Fame's Revenge

Chapter 21: Now

Shay

Why was this guy in the kitchen? Shay couldn't remember his name, but she knew it was Liz's boyfriend. Liz wasn't home, so it made no sense that he was here.

He glanced up and saw Shay. He gave her a smile. "Hi," he said. 

Shay raised an eyebrow. She could see why Liz liked him. He was cute in person. "Hi," she said back. "You must be Liz's boyfriend."

He chuckled and got a dreamy look in his eyes. "I am. Name's Gavin. What's yours?"

"Sh- Um." She thought quickly, trying to remember the name she gave. "Nina," she said, holding out her hand. That was a close one.

He smiled and shook it. "Nice to meet you," he said. "So, tell me. What do you do around here?"

"Um, well, I mainly clean and do laundry. You know, the maid."

"The Cinderella of everyone," he said.

Shay cocked her head. "Cinderella? What do you mean?"

He reddened. "You know the story, right? A girl who was mistreated by her step-family and made to do all the maid stuff."

"And then she meets her prince and lives happily ever after. I know, but why call my job that?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Because you're doing the same stuff she did and there's no telling where you could go from here. This is just a job, but you could end up famous yourself, or even rich. There's nothing you can't do."

Shay just looked at him. She couldn't help it. How was he just as nice and sweet as he seemed in his videos? How was he interested in Liz? Didn't he know she was a backstabbing user?

Right then, his phone dinged with an incoming text. He checked it and began smiling like a fool at his phone. He typed something back and sat his phone back down, only for it to ding again.

Shay sighed and began walking away, knowing he was probably going to be glued to his phone for a good while. Just as she thought, he didn't even notice her leave.

Liz

I knew that I'd have to go shopping. I hated spending all that money, though. There was something about seeing so much cash drain from my account when there's nothing going back in that made me antsy. I knew it came from when I didn't have any money other than the little bit my parents gave me. Even when I was little, we never spent much on clothes.

Yet, here I was, with my manager, dropping nearly a hundred dollars on one outfit. But, as a star that's just beginning to step into the spotlight, I can't make do with just one outfit. No, I need to have several. After a couple of hours, we had a cart full of clothes that was into the thousands. I knew it was over a thousand. There was no way it couldn't be.

"Are you sure I need all of this?" I asked, looking at yet another price tag that was way more than I had ever paid for anything else before.

She turned to me. "Liz, dear, you're an up and coming celebrity. You need a nice wardrobe that's in style."

I frowned and turned to her. "I don't think I can afford all of this."

My manager froze and slowly turned to me. "If that's true, Elizabeth, then I don't know what to tell you. You made a killing off of your first album and everything that came after. What you got was way more than most people make, and that's even with declining several opportunities that were open to you to double that. There's no chance you can't cover this."

I sighed and chewed on my lip. I knew she was right. I had enough to do this every day for months before running out of money. Still, the idea of these clothes was too much. While most people felt ashamed for not having money for these kinds of clothes, I felt ashamed that I did. I wasn't poor or lacking for anything as a kid, but we never had extra, either. That's what I was used to. Not being able to buy everything in sight.