Is something wrong with me? How can I possibly be that perfect American girl? How?
I am really quite pleasant, you know. I am low maintenance. I do not demand a lot from a man.
But they they keep they keep leaving, said Jennifer as she shoved the cigarette in her mouth for the twentieth time.
Stephen recognized that his client was upset, nearly in tears. It was touching, and though he at times allowed himself to get caught up in the emotions of his high profile clients, he viewed the emotions as publicity opportunities.
Maybe the jilted Jennifer was a better image move than the mutual separation scenario he had proposed. Look at her. You wanted to hug her, take care of her.
To say Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn separated mutually lacked any market value. It was avoidance. It was weak.
It did not have balls. But sitting in front of Stephen Huvane was a story with balls, a story with value. To get dumped by a string of men can add value.
Look what happened to Judy Garland. Sure Garland s life was a mess and Judy Garland was a drug addict and miserable. That wasn t the point.
The Judy Garland name and image was golden. That was the point. That s what was important.
The market value of the life, not the quality of life.
Maybe we should be honest. Maybe we should approach this from a perspective of truth, said Stephen.
The truth. That would be a new approach, said Jennifer.
Jennifer, there is the factual truth and there is the essence of truth.
Sometimes the facts and the essence are in conflict. So it is my job to decide whether the facts or the essence serves you better, said Stephen, knowing that he was shoveling shit with a big scoop, but hell, it was his business to mix shit into something digestible.
Yeah, so what are you saying, asked Jennifer.
Maybe here, now, we go with the facts. Maybe the factual truth is the essence, said Stephen Huvane. Stephen enjoyed making these pronouncements, and it reminded him that he should write a book on representing celebrities.
It was all a matter of how you said things. Shit is only shit if you call it shit. He chuckled at the thought.
What are you laughing at? asked Jennifer.
Whoops.
His client caught him doing a daydream, a private thought, a mind journey that happens often while dealing with these movie stars who, bottom line, were really only interesting on the screen. In person, they were generally boring, causing Stephen to get lost in thought at odd moments. But he considered it work.
He was paid good money to think things through, and so he was thinking, even though he should be conversing with Jennifer Aniston. His clients saw Stephen as part magician, part therapist. And right now Jennifer needed a therapist.
I am just glad you are rid of Vince Vaughn. He was not good for your career, said Stephen. He just pulled that one out of a hat.
Vince is very talented. People like Vince. I liked Vince, Jennifer said holding back tears.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
But you have class, Jennifer. You have a lot of class. Vince Vaughn is a big lug from the working class.
You are from Tiffany. Vince is from from Home Depot, said Stephen.
Just say it was mutual.
I d rather lie about it. It is no pone s business. I want to get on with things.
OK? said Jennifer.
OK.
OK. A decision has been made. That is good.
Sometimes you get to this place only after talking out the possibilities. So this is good. We go with the mutual separation story, said Stephen.
Jennifer pulled out the gold lighter from her pocket.
See, I have it. And I will use it.
I like cigarettes. And that is the truth, said Jennifer as she lit another Merit Ultra Light.
OK.
OK. Yes. Good.
The truth is good. When it is good, that is, said Stephen. Damn, he really should write a book.
Jennifer was clicking a Bic lighter on and off she held in her right hand, the yellow flame playing off the falling orange California sun. Jennifer Aniston was wearing tight blue jeans, white socks, Nike running shoes and a navy blue tank top with string straps.
What happened to the gold lighter I gave you, asked Stephen.
What do you do with a gold lighter, Stephen? You keep it. You use it.
And if I use it, that means I am smoking. And I am trying to quit, remember, said Jennifer nervously.
But you re using that cheap lighter.
Bad image. If you are going to smoke, you might as well do it with gold, said Stephen.
Jennifer shot Stephen a look and then put the cigarette out in the large tray.
She then pulled out a pack of Merit Ultra Lights and flipped a new cigarette in her mouth, lighting it with the Bic. She took a long drag and then blew smoke rings into the upper center of Stephen Huvane s office. Stephen Huvane was the younger brother of Kevin Huvane, the famous and powerful talent agent who was a partner of Creative Artist Management.
Kevin Huvane managed the money and contracts of movie stars. Stephen Huvane managed the image of movie stars. Publicists were once considered the lapdogs of Hollywood.
They were now the first to call on a celebrity s emergency list.
I like smoke rings. Is that a good image, said Jennifer Aniston.
Only if you are acting in a movie. But the way I have positioned you, smoking is not a good image in general. You are Jennifer Aniston, the perfect American white girl.
Smoking is an imperfection, said Stephen.
What about being dumped by Brad Pitt? Is that an imperfection?
asked Jennifer.
Well, actually, that is a part of the American Girl experience. It is not an image problem if handled correctly, and I think we handled it correctly, said Stephen.
OK. OK. So how are we handling this one?
asked Jennifer.
With Vince Vaughn, I think we say it was a mutual separation, said Stephen.
Is lying part of the American Girl experience?
said Jennifer.
Very much so, said Stephen in all seriousness.
She had just stepped out of the white tiled shower that was part of the suite at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in London, a four-story old wood building that had creaky floors and big puffy mattresses. The bathroom was small, and not the kind of place Kate Moss had grown accustomed. But it was suggested that the Sherlock Holmes was out of the path trodden by celebrities, and so it was unlikely anyone would find her or Pete Doherty.
Pete was lying on the bed in his underwear. And Kate had decided to take a shower, the routine she had started to follow after she snorted heroin, a way to cleanse the outside while being savaged by chemicals on the inside. Pete had a Martin cutaway acoustic guitar in his lap, his skinny alabaster legs pocked with red lines and scabs were in the lotus position.
Pete was plucking at the low E string in a slow beat, a droning sound that was hitting Pete s ear as if it were music. Heroin does that. It makes everything seem like magic.
Pete saw the back of Kate s nude body as she stood on the scale while she held eyeglasses on her face so she could read the numbers.
You ve been looking a little porky lately, said Pete.
Kate got off the scale with her tortoise-shell eyeglasses being the only thing hanging on her body if you didn t include her breasts which, though small, had started to sag like small empty balloons.
I said you ve been looking a little porky, said Pete.
Porky. You think?
said Kate.
Kate walked into the room. It was small, dressed with the same furniture that had been placed there over a hundred years ago.
The drawers in all the cabinets were difficult to open. The floor boards must have been a foot wide with quarter inch seams between them. The mirror above one of the two cabinets was large and hanging with a wire cable that was suspended from a large brass hook an inch below where the wall met the ceiling.
Indeed, the ceiling itself seemed like it was a mere seven feet from the floor.
Kate touched her naked belly which protruded without much fat.
I am not porky, said Kate.
Your arms. Your legs. Your face.
Your hair is starting to fall out, said Pete.
You get this way when you do junk. You get mean, said Kate.
Pete thought about that. Kate had accused him of such before. But Pete was not feeling like he wanted to hurt Kate.
He loved Kate skinny or fat. Well, maybe not fat, but a little fat here or there did not bother him. He was merely making an observation.
Junk did that to him, he thought. You observe, you comment, you are honest. Pete believed that heroin made him a more honest chap.
And one thing Pete had started to observe was that Kate Moss was getting old. The million cigarettes, the drugs, the late nights, the lack of exercise, the alcohol, the pills. The whole regimen had impacted on Kate s face and body.
Kate was in her early thirties but she appeared to be in her early forties. Not in the photographs, though. Pete was astounded at the wonders of photography and lighting and makeup and, he guessed, Photoshop.
But Pete saw the Kate Moss that most people did not see. A woman aging fast from daily self-abuse. Pete was not stupid, of course.
He was on a daily routine of self-abuse as well. But Pete felt he was not aging as fast as Kate. Maybe it was a guy thing.
Sorry. You look great. Never better, said Pete.
You re damn straight. I look fucking fantastic, said Kate as she picked up a cigarette and lit it with a platinum lighter. Kate took a deep breath and smiled.
Play me a song, said Kate.
How bout we fuck, said Pete.
You can never get it up on junk, said Kate.
Kate didn t really want to have sex. She had not had an orgasm in over three years, though she faked it.
Yeah.
Why have sex when being on junk is better than sex, said Pete as he looked down at the neck of his Martin guitar and plucked the A string.
Kate agreed. Pete s half-erect penis, which is the only kind of erection Pete was ever able to muster, was nothing like the massively throbbing organ of Johnny Depp.
Depp s penis was a surprise given Depp s slight frame. But after Johnny Depp dumped Kate, Kate started to lose interest in sex. Drugs were better.
And the mess of a man that Pete Doherty had become gave Kate Moss something to do. Take care of a man. It was easier than to take care of herself.
The window had venetian blinds that created horizontal slits of the white hot Los Angeles light. Britney held a T-Mobile Sidekick cell phone in her right hand and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes in her left hand. She was tapping the Marlboro pack on her left knee that crossed over her right leg.
Britney s left foot was air tapping with the same beat as theMarlboros. The door opened and in walked Dr. Harriet Schwimmer.
How are we doing? asked Dr. Schwimmer.
We are doing fine, said Britney Spears.
Well, not so much. I have your blood and urine tests results here, said Dr.
Schwimmer.
And there is a problem? asked Britney.
Your liver. It is showing signs of fatty tissue, said Dr. Schwimmer.
I am starting to aggressively diet, said Britney.
Caloric intake is not the issue. It s the alcohol.
The drugs. Or it may be something else, said Dr. Schwimmer.
Well, may I suggest that we clean up our act for a month or two to see if the blood work goes back to normal. And you might want to give up tobacco, Britney, said Dr.Schwimmer.
I never heard of cigarettes being bad for the liver, said Britney.
They aren t. But it was not a good thing that you smoked while you were pregnant, said Dr.
Schwimmer.
Let s stay on topic. My liver.
What did the urine test show? asked Britney.
Your kidneys are stressed.
Your urine is very dark. You are either dehydrating or your kidneys are struggling. Again, I suggest we change the life style issues before we start down a road of tests, said Dr.
Schwimmer.
I m barely drinking. And I don;t really take drugs, OK.
So now I am worried, said Britney.
Britney, when we took your blood you were drunk. You drove here during the day with a blood alcohol level that was above the legal limit for driving.
Focus on that. It was during the day, and you drove to your doctor s office for a medical checkup and you were drunk, said Dr.Schwimmer.
I was not, said Britney.
And the file says you were here for a 1:30 PM appointment, said Dr. Schwimmer.
I had lunch. It was like a business lunch. I may have had a drink or two, said Britney.
And you stink of tobacco. When was the last time you bathed? asked Dr.
Schwimmer.
What? What is this?
Are you my mother? said Britney as she stood.
It is typical for alcoholics and drug addicts to eschew personal hygiene, said Dr.
Schwimmer.
Eschew? I don;t even know what that means?
Is that a medical term? asked Britney.
Screw this.
I don t need to listen to this stupid lecture. If you think you can have a medical practice here in Beverly Hills and get away with this shit, you re fucked up. We celebrities don t take this crap from just any old doctor.
So just, so just stick those blood tests up your ass, said Britney as she opened the door and walked out.
It was more like a hammer coming down on her forehead. She was alone in the back sitting on a plush booth behind a table. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were dancing with what must have been a hundred patrons, Paris attracting the most attention as usual.
Britney, though piggishly fat and soft, was dancing with better moves than Paris, but she seemed to be more of a quaint curiosity than Paris. Britney had a cigarette dangling from her matronly fat lips as she danced from the memory of some concert choreography. But paris gyrated falsely with her eyes closed, as if she was feeling the heat of her own glow.
Paris and Britney would be irritating to Lindsay except for the fact that Lindsay was not feeling well. This was starting to happen more and more lately. The Vicodin pills that Lindsay was downing daily were starting to become a fixture in her life.
And Lindsay had told herself that when she clubbed, she would avoid drinking if she was popping Vicodin. But the fact was that Lindsay was clubbing daily, or more accurately nightly. And tonight she had several glasses of white wine and three Vicodin pills in rapid succession, the mixture sloshing her brain around, making the room dizzy and the music a jackhammer.
When Lindsay opened her leather bag she spied the following: a Blackberry cell phone, a Motorola Razr cell phone, a vile of Vicodin, a pack of Merit Light cigarettes, a solid gold cigarette lighter, three marijuana joints, a purple ultra fine point Sharpie, a palm-size leather notebook which contained phone numbers, emails and other private information, and a set of keys. The nanosecond after she opened the bag, Lindsay forgot what she was rummaging for. Was it for a cigarette?
A joint? Did she want to check her email? Make a phone call?
She picked up the vial of Vicodin which did not have her name on it. It was the name of a friend who seemed to have an unlimited supply, and gave her dozens of vials that she kept at home in her closet in a wood box behind a pair of cowboy boots. The vial was half filled.
These were the strong Vicodin pills, the heavy dose ones. The label said Take One Every Twelve Hours As Needed. She had already popped three in the last two hours and she knew that if she popped oned more, she would feel better for about an hour before feeling bad again.
But in that hour, she could get home, take some sleeping pills and maybe sleep it off till tomorrow.
Hey, Lindsay, you want to dance? asked Britney Spears, startling Lindsay.
Lindsay clumsily held her hand over the vial betraying that she was hiding something.
Not really, said Lindsay. Britney still had the lit cigarette at the corner of her mouth, with smoke shooting from her nostrils and puffs forming with each word she spoke.
She looked disgusting, thought Lindsay who was confident that she smoked a cigarette with more grace than Britney Spears.
What you got there? asked Britney, referring to Lindsay s cupped hand covering the vial of Vicodin.
Yeah. Is it like strong Tylenot, if you know what I mean, said Britney with a smile.
Lindsay hated nosey bitches, and it was none of Britney fucking business what she was doing and what she was taking.
I have back pain, said Lindsay.
Yeah. I had that too.
I love having back pain because then I can get Oxycontin. Is that what that is? Oxycontin?
asked Britney.
Damn. Britney can get Oxycontin, thought Lindsay.
I mean Vicodin was cool and fun, but the one time Lindsay had Oxycontin it was one of the best nights she ever had. But her friend told her that it is impossible to get, and if caught with the stuff, it was seriously bad news.
You can get Oxycontin?
asked Lindsay.
Yeah, I guess you were right. That is like Tylenol, said Britney as she backed up with a shuffle, to the music, and slowly turned with her hips and arms moving to the music, disappearing into the crowd.
Fuck Britney Spears. She was trash but Britney Spears had made millions with her stupid music and her stupid songs, and had now gotten fat and sloppy, looking like she was living in a trailer park with her two stupid kids. But she had one thing that Lindsay did not have.
She had access to Oxycontin. Lindsay tossed the vial of Vicodin back into her bag, pulled out a Merit cigarette and lit it, taking a deep drag, inhaling the smoke so deep it filled every air sack of her lungs. Lindsay remembered that she had to be on the set tomorrow, and it was already 1:30 in the morning, which meant she had to be on the set in five hours.
Shit. She picked up her Blackberry to call her manager. The Merit cigarette dangled from her mouth.
She was going to tell her manager that she was not feeling well and would be at the set by noon. Yeah. By noon.
She started to relax and decided to pop another Vicodin as soon as she got off the phone with her manager.
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