“Mom, you’re my manager, not my publicist. Don’t you think you should leave it for Lauren to decide what talk shows would be best for me to do?”
Her mother was silent for a moment, which would have alerted Grace to the fact that something was going on, even if she hadn’t already known.
“About that,” her mother said and cleared her throat. “I called Ms. Chandler this morning and told her we’d prefer to go with another publicist.”
Grace took a deep breath. “No, Mom. We are not going with another publicist.” There. She’d said it.
“Darling, I’m afraid you don’t understand.”
“No. You are the one who doesn’t understand. You can’t keep making decisions like this without even consulting me first. This has to stop—now!”
Her mother sucked in an audible breath, not used to Grace talking to her in such a firm tone. “I’m only trying to do what’s best for you.”
Grace sighed. “I know,” she said, more softly now. “And I appreciate it. I really do; you know that. But firing one publicist in a week is more than enough. I say we stick with Lauren for now.”
“But she’s gay,” her mother said.
“Yes, she is. That doesn’t make her a bad publicist.”
“Maybe not, but what if people think—?”
“What if they think I fired her just because of her sexual orientation? I can’t afford to alienate any demographic group,” Grace said, using the only argument she knew would work with her mother. “Being caught discriminating against employees is a serious thing.”
Her mother gulped. Finally, she said, “At the very least, she should be more discreet if she wants to continue working as your publicist.”
No way was she telling Lauren that. Grace said nothing.
“So,” her mother said, “what do you think about doing The Tonight Show?”
Lauren knocked on Marlene’s door at nine the next morning.
Marlene was on the phone but waved her in.
While Lauren sat in the visitor’s chair and listened to Marlene artfully buttering up an Academy member, she mentally went over her to-do list for the day.
After a minute or two, Marlene ended the call and gave Lauren her full attention. “What can I do for you?”
“Have you checked Twitter this morning?”
“Not yet. What’s going on?”
“K-Cee got into a fight with a fan who tweeted that he didn’t like K-Cee’s new album.”
Marlene groaned. “How bad was it?”
“Let’s just say I learned a few new cuss words,” Lauren said. For a man who wrote such boring lyrics, he’d come up with some pretty imaginative insults; she had to give him that. “This is the fourth PR nightmare he’s created in as many weeks. Or is it the fifth? I’ve lost track.”
“What do you recommend?” Marlene regarded her as if she was testing her again, trying to see if she’d stick to her principles.
Lauren calmly met her gaze. “We should give him the ax. Life’s too short to work with clients who never listen. If he continues like this, he won’t just harm his own reputation but ours too.”
Marlene tapped her chin twice and then nodded. “Okay. Do you want me to let him know, or do you want to do the honors?”
“I’ll do it.” It wasn’t that Lauren enjoyed dropping clients from her roster, no matter how difficult they were, but this was her last duty as K-Cee’s publicist, so she didn’t want to shirk it.
“Good.” Marlene turned her attention to her computer screen, wordlessly dismissing her.
Lauren got up and walked to the door.
When she opened it, Marlene’s voice reached her. “Ms. Durand called me yesterday.”
Lauren turned back around.
“She said it was all just a misunderstanding.”
A misunderstanding. Sure. Suppressing a huff, Lauren nodded. “I went over to her house yesterday, and we cleared the air between us. I’m confident there won’t be any other problems.”
“Let’s hope not,” Marlene said.
Lauren heard what she wasn’t saying: or your career at CTP will be toast.
CHAPTER 5
Lauren’s phone rang for the fifth time since she’d sat down to put together the PowerPoint presentation. Still clicking away on the slide she was working on, she reached for the phone and tucked it between her shoulder and ear so she could continue to work. “Chandler & Troy Publicity, Lauren Pearce speaking.”
“Hi, Lauren,” a man’s voice came through the receiver. Before Lauren could place the familiar voice, he added, “This is Stan. Stan Zaleski. I wanted to give you a heads-up about one of your clients.”
Stan regularly blogged for Hollywood Affairs, a website that posted news about the love lives and sexcapades of celebrities. Lauren had managed to build a relationship with him in the past year, knowing good connections to the media paid off, even if she personally didn’t like their style of reporting. She bolded the improved social media statistics in the presentation. “Thanks, Stan. You know I always appreciate that. So,” she said with a laugh, “who got caught cheating this week?”
“Grace Durand.”
The phone slipped and nearly crashed to the floor. Lauren caught it just in time and hurriedly brought it back to her ear. “I didn’t think you were reading drivel like Tinseltown Talk, Stan. You know that nine times out of ten, they just pull the stories they run out of their asses.”
Stan chuckled. “True. But not this time. I did some digging, and I’ve got a source who swears that Grace spent the night with another actress at the Ocmulgee Riverside Inn while they were shooting in Macon.”
Lauren closed the presentation, her attention now fully on the phone call. “People think they see celebrities all the time. They imagine all kinds of things; you know that,” she said, trying to sound casual even though the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Things didn’t look good for Grace. News like that fit right into Stan’s monthly column, The Celluloid Closet, in which he often outed celebrities.
“So you think my witness also imagined them booking the room using a credit card that was registered to someone named Betty G. Duvenbeck?”
Shit. Lauren instantly recognized Grace’s less-than-glamorous birth name. “Even if it were her—and I’m not saying it was—can’t two colleagues share a hotel room without people misconstruing it as something else?”
Stan barked out a sarcastic laugh. “When was the last time you shared a hotel room with a woman in a purely friendly fashion?”
Lauren gritted her teeth. “That’s different. I’m gay.”
“And so is she,” Stan said.
“Stan, you know me. You know I always advise my clients to come out. Don’t you think I would have told her the same if she were gay?”
That made him pause for a second. “If she’s not, she can tell me so herself. I’d really like to include a direct statement from her before I put the article online.”
“What’s your deadline?” Lauren asked. She hated playing his game, but she knew he would post his article with or without her help. At least this way, she could have some control over what he wrote.
“I want to post it before the people on the East Coast are asleep.”
“Today? I don’t even know if I can get a hold of her that fast. Come on, give me some time,” Lauren said. “If what you say is true, it’ll still be a big story tomorrow. But if you’re wrong, it’ll make the entire Celluloid Closet series look dubious.”
He hesitated.
Lauren sensed that she had him hooked. Now she needed to reel him in slowly, using another bait. “Give me until tomorrow, and I’ll throw in an interview with one of my high-profile clients.”
“Deal,” he said. “But I need her statement by noon tomorrow, or I’ll post what I have. I’m sick of celebrities hitting it rich with straight flicks while leading a double life, as if being gay were a dirty little secret they needed to hide.” Stan, gay himself, was passionate in his belief that the stars and starlets had a social responsibility to come out and make it easier for gay and lesbian teenagers to do the same.
Lauren knew he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on his column, with or without a statement from Grace. “I’ll get you a statement on time.” She ended the call and jumped up. Leaning over her desk, she powered down her computer. On her way out the door, she stopped at Tina’s desk. “I need you to clear my schedule for the rest of the day.”
Tina opened Lauren’s calendar on her computer screen. “Even the event with your parents tonight?”
Especially the event with my parents. “Tell them I’ll try to make it.”
When she stepped out of the elevator, she reached for her phone and called Grace, not wanting to show up unannounced a second time.
The call went straight to voice mail.
Cursing, Lauren got into her car.
Nick aimlessly walked around the living room, touching the armchair, the coffee table, and the lamp in the corner as if refamiliarizing himself with everything after being gone from the house for months.
From her place on the couch, Grace watched him without saying anything. He looked good—the quintessential action star with a healthy tan, windblown dark hair, and impossibly broad shoulders.