Absolutely True Lies Read Free Page A

this apartment a week or so from now (the manager always bangs on the door and lets himself in when the rent is even six seconds late), who would really care besides the local news? I’d even be willing to bet that I’m worth more to this world as a tragic, twenty-five-year-old dead Hollywood wannabe than a living, breathing, aspiring novelist. And my mother would finally have an emotional wound big enough to top everyone else in her bridge club, including Debbie Paul, whose son was born with a cleft palate and, according to my mom, never shuts up about it.
    So I went back to sleep, half of me hoping that this was all just a really cliché insecurity dream and the other half praying that God, Allah, Zeus, or whoever would just strike me down in my sleep and save me from having to wake up again.
    •  •  •
    B ut I did wake up eventually. By the time I actually did get out of bed long enough to take a shower and change my clothes, Smitty was in the kitchen, chewing through a cardboard box of cereal. I had a sudden pang of guilt as I saw the row of hastily opened cans of cat food I had just tossed on the floor each night before crawling back into my den of self-pity. Apparently, I had forgotten to even do that the night before.
    “I’m sorry, Smits,” I said, bending down to pet him. But Smittyjust gave me a look of contempt and abandoned the cereal box, sashaying his way into the living room without so much as a backward glance. Great. Now even my cat hated me.
    I didn’t know what day it was, and it was only by the sun peeking through my blinds that I guessed the microwave clock read 2:00 P.M. , not 2:00 A.M. Against my better judgment, I walked the ten feet from my kitchenette back to my bed and knelt down, gathering the pieces of my cell phone. The only thought running through my mind was that I had had this phone number for four years now; four years and I was likely about to have my phone shut off for nonpayment.
    As the screen blinked to life, I saw that it was now the twenty-­ninth. I had been asleep for eight days. I waited anxiously for my phone to register any texts or voice mails, hoping to discover that Kragen had reconsidered and saved the magazine, even though I’m fairly certain they made about eleven dollars an issue.
    I was even more hopeful when my phone politely dinged and said I had nine new voice mails. But my excitement quickly faded as I discovered that the first five were from my mother.
    At least number six was a surprise. “Hey, kid, it’s your Uncle Bob-O. I just wanted to let you know that I gave out your number to a friend of mine in the L.A. area. He said something about needing an entertainment writer and I told him I had just the gal. His name is Jameson Lloyd and he used to jam with me back in high school. Not really sure what he does now, but maybe you can clear some extra cash. Talk to you later, Holly.”
    I pressed delete. You might think I was excited by this message, or at least the teensiest bit encouraged, but I wasn’t. Not even the slightest. That’s because in this town, people promise you Tiffany and can’t even deliver Taco Bell. Everyone I’ve ever met in L.A. has told me what a fantastic, talented, brilliant, genius writer I am, and how they plan to catapult me to the top of the literary world. No one has ever gotten me a job, read a single word of what I’ve written, or even bothered to call me back a second time. Even my “agent,”Gus, who I met through the aunt of a friend of a boss’s sister-in-law, who guaranteed me he’d tear the throat out of any client who tried to screw me, never met with me again after I hired him. Though he does dutifully collect his ten percent of my measly earnings every month. When my paycheck from Kragen is late, it’s Gus who notices first, not me. Oh, and he didn’t even get me that job—I applied over the Internet and was stupid enough to tell him about it.
    So when I listened to the next two messages, I wasn’t