Holly Hearts Headlines (Holly Hearts Hollywood Book 2) (7 page)

Later, 4:50pm—Home

Ivy wants to go with me, big surprise. She claims that if she’s going to be the president of her school’s fashion club she should get to see the latest celebrity fashions up close and personal.

“Get a
US Weekly
subscription,” I told her.

“Now that’s not fair!” Ivy protested. “You get to go to these things all the time, and I
always
stay home. Can’t you let me go this once?”

So I cracked and told her that she could come along if she wanted. It obviously wasn’t my favorite choice, I don’t want to have to babysit her all night, but maybe if I take her to this event I can get her off my back about everything else.

I called Serena immediately and she is having David come back with a dress for Ivy. Ivy’s current wardrobe definitely wouldn’t work. Acid wash jeans and platform sneakers are better suited for a Katy Perry music video than a high-profile celebrity charity gala.

Later, 7:30pm—Car Ride to the Beverly Hills Hotel

I’m all done up in a silver Alexander McQueen gown and Ivy actually looks amazing in this scarlet red Christian Siriano dress. I stuffed all of the money into my Kate Spade clutch. There were so many dollar bills that I had to actually
sit
on the clutch in order to get it to close. It is practically bursting at the seams with cash.

Ivy is so excited to be going with us that I’m worried she might explode at any moment.

Later, 8:45pm—Beverly Hills Hotel

Have you ever read the
American Girls
book series? It was one of my favorites growing up. They had a whole line of dolls from different eras in American history with a book set that went with each girl. My favorite of all of them was a girl named Molly McIntire who lived during WWII and had braided brown hair and glasses. She was a “plain” girl if you want to call her that. I always loved her books though, even though all of my friends preferred to read the books for “prettier” or more “interesting” girls.

When Serena pointed out the girl I would be bidding on I
immediately
thought of Molly McIntire. This girl was wearing a crisp white shirt tucked into a tartan skirt, an outfit that really belonged at a private school
not
a charity gala. She had glasses on with a thick, black rim and her brown hair was tightly French braided.

“That’s her,” Serena said. “Her name is Cora Howard, her father is Richard Howard, and he owns that major health food company. You’ve heard of them, right? They’re called Howard Health Foods.”

“Oh yeah!” I said. “My mom loves them.”

“Cora’s mother, Samantha Howard, was an east coast socialite,” Serena continued. “She was a debutante and everything. I guess Samantha is trying to get Cora to follow in her footsteps.”

“It doesn’t look like Cora got the memo,” I said as Cora attempted to sip some water from her glass but instead dribbled it onto her blouse.

“No wonder no one bids on her,” Ivy added. “She’s a mess.”

“Which is totally just missing the point,” Serena said. “This auction is
symbolic
toward all of the girls in the world who are treated as objects to be bought or sold. Cora’s appearance shouldn’t detract at all from the importance of this organization or this event. It is maddening!”

I really had no idea Serena was so passionate about this organization. Apparently, she’s been working with them for a couple years now. The group is called The Rose Project; they named it after a girl named Rose who they rescued out of Europe. She’s now their main spokeswoman.

She, Rose that is, gave an awesome speech about the organization during our main course, which was by the way
delicious
. The meal was a
four-course dinner
. I’ve never actually had a four-course meal; I’ve only read about it or seen it in movies. They even brought out that special ice cream so we could cleanse our palates in between courses. It was super fancy.

Ivy was really overwhelmed by all of the place settings, the tableside service, and the roasted pheasant they served for one of the entrée options. Also, we ended up at a table with Arianna Huffington through some twisted cosmic plan, and Ivy has never been more intimidated and confused by one woman.

“It is ridiculous in this country,” Arianna was saying to her, “that big banks on Wall Street will pay less interest than students with college loans.”

Ivy looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and she quickly stammered, “I don’t know why they’re not interested, it sounds interesting to me.”

Arianna just blinked and returned to her marionberry salmon wellington (her second entrée).

I’m multi-tasking between eating my dessert (which is a baked Alaska) and writing this entry. Serena had to leave to get ready for the auction, which is apparently about to start any minute now.

I don’t know why I haven’t taken Ivy to more parties with me. She’s actually been really great. Besides a few politically incorrect comments here and there, she’s made great conversation and hasn’t humiliated me yet.

Looks like I spoke too soon. Ivy has just spotted Jude Law across the room, and she just said, “MY
HUSBAND!” a little
too
loudly.

Oh no, he’s looking right us with a very perplexed look on his face. More later.

Later, 11:30pm—Home

So I apologized profusely to Jude Law, who kept insisting that it wasn’t a big deal, and that many teenage girls who are young enough to be his daughter refer to him as their husband, and I had to immediately scold Ivy and inform her to not publically shout out-loud like that at celebrities.

I was just recovering from my face-to-face interaction with Jude Law, which had left me dizzy and feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience, when the auction started. Kim Kardashian went first, and it took every ounce of my self-control to not freak out. I
love
Kim Kardashian. Her bidding seemed to last forever until one guy with a shiny bald spot in the middle of his head won at $100,000.

“What do they even
do
with them once they’ve won auction?” I asked. “I wouldn’t want an old guy with a weird bald spot to win me.”

“Oh, they don’t do anything with them,” Arianna Huffington answered. “It’s not a real auction. It’s done purely to raise money.”

She was right of course, because even as she explained it to me Kim walked back over to her table and gave Kanye a big kiss on the lips. Bald spot guy did not seem in anyway slighted; he just signed a check and handed it to a very official looking man on his left.

After that, we saw Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johansson, and Halle Berry get auctioned off with great six-figure donations. Serena was next up on the stage and she looked positively
radiant
. Her electric blue Gucci dress looked amazing on her curvy body and I had to fight the urge to whistle as she walked onto the stage.

The bidding was
intense
. It looked like mostly young, Chuck Bass-wanna-be’s in Brooks Brother’s shirts were the main bidders. After a few minutes, the bidding finished and Serena brought in a whopping $350,000.

She let out a little cheer as the auctioneer banged his gavel and then Cora Howard was next up, and I knew it was time.

Firstly, it was highly weird to be bidding on a person, even if it was symbolic.

“Do you even know what to do?” Ivy asked. “Like is there a special way that you put your hand up? Do you shout ‘bingo’?”

“I think I just raise my hand,” I replied. Serena had already told me that while most bidding starts at $50,000 they always start Cora’s bidding very low because she never gets anywhere
near
fifty thousand dollars.

“Next up is Cora Howard,” the auctioneer said into the microphone. “She’s the daughter of Richard and Samantha Howard, owner of Howard Health Foods. Bidding starts at one thousand dollars.”

When Serena said they started low in her bidding I didn’t know that their version of low was a thousand dollars, because I only had $1,100 in my bag. I literally would only last two seconds in this entire auction with that kind of cash.

I raised my hand cautiously. It was the hand raise you do in class when you think you know the answer, but you really don’t want to teacher to call on you. So you kind of raise your hand in this half-hearted attempt so no one could accuse you of not trying.

The auctioneer pointed at me and said, “I see one thousand dollars, do I hear one thousand
five hundred
dollars?”

Cora was looking at me like I was a hero who had just descended from the heavens while we waited to see if anyone else would bid, and the silence was so thick I could’ve cut out a pattern and sewn a dress out of it.

“Going once,” he said. “Going twice. SOLD!”

People halfheartedly applauded, and Cora looked so relieved to get off of that stage. One of the auction officials in a penguin tuxedo walked up to me, and I was just asking him if they would accept cash when Cora walked
right up to me
.

“What’s your name?” she asked. Her voice was totally different than what I expected. She gave off that Blair Waldorf vibe, but in an upstanding way, not in an “I’ll destroy you through an anonymous gossip website” way. But her voice wasn’t sweet and nice; it was actually low and husky. It was the kind of voice a Bond girl would have.

“Um, I’m Holly,” I said.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Cora said. “I hate doing this auction and you made it a lot less embarrassing this year.”

“No, it was my pleasure.”

Cora stood there awkwardly, like she was mentally debating with herself and then she finally said, “Would you like to maybe hang out sometime?”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: making friends is
hard
. It isn’t like trying to get a boyfriend where you can just say, “Hey, will you be my boyfriend?” You can’t just walk up to a girl that you think is cool and say, “Hey, let’s be best friends.” You just
become
friends through some strange ritual that I don’t understand. You have to ask her out on “friend” dates to go get pedicures or brunch and hope that she says yes because she wants to hang out with you and not because she likes brunch.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” I said.

Cora asked for my phone number and then texted me so I’d have her number and then left. Once the auction was over, we didn’t stay much longer. Ivy’s feet hurt after her first evening wearing Manolo Blahnik’s. But while we were leaving, I could’ve sworn I saw Jude Law wink at Ivy and me.

I should really start taking care of my mental health. I’ve obviously begun to hallucinate.

April 7
^th
, 9:00am—Muscle Universe Gym and Tanning

I woke up this morning before the sun had even come up with the sudden, overwhelming urge to go to the gym. This, of course, startled me as I’ve never EVER wanted to go to the gym in my life. I immediately took my temperature and checked myself for any kind of rash or other signs of sickness. I couldn’t find anything obvious, but I knew that
something
had to be wrong with me.

I knocked on my mom’s bedroom door, vaguely hoping that she would be awake even though it was six o’clock in the morning. “Mom?” I said into the door, my lips almost kind of smashed up against the painted wood. “Are you up? I think I might be sick.”

Okay, okay. I knew I wasn’t sick. Not really. I just really was looking for some kind of excuse to not go to the gym, even if I did have some kind of strange urge to go. I mean, I can’t go to the gym while sick. I’ll spread my germs around with other people’s germs and maybe we’ll create a super plague like in that movie
Contagion.

I heard some mumbling from the other side of the door and eventually, “Holly? Did you need something?”

I opened the door and stepped into my mom’s room, which was dark and still had the faint scent of incense. “Mom, I think I’m sick.”

“So you said,” Mom murmured from under the covers of her bed. “Come over here so I can feel your forehead.”

Of all the “Mom” phrases in the world
“Come over here so I can feel your forehead”
must be at the top of the list. Followed by
“If you take it out, put it back”
and
“Do I have to do everything around here?”

I walked over to the side of the bed and my mom’s arm flung itself out from underneath its blanket prison and she placed it on my head gently. “You’re perfectly normal,” she said flatly and without surprise. She peered out at me from underneath her covers. “What feels sick? Your throat? Your stomach?”

You know how in movies the actresses always wake up in the morning in that perfect “I’m not wearing any makeup” look, but really they have been airbrushed to perfection and are wearing a pound of mascara? My mom actually looks like that in the morning. But you know it is all-natural because she doesn’t even own tinted lip balm, let alone blush.

“I just don’t feel like myself. I woke up and I wanted to go to the gym, which is totally unlike me,” I blurted.

Suddenly the other side of Mom’s bed exploded as Sloane emerged from his position under the blankets. His hair was greasy and stuck to one side of his face. I squealed and jumped back, not realizing that my mom’s boyfriend was in bed with her. I also felt very dumb and immature for not realizing before that my mom is a full-grown adult with an adult-boyfriend and that
of course
he sleeps over. This is another reason I need to finally be in a real relationship with Grayson. How am I supposed to understand how relationships work when ours is so unusual?

“Wanting to go to the gym is your body’s way of saying ‘Hey! I want to be healthy! You should go to the gym!’” he chimed in.