A commercial played without sound, and there she was, the model with the back tattoo, sashaying in an ad for Victoria’s Secret. What was her name, Jeannette? If the same had happened to her, I understood why she hadn’t warned me explicitly.

When Emily saw me, she gasped, but stopped herself from giving me a bear hug and instead she gingerly placed her arms around me. “Are you okay?” she breathed. Her gaze drifted to my cheek, which was puffy on the left side where he’d cuffed me.

“I’m fine. Fell down some stairs.”

“But your face . . .”

“Smacked into the banister. Can we go?”

I wondered if this was an isolated incident and I was just blowing it all out of proportion. The nurse asked about my periods, but it had been months since my last cycle. I wasn’t pregnant, just undernourished and brittle-boned, and maybe any amount of force would have broken my arm.

In the car, Emily drove silently for a few minutes before saying, “You’re lucky you didn’t lose any teeth. My friend Tracy tripped at a park once and hit her head on part of a jungle gym. Her mouth was bleeding all over and now she has three fake teeth right here.” She tapped her top right incisor, her face tinted green from a passing traffic light.

I acknowledged that with a guttural noise.

“I get it. You’re tired. I’ll just . . .” She snapped on the radio. We drove along surface streets like that for a few minutes, but after the current song finished, the next was by Stephen St. James. I turned the volume dial down and rubbed my bare shoulder. “Do you have a sweater somewhere in here?” My rumpled dress was thin and I was cold, but mostly I didn’t want to hear his voice.

“I have a dog towel . . . it’s a little furry, sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Grimacing as I twisted in the seat, I pulled the towel from the back and wrapped it one-armed around myself.

“Did you get to see any of the show?” she asked.

“No, I missed all of it.”

“Oh. Well, Stephen won Original Song for this.” She turned the volume back up.

“Good for him.” I couldn’t stand it anymore, though. “Could we turn off the radio? My head hurts.”

“Oh.” Emily sounded chastised. “Of course.” She clicked it off completely and we continued driving in the quiet.

Tinkerbellatrix [OP] (May 12, 2017. 6:42 pm)

Final trailer for Lunch at Midnight just dropped. Link.

Formershopgirl (May 12, 2017. 6:43pm)

I was gonna share this & you beat me to it! Anyone catch Rosy Gloss real fast at 1:40? Her face looks different.

Tacoxxtaco (May 12, 2017. 6:45pm)

I feel like I haven’t heard about Gloss in forever.

Pilateschick411 (May 12, 2017. 6:45pm)

True to her name, Tasty ate so much that she is unrecognizably fat.

Formershopgirl (May 12, 2017. 6:47pm)

That is incredibly rude. She doesn’t look like she did 10 years ago because people age.

Pilateschick411 (May 12, 2017. 6:50pm)

Then why are Rosy and Cherry still skinny?

Bookish_Owl_8 (May 12, 2017. 6:53pm)

Rose is obviously still working in Hollywood so she’s probably gotten work done. That definitely doesn’t look like her original nose or chin and I bet she’s gotten lipo too. I’m surprised Meredith had the time to film this movie tho. She has her entire brand empire going, plus she’s probably going to start managing her daughter’s modeling career (or be involved in some way). Why would she stoop to this? She doesn’t need the money.

Tinkerbellatrix [OP] (May 12, 2017. 7:01pm)

I totally thought the same thing, Bookish. I can only imagine that she’s doing it to be a good sport to Rose. It’s clear to me that Rose wants to keep working even though she is the least talented Gloss. She knows she’s a terrible singer so she’s trying to break into acting.

BalleRina007 (May 12, 2017. 7:03pm)

Okay, she’s not the strongest vocalist but if you ever went to a Gloss show you’d know Rose is charismatic af with stage presence out the wazoo. You couldn’t look away. Rose carried like 90% of their performances. You know the least talented spot is reserved for Sassy.

Bookish_Owl_8 (May 12, 2017. 7:10pm)

Yikes. Too soon.

BalleRina007 (May 12, 2017. 7:11pm)

I call it like I see it. She was the weakest link.

Formershopgirl (May 12, 2017. 7:13pm)

I don’t understand how you can say Cassy was the weakest link. They were the biggest girl group in the world. When C left, the entire group collapsed. She was everything holding them together.

Bookish_Owl_8 (May 12, 2017. 7:15pm)

Ballerina, I thought that they were ALL so talented. I still remember seeing the 2002 MVAs and I was just in awe of their live performance of “Prime.” That song and its insane music video are both so iconic.

Tacoxxtaco (May 12, 2017. 7:17pm)

Sorry just coming back to this but you know it’s just a cameo rite? They are in the movie for like 4 seconds. Stan Harold asked like ten girl groups to cameo for them. Joyride is in there too.

Pilateschick411 (May 12, 2017. 7:21pm)

Joyride is talentless.

Tacoxxtaco (May 12, 2017. 7:28pm)

Anyone else think Pilateschick would be real fun to bring to parties

26.

April 2002

Prime Tour: Europe

Cassidy

A grainy paparazzo photo of me with my arm in a cast, exiting the double doors of the hospital, was on every gossip site come Tuesday morning and printed in magazines the following week—covers were reserved for Oscar winners, of course, but my plight was on page six—and every one of them questioned what had happened.

Confidentiality, the nurses had said. Yet someone had called the paps.

I had known I couldn’t trust the hospital staff. I was right to toss that card.

I couldn’t trust anyone.

Before Gloss, I would sometimes have moments—a few days, maybe a week—when my mind felt like a dark room with a single, bare window. It felt impossible to do anything, and being one kid in a family of seven meant that I wasn’t often missed if I skipped dinner or stayed in bed. Sometimes it would be cloudy outside, so the window would let dim light into the dark room. Sometimes it was sunny, and everything was bright. But some really low days, the window wouldn’t open, and the room stayed black. After a long while, the window would open slightly, letting in light, and things would return to normal. I’d been too busy with Gloss to let the dark room bother me, but with my arm in pain, it reappeared when I took the Vicodin.

I recognized the dark room immediately. It was the place where I was told I would never be anything, that I was a bad person. That I deserved the broken bone and the pain. It was where I’d whisper to myself I wasn’t skinny enough or talented enough. But it was familiar, and I took comfort in that.

Alex had betrayed me, Stephen had hurt me, and Emily didn’t know the truth but at least she didn’t ask for any other explanation. When Peter heard about my injury, he got the same excuse I gave to everyone, and that is what the tabloids ran with. It was great exposure, my mystery broken arm—intriguing enough for the press to ask about it, but not severe enough to limit the press I’d have to do for Prime.

I could see Peter’s satisfaction in my blatant lie; he didn’t care because it didn’t affect the bottom line. Already, the music video was a hit, requested nonstop on Music Video Channel and MTV.

Merry was getting her share of the attention too. Her stint as Grant Kidd’s “guest” during his house fire put a lot of attention on her. Their subsequent breakup, confirmed through his publicist and published in People, had raised even more questions.

An album release and an international tour waits for no one and nothing, so although I’d have to keep the cast on for the first two weeks of tour, everything went on as planned, albeit with eleven alterations to my tour wardrobe. “What did you do to yourself, darling?” Ang, our tailor, lamented as he took new measurements over my cast to make sleeves for all of my stage outfits.

We started in London, where Gloss was headlining not one, but two, back-to-back sold-out shows with more than eighty thousand tickets sold. From there, Manchester, Dublin, Lisbon, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Paris. The stadiums were booked, with twelve trucks full of sets, seventy crew members—some of them the same crew rehired from our last tour, including Gus the driver—loaded on nine buses, and forty-four outfits among just the four of us. There could be no alterations, no room for improvising or mistakes. We had practiced every routine to perfection.

Which meant that, of course, everything went to shit.

It began with Merry missing steps and lagging half a beat behind the rest of us. The first time it happened in London, she hastily caught up by the end of the song. We attributed it to nerves. By the third time, on the fifth song of the night, Rose was staring daggers. Every show had a half-hour intermission for concertgoers to queue up at the bathroom or buy concessions and merchandise, and for us to get into our most elaborate outfits. Ang was backstage helping me with snaps and buttons, which is probably why Rose didn’t chew Merry out as harshly as she would have otherwise. “What is going on with you?” she hissed.