Uh-oh. My big brother never called unless it was to give me shit. I’d done something to screw up. What was it?
My phone rang again in my hand. My agent. With a sigh, I picked up.
“Yeah?” My voice creaked out, gravelly and hung-over.
If words came across visually, his would be bright red and all caps. “WHAT THE FUCK? YOU’VE FUCKED UP ROYALLY THIS TIME!”
“Goddamn it, Joel, do you have to yell?” I rubbed my face with my hand. It was too early for this shit. Wait, what time was it anyway?
“DON’T YOU TELL ME TO QUIET DOWN! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING LAST NIGHT?”
“What are you talking about?”
That made him pause. “You don’t know yet, do you?”
Aw, shit. “What now?” I’d clearly been up to something, but it wasn’t the first time I’d gotten into hot water. That was why I employed a full team to keep the Ash Black show on schedule.
“Watch it on YouTube. It’s already got two million hits.”
“How do I—?”
“Type in your name. It’ll come right up.”
I sat down on a chair. I had a fe uld be better to be sitting down when I saw this. But, again, it wasn’t the first time I’d had footage of me leaked doing something naughty. People might tsk and wag their fingers, but they loved it. It was all part of my persona. Right?
My agent was correct, a video popped right up under the title “A**hole Ash Black”. Only 35 seconds long, someone had caught it on their camera phone, a perfect shot. Mandy Monroe and me in a fancy restaurant last night. Tears streamed down her lovely face. I looked shitfaced, shadows under my eyes, my black hair tufting out in crazy angles.
Listing slightly to the left, I leered at her and asked, “What, are you gonna do? Cry?”
Her lower lip wobbled, those famous big brown eyes brimming with tears. “Why, Ash? Why?” she pleaded.
“You’re an idiot,” I slurred. “And what’s worse, you’re boring.”
“But I thought…” Her voice trembled. She brought her shaking hand to her heart. “I thought you were the one.”
I burst out with an evil villain’s laugh. Did I really laugh like that? More of a cackle, really.
“I’m out of here,” I declared, standing up and kicking over my chair like a twit. “Go crying home to Mommy.” My sorry ass stumbled on out of the frame, leaving Mandy alone at the table for two with silent tears of pain traveling down her perfect face.
The girl deserved an Oscar. It had been staged, all of it. I knew that the second I saw it. I’d been in the media spotlight long enough to know, no one held a camera phone that steady, at that perfect an angle, with the sound quality so excellent at exactly the right moment without it being a set up. It had all happened, that I knew as well, but she’d arranged the whole thing right down to having someone seated nearby to film it.
“Have you seen it?” my agent asked. I’d forgotten he was still on the phone.
“Yeah.”
“This is a disaster.”
“It was a set up.”
“You and I know that, but the rest of the world doesn’t. And don’t act like you didn’t say all that shit. You know you did.”
Sure, I’d said all that. I remembered now, all of it. Mandy and I had had a rip-snorting fight earlier that evening. It had started out stupid, something about how I’d said she looked pretty in a dress instead of amazing or breathtaking or some over-the-top shit like a character out of a Harlequin romance novel. It had escalated into a tantrum over how I didn’t appreciate her enough. She’d thrown a glass vase against a wall, screaming that a miserable, washed-up hack like me was lucky to be with a bonafide superstar like her. No camera phone had caught that, though.
It was genius, really. Mandy had obviously known I was going to
break up with her. She’d realized she’d milked all of the press she could out of our relationship. So she’d decided to go out with a bang. She had a new album coming out filled with love songs and this would give her just the boost she needed to score a few out-of-the-gate chart-toppers. Hats off to her.
“Mandy Monroe is America’s sweetheart,” my agent told me. Like it was news.
“I know.” I rubbed my brow.
“You just broke her heart.”
“Yup.”
“You tore it up and threw it in her face. And it’s all on video. This is bad, Ash.”
“People love it when I’m bad.” I tried to defend myself, but even to me it sounded weak.
“Not this kind of bad. This is not going to go over well.”
I had nothing to say to that one. I could practically see Joel shaking his head in frustration.
“You had to dump the coalminer’s daughter. On YouTube.”
“Shit, you have to put it like that?”
“Listen, there’s going to be backlash. It’s going to be big. We have to figure a way out of this one.”
“That’s what I pay you the big bucks for, Joel.”
“You can’t make a joke out of this, Ash. You fucked up good. Clean up, fly back and meet me at five o’clock.”
“I’m supposed to head to New York today.”
“Why? Your next show isn’t until next week and it’s in L.A.”
“Family stuff.” This coming weekend I had my family’s huge holiday party. It wasn’t the kind of event I normally went in for. Black tie, so that was a big strike against it. Plus it involved my family, which guaranteed that it would suck. But my grandmother required mandatory attendance at the annual Kavanaugh holiday party. Even a rule-breaker like me had to comply. She might be the only person I really listened to. If you met her, you’d get it.
“Well, come to S.F. today, go to New York tomorrow. We have to get a plan in play. I’ll have Lola and Nelson meet us and…aw shit.” His voice trailed off.