Meredith dropped the cigarette she was smoking and raised a hand in greeting. Her bun was held in place with bright red chopsticks, and her fashionably oversized black-rimmed glasses gave her an artsy, intimidating air.
Willow drew her arms across her chest. “Hi, Meredith.”
Meredith kissed an inch above both of Willow’s cheeks loudly. “Come in, come in,” she warbled in her vaguely pretentious, swallowed sort of voice. “Let’s have a chat.”
Willow tried to avoid looking at her photographs as the pair crossed the gallery—completely empty, Willow noted—on their way to Meredith’s cramped little office in the back. Meredith made oolong tea, prattling on about some amaaaazing group exhibition she’d been at last night, all artists Willow had never heard of. “You should’ve come with me, sweetie,” Meredith insisted. “You need to get out there, meet your fellow artists. It’s such a small world, everyone knows everyone.”
Willow accepted the teacup Meredith offered with just a nod.
“Have you been working on anything new?”
“Um . . .” Willow let her gaze trail around Meredith’s busy office space, over art books and cardboard tubes and rolls of bubble wrap.
“Because I really think you have so much potential,” Meredith continued. “And look, I know this exhibition has been . . . underperforming. What would help is if you were more active online. You’re the brand, Willow. You need to build a fan base. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.” Then, with a deliberate kind of caution, “What about your father?”
The question sliced at Willow. “What about my father?”
“Something from him would really help. Maybe, a tweet? Or a quote—”
Willow’s voice was brassy. “Actually, I have been working on something new.”
Meredith’s eyes lit up. “Wonderful!”
“I’ve been working with a new model,” Willow said. “Caroline. She’s . . . really different. Really . . . unpredictable.”
“What sort of themes are you exploring?”
“Doppelgängers. Shadow selves. The idea that you can be your own worst enemy.”
Meredith looked as if she was deciding whether this was genius or bullshit. “Show me what you’ve done so far.”
Willow slouched in her chair. “We haven’t really started yet. They’re only tests.”
“Show me.” Meredith waved her hand at Willow. “I’m your curator. I can help.”
Willow drew out her phone reluctantly. The self-portraits she had taken, the day Mark lied to her, had been pushed to her iCloud. Caroline, beautifully mournful, heartbreakingly tear streaked, stared back at her: a former life, a ghost. Her hand was trembling when she gave Meredith the phone.
Meredith swished through the series. Her face was unreadable. Then she pressed her hand into her chest. When she looked up, Willow was surprised to see her eyes were glassy. “These are fantastic.”
“Really?”
“Such raw emotion,” Meredith breathed. “Pain. Suffering. I can feel it. And your model is exquisite. What did you say her name was?”
“Caroline,” Willow answered, before adding, “but she’s not a professional model.” So don’t go looking for her.
“Even better!” Meredith exclaimed. “You discovered her. This is why I signed you up. I knew you had depth. I could feel it. When can I see more?”
“You really think these are good?”
“I don’t think. I know. Because I feel. These make me feel.” Meredith leaned forward to hand Willow’s phone back. As she did, the shadows around her face shifted, pooling under her eyes. The effect was disconcerting: oddly ominous, even minacious. Then Meredith settled back in her chair, and the moment passed. “When can I see a proper shoot?”
“Soon,” Willow replied. “Soon.”
25.
Krista sat slumped in a corner of the extras’ tent, feeling invisible. When could she go home? She didn’t even have a trailer; another cruel joke from the universe. She was sitting on a milk crate, for chrissake. A milk crate.
She scrolled through her phone. Krista Kumar’s unexpected absence was taking its toll: texts from her gym buddy after she was a no-show this morning, a planning thread for a surprise birthday party she’d miss, a message from an improv friend wanting to plan seeing a show together. Her FOMO made her feel anxious and depressed in equal measure, and it was this rare moment of vulnerability that led to impulsively picking up a call from her dad. “Hey, Papa.”
“Krishnakali!” Krista winced. Her Indian name always preceded a lecture. “Why haven’t you been taking my calls?”
Krista mumbled that she’d been busy.
“With acting? Krista, that is not a good use for your brain. You must reenroll at Boston. You must complete your studies.”
“Krista?” It was her mom, picking up on the other line.
“Hi, Mama—”
“Sweetheart, why don’t you just get a job, like Evie?” her mother began. “She is such a good girl. Except for that tattoo.” Her mom tutted disapproval.
“Why don’t you want to become a lawyer?” her father asked. “All these years, you tell me you want to become a lawyer, and then you change your mind?”
“Well—” Krista tried to interject but her mother spoke over her.
“She can change her mind! She just needs to get a job.”
“No, she must finish her studies.”
Krista listened numbly as her parents began to bicker. Maybe they’d just wear her down. Maybe it’d be easier to capitulate to at least one of their demands. She wished she’d hidden her smarts from them more effectively—who knew all those glowing middle school report cards about the “highly intelligent if easily distracted” Krista Kumar were going to lead to her parents taking on the role of career counselors long after she graduated high school? Why wasn’t there so much pressure on her brothers? Maybe because none of them had defied her parents as much as their youngest child had, the child whose GPA was also the family’s highest. She knew her parents loved her. She just wished they didn’t have to be so first generation about it.
Her phone chirruped. Evie was calling. She tapped to pick up. “Hey, I’m on the other line to my parents, not that they’d even notice I wasn’t there—”
“Krista.” Evie’s voice was hushed and insistent. “You’re on the internet.”
“We all are, genius. It’s 2016.”
“No, I just texted you a link. Shit, Krista.” Evie exhaled. “You were supposed to keep a low profile.”
Krista whipped the phone from her ear and saw the text from Evie. A link. To a gaudy gossip website. She tapped it open. A splashy headline around a video burst onto her screen. The title: Cupcake Girl Serves Ravi Harlow! The video started playing.
It was her.
And Ravi.
In the food tent.
She heard Lenka’s voice. Tinny. But perfectly distinct. “You don’t want to be my friend? Fine—I have, like, a million friends. But we had sex, jerk face—”
Krista closed the web page. She couldn’t breathe. How? Who? Someone filmed that? Shakily, she pressed the phone back to her ear. “How did you get that?”
“How didn’t I get it?” Evie snapped. “It’s all over Facebook. There’s a GIF of you biting the cupcake. You’re a hashtag, Krista!”
“I’m a hashtag?”
“Yes!” exploded Evie. “Hashtag cupcakeoftruth! Kelly just called me, he wants to do something about it on the show tomorrow, instead of Dildo of the Week. It took me ten minutes to talk him out of it!”
“What’s the Dildo of the Week?” Krista asked, because quite frankly none of the ones she had were very good when it came to—
“Krista!” Evie shouted. “Focus! You. Are. Viral. Everyone on that film set is going to find out any second!”
Krista looked up. Greg and Ravi were marching toward her, expressions apoplectic. “I think they already know.”
Greg kept it together long enough for the three of them to make it to his tr
ailer. As soon as the metal door swung shut, he turned on Ravi and Krista.
“Who?” Greg sounded like he was trying very hard to keep his voice even. “Who the hell filmed that?”
Ravi mumbled something at his shoes.
“What?” Greg asked him.
“My brother. My little brother, he was hanging out in craft services.”
Greg’s hands clenched into fists. “There’s Funderland chairs in the background! Everyone’s going to know this is from my film set.”
“What about me?” Ravi jabbed his finger at Krista. “That crazy bitch made me look like a total douchebag!”
Krista lunged at him. Ravi shrieked, scrambling back. Greg grabbed her shoulders and yelled, “Stop, stop, stop!”
The trailer door swung open. A woman breezed inside without knocking. Early fifties, attractive in a severe way, with silver hair cut into a bob. “Everyone stop yelling.” She addressed Krista brusquely. “Lana Lockhart, Funderland’s publicist.”
Panting a little, Krista shook her hand. “Lenka Penka,” she said. “Resident harlot.”
“Fuck!” Greg wailed. “It was hard enough convincing the studio I could direct Funderland, and now this! I look like I can’t keep control of my—”
“Calm down,” Lana ordered. “It’s all fixable.”
Greg raked both hands through his hair. “How?”
“We say it was a rehearsal,” Lana replied. “For a scene in the film.”
“But she’s barely in the movie!” Greg cried. “And there’s no scenes like that!”
Lana shrugged. “So it was a scene we cut. All you have to do is bump up the size of her part, and it all goes away.” Lana put one hand on Greg’s shoulder and squeezed it. “Honey, we can use this. Cupcake Girl is trending on Facebook. We need to step in, claim it, and turn it into a story about Funderland. Cupcake Girl is our girl.”
Ravi was nodding. “Yeah. Yeah. A rehearsal. Not real, yeah.”
Lana directed her gaze at Ravi and Krista, speaking in the same soothing voice a parent might use on a crying child. “You two are friends. You’ve never had a sexual relationship.”
“Yeah.” Ravi nodded. “Friends.”
“See?” Lana said. “Everyone wins.”
“And I . . . get a bigger part in the film?” The corners of Krista’s mouth twitched upward. “Do you want to use some of my ideas?”
Greg gave Krista a weak smile, shoulders slumping. “Sure. Why not?”
26.
A coiffed crowd billowed out from the entrance to the Pembly. Women with shaggy haircuts under pork-pie hats lit cigarettes for men in colorful bow ties and stripey shorts. Evie tugged down the hem of Krista’s gold sequined dress an inch. She hoped she wasn’t overdoing it. But it was Velma Wolff. She wanted to make an impression.
She maneuvered her way through the crowd, trying to keep her balance in three-inch heels, a decision she was already regretting. How did human women walk in these things, seriously? Her two-person crew was faithfully in tow: Adrian, a heavyset guy shouldering the camera, and a boom operator, Lo, a Korean chick wearing a Comic-Con shirt. At the hotel’s entryway, Evie told a severe-looking woman with a clipboard who they were, and they were ushered inside.
You know you’ve made it, Evie thought, when there’s a door list for your book launch.
When the Pembly first opened its doors in 1921, it served the city’s best bathtub gin to Hollywood’s most fawned over: John Gilbert, Charlie Chaplin, Alla Nazimova, Pepper Rose. It was one of those hotels that hosted artists, musicians, and writers as both long-term residents and short-term troublemakers. Elizabeth Taylor was rumored to have had an affair with John F. Kennedy in room 42 while married to Richard Burton. Debbie Harry overdosed here twice. Ernest Hemingway fought here regularly.
And now, history would once again be made. Evie Selby was going to her very first celebrity book launch, in the skin of another girl.
Gold-lettered signs affixed to dark wooden walls indicated where the party was, but they were unnecessary. Music, chatter, and just the fizzle in the air led the way to the hotel’s ballroom. Once inside, Evie couldn’t help but gasp. The room was royally, even ridiculously, sumptuous. An enormous chandelier hung from the ceiling, like an alien spaceship decked out for Christmas. A gleaming white piano dominated a raised stage at the front of the room, where a woman in a white tuxedo was playing “All of Me” under a huge Milk Teeth banner. The walls were adorned with bold modernist paintings: bright, violent slashes of color. A table was piled with cheesecake and berries.
“Champagne?” A silver tray of flutes was being offered to her. There was something about the way the waitress was smiling—suggestive, inviting—that seemed unmistakably dykey. Evie felt a surge of interest and promptly blushed. “Thanks,” she said, taking two. The waitress grinned and walked away.
Someone passed her, murmuring, “Great dress.”
The compliment came from a woman in a floaty pea-green frock who looked a lot like Julianne Moore. No, wait. That was Julianne Moore. “Th-thanks,” Evie stuttered, wholly flustered.
Her eyes raked the room. More pings of celeb identification: Neil Patrick Harris chatting with Samira Wiley and Ingrid Nilsen, Ellen and Portia giggling with Rachel Maddow. Alison Bechdel having her photo taken with the cast of Girls. Ruby Rose and Jane Lynch were splitting a slice of cheesecake. It was weird and exciting and wholly unreal, like seeing zoo animals gallop up Madison Avenue.
“Excuse me.” Someone was sliding past her.
Evie felt a jolt of recognition. “Quinn!”
The Ellen Page look-alike from the Wythe Gallery, her failed date. Evie could see the petite brunette’s mind working, trying to place the statuesque Chloe. “Um, hi.”
Quinn’s coolness inspired a wash of loneliness. For a moment, Evie felt marooned in Chloe’s body, trapped in a stranger’s skin that Quinn didn’t even recognize. The pause lengthened into awkwardness, and Evie rushed an explanation. “I saw you at a show last month. You were great.”
“Oh. Thanks. That’s really sweet.”
“So, how are you?” Evie inched closer. “Are you working on anything new?”
“Yeah. Always.” Quinn backed up a little. “I’m going to grab a drink. Nice to meet you.” She turned away, heading for the bar.
Evie watched her in surprise. Most people jumped at the chance to speak with Chloe Fontaine. Maybe she’d come across as too stalkery, too familiar. Or maybe Chloe just wasn’t Quinn’s type. This was oddly flattering.
“Where’s Velma?” Adrian’s question brought Evie back to reality.
“I’m guessing over there.” Evie pointed to the far corner of the ballroom with her glass. Dozens of people stood knotted in front of a huge reproduction of the Milk Teeth cover. As they began pushing their way toward it, the crowd grew thicker. Evie spotted a wall of books, hundreds of copies of the hardcover. White camera flashes burst over a clutch of people standing nearby. Evie’s breath caught in her throat.
Velma.
Velma Wolff, in the flesh, looking beautiful and insouciant and 100 percent really right there. She was wearing her trademark Dior suit: a fitted white shirt, open at the neck, and tailored black pants. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek low ponytail that curled around one shoulder. Evie knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help it. Even from across the crowded room, Velma exuded sex. It was in her eyes, hooded and almost lazy; it was in her stance, shoulders straight and confident. And of course, it was in her smile, which teased everyone around her.
“I’m guessing that’s her,” murmured Lo, plucking the second glass of champagne out of Evie’s hand.
Evie didn’t even notice. She felt dopey, like she’d just woken up.
“Yo,” Adrian prompted. “Are we going to do this?”
Evie’s heart rate began to rise. “Do this” was interview Velma Wolff. Velma Wolff the celebrity. Velma Wolff the author. Velma Wolff the sex goddess. Who was she to get a second chance with Velma Wolff? She was th
e girl who cried—hysterically—when she didn’t make Student Council and was too scared to use tampons until she was seventeen. She couldn’t. She couldn’t!
“Chloe?” Adrian nudged her. “I don’t want to be a dick, but I really need to work on my fantasy baseball team tonight and—”
Adrian’s monologue faded, eclipsed by a single word. Chloe. Chloe. She wasn’t Evie anymore; she of uneven teeth and secret fat. She was Chloe, a beautiful swan who could rock a dress even Joan Rivers would’ve approved of. Evie downed the rest of her champagne. “I’ll go get her.”
Kelly had confirmed that Velma’s publicist knew they were coming, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. She was a professional, Evie reminded herself, who (for all Velma knew) met famous people every single day. She practiced the words in her head: Hi, Velma, I’m Chloe from Extra Salt. Would you mind if we shot a quick interview with you after the reading?
Finally, she was just a few feet away. Velma was shaking the hand of a gushing young fan who was telling her she was the reason why she came out in the first place and she loved all her books and she could not wait to read Milk Teeth, she just could not wait.
“Thank you,” Velma was saying. “Thank you so much.”
Velma’s eyes rose languidly. They settled on Evie. The corners of her mouth lifted into a slow, gap-toothed smile. “Hi.”
Evie forgot what words were. She failed to recall how her mouth worked.
Velma moved toward her. Evie could smell her: the heavy scent of lavender. “I’m Velma,” she said, offering her hand.
Evie stared at the hand hovering a few inches from her belly button. The world seemed to warp around her. All she could think was that’s Velma Wolff’s hand, that’s Velma Wolff’s hand, that’s Velma Wolff’s hand. As if in a dream, she took it. As soon as she felt Velma’s soft but certain palm enclose hers, a full-body shudder quivered over her skin. Evie opened her mouth to say the only thing she could say, the only thing she had ever been sure about in her entire life. “I love you.”
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