I ask.
“Like no privacy,” she says. “Like not knowing if someone is kissing your butt because they like you or because you’re famous or because you could do something for them. High school is tough enough without those kinds of issues. If you don’t want to do this, Em, we’ll tell Ashley and Blair no . Sleep on it, sweetie.”
“Okay,” I say, and she kisses me on the forehead and leaves. I take Pooh off my bedside table and hug him against me.
Whenever I see Theodora Twist on TV or read an interview she’s given, she looks thrilled. She doesn’t seem to be paying a high price for anything. If she can handle real fame, why couldn’t I handle a month of minifame? A month of popularity? A month of people wanting to know me? A month of guys who’ll want to date me for me, not because they think I’ll put out?
Right now, if you asked a random sample of twenty kids at my school who Emily Fine is, maybe one would know. To be in the spotlight for a month at school sounds more than good. And to have things change at home—for even one month—sounds really, really great.
Bring her on.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: ASHLEY BEAN
ASHLEY BEAN TALENT MANAGEMENT
1000 WILSHIRE BLVD.
LOS ANGELES, CA 90017
[email protected] THEODORA TWIST TO STAR IN HER OWN REALITY TV SHOW!
Los Angeles, CA—(April 15)—Golden Globe winner, two-time Teen Choice Award recipient, and star of the critically acclaimed major motion picture Family
Theodora Twist , Hollywood’s reigning teen queen, is set to star in her own network television reality show:
Theodora Twist: Just a Regular Teen! Theodora will spend one month living in her hometown of Oak City, New Jersey, in the house she lived in before becoming an actress.
Theodora will stay with the family of Emily Fine, a regular teen, doing everything Emily does!
Often misrepresented by the media, Theodora Twist will show the viewing public that she’s just a normal sixteen-year-old girl at heart.
Theodora
I’m looking through my gigantic customized walk-in closet for clothes that a normal teenager would wear. Girls across America would kill to have my wardrobe. Jeans, T-shirts, tank tops, miniskirts, cool sweaters, sneakers, shoes. Gowns. I own handbags of every shape—totes, satchels, hobos, clutches—and color—orange calfskin, teal and red patched suede—and texture—quilted stitching, studded hardware—imaginable. And that’s only the bottom shelf.
My least expensive jeans cost two hundred bucks. At least, I think that’s what they go for. I get most of my clothes for free; designers send them, hoping I’ll wear their stuff and get photographed in Us Weekly. But I’m a shopaholic too.
I glance at my Bring To Boresville pile on my bed. There’s only one item: a headband with a huge iridescent pink flower that one of my fans sent me. My Louis Vuitton Pegase suitcases—all three of them—sit empty.
“I have nothing to take with me to Oak City,” I complain to my mother, who came over to do Pilates in my home gym because her central air isn’t working and the repair company had to special-order a part. She tried to get my trainer to give her a free session, but Declan is booked for the next two years and doesn’t get out of bed for less than four hundred an hour. “I have to go shopping for new everything,” I say, glancing at rack after rack, shelf after shelf.
My mother is checking out her abs in the floor-to-ceiling mirror in my closet. For a forty-one-year-old, she has an awesome body. From the back she looks like a twenty-one-year-old hottie, but face-forward it’s obvious she’s been visiting Dr. Botox. She’s already scheduled a face-lift, an eyebrow lift, a tummy tuck, and lipo for next month with one of L.A.’s hottest plastic surgeons. With her earnings as consultant to my fragrance line (she has an amazing nose; I love the combo of scents she chose for Theodora, which debuted six months ago and is the number-one-selling