They're Not Your Friends Read online

  They’re Not Your Friends

  A Novel

  Irene Zutell

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  COMING

  Chapter 2

  WSHDUP

  Chapter 3

  POSEUR

  Chapter 4

  ADYKD2♥

  Chapter 5

  DESPR8

  Chapter 6

  LYFSGR8

  Chapter 7

  NMBER1

  Chapter 8

  WREK WE M

  Chapter 9

  HOLE LYF

  Chapter 10

  PUB LS CT

  Chapter 11

  ROL O DX

  Chapter 12

  BRayK-N

  Chapter 13

  BALLS

  Chapter 14

  HAZBENZ

  Chapter 15

  SCOOP

  Chapter 16

  LUVWTCH

  Chapter 17

  MIGUEL

  Chapter 18

  N TUR Vu

  Chapter 19

  LUVSPLL

  Chapter 20

  LOTALUV

  Chapter 21

  KUN FES N

  Chapter 22

  NT A FRND

  Chapter 23

  BRKN SP L

  Chapter 24

  12STPR

  Chapter 25

  RE U NON

  Chapter 26

  HICK

  Chapter 27

  BUT R FLZ

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other books by Irene Zutell

  Praise for They’re Not Your Friends

  Copyright Page

  FOR THE TWO MEN IN MY LIFE, LARRY AND DAD

  California

  COMING

  CHAPTER 1

  IT WAS BETTER THAN SHE’D IMAGINED. THERE WAS APPLAUSE, some whistling, even a couple of standing ovations. Lottie’s heart hammered at her ribs. She closed her eyes and inhaled, opened and exhaled. She pushed out an enormous fluorescent smile.

  “Hello, my name is Lottie Love, and I’m. . . well, it’s so hard to say this.”

  Lottie’s eyes flitted around the room, checking for familiar faces. She spotted a soap actor and quickly averted her gaze so he wouldn’t sense her recognition. She swilled some Red Bull. This wasn’t what she had in mind when she dreamed about the spotlight, but, hell, at least she was onstage.

  “I’m. . . I’m. . . I’m an alcoholic.”

  The group cheered. “All right, Lottie!” “Way to go!”

  When she had rehearsed in front of the mirror, Lottie hadn’t imagined the applause. She had planned to stop there. But now, she couldn’t help herself.

  “When I was lit-rully barely a teenager, I’d sneak into the liquor cabinet when my parents weren’t around. It was fun? All my friends did it. But the difference was, I couldn’t stop. I started drinking before school. Then I’d fill up my Boyz II Men thermos with Absolut and orange juice. The teachers thought I couldn’t be more of a typical L.A. kid—loud and always performing. No one knew I was always drunk. It got to a point where I didn’t even know how to function sober?”

  Words spilled out of her. She spoke about smashing her dad’s plumbing truck into the neighbor’s kitchen, passing out during the SATs, vomiting on the valedictorian’s mortarboard during high school graduation.

  Afterward, a throng crowded her.

  “What you did was courageous. I hate to sound, well, clich, but it’s the first step. And the first step is the hardest.”

  “Let’s get a soy latte sometime.”

  “Did you ever think about selling your life story?”

  Catherine, her sponsor, wrapped her arms around her. “You did great, Lot. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks.” From the corner of her eye, Lottie watched them file out. Then Lottie saw him. He stared right at her and smiled. I understand what you’re going through. I’m there for you, the look said.

  Lottie’s eyes stalked him. It was ironic. She’d seen his movies, and now he was her captive audience. How to break free of Catherine? But then he was vacuumed up into the crowd. She couldn’t wait for the next meeting. Maybe there was one tomorrow. The Hollywood branch of Alcoholics Anonymous was the hottest ticket in town. Chris Mercer was the hottest celebrity.

  And soon he would be Lottie’s latest conquest.

  CHARLOTTE LOVE was born and raised in Tarzana, just another strip-mall town buried in the hills off the 101 freeway in the San Fernando Valley. It was a peripheral place, and Lottie and her family were peripheral people. They could almost see the beacons of light swirling in the lavender sky when a movie debuted at Mann’s. They could nearly hear the fans’ applause as celebrities strutted along the red carpet. But though Hollywood was only a few miles down the road, they were as removed from it as Aunt Bertha in Buffalo. When searchlights scanned the heavens in Tarzana, they led to another going-out-of-business sale at Ali Baba’s Imported Rugs.

  Charlotte, or Charlie, as her parents called her (an only child, she’s convinced they wanted a boy), vowed that one day she’d be part of it. She wanted to be the one vogueing along the velvet rope. She took acting lessons. She auditioned for shampoo commercials and modeled for Loehmann’s. In high school she was voted most likely to win an Emmy. But her mother begged her to choose otherwise.

  “Don’t be an actress, Charlie. Look what it did to your father. Hollywood will eat you alive. Get an education.”

  Her mother recited this, over and over, year after year, fueling Lottie’s desire to act even more. “All acting ever did for us was leave us with a phony last name. Love. Love. God, I hate myself for allowing him to do that to us. What was wrong with Lutz? We have no identity, no past, no history whatsoever, because of Hollywood.”

  Lottie screamed at her mother that it was her life and she had more talent than her father ever dreamed of and that no one believed in her and they’d all be sorry when she became a big actress and emancipated herself.

  They fought like this for years. One day, they stopped fighting. Her mother had a bad biopsy. So in between sobs, Lottie promised that she’d go to college and put aside her silly dreams. Right after her mother’s funeral, Lottie enrolled at UCLA.

  Charlie Love reinvented herself. No more tomboy name. Charlie was okay when she was a kid climbing trees. But from the moment she set foot on campus, she decided to go by Lottie. Lottie Love. She liked the singsongy sound of it. The name fit perfectly into her new plan—she majored in communications because it was the easiest way to coast while attending nightly fraternity parties and daily tanning sessions, and because if she couldn’t be a star, she’d cover those who could. She told herself that one day she’d be a young and hip Mary Hart. She would live in Bel Air or the Pacific Palisades or Beverly Hills. She would never spend her life looking in from the outside. Never.

  During Lottie’s final semester, one of her journalism professors was so hypnotized by the way her tiny tank tops barely contained her chest that he arranged a postgraduate internship for her at Personality magazine. The minute Lottie walked into the Wilshire office, she felt as though she belonged there. She had grown up reading about life just over the hill in the pages of Personality. It had been her conduit between the life in the Valley and the only life that mattered.

  Lottie was pleasantly surprised by Vince Reggio, the bureau chief. She had thought he’d be polyester garbed, fat, and bald—a guy with ink stains on a wide paisley tie. Instead, Vince was handsome and well dressed in a taupe Armani suit and Gucci loafers. His face was bronzed and his black hair was peppered with gray and gelled in place, with a curlicue casually yet purposefully fixed in the ce
nter of his forehead. He looked like a middle-aged Gerber baby.

  “All my life, all I’ve ever wanted to do was write. I couldn’t be a stronger asset to your magazine. I can write well and I’m a people person. For some reason, people like to tell me things? So I’ll be able to get lots of scoops.”

  As she spoke, Lottie surveyed the walls of Vince’s office, a floor-to-ceiling chronicle of his brushes with fame. There was Vince sipping cocktails with Al Pacino. Vince grinning ear to ear, standing next to Cindy Crawford. Vince gazing at Gwyneth Paltrow. Lottie was so impressed that she interrupted herself in the middle of her own sales pitch. “Oh my God, that’s you and Tom Cruise.”

  “Yep. And he’s laughing at a joke I told him.” Vince leaned forward in his chair and lightly rested his chin in a fist. He cleared his throat. “Lottie, meeting celebrities is one of the perks you get working here. Don’t drop the ball and you’ll be hanging out with the best of them.”

  THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

  Lottie spent months answering phones and updating agent and publicist contact lists for the magazine. Her coworkers threw menial work at her as if she was some kind of housekeeper. They’d go to lunch without asking her. They ignored her in meetings. Just because she had a mane of auburn hair with a great body and big boobs, everyone assumed she was stupid, probably hired because she slept with Vince Reggio—which was just ridiculous. Lottie wasn’t one of those desperate wannabes who’d screw just anyone to get ahead. Besides, she was a serious journalist. She’d teach them not to underestimate Lottie Love.

  And she did. While those dour-faced reporters left the office and went home to the kids and the latest episodes of The West Wing, Survivor, and The Bachelor, Lottie hung out anywhere a celebrity would: Dolce, Luna Park, Avalon, Belly, Velvet Margarita Cantina, Jones, Vermont, Lotus, Sky Bar, Fred Segal on Melrose, all the trendy bars at all the boutique hotels, the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset, Booksoup, Malibu Kitchen, Starbucks at Cross Creek.

  As a teenager she had turned her bedroom into a shrine of famous faces. She augmented centerfolds ripped from Tiger Beat and Personality with posters bought with her weekly allowance. By the time she went to college, every inch of the floral wallpaper her mother had painstakingly hung was covered by a celebrity. There was Brad, Tom, Christian, Johnny, Denzel, Luke, Jason, George, Noah, Matthew, Matt, Keanu, James, Freddy, Steven, Tobey, Leo, Ricky, Hugh, Marky. She wrote letters to Joaquin Phoenix asking him to her prom. She was crushed when she didn’t get a reply.

  But now she saw him up close. She kept a list of her sightings: Ben and Matt; Paris and Nicky; Reese and Ryan; Justin; Tobey; Vin; Leo; Kate; Katie; Gwyn and Chris; Gwen and Gavin; Britney; Julia and Danny; Ashton; Beyonc; J.Lo. At work, she’d brag about her encounters and recount anecdotes, such as when that hot boy-band singer left Barfly without paying the tab. Or when an actor with a nice-guy image beat up the bouncer at the Viper. Or when a famous actor/recovered drug addict bumped into her looking dazed and disheveled. Or when a devoted family man superstar hit on her. Before she knew it, Vince let her write about most of it for Personality.

  And then they started paying her for going out at night. Getting paid to rub shoulders with the stars, at parties she once only imagined! They created a title just for her: Lottie Love, Chief Party Correspondent. After barely six months she had rocketed from anonymous intern to a name on the Personality masthead. It was a dream come true. Lottie had wriggled her way inside. She was reporting for the magazine she had read and devoured and recited as gospel. She vowed to remember the little girl from Tarzana, to write for her. No more watching a searchlight from across the freeway.

  Lottie was in the light.

  HANK LOVE, HER father, had spent years and years vying to be in that light until he finally retreated to Tarzana and opened up his own plumbing company. Hank Love Plumbing. He ran the business while occasionally auditioning for toothpaste commercials and bit parts on cop shows. He had great teeth. Lottie’s mother had been attracted to his thousand-watt smile back in Duluth, where she first saw him play the Messiah in Jesus Christ Superstar.

  When she became pregnant with Lottie, Mrs. Love made it quite clear that it was time to call it quits. Time to have a bankable profession. For Hank, that meant one thing—toilets. Lottie knew that replacing his dreams of fame and fortune for a lifetime of shit and piss was beyond depressing. And she felt he always resented her for it, but he went into the plumbing business with a vengeance. He took the inheritance his father had left him and bought a big white van, shiny new tools, and a couple of starched white jumpsuits with his italicized name embroidered inside a star on the chest pocket. Hank hired some artist friend to paint his likeness on both sides of the van. If he couldn’t have billboards and marquees, he’d have the sides of a truck. HANK LOVE PLUMBING, INC. WE’LL MAKE YOUR PIPES SING. Next to his motto was the artist’s rendering of Hank, jet-black hair slicked back and a mouthful of sparkling white teeth occupying more than half of his chiseled face. Instead of his long, crooked nose—the nose that ruined his career, Lottie’s mom confided to her when she took Lottie to the plastic surgeon—the van nose was straight and curled up slightly at the end. Lottie thought it looked a lot like the one her mother eventually ordered for her.

  HANK LOVE’S EMPIRE grew. Soon there was a fleet of vans with his mug on either side rumbling along the freeway. LUVPLMG, his license plate read. With each addition to the fleet, a U was deleted from the plate and a numeral added. At last count there was a LVPLMG-5. All the plumbers were struggling actors who’d arrive at appointments as if ready for auditions—their mouths curled in bleached grins, their jumpsuits stretched against muscular arms and legs, their taut stomachs squeezed in, their bulging chests heaved out. Still hoping for that big break, they’d leave a headshot at the home of some high-powered executive or casting director or producer who had clogged up a toilet.

  Lottie had spent her childhood embarrassed by her father. “My dad says your dad’s full of crap.” “Your dad smells like shit.” She would turn purple when one of his vans chugged up a street near school. At least once a month, vandals would spray-paint messages next to his enormous mouth with its twinkling teeth. “I eat shit.” They’d color his teeth brown.

  “All those friends of yours with attitude, well, your father will be the first one to tell them that their doo-doo does stink,” her mother lectured. “It’s an honest profession, and it’s a lucrative one. You should be very proud of your father. Look at all he’s done for you. He could have been a star.”

  Lottie tried to imagine what her life would have been like if her dad had become a star. At her elementary school there was a handful of kids with famous parents. A hush seemed to follow them wherever they went. They were treated better than the rest. Teachers smiled at them more. If they disrupted class, it was only because they were performers—just like their parents. If they failed math or science, it was only because they were so artistic.

  When their famous parent showed up at school, it was like Christmas.

  She remembered when an action-hero actor picked up his son from theater practice. Lottie was in the auditorium rehearsing for her role as an orphan in Annie. She watched as the usually sour-faced principal giggled and flirted with him. Her voice trilled. “Would you honor us with some advice for our young thespians?”

  “You have to love what you do. Once you don’t love it, you should stop. Because it’s a lot of hard work.” The principal nodded and applauded wildly as if this were the most brilliant thing she’d ever heard.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lottie saw the peroxide-white jumpsuit enter the auditorium. Please, please let it be one of his employees, she begged. No, it was the original. Hank Love.

  The principal cleared her throat. Her voice was sharp. “Service entrance is in the back.”

  Lottie was not going to become her father. She wasn’t going to live her life with regrets while making pipes sing.

  ALTHOUGH LOTTIE HAD spent months silently studying celebriti
es at bars and clubs and parties, she was surprised how nervous the prospect of actually speaking with them made her. Before driving to her first assignment she spent an entire hour vomiting. To settle her nerves, she downed a few screwdrivers before leaving her Santa Monica apartment for some producer’s home in Bel Air.

  Lottie pretended that tossing her Cabrio keys to a valet was an everyday thing, then strutted to the Doric-columned entranceway in a low-cut black lace Bebe dress. She gave her name to a tuxedoed man at the door. Lottie Love, Chief Party Correspondent for Personality magazine. He smiled at her and said, “Go right in, Miss Love.”

  Personality expected a lot from her. When Vince assigned her to cover the party, a fund-raising event for an animal rescue shelter, he instructed her to “get the color of the party as well as quotes from as many high-profile guests as possible. Find out who designed their outfits. Describe what they’re wearing, thinking, doing. Who are they hanging out with? Who do they leave with? What are the latest style trends? If you see three celebs holding faux crocodile clutches or wearing short waist-tied pleated skirts or sporting updated versions of the perm or painting their lips with gold lip gloss, your trend alarm should go off. Remember: one means nothing—unless Gwyn, Nicole, or Julia’s wearing it, two is a coincidence—again, unless it’s an A-lister, and three is a trend. Personality readers want the scoop. They want the dirt. They want to dress like celebrities. It’s up to Lottie Love to step up to the plate and go to bat for them. Don’t strike out.”

  As Vince’s words echoed in her head, Lottie’s stomach somersaulted. She found a bathroom—all black and white marble with a three-foot gold statue of some Greek or Norse god in the corner—and puked in the toilet. She couldn’t help but laugh, wondering if her father had had his hands inside its marble tank at one time.

  She wet a white linen hand towel and washed her face. She opened a medicine cabinet, found some toothpaste, smeared it on her teeth, and rinsed. As she was reapplying her Cherries in the Snow lipstick, someone banged on the door. “What are you doing? Having a fucking baby in there? Hurry up.”