Chapter 1
Go behind-the-scenes with Austin!
“Five minutes, Austin.”
I turn from the dressing table lights and see the stagehand in the doorway. He’s got a headset on, a tight T-shirt, and roaming eyes. The way he’s looking at me, I can’t tell if it’s because he wants to fuck me or if he just feels sorry for me.
“Okay. Thanks,” I tell him. He lingers a few extra seconds, looking me over before he leaves. Maybe it’s the former.
I turn to look at my reflection. There’s something about it that I don’t recognize. It’s strange. I lift a hand to my freckled cheek and tug, as if I could pull off a mask.
I’ve worn so many over the years that every time I peel one off, there’s another underneath. When someone tells me to be yourself, I don’t even know how many masks I’d have to remove to find who that is.
I roll up a twenty and snort the line of coke I just cut off the dressing table. I glance at myself again, wondering if that changes anything.
It doesn’t. I rub at one nostril.
It’s funny how I’ve seen my reflection all my life, and then one day, for some inexplicable reason, I look and there’s a stranger staring back at me.
I run a finger along my jawline to my chin.
I think of the commercial with the owl and Tootsie Roll pop.
How many masks would it take to get to the center of Austin Rivers?
There’s just enough time for me to do another line before I go on. I need to stay sharp. Kenny Kincaid is known for being a loose cannon. If you’ve got nothing to hide, you go on The Kenny Kincaid Show. Or if you’ve got no shame at all.
But me, I have things to hide, and I have some shame. Enough to have taken a Quaalude on the way here. If I do enough blow before walking on, the combo will have me right in that sweet spot of relaxed and attentive.
Bonnie and Floyd thought if people see me on primetime, wearing my “everything’s a-okay” mask, they won’t be too concerned as to why I was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Hospital a few weeks ago.
Bonnie and Floyd tried to do some damage control and keep it out of the papers.
They responded to any inquiries that I just had the flu and was dehydrated.
It was believable enough, especially since the flu was going around.
“Austin?” The stagehand is back. He glances at the coke. “You’ve got about one minute.”
I nod and check myself in the mirror one last time. In the reflection, I can see the stagehand lingering in the doorway behind me. He leans against the threshold, brushing some of his thick brown hair away from his forehead.
I stand and adjust my tailored blue suit, smooth the collar of the bright yellow silk shirt, and straighten the leather band around my left wrist. As I walk out, the stagehand walks alongside me. In my periphery, I see him check out my ass. He makes it obvious. I make it obvious that I notice.
“You know,” he says, “I heard redheads have quite a temperament.”
I adjust the cuffs on my sleeves. “You heard right.”
“Fun in the sack.”
“That’s very true.”
He grins. “What are you doing after the show?”
I give him a flat smile as we get up to the curtain, and then Kenny Kincaid introduces me, so I don’t have to answer.
I walk on, putting on another mask with a big, confident smile.
Lights hit me from the right, the audience claps, and I’m surprised to hear some cheering.
Kenny stands up from his desk to shake my hand.
I feel unsteady from the drugs, so I quickly take a seat before anyone notices. I’ve done this before. I’ve gone onto shows like this, except even worse and no one knew because I’m damn good at making people think I’m okay.
I smile and wave to the audience as Kenny takes a seat, and I take the opportunity to note where the cameras are and the potential angles. I subtly tug on my sleeves and adjust the leather band, sitting casually as if I’m just as comfortable here as I would be in my own living room.
And act as though I’m not nearly stoned out of my mind.
“Wow,” Kenny says with a broad grin as he lights up a Newport. “Look at you. Weren’t you only this tall the last time we had you here?” Kenny holds up his hand a few feet beside him.
“Yeah, it’s been a few years.” I pause and wink at the audience “I’ve grown just a little bit.”
Some people laugh.
“You have. You really have.” Kenny nods, taking a drag from his cigarette. “How old are you now?”
“I’ll be twenty-one next month.”
“Wow. No more little Reggie Camden, huh?”
More giggling in the audience.
I pretend to laugh too. “No, Reggie goes by Reginald these days.”
More laughs.
“Oh, I see, I see.” Kenny leans back in his chair and takes another drag.
He’s got thick sideburns with a little bit of white and gray now.
Last time I was here, I was thirteen and Love Thy Neighbor had just won its second Emmy.
They purposely put me on a chair that was higher so my feet would swing when I sat down. No one wanted me to grow up.
But I did, and I’m here, and I get painful flashes of being thirteen again. Long before my body was poisoned with cocaine and ludes, just beginning a new journey, one that ended before I knew what had even happened.
Kenny chats with me about Love Thy Neighbor for a little bit, asking if I’ve kept up with any of the former cast members since the show was canceled.
The only one I’ve kept up with is Margie Thurmond, who played Peggy Marshall, Reggie’s neighbor.
Our characters were the same age and so are we.
This might be a setup to ask if I’m dating Margie, so I prepare myself. But Kenny doesn’t go there.
He goes somewhere else instead.
“So, you were in Roller Rink… what was it, last year?” Kenny says, leaning on his desk. “With, um, Krissy Seaborn? Right?”
“Right.” My pits start to sweat.
Roller Rink flopped so bad I refused to do anymore promotions for it. It was embarrassing. I’ve struggled with getting adult roles since Love Thy Neighbor ended. Last year, all I could manage was that stupid movie and guest starring on Fantasy Island.
It’s strange to be flooded with attention for years, to be sought after, to have girls writing letters of their undying devotion, and then have it all dry up in the blink of an eye. I guess no one wants to believe they’ll be forgotten.
I try to avoid any embarrassment by answering Kenny with some wisecracks about my roller skating skills. I try to get him and the audience to laugh. It works.
Kenny asks about my future projects, and I casually tell him I don’t have much going on right now because I’m taking a little break. I make it sound like that’s been the plan all along. No big deal. I can almost believe it’s true.
But Kenny raises a bushy brow. “A break, huh? You going to school or something?”
I shrug and flash a grin. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
“I’m sure we will.” Kenny leans back in his seat. “So, how are you otherwise?” He pauses. “How’s Harvey Laden?”
My entire body clenches at the sound of his name. A ripple of awkward laughter runs through the audience. Kenny turns to give them one of his deadpan looks, and more snickering follows. The bruise around my right eye is gone, but my face aches as if I’ve just been hit.
The audience is laughing at me. They all know what happened between Harvey and me in front of The Roxy a couple months ago.
Bonnie, Floyd, and my agent tried to stop the rags from printing the photos, but it was too late.
One shows me on top of Harvey, my fist raised to punch him.
It was not my best night. Scratch that. It was a horrible night.
And it was all photographed for everyone to see.
I quickly grin and pretend to laugh, shaking my head to hide the tension. When the laughter dies down, I say, as innocently as I can, “What do you mean?”
The crowd erupts in more laughter, a few people clapping, as Kenny gives me another one of his looks.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kenny says. “Something about a meeting of the minds you two had?”
The audience laughs even more.
I go along with it. “Oh yeah. I remember now. When we got together to discuss world peace.”
More laughs surge from the audience, and Kenny joins in.
“Sure. Something like that.” He taps his note cards on the desk and leans forward. “I was just sort of wondering when you two might bury the hatchet, so to speak.”
In one of the papers, they said Harvey and I were fighting over a girl. I don’t mind if people think that. It’s a believable enough explanation. I’m sure everyone here tonight believes it.
I clear my throat and casually stretch an arm on the back of the seat beside me. “Now, Kenny, you know there weren’t any hatchets. It was just our fists.”
I get the audience to laugh again, and Kenny smiles.
“Sure, I know,” he says. “But I was just hoping you two might be good friends again one day.”
Harvey and I were never friends. Not once.
Not ever. I don’t know why Kenny or anyone else would think that.
I think it has something to do with us appearing in the same magazines together.
And sometimes at the same parties, like my sixteenth birthday party, when all this sort of began.
But I was also in those magazines and at those parties with Donnie Osmond, David Cassidy, and Christopher Knight, and I’m not really friends with them.
But Harvey and I have a history. I have no idea why anyone would think we’d been friends at any point.
For the briefest moment, it creeps into my mind that someone blabbed about Harvey at my New Year’s party.
I didn’t invite him, but he showed up like the fucking arrogant asshole he is.
I try to scrub thoughts of that night out of my mind.
I shrug and smile at Kenny. “Who knows? Maybe one day.”