Confessions of a Hollywood Star by Dyan Sheldon Read Free Book Online

Santini pulling a Carla Santini at the last minute. Ella was right: I should’ve known.
    “You what?”
    “There’s been a change of plan.” Carla tossed her shining, healthy hair and beamed. “I’m not going to Europe. Not this summer anyway.”
    “But you can’t be serious!” Sincerity lent a certain poignancy to my performance. “You were so excited…” I don’t like to wish ill on anyone of course – it’s really incredibly bad for your karma – but I couldn’t help hoping that the reason for this tragic turn of events was something truly serious. Like that Mr Santini’d been arrested for fraud or that Mrs Santini’d run off with the gardener.
    “Oh, I know.” Carla sighed as though she had personal experience of disappointment. “I’m devastated of course. Totally devastated. But what can you do?” If the Dalai Lama had caught her laid-back, understanding smile he would’ve thought he had a follower. “Things happen, don’t they?”
    Tina, Alma and Marcia all murmured sympathetically.
    “So what went wrong?” Things definitely happen to me, and most of them are bad.
    But only good things happen to Carla Santini.
    “Oh nothing went wrong really.” She shrugged and smiled almost shyly. “It’s Daddy. As soon as he heard about the movie he insisted on finding out all about it.”
    So that was why Carla left the cafeteria so abruptly; she wanted to call Daddy on her cell phone.
    “You know what he’s like,” said Carla.
    Do I know my own name? Mr Santini is Carla’s father after all. You don’t get lemons from an apple tree, do you? And I know Carla, too. If my mother could manipulate clay the way Carla manipulates Mr Santini, our name would be Wedgwood.
    Carla steamed on, not expecting an answer. “So, can you believe it, it turns out that Daddy knows the director, Charley Hottle. Isn’t that some coincidence?” She paused so everyone – especially I – would know it wasn’t a coincidence. It was because Mr Santini knows everybody, unless, of course, they aren’t rich or famous and therefore not worth knowing. “You’ve heard of Charley Hottle, haven’t you?” crooned Carla.
    There might be a small community of Innuit out on an ice floe somewhere who hadn’t heard of Charley Hottle, but everyone else with electricity, newspapers and magazines knew who he was. He was one of the biggest directors around, known as much for his fervent belief in family values (he had seven children and just the one wife) as for his films. Charley Hottle’s movies contained no sex, no violence and no dangerous ideas. He loved ordinary people and the simple life. Which didn’t explain how he got to be a pal of Mr Santini’s.
    Carla gave a girlish gasp. “Oh, how silly of me. Of course you know who he is. You’ve already met him, haven’t you?” The disciples snickered in a discreet, ladylike way, but Carla gave me the smile that’s been known to blind strong men. “Well of course they got talking and you know how generous Daddy is. He offered Charley the use of the cottage out back – you know, in case he or Bret and Lucy don’t want to camp out in a trailer or whatever it is they usually do.”
    The Santinis’ “cottage” only fits that description if you’re comparing it to a palace.
    “Your father’s practically a saint,” I muttered. The saint of spoiled brats.
    Carla shrugged in the philosophical way of princesses throughout the ages. “So I can’t possibly leave my parents at a time like this, can I?”
    Marcia, Alma and Tina all shook their heads – sadly. They didn’t think she could possibly leave the Santinis at a time like this either.
    “I mean, it’s too much to expect them to cope with actors and a film crew all on their own.” She sighed. “Everybody knows how I was looking forward to seeing the Sistine Chapel and shopping along the banks of the Seine and everything, but sometimes you just have to put yourself second, don’t you?” She was looking