BPOV
"Contraband? Jessica loves that magazine, I'm pretty sure. You should talk to her about it," Angela says.
She sips her espresso delicately, one pinky finger up. Starbucks in most places is pretty crowded, but a Starbucks in downtown LA deserves its own zip code. There are so many people brushing haphazardly past us I can barely even think. None of it seems to affect Angela, though.
Meanwhile, the cacophony of voices in my head makes me want to explode.
"Bella?"
"Sorry," I say. The woman to the left of us, hair bleached white, talks obnoxiously on her bedazzled cell phone. Her fake breasts seem to defy gravity within her perfectly weathered wife beater. I stare, fascinated.
"Do you want me to text her for you?"
"No, that's fine. I can call her."
"How's the job hunt going?"
I groan, fingers to temples. It's everyone's favorite question.
Current status of Angela's life: Engaged to a wonderful man. Steadily moving up the ladder in a large PR firm. Living comfortably on the outskirts of LA. Two small dogs.
Current status of my life: Emmett's couch.
"It's going," I grimace.
She smiles back, always understanding.
"Do you want to work in journalism or something? I mean, Rose's offer might even show you what you want to do. You did get a degree in English, after all. A lot of people end up writing for magazines and stuff like that," she says soothingly.
"I don't know. I never really considered it. Plus, I don't think Contraband is really considered journalism. It's just useless celebrity gossip."
"Hey, people buy that stuff."
"People like Jessica."
She laughs.
"Yes, well, Jessica is a human."
"Unfortunately."
"Bella!" Angela admonishes, averting her eyes as if one of Jessica was somewhere inside the Starbucks. In reality, Jessica was halfway across the country working as some junior level executive in God know's where.
"I don't know, Ang. It just seems so . . . bad."
"Just give it a shot. And don't do anything you feel is wrong, of course." She's about to say more, but her phone vibrates angrily. It skids across the table. She snatches it up right before it drops to the ground.
"Hello?" she says into the phone. "Work call. I have to take it. Sorry!" she mouths just for me. It's the kind of thing I've only ever seen in movies. I smile half-heartedly and stir the sad looking parfait in front of me.
"I'm just gonna go," I whisper, feeling intrusive.
She covers the receiver with her hand.
"Oh, no. Bella, are you sure?"
Angela Weber: too polite to function.
"I'm positive. Have a great rest of your day at work!"
The first person I run into back at Emmett's apartment is (of course) Rosalie. She's wearing her usual grey pencil skirt and blazer combination, paired with the pastel blouse the shows just the right amount of cleavage before slutty.
"There you are," she yells.
"Were we supposed to meet up?"
"I told Emmett to tell you . . . whatever. I'm just giving you a quick rundown of where to look and who to look for when getting stories for Contraband's website. Also, the weekly payments start coming in after you get your first story, so don't wait."
My mouth opens to form some sort of response, but I don't seem to have one. I've never been one of those people who openly followed celebrity culture. Sure, I had a few childhood crushes on teenage boy bands, but that was basically the extent of it. Living in Forks, Washington wasn't exactly conducive to the lifestyle. We only had one movie theater, for fuck's sake.
Rose opens up her briefcase and pulls out a thick, unlabeled binder.
"We have an online database for all this but since you're not officially an employee, you don't have access. This is one of the binders we keep for paper backup. Normally I wouldn't do this to keep with the authenticity of having strangers provide the information, but I don't think you would be able to tell a celebrity from your left hand," she explains. When she hands it to me my arms almost buckle. I slam it down on the counter.
"Um . . ."
She rolls her eyes at me and flips it open to the middle.
"We order it from most important, most expensive celebrity to least important. The closer your celebrity is to the front of the book, the more expensive your story or photo is going to be. Of course, this all depends on what's in the story or photo as well, but you get the drift. In the back is a list of locations that are celebrity hotspots. Our location managers update it once a month, about."
As she speaks I flip through the pages. It's face after beautiful face. Perfect make-up, perfect hair, perfect clothing. Perfect amount of botox. I frown and flip through faster, until it's all just a blur of trimmed beards and ski-slop noses.
I hit the first page and freeze.
"Who is this?"
"Are you serious?" Rose laughs. "That's Edward Cullen."