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“You’re… kind of naïve.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. April thoughtIwas naïve?Shewas the one who legitimately thought that dancing on social media would bring her millions of followers. And thenshewas the one who thought she could work as an extra on a movie, be spotted by an agent, and become a famous Hollywood actress. Although… that’s exactly what had happened to me, so maybe it wasn’t such a naïve idea after all?
Not that I was famous. And as much as I liked fantasizing about a career in Hollywood, I was realistic enough to know that it was unlikely toactuallyhappen.
“How am I naïve?”
April winced. She clearly didn’t want to have this conversation, but that was too bad. I did.
“Come on, Kyla, you’ve always trusted men too much. Look at Cameron and Eric.”
Two exes who were both as bad as each other. Eric was the high school boyfriend I’d lost my virginity to at the Lakeside Lodge and Cameron was the bad boy who, it turned out, wasn’t “bad” so much as just an asshole who stole money from donation boxes and spent it on gambling.
“That’s different,” I protested. “Cameron said he wanted to marry me. I never thought this would go anywhere — I know that Dean’s a famous actor and I’m not. But I wasn’t expecting him to ignore me.”
Jamie looked from April to me.
“Isn’t he with Brooke? Maybe that’s why he’s not talking to you. Because he’s worried that she might find out.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to open that can of worms, especially with April in her current mood.
“Maybe.”
“My take is that you can never trust men,” April said with absolute certainty. “No matter who they are and whether they’re famous or not.”
I didn’t say anything, but deep down, I suspected she might be right.
20
DEAN
Things on the set ofPushing Daisywere going from bad to worse.
First, there was Brooke’s meltdown.
Second, I’d broken my promise to Tonia, my publicist, and slept with Kyla.
Third, just as Kyla was getting into the groove and figuring out how to nail her scenes, bad press had begun to trickle through.
And according to everyone from Preston to the production company, it was my responsibility to fix it. Kyla was too green, Isaac’s career history would be dragged over the coals, and Wyatt was a comedian — he wasn’t taken seriously enough to bring a movie any credibility. I was the one who sounded charming on the phone, looked great on camera, and could reassure the world that everything was fine and that Preston fired Brooke simply because she wasn’t right for the role.
So for the past week, I’d spent every spare moment on the phone or doing video calls, doing interviews with every news outlet that would speak to me.
The bad press had started with a video of Brooke at a nightclub, so drunk that she was barely conscious. She leanedover to grab a drink that someone offered her and her miniskirt rode up, revealing her G-string. Her script was next to her, the front pages looking disheveled and dog-eared.
“This movie is shit,” she said to the businessman sitting next to her, flinging her arm out, so her drink sloshed over the side of the glass. “The script is shit, the director’s shit, and the extras — fucking hell, they’re morons.”
The man smiled politely as Kyla continued her rant.
“And Dean, he takes everything so fuckingseriously, you know?Why haven’t you learned your lines, Brooke? Maybe you should stop drinking, Brooke.” She grabbed the man’s knee. “You know what I say to that? Maybe you should go fuck yourself, Dean.” After squeezing the man’s knee, she tilted her glass to her mouth and swallowed the whole cocktail in one gulp.
Now here I was, trying to reframe her rant and put a different narrative out into the world.
“Our relationship has gone from strength to strength,” I said to one journalist who’d already printed a blind item story about Brooke hooking up with the businessman after the video was filmed. “Yes, she’s in Hollywood and I’m in Australia, but we speak daily and are closer than ever… No, she didn’t cheat on me… No, we’re not engaged yet, but she’s the love of my life and I don’t need a piece of paper to confirm it.”
Love of my life.I was glad she couldn’t see the grimace on my face when I said those words.
I fed her a few more talking points from Tonia before hanging up and finding that another four media outlets had tried to call while I was speaking to her.
