Chapter 28 One Look
one look
Dolly Beckett
“Look!”
I hear the urgent whisper behind me as I step out of the hotel room.
I duck my head and smooth the back of yesterday’s skirt to make sure it’s not tucked into my waistband.
If there’s one place on earth where people stare and gossip more than a small town, it’s L.A.
In Arkansas, people might have whispered about the mayor’s daughter doing the walk of shame after waking up alone, but they’d have the decency to do it behind my back.
Here, the rumors are vicious and immediate, sometimes accompanied by pictures.
I discretely check the stockings I rolled on while I sat on the edge of the empty bed just minutes ago, filled with shame and self-loathing.
I was glad he slipped out before I woke, that I didn’t have to face him.
I see him enough as it is. I don’t need a reminder of how far I’ve fallen first thing in the morning.
When I reach the elevator and push the button, I chance a glance back over my shoulder and see two members of housekeeping watching me, their heads together as they gossip.
I turn back quickly, sliding a pair of oversized sunglasses onto my face even though I’m still inside.
It’s L.A. No one will think anything of it.
In the elevator, I close my eyes and count to ten, trying to get myself together. A Southern lady doesn’t go out in public looking a wreck. She doesn’t make scenes or come undone outside her own home.
A minute later, I step out into the lobby and hurry across, holding my head high like I’m not wearing yesterday’s clothes, like my extension clips aren’t showing in the back and I don’t still smell like men’s cologne.
If I’d known I’d be staying over, I would have brought a bag, but I didn’t know I’d be getting drunk until it happened.
Ignoring the two men openly ogling me at the desk, I make my escape into the hazy, early December sunshine.
I climb into the black Honda Civic hybrid I’ve been leasing for the past two and a half years.
I promised myself I’d get a pink car when I got famous, but so far, I haven’t even been able to quit my day job, despite having a deal with Nyso Records and a big-shot manager who’s a hundred times more famous than I am.
After my first single, I thought I’d made it, but everything that can go wrong in the music business went wrong from that moment on.
Poor sales. A cancelled tour. A fake dating scheme exposed. A second single that flopped harder than a catfish on the deck of Grampa Darling’s pond.
I sigh and check my reflection in the mirror. At least I don’t look as tuckered out as I feel. The perks of being twenty-one.
A girl can go far on looks alone. That’s what my mama always said. I guess she’d know, since she came from nothing and managed to land a rich guy who became the mayor.
I check the time on the dash. Shit. I’m going to be late again, and I can’t afford to lose my job.
But I can’t go into work wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday.
Half the waiters are aspiring actors, and they’ll definitely notice and give me shit, even if they are my friends.
As close friends as you can be with someone you know would run you over in the parking lot just to take your audition for a toothpaste commercial.
That happened to another waitress last summer, and ever since then, I’ve been watching my back at work.
Selling a juicy story or picture to a gossip blog or Your Celebrity Eyes is just as lucrative as a commercial, and I’m not looking to end up as tabloid fodder, especially when I know my parents will see it.
At my apartment, I wave to the security guard on the premises before heading inside for a quick shower.
Back home, I could have skipped at least some of the makeup, but I’d never do that here.
You never know when someone famous will show up, when some record exec will walk in and see you looking like something the cat dragged in.
I stand at my mirror in the bathroom and lean in, applying liner along my new lashes.
Looking good is half the battle. That’s what my daddy always said.
I guess he’d know, since he traded in my mama for a newer model, one who looks more like Mama did when they met twenty-five years ago than she does now.
My stepmom’s closer to my age than Mama’s, as they all like to point out with varying attitudes ranging from disgusted to boastful.
I finish my makeup and check the time on my phone. Slumping against the counter, I close my eyes for a second before thumbing it open.
NashTheWizard: Let’s do drinks and finish our conversation from last night. I’ll send a car.
TheRealDollyBeckett: I thought u had 2b home 2nite
NashTheWizard: The mrs. is staying another night in Vegas with her gfs. See you at 8.
TheRealDollyBeckett: Can we talk about trying to get a third album with Nyso?
NashTheWizard: Sure, sweetheart. Wear something that shows your tits so I have something to look at while we talk.
Cheeks burning, I close the app we use because his wife doesn’t check it. I catch my reflection in the mirror and suck my tummy in, remembering his words from last night.
“Maybe a new look… You could think about losing some weight. It worked for Kelly Clarkson and Adele.”
The comparisons to Marilyn Monroe always stop once they get what they want.
I know I’m lucky. Not everyone gets a record deal, let alone two albums. Nash made that happen.
Sleeping with him was a small price to pay when he asked for it before he signed on as my manager.
He made it clear that was the only way he’d take a chance on someone with no background, that he’d make my career happen if I paid my dues on the casting couch like every other starry-eyed southern gal arriving in L.A.
with nothing but a broken heart and a dream in her pocket.
It wasn’t like I had a boyfriend, I told myself as I got on my knees the first time.
It wasn’t like I was some innocent little virgin, I told myself as he jackhammered into me when we met at a hotel to discuss my career.
I was like every other lovestruck fool who gave her virginity to her high school sweetheart on her sixteenth birthday…
And later got over him by having a meaningless threesome fling with a pair of hot twins.
Okay, so maybe not everyone did that part.
I knew the Dolce twins didn’t care about me, that I was just a status symbol for them, but I didn’t care.
That was my introduction to the real world, the moment I stepped out of the bubble of protection formed by my family and the Darlings.
Three years later, I know they’re the norm.
Looking the way I do, I’m no stranger to being used by men who see me as a trophy to show off to other men, even if I’m not what they truly find attractive.
Letting my manager use me like a jackrabbit teaching a stuffed bunny a lesson in order to further my career was a new low.
Especially when I found out a few months later that he was married.
By then, it was too late. We’d already been hooking up for months, and he’d gotten me a deal most girls can only dream of.
Now I’ve fulfilled my contract, though. I’ve delivered two albums. The first single off the second album just dropped, and it’s getting radio play. We need to secure another deal before it dies a sudden death like my debut single.
I remind myself I’m not responsible for Nash’s marriage, but I’m a traditionalist at heart, and it makes me sick to think about, even knowing that he’s cheating with several other women as well.
If I wasn’t in the picture, he’d still be stepping out with the others.
It’s just part of the business, as he explained when he signed me.
I give my hair an extra blast of hairspray to hold it in place and give it some extra height. What was the saying? The higher the hair, the further the fall?
No, that’s not it. I can’t think of it. I just know that looking good on the outside is the only thing I have going for me.
The exterior is the only thing about myself I seem to have control over, the only part that doesn’t fill me with self-loathing at what I’ve become, what I’ve done for the fame that’s supposedly coming my way.
On days like these, I can’t remember why I wanted it to begin with.
I know it was for Destiny, but I had something to prove, too.
I wanted to prove I was more than the Darlings’ sweetheart, that I had something to offer the world.
But now that I’ve been in L.A. for two and a half years, I’m not sure I do.
Maybe I’ll never be anything more than the curvy blonde bombshell who turned heads in her twenties.
Maybe all I’ve ever been is a pretty package with nothing inside.
Maybe that’s why I’ve spent my whole life trying to fill myself with other people’s approval.