Free Spoiled by Heather Cocks Page B

still didn’t feel quite ready for her big Hollywood debut. What if she tripped at the party and fell into the pool,
     in front of all of those reporters? What if she said something stupid? What if she got the name of one of Brick’s movies wrong?
    Brooke seemed either uncomfortable discussing Molly’s nerves, or unable to relate; whenever Molly broached the subject, Brooke
     would digress into surprisingly impassioned tirades about things like the importance of nasal contouring. So Molly used her
     peaceful morning swims to work through her anxiety. There was no way she was going to allow
Hey!
to write some story about her mother wasting away on a bed of rats and cockroaches, or whatever—Laurel would have died of
     embarrassment, if she weren’t already dead. This party had to happen, and Molly simply had to deal. The idea of being presented
     to Southern California like Zuckerman’s Famous Pig from
Charlotte’s Web
definitely made her uneasy, but it wasn’t like Brick was making her give him a kidney.
    Post-swim, Molly wrapped herself in the spa robe that had been hanging on the back of her bathroom door and went out on the
     balcony to eat her toast. It had taken her two days to work up the guts to send up for anything, but Stan promised her the
     cook was just happy to have something to do besides make protein shakes. She waved down at Brooke, who stood by the pool in
     a skimpy bikini and sarong, trailed by a mousy girl with a clipboard and directing the placement of rented tables. She smiled
     as Brooke’senthusiastic return wave almost knocked the glasses off her tiny friend. As intense as Brooke’s fawning interest could be,
     she was at least an
amusing
handful.
    “She’s so
chirpy
,” Molly said to Charmaine during one of their late-night phone sessions.
    “Maybe she’s a bit mentally ill,” Charmaine opined.
    “I think she’s just lonely,” Molly said. “Brick’s never around and I have no idea where her mom is.”
    “Not even Google knows,” Charmaine said, awed by the all-powerful Internet’s failure to inform. “But I did find an old article
     on
People
’s website about how Brick married Brooke’s mom at her father’s house in the Palisades. They had two peacocks as ring bearers.”
    “Weird.” Molly shuddered.
    “And bad luck, because they got divorced a couple of years later,” Charmaine continued. “Kelly told
People
it was time for her to find herself.”
    “I guess she’s still off looking,” Molly had said.
    “Maybe she’s not trying very hard.”
    Molly had obligingly giggled—if Laurel had known Brooke, she’d have called her a Piece of Work in the kind of tone that implied
     the capital letters—but she also felt guilty maligning her half sister when all Brooke wanted was to make sure Molly felt
     comfortable and prepared. Just yesterday, in fact, backed up with countless photos of Charlize Theron, Brooke had insisted
     that looking bitchy would make Molly’s cheekbones appear more prominent, and then she swore posing with your legs crossed
     wouldstreamline the thighs and hips. None of this made a ton of sense to Molly, but the starlets in the tabloids who did it all
     looked skinny and hot. Molly was beginning to suspect that Brooke was some kind of superficiality savant, whom she might be
     well served to obey.
    Molly was mentally running through Brooke’s list of tips an hour before the party as she planted herself in front of her bathroom
     vanity. To avoid acknowledging the din emanating from the ground level, she turned up her iPod and fixated on following
Glamour
’s advice to achieve the perfect smoky eye, giving the makeup under her lower lash an extra vigorous smudge. Brooke had said
     with a supportive shoulder-squeeze that this technique would diminish the appearance of eye bags. Molly had never thought
     she had eye bags before, but if she did, she’d better deal with them now.
    “All righty, sister-friend, the moment of truth is
here
!