Theodora Twist (7 page)

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like no privacy,” she says. “Like not knowing if someone is kissing your butt because they like you or because you’re famous or because you could do something for them. High school is tough enough without those kinds of issues. If you don’t want to do this, Em, we’ll tell Ashley and Blair
no
. Sleep on it, sweetie.”

“Okay,” I say, and she kisses me on the forehead and leaves. I take Pooh off my bedside table and hug him against me.

Whenever I see Theodora Twist on TV or read an interview she’s given, she looks
thrilled.
She doesn’t seem to be paying a high price for anything. If she can handle real fame, why couldn’t I handle a month of minifame? A month of popularity? A month of people wanting to know me? A month of guys who’ll want to date me for me, not because they think I’ll put out?

Right now, if you asked a random sample of twenty kids at my school who Emily Fine is, maybe
one
would know. To be in the spotlight for a month at school sounds more than good. And to have things change at home—for even one month—sounds really, really great.

Bring her on.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: ASHLEY BEAN
ASHLEY BEAN TALENT MANAGEMENT
1000 WILSHIRE BLVD.
LOS ANGELES, CA 90017
[email protected]

THEODORA TWIST TO STAR IN HER OWN REALITY TV SHOW!

Los Angeles, CA—(April 15)—Golden Globe winner, two-time Teen Choice Award recipient, and star of the critically acclaimed major motion picture
Family

Theodora Twist
, Hollywood’s reigning teen queen, is set to star in her own network television reality show:

Theodora Twist: Just a Regular Teen! Theodora will spend one month living in her hometown of Oak City, New Jersey, in the house she lived in before becoming an actress.

Theodora will stay with the family of Emily Fine, a regular teen, doing everything Emily does!

Often misrepresented by the media, Theodora Twist will show the viewing public that she’s just a normal sixteen-year-old girl at heart.

Theodora

I’m looking through my gigantic customized walk-in closet for clothes that a normal teenager would wear. Girls across America would kill to have my wardrobe. Jeans, T-shirts, tank tops, miniskirts, cool sweaters, sneakers, shoes. Gowns. I own handbags of every shape—totes, satchels, hobos, clutches—and color—orange calfskin, teal and red patched suede—and texture—quilted stitching, studded hardware—imaginable. And that’s only the bottom shelf.

My least expensive jeans cost two hundred bucks. At least, I think that’s what they go for. I get most of my clothes for free; designers send them, hoping I’ll wear their stuff and get photographed in
Us Weekly.
But I’m a shopaholic too.

I glance at my Bring To Boresville pile on my bed. There’s only one item: a headband with a huge iridescent pink flower that one of my fans sent me. My Louis Vuitton Pegase suitcases—all three of them—sit empty.

“I have nothing to take with me to Oak City,” I complain to my mother, who came over to do Pilates in my home gym because her central air isn’t working and the repair company had to special-order a part. She tried to get my trainer to give her a free session, but Declan is booked for the next two years and doesn’t get out of bed for less than four hundred an hour. “I have to go shopping for new everything,” I say, glancing at rack after rack, shelf after shelf.

My mother is checking out her abs in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in my closet. For a forty-one-year-old, she has an awesome body. From the back she looks like a twenty-one-year-old hottie, but face-forward it’s obvious she’s been visiting Dr. Botox. She’s already scheduled a face-lift, an eyebrow lift, a tummy tuck, and lipo for next month with one of L.A.’s hottest plastic surgeons. With her earnings as consultant to my fragrance line (she has an amazing nose; I love the combo of scents she chose for Theodora, which debuted six months ago and is the number-one-selling fragrance in the country among teen girls), my mom can also afford her private six-week recuperation at the Miraval spa in Arizona.

She glances up at my racks and shelves of clothes and shoes. “You’re kidding, right? You have hundreds of T-shirts. At least thirty pairs of jeans. That’s what regular teenagers wear.”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t think Oak City juniors are wearing custom Sevens or Iisli T-shirts. I have to go to the Gap.”

She reaches for my shelf of white tees (I have twenty. Thirty?) and grabs one with her sweaty paws. “This is a piece of cotton. It’s worth all of fifty cents. Trust me, no one will know the difference between this and a T-shirt from Old Navy.”

My mother is clueless about clothes. Let’s just leave it at that.

For an entire month I have to wear dorky clothes and take math tests and pretend that the Oak City junior prom is the event of my life? Please. Last night I went to three of the hottest clubs in L.A. with my friend Kayla (NBC soap star) and danced my ass off and I was still bored out of my mind. Because I miss Bo and Brandon. Until I met them, I wasn’t used to having a boyfriend. Now that I have two of them, it drives me crazy not to see them or talk to them or roll around on the bed with them. But I’m lucky if I even get a phone call in. They’re in a different city every night, and with the time change, it’s almost impossible to actually talk live.

Ashley filled my mom in on the whole sorry story. I both like and hate that Ashley tells my mother everything. First of all, I’m emancipated, which means I don’t answer to my mother. I answer to myself. I control every aspect of my life, from my money to my career. (With a lot of help from my lawyers and Ashley.)

In other words, no one can tell me what to do. Except maybe Ashley. But if Ashley didn’t tell my mother my business, my mother would never know because I refuse to tell her anything.

My mother is impossible to talk to. Always has been. Even before my dad died. If I came home from school and said, “I hate school,” she wouldn’t ask, “Why, Dora?” There would be no heart-to-heart talk, no mother-daughter bonding over a cup of hot cocoa, leading to a moral and a hug like on one of those sappy Lifetime movies. Instead, she would say, “All you do is complain.” Or another classic: “If you studied harder, you’d get better grades. Maybe you’d actually like school.” For a little while after my dad died, she did turn into a TV mom. But I was such a bitch to her that she reverted to her old self. We barely get along, but we’re all we have, which is why we live one minute away from each other. At least I don’t have embarrassing relatives selling stories about me to the tabloids.

Anyway, one of the reasons why I’m almost glad to be living on the other side of the country for a month is to get away from here. My mom wants her boy toy to move in, but I told her if he moves in, she moves out.
I
own the houses. It’s not that I don’t want my mom to have a life. But while she’s living under my roof, she’ll have to live by my rules. I actually said that to her last month and she slapped me across the face.

“This reality TV show is the best thing that could happen to you,” my mother says now, holding up one of my Marc Jacobs dresses against her sweaty sports bra and yoga pants. “You’re beyond out of control, Dora. The stupidest thing I ever did was let you live on your own.”

“So now you believe everything you read in the tabloids? Thanks, Mom.”

“So you’re
not
sleeping with two brothers?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “I suppose the photo of you skinny-dipping in the ocean with the Bellini brothers was doctored?”

“Were we having sex in the photo?” We were—for exactly two seconds—but no one could possibly know that.

She rolls her eyes. “Dora, you’re sixteen. You’re a baby. And when you get back to Oak City and see how sixteen-year-olds really act, you’re going to be in for a rude awakening about how you conduct yourself.”

“Mom, I remember the kids in Oak City. Yeah, there were Goody Two-shoes—like my host-sister-to-be, Emily Fine—and there were kids who smoked pot and got drunk all the time. And there was everything in between. There are all kinds of sixteen-year-olds.”

“It’ll be good for you to be back in that house. I think it’ll give you some closure,” she says, giving me her “you think you know it all but you don’t” look.

I glance at her. She’s counting slowly to ten, which is what she does when she gets “overwhelmed” and needs “a moment.” She gets emotional whenever she mentions (or skirts around) my father.

I wish I could talk to my mom about my dad. She’s the only person I want to talk to about him because she’s the only person left alive on the planet who loved him too.

I tried the talking thing. When my dad died, a guidance counselor at school hooked me up with Emily Fine because her father had died too. But after a month, I couldn’t handle being within two feet of her, even though I actually sort of liked her. She was so earnest. So eager. It bugged me.

I just wish life could go back to before he died. Where is Superman—with his amazing powers to turn back time—when you need him? I once said that during an interview, and the reporter asked me if I’d really give up everything—the fame, the money, the career—if it meant having my dad again, and of course I said yes. Ashley beamed at me after the interview. But for once, my words weren’t scripted.

My cell rings—Ashley’s number. ”We Are Family” is my current ringtone. Ashley’s idea.

When I click on and explain my dilemma, she, unlike my mother, gets it right away. “Okay,” she says, “stop packing. Start
shopping
—at the Grove. I’ll approve everything in your suitcase, so don’t bother packing anything that cost more than fifty bucks.”

The only thing I own that cost less than fifty is the four-dollar leather bracelet I bought that’s now retailing for twenty-five.

“And put away the Vuitton luggage,” she says, as if she is staring right into my window. “I’ll have a Samsonite bag dropped off tomorrow.”

“One suitcase?” I mutter, but she’s already clicked off.

Sighing, I put on a white Juicy polo I got in a swag bag last month, pull my hair back in a ponytail, and call Donovan, my driver. Good thing he knows how to get to the Grove, because I sure don’t.

When you shop in sunglasses on Rodeo Drive or Melrose Avenue, no one looks twice at you. It’s assumed (a) you’ve got money, or (b) you’re a celebrity. Either way, you’re given space. At the Grove, this upscale outdoor shopping mall in L.A., it’s a little different. There are lots of tourists. Lots of locals. And some celebrities shop here too—at least, that’s what I’ve read in the gossip rags. Lots of people are wearing sunglasses, which makes sense— this is an outdoor mall, after all. But most people take them off when they go inside a store.

Not me.

I’m inside the Gap, a store I haven’t been in since I was twelve, following around a girl who looks to be about fifteen or sixteen. She’s got a little flair. Low-slung jeans. Cute Skechers. A studded tank top. I grab what she grabs.

She turns around and sticks a finger in my face. “Jesus Christ, stop following me!” she snaps. “I’m not stealing anything, okay? Do you want to see my wad of cash?”

“Whoa,” I say. “Chill out. I’m not security.” I take off my sunglasses and her eyes widen.

“Omigod.” Her mouth opens again, but nothing comes out. She’s just staring at me.

“I’m researching a role,” I explain quietly. “I need to buy clothes that a regular teen would buy.” And since a regular teen wouldn’t have her own clothing line (mine is in development), I can forget about wearing any of the T Squared prototypes in my closet.

She beams. “I’m
so
regular! You’d actually wear what I would wear?”

“For a month, anyway,” I say, winking at her.

And for the next hour, Hannah leads me around the store, then the mall (my sunglasses and baseball cap firmly back on). Two hours later, we’re standing in front of Forever 21, and I have the wardrobe and cosmetics bag of a regular teen, complete with strawberry-flavored lip gloss. I even bought Hannah a pair of board shorts and a shirt in Pacific Sunwear.

“No one’s gonna believe me when I tell them how I spent my afternoon,” Hannah says, deflating. “Like anyone would believe this.”

I drag her over to a vendor’s cart and buy a disposable camera. Then I look for the oldest senior citizen around— someone who won’t recognize me and start shrieking— and ask her to shoot all the pictures in the vestibule near the parking garage. I take off my sunglasses and shake out my hair and make a regular teenager very happy.

“You are the best!” Hannah gushes, clutching her shopping bag. “Really, I am your biggest fan! I loved you in
The Boyfriend Test
! And I can’t wait to see
Family
! This was so much fun!”

Oddly enough, it was sort of fun. If it was fun enough for a few hours, maybe a month of it won’t be as awful as I think.

Nah, it will be.

I hate meetings. I’ve had eight today—not counting the ones with Ashley. Producers. Ashley. Directors. Ashley. Lawyers. Publicist. Ashley. Hair and makeup consult for
Theodora Twist: Just a Regular Teen!
(a two-hour meeting that resulted in: Okay, so it’s agreed, foundation and blush only, no hairstyling.) Lawyers again. Accountant. Ashley. (Let’s discuss the multimillion-dollar offer to hawk face cream in Japan.) Publicist. And in between it all are meetings with the public—I get out of the car, a fan spots me, screams my name, and I’m mobbed for autographs. I like the fans. Like the screaming. Sometimes I think it’s the sole reason I do what I do.

“Okay, so it’s a yes to the commercial for Japanese television,” Ashley says, pecking away at her CrackBerry. We’re in her office now. She motions to her assistant and the ass-kissing junior agent who works for her to take the paperwork and some DVDs and leave. “You’re going to have to lug these home yourself,” she says, handing me three scripts. “I decided not to hire you a temporary personal assistant since you can’t have one in Oak City anyway. Read these over next week—off camera. We’ll discuss”—she pecks more at the CrackBerry—“the last week of April.” More pecking. “Okay, next up, let’s revisit—”