So, life’s been pretty shit since I left rehab.
What? You didn’t know about my stint(s) in rehab? Well, lucky for you, you can read all about it anytime you want, over and over—take last month’s Starlet magazine for example:
ALL OUT OF COMEBACKS?
By Phyllis Hayes
I’m sitting in a café waiting for a star.
Two years ago today, the world watched as then–It Girl, Amber Sheppard (The Girl Next Door, Northanger Abbey, Chalet Party II) escaped from rehab—her third stint that year—and led the police on a merry chase. After spending a few days out of sight, a video of her smoking crack emerged, which viralled its way to Internet most-watcheddom (over 10 million views in three days). A few days after that, her parents escorted her back to rehab, where she was joined shortly thereafter by her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Connor Parks (The Young James Bond, Forgotten, Chalet Party III).
When she completed her program thirty-eight days later, the world was ready to give her another chance.
She was our girl next door, after all.
All she had to do was ask . . .
That’s the nicest piece anyone’s written about me in years.
What was I saying? Oh, right, rehab.
That was fabulous. And it was life-changing, okay; it really was. I mean, I did stop taking drugs and drinking and a bunch of other bad things I was doing to myself, and those were good changes, but, but, when I got out, I was also damaged goods.
Everyone deserves a second chance, right? That’s what they tell you in rehab, NA, AA, all these anonymous people who, news flash, aren’t really that anonymous, especially when they all know who you are.
That’s what they say. That life’s all about second chances. This is what makes you believe it’s worth cleaning up your act, staying sober—that chance at a second chance. A different life than the hell you created for yourself.
But what I learned when I got out, what I guess I already knew on some level before that, and what was, if I’m being honest, one of things that kept me using, was that I’d used up all my chances. The second, the third, the fourth, the comeback after the fourth. The comeback after the comeback.
That was the cold reality waiting for me.
I’d burned all my matches and then some.
So while I struggled to stay sober, people weren’t rooting for me to succeed—they were hoping I’d fail. Preferably when someone could catch it on film.
Or at least it felt that way when the cameras were there to catch every little blunder and magnify it, manipulate it, or make it up if it didn’t really happen.
She tripped on the sidewalk, in the middle of the day! Because she was drunk/high/crazy, of course. Of course.
She broke a cameraman’s toe with her car! Because she was drunk/high/doesn’t care about others, of course. Of course.
No matter about the broken heel that caused the fall or the fact that there were so many cameras and hulking men surrounding my car, on my car, blocking my car, that I started having a panic attack and I warned them, like, five times that I was going to put the car in gear, that they’d better get out of the way.
But no matter, no matter.
My name is Amber Sheppard and I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict.
I did those things to myself when I had everything going for me, and I don’t really expect people to feel sorry for me.
I really don’t.
Only . . .
Life’s been pretty shit since rehab.
Despite Bernard doing everything he can to reach me except for knocking down my door with a battering ram, the first person I speak to, the first person I see, is my publicist and best friend, Olivia.
I met Olivia right after I turned seventeen. I was still caught up in the maelstrom that followed my legal emancipation from my parents (more about this later). My mom had always fielded press calls in the past—she liked the attention way more than I ever did—so I’d never understood how persistent the press could be. Or how they seem to have gotten my personal cell number, for that matter.
It was summer. I was at an outdoor table at the Gansevoort when a woman sitting at the next table asked, “You going to answer that?” after I’d angrily ignored three phone calls in a row.
I didn’t know anyone at my table, though they all acted like they knew me. Connor was off God knows where doing God knows what. Well, okay, I have a pretty good idea, but it doesn’t help to think about that. Especially not right now when I’m so beaten down by his death that all I can think about is using.
Anyway. Summer. The Gansevoort. Seventeen. One drink of many resting on the table in front of me.
“Unlikely,” I said to the chatty stranger.
“Good.”
This wasn’t the answer I was expecting. I looked at her more closely. Twenty-five, I guessed (though her IMDB page had her listed as twenty-one—“You have to think ahead,” she’d tell me later), hair one shade lighter than her natural blonde, light green eyes, a few freckles across her nose. Cute made pretty by an expert makeup hand.
“You an actress?” I asked.
She smiled that bonded-teeth smile everyone around me seemed to have. “Trying. In the meantime, I do this.”
“Sit at the Gansevoort?”
“Good one. You’re funny, aren’t you? They should play that up more on your show. Anyway, no. Or yes, in a manner of speaking. I do PR.” She reached into her bag—one of those ones you had to be on a waiting list to get—and pulled out a card. “Olivia Proctor, Public Relations” it read in muted script. Somehow I’d expected something spangly, like her dress, or fake, like I was pretty sure her breasts were.
What a judgmental little punk I was.
“You could use me,” she said.
“I . . . what?”
“Or someone like me. Someone better than me, probably. To handle your PR stuff.”
My phone started to buzz on the table again. Us Weekly was calling. They weren’t even trying to hide who they were anymore.
“I could keep that phone from ringing, for instance,” she added.
“If you can keep my phone from ringing, you’ll officially be my best friend for life.”
She picked up my phone and dropped it into my glass.
“Does that position come with health insurance?” she asked, and I laughed.
I don’t want to see anyone, really, not even to prove to Bernard that I’m not about to fatally OD. But I have to admire Olivia for managing to get to my front door, given what’s going on outside, and she has been with me through all the Connor stuff. The ups and downs and reunions and breakups and twists and turns and . . . you get the idea. Anyway, she’s been there, you know, so I decide to let her be there for me today.
“Honey, you look terrible,” she says when I’ve pulled her inside and taken the blanket off my head. I used it to cover up in case a photographer’s made his way inside the building. “Have you been . . .”
She scans the room in a way I know means she’s looking for evidence. An empty bottle. Dust on the table. Broken glass.
“Thanks a bunch.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” she says, covering quickly. “What if someone besides me saw you?”
I slump onto my couch, pulling Connor’s baseball cap down so it half covers my eyes. My yoga pants are starting to pill. Little black spots that have worn off them in the last few days are scattered across the ultra-white couch.
“Connor just died, Livvie. Who cares?”
Her face goes white and her lip quivers for a second, then she shakes it off. She puts her hands on her hips and cocks her head. Her blonde ponytail swings back and forth, all glossy and perfect.
“No, no, no, no. Have I taught you nothing? Rule Number One of Being a Super Famous Person is—”
“—Always look your best.”
“That’s right. When Kim Kardashian made her first appearance after little North by Northwest was born, she looked like a million bucks, right?”
“It’s North West.”
“Huh?”
“The kid. Her name is North. West. Two words. How can you not know that?”
“Because, dear heart, as you well know, ever since Kanye started referring to himself as ‘Yeezus,’ I have refused to take in any knowledge associated with him or anyone related to him.”
I suspect this stance actually has more to do with Kanye leaving me off a guest list or two in the last year, but I leave Olivia to her high moral ground.
“Okay, sure. But I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“What?”
“What Kim looked like. Her baby didn’t die.”
She snaps her French-manicured fingers loudly. “Life. Changing. Events. Focus.”
I tuck my knees under my chin. “I still don’t care.”
She sits next to me and pulls my head to her shoulder. “I know, Amb, but that’s what you pay me for. I care for you.”
“I care for you too.”
“A joke. Excellent. We’ll have you in fake lashes and a . . .” She stops, considering. “What would be the appropriate outfit, you think?”
“For what? I’m not going anywhere. Not for a long time.”
“Don’t be silly. What have we been talking about? Plus, Rule Number Two of Being a Super Famous Person is—”
“—Be seen at all times—”
“—Especially in times of crisis. Right. Also, Danny wants to see you. So, let’s pretty you up for your fiancé, okay?”
Ah, fuck.
Danny.
I’d forgotten all about him.