Art imitates life in Nicole Richie novel

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That night, it was Mode, a converted church on Cahuenga just north of Hollywood. Unfortunately, all of us were discovering a new side to Chloe — a scary one.

Chloe didn't need drugs to have fun. I mean, drugs would be double-bad for an addictive personality like hers, and I think she knew it. But she was drawn to them for the same reasons any young person may be — drugs seemed glam, and exciting, and reckless. Being high was intriguing; it made her feel alive. Drugs were everywhere in every club. And drugs took the place of love.

But along with whatever her other drugs du jour were, Chloe was as addicted to the club scene as she was a part of it.

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To get to our booth, Chloe aggressively stomped up the staircase of Mode, a multi-tiered architectural maze with flashing lights and music so loud it felt like it invaded you, like a virus. Just as everyone in L.A. had to climb the social ladder, Chloe and all the rest of us had to climb three flights of stairs to get to the VIP level at Mode. Sometimes, scaling the social ladder was easier and faster than making it up those stairs, which were usually choked with hangers-on, wasted fans, and undercover tabloid reporters. Chloe wasn't nationally famous yet, but she was a glittering part of the youth party scene, and reporters were smart enough to know that where there's smoke, there's fire.

On her way up the stairs, Chloe started to pass two Asian girls, one tall and the other short and squat, who were bobbing their heads to the end of Kanye West's Golddigger. They both wore hip-huggers and expensive-looking belly shirts. They were not holding drinks, and their pupils were not dilated. Even in her chemically altered state, Chloe pegged them immediately: They were definitely magazine reporters.

At Mode, people acted up, hooked up, and threw up, and the paparazzi stood outside to shoot the stars as they went in looking fabulous and staggered out totally gone. Guess which kinds of photos got published? You're right! Both kinds got published. From what I heard, an exclusive shot of a new couple could earn up to fifty grand from a celebrity weekly. The price would triple if the photogs could shoot inside, but the iron-clad rule was no cameras and no reporters in the clubs. That was part of what stoked the glamour and mystery. No one really knew what went on inside. The doormen played, too. They were judge and jury when it came to letting people in and keeping people out. That meant the warm-up act for the freak show usually started outside.

Guys with money? Yup. But the doormen tried to keep the ratio of guys to girls at about ten to one. They wanted all the Brad Pitt wannabes to open their wallets while competing for the handful of Angelinas.

Excerpted from “The Truth About Diamonds” by Nicole Richie. Copyright © 2005, Nicole Richie. All rights reserved. Published by HarperCollins Publishers. No part of this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.

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