Star Crossed (Stargazer #1)(28)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Today Wendy did not yell. She was not that person anymore. She grimaced, swallowed, and said, “I’ll call the museum and get the announcements to the media outlets so plenty of paparazzi are there to watch you walk in. I’ll contact the publicity people for all the guests to make sure they’ll be there. I’ll fix it.” She typed a few notes on her computer, omitting the curse words she normally would have included, because Lorelei beside her on the bed might catch a glimpse of the screen. “Who’s on the guest list?”

“Oh, anybody who was going to be in Vegas. Lots more people are coming in for the awards show rehearsals today.” Bored with serious conversation, Lorelei plucked the strings of her guitar and wiggled her fingers on them to make funny noises.

“Colton?” Wendy asked.

Lorelei plucked a string so hard that Wendy thought it might break. “Yeah.”

Wendy waited for Lorelei to ask if they could have Colton taken off the list. Lorelei didn’t say a word. She went back to fingering her guitar, more thoughtfully now.

Daniel had been right about this, too. Lorelei was still interested enough in Colton that she wanted him at her party, even if they were at each other’s throats. Daniel and Wendy might well be able to get them back together. But Wendy had said no to this.

Jet lag was catching up with her. Taking a deep breath with her eyes closed, she pondered the possibility of excluding Colton from Lorelei’s party to avoid another altercation. If she called Daniel ahead of time to warn him they were blackballing Colton, Daniel might stage repercussions. If she didn’t warn him and Colton found out the hard way, standing in the street outside the wax museum while pedestrians wandered by and stared curiously, the repercussions would be worse. The tabloids would say—and Daniel might even feed them this line—that Lorelei had invited Colton, then maliciously reneged on the invitation and humiliated him.

Bitch.

“Sit up and look at me, sweetie,” Wendy said.

Obediently Lorelei crawled toward the headboard like an overgrown toddler. She propped herself up against the pillows and held her guitar in front of her for protection, sensing she was about to be scolded.

“You can’t have another run-in with Colton tonight,” Wendy said. “Everybody understands there are hard feelings between you, but beyond that, you have to take the high road. You can’t keep posting pictures of your private parts and telling him to suck it.”

Lorelei ran one freshly manicured finger along the glowing wood grain of her guitar. “I just want to show him I don’t need him to have a good time.”

Wendy nodded. “Like you’re in middle school. Totally. Listen, pretty girl, there is more at stake here than your battle with Colton. There’s your performance on the awards show. Your concert tour. Your album. Your whole career. All of that depends on your PR, and that’s what you’re paying me to repair. Yes?”

“Yes,” Lorelei said earnestly.

“In PR, we have tools to track your ratings,” Wendy said. “We contract with companies that conduct surveys and ask people if they’ve heard of you and what they think of you. Your name recognition is extremely high, but people say you’re as likable as that executive in New York who swindled her company out of a hundred million dollars, abandoned her husband and children, and escaped with her lover to Papua New Guinea.”

“Oh,” Lorelei said dejectedly. Now she was getting it.

“We want to rebuild your image as America’s sweetheart.”

“No, wait!” Lorelei exclaimed. “Why do I have to be that? There are plenty of girls who have a badass image. Why can’t I be a badass chick that people like better than the cheater lady?”

“You’re not a badass at heart,” Wendy said. “When you try, like in this war you’re having with Colton, you just end up sounding insecure. To be a real badass, you have to be one, and those girls are a special breed. You could, however, be America’s sweetheart.”

“I could?”

“You totally could, but you have a deep hole to crawl out of. I can picture people in a few years saying, ‘Remember when Lorelei Vogel went through her difficult period?’ and other people will be unable to recall this at all. But you would need to start today to build that image. Definitely don’t do anything else to make it worse.”

“But I just posted last night that you were a twat. If I suddenly turn nice, won’t it seem like I had a talk with my PR expert and she told me what to do? I mean, that’s not going to play well.”

“You’re a fast learner,” Wendy said. “Yes, we may have a clean break here from your past behavior, and people may comment on its suddenness. The alternative is worse. Let me explain something to you. It’s wonderful publicity for you to hang out in Las Vegas. There are bars here that your average chick would kill to get into. You can get into them. You need to go wearing your shortest skirt and your highest heels, but you have to look good in the dress, and you have to be able to walk in the heels. Don’t pull a Björk on me, or a Gerald Ford.”

“Who?” Lorelei asked.

“Inside the club,” Wendy went on, “sure, you can drink. That’s what you went for, and it would be weird if you didn’t imbibe. But you can’t get too drunk, Lorelei.”

“I can’t? I thought that’s what I went to the bar for.”

“Maybe so, but the public can’t know that. You need to drink but not get drunk. You need to eat but not look fat. You need to wear high heels without getting blisters and wear short skirts when it’s cold out without getting goose bumps. You have to be a superhero, because that’s what the public expects. I don’t expect that. Maybe the awards show doesn’t, either. But we expect you to make every effort to hide that you’re human. And so far, you are doing a terrible job of it. You’re acting like a senior on spring break from a West Virginia high school.

“Keep your eyes on the prize, pretty girl. I have trouble with this, too. We want our dream careers, but we have to battle against our own natures to get and keep those careers. If you want it badly enough, sometimes you just have to swallow things you were going to say. Like this.” Wendy swallowed, closing one eye as if everything she shouldn’t have said to Darkness Fallz was very hard to get down. “Ah, it tastes good and makes you feel so much better afterward. Try it.”

Lorelei performed her own swallowing act, then asked, “Can I make a blow job joke about this?”