“She Sins at Midnight” by Whitney Dineen
Excerpt:
The buzzing intercom interrupted her conversation, and Lila told Jilly that she would call her later. Hitting the button on the other line, she inquired, “What’s up Josh?”
“Did you send Tibber’s script to DreamWorks yet?”
“About twenty minutes ago. They should have it in another ten.”
“Good, good. What about my reservation at the Ivy? Is everything all set?”
Lila nodded her head. “Yep, two o’clock, table on the patio so the paparazzi can get great shots of Melinda.”
Melinda Forrester was one of Josh’s hot young clients. At twenty-six she had just received an Oscar nomination for her depiction of a drug addicted hooker/college student who beats the habit and becomes an Olympic track star, only to discover that she’s contracted AIDS from her hooking days.
It never ceased to amaze Lila that scripts like that got made into feature films. What didn’t amaze her though was how Melinda acquired the starring role. She assumed that the actress got the lead in the same way that she snagged Josh as her agent. The Hollywood rumor mill had it that Melinda spent copious amounts of time on her knees, and this just in, she wasn’t the religious type.
Lila held Melinda in such low regard that the star had become the prototype for many of the scheming sluts in her stories. Melinda had morphed into such characters as Wanda Toolmaker, street walker extraordinaire turned blackmailer; Lucy Gosling, scheming housemaid, and most recently Isabelle, Countess of Trent, whorish actress who was desperately trying to sleep her way into the upper echelon of society.
Lila was always solicitous and pleasant to Melinda in person. She truly didn’t set out to dislike her. But Melinda, being Melinda, simply made it impossible for Lila to do anything but despise her. Melinda was by far the most vicious, calculating celebrity Lila ever had the misfortune of dealing with. That was a pretty damning statement when you considered the magnitude of the egos that paraded through Amalgamated’s doors every day.
Lila picked up her reunion invitation and absentmindedly tapped it on her desk. She wished she could show up and share her real accomplishments with her old friends. Yet that wasn’t possible. Jilly would die of shock if she knew what was in the letter safely locked in her desk. And if Jilly would be shocked, her mother and father would probably disown her! No, Lila was raised to be a lady. She was from good stock and she wouldn’t risk everyone’s disappointment by telling them the truth. She would simply show up single and childless and face the pity of her peers, her success safely hidden away from discovery.
* * * * *
Click HERE to see other stops on Whitney’s Fictionella Blog Tours!
Leave a Reply