A Very Dirty Christmas Read online

  Seth puts his hands up in the air. "What the fuck, man?"

  I don't even answer. I suddenly feel sober, even though I've had four shots. I also feel pathetic in here, surrounded by my lame friends in this shithole bar, my boots sticking to the floor that feels like it has ten fucking years of filth caked on it, listening to the worst band in the world play covers of shitty songs. "Later," I yell, knowing they won't bother to come after me as I go. They're too busy chasing pussy and getting trashed.

  Outside, I catch a cab that takes me back out to my mother's place in Malibu. The house is empty, the sound of my footsteps on the floor echoing through the space. I'm tempted to yell 'hellooooo' like a fucking kid, just to listen to my voice reverberate through the rooms.

  The place looks ridiculous. Everything is white -- white marble floors, white walls, white sofa with chrome legs resting on a white area rug. This is what I've returned to, the newest redecoration of this place, Ella's attempt to "cleanse" everything.

  Walking into my remodeled bedroom the other night was a grand surprise, with the white bed in the middle of the room and a white bedspread that is practically blinding. I considered hiring painters to paint the whole fucking place black, but decided it was too much effort to spend on irritating my mother.

  The only color in the whole damn place are the paintings, some modern art shit she has hung on the walls so people will think she's more than just a movie star. She's an art aficionado. She has taste, people. She has class.

  Yeah, right. She can pretend she shits roses all she wants, but it's still shit. I know the truth, about Ella's past and about my father that Ella tried so desperately to bury. I'm the reminder that no matter how many awards she wins, no matter how much public perception about her has changed since she's started devoting all her time to causes and visiting war-torn countries, she can't get away from the past.

  I lay down on the bed without bothering to take off my boots. Ella will just have someone fix the designer bedspread that I'm sure is spun with only the finest silk imported from Mongolia or some shit. I don't know if they make silk in Mongolia, but it sounds like something Ella would pay for.

  People think I'm just a spoiled rich kid, way too privileged and full of angst about my fairy-tale life. I'm over-privileged, but I'm not full of angst. I just don't play a role like these other assholes, the Hollywood types or the uptight kids at Brighton who step on each other as they claw their way to the top. I'm honest and people don't like it.

  My mother certainly hates it.

  But I don't hide who I am under a veneer, white-wash my life like this damn house. And that's good enough for me.

  I'm leaving tomorrow for New Hampshire. The power couple has requested my presence, and Ella has booked me a first class ticket. There's a fucking pancake breakfast -- how hokey is that? We're all going to sit around and pretend to be one big happy family, eating breakfast in front of the cameras. I'm going to pretend that I'm adjusting to life with Daddy Dearest and his perfect daughter. The daughter I get hard just thinking about.

  It's fucking New Hampshire. I might even wear a polo shirt. That will give Senator Douchebag a damn coronary.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Katherine

  "She's a total bitch, right?" Jo asks, snapping her gum. "Or she's got some kind of terrible real-life deformity that never shows up on the cameras? Tell me she's not perfect." Jo squeezes out a giant gob of sunscreen and slathers it across the creamy skin on her arms, setting the bottle in between us. I pick it up and do the same. Rose is right; the sun feels warm on my skin, and Jo's presence here lifts my mood.

  It's almost enough to erase the sense of impending doom I feel thinking about my father and Ella's arrival tonight. I don't know when Caulter is coming, and I don't want to know -- I didn't even dare to ask my father earlier when he called to relay his travel plans.

  I'm already paranoid that my father can smell my lust for Caulter, like I'm some kind of animal in heat.

  I sigh, spreading lotion over my legs. "Ella is...okay, I guess."

  Jo leans back on the towel laid on top of the boat dock, pulling at the edge of her black-and-white checkered swimsuit, this retro number with straps that come up like a halter at the back of her neck. The tattoo she got this year, cherry blossoms intertwined with Japanese characters, goes down the side of her hip, half under the swimsuit and half out. I don't know why we're laying outside in bathing suits, soaking up rays; we're slathered in enough sunscreen to drown, and wearing floppy hats big enough to practically require their own zip codes. But this is what we do here during the summer, so it's force of habit, I guess.

  "Okay?" she asks. "Ella Sterling is just...okay? The Dick is marrying a big celebrity and he only just told you about it -- and that's all you've got for me? Spill it." She looks at me from behind her huge dark sunglasses, but I can't see her eyes. Then she slips them dramatically down to the edge of her nose. "Details. I want absolutely every last detail."

  "She's just...okay, I guess," I say, realizing I mean it. "She's not really a bitch, I guess. She's actually kind of...blah?"

  "Like, she has no personality blah?"

  "Maybe. Or she's just not very assertive," I say. "It's hard to tell. My father is pretty..."

  "Fucked up?" she asks.

  I laugh. "That's not what I was going to say."

  "It's what you were thinking, though." She leans back, arching her back up, displaying her breasts, even though it's just the two of us.

  "It's totally not what I was thinking."

  "Continue, please," she orders. "You father is an overbearing dickhead who treats her the way he treats you, and -- "

  It annoys me that Jo lumps Ella and I together, like we're both some spineless creatures just being trampled underneath my father's will. "I haven't really seen them together much, you know. I mean, there was this photo of them on his desk - from Christmas - and they looked...happy."

  Jo grunts her response. "Happy," she says. "That's all you've got for me. You have Ella fucking Sterling in your house and all I get is blah and happy. You know I want the dirt."

  I exhale. Of course. Dirt. "She's super...bright."

  "Bright," Jo repeats flatly.

  "And un-caffeinated," I say. "Like, bright without ever drinking coffee in the morning."

  "That's unnatural," Jo says. "I hate her already."

  Now I can't help but smile. "Oh, and she drinks these smoothies, like this algae shit that smells so bad. Caulter called them her fish tank shakes."

  Jo's ears perk up at the sound of his name, and I immediately regret mentioning him. I'm telling no one what happened with Caulter. He will remain my dirty little secret.

  I will take him with me to the grave. Maybe even literally, if he keeps being such a jerk.

  I'm aware of Jo's eyes on me, her glasses perched on the end of her nose again as she peers over them, examining me like some kind of specimen. "Caulter?" she asks innocently. She draws out his name, letting it roll off her tongue.

  I roll my eyes and huff loudly, turning over onto my stomach, mostly so I can avoid making eye contact with her. I'm afraid if I look at her, she'll be able to read my thoughts, tell what happened with me and Caulter. I force a casualness into my voice I definitely don't feel, although I don't have to fake the disgust that naturally seeps into my tone. "Caulter. Her son."

  "That's right," she says. "I almost forgot. She has a son. He's like, a total train wreck, isn't he?"

  "He's a disaster. Completely and utterly." There's no way that Jo, with her affinity for tabloid magazines and gossip, almost forgot that Ella Sterling has a son. She's been dying to ask, I know she has. She must have seen the photo of us that got reposted a million times online. But I'm cranky, and I definitely don't want to talk to her about Caulter.

  Jo rolls onto her side and rests on her hand, her elbow on the dock. "Tell me everything."

  I open my mouth, intending to give her the same dismissive, truncated shit I gave her about Ella, but instead