Starchela in LA

Chapter Twenty-Two: CHANEL AND PARANOIA

Chapter Twenty-Two – CHANEL AND PARANOIA

Shane has sent me the video of the bag lady that he shot at the bus stop. In my room at the mansion, I watch in on my trusty handheld. Evangeline Lilli got me an iPad but I don't trust all the spyware she must have had installed on it. So I watch her street-dwelling alter ego on my phone. The vid is rad, my mom would say. It has everything I need: close ups and full-size shots, the lady's twitchy gestures and her dirty finger nails, her hunched-over pose and her limp walking, even some slurred audio I can use. I imagine this blown up on a big screen tomorrow night for all of Hollywood to see. Shane should leave acting to those who can do it, and become a director instead.

And then I start worrying. Sitting on my silk-and-lace bed, I look around the room as if I could see the electronic waves. What if the mistress of the house monitors my communications? She must have some gizmo that scans all the channels that go through her router or whatever. All the electronic waves, all the beams that come down from satellites to the devices in her house – to TVs, phones, tablets, radios – conceivably, all of that can be scanned. Is she monitoring my handheld? When I'm on Facebook, can she see my wall? When I'm on the phone, can she listen in? Does she read my email when I open it? Did she intercept this message from Shane, and is she watching the bag lady video while I'm watching it?

This is paranoia, I know, but I'm dealing with the Queen of Hollywood here. She has an elaborate security system in the house, that much I know. She's into all sorts of shady dealings and negotiations, that much I can guess. She's paranoid about paparazzi and journalists. She must be monitoring her business partners and competitors. She must be into spying. Information is everything. And this is not any old industry either, this is Hollywood. They have cameras here that they put into actors' eyes to get point-of-view shots, and they have mics they put into actors' hairline to catch dialogue. Evangeline Lilly has access to all that spy technology.

There's a knock on my door. My heart hits the dome of my skull. I jump and drop my handheld. The door opens, and Torquevald Nordon squeezes into the frame.

The handheld is lying screen-up on the floor – and the screen is showing the bag lady at the bus stop. I drop a scarf on top of it. Did he see?

"Come," he says. "Miss Lilly wants to see you."

I'm so startled I can't come up with anything that'll send him out of my room. My room. I've come to think of this crib that she put me in as my room. This thought makes me angry.

"When you knock you wait to be called in," I snap at him.

"Next time I won't. Come."

He turns around and squeezes back through the door.

Am I made?

I keep thinking that, as I walk down the hallway to her wing. Torquevald Nordon is breathing down my neck. He could grab my neck at any moment. I feel guilty, I feel I've been caught. I can't read him, he's always grumpy. Well, I must admit, he's not always grumpy... but he's been grumpy with me ever since he caught me and Shane filming the bag lady.

Anyway, we reach Evangeline Lilly's quarters without him snapping my neck. Maybe she's about to do it herself.

I walk into her boudoir, and I freeze. Now, this is something I wasn't expecting. The little fish-like lady and the little beige dress on a mannequin. The dress is for me, I have no doubt about that. It's my costume for tomorrow night. I was so caught up in my revenge plan that I totally neglected what I would wear. So un-Hollywood of me.

"This is Madame Christine from the Chanel shop," Evangeline Lilly says.

I nod and the fish-like lady actually curtsies. A curtsying fish.