“Wellnow, I’m here to have fun,” I said. It was both the greatest lie I’d ever told and the truest thing that could cross my lips. “My movie just premiered.Don’t Be Sad!, directed by Odetta Olson.”
“I heard it’s great,” Samuel said.
He hadn’t seen it. I liked him even more now.
He came even closer. I was certain he was going to kiss me right therein the middle of the party. I couldn’t remember the last time something like that had happened, and I was ready for it. I had no idea what I was going to do about Liza, or the rest of my life. For now, I would take the fun and be grateful for it. But then a brunette stumbled excitedly toward us. She had long thin hair and plump lips.
“J’ai trop faim,” she said, snagging cheese puff pastries from a passing tray.
The party, I have to admit, was nothing compared to the one I’d “crashed” on the first night. The savory pastries were soggy, and there was nothing else to drink but the brand’s very average cocktails.
Samuel pointed at me. “She’s inDon’t Be Sad!”
The brunette’s eyes grew wide as she swallowed her second cheese puff.
“Oh my god.Socool.” I barely had time tofeelcool when she added, “Is it true that Odetta Olson got naked on set during the sex scenes? To make the actors feel more comfortable or something? Apparently that’s why her husband filed for divorce.”
This was the most attention I’d gotten in real life since arriving in Cannes. People on my social media were clamoring for details, but this was different. In the space of a few minutes, these two had lifted the loneliness right off me.
I opened my mouth. They were both ready to hang on to my words, greedy gazes forward. I shrugged, not meeting their eyes.
“What happens on set stays on set.”
Their jaws dropped as they both gasped with excitement. Ten years of acting classes and this was what I was using them for.
Brunette laughed. “So it’s totally true!”
I’d always been the nice girl. The one who confirmed meeting times and knew her lines by heart. The one who took the rejections chin up,who understood why the director had “gone a different way.” That girl had gotten me nowhere. I was so tired of her.
Samuel and Émilie—she had a French mom, an American dad, and the gravely sexy voice of someone who’d been up all night singing on podiums—huddled over, insisting we take a picture.
Émilie looked so pleased with it, like it meant something to her.
“Are you staying for the whole festival?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows. “I guess you have to. If the movie wins the Palme, all eyes will be on you.”
She had a point. If the movie won, I wouldn’t be invited to the ceremony. I wouldn’t be part of the celebrations. That would be a pretty big clue that I wasn’t actually in it. Which meant that I had five days left of being a Cannes It Girl, at best. This spotlight had an expiration date.
And what then? I needed a plan. A purpose. Having fun had never been the point. I wanted success. Fame. Professional accomplishment. And to prove my family wrong.
Émilie was still waiting for me to respond.
“Actually, I’m focusing on locking in my next role now. My agent is in town, organizing meetings for me. You always have to think ahead.”
Except that Liza had no idea I was still in Cannes. And I didn’t know if she was still my agent.
“She should meet your aunt!” Samuel exclaimed to Émilie. Then to me he said, “Émilie’s aunt is a big casting director.”
“She’s been coming to Cannes for thirty years,” Émilie said proudly. “I’m actually staying at her villa. It’sgorgeous.”
She pulled out her phone and showed me picture after picture of her time in Cannes over the last few days: pretty twenty-somethings drinking in an expansive living room, taking a dip in the pool, lying on the bright green grass. Samuel was in half of them.
“Beautiful!” I said, but my mind was racing ahead.
Émilie’s aunt must be a pretty successful casting director to have a house like this. I pictured the look on Liza’s face when she learned that I was arranging my own meetings, that I’d found my next role without her help.
I willed myself to act chill.
“It’d be nice to meet her, if our schedules align.”
