Holly Hearts Headlines (Holly Hearts Hollywood Book 2) (17 page)

My grandparents have been invited to see Mom’s shop several times, but they always made excuses. You can imagine how surprised I was that I not only got them to eat ramen but also visit my mom’s business
in one day
.

The shop wasn’t busy when we got there, so they were able to look around without feeling uncomfortable around the gaggle of Los Angeles hipsters that usually inhabit the space. I immediately made a beeline for the back office. Grandma and Grandpa had already started to awkwardly talk to Zara, the store manager. Zara is a tall, tall,
tall
woman. She’s like an Amazon warrior. She makes even my mom a little nervous sometimes.

Ivy had forgotten the keys to the school gymnasium, which she needs for her fashion show, in the office so I grabbed them and was just on my way out the door when Bernadette called me.

“So I talked to Tyler and he’ll totally help us out,” she said without even bothering to say “hello.”

“Who is Tyler?” I asked as I walked out the office and into the store.

“The kid who forges signatures, remember?”

“Oh yeah, great.”

“But he won’t do it for free,” Bernadette continued.

“Well what does he want?”

Bernadette sighed. “He’s out of his mind. I know that my mom is a screenplay writer but it doesn’t mean I have endless access to celebrities!”

I blinked. “Wait, what? What does your mom have to do with this?”

“My mom is a screenplay writer, and she’s had a few big movies. Tyler seems to be under the impression that means she’s constantly rubbing elbows with celebs, and he wants me to arrange an introduction with his celeb crush. This is a ridiculous request, and he knows it; he’s just asking to be an asshole.”

“And who is that?”

“Lacey Bennett.”

Have you ever seen those old cartoons with the coyote and the roadrunner? The coyote keeps trying to trap the roadrunner by dropping lots of heavy stuff on him or blowing him up, but the roadrunner is too smart and manages to turn the coyote’s trick around on him. When Bernadette said Lacey’s name I suddenly felt like a baby grand piano, an anvil, and a pile of dynamite had landed on my head.

“Oh,” I said feebly.

“But I can’t ask my mom if she has any connections to Lacey Bennett! If I ask her for something like this she’ll ask me why, since I’ve never asked her for anything like this before, and I can’t have her finding out I’m about to fail this class. I don’t know what we’re going to do.” She paused for a moment. “I don’t suppose
you
know Lacey Bennett?” Bernadette asked with sarcastic venom. I could tell by her tone that she did not expect me to have any connections at all, which is why it was very exciting to get to say:

“Actually, I do.”

There was a long pause. And I mean a long pause. I thought she might have hung up. “Excuse me?” she finally asked. “I must have a bad connection, because I could’ve just sworn I heard you say that you know Lacey Bennett.”

“I do.”

“How in the hell do
you
know Lacey Bennett?” The emphasis she put on the word “you” drove the point home even more that Bernadette did not believe that a girl like me could know anyone who was famous. Why would an overweight girl know anyone who is a size six? How dare I? How do I have the nerve to know skinny, pretty people? Someone should just arrest me right now.

“I just do,” I said vaguely. “She’s not exactly wanting to talk to me right now though since we got into a pretty big fight … ”

“Well kiss and make up!” Bernadette snapped. “My high school career
depends
on you, Holly, as much as I hate to admit it.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Hurry!” Bernadette urged, and then she hung up.

What am I supposed to do now?

Later, 3:45pm—In the Car

I just did something I haven’t done in a while, and it was very terrifying. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that we should do something that scares us once a day, and I pretty much made up for a lifetime of scares because I just tried to call Lacey. I was so afraid that she’d answer. After everything that’s happened, I’m scared to talk to her. First of all, she’s just flat out intimidating. Secondly, I feel horrible about what’s happened, and I don’t know a good way to make it up to her. The phone rang and rang, and then suddenly I heard a
click,
and the call went dead. She hung up on me. She wouldn’t even let it go to voicemail.

I really can’t blame her though.

Later, 5:15pm—Home

I’m such an idiot. I’m literally a certifiable idiot. If colleges have some kind of idiot radar they’ve definitely noticed me today, and they will be promptly denying me entrance into their educational institutions because I am dumb as a brick. And even then, I think that the bricks would probably be offended that I compared my level of intelligence to theirs, which is probably superior.

I’ve been moping around about how to get a hold of Lacey for awhile now. I called her a thousand times and received her voicemail only a handful of those times, because she hung up on me the rest of the time. I sent her text messages. I sent her private messages on Instagram for heaven’s sake. Her only response was this tweet:

Lacey: I don’t have time in my life for FAKES. Stay in your lane, byotch!

She’s not really the queen of subtlety. So then a light bulb went off when I was looking at her Twitter page and I realized: I should just call Grayson. He could totally help. He was a direct line to Lacey and he could maybe trick her into meeting me.

Grayson answered on the second ring. “Hey there, honeybee.”

“Are you Googling all of these nicknames?”

“No,” Grayson said, offended. “I’m stealing them from romantic comedies.”

I laughed and said, “Hey, I need your help.”

Grayson already knows everything about the sex education class, especially since the egg chaperoned our date the other night. I didn’t want to let him know that I’m a good for nothing CHEATER who can’t even pass a simple compulsory class. So, instead I just told him that I was trying to get in touch with Lacey so that I could try to smooth things over between us, which wasn’t
exactly
a lie.

“That’s big of you, Holly,” Grayson said. “I know Lacey isn’t the kind of girl to come forward with her hat in her hands, so if you made the first move that would go a long way.”

“So can you help me meet up with her?”

“Unfortunately, no,” he said. “I’m booked for some events over these next few days; I don’t even know what they are for. My manager put it all together. All I know is that I’m going to be very busy.”

“Oh,” I said. “So you’ll be too busy to even make one phone call to Lacey? You could just ask her to meet you somewhere, and then I’ll like, pop out of the bushes or something.”

Grayson laughed. “That probably wouldn’t work. Lacey has a lot of stuff going on too, and we both know that we’re too busy to see one another right now. But maybe you should call Serena. She might be able to help.”

A second light bulb went off then. “You’re right,” I said. “She might know where Lacey will be next.”

“Bingo,” Grayson said. “Hey, babe, I got to get going, I’ll text you later when I have spare moment.”

We hung up and I immediately texted Serena who is currently on her way over to help me scheme my way to an A+ in Sex Education.

Later, 7:15pm—Home

When Bernadette heard that Serena was coming over to help me figure out how we could wrangle Lacey she flipped her lid.

“Serena Salazar is coming over to
your
house?” she said shrilly into the phone.

I winced and pulled the phone slightly away from my ear. “Yes, Lacey isn’t exactly talking to me right now so Serena will help.”

“Seriously, Holly, how do you know so many cool people? It like, isn’t even fair,” she pouted. “I’m coming over! There’s no way I’m missing out on this.”

Bernadette arrived just ten minutes after we hung up, breathless. “Whoa,” I said when I answered the door. “Did you
run
here?”

Bernadette nodded. “Actually, kind of. I don’t have my license or permit or anything.”

“Where do you live?”

“A mile away.”

“Oh my God, we’re neighbors, and you didn’t even tell me?”

Bernadette rolled her eyes. “Like who cares? I’m not going to be all neighborly and bring you pies and let you borrow my Tupperware or whatever. Can I get some water? I’m like, parched.”

“Sure.” I stepped inside and Bernadette slunk over to the kitchen where she chugged a large glass of water way too quickly.

She had just put the glass down on the countertop when Serena opened the front door and let herself in. Serena stopped knocking on my front door a long time ago and now just comes and goes as she pleases. “Holly?” she shouted. “I hope you still have Girl Scout cookies in the freezer because I
need
them!” She walked around the corner into the kitchen and stopped mid-step when she saw Bernadette. “Hi, I’m Serena,” she said, immediately recovering.

Bernadette, most likely for the first time in her life, was completely speechless. I stared at her for a moment while I watched the muscles of her face twitch and her pupils dilate into mere pin-pricks. When it became obvious that Bernadette was too shocked to say anything, I introduced her to Serena myself.

“Nice to meet you,” Serena said awkwardly, one eyebrow raised in her signature manner. Serena has the most perfect eyebrows ever, by the way. I know that the eyebrows seem like a weird thing to compliment, but if you pay attention, you’ll notice that not enough people know how to maintain their brows. I’ve seen Serena do her makeup in the morning. She spends a solid ten minutes
alone
just filling in her brows. She is an artist. When Serena dies, she should donate her eyebrows to the Louvre and they should display them next to the Mona Lisa who is
completely
lacking any amount of eyebrow game.

Serena dropped her Michael Kors satchel on the ground and walked over to the kitchen. “So, you need to meet up with Lacey, and she won’t answer your calls?” Serena stuck her arm deep into our freezer, which was packed with boxes of Bagel Bites and frozen fruits.

“It is so weird that you guys just call her by her first name,” Bernadette finally said, her voice sounded dry and scratchy.

“What do you mean?” Serena asked as she wrestled the final box of thin mint cookies out of the fridge.

“Well, I always call her Lacey Bennett. Just like I would call Jennifer Aniston by her full name, not Jennifer. It is just weird to hear you guys call her Lacey. It is so casual.”

Serena closed the freezer door and pried the box of cookies open. “It is casual. She’s just a girl I know who happens to have a record album.”

“So, are there any parties or events coming up where you and Lacey will be there?” I asked. “I figured that is our best chance to see her. We will just ‘accidentally’ be there too.”

“With your friend as well, I’m guessing,” Serena said, gesturing to Bernadette with half a cookie in her hand.

“Of course
I’m
going!” Bernadette said. “Not only is my grade on the line here but there’s no way I’m going to let you guys go to some Hollywood event without me.”

“Fine,” I agreed. “I guess we are also going to have to take Tyler,” I said.

“Who is Tyler?” Serena asked.

I told her about Tyler and his signature-forging talent and his ransom-like request to meet Lacey. “So, do you know if there are any parties or events coming up?”

“There’s an event MTV is throwing tomorrow night,” Serena said thoughtfully. “I could probably get you guys added to the list if I kick and scream enough.”

“MTV?” I repeated. “What’s the event for?”

“It’s the after party for the premiere of their new show
Unmasked
. The party is a masquerade, which is original,” Serena said sarcastically.

“So we need to get dresses and masks for three people who
aren’t
invited to this party in less than twenty-four hours?” I asked.

Serena nodded. “Looks like it. But if anyone can do it, we can.”

Yeah, no worries. We just need to squeeze our way onto the guest list of an exclusive party, find designer ball gowns
and
have them tailored. Oh, and don’t forget about finding Venetian masks. But hey, this is Hollywood. Anything is possible.

April 22
^nd
, 1:00pm—Serena’s House

Do you remember that scene in
The Devil Wears Prada
where Meryl Streep is trying to pick out an outfit for a photo shoot and she’s surrounded by tons of clothes and Anne Hathaway gets made fun of because she says that these two turquoise belts look the same? Then Stanley Tucci comes to her rescue and takes her to the “closet” that is just STUFFED with designer clothes for her to pick from? Because that is totally my life right now.

I’m currently sitting on the ground of Serena’s penthouse-sized bedroom and I’m surrounded by so many gowns I’m practically suffocating in tulle. Serena’s stylist called up all of her stylist friends to see if any of them were holding onto any spare dresses. Apparently, when preparing for big events like this, stylists gather several dresses just in case something goes wrong with the first choice. The stylists usually hoard the dresses so that no one else can wear them, but Serena’s stylist convinced some of them to give up the goods.

I’ve been here for about an hour with Bernadette trying everything on. The problem is, everything fits Bernadette but so far, nothing fits me and I’m trying very hard to not have a freak out. Every single time we find something that looks like it could maybe fit my heart swells with a bit hope. But every time Serena can’t get the zipper past my back fat and I have to act like I don’t care. But obviously,
I do care
. I care a lot. And yeah, I’ve only been going to the gym for a few weeks pretty irregularly but I thought I’d feel a
little
bit smaller. If anything, I feel bigger.