Disclaimer: I do not intend for anyone to mistake this as being true and real. It is a fictional story involving fake versions of celebrities all over the age of 18.
*****
Chapter 2: Old School
November 2012
It appeared that I had become the go-to guy for 'The Lowdown' when it came to interviewing high-profile actresses, as it wasn't long after Jennifer that I found myself talking to Anne Hathaway. She was nice enough, a pleasant person to talk to and she seemed to know exactly what I wanted to hear. This wasn't surprising, after all she'd already had quite a few features with 'The Lowdown' in the past, so it's likely she probably knew more than me about it.
'This is pretty good,' my boss, Steven Saunders stated after reading through my rough draft of the article. 'She's a pro that Hathaway,' he said.
'Thanks, I had a good read of the previous articles before talking to her, so I could get a good idea of what I could get away with,' I said, watching his eyes as he continued to look over my work.
'I think you could have gotten away with more,' Steven said sternly, placing the article down on the desk.
'What makes you say that?' I asked, looking at my older boss in the eyes, he had a good fifteen years on me, and you could see the experience in the way that he looked at me.
'Well you may have noticed that all the previous articles written about Anne were all written by the same person... me,' he said.
'Really?' I asked. I couldn't believe that I didn't notice something so obvious.
'Yeah, really,' he responded. 'So I know from experience that she's willing to offer up a little bit more than she did here.'
'I read your articles though, and I didn't see anything more racy than what I managed to get,' I said, trying to think about what I may have missed.
He furrowed his brow, slightly frustrated with the point in the conversation he'd brought us to. 'That's probably because you haven't read the original version of the articles,' he admitted.
'To be fair, I shouldn't be expected to have read something that was never released,' I said, feeling quite sure that Steven was being a tad unreasonable.
'You're right, honestly I guess I'm just feeling a little nostalgic for my early days... today marks two years since I've been the editor here and well... I probably would have been doing this article if I wasn't,' he said.
I was starting to feel awkward, it felt like Steven was about to open up to me or something and to be honest I was in no mood. 'Sir, can I head off?' I asked suddenly. 'I mean, are you happy with the article?'
He considered me for a moment. 'You're good Des... but...' He stood up and pulled a key out from his pocket and made for the file cabinet to his left.
I followed him. 'Des, I'd like you to give this a read,' Steven said as I approached the cabinet and noticed that inside were many folders with many famous names; Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez to name a few.
'Are these-?'
'The original undoctored versions of my articles,' he finished, pulling out one of a few labelled Anne Hathaway, this one had the year 2003 marked on it.
'Why weren't they ever published?' I asked as he opened up the folder and flicked through the pages.
'Well for one part, they're barely articles, more diary entries, which is how I form things before I make them into the articles you read,' he said, handing me the folder.
'And the other part?' I questioned as I looked at the first page.
'Well, it gets a bit too personal, I couldn't possibly reveal to the world what is written in these pages, careers, marriages and lives would be ruined,' he said, closing the cabinet and locking it again.
'Can I take it home?' I asked.
'Go ahead, but remember I'll fire you and promptly sue the living shit out of you if you ever show anyone else,' he said calmly, returning to his desk.
I left the office and made my way back home, quickly getting to my desk excited to read what Steven had experienced.
*
I thought that being on the job for four years meant that nothing could surprise me. I thought wrong. Chief Johnson sent me to follow around Disney good girl Anne Hathaway for a few days while she shoots her new film around Los Angeles. The new movie in question is to be called Havoc and it will be her coming out party as a legitimate actress. Up until now I'd never even really thought of Anne as anything besides what she had been sold to me as, a kid... but this last weekend... well I certainly don't see her as the star of The Princess Diaries.
I showed up to the set just as she was finishing up shooting a scene, she was wearing light pink lipstick, hoop earrings, a black singlet with a very visible lace black bra underneath and big denim jeans with a thick three prong belt. That matched with the books and the heavy eye make-up really screamed of a young star wanting to be taken seriously, but she assured me that this was merely for the scene.
'So what kind of scene were you shooting?' I asked as we entered my car, she wanted to take me to some kind of party.
'Basically the scene is me faking an orgasm while my boyfriend films it,' Anne responded coolly, as if what she was saying wasn't basically sacrilege coming from her Disney branded lips.
'That's a huge departure from everything you've done up until now,' I said. 'Is that the reason you took on a role like this?'
'A little bit,' she said, smiling at me as she put her seatbelt on. 'I don't want to quickly get typecast as a good girl you know?'
'Sort of like what's happening to Lindsay Lohan,' I said as I started the car.
'Exactly,' she said. 'I don't want to become too heavily associated with all of that stuff so that people get outraged when I do something different.'
'It's smart,' I said. 'It would take something pretty major for Lindsay to stop being seen the way she does.'
'Yeah,' she said. 'I just want to be ahead of the curve.'
She is very smart for her age, still a few months away from being able to drink and already she was wise to the way the Hollywood game was played. Even at 27, I myself don't feel like I have the world as worked out as she seems to. I think she'll go very far indeed.
'Are you doing any nude scenes?' I asked boldly. 'Or are you going to tease those out over your career?'
'I go topless, in fact the scene we just shot was a topless scene, but I don't show anything else, I think I'll tease out my body parts,' she joked, laughing a little as she spoke.
'I'm sure a lot of young boys will be excited to see that,' I stated.
'I hope it's not just young boys, hopefully men your age and even older want to see as well,' she said, in a slightly seductive manner.
'Men and women of all ages will be interested,' I said, looking away from the road at her to see she was staring me down. 'Trust me.'
I looked back at the road and the topic changed to the director of the film and the writer, how she initially got into the role and all of that good stuff. I made sure to record all of it on my Dictaphone. Eventually though, we made it to the party she wanted me to see and to be honest it did not look like the type of place a young actress should be at all.
'Are you sure this is the place?' I asked, the party looked like it was out of control, drunken teens making a mess of an expensive looking house in the suburbs.
'I met these people while researching for this movie, they're cool, there's no gang members or anything, just some cool young people,' Anne said as I parked the car across the street. 'You're not gonna call the cops if I have a couple of drinks are you?'
'I won't call the cops, but I certainly won't be able to put it in the article,' I said as we climbed out of the car. 'Or if I do, I'll have to talk about this party as if it's something I only heard about from you.'
'That's cool with me,' Anne said, taking my hand as I fiddled with my Dictaphone making sure it wouldn't fall out of my open bag.
As she dragged me inside the wild house party she made sure to nod at the people she recognised and even made time to talk to a couple of the people that merely recognised her. The inside of the house was even more raucous than it looked from the outside, multitudes of young people were drinking, doing drugs and being openly affectionate in a way that only drunk college students can.
'This is starting to really test the limits of plausible deniability,' I said as I surveyed the party.
'Calm down and have a drink,' Anne said, placing a cold beer in my free hand. It was then that I noticed that Anne still had my hand in hers. 'Come and meet my friends,' she said.
We took to a free space on the couches in between a couple of stoners and pair of young women who were hard into a make out session. 'This is Justin and Kyle,' Anne said, referring to the two stoners sitting next to her.
'Hi,' I said. 'I'm uh... Steven.'
Each guy reached over Anne to shake my hand, Justin managed to take this opportunity to pass Anne a joint. 'Nice to meet you man,' Justin said as he leant back and watched Anne take a toke.
'Jesus,' I said to myself as I watched the twenty year old do drugs.
'I know right,' Justin said, clearly misinterpreting my tone. 'She looks so hot when she smokes.'
'Come here,' Anne said, gesturing with the joint.