HOLLYWOOD SECRET NUMBER TWELVE: Sure, like many British tabloids, actually -- shhh! -- sometimes pay for editorial interviews, and many stars like to do them. Not only are you paid, you get to control the content of the interview. You can state up front what you won't talk about -- whether it's your crazy religion, your nasty recent breakup, or your hush-hush rumored lipo.

Laney's only ground rule for mine was that we not discuss Austin at length (my request, not hers).

My prep time flies by, but Dad, Matty, and Laney still aren't here so we move to taking the test shots. They come out really nice. The photographer even lets Austin keep one of the Polaroids (photographers always use Polaroids for test pictures). As we break for lunch, I'm in a really good mood. I change back into the Gap jeans and navy-and-white striped tee I came in (I'd die if I got food on one of those thousand-dollar dresses I had on!) and Austin and I sit down to eat. Christy quickly joins us after we've taken a few bites. She lays her tiny tape recorder ominously in front of us and then pulls out a second one. That's funny. I've never seen a reporter carry two recorders before.

"Do you mind if I ask you some questions while you eat?" Christy asks. Her own plate is practically empty except for a few small pieces of melon.

"Laney wanted me to wait till she got here to do the interview," I apologize.

Christy looks at her watch. "I'm sure she'll be here soon. We'll start off with a few easy questions until she gets here."

"Okay." I quickly swallow my last bite and wipe my mouth. "Austin is going to sit in, if you don't mind."

"I don't if you don't," Christy says.

The first ten minutes of questions are easy -- my favorite things to do on a day off, what I wear when I'm home, what my last vacation was like -- and then they get progressively more difficult -- Austin and me (I answer briefly without too many details so that some part of our relationship is kept private), what my hopes for my career are, and what possessed me to do such things as fight with Alexis Holden in public or hide out in high school disguised as someone else. (Let's be honest, I saw those questions coming. Interviewers ask them every time.) Laney's still not here, but I feel comfortable enough to keep going. I get a little nervous when she asks about my mom's bad interview in Fashionistas, and why I don't have another project lined up yet, but then the FA questions begin. Talking about working with Matty is easy, but I still can't seem to swallow the topic of FA ending.

"Can we do those last?" I ask.

"Sure." Christy smiles. "Let's go back to career then. Where do you see yourself a year from now?"