CHAPTER 1
“Excuse me, this orange juice is a little warm,” she said and handed the glass to the flight attendant. “Do you have any colder juice?”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I can add ice for you.”
“Ice to orange juice? No, thank you. I don’t want watered-down juice. I’m sure there’s a colder container or something in the refrigerator.” Samara tilted her head around the flight attendant. “And can I please have my lunch now?”
“There’s no lunch on this flight, Ma’am,” the flight attendant told her. “We’ll be bringing by snacks in just a minute for you to choose from.”
“No lunch? It’s a four-hour flight. And I’m in first class, aren’t I?”
“We stopped serving full meals for flights under five hours a few months ago,” the flight attendant replied with a forced smile. “But I’ll have those snacks brought over and see about a colder glass of juice for you.”
Samara rolled her eyes in discontent and said, “Fine.”
Her flight hadn’t been early, but she’d woken late after a night out and had skipped breakfast, believing her assistant would have ordered her usual meal for the flight. Most times she had been in the air, she had flown between LA and New York for press or to be on location. There had been a couple of movies she’d filmed in Canada, but every flight, she’d gotten a special meal on board.
As her stomach rumbled, Samara turned to look out the window, thinking yet again about the film she was about to shoot. Why had she agreed to do it? She knew the answer, of course, but she still silently asked herself that question repeatedly.
It was an indie film with a small budget, and she’d agreed to work at union minimum – the first and, likely, the last time she would do that – as long as they provided certain things for her. For one, she needed a real trailer with an actual bedroom,a shower, and a fridge that would fit more than a few bottles of her favorite sparkling water in it, and she needed it to not be too close to any other trailers because they weren’t exactly soundproof, and there would be nights she’d need to sleep there. Already on more than one occasion in her career, she had woken to sounds of people having sex in the trailer next door or someone watching a loud movie or show on their TV or laptop that she could hear through her thin wall, and she wasn’t about to go through that again.
The other requirement in her contract had been specific food, so this flight and its lack thereof weren’t getting off to the best start. Of course, that was her assistant’s fault since she’d been the one to book the trip. Samara was very particular about what she put in her body; she always had been, and she wasn’t going to let the fatty and sweet food served in the South ruin her diet.
She’d only been to New Orleans once before, for a bachelorette party for her older sister three years prior. Samara had just turned twenty-two at the time and couldn’t understand why Jaclyn, who was only four years older, would want to tie herself down to the guy she had met and fallen for in college. Surely, they would divorce in ten years because they’d grown apart, one of them had cheated, or they had stopped having sex altogether because that was what marriage did to people.
At least, that was how she viewed it, so at twenty-five, Samara preferred to date and only date; no relationships and only casual sex, if she had sex at all. Things had gotten complicated in that department the past couple of years because she’d made some self-discoveries, which had led her to act out a little. In her line of work, more and more female actors had been coming out as something other than straight, and there had been several over the past few years who had announced they were queer, bisexual, or something else, but she hadn’t been one of them. At this rate, she knew she didn’thaveto be in the closet. Most of her friends were out, and she could’ve just as easily told the world that she had figured out that she was bisexual, but she was scared.
She’d been an actress since she was eight years old. She had won a Golden Globe at thirteen and an Emmy at fifteen, and after her big break in TV, she had moved on to movies and had been nominated for another Golden Globe at age twenty-one, winning a SAG award the following year. Her career had been on the upswing with more and more scripts being sent her way, but her agent had insisted that she needed to do an indie. Indies got critical acclaim, if they were done right, and they sometimes got actors Academy Award nominations and even wins.
At first, Samara had planned to do a different film; one with more substance and a well-known director behind it, but the script forThat One Night– which, she’d been told, was a working title – had been emailed to her. She’d read it and thought it was a bit too saccharine for her taste; not exactly a traditional rom-com, but not straying too far from the formula, either. Still, there was something about it that intrigued her. It was going to be distributed on a streamer, not in the theater, which was interesting to her because more and more streaming networks were winning awards, sometimes sweeping the awards shows. It was also about two women falling in love, so she viewed this as an opportunity, one that she had decided to take.
“Here’s your juice,” the flight attendant said. “I pulled the container directly from the refrigerator myself.”
Samara turned back to her and took the glass, giving her a polite nod. Then, she took a sip, and it was just a touch over lukewarm.
“Thank you. It’s fine.”
It wasn’t, but if they couldn’t even keep the juice cold, nothing else would be, either, and there was no way she was putting airplane ice anywhere near her body. She had heard that there weren’t many dirtier things in the world than airplane ice.
“And for our snack choice, we have a sandwich today.”
“What kind of sandwich?” she asked, feeling desperate.
“Turkey and Swiss.”
“I’m a vegan,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Oh, sorry. Well, I have pretzels and–”
“It’s all right. Thank you anyway,” she replied, stopping the woman from going through the rest of the options inside the small basket she held out.
When the flight attendant turned to offer the basket to the people opposite her, Samara set her juice down and returned her gaze to the window. This part never got old. She loved being up in the air like this, seeing the world from up high, and as they descended, seeing everything as little ants, making her feel so big and so small at the same time.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else I can get for you?” the flight attendant asked, having returned after making her rounds.
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. Samara had left her more-than-comfortable home in the Hollywood Hills behind for a trailer she hoped had a working shower, a hotel room, and not much else because she’d liked a silly indie script and hoped the film would get noticed by the Academy. And even if it didn’t get her an award, it might give her a shot at coming out with a bit of a cushion because she thought she might just be ready for that.
