Under Wraps

By Casey Ringer

When a tabloid writer is assigned to dig some dirt on an A-list movie star, she ends up digging too far - and quite possibly her own grave...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Casey Ringer
• Release date: May 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311700421

Casey Ringer

A little about me, huh? Okay, why not? Hmmm, let me see... Taps lip. Taps lip. Well, I worked for one of the largest tabloids in the world -- THE SCOOP (name changed for obvious reasons). At twenty-two, I started as a copywriter and quickly worked my way up. After about two years of nursing out petty crimes and digging dirt on B-list celebrities, I was promoted because I guess I could hold my own against the grab-assing corporate guys. It was grueling. Always painted, hair done, and nails french-tipped. But the pay was great and I made some close contacts with a few powerful people over the years. And after those years, I somehow weaseled my way into a share of the company before it went public and moved out West. Naturally, I gladly accepted my shares and moved with them. But, shortly after we moved into a plaza suite off Sunset and LaBrea (with an espresso-machine and marbled leg chairs in the lobby), I got pregnant. Prego. Full-up. Was with child. I only got to swipe my corporate card twice — and once was for a Bally's membership I never used — before I had to sell my shares and play mommy. But sell my shares, I did. I made out with enough to buy a house in Hollywood Hills (in cash) twelve years of primo education (for my ingrate son) and enough spending money to coast 'til, well, now. I still do freelance work from time-to-time. Oh, and -- DUH!!!! -- I write books. But you knew that ;)

Book preview

UNDER WRAPS

By

Casey Ringer

(Keenan Verzuh)

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Casey Ringer

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Editing by:

www.editingfairy.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

When a tabloid writer is assigned to dig some dirt on an A-list movie star, she ends up digging too far - and quite possibly her own grave…

Table of Contents

UNDER WRAPS

**Mint, wait… is it julep or Jewlip?**

**The Beginning**

**The Scoop**

**Shim Shim Sharoo**

**Test Driv(h)er**

**Ivy at the Bore**

**Milk My Mocha**

**Human Society**

**Ungrateval**

**Test Driv(h)er**

**A Little Off The Top**

**Cattle Pro(u)d**

**Getting Ready**

**Wrap Party - (but drop the W and stick an E on the end!!!)**

**[e-mail]**

**Dinner with Dave** aka **Gofer Dave: Part II !!!**

**The Dinner**

**Business & Pleasure/ Club MANhatTRAN**

**Behind Bars**

**The Real Wrap Party**

UNDER WRAPS

My pretty face once kissable, now kissed, has been lifted more times than a public dumbbell. Face-lifted, that is. My lips are plump, swollen, and tight. At least, they are NOW! Before, they sagged like the backside of a seasoned porn star who had been shooting Alien Encounters, Attack on Uranus, for three straight weeks.

So I've had some work done… Sue me!!!

In a few weeks, no one will even know. I'll slip back into subtlety — though my looks are far from subtle. Or so I've been told through free drinks and white-buffed teeth.

My recently wretched nose will settle. The cartilage will become soft and pliable, and my scalpel slits — carved out like smiles under each breast — will mellow. That couldn't happen sooner, under-boob bumps are pretty much THEE WORST.

It's a manufactured sort of beauty, but what isn't these days?

Judge me, go ahead. Fix yourself a nice Hot-Judge-Sundae. I would have.

Look at that chopped-up soccer mom. She's double stitched just like her Louis-Vee, might have said the old, youthful me. I never thought plastic surgery was an option, and definitely not one that I'd endure more frequently than taking out the trash — kidding, this is California; I have maids for that. That's awful, and I'm completely kidding, but, sadly, I do have a maid for that.

Point is: I'm a living, breathing hypocrite; and over the years, it played out like this:

My twenties: I'll never go under the scalpel… I mean, like, how vain? There's cleft palates and blah-blah-blah and people are ELECTING to cut their faces… no thank you. Can you say sacrilegious?!

My thirties: I'll never go under the scalpel… unless it's for something small, like narrowing the bridge of my nose — I mean, I DO have a deviated septum, it's totally plausible; but, like, I don't need it right now.

My forties: I'll never go under the scalpel… twice in one month. THAT'S how people die. Grow up and space out your appointments.

My current motto: Stuff me like a spring ham and tuck it all behind the ears.

WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW…

Is that plastic surgery turns into an awful, vicious cycle. Like a snake eating its tail, it really takes its toll. The Percocet, the Oxy, the Hydro-what-have-yous, not only pick the meat of your brain like you were preening with a steak knife, but they give your face a real once-over, too.

Painkillers tend to suck south.

They bloat your eyes and yellow your skin.

So back under the blade you go, just to stay current. You're slit and pulled tight (again), then given more of the little suckers who threw a block party on your face in the first place.

Maybe I'm addicted to the process as a whole. Am I addicted to elective surgery? Why? Is it the Valium drip? Or the pulsating socks to keep circulation in your feet?

I don't think that's it. I mean, I get more of a kick from Demerol than I could from a five-dollar foot massage at the mall on Christmas.

You know the dirty little trick of Saran Wrap on the toilet seat? I feel like that. Tightened with no wrinkles. Only people still see me, and I still get pissed on.

I don't mean I literally get pissed on. I have a dark sense of humor. You'll get used to it, don't worry. And if you don't… suck it.

Stop reading.

It won't matter.

You'll read about me some way or another.

My name is Casey Ringer. I'm a forty-something, single mom, with a brand new SLR in my garage, no foreseeable mortgage payment on my house in the Hollywood Hills and, yet, here I am, robbing a Walgreens.

How in the fuck did I get here???

I guess I DO have time 'til the cops arrive, blaring blues and reds as they sight me with both eyes and a finger on the trigger. So I might as well tell you, right?

Shall we begin?

**Mint, wait… is it julep or Jewlip?**

What do you even wear to a derby party? I mean, where do I begin? I asked myself as I spread-eagled my closet doors and started my search. Without a doubt, my furs are out. That's for sure. If I wrap up in a mink, it'll look like horse-mane, and then it's just a matter of time — and too many mint juleps — before some prick thinks I'm his stead and mounts me.

I shook my head, as if physically shaking out the thoughts was a real option. They didn't leave. I continued planning for the worst…

The guys at this party will all think they're hot shit. They'll all be coked out. Might as well be jockeys. Half of them will be trying thespians and we all know most actors can't even ride a roller coaster (they're shorter than a double-yard stick). Tom Cruise clocks in at five-foot-six, or so I've heard.

So…

With their egos firmly in place, these actors will avoid the jockey topic entirely. They'll take their pre-worn boots from Double RL and put them back in the closet where their sex lives and forty other pairs of shoes live — and end up wearing Converse.

Which translates to… Hey, I got Jon Varvatos in the back of my Mercedes 500, but I can still be blue collar.

Ugh… Hollywood parties are THEE WORST. They're filled with metro men who pre-fray their jeans. And thanks to Freddy Mercury (R.I.P.) every guy (gay or straight) has a mustache comb — the gays for their actual mustaches, and the straights so they can hedge their eyebrows to a manageable thickness.

IT IS DISGUSTING.

They don't go to yoga to limber up; it's so they can get an even tone like Ryan Reynolds, and boy, is that a lost cause. The man's a statue. The marble man.

Shit, where was the party again? Malibu? Somewhere in the Hills? Maybe Studio City? I asked myself as I pulled out a mid-drift red blouse and my favorite butt-cupping jeans. My outfit lying dead on the bed, I taped my chin in wonder…

If the party is in the Hills, I'll likely have a strong climb; and if I wear heels (and forgo easy shoes) then I'll need to purse a pair of nylons, because if it's where I think it will be, the walk-up is Italian Rhine, and that shit tears through nylon like moths on meth; but, if it isn't stone, then likely, it'll be cobbled, in which case, heels are totally out and, naturally, I'll have to wear sneakers 'cause it's too cold for flip-flops; and, let's face it, it is not that kind of party.

I decided to curb the shoe quandary and take care of the bath I had running (which by then was running over). I was very fond of my tub. It took me two weeks of battle bidding on eBay to get it from an estate sale in Queens. Apparently, some rocker died in it; but let's face it, who hasn't had a rocker asphyxiate in their tub? It happens every now and then, like foreplay in prison.

I rushed into my bathroom, ready to toss towels and mop up whatever spilled over. When I opened my bathroom door, I saw Spinkle contemplating a plunge, his front paws on the edge of my tub, the water just barely out of reach, his tongue heaving, and stretching like someone who dropped their phone in the seat-crack.

Wait, hold on; back up, let's pause here.

You're probably wondering, Who in Sam's hell is this Spinkle? And how did we go from robbing a Walgreens to getting ready for some stupid derby party??? And what is a derby party anyway? Wow, people in LA really ARE weird.

You are so right. And although this is a very important moment, I shouldn't have started here.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. I should know better. I promise I'll start being a better narrator, as of… now.

Ready?

You still with me?

Okay, let's go back to the beginning.

**The Beginning**

The jump to plastic surgery wasn't a large one. I didn't even need a running start, now that I think about it. After all, I worked for one of the largest tabloids in the world. If I were cocky enough to spotlight spider veins and circle cellulite on celebs' vacation photos (like I was drawing up a play on ESPN) then I should look good myself, right?!!

You could say vanity was in my veins. At twenty-two, I started as a copywriter and quickly worked my way up. After about two years of nursing out petty crimes and digging dirt on B-list celebrities, I was promoted to Launcher. Well, that's what they called it, anyway. And they only promoted me because I was gorgeous and could hold my own against the grab-assing corporate guys.

It was grueling. Always painted, hair done, and nails trimmed. But the pay was great and I made some close contacts with a few powerful people over the years. And after those years, I somehow weaseled my way into a share of the company before it went public and moved out West. Naturally, I gladly accepted my shares and moved with them. I was basically top rung of the masthead two more years after that.

**The Scoop**

**Editor: Charles (Something Berg or Stein,

who has time to remember really???)**

**Headwriter: Casey Ringer**

(Yay, that's me)

But, shortly after we moved into a plaza suite off Sunset and LaBrea (with an espresso-machine and marbled leg chairs in the lobby), I got pregnant.

Prego.

Full-up.

Was with child.

I only got to swipe my corporate card twice — and once was for a Bally's membership I never used — before I had to sell my shares and play mommy. But sell my shares, I did. I made out with enough to buy a house in Hollywood Hills (in cash) twelve years of primo education (for my ingrate son) and enough spending money to coast 'til, well, 'til now.

I still do freelance work from time-to-time.

When Tara Reid botched her boobs, guess who they dragged out of retirement to report it? Me. They gave me a salary (one of executive proportions), a suite at Chateau Marmont (length of stay marked TBD) and a source to contact in LA (her anesthesiologist). The source turned out suspect, as usual, but I rallied and rattled on some old