CELEBRITY SKIN
CHAPTER ONE - EXCERPT

“"You wouldn't believe what a geek I was as a kid. A raging geek. I got picked on a lot, too. Terrorized, actually. But hey, success is the best revenge, you know? I mean, where are those kids now? Knocking over 7-11s? Hell, that's probably giving them too much credit. I doubt any of them are bright enough to open the cash register.”
- Taylor Christensen in Vogue magazine

Everyone thinks they know Taylor Christensen. All those Star and Us Weekly subscribers think they've got the whole dish, even the dirty secrets. They've read about which celebrities Taylor's supposedly slept with, her real hair color (dark ash blonde, NOT platinum), the time she got wasted off her ass and danced on the tables at Butter with Paris Hilton. It's not that none of that is true, because it is, even though her “people” always deny it, soulless liars that they are. It's just that there's so much more, true stories no one will ever, ever read about. I know it all, but I'll never spill, especially not to some scumbag reporter.

See, Taylor and I have known each other since we were kids. She would probably die if I told a tabloid she was so shy she used to eat her lunch in a toilet stall of the girl's bathroom. And I'm not even sure anyone would believe me if I told them that Taylor, perfect gorgeous A-list Taylor, used to have buck teeth. And I'm talking about serious, point-and-whisper-behind-her-back buck teeth. They were cute when she was little and got her plenty of TV commercial gigs, but she had to wear monster metal headgear for almost two years of middle school. It's funny to think about now that we're adults, but I bet she would agree that was the toughest year of her life. Yes, even after all the hell she's been through. I think it's because when you're a kid, you're still so soft, so vulnerable. Taylor hasn't been either of those things for a long, long time.

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm slamming Taylor, or that I'm jealous. Sure, I used to be when we were younger, I'll cop to it. I'd see her getting ready for a premiere, a stylist fluttering around her like a fairy godmother while a make-up artist covered up her zits with some high tech airbrushing gizmo, and I'd wish just once someone would lavish me with that kind of attention. I used to feel that way, but not anymore. Everyone thinks they want to be famous, but that's only because they haven't seen what being a star is like close up. And believe me, for all the glamour and hype, it's not as great as you'd think.