Page 54 of Hollywood, Ending

But soon it was over, and I was back in the reception room, and the earbuds were back in Juniper’s ears, and I was walking past Charles Oldham, who told me to have a good one bro.

Outside, I called Bob and started walking. He picked up on the second ring. “How’d it go, kid?”

“I don’t know. But Juniper makes it easy.”

“I’ll call you the second I hear something. I’m sure they loved you, kid. I gotta go.”

I walked a few more blocks before I got an Uber. I could’ve gone anywhere, of course—to a museum or a movie or the opera or whatever—but I just went back to the hotel and ordered room service lunch and watched TV. All the networks were covering the fire. There wasn’t much to say about it—it was raging and people were trying to stop it from burning down buildings—but they managed to keep talking about it nonstop anyway, and I managed to keep watching.

It was past one when Bob called me. “It’s you or Charles,” he said. “I think there is some internal debate. The director loves you. Nina loves you. I think we’re on a journey to make sure the studio loves you. Todd is on the fence, and his boss…well, Charles has experience. He has a name.”

“Right, I get that.”

“Did you know he has fourteen million Instagram followers?”

“I did not.”

“The studio salivates over that shit. They love a number. Juniper only has four million. That’s what Todd told me. Only four million. Christ. You are basically dead on social is what I hear.”

“So it’s me or Charles.”

“Yeah. This one might not go our way. It’s the studio that makes the decision. I’m having Kathryn call Todd’s boss. That might help. And Matthew has already made a pitch for you. Juniper will have some say. You should call her.”

“And say what?”

“Tell her you want to spend six months in fucking Vancouver with her. If there’s one thing that’s obvious, it’s that she wants to fuck the living daylights out of you.”

“She’s an actor. It’s acting.”

“I’m just saying,” he said. I really hated when Bob said shit like that, because it reminded me that he thought shit like that.

“I’ll call her,” I said, and then got off the phone with Bob. Whenever Bob says, “This one might not go our way,” that’s it. They never really fully reject you; they just ghost you and one day there’s the movie poster with Charles on it. I felt a rush of failure and shame, the two horsemen of my apocalypse, and a void opened up in my abdomen, just beneath my rib cage. I remembered that I had to fly home. I didn’t even know what time my flight was. I was so wholly incompetent, an idiot faking my way through the world. For some reason, something Matthew said to me once came into my mind unbidden: You get famous by getting roles, and you get roles by getting famous.

Right then, Ellen called. “Where are you right now?” There was tension in her voice. It almost sounded like she’d been crying.

“I’m in my hotel room. What’s up?”

“Okay, don’t leave. Stay in your room. I’ll be there in, uh, fourteen minutes.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m about to say something I never say to actors: Google yourself. I’ll be there in thirteen and a half minutes.”

_____

So I googled myself. I’d only seen the first headline—Hero Starlet Kai Laramie Put His Molester in Jail—when a call came in from Juniper.

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m in my hotel room waiting for Ellen.”

“So you know.”

“I know.”

Bob was calling. I sent it to voicemail.

“I’m so sorry, Kai.”