Family Affairs Read online

  Mom looks like she wants to say something, but I guess Laney’s torturous stare stops her. If there is one thing Mom isn’t oblivious to after all these years, it’s Laney’s expressions.

  “Thank you, Laney,” Alexis says briskly. “I really appreciate your honesty, but I am disappointed. I’ve had plenty of offers, but having heard so much about both of you, and being so fond of Kates, I wanted to offer you both first crack.”

  “We appreciate that,” Laney says sweetly.

  “After all, even if the network hasn’t extended my contract, they have awarded me ‘and’ status during the show’s theme song.” Alexis smiles at me.

  “You’re kidding!” I practically choke. “I mean, that’s awesome.”

  I place my hand on the bag holding my Sidekick. I have the strong urge to hit her. I know that’s mean of me, but I can’t help it. I’m jealous, all right? I know she’s not sticking around FA forever, but I wish she wasn’t on our set at all. Laney’s right — there is no way Alexis will be able to turn her contract around. She’s on for a limited number of episodes and that’s it. I just have to survive the next few months with her and then she’ll be out of my hair for good.

  “I thought FA reserved that status for full-season stars.” Mom all of a sudden looks nervous.

  “Apparently FA loves me,” Alexis gloats.

  HOLLYWOOD SECRET NUMBER SIX: Everyone knows that a TV show credit — which is a star’s billing during the beginning of the program — is a coveted piece of real estate. When a cast’s names are featured at the beginning of the program, usually the first and the last names to appear are reserved for the biggest stars. In FA’s case, Melli (Paige) has the first mention. Shows, and movie posters, usually reserve the “and” for a star who doesn’t warrant top billing, but is a big enough name that they shouldn’t be lumped in the middle of the credits, with everyone else (like me, who gets fifth billing, before Sky and after Spencer, who plays my TV dad). Billing is such a big deal that stars actually negotiate where their name will be placed when they’re signing on to a project.

  If they’ve given Alexis “and” status, they must think she’s a star. Does that mean they’re reconsidering her short-term contract? That would mean I’d have to put up with Sky and Alexis. Even if I had weekly Jacqua Buttercream Frosting massages, I don’t think my neck muscles would survive.

  “You must be thrilled,” Mom says tightly. Maybe now she’s getting the picture. Alexis getting so much love from FA is a threat to her daughter. “Well, I hope you’ll still stay and enjoy the treatments.”

  “Of course!” Alexis says. “And Laney, I’d love that list.” The manicurist is done with Alexis’s toes, which are painted bloodred. Alexis slides into her slippers, gathers up her Gucci tote and strappy black heels, and walks toward the door. “I’m going to go get my facial before I do my manicure, but I’m sure I’ll see you all a little later.”

  “Kaitlin, I feel like such a fool,” Mom says after she’s sure Alexis has closed the door behind her. “I had no idea she wanted to stay on your show! I can’t represent her and my baby. Obviously I’d always want FA press for you over her.” She hugs me tightly.

  I’m in such shock I almost forget to hug her back. Mom gets it. For maybe the first time ever, Mom totally gets where I’m coming from!

  “Laney, I’m so sorry,” Mom adds.

  “I could have you banned from Barneys for that.” Laney’s joking, but her voice is chilly and I know she means business. “Don’t ever bring another potential client in like that without telling me first! I was going to tackle you to the floor before I let you sign her! That girl is trouble.”

  I fill Mom in on Alexis’s Jekyll and Hyde behavior. How she’s beyond nice to the stars and kisses up to the writers, but treats the underlings like dirt. How she’s determined to be a regular on FA at any cost. How she throws fits and holds up filming.

  “Classic overblown ego,” Laney tsks. “I don’t buy this innocent act either. That girl knows what’s she doing with the press, the show, everything. Kaitlin, I wasn’t kidding when I said you need to watch out. I don’t care how nice she is to your face. She wants a permanent gig on FA and she’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

  I shudder. “I know,” I agree. “What am I going to do about her?” Before either of them can answer, Liz runs in and slams the door shut behind her.

  “You’re never going to believe what I just overheard!” Liz exclaims. “I was on my way back from the bathroom, when I passed Alexis pacing in a room waiting for her next appointment. She was on the phone and she was yelling about how ‘little miss perfect’ gave her no dirt to use and how this morning was a waste of her time. Kaitlin, she was so talking about you!”

  “I’m not surprised,” I say angrily. “I’ve overheard her bash me before. This is what I was talking about. We have to take her down.”

  “We are definitely taking her down!” Laney echoes with a battle cry. “No dirt? That girl is totally trying to feed the press garbage about you! I’m sure that’s where those new stories are coming from.”

  “I thought Sky was our problem with those,” Mom says, looking very pale.

  “I did at first too, but Sky is also getting creamed,” I explain. “And I think Sky hates Alexis more than she does me at this point. It’s got to be Alexis. I’m more sure of it now than ever.” Wait till I tell Nadine what just went down.

  “I’ve spoiled your whole spa day,” Mom groans. “I can’t believe I invited that awful girl here. How can I make it up to you, honey?”

  Without skipping a beat, I reply: “You could let me take driving lessons.”

  Liz laughs.

  My mom is flabbergasted. “You don’t even have your permit.”

  “Actually I took the test and passed,” I mumble. Mom hears me anyway.

  “What? How?” Mom asks.

  “The point is, I have the permit and I should learn how to drive,” I tell her. “What if the next role I audition for requires me to drive a car? What am I going to say, I can’t?”

  “She does have a point,” Laney says. Mom looks at me pensively.

  “Mom, everyone my age is learning how to drive,” I add. “I should be learning too.”

  “Okay, well, we can just teach you to drive on the back lot like everybody else,” Mom says reasonably.

  “The class has to be done with a licensed instructor,” I explain. “I need six hours of driving time plus fifty hours in the car with a responsible adult over the age of twenty-five. So I Googled some schools online and there’s a bunch near the studio . . .”

  “UH-UH.” Mom shakes her head. “We’ll hire you some top-notch private teacher who can teach you on your lunch hour. I don’t want you going to some public school.”

  “The paparazzi will have a field day if you enroll at some dinky driving school and crash a car,” Laney agrees. I open my mouth to protest. “No buts, Kaitlin. You can learn to drive — if your mom okays it — but classes are out of the question.”

  “But this is Los Angeles!” I argue. “Stars go food shopping, to the park, to the dog run, hiking, and no one bothers them. Why should driving lessons be any different? Sure, there might be a few pictures, but I bet a school wouldn’t even care that I’m enrolled.”

  “It’s true,” Liz adds. “It’s totally ‘in’ to act as if you couldn’t care less that a celebrity is in your midst.”

  “See?” I say. “I don’t want a professional or special treatment like I get with everything else. I want a totally normal driving class where a cranky old instructor yells at me for making a left turn into traffic. Is that so much to ask?”

  “Yes,” Mom freaks. “And I’m sure your dad would back me up on this. You’re not like everybody else, sweetie. We’ve been through this. You can learn how to drive, fine, but you have to do it our way. It’s for the best. You don’t need any extra excuses to get bad press right now. Not while we’re still unsure what Alexis is really up to.”

  “But . . .�
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  “No arguing.” Mom is firm. “Now let’s talk about something more pleasant, like cars. The first car a celebrity drives makes a huge statement. Do you want a showpiece or do you want to be eco-friendly and drive a Prius?”

  “Oooh! Maybe we can get her a Tango electric car!” Laney offers. “I know someone who knows someone who can get Kaitlin one for less than $100,000.”

  “Congratulations,” Liz says as Laney and Mom continue yapping away.

  Congratulations?

  Oh wait, Liz is right! They may not have agreed to driving lessons, but they still okayed me learning how to drive.

  If I can win them over about this, I’m SURE I can make them love the cute, small driving school in Burbank that I’ve been secretly talking to (shhh . . . ). I feel so inspired, I think I’m going to call them this afternoon and sign up. When I come home after my first class (or maybe my second), I’ll give Mom, Dad, and Laney a demonstration of my amazing driving technique, point out how I’ve kept the paparazzi at bay, and then they’ll be so proud of me they won’t care that I lied to them.

  I think.

  Nadine doesn’t know I’ve been checking out schools behind her back (she agrees with Mom and Laney on this one), but I’m sure she won’t be mad. Right?

  SATURDAY, 10/5

  NOTE TO SELF:

  Tell A about driving classes — warn him not 2 tell

  Nadine or Rodney.

  First appointment: Fri. 10/11 7 AM

  Call time: 10 AM (yippee!)

  Finalize Vegas details. Ask A’s Mom 4 permission 2 take

  A 2 Vegas day after his b-day.

  Find dress 4 Homecoming!

  Seven: Learning Curve

  Three . . . two . . . one, and . . .

  “I know I said I wouldn’t say anything else, but I can’t help it!” Nadine is wigging out. “I can’t believe you did this. I just can’t!”

  Okay, so maybe I underestimated. Nadine is beyond mad that I booked a driving class without telling her. She’s downright furious.

  Gulp.

  “You’re a smart girl, Kaitlin! How could you do this?” Nadine continues. At this point, she’ll still be yelling when Ralph, my Wheel Helpers driver’s education instructor, shows up. It’s 7 AM and Nadine, Rodney, Austin, and I are standing at Ralph’s and my agreed-upon top secret meeting place — the northwest corner of West Olive Street at an abandoned parking lot — and Ralph is ten minutes late. Or maybe he’s lurking nearby and is just afraid of facing Nadine.

  Nadine actually sounds a lot like Laney right now. Or Mom. Or even Melli on the rare occasions that Sky and I have a spat in front of her.

  “I thought you’d be proud of me finding a school on my own,” I sniff. I think I’m getting a cold — my voice has been sounding nasally for days. I guess that explains why I feel so chilly. I stick my hands in the pockets of my olive green cargo pants to warm them. I wanted to look and feel like any normal teen taking her first driving class, so I’m dressed casually in Gap pants and a plain black V-neck.

  Nadine glares at me as she zips up her blue hoodie and pulls it up over her nose. She doesn’t say anything.

  Now I feel bad. “Nadine, don’t be like this,” I beg. “I tell you everything. Everything. The truth is, I wanted to figure something out on my own for once.” I pause. “And I didn’t want to get you in trouble with Mom and Laney so I thought it was better if I kept you in the dark.”

  I had tried feeling Nadine out about the driver’s class but she seemed to feel the same way my parents and Laney did — that I shouldn’t take any lessons until we found a studio-approved private instructor who had taught the likes of Mischa, Hilary, or Lindsay (and probably been so easy on them they didn’t even have to learn how to parallel park), and would agree to sign a confidentiality agreement. The whole idea of a private instructor seemed over the top to me. Why couldn’t they see that a driving class at a school would be no big deal? Rather than continue to argue, I struck out on my own.

  “But you always confide in me no matter what the consequences,” Nadine replies softly. “And with good reason. When have I ever steered you wrong?”

  That’s true, but she’s exaggerating because she’s hurt. I know it. Even Yoda wasn’t always right. Was he?

  I thought the extra-early appointment time and top secret location would make Nadine proud, but no, she’s still mad. Rodney picked up Austin on our way here and Nadine thought it was because he was coming for a set visit (on a school day?). Halfway to the studio, I told Rodney and Nadine the truth — my call time wasn’t until 10 AM and Austin was here to offer his support for my first-ever driver’s education lesson. Rodney took it well, but Nadine flipped.

  Why couldn’t Nadine understand that what it all comes down to is I just want the same experience everyone else my age gets when it comes to learning how to drive? This is one of the first major decisions I’ve made on my own — well, if you forget about the whole skipping Hollywood for high school thing — and I’m sure I’ll look back on it proudly one day. If Jen Garner can hang out in the sandbox with her daughter every week and not be bothered, I can totally tackle driving school without a paparazzi entourage.

  “Not only have I let you down by not stopping you from this suicide mission, I’m going to be fired!” Nadine is starting to get hysterical again. “When your mother and Laney find out what I let you do, they’re going to put a hit out on me!”

  I’m about ready to hand her the paper bag from Austin’s sesame bagel and tell her to breathe in and out of it very slowly, but instead I say, “I’ll tell them the truth — that you had no idea what I was doing.” Nadine doesn’t look relieved.

  “Think of it this way. At least she didn’t show up alone,” Rodney says, taking a bite of an egg sandwich oozing with ketchup.

  “I really have thought this thing — AH-CHOO — through, Nadine,” I say. “The school is new, so no one knows it exists, and I’ve spoken to Ralph, my instructor, and he couldn’t care less that I’m on a TV show.”

  “That’s what he’s telling you. I give this place fifteen minutes before helicopters are hovering overhead!” Nadine grimaces.

  “Ralph assured me he would sign a confidentiality agreement when he got here,” I say before sneezing.

  “As your longtime assistant, I would have told you that you should always have them sign the agreement before they arrive,” Nadine says. “Now they can show up with Hollywood Nation and you’d have no way to stop them.”

  I didn’t think of that. “Ralph seemed very trustworthy,” I argue. “I grilled him several times before I set up the appointment.”

  Nadine rolls her eyes. “Austin, talk some sense into her, will you? Remind her how many stars have been burned by people they thought were nice.”

  “I’m staying out of this,” Austin says, holding up his hands in peace, and Nadine walks away in disgust.

  “Between us, I have to say Nadine has some valid points,” Austin says tactfully.

  I would hit his arm, but I feel too weak. I’m sweating and freezing at the same time. Is that even possible? Thank God Austin is here to keep me warm. He’s skipping his first two periods to cheer me on, which is not smart, but incredibly sweet.

  “Seriously, everyone you know thinks this is a bad idea,” Austin adds. “What if Nadine’s right?”

  I shake my head. “I’m going to lessons in the wee hours of the morning when Larry the Liar is still hungover from the night before. No one can leak this to the press, and besides, Ralph told me he couldn’t care less about celebrity culture so I feel positive that he . . . that he . . .” I wrinkle my nose. “AH-AH-CHOO!”

  “Bless you! Listen, Burke, I’m on your side no matter what,” Austin says. “I just wanted to triple-check that you thought this thing through.”

  That’s my problem, actually. I overthink everything I do! Like the other day on set. We were having a great time shooting a scene with Melli — which Alexis wasn’t in — and I was actually getting along with
Sky and having a great time with Matty, and Tom was giving me compliments left and right about how much my acting had grown and all I could think about was that I belonged here. I want to work on FA till I’m forty-something, just like Melli. Who cares about college?

  Ten minutes later the voice in my head was saying, “What if FA goes off the air? What if your career dries up? Do you want to be hawking bad jewelry on the Home Shopping Network? Go to college like Austin and Liz and have a backup plan!” And then the other voice in my head said, “But if you leave FA for college, your career will flop,” and so on. I wish I could just enjoy the ride and not worry about the long term. Today I was making a decision and sticking to it.

  “Listen, Meyers, I’m in too deep to change gears now. Kind of like you and Homecoming,” I tease, finding the perfect segue. I’ve been trying to keep up the whole “I’m mad I can’t go to his Homecoming” thing so Austin doesn’t get suspicious. It’s good actor training.

  “I don’t care about Homecoming,” he says, not very convincingly. “It’s a stupid tradition. I didn’t ask to be nominated.” Austin’s wearing his short-sleeved Clark High lacrosse shirt over a long-sleeved gray tee and distressed jeans. “I’d rather get the parade over with and spend as much of my birthday as possible with you.”

  I think it’s cute that Austin is embarrassed about the nomination. And even cuter that he wants to protect me from the paparazzi — who Liz says have been hitting up students to find out if I’m going to the dance with Austin just like we hoped they would — but he doesn’t have to worry. Just like the driver’s lessons, I’ve got this figured out. The only thing left to do is get used to the idea that Austin could have to dance with his ex, Lori, who was unfortunately nominated for the court too. BLECH.