The Calamity Janes: Lauren

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Extract from Willow Brook Road by Sherryl Woods (#litres_trial_promo)

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Prologue (#ulink_e1c9362b-a1ac-5412-96ca-636320757bf1)

The plastic surgeon, a Hollywood celebrity in his own right, seemed particularly enamored by his computerized demonstration of exactly what he could achieve with a face-lift.

“A little nip right here,” he said, clicking a key and altering the world-famous face on the screen so that the already flawless skin around the eyes was an almost imperceptible smidgen tighter. “A tuck here.” The soft, rounded chin disappeared.

“It’ll take ten years off,” he promised enthusiastically. “And now’s the time to start, before the aging process really gets a grip on you.”

Lauren Winters listened to his spiel, stared at the image of her face on the screen and shuddered.

What was she thinking? She was only twenty-eight, and she was worrying about taking ten years off of her appearance. Was she suddenly expecting to be cast in some teen flick as an eighteen-year-old high-school senior? Hardly. She was doing just fine playing leading ladies her own age in blockbuster romantic comedies.

Making this appointment to discuss plastic surgery had obviously been a knee-jerk reaction to her latest divorce. That made two failed marriages—not bad by Hollywood standards, but a far cry from what she’d anticipated when she’d been growing up on a ranch in Winding River, Wyoming, where marriages—even bad ones like her parents’—tended to last forever.

Suddenly her life seemed incredibly shallow and pointless. Mentally she ticked off the accomplishments and their downside.

Her marriages had been career moves...for the men.

She had made more money than she’d ever dreamed of, but had no one to spend it on, since her parents refused to take a dime from her. They had only recently agreed to sell their failing ranch, put the money into savings and use the winter retreat Lauren had bought for them in Arizona. Her father grumbled about it every single time they spoke. He acted as if her gift were a banishment, rather than a generous gesture.

Her picture was on the cover of magazines...the kind no one in her family read.

She’d starred in five box-office smashes in a row, though few people in Winding River ever made the trip to Laramie to see them, although some later rented the videos. Her old neighbors considered a night of dancing at the Heartbreak or dinner at Stella’s or Tony’s to be the height of entertainment. They were proud of her, but only in an abstract sort of way. Some actually seemed a little vague about what it was she did.

Even so, she was, by any standard, a successful, accomplished actress, but Lauren could honestly say she had no idea who she was anymore.

The invitation to her tenth high-school reunion had reminded her of that. A personal note from the class president had gushed on and on about Lauren’s Hollywood acclaim and said nothing at all about the teenage girl she’d been. Heck, back then, they’d barely spoken, which said volumes about how fame managed to turn former acquaintances into lifelong friends. Mimi Frances seemed to know Lauren Winters, superstar, better than Lauren knew herself.

Lauren had never felt comfortable in the role of actress, much less superstar. It seemed as fake to her as the fictional characters she played on-screen. There were a half-dozen identities that seemed more fitting and familiar: Lauren Winters, straight-A student; Lauren Winters, class valedictorian; Lauren Winters, president of the debate team; Lauren Winters, best friend; Lauren Winters, horse trainer; Lauren Winters, bookkeeper. Those were the parts of her that counted for something. They were the achievements she could point to with pride.

And, she realized with sudden clarity, she wanted them back. Okay, maybe not the bookkeeping, but the rest of it, the friendships and the horses and the respect for her brain as opposed to her beauty. She wanted to go home and find the old Lauren, who’d never even set foot in front of a camera, much less dreamed of being an actress.

Most of all, she wanted to see the Calamity Janes, her four best friends. The five of them had stuck together through thick and thin, stayed up all night talking about boys and dreams and spent hours on end creating mischief that had kept the whole town talking.

Even now, Lauren reflected, Cassie, Karen, Emma and Gina kept her grounded, though they were scattered around the country and phone calls were all that kept them connected. Nonetheless, they were always there with a shoulder to cry on, advice and, most of all, laughter. They were the people who mattered, not the agents and managers and publicists whose fortunes rose and fell with hers, not the men who sought the spotlight by being photographed at her side.

Her life these last ten years seemed more like an incredible fluke than something she’d achieved through hard work and ambition. Being discovered by a producer after she’d only been on the job in his studio accountant’s office for a month was the stuff of Hollywood legends. She’d laughed when he’d asked her to audition for his latest movie. She’d considered it a lark when she’d gotten the small but pivotal role that had ultimately earned her an Academy Award nomination.

But that nomination had made it all but impossible for her to go back to being an anonymous bookkeeper, whose success depended solely on whether the numbers added up at the end of the year. Other directors had taken her seriously, sought her out. The roles had kept coming, right along with the recognition and the publicity and the men. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, she’d become a sought-after superstar.

And along the way, she had gotten lost.

The doctor’s voice snapped her back to the present.

“So, Ms. Winters, shall I have my assistant schedule you for surgery next week? My calendar is booked months ahead, but for you I’m sure we can find some time.” The doctor beamed at her, his capped teeth gleaming, as he granted what he obviously viewed as a huge favor, though they both knew that having her for a client would be a publicity coup for him. He promised total discretion, but word would leak out. It always did.

Lauren weighed her choices—taking a trip home to see her best friends for their class reunion or having this ridiculously vain and unnecessary bit of surgery. In the end, there was no contest.

“Thank you so much for your time, Doctor, but I think I like my face just the way it is. I’ll keep it a while longer,” she said.

He stared at her, clearly stunned. “But if you wait, I can’t guarantee that the results will be as good.”

She gave him one of her trademark brilliant smiles, the one that had most men stumbling over their own feet. “To tell you the truth, Doctor, I don’t think the horses and cattle in Winding River will care.”

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This week the Calamity Janes had gathered around Karen’s kitchen table for their Monday-night get-together. Now that Emma had moved back from Denver and opened her law practice, now that Gina was taking over Tony’s Italian restaurant in Winding River and Cassie had settled into her marriage with Cole, they assembled someplace each week to discuss their lives. Lauren joined them whenever she could, which was more and more frequently of late.

Even when she wasn’t in town, she had a feeling she was a prime topic of conversation. They were openly worried about her. She was the only one of them who hadn’t moved home again in the months since their class reunion had first brought her home. She was also the only one of them not happily married or engaged. Maybe if she’d been bubbling with enthusiasm for her life in Los Angeles, they wouldn’t be so concerned, but Lauren hadn’t been able to hide her disenchantment.