“Sylvia!”
“I’m kidding. Sheesh! I’m your agent, not your pimp. I would never let him put a hand on you… unless he can get us Joe Manganiello to play the cop. If he can pull that off, he can have me, too.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Just put on the damn dress and let’s go! We’re going to be late.”
I stared at the dress, then down at my damp clothes. Then at the wall behind me, praying there was a window I could crawl out of so I could go home.
This will be fine, I told myself.
It was just a meeting over a meal with a powerful man who wanted to negotiate a deal with me. At least this guy had a pulse, which was a step in the right direction.
With a resigned swear, I stripped off my sweats and sports bra and kicked them out from under the stall. I fed my arms through Sylvia’s bra and cinched the straps as far as they would go. “There are still gaps in the cups.”
“The universe only gives us as much as we can handle. Try these.” My balled-up socks flew back over the partition, and I scrambled to catch them before they could fall in the toilet.
“You want me to stuff my bra with socks?”
“Men stuff their underwear all the time.Especiallycelebrities.”
“I’m not a celebrity.”
“Not yet. But after this meeting, you will be. I feel it, Finlay. This lunch is going to be your big break.”
Assuming a sock ball didn’t come bursting out of my bra when I shook the producer’s hand. “Great. No pressure,” I said, pulling the dress over my head. My hair crackled with static as I adjustedthe stretchy material to cover as much of Sylvia’s undergarments as possible. “What’s that smell?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the disturbingly familiar scent that wafted from a sock ball as I stuffed it into place.
“It’s lavender. I told you I came prepared. It’s great for masking odors.”
A dark laugh bubbled out of me. This did not bode well. I gritted my teeth as I stepped into her shoes.
She beamed at them when I opened the door. Her smile crumbled as her gaze climbed up to my hair. “Come here,” she said, rummaging through her handbag. She pulled a bottle of Aqua Net from its depths like it was Mary Poppins’s carpetbag. I forced myself not to contemplate murder as she ran her hands under the faucet, then through my hair, and scrunched. The jail time wouldn’t be worth it. At least that’s what I told myself as she sprayed a cloud of hair spray around me that could have raised the global temperature by at least five degrees.
“Can we please just not?” I swatted her hand away as she swiped ruthlessly at my mouth with a tube of burgundy lipstick.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t push my luck,” she said, returning her arsenal of cosmetics to her bag and checking her handiwork. “Let’s get out of here. Hollywood awaits.”
Ten minutes, a twisted ankle, and three blisters later, we were standing on a street corner in front of a restaurant called The Palm. I’d heard of it before, mostly through local name-droppers. It was a popular lunch spot among politicos and the who’s who of DC, the kind of place an aspiring politician like Brendan would probably want to visit, if only to tick it off his bucket list.
I stepped aside, making room for a group of businesswomen inAnn Taylor suits as they left the restaurant. I could do this, I told myself. The producer would take one look at the ridiculous getup I was wearing and change his mind about wanting to meet with me at all. There was no way he’d want to turn my book into a movie. At worst, he’d take pity on me and make an unreasonably low offer. That wouldn’t be so bad, right? Those kinds of deals never made it into the headlines. And nobody bothered to watch low-budget films, anyway.
Sylvia took me by the arm and dragged me inside the restaurant.
“There he is,” she said, standing on her toes and waving her fingers at a man seated alone in a far corner of the dining room. The man stood to greet us as the hostess led us to his table. Randall Wolfe looked exactly how I expected a Hollywood producer would. His teeth had been bleached an unearthly shade of white, his wrinkles and crow’s-feet had been spackled over with fillers, and the plugs in his hairline were the only remaining evidence of his age. I was quick to shake his hand when he offered it, if only to fast-forward the nightmare to the part where I got to sit down.
“See? Tablecloths,” Sylvia whispered as she claimed the seat beside me.
Randall held his silk tie to his chest as he sat. “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to finally meet you, Fiona.”
Sylvia nudged my leg under the table.
“Oh, right!” I said. “Please, call me Finlay.”
“Fiona Donahue is her pen name,” Sylvia explained. “Randall Wolfe, meet Finlay Donovan, your future star.”
Randall leaned in. “A secret identity! How apropos.”
I choked on a laugh. “If you only knew.”
