Loving for Money - ON HOLD

Journal Entry 5

August 26th, 2011

I got in a lot of trouble yesterday. I'll admit, it was kind of my fault. This whole thing just became pain-stakingly real. 

At around 7 o'clock last night, I got a call from Joe. He didn't say much, but that I needed to come to his office immediately. I was a little angry that he thought he could just call me on cue and demand that I do things for him, but I realized that that's what I signed up for and had no choice but to obey to him. 

When I got to his office, the receptionist didn't say a word, but pointed directly to Joe's office, signaling for me to let myself in. (I also made a mental goal to get that woman to talk to me some day, because I can't stand when people don't like me). 

I walked into the room and the scene was very tense. I could see Joe sitting behind his desk, rubbing his eyes in a tiresome way. Louis was seated on the opposite side of the delicate glass desk with his head hanging down in a defeated manner. I walked cautiously into the room, afraid of what I had been called in there for. Geppetto (that's what I've decided to nickname Joe, because he is the puppet master of One Direction) looked up from his spot and motioned for me to have a seat next to Louis. I have to admit, I was scared. The look on Louis' face was enough to tell me that something was definitely wrong. 

Without saying a word, Geppetto placed in front of me the latest issue of OK! magazine. He flipped through the pages and landed on one with an assortment of pictures of various celebrities and random captions. Nervously, I picked up the magazine and scanned the page. Pictures of Simon Cowell, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and... me? And Louis? Is that me? What the hell am I doing in this magazine? My mouth fell agape and I looked at Louis, hoping to get some sort of clarification. He kept his focus on the ground.

I looked back at the image on the page and read what the little paragraph underneath had to say. This is what it read:

"Louis Tomlinson of the popular boyband One Direction was spotted on August 20th with a friend at a park just outside of Manchester. The two seemed deep in conversation and exchanged a friendly hug upon leaving the area, seperately. Don't worry, everybody, Louis seems to be very single still!'

I pursed my lips together tightly because I now understood why Joe had called me in. I also understood why Louis was staring at the ground the whole time, because I was now doing the same thing. We must have looked like little children getting in trouble by their parents. 

"Do you want to tell me what the hell this is all about?" Joe asked sternly. 

Neither Louis nor I answered. Joe stood up from his desk at that point and slammed down the magazine, for dramatic effect, I'm guessing. And it certainly did the job. I jumped slightly in my seat as he slammed the magazine and I heard the booklet smack against the glass of the surface. The force of his hit made the table shake a little. 

Still standing, he continued to scold us. "What the hell were you two thinking, going out in public without consulting me? That is not how this is going to work! Louis," he said sharply. "Look at me."

I peered over at Louis from the corner of my eye and watched him lift his head up slowly. 

"Do you want your career to be over?" 

Louis shook his head.

"Do you want to lose all of your fans?" 

Louis shook his head.

"Do you want me to help you pull this thing off?"

Louis nodded. 

"Then you can't go pulling shit like this, Lou! You know better than that! And now," Geppetto let out a huge huff and walked around the desk, standing directly between Louis and I. He put a hand on each of our shoulders. The contact made me shiver. I was becoming less and less fond of this man, and his blow up didn't help matters. "Now, the tabloids have their first pictures of you, and to make matters worse, they're calling you friends!" He put his hands behind his back and paced around to the front of his desk again, walking back and forth frantically. 

"I wasn't planning on going public with this for a few more weeks, we need more time to prepare." I couldn't tell if he was talking to us or himself. He stopped pacing and turned to both of us, placing both hands on his desk, leaning a little closer to us. "Can I trust you two not to do anything else of this sort until we actually go public, or do I need to hire a babysitter for each of you until then?" Two things about this made me cringe: the fact that he kept referring to the fakelationship as "we", incluidng himself in that, and the condescending and mocking tone he used when he said the word 'babysitter.' 

Louis and I both muttered something along the lines of "you can trust us," still looking at the ground. 

"I hope so," Geppetto spat at us. "I don't want any contact of any sort unless you are here, with me, until Niall's birthday party on September 14th. Do I make myself clear?" 

For a minute I wondered what Joe would honestly do if we chose to disobey, but I quickly decided I didn't want to find out. 

Joe shooed us out of his office at that point, but told Louis to wait around for a while after I left, so no pictures would come of us leaving together. He even told me to use the back entrance, just in case. 

Despite Joe's threatening words, Louis stopped me on my way out and we exchanged phone numbers. I also asked him for Harry's. 

That was last night. And I've had Harry's number punched into my phone ever since. I want to call him. I want to explain to him that I'm not an enemy. I can't decide if that's the right thing to do or not. That seems to be happening too often these days. 

Eleanor x