give a shit about me when we got out of Cascabel.’

‘You mean,’ Amber said, her brow creasing, ‘that if Petal hadn’t videoed you on her phone—’

‘I’d have stayed put and hoped Joe would want to go on seeing me after rehab,’ Skye sighed. ‘We had such an amazing connection. You know when that happens?’ Her blue eyes went dreamy.‘When you just touch someone and all these sparks go off? But not just sex – even though you totally don’t get that feeling with many people. It’s when you just want to be near them all the time. When you feel you can say anything, and they’ll get you. When you’re just so relaxed with each other, straight away. It’s like magic. And I know it sounds totally lame to say I thought I had that with
Joe Jeffreys –
like I’ve got a stupid crush on a movie star – but I really did. And I thought he felt something too.’

She swallowed hard. ‘So of course,’ she said sadly, ‘I blew it. I’d never have taken that tape to the
Investigator
if Joe had tried to give me his number, or take mine, while we were getting kicked out. If he’d shown me the slightest sign that he wanted to keep in touch, I’d’ve hung on and waited and waited for him to call.’ She sighed again. ‘But he didn’t.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ Amber said hopelessly.

‘And now here I am, doing the rounds of auditions,’ Skye said, ‘and because everyone’s seen the video – which the
Investigator
didn’t even pay me that much for – the casting directors and producers I’m seeing are making it very clear that unless I play nice with them, they won’t even give me a callback.’

‘Oh,
Skye
. . .’ Amber knew very well what it was like to have people expect sexual favours in return for jobs. She reached out and squeezed Skye’s hand in sympathy.

‘And I won’t,’ Skye said, squeezing Amber’s hand back. ‘I just won’t do that any more.’

She smiled feebly at Amber. ‘I suppose rehab did help me after all. Who’d’ve thought it?’

‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Amber said quietly.

‘Yeah? I hope so. But guess what? My agent rang me this morning. I got offered a
Hustler
shoot. A hundred grand. Full-frontal.’

‘You can’t do it,’ Amber said immediately.

Skye ducked her head. ‘I did ask if I could only do topless,’ she said, ‘but they said full-frontal or nothing.’

‘Skye, you
can’t
,’ Amber said very seriously. ‘Once those photos are out there, you can never take them back.’

‘I know,’ Skye mumbled. ‘But it’s a ton of money . . .’

‘
Skye
—’

‘Skye Simmons? Jeff can see you now,’ announced the receptionist, appearing in the doorway of the waiting room.

‘Wish me luck!’ Skye said brightly, jumping up.

‘Good luck,’ Amber said so sincerely that Skye could hear it in her voice. Skye whisked out of the waiting room, holding a hand behind her back so that Amber could see her fingers, tightly crossed.

Amber picked up the copy of
W
and started flicking through it, but she barely saw the images in front of her.

I don’t want Skye to do a
Hustler
shoot, she was thinking. And I had no idea that Skye was serious about Joe. Not like that. She talked about him the way I’d talk about Dr Raf. So I know she really means it.

Amber was still absorbed in her thoughts fifteen minutes later, when Skye bounced back through the door, eyes sparkling, curls bouncing on her shoulders; even her breasts looked perkier with her excitement.

‘He liked me!’ she announced ecstatically. ‘He wants me to wait! And he saw two girls before me – before you got here – and he didn’t ask either one of them to wait, so I know that’s good!’ She sank onto the leather sofa. ‘And I read really well! It’s, you know, the gorgeous girlfriend part. She’s called Maia. I think I nailed it.’ She was beaming, her enthusiasm infectious.

‘I’m really happy for you,’ Amber said.

‘God, I shouldn’t be saying this – you’re going up for it too – sorry, I didn’t mean to boast!’ Skye said, pulling a repentant face. ‘It’s just the first time someone’s given me a chance without asking to stick their hand up my skirt in return . . .’

‘Amber Peters?’ the receptionist said from the doorway.

Amber stood up, but before she could follow him, another man appeared behind him.

‘Amber!’ he said jovially. He was big and wide, with a suspiciously even hairline for a fifty-year-old man – hairplugs, Amber thought – wearing a baggy Lakers T-shirt over jeans. Though his voice was cheerful, and he was smiling, Amber could tell immediately from the sharpness of his gaze that he was sizing her up in an instant. ‘I’m Jeff Ringquist. You’re Joe’s friend, right?’

Oh, no
.

Amber didn’t need to glance to the side to know that Skye’s entire body had stiffened in shock.

‘Well, I see why he sent you along!’ Jeff Ringquist said, even more jovial; she had passed the first assessment. ‘What’s that you got there, honey?’

‘My modelling portfolio,’ Amber said, looking down at the big leather binder under her arm. Even in her rush to get to LA, Slava could never have forgotten to pack this, the most visible symbol of her daughter’s success. ‘I didn’t know if I should bring it along . . .’

‘Sure! Hey, give it here!’ Jeff said enthusiastically, holding out a hand the size of a plate, watching Amber’s walk as she crossed the waiting room, nodding approvingly at the grace with which she moved. He flicked through the pages, each a huge plastic window into which Slava had slid a blowup of one of Amber’s ads or editorials.

‘
Nice
,’ he said, nodding as he turned the pages. ‘
Very
nice. You still in the same shape as this?’ He stabbed a bikini picture with his sausage-like index finger. ‘You look it,’ he added, glancing at her.

‘My weight’s very stable,’ Amber said, more and more uncomfortable now at Skye’s presence, feeling as if she’d betrayed Skye with this whole setup.

‘Perfect!’ Jeff Ringquist closed the portfolio with a loud snap. ‘You got the look, you got a nice voice, let’s see where this takes us, OK? Come in my office. I got a DVD set up. Let’s run some lines.’ He cast a glance over at Skye, still sitting on the sofa. ‘Honey, you don’t need to wait around any more,’ he said. ‘I think I got my Maia right here. But leave your details with Jonathan, OK? Nice meeting you.’