Free Step Scandal - Part 1 by Rossi St. James

 
 
 
 
 
ONE
     
    Harper
    “You’ve aged out, honey,” my personal assistant, Elijah said as he filed his nails. His pristine Gucci boots, bought and paid for courtesy of the generous salary I’d bestowed upon him, rested atop my crushed velvet ottoman.
    “I’m only twenty-four. There’s no way. That can’t be it.” I paged through the latest issue of Celebrity Weekly magazine and rattled off three pop stars that graced their pages that were at least a few years older than me.
    “One had twins via surrogate. One’s getting divorced from her 80 year old shipping magnate husband. And another had a very public nervous breakdown where she shaved off all her hair.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry, Harps. I love you to death, but you’re kind of boring. I say that with love.”
    My phone buzzed on the sofa beside me. Another text from my agent about yet another acting gig I didn’t book. “I don’t understand how two years ago, there wasn’t enough of me to go around, and now I’m chopped liver. I can’t even book a Lifetime movie.”
    Making the transition from music to acting seemed like a no brainer when my record label dropped me. I had the connections. I had the chops. I’d studied with the best acting coaches. And being the daughter of legendary stage and screen actress Sharon Bliss should’ve at least opened a few doors.
    “You’re too wholesome,” Elijah said, scrunching his face at me. “I think that’s your problem. It’s because everyone remembers you from that mouse-eared show. And then you did that whole stint about saving yourself for marriage and being all wholesome.”
    “That was not my idea. You know that. The record label wanted to pitch me as this modern-day, pure-of-heart pop star.” I shook my head. I never should’ve listened to them, but at the time they were dangling a multi-million dollar contract over my head and the pen was in arm’s reach. I’d have done just about anything back then to launch my career. “Had I known I was selling my soul at bargain-basement prices back then, I’d have gone a completely different route.”
    All I ever wanted was to make a name for myself and step out from under the Sharon Bliss umbrella.
    “People got bored with the whole sexy virgin act,” Elijah stated matter-of-factly as he slicked his hand over the shaved side of his blond head. “It was cool for, like, a hot minute and then people moved on. What does the incomparable Sharon Bliss think?”
    Elijah was obsessed with my mother and had gone to see all of her Broadway shows. He was also the proud owner of every movie my mother had ever starred in on Blu Ray. My mother ate him up, and I was pretty sure she liked him more than she liked me. If Elijah was a fine face cream, she’d have bathed in him and then slathered him all over her body.
    I tried talking to her about it, but all I got was an unsympathetic, “That’s Hollywood.” It was easy for her to say. She had decades long, indestructible career that started before I was even an idea in her self-centered little brain. My mother loved two things in this world: her career and herself. She never had to worry about where her next job was coming from.
    “I tried to talk to her about it the other night,” I sighed, recalling how distant she was as she frantically polished her Oscars and Emmys the night Conrad left her. She still refused to take off her 20-carat, canary yellow, diamond wedding ring. Sharon Bliss never handled rejection well. “She’s too wrapped up in her divorce right now to even attempt to give a rat’s ass about my flailing career.”
    “I still can’t believe she’s divorcing Conrad.” Elijah set the nail file down and grabbed his bottle of water. “You don’t hear about many marriages lasting longer than theirs did. Not in this industry, honey.”
    “Conrad was a saint for putting up with my mother for twenty years,” I said. “I think he just got sick of her.”
    “What about that