The two years between Rome’s ill-advised debut and her 18th birthday passed slowly. I say slowly only because it seemed that way for both the people who fantasized about that magic day when she would be legal in America and her agent whom she hired to guide her career. She released several internet movies over this time period that had lukewarm sales because of her firm attempt at restoring a family image. There was one web movie about her solving crimes that had a paltry 10,000 downloads, despite much hype from the internet community. During that strange phase where every movie and video game that came out had to involve cybernetic implants, Rome played a ‘busty cyborg sidekick’ (who possessed the eerie ability to say that three times fast) in a trilogy of FPS titles called ‘Maximum Rebooty’. The gameplay was generally given low marks but Rome’s new and growing fan base appreciated the effort to appease them. Her profile interests and pictures on Facepage were under the strict control of the fashion company and rarely had anything truly interesting to look at, but there were rumors steadily growing of a wild lifestyle that all the money from her fashion and product placement contracts afforded. Binge drinking at the most expensive bars in Manhattan. Flirting with celebrities. Sex scandals. The stuff most young people do if they have half a chance, though in Rome’s case I’d say that she had a bit more than that. A cell phone image or two would appear on the web, but her father’s attorneys were among the best in the cyber law trade. The poster would be traced by the network they used and no matter how anonymous the origins, they were usually found and fined for posting a trademarked celebrity likeness. Naturally, this didn’t stop anyone.
