That may have been a flaw in Delaney’s plan but she wasn’t going to admit to it. “I wanted to get a good parking space. So, what’s it going to cost me for you to keep this a secret?” Everyone in her family had a price. Even her, and she was willing to pay for her privacy.
“I don’t know yet,” Melody answered. “For starters, how about you tell me what you’re hoping to accomplish with this stunt. Mom is climbing the walls, you know, and she’s taking it out on all of us. And what am I supposed to tell people who ask where you are? Everyone is getting worried because you’re not answering your calls.”
Delaney pulled a box of cereal from the grocery bag and put it in the cabinet. “Tell everyone I’m at a spa. And it’s not a stunt. I just needed to get away from the rabid media for a while and be on my own. Tell Mom not to worry. I’m fine.”
“I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that, Lane, but what she also wants to know is when the hell you’ll be back. She can’t keep putting off our production people, you know. We have a show to make and they’re all pretty eager to talk to you. You’re the girl of the hour, you know.”
Delaney couldn’t quite name the tone in her sister’s voice. It was a fine line between derision, amusement, and envy.
“I bet they are. Can’t they just read the tabloids like everybody else?”
“The tabs are just recycling the same stuff over and over. Our producers want to see your reaction to all of this. They want to know what really went down.” Then she giggled. “Oh, sorry.”
What had gone down was Delaney.
“Thanks, Mel. That’s very sensitive of you.”
“I know. It just slipped out. Oh! Shit. Sorry. Again.” She didn’t sound sorry. Not in the least. “But listen, Lane,” her sister continued, “this story is money in the bank, but only if you come home and tell your side of it.”
“I don’t want to tell my side. I just want everyone to mind their own business.” She plunked a box of crackers on the shelf next to the cereal.
“Nobody in Beverly Hills minds their own business, and besides, you signed a contract to do a second season, remember? The producers are expecting you here.”
“So they can sue me if they want to. If you, Mom, Dad, and Roxanne want to parade around in front of the TV cameras and yank all the skeletons from our closets, be my guest. I’m done with it. One year was enough for me. The whole show was supposed to be about Dad anyway. Why are they so interested in us?” Delaney reached into the grocery bag and pulled out a bottle of wine. She wished it had a screw top so she could open it right now and guzzle it straight from the rim.
“Hmm, let’s think,” Melody answered. “Fifty-six-year-old rocker trying to make a musical comeback versus his three hot daughters. Who do you think is going to make for better reality television?”
“But the show was supposed to be about Dad’s career.”
The eye roll was implied in Melody’s tone. “No it wasn’t. The show was always supposed to be about us. Why do you think they named it Pop Rocks? He’s not a Pop without us daughters. Geez. No wonder they never call you the smart one.”
They never did call her the smart one.
And it pissed her off.
Everybody thought Roxanne was the smart one. Melody was the musical one. Go figure. And Delaney? Well, somebody had to be cast as the ditzy baby of the family. The unpredictable wild child. That wasn’t her, though. She wasn’t that wild, and she wasn’t that ditzy, but carefully selected editing from the first season had certainly painted her that way. And then of course there was The Scandal.
“I don’t want to do the show anymore. I’ve had enough . . . exposure. It was sort of fun the first season but then Boyd went and ruined everything. He completely humiliated me.”
Boyd—as in Boydell Hampton—the preacher’s son with the baby face and the mile-wide naughty streak. The kind of guy who talked poetically about being a missionary but who was really far more interested in exploring the missionary position. And every other position he could think of. Their fling had been as brief and fiery as one of his daddy’s sermons, but that had been ages ago. She didn’t even remember who had broken up with whom. First they were together, then they weren’t, but she hadn’t thought of him in ages.
Not until last month when Mount Lascivious erupted by way of a grainy, low-quality video. She didn’t know he’d ever recorded them in the act, but there she was, her head bobbing up and down over Boydell Hampton’s junk. Somehow that video had found its way into the media machine—the machine that regularly fed and shred celebrities’ lives with remorseless impunity—and the next thing she knew, headlines like “Delaney Masterson Masters the Son of a Minister” popped up and waved around as frantically as Boyd’s erection.
In the last four weeks, Delaney’s name had become every late-night comedian’s favorite punch line.