Scene 7

"It was good of you to stop in, Miss Kingsbury. We look forward to working with you next month."

The door clicked resolutely shut behind me.

It was a twenty-minute walk back to where I'd parked my car on Cahuenga. Which was nothing, compared to the eleven hours of flights, five hours of off-the-beaten path layovers, and two hours I'd spent in rush hour traffic to get from LAX to the studio. Never mind the forty-five minutes I'd sat in the waiting room before being summoned to the corner office.

All for a three-minute meeting.

Less than three minutes.

I'd walked in to find the director, L.R. Sims, perched on the mahogany arm of a plush leather chair. Across from him, sprawled at a u-shaped desk scattered with papers, sat a sparse-haired, boulder of a man, toying with the label on an unlit cigar. I'd never seen him in person, but I recognized him immediately, his face just as ruddy as it had been during his acceptance speech three years earlier when he'd taken home the Academy Award for Best Picture. He was Sand Seekers executive producer, Waylon MacArthur.

The watery blue eyes beneath his creased brow turned in my direction. He offered no greeting, instead analyzing me as I crossed the floor, and then turned to give L.R. a nod of approval.

"Very good." The assessment came out in a voice half-an-octave higher than anticipated from a man of his stature. "She'll be easy to sell."

I stood in the middle of the room as he took another head-to-toe sweep of my body, then fished out a matchbook from inside his snug blazer, returning his attention to lighting his cigar.

"As we've discussed, Miss Kingsbury offers a malleable canvas," L.R. filled the silence, shooting me an acknowledging chuck of his square chin, before sliding to his feet to pace the room.

I'd met the animated director on several occasions during my quest for the role. He'd been friendly. Personable. It had been easy to see why he was one of the most highly regarded directors in the industry. Lauded as a visionary, praised for his decisive nature and open-minded innovation, having the opportunity to work under his direction was one of the most exciting aspects of winning the part.

But today he was a different person. His entire focus had orbited MacArthur as they picked up in the middle of a conversation carried over from prior to my arrival.

Yes, the right decision had been made to cast me in lieu of Pugh.

Florence, I'd assumed.

No, it was good I wasn't too tall—I wouldn't look imposing beside my co-stars.

Whoever they were remained a mystery to me.

Yes, I was pretty, but not too pretty to be off-putting to the female audience.

What?

No, my previous work was entirely unremarkable, which gave the audience an opportunity to build a relationship with a character instead of a name. Um, great—thanks? I think?

All of this was said in front of me, about me, as if I wasn't even there.

None of it was a new discussion. Most of the talking points had been addressed with me by L.R. and the casting director at one time or another over the course of my numerous auditions. Nor, obviously, was it the first time it had been debated between L.R. and MacArthur, either.

But for some reason, their one-hundred-eighty seconds of chitchat had been so vital, I had to fly home on a red eye flight from Maui, making four ridiculous connections—Honolulu, Seattle, Phoenix, Oakland—to make it to a five PM meeting in Universal City on a Tuesday afternoon.

And that had been it. I was dismissed.

Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101 heading back toward my apartment in Hollywood, I wanted to call Aaron to ask him what the hell just happened. What the fire had been? Was it an experiment to test my commitment? Some kind of point being made that the studio could say jump and I'd only ask how high ?

I imagined that was the core of the exercise. It was such a typical power play. A reminder that this was exactly what I'd signed up for. Let us point out, little lady, how fortunate you are. Thousands of other girls had auditioned for this role, and I was the lucky one to answer at their beck and call.

I asked Siri to call Aaron, and then told her to cancel. What was the point? This was what I'd signed up for. I didn't need him to tell me that.

Rolling all the windows down in my base model Honda Accord, I smacked a frustrated palm against the steering wheel, unintentionally producing a honk. The guy in a BMW X5 ahead of me responded with a one-finger salute and shout of fuck off .

Welcome home .

I was pissed at the traffic. Pissed at Aaron. Pissed at the big wigs holding the keys to my career. But more than anything, I was pissed at myself for not having a backbone. Had Chris Hemsworth—Adam Driver—Leonardo DiCaprio—ever made a twenty-hour travel expedition just to stand in the center of a room while two men openly discussed how they were handsome, but not too handsome, which was a benefit due to the fact that it wouldn't alienate their viewers? Or had it ever been mentioned how convenient it was their height wouldn't affect the fragile egos of their fellow headliners?

I doubted it.

But then it occurred to me that probably wasn't the case for Meryl. Charlize. Cate. Sandra. I'd no doubt they'd all been through this before. And probably much worse.

That realization sobered me, and as much as it brought with it a new kind of outrage, it also simmered me down. I'd get through this. Just like they had.

I hoped.

Waiting in the gridlock, I glanced at my console. Three texts. All from Dani. Photos I hadn't responded to of her latest activities on her honeymoon. Swimming with sea turtles and dolphins. A helicopter ride over the Moloka'i sea cliffs. A night snorkel with manta rays.

I'd get back to her tomorrow. She didn't even know I was home.

It wasn't her text I was looking for, anyhow.

I turned my eyes back to the road, resisting the urge to scoop up my phone. Even if I was putting along at two miles an hour, the last thing I needed to do was to hit someone.

Again .

Which brought my thoughts full circle.

Why hadn't I asked for her number the night before? How could I be sure she'd gotten the message? The night clerk had seemed entirely unimpressed with the urgency of my departure. She'd been on Island Time, annoyed at having to check me out at midnight. For all I knew, my note had ended up in the trash can, along with her copy of Us Weekly and stack of empty Red Bull cans. In which case, Dillon would think I'd ghosted her.

Or worse—what if she had gotten my message, and thought I was full of shit? I hadn't been able to say why I'd left. It's not like I could tell her I'd landed the role of Addison in the upcoming production of Sand Seekers. Not that she'd have found that impressive, but at least she'd probably heard of it. A person would have had to have been living under a rock to have escaped the pop culture phenomenon. It would be like not knowing Harry Potter . Even Dillon couldn't be that far removed from modern society.

Regardless, I hadn't been able to explain that I'd received a call from my agent two hours after she'd left me at my door. That he'd insisted I get on a midnight flight to Honolulu, where I'd begun my nightmare trek to Los Angeles in order to spend three minutes having my body analyzed by two of the most important men in Hollywood.

I gave in to my miscreant behavior and snatched up my cell phone. We hadn't rolled more than ten feet in the last fifteen minutes, what was the worst that could happen? It's not like there were any cyclists on the freeway.

Swiping open my iPhone browser, I punched in Dillon's name for probably the dozenth time, hoping some new lead on her contact information would miraculously appear. An email address. A P.O. Box. An agent or manager. Anything that would help me reach her. But there was nothing. No old addresses. No phone numbers. No ancient MySpace account. Just her automatic wiki page, her race results, and a freaky number of Kelsey Evans fans obsessing over their breakup.

Her name pinged on half a dozen websites for upcoming races, and I considered emailing one of the race directors to ask if they could pass along a message. Then I realized how absolutely pathetic that would look. What did I think I was going to say? "Hi! I met a girl in Hawaii and I can't get her off my mind, but I don't have her contact information, so could you please pass this note along?"

Yeah. Smart, Kam . I was advancing from Stalker 101 to Stalker 102 at an accelerated pace. If Aaron received an email like that about me, he'd probably forward it to the cops.

When I finally got to my apartment, I forced myself to toss my phone on my nightstand, dragged myself into a hot shower, and then collapsed into bed at eight PM. I'd been up for almost forty hours, and despite my brain's desire to continue its fruitless wanderings, my exhaustion won the battle, and I dropped into a deep, pineapple lips-enriched sleep.

On Friday afternoon I drove to Venice to grab sushi with my friend Sophie. She'd been in Bangkok for the past three months, shooting a documentary on The Women's Movement in Thai Political Reform. Despite loathing the thought of driving home through Culver City on a Friday night, I'd missed her, and couldn't wait to hear about the work she'd been doing in Asia.

We'd met during my first—and only—year at UCLA, bonding over our misery of boredom throughout The Art and Technique of Filmmaking . Both of us had been new to the city, uncertain in our freshly minted eighteen-year-old independence, and had formed a lasting friendship—one that had remarkably endured, despite me dropping out of school by the time spring had rolled into summer.

Sophie had gone on to graduate summa cum laude—no surprise, given her history as a high school valedictorian—while I'd waded my way through Hollywood, trial-by-fire. Regardless our varying methods of breaking into the industry, neither of us had ever seemed to have a leg-up over the other, and we'd cheerleaded one another through every project—flop or showpiece. Unlike Dani, nothing in my friendship with Sophie ever felt like a competition.

As we worked our way through a second tokkuri of hot sake, I began to feel exceptionally guilty sitting on my silent knowledge of Sand Seekers . We'd spent the evening chatting about her time in Thailand. The big-budget human rights documentary was sure to be a tremendous success, and was by far her most notable undertaking. However, as the salmon rolls disappeared and the sake grew colder, true to Sophie's nature, she'd massaged the conversation in my direction, eagerly building me up about a handful of roles she'd come across in the recent publication of Backstage . All of which she felt I'd nail if I chose to audition.

"Listen to this one!" Sophie was scrolling through her phone, her sensibly manicured French tips tapping through the casting website. "Lead. Female. Twenty-one to twenty-six. Brunette. Petite build—five-foot-three and under." She glanced up, as if deciding whether my extra inch would exclude me from consideration. I must have passed, because her attention returned to her screen. "Smart, bougie, baddie. The type of girl who is simply unattainable." She made a voila gesture. "You're perfect."

" Baddie ?" I laughed. "I don't think so."

"Baddie as in effortlessly stands out , not baddie as in reprobate ," Sophie chastised, ever-astonished at my lack of keeping up with the latest slang standards. Before she could launch into the next casting opportunity, a text notification buzzed through my watch. The number was strange—it had more digits than I was used to—and my face must have given me away when I realized it was an out-of-country area code.

"Everything okay?" Sophie's pristinely shaped eyebrows lifted, the ceramic cup paused midway to her lips.

I fished my phone out of my purse, swiping open my texts as a bundle of nerves settled in my stomach.

I hope you made it home safely to handle your emergency. It was good to meet you. Best of luck in Hollywood. D .

And that was it. Formal. Polite. Conclusive.

I don't know what I'd been hoping for, but it wasn't that. That text was something I would have sent to a stranger who'd returned my AAA card they'd found in the convenience store on Beverly. There was no friendliness. No playfulness. No sharing-kahlua-pork-out-of-a-takeout-container-while-covered-in-volcanic-mud familiarity.

And why should there have been? She clearly thought I'd skipped out on her.

After I'd practically been swooning over her all evening.

After letting her kiss me.

She probably thought I'd been playing games. That I'd led her on and then panicked and bolted.

Shit .

How did I fix this? And was there even a point in trying? It wasn't like I was going to see her again.

But I also didn't want her to think I was an asshole.

I looked up, searching for an answer, and found Sophie's sagacious gaze bearing down on me.

"I know that look," she said, her heart-shaped lips puckering into a sympathetic smile. "Boy trouble?"

Sophie wasn't like Dani. To Sophie I could simply say it's nothing or, even more directly, I don't want to talk about it, and she would respect my privacy and courteously move on to the next subject. Dani would have tackled me for my phone. She would have grown belligerent with my reluctance to discuss it. She would have accused me of being a bad friend for keeping secrets to which she was not privy.

Not Sophie.

Which is likely why I abruptly unloaded my entire Hawaiian escapade onto her unsuspecting shoulders.

I started with the call from Aaron—admitting only that I'd landed a fortuitous role for an upcoming project—and ended with my last night in Hana, reading aloud the text I'd just received.

I worried I may have been crazy to tell her anything. Not about the project—I hadn't said anything that would break the rules of my NDA, and even if I had, Sophie was the last person on earth who would ever breathe a word that risked getting me in trouble—but I honestly wasn't sure how she'd react to my chronicles about Dillon.

Over the course of our friendship, I'd learned both of Sophie's parents were devout to the school of Theravāda, the most orthodox of the three major philosophies of Buddhism. Sophie's own beliefs were more relaxed—something which her Phuket-born parents frequently gave her grief about—but I still wasn't sure how she'd respond to my sudden uncertain attraction to a woman.

A concern which I immediately kicked myself over, given my knowledge that Sophie was one of the most open-minded individuals I had ever known, and it was sheer stupidity to doubt the genuineness of her nature.

By the time I'd stopped talking, she'd cleared the debris of our meal to the side of the table, poured us both another round of sake, and folded her hands in her thinking pose, giving me her full consideration. She appeared neither shocked nor troubled by my revelation.

"Tell me this: what is the outcome you would like to achieve?"

I stared at the disintegrating case on my phone, lost for an answer. I hadn't really considered what I wanted. I'd focused only on the problem. I'd given no thought to a solution.

In her ever-composed manner, she continued. "For instance, if there were no impossibilities—what result would you hope to attain?" This was pure Sophie. Thoughtful. Enlightened. Always searching for balance to allow life to flow with peaceful ease. A solid reminder why, at twenty-three, she'd just returned from making a documentary that was a shoe-in to win the L'Oeil d'or at Cannes, and I'd just set my elbow in the soy sauce dish while trying to match her halcyon equilibrium.

Fuck me .

I tried to casually mop up the mess while she proceeded to prove to me I was making a mountain out of a mole hill.

"Are you just wanting to smooth things over? To ease your conscience and make certain no feelings were unintentionally injured? Or were you hoping to see her again—to consider pursuing this? What would be your ideal scenario?"

When put like that, it wasn't difficult to decide which result I wanted most. If any of the options were available…

I'll take See-Her-Again for $500, Alex.

"I'd pursue it." I couldn't believe I was admitting this. Dani would have flipped out. Hell, I was flipping out.

But Sophie was not.

"Then let's find a way to take the next step forward."

I hesitated. This had gotten really real, really quickly. "I—I don't know. Honestly, I've got a lot going on, and—"

"You know, in the five years I've known you, I've never seen you as nonplussed over Carter, or any of your revolving door dates, as you have been tonight. I think that speaks for itself."

"I'm not saying I'm gay, Sophe!" I didn't even know where the defensiveness came from. It wasn't something I'd been overly concerned about. I just felt like I suddenly didn't understand myself. And it was a little freaky to think, at twenty-three years old, I didn't know who I was. I glanced down at the +44 number still lit on my screen. "I just… I've never found myself attracted to… I don't know why…" I trailed off. When I looked back up, sheepishly catching her onyx gaze, she let out a small sigh, composing herself as if she were about to explain something tedious to a dense child.

"You do realize, Kam, there's a lot more on the palette than simple black and white—gay or straight—right? It's not always so much about the gender as it is about the person. Finding yourself attracted to one individual doesn't necessarily label you in any specific classification."

Embarrassed by the sensibility of the lecture, I sank a little lower in my seat. "Yeah," I muttered, realizing that made sense.

"Good." She reached for her sake. "Now that that's settled—you said she has a race in Key West coming up?"