“That’s the price you pay for high fashion.” My assistant, Destiny, sweeps by and takes the boots out of my hand, twirling them by their four-inch heels.
“Ain’t that the truth?” I mutter as I make my way back to my dressing room. I glance in the mirror. Even after an hour in hair and makeup, I can still see the circles under my bright sapphire eyes and the lines around them when I smile. Like always, there’s a small part of me that hates that I’ve chosen a profession where age forty is considered ancient, where the Kelly Ripas of the world are the exception not the rule. This past year, I’ve felt the clock start ticking. Not my biological clock—I’m talking about the clock that exists in the minds of all the executives who determine when on-air talent gets stale. I’d been pretty fortunate in my career, starting right out of college as a researcher at Entertainment Tonight and eventually working my way up to on-air correspondent. And for the past three years, I’ve been the cohost of GossipTV.
But I know that I’m only as good as my last sweeps number, and I’m starting to live on borrowed time. It’s a fact that Dean likes to bring up often. He is twenty-eight and arrogant because he doesn’t have that damn clock ticking in his ear.
I lie on the couch in my dressing room and close my eyes, practicing the meditations my yoga teacher taught me. But I can’t concentrate—it feels like the walls in my painfully small dressing room are closing in on me. I might be on-air talent, but it doesn’t afford me much more than a nameplate on the door, a pleather couch, and if you ask me, way too many mirrors. And then there it is again—the tight ball of anxiety lodged in the base of my throat. Breathe, Casey. Just breathe.
Destiny glides in the door a moment later, iPad in hand. “Ready to go over your schedule?” she asks.
“Am I ever ready?” I joke and take a sip of the water she wisely brought me.
“Oh, did Colby wear you out last night?” The sides of her mouth curl up as she tries unsuccessfully to keep a straight face.
Colby! So that was his name. I knew it started with a C.
“He emailed you already?” I groan.
“Yes, he sent his résumé and said he had a very productive meeting with you.”
I put my hands over my face. “It’s the last time, I promise.”
“Like I’ve never heard that one before,” she says with a snort.
Destiny has been with me since my first on-air job and is more than just an assistant to me. From the minute she strutted into her interview, I knew she was the one. She told me that if I hired her, she’d always have my best interests at heart, I’d never be late for anything, and, most important, she’d be the best damn gatekeeper I ever had. Ex-boyfriends from hell? No worries. Bad dates? She had me covered. My mother? Piece of cake. Having already called her list of references, I was well aware of those facts and then some—she’d been given a five-star review from each. I needed someone who wasn’t going to call Us Weekly when I had a meltdown over low ratings, someone who wouldn’t feed damaging information to people like my cohost Dean’s assistant and rumored lover, Fiona, a long-legged ex–beauty queen who’d do just about anything to take me down. I needed someone I could trust. When I listened to Destiny, sitting cross-legged in my worn leather chair, telling me a story about putting herself through college by working two jobs, I knew in my gut I had found a hardworking assistant and someone I could trust. Only later would I realize I’d also found a lifelong friend.
“Okay, so let’s talk about the next few days,” she says as she taps on the iPad and pulls up my calendar. “You’ve got an interview with the L.A. Times Calendar section after lunch today. Tomorrow the car service will pick you up at five thirty for your high school reunion.”
I groan. I’d forgotten all about it, or more likely, I’d just blocked it out. It would be a ballroom full of people triggering memories that I’d been trying to forget for twenty years. “Why am I going again? And who schedules a high school reunion in the middle of winter?”
Destiny sighs. “Is it ever really winter in Southern California? We’ve been over this. You know you need to go. People will be expecting you to show up—you’re a celebrity now.” She laughs and I roll my eyes. “Plus, you promised Rachel. You haven’t seen her much lately.” She shows me the calendar on the iPad like it’s exhibit A in a courtroom. “Three months is a long time not to see your best friend. What’s going on with you two anyway?”