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Now, half the country thinks I’m a betrayal of feminism. The other half thinks I’m a post-feminist betrayal of traditional family values. And everyone uses it as an excuse to run those damn photos of me in a cheap pink Victoria’s Secret panty set, pouting like a barely-legal porn star.
I shake off the unpleasant memory, catching sight of a gas station up ahead. “I better go stock up on Diet Coke and Jack Daniels while I have the chance.”
“Are you traveling back to 1923?” Brooke teases.
“I might as well be,” I reply grimly, easing off the highway. “I haven’t seen a Starbucks in forty miles."
“However will you cope without your skinny venti no-whip oat milk chai?” Brooke laughs, and I can’t really argue, because yes, that’s my order, and yes, the thought has definitely been running through my mind the further up the Cape I drive.
“Call me when you get there,” she adds. “And enjoy the vacation! Fingers crossed, if you lay low for the summer, one of the Real Housewives will come out as gay, or be indicted for tax fraud. Or both!”
“Here’s hoping!”
I pullover at the gas station, fill my tank, then grab my sunglasses and shove a baseball cap over my blonde hair before venturing inside, incognito. I know I should bypass the magazine rack and save myself the torture, but some punishing instinct draws me over and I can’t help but look at the row of tabloid headlines.
‘But I Don’t! Behind the Wedding Scandal of the Year!’‘The Runaway Bride Keeps on Running!’ ‘Avery’s Next Target?’
My chest twists. I should be immune to it by now. Everyone says, to make it in Hollywood you need a thick skin, but I would have to be downright bulletproof not to feel crappy every time I read a headline like these.
I grab the nearest copy and flip through, wondering what new angle they’ve found to drag out the story this week.
‘Avery hitting rock bottom: friends terrified over her wild partying!’
Partying? Ha! These days, I spend every Friday night on my couch, watchingGrey’s Anatomyreruns. And as for my so-called friends? Well, I’m guessing they’re the ones feeding the tabloids all these bullshit stories. I would laugh, if the massive photo accompanying the article wasn’t so bad. I’ve got stringy hair and a ratty T-shirt on, looking gaunt and exhausted, like I just stumbled out of the club at 5am.
I squint, trying to place it, until I recognize the building on the edge of the frame and sigh. My old gym. The paparazzi must have snapped me there a year ago, stumbling out from spinning class, not-so-fresh from a killer workout. They were probably staking out the building, hoping to get a look at someone more famous. Back then, nobody would have been interested in a photo of a C-list actress looking like a mess.
But now?
Now it fits the story they’re telling, so it’s plastered all over the page.
“You try looking good after ninety minutes of high-impact cardio with Mario,” I mutter, shoving the magazine back on the rack. I grab a basket instead, and load up on diet sodas and healthy snacks for the road. I send a longing look at the junk food aisle, full of delicious chips and cookies, but I bypass them for the farm stand shelf of fruit instead. Carbs would feel like quitting right now, and I have to believe that this lull in my career is just temporary. All the work and struggle and spinning classes can’t be for nothing now. My agents are bound to call me up with news about a big new audition. Sometime soon.
Any day now.
“Ugh, can’t they get any decent gossip? Who even cares who she’s banging?”
Voices drift over to me from the next aisle, a pair of teenage girls chatting over the magazine stand. I freeze instinctively.They’re not talking about you,I tell myself, trying to stay calm.It could be anyone.
“You know she did that movie here last year? I heard she was screwing Jackson Kaneandthe director.”
“Like a kinky threesome?”
“No, like a dirty slut.”
I sag back, my heart sinking. Nope. They’re definitely talking about me.
“I don’t get it,” one of them muses. “I mean, she’s not that pretty.”
“Or talented.”
“You liked the movie though.”
“Yeah, but not because of her. I mean, look at her pores.”
“And her nose.”
“She should have married the old guy when she had a chance!”
