Velma laughed quietly. “I don’t think it’s that.”
“No?”
Velma inched closer. “It’s your charisma. Your spirit. It’s practically blinding.”
Evie couldn’t help glancing at her. The sight of her, so close, in that suit, made her feel itchy. Her next words were a husky purr, femme fatale movie dialogue that was entirely un-Evie. “Maybe you should put on sunglasses.”
Velma grinned. “Maybe.” She held Evie’s gaze for a beat, long enough for Evie to feel it racing up her spine. Then Velma turned her attention to the view. “How long have you been a journalist?” She asked it in the tone you’d ask a stranger what the time was.
Evie swallowed. “That’s a hard question to answer.”
“Is it?”
“How long have you been a writer?”
Velma snorted. “Touché.” In the same casual tone, she asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Evie’s voice sounded squeakier than she wanted it to. “No.”
“A girlfriend?”
So bold. So brazen. When Evie replied this time, she left more of a door open. “No . . .”
Velma moved one, two steps closer to Evie. Her voice tickled directly in Evie’s ear. “I have a driver waiting downstairs.”
Desire pounced into Evie’s chest like a jaguar. She wanted Velma’s mouth on hers. She wanted to feel her skin pressing, rubbing, sweating, sticky, writhing, explosive—
But Evie stepped back. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”
She scooped up her heels and began padding back to the party. The glass doors of the suite reflected a tall, delicious brunette in a glittering dress who looked powerful and in control. Not someone who came as soon as their master called.
“Chloe. Wait a second.”
“Sorry, Velma,” Evie called breezily over her shoulder. “I think that’s a wrap.”
30.
Being Cupcake Girl was unequivocally awesome. An entire tray of cupcakes was delivered to her trailer (yes, she had one now), with a note: For Cupcake Girl, From your fans at Magnolia Bakery. Krista screamed with delight. But best of all, she had good lines now. Greg had gone with the Dream-Girl-as-secret-singer idea, letting her help pen a short musical number toward the film’s finale. Krista scribbled ideas gleefully from her position under a hair dryer. The head makeup artist, Ora, was working on her now, not the terrified junior assistant.
The first scene she was shooting was outside, in the part of the park that had been brought back to life with fresh paint and props. Dream Girl ran one of the game booths.
“Lenka.” Greg looked like he hadn’t had much sleep, but he still gave her a hug hello. “Your first day of shooting. You psyched?”
“So psyched,” Krista gushed. “Cupcake Girl is all over the internet, I’m totally famous in a totally legit way—”
“Great,” Greg interrupted. “So, in this scene, you’re doing your thing here in the booth, and Tristan’s gonna come in from over there—”
“Hold up a sec.” Krista’s eyes widened. “This scene’s with Tristan McKell?”
Greg gave her a weird look. “You have read the new script, right?”
“I wasn’t sure who was playing who.”
“Zach is Tristan’s character.”
Krista found it hard to form the words. “Tristan McKell is going to be my love—”
And that’s when she saw him. In her mind’s eye, she’d been imagining someone much younger, closer to the Tristan of ten years ago. But he wasn’t a kid anymore. Tristan was a young man. Krista sucked in a throaty breath. He still looked like the heartthrob in every teen makeover movie, the one who played lacrosse but was surprisingly deep and resented being from the right side of the tracks. Jaw: chiseled. Hair: perfect. Cock: obviously it had to be the size of a dachshund. Krista felt straight-up drunk as Tristan, god among men, strolled on set. Spotted Greg. And began heading her way.
“McKell.” Greg hugged Tristan and slapped him on the back. “I’d like you to meet Lenka. Your brand-new Dream Girl.”
Tristan smiled at her, extending his hand. “Hi, I’m Tristan.”
None of this was real. Maybe Evie was right. Maybe it really was a brain tumor. “Hi. I’m Tristan. Krista!” She corrected herself. “No. I mean, Lenka. My name’s Lenka.”
“Looks like we’re making a movie together.” Tristan gave her a wink. “Very groovy.”
Krista tried to nod. “Groovy. Groovy blueberry. Eat those groovy blueberries.” What?
Greg glanced between Krista and Tristan. “Hey, Trist, can you check in with Jen? She was asking for you.”
Tristan nodded, and after one more smile, he headed back in the direction of the crew.
“Look, he’s just another actor, Lenka,” Greg said. “Don’t treat him any differently.”
“Hm?” Krista toyed with a lock of hair, staring after him.
“Lenka!” Greg summoned a strained smile. “This scene is very simple. Tristan’s going to come in from right over there. He’s going to notice you, give you a little smile. You’re not giving him anything back. Uninterested. Okay?”
“But why would my character be uninterested in Tristan McKell? I mean . . . look at that butt.” Krista chewed a pinkie. “You could tenderize a steak on that thing.”
Krista heard someone nearby chuckle, but Greg huffed out some air, refusing to be amused. “You’re just not. Okay?”
Min, the tiny but terrifying Chinese American woman Krista knew to be the first assistant director, clapped her hands together. “Last looks, please!”
A makeup artist dusted some powder on Krista’s cheeks. People began clearing the set, quieting down. The camera, which was set up on what looked like train tracks, was pulled into a starting position.
“Quiet on set!” Min called. “And, roll sound.”
Someone called, “Sound is speeding.”
“Roll camera,” Min called.
Another voice. “Rolling.”
Someone popped in front of Krista with a clapboard. “Scene 14A, take one. Mark.” They clapped the slate.
“Everybody settle,” Min called. The set became preternaturally silent. “Camera set?”
“Set.”
Now it was Greg who called out, from his position behind a monitor. “And action!”
Tristan emerged from behind the edge of one of the other booths, walking confidently. The camera swooped to follow him. A tinny blast of music pierced the silence. Boyz Unbridled. Krista snorted. Some idiotic Tristan worshipper hadn’t turned off their phone. The camera stopped swooping. Heads turned in her direction. A hot slap of realization: it was her phone. She’d changed the ringtone as a joke. She fumbled it free from her pocket, but before she could see who was calling, it was plucked from her hand. “Hey!” She spun to see a stormy-faced Damian holding it. “I was trying!”
In a few minutes, they were all set to start again. “And . . . action!”
Once again, Tristan strode around the corner and this time, there was no stopping him as he crossed the grass on his way past Krista’s booth. He caught Krista’s eye. And smiled.
Krista sighed. And smiled back.
“Cut!” Greg called. He stood up from behind the monitor, pulling off a pair of headphones. “Lenka! Uninterested!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Krista yelled back. “Sorry,” she called after Tristan, who was making his way back to his starting point. She shook her head, trying to clear it out and get into the zone, like she used to before an improv show. Stay focused, she told herself. You got this.
Everything began again. Greg called action. Tristan appeared. The sight of Tristan’s perfect face made her involuntarily happy, so the safest thing was obviously not to see his face at all. Krista ducked her eyes.
“Cut!” Greg called. “Lenka! What are you doing? You need to look at him.”
“Oh, okay!” Krista called back. Oof. Filming a movie was harder than it looked.
They set up again.
It took twenty-five takes to get it right.
31.
Evie dragged herself into Studio B feeling a notch above completely dead. The fact she’d forgotten to eat anything more than chocolate-covered strawberries for dinner combined with her own body weight in both champagne and margaritas had produced a hangover that required sunglasses. Indoors. She was praying it wouldn’t affect the Pretty in any way: her capacity to troubleshoot right now was less than zero. Kelly, Rich, and a few other crew members were crowded around a laptop. She was only able to manage, “What . . . doing?” before needing to sit down.
“Adrian sent in the stuff you shot last night.” Kelly spun the screen around to show her. It was paused on a shot of Velma and Chloe. Both women were grinning at each other like prizewinners. In Krista’s slinky gold dress, all made up and flushed from the attention, Chloe looked . . .
“Gorgeous,” Kelly said. “You scrub up well, Fontaine.”
Evie couldn’t reply. It was almost impossible to believe that was her with Velma. Of course, it wasn’t really her . . . but in some way . . . in some way it kind of was. Evie couldn’t drag her gaze from Chloe’s huge eyes made enormous by eyeliner, the white slash of teeth, the creamy, clear skin.
“We’ve also got the rushes for the promos and intros,” Rich said. He was wearing a T-shirt that read Harvard Law and underneath it Just Kidding. He punched a few keys, and the footage changed. As did Evie’s enthusiasm.
The girl sitting at the hot pink desk looked pale. And not in a sexy vampire way. In an English consumption way. She wasn’t ugly—it was still Chloe Fontaine. It was just compared to airbrushed meeting-Velma-Wolff Chloe Fontaine, the girl on screen was . . . faded. Like a gold coin that’d lost its luster.
She didn’t want Velma to see her like that.
Kelly snapped the laptop shut. “We’ll be ready to shoot your ‘Better Date’ story in thirty, Chloe.” He addressed the men setting up the lights. “Can I get a first look in five, please, fellas?”
Okay, Evie told herself. Let’s get some perspective here. That’s not you. You only think Chloe looks bad because we’ve been trained to think women wearing tons of makeup is normal when it’s not. Chloe doesn’t look that bad. I mean, she doesn’t look good, but she doesn’t look that bad.
Marcello strolled into the studio. He was dressed in a lilac summer suit and was wheeling his makeup case behind him. He leaned against the back wall. When he caught Evie staring, he tipped his Fedora at her in a way that somehow seemed . . . significant. A brush of apprehension tightened Evie’s muscles. Did Marcello really suspect something? Or was she just being paranoid? Or—new concern—was paranoia a side effect of the Pretty itself?
“Why is Marcello here?” Evie hissed at Rich.
“He’s on a four-week contract. He gets paid whether he works or not.”
“Oh.” Evie pursed her lips. “How did you think I looked in the promos?”
“Like someone who wasn’t wearing any makeup,” Rich replied.
Evie rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, trying to think. She just looked so . . . blah in that footage. Plus, today’s hangover wasn’t doing her any favors. She could keep Marcello at arm’s length. Besides, even if he did suspect something, what could he possibly say? Evie addressed Rich. “Maybe I should get some of the natural look going.”
Rich nodded. “I think that can only help.” He flagged down a passing PA. “Can I get a diet Bongo, but only if there’s lemon slices and if there’s not, I’ll get a regular Bongo on ice.”
“Okay.” The PA nodded.
“The ice is very important,” Rich said.
“Got it.”
Rich looked back at Evie. “Definitely start with the natural look.”
In Dressing Room 4, Evie let Marcello set her up at the washbasin. His fingers dug gently into her scalp, flushing her follicles with warm water. In spite of her desire to endure rather than enjoy this, she felt herself melt. The lemony-smelling shampoo soothed her hangover, and by the time Marcello was squeezing the water out, it had downgraded from unspeakably hideous to almost tolerable.
When he took aim with a hair dryer, she issued a warning: “No bouncy hair.”
“Bouncy hair?”
“Yeah, that cookie-cutter look actresses always have. The big loose curls,” Evie tried to explain, spinning her fingers around her face. “I just want normal hair.”
Marcello nodded coolly. “Coming right up.”
That’s another ridiculous beauty standard, Evie thought as Marcello began blasting her hair dry. In the movies, women with straight hair have it done in curls, and women with curly hair have it straightened . . . and then done in curls. If all that time was spent instead on, say, getting their input on the script or teaching them how to set up lights, surely Hollywood would be a better place. Evie had so many good ideas on how the world should be run, it honestly just seemed weird that it had taken until now for people to start listening to her.
After he finished her completely normal, could-barely-tell-it-was-a-blowout blowout, Marcello clipped her hair away from her face. His fingernail color had changed: today it was a pretty rose pink, except for his ring fingers, which were jet black. He addressed her via the mirror, hands resting lightly on her shoulders.
“So,” he said. “The natural look.”
Evie glanced at the pale, unglamorous face reflected back at her in the mirror, and tried not to grimace. “Exactly.”
Marcello emptied some cleanser onto a cotton wipe and began swabbing her face. Dark smudges stained the wipe. “I see you were wearing makeup last night,” he murmured.
“Yeah,” Evie said, shifting a little. And even though she had decided not to bond with Marcello, in case he really was on to her, she found herself explaining, “I was at an event. And sort of . . . on a date. Sort of.”
Marcello hooked an eyebrow. “Who was the lucky gentleman?”
Evie hooked an eyebrow back at him. “Actually, it was a woman.”
Marcello paused, midwipe. His face shifted, a sun coming out from behind clouds. “Really? I had no idea you were part of the rainbow family.”
“Card-carrying queer.” She fixed him with a wide-eyed stare, deliberately dumb. “You’re not telling me you’re gay too?”
He burst into laughter. “You are funny,” he said. He ran his fingertips over the foundation bottles set up on the bench, a dozen variations of tan. When he spoke again, his tone was warmer. “So how was your date with the lucky lady?”
Evie recounted the night in brief, culminating in her hard-to-get move at the end, which Marcello congratulated her on. “That’s how I landed my man,” he said, smudging dots of foundation onto her cheeks and temples. “He asked me out every weekend for a year, and I said no every time. Drove him crazy. Crazy in love,” he added.
“Why’d you keep saying no?”
Marcello began blending the thick liquid into her skin. “He was a player. I didn’t want to get played. So I made him work. That’s what he wanted. Someone to say no to him.”
“Quite the student of human nature.”
Marcello made a sound of agreement. “Or maybe I was just scared. I don’t know.”
“Scared of what?”
Marcello shrugged, turning back to his kit. “Being in love, maybe. Going after something I wanted. Damn, girl.” He twisted back to shoot her a look. “You got me all taxicab confessing.”
“Sorry.” Evie bit back a smile.
Marcello touched the blush brush lightly to her cheekbones. “Don’t apologize. That’s part of your job, right? Interviewing people.”
“Yeah,” Evie said. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Then it looks like they chose the right girl.”
“I’ll at least pass as her,” Evie said, admiring her rosy cheeks. “Thanks to you.”
Marcello smiled. A small, private smile. “Oh yes, Chloe Fontaine. You’re definitely passing as the right girl.”
When Marcello finished, Evie felt considerably
better. Marcello’s natural look, which only took twenty minutes, brought her back to square one. And that didn’t really count as wearing makeup.
Kelly’s eyes darted briefly around Evie’s face, to the lilac blouse she was wearing. Evie had stood her ground with Gemma and Rose. Nothing designer or expensive, they had assured her, just a simple V-neck top from a local designer who used organic cotton. But she was willing to go from gray to lilac, and from loose to fitted. It was just a bit more flattering. Velma would be watching.
She took her seat in the hot pink host’s chair. She could make out the beginning of a script on a teleprompter next to the giant camera pointed at her. Rich was standing next to it, arms folded. Frothy excitement bubbled in her chest. Her first on-air piece. And it was a story that normalized bisexuality. While that was a no-brainer in her friendship circle, where everyone was gay or bi or somewhere on the spectrum, or knew a million people who were gay or bi or somewhere on the spectrum, she was oh so aware this was not the case in Middle America. That was all about to change. She was going to spearhead a sexual revolution. Somewhere, someday, someone would probably make a statue of her.
Rich called action.
Evie smiled brightly and began. “It’s a question as old as time itself, a question that we here at Extra Salt are determined to answer: Who’s better in bed? Do guys have the best moves? Or are girls the ones who should take home gold? We take to the streets to find out—wait, wait, stop.” Evie squinted for Kelly. “This isn’t right.”
Kelly appeared in front of the desk. “What’s wrong?”
“It says there ‘who’s better in bed?’ ” Evie pointed at the offending words. “It should be ‘who’s a better date?’ ”
“We had to make a few changes,” Kelly said. “It’s basically the same story.” He addressed the studio floor. “Okay, starting again—”
“No, wait, wait.” Evie grabbed Kelly’s arm. “It’s not the same! My story was about who’s a better date, for me, a girl. This is just cheap battle-of-the-sexes shit.”
“No,” Kelly countered. “It’s a playful, risqué story that equalizes male and female sexual power.”
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