Nasty Little Secrets

Chapter 1

I was about to be interviewed on national television, and I was dressed like a whore.

I’d shown up to The Morning Hour studio in low-rise jeans and an oversized Dartmouth sweatshirt, my head still pounding from the night before.

A designer garment bag with a new outfit had been waiting in my dressing room, courtesy of my publicist, Marta.

Its presence was a harsh, grounding reminder of what was expected from me today.

I’d rolled my eyes when I unzipped it and saw what was inside.

Marta liked to complain about my reputation, but she played into it.

Most women wore tailored dresses and colorful pantsuits when they were promoting their books.

Outfits that screamed of professionalism, that made them seem nice, smart.

Marta had put me in a skin-tight black set—silk, with a plunging neckline—that made me look like I had been hired to get a senator in hot water.

I knew exactly why she’d done it. This was what people expected of me.

Because I wasn’t like those other authors.

My book was dirty and scandalous, and Marta knew that perpetuating the image would only sell more copies.

I had no idea where she was now. Probably off lecturing the show’s hosts about what was and wasn’t an appropriate line of questioning. I was grateful for the moment of peace.

I yawned as I sat in the makeup chair, my lack of sleep all over my face.

“You didn’t give me a lot to work with here, Rose,” Annie said, an expensive-looking makeup brush clutched in her pale hand. She dabbed the concealer brush under my eyes. “You’re lucky you have such good cheekbones.”

Annie did my makeup the last time I was on The Morning Hour; she was one of the few crew members who was kind.

Most of them avoided me like a venereal disease, throwing furtive looks or whispering to one another in corners.

Annie’s assistant had already been by to straighten out and curl my slept-on hair.

He hadn’t spoken a word the entire time, but the way his hands tore through my hair said everything about how he felt about me.

They were lucky I’d even showered and showed up on time. I hadn’t wanted to be here at all, let alone at 7:00 a.m., but, frustratingly, today was an important day. My sales were slowing down, and I needed the profits that would result from this appearance—more than I wanted to admit.

“Come on, you’re an artist,” I told Annie, attempting to crack a smile. “There’s no way Sabrina Carpenter really looks that good in person.”

Annie sighed, putting the final touches on the television makeup that always felt cakey and never seemed to match my complexion. “That has a lot more to do with lighting than makeup.” She sounded exhausted. “And she’s also really pretty.”

“Well, I believe in you.”

I retrieved my phone from my purse. Per usual, it lit up like a Christmas tree. Nothing set social media ablaze quite like when disgraced best-selling author Rose Dearling did an interview.

My most recent Instagram post teasing the appearance had amassed a surprising number of comments, even for me. I opened the app and scrolled through them mindlessly.

@NastyLittleBitch is disgusting. She should be ashamed.

@NastyLittleBitch should be begging for forgiveness, not promoting that trashy book on The Morning Hour again.

@NastyLittleBitch you should kill yourself.

Notifications overwhelmed me, so I tended to let them pile up until I was stuck somewhere with nothing else to do, like a subway car or dental appointment—or Annie’s makeup chair. I was hard to get a hold of, and I liked it that way.

I had a specific ringtone for Marta and my editor, Glenn. People I couldn’t ignore. Not if I wanted to reap the financial benefits of my “trashy” book. My oldest brother, Will, had his own ringtone too, a high yelping that sounded like the weather alert. His was a call I always answered.

Swiping back to my home screen, I noticed a missed call from Tommy, my other brother, then three texts from him:

Hey Rosie, are you there?

Rose, call me.

Why don’t you EVER answer your phone? Please call me when you see this.

I rolled my eyes, earning me a groan from Annie, who was touching up the winged eyeliner Marta requested.

My brother had always been a dramatic texter, acting as if the world would stop spinning on its axis if you didn’t respond to a message within a few hours.

But our younger sister, Hazel, was the best at answering his calls.

Her phone was practically an appendage, a casualty of being sixteen.

So if even she wasn’t answering, Tommy must have reached a new level of overbearing. I’d call him when I could.

I skimmed farther down to my friend Flannery’s recent text:

When you’re done bringing our city’s finest talk show hosts to their knees, please remember to call me. I hope you drag them lol.

For a woman who’d once been named one of Brooklyn’s Most Outstanding Young Writers, Flannery’s texts read like a drunk girl watching Love Island.

But I did feel bad I hadn’t called her back yet.

Flannery was the closest friend I had nowadays.

Sure, I was part of a New York City “writing group” for young female authors, and sure, we’d sometimes get together on Thursday nights under the guise of offering each other feedback but end up getting smashed instead, but I knew they didn’t hang out with me for the pleasure of my company.

I had sold a million copies of a debut novel.

Hanging out with me—and posting about it—got those bitches views.

Not to mention the suspense novelist in the group who was constantly trying to mine me for content.

Not that I could judge her. I had a good story.

Flannery was different. She despised the social media aspect of our careers, and she appreciated my work for what it was.

Despite the controversy, I was actually a good writer.

We’d first bonded over the last Starbucks apple croissant at the Atlanta airport following a book festival.

Our flight back to the city was delayed, leaving us hours to talk about life, love, and the books that made us famous.

She listened as I told her things about Will that no one knew outside of my family. She didn’t judge.

Her writing was the complete opposite of mine: truly gritty, fictional stories featuring powerful Black characters and their struggles, set in different historical eras.

Associating with me was arguably bad for her brand, but as someone who didn’t care about social media fame, she never seemed to notice.

I typed out a quick response to Flannery:

About to go on. I’ll tell you all the gory details later.

She responded instantly:

Oh and give Mason a big sloppy kiss from me.

She was a self-appointed “shameless flirt,” and Mason Serrano was by far her favorite interviewer on the daytime talk-show circuit.

Feeling generous, I opened my thread with Tommy too and wrote:

Hi. Have a busy day. I’ll check in later.

I noticed that underneath Tommy’s text was a message from a man I’d met on Hinge, and who I’d been out with the night before.

You looked incredible last night. Even better than your pictures. I can’t wait to read your book.

He, on the other hand, had looked nothing like his pictures.

It was always women who were accused of Facetuning their selfies and editing their bodies, but men were the real culprits of deception on dating apps.

They hid behind hats and sunglasses in photos taken four feet away to trick you into thinking they were good-looking.

Or they’d have a picture with four other twentysomethings in a group, forcing you to play Nancy Drew to figure out which dick you’d actually be sucking.

They banked on most women’s unfailing ability to see the redeeming qualities in any man.

But I wasn’t nice, and I did not have that ability.

I deleted his number. He’d asked too many questions about Will anyway.

“You’re on in ten,” Marta said tersely, suddenly appearing beside me in a pressed navy dress.

“I’m going to have to get you a bell if you keep popping up like that,” I gasped, trying to shake the feeling of someone lurking over my shoulder. I dropped my phone into my lap.

Marta looked unamused, her general state when she was around me. I was both her favorite and least favorite client, depending on how well the book was doing. She adjusted the ends of her blunt red bob. “If I don’t surprise you, you’ll avoid me.”

I shrugged as Annie stepped away from the chair to mist my face with setting spray. “That’s because you’re always telling me to do things I don’t want to do.”

“You’ll thank me when you get your royalty check,” she said, raising her eyebrow. “Anyway, you’re on in a few. Go sell some books.”

One of the things I disliked about television studios was how dark they were.

Never-ending windowless hallways flanked by groups of nervous-looking people who kept the show afloat.

Marta did a good job of navigating the corridors as we headed toward the stage, saying hello to the occasional stony-faced crew member.

I ignored them all, walking past without so much as a glance. I was used to the stares.