“Who could lucky bachelor number thirty-seven be?” Felipe asked as he swiped his index finger over the screen. “Too old. Too gay. Too much facial hair. Too gay. Oh, could be this one.” He held up the screen.
She pursed her lips and inspected the image of a movie poster. There was a truck and some rain and a beefy guy with a woman in his arms. He had her face in his hands, his head angled low, and her chin angled up toward him as if eager for the kiss he was clearly about to give her. She tried to inspect him a little closer. Big arms, short fair hair, chiseled jaw, she noted the features in a disjointed array, but between each entry, her eyes flicked to the woman in his arms.
Her skin was just as sun-kissed as his, her body every bit as firm, without the bulk. Her eyes and hair were darker though. Not black, more like the color of the old mahogany upright piano back home.
She blinked away, startled by the sentimentality of the thought.
“He’s . . .” She pursed her lips again, trying to find something to say about a man she couldn’t seem to focus on. “Fine.”
“He is fine.” Felipe drew out the word until it had a different meaning from the one she’d intended.
“And the woman,” she finally said.
“Ooh, girl, possessive already? She’s just an actress. You don’t need to get your claws out for another three to four months.”
She fought a sigh and waved the screen away. It didn’t matter who any of them were. Obviously, she’d rather find someone with a few coherent thoughts in his head and a bit of conversation skill, but she’d worked with all kinds of people, and each one of them brought something to the table. Whatever card she had dealt to her, she’d make it fit into the hand she wanted to play.
Or she wouldn’t, because she didn’t have to take every offer on the table. She’d earned that right, and she had no trouble reminding anyone who forgot.
The door to the conference room swung open, and this time, the person who entered wasn’t an assistant. It wasn’t even her agent. It was the woman whom she’d only seconds earlier inspected on a cell-phone screen movie ad.
“Oh, uh, hey. I mean, hi.” She stopped a few steps into the room. Her hair fell past her shoulders, and her skin had grown paler since the photo had been shot, but she couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else with those big, mocha eyes.
“You’re that girl . . .” Felipe said, snapping his fingers
“From the movie with the guy with the arms? Yeah.”
“No, from the hallway yesterday, with the tripping and the shoe wrecking.”
She blushed an endearing shade of pink. “Right, also true. Sorry to interrupt you again. I was looking for Stan, but I guess I got lost.”
She stood there a moment staring at them all, and Lila fought the urge to step in and offer absolution, which would have been fine if not for the fact that she wanted to, badly. The move wouldn’t have been magnanimous so much as an opening. To what, she couldn’t quite say, and that meant she couldn’t quite speak.
“So, yeah, sorry again.” She turned to go, but before she could take two steps, Mimi nearly knocked her over.
“Cobie, darling, baby, come here and gimme a hug!” Mimi didn’t wait for a response or even a hint of consent before throwing her arms about the woman’s waist. Mimi rocked her back and forth wildly a few times while Lila looked on, amused as the blush that had tinted her face seconds before now blossomed to include her neck and ears.
“Good to see you too.”
“Unhand her. She’s mine,” Stan called dramatically as he entered the room with his usual flash and smile, but Lila wasn’t sure if he was talking to his wife about his client or vice versa.
He placed a hand on Mimi’s shoulder and made a show of prying her off before turning his toothy grin her way. “Lila! So lovely to see you.”
“Likewise,” she said coolly, her eyes still fixed on the only stranger in the room.
“And this is Cobie Galloway.” Stan threw his arm around Cobie’s shoulder and squeezed her so tightly his large hand wrinkled the plain, white dress shirt she wore, quite unfortunately, tucked into gray jeans.
“We’ve met. Sort of informally, and briefly,” Cobie said.
“But you made a real impact.” Felipe snickered, and Lila shot him a silencing look. She’d set the tone here, just as soon as she decided what she wanted it to be.
“Great,” Stan enthused. “Have a seat, Cobie. We’ll all want to be comfortable for this one. Water?”
She nodded. “No ice, please.”
Felipe’s eyebrows shot up as if the request were a secret code, but this time he didn’t comment.
Stan handed her a glass and pulled out a chair for her opposite Lila.
“You want me to sit here?”
He laughed. “That’s generally what it means when someone pulls out a chair for you.”
“Right. It’s just when you said we needed to meet, I thought you meant about work.”
“I did.” Stan nodded to the chair, and Cobie’s eyes darted around the room once more before she took the seat.
“I know this is a little unconventional.” Mimi closed the door and claimed the chair next to Lila, who noticed none of their usual attendants were present. No staff, no contracts, no Bluetooth earpieces. Absolutely no fanfare. Just the owners of the agency and what had to be two of their most lucrative clients.
“Ladies, as you know, Stan and I are both dedicated to our own client bases. We generally do not share sources or the details of our communications unless there are extenuating circumstances. But we’re not only each other’s biggest competition, we’re each other’s strongest advocates. That balance is what allows us to succeed in business and in life.”
Cobie made a face, a sort of polite smile combined with brows knit together at the awkward confusion of being let into someone else’s marriage without asking for an invitation. Lila would have laughed at the perfection of the expression if not for her own confusion.
“Each of you came to speak to us yesterday with problems we weren’t quite sure how to handle,” Stan said.
“And believe you me,” Mimi cut in, “that’s a pretty rare occurrence these days. We’re stuck in our ways, and those ways are pretty damn foolproof.”
Lila didn’t mind the boast. She appreciated a woman who knew her worth, and Mimi Levy was worth a great deal.
“We ended up talking at length about your respective predicaments.”
“I’m not sure I’ve got a predicament,” Cobie said softly.
“You do,” Mimi said without a hint of malice. “A big one, stemming from the fact that your image is completely inconsistent with the direction you want your career to take.”
“And you,” Stan said to Lila, “are on the opposite end of the monkey bars, my dear. Your career is so in line with every decision you’ve made, you can’t surprise anyone anymore.”
A muscle in her jaw twitched, but she’d learned to withstand criticism and compliment with the same steely resolve until she had the chance to act definitively.
“Thankfully, you have the two best agents in the business, and we spent all of last night hashing out a plan to help you both get what you want,” Mimi continued.
“What you say you want,” Stan corrected, to his wife’s clear annoyance.
“They know what they want, Stan. The question is if they want it bad enough to really go after it.”
Cobie leaned forward. “Go after it how?”
Lila looked down at her candy-apple red fingernails. Wrong answer.
“You need something shocking, something edgy, something trendy and sexy and grown-up to shift your image,” Stan said, then turned to Lila, “and you need something sizzling to recapture the public’s attention, only without enough departure from your image to radically change it.”
“And you have about six months before Cobie can pitch a new movie. You would both be in a position to help each other.”
A movie? Something out of character, something edgy, so
mething sexy, something Cobie would be beholden to Lila for? She liked the sound of that, but she couldn’t see what she got out of the deal.
“So, she hangs out with me. We’re photographed together at night clubs, she comes to the shows, we party together back stage, I spruce up her wardrobe.” Cobie glanced down at her clothes and frowned, but Lila didn’t have time to go there right now. “Then we have some big public fights, Twitter snark, I write a song, blah, blah. Bestie break-up girl-fight makes her seem like one of the bad girls of Hollywood.”
“Excuse me?” Cobie asked.
“Almost,” Mimi said. “You missed one small point.”
“Actually, I completely missed the part where I get something out of the deal. Other than a fake friend for a few months.”
“Not a friend,” Stan corrected. “A girlfriend.”
Felipe sucked in a deep breath and squeaked as he struggled to hold in whatever outburst he had bubbling, allowing silence to reign as both managers stared expectantly from one client to the other.
Girlfriend.
The word rattled around Lila’s mind and into her chest. Her heart beat faster with an unwarranted excitement, or maybe trepidation. She recognized the yin and the yang of those emotions and their place in her creative process but had a hard time reconciling the mix with the woman across from her now.
“I’m sorry, what?” Cobie finally asked. “I’m a little unclear as to what you’re suggesting.”
“Of course you are,” Mimi said gently. “And that’s okay. That’s why you have me.”
“And me,” Stan said drolly.
“Have you for what?” Cobie looked to each of them, then finally across to Lila. “What are we talking about here?”
“It’s a fauxmance,” Lila said, the exasperation in her voice not at all for show.
“A fauxmance.” Cobie tried the word again. “Fauxmance, a fake romance, between me and . . . you?”
“Exactly.” Mimi slapped the table enthusiastically.
“But, why?”
Lila’s eyes went wide. “Are you for real?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive. You’re very beautiful, obviously, but I don’t know you.”
“I’m Lila Wilder.”
“Right.” Cobie nodded. “I didn’t mean I don’t know who you are. I’ve heard your songs, and some of them are good.”
Felipe gasped, and Lila held up a hand. She wasn’t offended so much as bemused. No one spoke to her like that, not anymore, at least not to her face. There was always some pretense, some hint of fear or groveling or thinly veiled power-lust. Cobie’s demeanor seemed nothing but earnest. And yet she was an actress, clearly a talented one, though her filmography hardly suggested Oscar material. Still, she must be on the brink of something big, or Stan and Mimi wouldn’t pull a stunt like this. They saw something in her to pique their finely-honed business sense, and that in turn caught Lila’s curiosity. Only, Cobie didn’t seem to understand the magnitude of her own power here.
“I think what Cobie means,” Stan said smoothly, “is the two of you bring different things to the table. You don’t generally run in the same circles. She’s more the Hollywood set, while you’re more on the recording side.”
“Actually, Stan. That’s not what she said at all. She doesn’t see what I can do for her career. To be frank, I don’t think she even really understands what you’re suggesting here.”
Mimi put a hand over Lila’s. “Lila, dear, not everyone is used to your blunt communication style. I’m not sure you meant to sound as dismissive as you did there.”
“No, I did.”
“And I’m okay with that,” Cobie said with a nod of respect. “Since you seem to have a better handle on the situation, why don’t you spell it out for me?”
Lila rose gracefully to her full height, accented by the three-inch heel of her fashion boots. “They’re proposing that you and I spend some time together, very publically, without making it clear we’re trying to be public. We get closer, we get dashingly romantic, probably you move in with me.”
“Why don’t you move in with me?”
“Don’t interrupt right now.”
The corner of Cobie’s mouth curled in a way that made Lila suspect she wasn’t completely befuddled. The subtle shift sparked a deeper interest and pulled her closer. She strode slowly around the table. “I get the increased press that accompanies the shock of a lesbian relationship.”
“Bisexual,” Mimi corrected. “You see beauty, not gender.”
“Bisexuality is really hip right now,” Stan added.
She nodded thoughtfully. “I get to double the size of my dating pool. I’m not just a man-eater anymore. We put the whole world on notice. Lila Wilder’s within reach, at least hypothetically. And artistically, it’s gold. A softer side and a wilder side, infinite possibilities. It’s raw, it’s hot, but also feminine and passionate. A first love all over again. Getting to the heart, not just the surface. Beauty, not gender. Or better yet, beauty, not body parts.”
Mimi snapped her fingers and grabbed a sheet of paper off the credenza behind her. “I like it. I’m writing that down for the press release.”
“Yes.” Lila closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting herself settle into the idea. Artistically, creatively, personally, this warmed her muscles and lifted her lungs. This felt exciting and new and thrilling. “Okay, I’m bisexual.”
“What?” Cobie laughed. “Just like that?”
Lila opened her eyes and fixed them on Cobie. “Yes.”
“I don’t think bisexuality is a choice you can just make for yourself.”
“No one makes choices for me but me,” Lila said flatly.
Cobie pushed her chair back from the table. “What about me? Do I have a choice to make here?”
“You do,” Stan said gravely, “and once you make it, there’s no going back. You need to think seriously about what you’re risking.”
“Stan,” Mimi warned.
“I have a responsibility to level with her,” Stan said. “She doesn’t want to be treated like a kid anymore. I’m not going to sugarcoat things. If teenage girls see you having a torrid affair with Lila Wilder, you’ll never get another Disney Channel original movie again. You’ll never work for the Hallmark Channel again. Jeremy will have his arms around someone else in the next big romcom. America won’t line up to see him woo a lesbian.”
“They have for years,” Cobie said dryly, and Lila stifled a snort. “But that’s fine. I’m done with those projects. I’m a serious actress. I want to be known for my craft and substance, but I’m not sure having a fake romance for the sake of paparazzi moves me closer to my goals.”
“You want a part, right?” Lila asked.
“Yes.”
“A big one?”
Cobie nodded.
“You need directors and producers and viewers to believe you can play a character that’s so different from every other character you’ve ever played, but they can’t because you’ve been typecast. Correct?”
“Exactly.”
“You got typecast in the first place by playing those roles so well.” Lila walked right up to Cobie’s chair and spun it slowly all the way around, then stopped it so they faced each other. “The way to break the mold is by taking a wildly different role.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“No. You’re hoping someone will offer you a different role, and that’s not how this business works. You have to create your own parts. For the next six months, you need to be a character actress and hone your craft on the most public of stages.”
“I’m kind of a private person.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “Private means passive. When you let someone else define your narrative, you let them define you.”
“I can’t control what other people think.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Cobie opened her mouth, but Lila shook her head.
“They’re always going to try to pigeonhole us. You can either pretend that isn’t true, or you can create the box you want them to put you in and refuse to fit anywhere else.”
“You’re saying for six months I play the part of some playgirl, it girl, bad girl so I eventually get the role of playgirl, it girl, bad girl on screen?”
“Precisely. You create a part to show you can play the part.”
“If I get to create my own show, then why cast you opposite me?”
There were a series of strangled squeaks and gasps behind her, but the boldness of the question and the challenge inherent in it only piqued an interest Lila hadn’t felt for a long time.
She extended her hand, and when Cobie took it, she pulled her up to standing. Pushing the chair out of the way, she took a slow walk around her, surveying the canvas she had to work with. Then, without comment, she sprang into action. She yanked Cobie’s shirt from the waistband of her jeans and popped open the top button to show more chest, stopping short of actual cleavage. Reaching up, she deftly unclasped the clip from her hair. Sinking her fingers into thick, silky locks before shaking them out, she found them as soft as they looked without the crust and crack of excessive product. She stood back for a second, surveying the progress before deciding something was missing.
She glanced around until her eyes landed on Felipe. She tapped her head and snapped her fingers. His facial expression went from that of a child thrilled to be called on, to one who realized he didn’t like the answer he’d been asked to give. Still, he pulled the gray stocking cap off his perfectly highlighted hair and handed it to her. Lila shook it out, then pulled it snugly over Cobie’s head until it drooped at a careless slant.
“My, you are a cooperative one,” she mused aloud. “I like that. Now turn and face the windows with your hands in your pockets.”
“Why?”
“Trust me. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Cobie shrugged, but she was clearly interested enough to comply, which was another asset Lila desired in someone she would have to spend a great deal of time with.
In Development Page 3