We reach the photo pit and freeze, just as instructed, for eight, ten, twelve heartbeats.
Someone calls, “Show us a kiss!”
I look at Asher, ready to laugh it off, but his face is so warm—so soft. He leans in, and I feel his lips at my temple, brief and gentle. The crowd maybe wanted more, but I can hear the “awws” even through the barricades.
We move on, through the doors of the Palais, into the dark. I see us reflected in the glass: a pair of creatures stitched together from someone else’s wishful thinking.
Inside, they seat us in the front row. The festival director gives a speech in perfect English, then worse French. Our director says a few words, then the movie begins.
I’ve never seen it with a crowd. Two minutes in, I realize I can’t remember a single line I delivered. All my anxiety telescopes into my knees, my fingers, the back of my throat. Next to me, Asher is motionless.
The movie plays, and I watch myself flicker on the giant screen, a taller, cooler, steelier version of me. She is not someone I recognize, but by the midpoint, I want to be her. For a moment, I even forget about the world watching, the writers in the back row, the execs waiting to see if I’m worth the gamble.
At the end, there is silence, then applause. It swells from polite to raucous, and my heart does a weird, dangerous thing. I glance over, and Asher is clapping too, actually clapping, the kind of face lighting up that you can’t fake. I want to touch him.
When the lights come up, we stand for a bow. I know I should be devastated or ecstatic, but instead I’m just raw.
Out in the lobby, Jessie throws herself at me, champagne in hand. “You demolished! You killed!” She’s so loud, even the French critics glance over.
Myrna finds us, her dress the color of a papercut, and pulls me aside again. “Final numbers come out this week. If the chatter is strong enough, you might have a say in how it goes down.”
I know what she means. The studio is watching the chemistry, the “narrative.” If I want to be the next big thing, I have to play this right to the end.
“You’re up for actress of the festival,” she says, lowering her voice. “Unprecedented for this kind of movie. And Asher, too. They’re calling you ‘the new gold standard.’”
I want to feel elated, triumphant. Instead, I think, maybe I’m just lucky that I get to keep pretending.
We end up at a party in an actual castle, the kind built for a prince or an arms dealer. The crowd is half-famous, half-wannabe, and Asher and I are both. I know I should network, but I want nothing more than to climb one of the turrets, look out to sea, and scream until my brain stops hurting.
But Asher is different tonight. He’s more relaxed, or maybe just more reckless. He introduces me to everyone as his “co-star and main reason for living.” People laugh, but I see the way their gazes stick to me after, cataloguing, recalibrating.
In a dim room with velvet couches, we find a brief stillness. He leans against a window overlooking moonlit water.
“What happens after tomorrow?” he asks.
“We get on a plane and go home,” I say, but it doesn’t feel true.
He shakes his head, a glint in his eye. “No, I mean us. Does it vanish, or is it just beginning?”
I’m about to say something clever, but he puts a hand to my face, thumb at my cheekbone, and for a second I have no idea what to say. The silence gets so big I feel weirdly safe inside it.
I finally say, “What do you want?”
“Honestly?” He lets out a breath. “I want to see if any of this is real. Not just for the cameras. Not just for the week.”
I laugh, but it isn’t a joke. “What if it is?”
He kisses me, slower and more patient than any rehearsal. The party goes on behind us, louder and brighter, but I can’t hear it.
After that, everything moves in jump cuts. The morning is a press scrum, a blur of luggage, noise, and high heels. Chantalscreams at some poor intern for misplacing my sunglasses, and then it’s time for the awards.
Cannes does not give out its big prizes lightly. There are three rounds of speeches, three rounds of clapping. When they call my name, it feels rubbery and distant, like it’s happening to someone else. I stand and walk to the stage, and the crowd is a hundred points of color and heat.
I thank the director, the cast, and the festival. I want to thank Asher, but that would be a shattering breach of some unspoken contract, so I look at him sitting in the first row, and he smiles so hard I think he might break.
Backstage, the photographers corral us for “winner’s circle” shots. My face aches from smiling. My phone buzzes with texts—my mother, my agent, half the cast from minor parts I don’t remember filming.
Jessie hands me a glass of something clear and potent. “Tell me again how you’ll never wear gold,” she teases. I laugh, and for a second, it’s real laughter, a memory of myself from before the last month of transformation.
