Starsitter: Thank God for You!

By Andrea Dana

A drunken-dial from a fallen teen queen?
A lock-in at the top of the Sears Tower?
A disastrous first pitch at a Cubs game?

Thirty-year-old Grace Daniels life comes full circle when she receives a phone call from the publicist of former Hollywood it girl, Maddy Malone. Fresh out of rehab, Maddy is returning to Chicago to star in a low budget Indie film and discovers that her former guardian is now the host of her own talk show, As Good As Grace. Having already rejected Oprahs pleas for an interview, Maddy decides that her first public appearance ought to be on Graces show instead. When the two are reunited, Maddy is shocked and enticed by the new and improved Grace, who has cultivated a new image with her recently highlighted hair, hot boyfriend Jesse, and expensive wardrobe. Maddy is acutely aware that Grace has moved on up, Jefferson-style.

Grace is also astonished by some changes in Maddy since they were last together. For instance, Maddy, once consumed with haute couture, now shops at the Gap and resorts to selling her old designer bags to the crew on set for extra cash. Maddy has also essentially dispensed with her freeloading and attention- seeking mother. When Maddys hotel reservation is lost, the perpetually self-sacrificing Grace makes a split-second decision to help her and finds herself in even more ludicrous adventures with her young protge. During the most crucial time of Graces career, she struggles to keep Maddy afloat while the young starlet comes to terms with the fact she is no longer dazzling the paparazzi on the red carpets or wowing them at Cannes. As they embark on this journey together, the two learn that, sometimes in life, stepping up to the plate and helping others can bring true salvation - and that is the path to glory and fame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450264204

Andrea Dana

Andrea Dana currently resides in Toronto, Canada where she is working on a variety of writing projects. Her first novel, Starsitter received high praise worldwide. Andrea continues to work at her job as a studio teacher, where she inspires young Hollywood to both excel academically and follow their dreams.

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Copyright © 2010 Andrea Dana

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-6418-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-6419-8 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-6420-4 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 10/13/2010

This book is dedicated in memory of my Dad, Allen M.N. Eisen (Aug 6, 1942-Jan 4, 2010) and my Baba, Tillie Leslie (Aug 15,1913- March 9, 2009). I am so grateful to have been influenced by their passion for life and the brave ways they lived it.

"How lucky I am to have had something

that makes saying goodbye so hard."

— A.A. Milne

Contents

Chapter

ONE

Chapter

TWO

Chapter

THREE

Chapter

FOUR

Chapter

FIVE

Chapter

SIX

Chapter

SEVEN

Chapter

EIGHT

Chapter

NINE

Chapter

TEN

Chapter

ELEVEN

Chapter

TWELVE

Chapter

THIRTEEN

Chapter

FOURTEEN

Chapter

FIFTEEN

Chapter

SIXTEEN

Chapter

SEVENTEEN

Chapter

EIGHTEEN

Chapter

NINETEEN

Chapter

TWENTY

Chapter

TWENTY-ONE

Chapter

TWENTY-TWO

Chapter

TWENTY-THREE

Chapter

TWENTY-FOUR

Chapter

TWENTY-FIVE

Chapter

TWENTY-SIX

Chapter

TWENTY-SEVEN

Chapter

TWENTY-EIGHT

Chapter

TWENTY-NINE

Chapter

THIRTY

Afterword

Chapter

ONE

Grace, ten minute warning. Startled, I looked up from a current magazine that I had been engulfed in and saw my assistant Michelle poking her mound of curly black hair through the door of my change room. I quickly slid it under a stack of home décor magazines sitting on the coffee table.

Thanks, I said, I’m almost ready.

What were you reading? Michelle asked, stepping into the room. I turned to face her.

Oh, nothing. Just about, um, Oprah’s new house in, um, Miami. Michelle crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at me.

Oprah does not have a new house in Miami, she said. I tried to think of a quick answer.

Of course she does, I said, stumbling. In fact, Jake already spoke to her best friend Gwen about redoing her bathrooms. Michelle placed her hands on her hips.

You mean Gayle, she said. Damn, what was I thinking? I quickly pulled the magazine out from the pile and hid it behind my back.

I can’t believe you’re lying to me! Michelle shouted, dropping her planner on the table beside the door. I stood up and moved backwards to the other side of the room.

It’s completely true, I said. Eighteen bathrooms, can you believe it?

Liar, liar, liar! Michelle screamed, lunging at me and grabbing onto my arm. I quickly ducked closer to the floor to free myself from her clutches.

Let go! I cried, clamping my hand around the chair in front of my dressing table. Michelle managed to get a hold of my shoulder and wrestle me down further until I hit the floor. I desperately tried to wriggle free and when I finally did, I raced to the other side of the room.

Give me that! she screamed like a mad woman. It was hard to believe how far Michelle was taking this.

I’m not done reading it yet, I said, firmly holding the magazine as I jumped on to the seat of the brown suede couch. You can look at it when I’m finished. By now she was out of breath. It wouldn’t be much longer before she began to lose speed. Michelle knew very well that she was no match for me. We’d both been taking the advanced spinning class at Silver Rod’s gym twice a week for the past year and she could barely keep up with me. Halfway through every class, Michelle always ended up toppled over the handlebars.

I watched Michelle eye something on the floor. She reached down and produced a long umbrella.

That belongs to the props department! I shrieked. She waved it at me wildly. If you break it they are not going to be happy. I balanced myself on the arm of the couch while she continued to try and push me off with the pointed end.

Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! she yelled.

You leave me alone, I said, jumping back onto the cushion. Don’t forget who rescued you from your boring reception job at JD Designs. I… I… I gave you a better life.

Hand it over!

No! I said. Never! With a final attempt to keep Michelle away, I held it up in the air and started jumping uncontrollably on the couch, believing that if I bounced high enough I would be ejected right out of the building. No such luck. Michelle took a fast and final running leap, tackled me down, and pried the precious magazine out of my hands.

Got it! she said. Triumphantly, she held the torn pages up, revealing the cover that read: Maddy Malone and the Prisoner of Rehab. She started laughing. I stood up and brushed myself off.

Very funny. Now I’m going to have to get my hair redone before the show. You are a very violent woman, you know. Michelle flipped me the bird and began reading the article about Maddy.

I’m very concerned about you, I said, sulking as I took a seat beside her. Michelle put an arm around my shoulders.

Oh Grace, come on, she said, I was just having fun. You do remember what Jake said about not reading this stuff for the next few weeks, right? I sighed and nodded my head.

I know, I said.

I get it. It’s hard to kick an addiction, Michelle said.

I am not addicted to Maddy Malone, thank you very much, I said. I just care. Michelle looked up and smirked.

Look, I found the magazine sitting here in my dressing room and…

Liar, Michelle said, cutting me off.

Okay fine. Brady let me borrow it because…

Liar, she said again.

It hurts my feelings when you call me a liar, I said. I’m getting a complex. Michelle gave me a sympathetic look.

Just tell me the truth, and I won’t tell Jake.

Fine, I said. I was at the store and I saw Maddy on the cover and I didn’t have the willpower to stop myself from buying it. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. Clearly it is.

It is, but I appreciate your honesty. Michelle said.

I haven’t even been reading about Maddy lately because I’ve been super busy, I explained. I am totally out of the loop. I have no idea what’s going on in her life right now.

Oh really? Michelle asked, burying her face back into the story. Hmm. Let’s see. Says here she lost sixteen pounds in rehab and…

What? She only lost ten! I blurted out. Oops. Michelle laughed, closing the magazine. I sank into the couch.

Remember, you promised not to tell Jake, I said. She rustled my hair and stood up.

Don’t worry, I won’t, she said walking out the door. I’ll send Brady in to fix your hair.

After Michelle left, I stood in front of the mirror to try and regain my composure. I don’t know why she always had to start with me. It was bad enough that I had to deal with Jake’s craziness all the time. Jake is my neurotic brother-in-law and boss at JD Designs, his interior design company. After what I like to call a genius merger three years ago with a bigger company in Los Angeles run by Teach Rogers, JD Designs became one of the top interior design companies in the United States. People traveled from all over seeking out our home décor expertise and after the company website went up, orders were coming in at such a rapid speed that we had to hire twenty-five new staff just to manage it.

As new members of the nouveau riche, Jake and my sister Sheryl moved to the suburbs and had a baby girl, named Shelby. I stayed in my apartment in Lincoln Park and gave it a fabulous makeover by adding new furniture, stainless steel appliances, and a 52-inch flat screen TV. I also had the walls painted in designer neutral colors and put down new dark hardwood floors. I was ecstatic with the new fresh and serene look of my home.

A year after the big merger with Teach Rogers, business continued to boom and Teach arrived in Chicago for various meetings. He approached Jake about wanting JD Designs to produce a local television talk show- Rachael Ray/Martha Stewart style. Although Jake really liked the idea, he wasn’t too keen about appearing in front of the camera for all of Chicago to see.

Well actually, Jake, no offense, Teach had said, but I didn’t mean for you to host it. I was thinking of Grace.

ME? I screamed from behind the door where I had been eavesdropping on their meeting. Jake opened the door, where I stood smiling and holding up the glass that I had been using to listen with.

Way to be inconspicuous, James Bond, he said. I brushed past him.

I’d love to do it, Teach. I’ve always dreamed of something like this.

They called it: As Good As Grace. Jake came up with the name of the show, obviously, because no one else would think of such a lame name, but we figured it was okay as a temporary title. We’d definitely change it down the road if the show miraculously became a big hit. Jake, Teach, and I had many meetings with writers, producers, and a fabulous director named Adam. We all wracked our brains trying to figure out a different angle on how to make the show original. Teach figured in order for it to be a successful program there had to be some sort of twist to it. I studied the competition intensely but had a lot of difficulty coming up with a concept. Then, one day, I was over at Jake and Sheryl’s house in Skokie, playing with Shelby, when Rachael Ray came on the screen instructing the audience how to make a low fat chocolate soufflé.

You know, Jake yelled from the dining room table where he was working on some of the company’s accounting. She talks too much. Can’t she just make her soufflé quietly?

Oh Jake, Sheryl said from the kitchen. You are such a pill.

That’s when it hit me. There were millions of pills out there, not just Jake. Light bulbs began going off in my head.

Oh my God! I jumped out of my seat, dancing around the room with Shelby in my arms. That’s it! That’s it! That’s it! I sang, excitedly.

What? What’s it? Sheryl asked, coming in from the kitchen.

The idea for my show, I squealed. Jake just hit it.

I missed it. What did I say? he asked, joining us.

The talk show, I said. "You just gave me the most brilliant idea for the talk show."

Grace, what the fuck are you talking about? Jake asked.

Fuck, Shelby repeated.

Great, Jake, Sheryl yelled, I really wanted her to learn that.

Sorry, babe. I swear it slipped, he said.

You swear too much, you jerk, Sheryl said. Clearly, we were off topic here.

Don’t you want to hear my idea? I asked.

Yes, they said in unison.

Fuck, Shelby said. I covered Shelby’s mouth with my hand and began to explain.

It’s going to be a talk show with very little talk.

You already lost me, Jake said.

Well, like you just said about Rachael Ray. She talks a lot on her show, I explained, settling myself down and handing Sheryl the baby. You’re right. Sometimes people just want to chill in front of the television and not concern themselves with all the psychobabble of the host. I know people that watch cooking shows on mute for that very reason.

Really? Sheryl asked.

Yes, I said. A lot of people just want to see the finished product and get on with it.

I like this, Sheryl said.

"You see, the thing is, I don’t want to be annoying. I want people to relax in front of my show. I’m not here to talk anyone’s ears off. I just want to get to the point. I want to show people how to match wallpaper with couches without having to hear my whole life story. Understand? There must be a market for this, right? People who are sick of all the talk in the talk show?" I looked at my sister and brother-in-law as they stood staring at me in silence.

Well, is someone going to say something? I watched as a huge smile formed across Jake’s face, and I could almost see the dollar signs in his eyes, but Shelby beat him to it.

Fuck! squealed my little niece.

Chapter

TWO

Everyone behind the show loved the idea, especially Teach, who would be the executive producer. It wasn’t a difficult show to put together, and being fairly low budget, there wasn’t enough money for any bells and whistles. After many meetings with producers, directors, assistant directors, sound people, prop masters, costumiers, make-up and hair people, my simple non-annoying ‘how to’ show was green-lit to go.

The local network, Channel 10, gave As Good As Grace a time slot of every Friday at two o’clock in the afternoon so our competition would be mostly from soap operas and infomercials. At first I was pretty nervous to host the show. Since I’d never been on television before or even spoken in front of large audiences, Jake enrolled me in a course on public speaking at Truman Community College. However, failing to do any research as usual, Jake didn’t read the course outline properly. The class was not for public speaking but for conversational English. As I was sandwiched between a very pleasant woman from Hong Kong who kept saying, Hi how are you? It is sunny today, over and over again, and a tall Russian man in his early twenties who kept falling asleep because he had just landed less than a day earlier, I realized this was a class for people who speak English as a second language. Needless to say, I was so embarrassed I decided to pretend that I also could not speak English. So when the teacher got around to me, I spontaneously blurted out,

Mi nombre es Grace. I immediately wanted to shoot myself for pretending that my first language was Spanish. We were in America, for God’s sake, where it was almost like a first language. Plus, I was so rusty and had not taken Spanish since high school. I would never get by and any minute my game would be up. It was the longest, most torturous two hours of my life, but fortunately the teacher was teaching basic English sentences that I actually could translate into Spanish. I managed to squeak through the class undetected. After class, I called Jake in a rage.

When you learn how to read English, I will learn how to speak it, I said pointedly.

Come on Grace, it was an honest mistake, he retorted.

Whatever. I will figure out how to project my voice on camera without your help, thank-you very much. I hung up the phone and tossed it on the passenger seat. As I turned into my parking spot, I came up with the idea to hire an acting coach to help me instead.

Madame Bovine was her name. She was highly recommended to me by a girl in my spinning class who was a theater actress. Madame Bovine terrified me from the moment I met her. She was tall, broad, and she spoke in a harsh and intimidating tone. I realized it could only work in my favor to learn from her because if I could speak in front of this overbearing and downright awful woman, I’d probably be able to speak in front of anyone. I was right. Even though Madame Bovine did make me cry a total of seven times in six sessions, I came out of there with more confidence than ever. She even insisted on accompanying me to the taping of our first show because, and I quote:

It would be a shame if after all the hard work I put into molding that little sissy school girl voice, you get stage fright and forget everything you learned, she sputtered.

I really appreciate it, I said.

From the first time it aired, As Good As Grace was surprisingly successful. I was able to utilize my connections and book numerous people from the interior design industry around the city to be guests on the show. I even attempted to persuade Oprah to allow me to redecorate one of the rooms in her Chicago home. After seeing her on television being interviewed by Barbara Walters a couple years ago, I had noticed that the room they were sitting in was quite bland. I wrote her a letter explaining why I thought she would benefit from my services, explaining that it wasn’t that I thought she had bad taste, but that the room needed a splash of color and modern accessorizing. I ended up receiving a response from one of her minions. It was a standard letter of rejection, printed on HARPO letterhead and stamped with a slightly blurred version of the famous Oprah signature. I remembered some fitting and valuable words spoken by the icon herself, Never accept a ‘no’ from someone who isn’t empowered to give you a ‘yes’. So I didn’t give up. I found a frame for my first rejection letter and placed it on my dressing room table, and then I sat down to write another heartfelt personal plea to the talk show Queen. I still continue to be rejected, but I will not weaken.

After less than a year of being on air, we were approached by execs at NBC, who happened to express an interest in taking the show national. They were impressed by my no-nonsense ways and my positive attitude. They liked my flair for mixing and matching and how I could make ordinary wooden chairs into a formal dining room set. They even said I had a brilliant eye for spotting the next trends in home décor. We also received great press. According to the Chicago Tribune, JD Designs had "hit it on the nail with their new talk show starring the sweet and gifted Grace Daniels, who is astute enough to realize that no one wants to have a twenty minute conversation about carpet textures." Jake and Teach were both ecstatic with the success of the show, and Jake agreed to promote Michelle, who had been the former receptionist at JD Designs, to being my assistant.

This brings us up to the magazine incident. We had a tentative deal in limbo, so the next three weeks were critical for the show. We were going to be closely monitored by NBC while they decided whether to purchase our show. They would be coming to a taping of a show at the end of the month, and we would have a live audience. I was still trying to figure out what the show would be about and was wracking my brain for a riveting topic.

It was going to be such an enormous step if we were picked up by NBC. Jake made it clear he did not want anything distracting me, especially anything having to do with Maddy Malone. Unfortunately, with Maddy fresh out of rehab and the paparazzi all over her, I could feel myself slipping ever so slightly back into my familiar fascination with her personal world. I was sad about what happened to her and felt somewhat endeared to her in a big-sister sort of way, since our shared adventure two and a half years earlier.

Maddy Malone was seventeen when I met her. At the time, she had been pegged to be the next big teenage