by Sarah Kuhn
“Whoa,” Joanna says, her eyes widening. “That is the most princess-y Cinderella dress I’ve ever seen in my life.”
She’s hit the nail on the head. There’s really no other way to describe it. It’s a fluffy concoction of tulle and silk, embroidered with cascading bits of sparkle that manage to glimmer in the dim light of the trailer. A bit of pure magic against its dull surroundings. Definitely a Grace Kimura Gets Her Prince kind of dress. A Happily Ever After dress.
We’re both mesmerized by it. Frozen in place, watching the gentle sway of fabric, captivated by all that shimmer.
We’re jolted out of the spell by a pair of voices bouncing off the trailers outside.
“Hey!” one of them calls. “Is someone prowling around the trailers? Dammit, this area’s supposed to be secure.”
“Check ’em!” the other voice calls back. “You know fans manage to get on the lot all the time!”
And then there’s the sound of footsteps getting closer . . .
“Shit!” Joanna yelps. “Come on.”
She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the trailer door. For some reason, I don’t let go of the dress. I can’t let go of the dress. I don’t know why, but there is no way I’m leaving this dress behind.
Joanna pulls me down the stairs of the trailer, then plasters herself against the side and looks around, trying to figure out where the voices are coming from.
“Oh, it’s security,” she whispers, jerking her head toward the opposite end of the row. I whip around and see two men in security-type uniforms, frowning and inspecting one of the other trailers. I turn back to Joanna, prepared to mimic her oh-so-stealthy movements. Unfortunately, the gigantic dress I’ve suddenly decided to steal gets caught on the trailer steps. I instinctively yank on it, trying to get it free . . . and then it makes a big RIIIIIPPPPPPP, and then the security guards are yelling and Joanna is grabbing my free hand and telling me to run.
I bolt away from the trailers, following her back to the fake cobblestone path, and we clatter away as fast as our legs can carry us.
I risk a glance over my shoulder and see the security guards yelling after us, telling us to come back, telling me to drop the dress.
Exhilaration thrums through my bloodstream, syncing with the jackhammer beating of my heart. I pick up the pace, sling the dress over my shoulder, don’t think about anything except getting away.
We zigzag through another bank of trailers, dart through a narrow alleyway between two massive soundstages. Sweat beads my brow, and my heart beats even faster . . . and honestly, it feels good. It feels like relief, my tears clearing and my body responding to all this exertion like a happy puppy.
It’s just like when I am fully enveloped in an intense judo session—I don’t have to think.
We finally reach the entrance of the studio again—the arch, the fountain—and Joanna slows her pace, looking over her shoulder.
“Oh god,” she wheezes, coming to a stop. “Okay.” She doubles over in front of the fountain, hands on her knees. “You are in much better shape than I am.”
“Where’d they go?” I say, looking around frantically for the security guards. “Did we lose them? Are they making a report about us right now?”
“I doubt it,” Joanna says, finally catching her breath and standing up straight. “They mostly just wanted to get us out of that area, and they did. If we cause any trouble on another area of this lot, it’s another security team’s problem. That said . . .” She grins and casts a pointed look at my stolen dress. “I’d suggest you get out of here as quickly as you can. Just in case they tell the other teams to be on the lookout for a girl running around with a gigantic Cinderella dress.”
I laugh, the weirdness that engulfed me just moments ago melting away. It’s not gone, but at least our impromptu chase took me out of the existential crisis I was about to settle into.
“Here.” Joanna rummages around in her pocket, pulling out a business card and passing it to me. “Take my number. Call or text me anytime.”
My instinct is to push the card back at her. We barely know each other—why would I want her number? But instead I take it. Yet another thing I can’t really explain to myself.
Except . . . I can’t deny that there’s something about her that makes me feel instantly comfortable. And I’m used to feeling pretty much the opposite at all times.
“You remind me a lot of, well, me,” Joanna says with a chuckle. “If there’s ever anything you want to talk about, anything at all, please let me know. I’m always here.”
“I . . . thank you,” I murmur, tucking the card into my pocket. I know I need to get out of here before security comes crashing down on me, but I suddenly don’t want to leave her. “Hey, Joanna. Thank you. For, um, helping me possibly commit an actual crime.” I brandish the dress.
“I think that dress is yours,” she says, running her fingers over the sparkles. “I could tell you didn’t want to let it go.”
“It’s so not what I’d usually wear,” I say ruefully. “I’ll probably never even put it on.”
Joanna’s gaze turns introspective as she lets go of the dress, still studying all those sparkles. “You will,” she says—and the certainty in her voice gives me chills.
“How do you know?” I can’t help asking.
“I just do.” She looks up from the dress and gives me a sly grin. “Maybe I’m your fairy godmother.”
SEVENTEEN
Henry’s waiting for me when I hustle back to the car.
“I was about to send out a search party,” he says, flashing me an easy grin. “Or, you know, a text.” His gaze lands on the dress clutched in my arms and his brow furrows. “Did you go shopping?”
“Not exactly,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here. Quickly.”
We get into the car, and I shove the dress in the back seat and attempt to hide it under Henry’s jacket. Just in case the security guard at the front booth is checking cars for clearly stolen contraband or something. Henry raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything further.
Luckily the security guard barely looks at us, just waves us through and goes back to tapping away on his phone. I let out a long, slow exhale of relief as Henry pilots us back onto the streets of Hollywood.
As we drive for a few blocks in silence, I text Joanna so she’ll have my number. Now Henry’s being suspiciously quiet. I give him a sidelong glance, trying to work out if he’s, like, peaceful or if he’s subdued because he’s disappointed.
“So how did it go?” I say, turning to him. “Your audition. Did your sweet judo moves work out?”
“I executed that throw perfectly,” he says, grinning at me. “Although I missed my sparring partner. They made me use this big, floppy mannequin. Not the same.”
“And?” I swat his arm, impatient. “What does that mean? Did you get it?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his face falling. “I think I did well. I was really in it, you know? I felt like I was the character in the moment, and everything else just disappeared and . . . sorry, does this sound incredibly cheesy?”
“No,” I say, giving him a small smile. “Not cheesy. Passionate.”
“Mmm.” He smiles back at me in that way that makes me instantly blush. Talk about cheesy. “So,” he continues, “what about you, what did—”
We’re cut off by the blare of his phone—the ringtone sounds like a fire alarm.
“Oh, shit!” Henry exclaims. “That’s my agent. I need to . . .” He looks around frantically, but we’re stuck on a major, traffic-jammed LA thoroughfare, where there is most definitely no place to pull over.
“You have to answer!” I squeak as the phone continues to blare. It’s ringing so hard, it’s rattling around in the cupholder where Henry’s placed it. “And do you really not have a dashboard mount? I thought you’d been in LA for months
now!”
“I refuse!” he yells back. “I will not succumb to that particular bit of the Angeleno lifestyle!”
“Well, that makes it hard to answer your freakin’ phone!” I snatch the phone out of the cupholder. I hit answer, then put the call on speaker. “This is Henry Chen’s phone,” I say, making my voice as authoritative as I can manage. “He’s driving, but listening.”
“Yeah, Hank,” a brusque female voice barks over the line. She seems completely unfazed by the fact that some random girl has just answered Henry Chen’s phone. “Great job in the room, buddy, great job.”
I sneak a glance at Henry, but his eyes are glued to the road, his knuckles white as he grips the steering wheel. He has no idea what this lady who started a conversation as if they were already in the middle of one is about to say.
“I have a few deal points I want to push them on, but assuming they don’t dick me around too much, the shoot will start in three months,” she bulldozes on. “I assured them you’re totally up for the physical demands, even if it means doing some extra training—”
“Wait.” Henry finally manages to get a word in. “Are you saying I got it?”
“Well, yeah,” the woman says, sounding like she has no idea why that would be in question. “Like I said, you killed it in the room.”
“But . . . that’s it?” he says, shaking his head. “No callback, no test, no chemistry read—”
“Hank.” The woman sounds thoroughly annoyed now. “Do you want this or not?”
“Yes.” He nods vigorously, even though she can’t see him. “Of course I do.”
“Faaaabulous,” the woman trills. “Then I’ll get to work. Lates.”
And then she hangs up.
“Oh my god,” Henry murmurs. He slaps the steering wheel a couple times, his face lit with total disbelief. “Oh. My. God!”
“Pull over!” I demand. “You’re about to crash your completely-not-safe-for-LA car! Look, there’s an alley just off Melrose—right there!”
Henry whips the steering wheel around, making a screechy, terrifying turn into the alley. He pulls up next to the curb, stops the car, and turns off the ignition. Then he reaches over the gearshift and sweeps me into his arms, pulling me tightly against him.
“Thank you,” he murmurs into my hair. “This is all because of you.”
“No,” I say, pulling back from him. His arms are still around me, our faces inches apart. I reach up and run my fingertips over his cheek, my eyes roaming his face. I love being this close to him, just studying him. “You did that, Henry. You got that part. And I knew you could do it. I’m so happy for you.” I brush my lips lightly against his and smile. “We should go celebrate.”
“Wait,” he says, shaking his head. “What about you? What . . .” His eyes drift to the Cinderella dress, still crumpled in the back seat. “What happened with Grace?”
“The same thing that usually happens,” I say, tossing off a breezy one-shoulder shrug. “Absolutely nothing. The sets and the trailers were abandoned; there was no one there. I did run into Joanna, though.” I disentangle myself from him and sit back in my seat. “So. Where should we celebrate?”
But of course, Henry doesn’t let it go. Because he can never let anything go. A quality I find both infuriating and inexplicably attractive.
“Rika,” he says, his voice heartbreakingly tender. “What really happened?”
“Like I said, she wasn’t there,” I say, throwing up my hands. “I found another old picture of her that she must have left behind. And that dress. And I suddenly had to have both of them—don’t ask me why.”
“This is bothering you,” he says.
“Maybe it is—so what?” I say. “At this point, it feels like she doesn’t want to be found. She doesn’t want to meet me. It’s like she’s avoiding me on purpose. And maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. She’s the beautiful princess—the queen—who’s disappeared into her far-off castle forever. We’re star-crossed, never to meet. It’s a sad, bittersweet ending—just like all of my Japanese fairy tales. And . . .” I swallow hard, trying to get rid of the lump that’s rising in my throat. “And that’s just how it is,” I proclaim defiantly. “That’s how it always is.”
We sit there for a few moments in silence, me staring at my lap. Determined not to cry. I’m not even going to fucking well up this time. The silence grows heavy around us, an invisible force weighing down the entire car.
Then Henry reaches over the gearshift and takes my hand.
“But maybe this time,” he says softly, “you didn’t want it to be that way.”
The silence grows heavier, pressing against me, making every single breath feel labored. Why can’t I ever just say what I actually want?
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, trying to sound defiant again. “I think I got caught up in this idea of Grace Kimura being my mother—like we were going to have this tearful, perfect reunion and suddenly everything in my life would be fixed and I’d feel like I . . .”
Like I belong with someone.
I take a deep breath, trying to retain control. “And somehow, in that fiction, I guess I conveniently forgot that . . . I mean, I don’t know exactly what happened, but no matter how you slice it, she abandoned me seventeen years ago,” I say. “She left me behind and never came back for me. So why would she want me to find her now? I’m worse than Belle, dreaming of some kind of impossible Cinderella ending. I should have remembered that the nure-onna doesn’t really do that sort of happily ever after.”
Henry doesn’t say anything, just squeezes my hand. And we sit in silence for a few moments more.
“I want to take you somewhere,” he finally says. “One of my favorite magical spots in LA.”
My head jerks up. “Excuse me? You know enough about LA to have a favorite spot? Please don’t say Disney-land: that’s not even in LA.”
“Oh no,” Henry says, a mischievous grin overtaking his face. He puts the key in the ignition and starts the car. “It’s definitely in LA. But I want it to be a surprise. Just sit back and enjoy the ride and don’t try to pry any clues out of me.” His grin widens. “You’re gonna love this, I promise.”
* * *
“This is your favorite spot in LA?” I have to shout to be heard over the din of bleeps, blings, and screams emanating from the massive carnival swirling around us. “The Santa Monica Pier? One of the cheesiest tourist traps in the city? And by the way, Santa Monica is its own city, so it’s not even LA, actually.”
“Listen to you,” Henry teases, throwing an arm around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. “What a freaking snob. After all those lectures about LA’s history and range and how I need to rethink my New York superiority complex, you reject my LA landmark?”
“Not exactly a landmark,” I grouse. “Unless you think a rickety old roller coaster and a hot dog stand count as such.”
“It’s right on the beach,” he says, sweeping an arm out.
The pier is a long stretch of weathered old wood that extends over part of the beach and just over the water. It’s packed to the brim with concession stands, kiosks selling T-shirts and cheap souvenirs, and the raucous carnival. A cluster of old fishermen always inhabits the very end, throwing their lines out into the ocean and hoping to receive a bounty in return.
“That’s your selling point?” I say. “The beach? You can get the beach almost anywhere along the coast of this area. And without all the excess noise.”
“I know it’s corny,” he concedes, chuckling. “But I love it. All of it—the rainbow lights from the Ferris wheel, the loud noises from the boardwalk games, people looking for cheap thrills and fried food.” He tugs the brim of his incognito baseball cap. “I feel like I can get lost here, escape into the crowd. It’s hard to do that anywhere else.”
“Hmm,” I say, remembering the ruckus he caused at Katsu That. �
��I guess I can see that. So what’s your celebratory fried food of choice?”
“Naturally it’s the fried cheese at Hot Dog on a Stick,” he says, his eyes getting a dreamy look. “Like a corn dog, only just cheese inside.”
“You are quite the fried cheese connoisseur,” I say. “People are usually scared of the cheese katsu at my Aunties’ restaurant, but you went all in. Didn’t even hesitate.”
“I never hesitate when it comes to cheese,” he says—and he suddenly looks so deathly serious, I have to laugh. “We need to strategize, though. Rides need to come before fried food. Unless you’re the type of person who’s more likely to get queasy on an empty stomach—”
“I don’t do rides,” I say quickly. “Especially roller coasters.”
He drops his arm from my shoulders and whirls to face me, shock overtaking his expression. “Excuse me,” he says. “But how, why, what? You’re one of the most fearless people I’ve ever met. Are you telling me you’re scared of rides?”
“Not scared,” I protest, crossing my arms over my chest. “I just don’t like them.”
Now he crosses his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing. “That’s it?”
I shrug. “That’s it.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Bullshit.”
“Hey!” I yelp, falling out of my indignant pose. “That’s not very celebratory.”
“I don’t want to celebrate if it means we’re going to ignore how you’re feeling,” he says. “And I know you well enough at this point to realize when you say ‘That’s it,’ it’s pretty much never true.”
“Okay, ouch,” I say, clapping a hand to my chest, mock-wounded. “I thought this was supposed to be a fun time at the carnival, not some weird therapy session.”
“It is a fun time at the carnival,” Henry says, throwing an arm around my shoulders again. “And part of the fun is rides.” He dips his head to whisper against my hair, his lips nearly brushing my ear. “Don’t you want to be all pressed up against me on that roller coaster, holding on to each other for dear life?”