Chapter One
Jude adjusted his cell phone on the table, angling it so the mic would be sure to catch his subject before activating the voice recorder app and sitting back in his chair. “Ready?”
The man sprawled on the chair across from him flashed the smile that made women the world over flock to the box office to see it and gave a low self-deprecating laugh. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he joked—as if he wasn’t as polished and camera-ready as always.
Jack Cooper, movie star, was a product. Jude knew the type well after three years working for one of Hollywood’s quasi-legit online entertainment magazines-slash-gossipmongers. Every hair was in place, every answer rehearsed, every reaction—down to the little tear he’d get in his eye talking about his childhood dog—carefully planned.
Jude didn’t kid himself that this interview would strip away that pretty, practiced façade and dig down to the heart of the man. That wasn’t what his mag, the infamous Fame Game, did. No, Jude was essentially here as a glorified stenographer, taking dictation of the message Jack Cooper wanted to sell to his adoring fans this week. Feeding the hungry masses their daily dose of entertainment propaganda, with the occasional dash of sensationalist gossip peppered in for spice. That was Fame Game in a nutshell. Jude, in a nutshell too, lately.
He cleared his throat, evicting his existential crisis from his thoughts and focusing on the job at hand. “So, Jack, what brings you to—” Bumblefuck, Nowhere. What the hell was the name of this town again? Jude glanced down at his notes. “Ah, Libertyville?”
Jack laughed, all good natured charm. “It’s a long story, actually. I should probably start at the beginning.”
“By all means.”
“It all started with a part—” Jack began—and Jude zoned out. The voice recorder app was catching everything he needed and even if it wasn’t, Jude had a feeling the story Jack was telling was pretty much a verbatim retelling of the press kit the little publicist had already given him.
He could have written his story from the talking points laid out in that kit, but the readers liked to see quotation marks and tell themselves they were really hearing Jack Cooper’s innermost thoughts—and not the PR regurgitation of a well-trained monkey.
Jude grimaced internally. When had he become such a cynic?
Though he knew the answer to that one: about five minutes after he signed the contract working for Fame Game. Apparently cynicism was an unavoidable side effect when you sold your soul for a paycheck.
The publicist moved silently around them, taking video with her phone, all but vanishing behind it. She was sort of pretty, in a pay-no-attention-to-the-woman-behind-the-curtain kind of way, as if she was trying to be as invisible as possible—which could be a valuable trait for a member of a movie star’s entourage, where everything inevitably revolved around The Talent.
According to the waiver Jude had signed in order to get the interview, the video footage would be used as part of the Redeeming Jack Cooper Package she was putting together which would then be used to promote Jack’s upcoming film. The package seemed like standard studio fluff—pretty harmless, as these things went. It certainly wasn’t the first strange caveat or NDA Jude had been asked to sign in order to get an interview since moving to La La Land.
Jack picked up the book that had been placed like a prop on the end table next to him and Jude vaguely tuned into what he was saying. Passionate about the source material, blah blah blah. Method actor, blah-de-freaking-blah.
“And that’s where the idea for this redemption tour came from,” Jack enthused, both hands wrapped around the novel which would be the source material for his upcoming film—though carefully not blocking the title for the publicist videoing it all. “As many of my fans know, I don’t drink, I don’t party, but making amends to those I’ve wronged in my life is how I can find my way into the character—a man who destroyed his own happiness with his addiction and is just trying to find his way back, one apology at a time.”
Jude nodded, his that’s-just-fascinating face firmly in place, and waited for Jack’s pause to tell him it was time for him to interject. “Powerful stuff,” he intoned with a pensive nod.
Jack nodded back enthusiastically and set aside the book to launch into a description of his Redemption Tour thus far—and Jude tuned him out to concentrate on the much more important question of whether there was anywhere decent to eat in this town.
Growing up in London had actually set the culinary bar rather high—all jokes about crappy British cuisine aside, London was a cultural cross-section with excellent food from all over the world if you knew where to look. And Jude had always known where to look. LA had only spoiled him more—though the food there did tend to be annoyingly trendy. It was still delicious, and undeniably creative.
This one horse town looked like the kind of place that had a single greasy diner to its name. Not exactly his usual fare.
The publicist had arranged for the interview to be conducted in the sitting room of the town’s only hotel’s only suite—as close to movie star caliber as this place got, apparently. It was charming, in a quaint, faded, country sort of way, but it wasn’t exactly what Jude had expected when his editor told him he was flying out to meet Jack Cooper on location.
The town didn’t look like the kind of place that could support a major motion picture. There weren’t enough rooms at this little inn for half the cast and crew. Big budget productions—as Jack Cooper’s promised to be—were small towns in themselves and none of the infrastructure necessary for filming seemed to be in place here. So what the hell were they doing in Bumblefuck?
Jack continued to spout his pretty lines while the publicist recorded it all on her cell—her mobile. Christ, he’d been in America too long.
Jude waited his turn like a patient little stenographer. This wasn’t journalism—alternating between propaganda and scandal mongering. Though he’d known that when he signed on. He’d voluntarily become one of the bottom feeders when Fame Game recruited him. The reviewers who’d trashed his novel had called him “patronizing and sycophantic by turns,” but to his editors at Fame Game that was a virtue, not a condemnation. They were eager for his particular brand of snark and condescension.
“And there you have it,” Jack wrapped up his story with a smile. “The whole bumpy ride.”
Jude matched his smile with a smarmy one of his own. “You still haven’t told me what we’re doing in Libertyville.”
“It’s the next stop on my tour,” Jack explained. “I’m here to make amends with Genevieve Jones.”
Genevieve Jones.
The name was a kick in the gut, but Jude didn’t blink. He smiled and spoke for the benefit of the cell—mobile—that was still capturing every word. “Genevieve Jones, the actress? The one who was in all the tabloids six months ago after she was caught on tape calling Dame Agatha Kelly a raging bitch?”
Jack held up his hands in a slow-down-there gesture. “I know her name has been mud lately, but I know Ginny and she did not deserve what happened to her after that tape came out.” He grimaced. “And I certainly didn’t help.”
Jude swallowed down his own thoughts on Ginny Jones and scanned his brain for a connection to Jack Cooper. “You two were dating back then?”
“We were just very good friends,” Jack corrected, as if that wasn’t Hollywood code for screwing each other’s brains out every chance we got. “We’d recently finished filming a project together and had become quite close.”
“So why do you have to make amends? Isn’t she the one who called one of our cinematic treasures a raging bitch?”
“I know she said that, but there must have been extenuating circumstances. And I should have been there for her. As her friend. I flew overseas to film on location and we drifted apart, right when she needed me most.”
That sounded like a highly sanitized version of the story, but Jude wasn’t here to get to the truth. He was here to observe and report. “So she’s here. In Libertyville. Genevieve Jones.”
“She’s reframing her career after the incident last year,” Jack explained—Hollywoodese for No one would touch her with a ten foot pole and she hasn’t worked a day since. “And she’s been acting in a low-budget indie project that’s filming here.”
Do they have cameras? Jude bit down on the urge to snark. He’d save that commentary for his column. Right now he was playing nice. Though by the look of the town where they’d chosen to film, “low-budget” sounded like a generous description.
Jack sat forward. “I’m going to surprise her on set this afternoon. I’ve already arranged it with the director.”
Which meant the publicist had arranged it, but who was Jude to quibble? Luckily he knew his next line. “That sounds like quite a dramatic reunion. Any chance you can sneak me on set too?”
Jack beamed. “It’s already arranged.”
“Excellent.”
They went through parting pleasantries, wrapping up the interview, and Jude stood, collecting his mobile and turning off the recorder. The publicist fell into step beside him to walk him out.
Jude waited until they were at the door to the suite and Jack had disappeared into the bedroom before he lowered his voice, just for the publicist’s ears and asked, “Did you know?”
She tilted her head, dark hair falling to cover her face. She didn’t move to push it back. “Know what?”
“About my history with Genevieve Jones.” He waited a beat and dropped his bombshell. “I was the one who posted the tape.” He studied her face—what he could see of it—and there wasn’t a flicker of surprise. The feeling of being set up that had been creeping up on him suddenly hit full force. “What are you hoping for exactly?”
“A good story?”
“Is that a question?”
She smiled a little—an unreadable curve of the lips. “Just do your job, Mr. Law. We’ll see you on set at two.”
J. Harrison Law, muckraker for Fame Game, accepted his dismissal. He’d figure out what their game was at two.