A server passed by with a new batch of those sweet pink cocktails. I didn’t want one but my throat felt dry and I needed to keep my hands busy, like I wasn’t desperately waiting for Émilie’s answer.
“Hmm,” Émilie said as I took greedy sips.
“Isn’t she casting for a new project at the moment?” Samuel said.
My heart started to dance in my chest, but Émilie looked right past me.
“Fiona Pills is here!”
It was like the red sea parted. People stopped drinking, eating, breathing. Surrounded by an entourage of at least four people, Fiona Pills looked like she had a literal halo around her. The light bounced off her defined cheekbones and glorious hair. She wore a sculptural minidress that shone like it was made out of a thousand diamonds. She was a movie star. The real deal.
And I was the exact opposite of that.
Later, I learned that Fiona Pills had attended no less than five events that evening, in three different outfits. She only stayed at this one for a few minutes. The Cannes Film Festival had turned into a PR tour for her. Not for the movie, for her personally. If Odetta Olson was the toxic older female director, Fiona Pills had been her defenseless victim. And now, at last, she was free of those shackles.
Émilie held my hand. “Youhaveto introduce us.” And then, to Samuel. “Let’s go get a selfie.”
I tried not to sound too alarmed. “Shejustgot here. We don’t want to crowd her right away.”
Émilie took the half-empty glass I was holding and placed it on a nearby table.
“She’s not going to say no to you. You’re in Cannes promoting the same movie. Youworktogether.”
What was I supposed to say to that? Émilie dragged Samuel and me through the crowd. My mind checked out, as if I were an innocent bystander outside of my own body. Émilie didn’t hesitate one bit before she tapped Fiona Pills on the shoulder, like they were old friends. The star’s entourage reacted, but her own face showed only grace.
“Hi Fiona, we’d love to take a picture!” Émilie said, getting her phone ready. “With our dear friend Lou, here.”
She leaned to the side so Fiona could fully take me in.
And now I would be called out for the fraud that I was. Not Dorian Fisher’s new love interest. Not a Cannes It Girl. And definitely not sharing any kind of limelight with Fiona Pills. I stared at my feet, praying for the floor to open and swallow me whole.
“Hi Lou,” she said. “How are you?”
Fiona Pills smiled; it was electric. My new friends exchanged a delighted look, ignoring my befuddled air. Émilie quickly leaned in and,click, the picture was in. Fiona Pills thanked us warmly—like we’d done anything to warrant her gratitude—before her team whisked her away.
“She issocool!” Émilie said. “Is she always like that? Tell us everything.”
I nodded. “She’ssucha star.”
Émilie checked the picture on her phone and posted it on her socials.
Then she looked up. “Okay, let me text my aunt.”
“She willloveyou,” Samuel said.
A few minutes later, Émilie’s phone lit up with a new text.
“The day after tomorrow at 3 p.m.?” she asked. “My aunt likes to meet people at the Martinez.”
I counted to three in my head, holding my breath.
“That should work.”
Over my decade of trying to make it in this business, I’d been warned about so many things. How cutthroat it was. The challenges. The heartache. The unfairness of it all.
But people often forget to tell you how much luck is involved. How, one day, you might find yourself in the right place, meeting the right person who will open the right door for you.
The thing was, I’d already hit rock bottom. There was no way down from here. This couldn’t hurt any more than it already did.
