Chapter1
Marissa gripped the door handle of her convertible Porsche as her sister Bev screeched onto Ventura Boulevard.The wind whipped her wet hair into an impossible tangle.She shoved it out of her eyes, hunching over her script and reading the same line over and over again.
“Can’t you put the top up?”she snapped when her hair blew in front of her eyes for the twenty-fifth time.
Her sister pressed the button on the dash impatiently, smacking it over and over again.“No, it doesn’t work, remember?”
Oh yeah.Another thing in her life that was broken.
She looked at the clock.Nine-thirty.She was supposed to be on the set by nine sharp.“I told you we didn’t have time to stop at Starbucks,” she said, wanting to blame anyone but herself for the screw-up her day had become.
Bev lifted her eyebrows, then braked hard when she didn’t make the light.“Chill out.It will be fine.”
“It will not be fine.I told you, Antonio is already pissed at me for flubbing my lines yesterday.Showing up late will not improve things.”
“Just improvise.You’re good at that.Don’t forget, Joel Sutherland requested you as his co-star, and he’s one of the producers.It doesn’t matter what Antonio thinks.Besides, everyone knows Antonio is a temperamental bitch.”
She sank lower in her seat.Normally her sister’s optimism buoyed her, but at the moment, Bev didn’t seem to grasp the enormity of Marissa’s problems.
“Oh hey, you know?”her sister said, starting to dig in her purse as she wove in and out of traffic.“I have the perfect thing for you.”She pulled out a plastic baggie of little pills.“I got these from the hot pharmacist at that party at Chateau Marmont this weekend.”
“What are they?”Marissa asked doubtfully.
“Dexedrine.For A.D.D.For you it will be a little bit of an upper, which is good since you only got, what—three hours of sleep last night?They’ll help you focus.Take one.Trust me, you’ll love it.”
She looked dubiously at the pills.Well, she could use all the help she could get at this point.She popped one in her mouth and sucked down the last swig of her venti iced latte just as Bev pulled up at the studio.
“Okay, I’ll see you tonight.Text me when you’re done.”
“Wait—you’re not coming in?You promised to help me with my lines today.”
“Aw, baby, you don’t need me.Mom and I have appointments to see Dr.Perdion, the dermatologist who uses the sheep placenta facials?So I can’t today.But I’ll be there tomorrow, I promise,” she said kissing the air.
Marissa sighed.Her mother and sister spent every dime she earned and then some.Even the advance she’d received for this movie had been tapped for their never-ending exploits.One more stem cell facial and she’d be broke.
She jogged into the studio and onto the set where she met several stony stares, and a disapproving frown from Joel Sutherland, which made her insides swirl.
“There she is,” someone said, and an assistant whisked her off to make-up.
“You look like hell,” Becky, the make-up artist said, looking at her with a critical eye.“Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Not much,” she mumbled, burying her nose in the script.
“Please tell me it’s because you were up all night memorizing your lines.”
She gave Becky an icy stare and the girl waved her palms.“No offense.I just know you’ve been having a rough time getting them down since we’ve been back in L.A.”
They’d shot the first third of theCanyon del Oroin New Mexico over the summer and she’d been on the top of her game then.This was her dream movie, after all.A psycho-thriller with Joel Sutherland, the iconic Hollywood megastar.Joel had three Oscars and enough sex appeal to melt the wax off her car and he’d personally requested that she—Marissa Sparks—co-star with him.
Filming with him had been smooth.No Hollywood snobbery on his part—he’d been charming and gentlemanly.He’d coached her through some of the more dramatic scenes and calmed her nerves during the stunts.And she’d known all her lines then.
But her life had fallen apart between then and now.Billy Foxx, her rock star boyfriend had publicly cheated on her, leaving her for a supermodel, her mansion was about to be foreclosed on because her mom and sister couldn’t stop hemorrhaging money, and the endless stream of all-night parties were starting to catch up to her.
“Okay, you’re all set.You’d better get out there, they’ve been waiting for you.”
Like she didn’t already know.She bit back her reflexivethanks.She didn’t appreciate being shamed by her make-up girl.Bolting for wardrobe, she slid into her skin-tight ninja catsuit in record time.
“Where.Is.Sparks?”Antonio, the director bellowed.
