Miles reaches back to hand me a cool bottle of water and I cling to the thing like a tree in a hurricane, but the water splashes over onto my shaky hand when I unscrew the top.
I grab a wet wipe from the pocket on the back of the seat and notice the contents of my coffee cup staining my shirt. There’s slight relief in that disappointment. At least it’s not blood. But regardless, nothing is going to save me now. As the panic ebbs, reality sinks in. I punched someone. A photographer, a bystander, who knows. What I do know is this could be the final nail, hammered in toseal the fate of my career. I’m sure there’ll be a lawsuit. There will be pictures and witnesses. I can’t recover from this.
We’re not even halfway home when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Then again, and again. I toss the offending thing across the seat. It hits the window with an expensive clatter and falls to the floor. I shut my eyes, curling in on myself as the car rumbles through traffic.
A clatter from downstairs yanks me out of my doze.
“Aura!” The voice is too shrill in the former silence of my house, though silence is a rarity around here. There’s always someone letting themselves in to choose my clothes, or do my hair, or drag me off for some photo shoot or meeting. Well, at least, there used to be. The visits have gotten fewer and fewer in the last several months as the jobs dried up.
But there’s always Belinda. My long-suffering agent is still clinging to the hope that she can salvage my career. I guess some people don’t know when to give up.
“You got anyone in there?” she asks, bursting through my bedroom door before I can say “no.”
I ignore her, yanking my thick duvet up over my head, but it’s jerked back down before I’ve had a chance to cocoon.
“Nice try. Get up. We need to talk.”
“You didn’t bring Janine, did you?” That is someone I can’t handle right now. Belinda is pushy, but nobodycan intrude on your peace like a PR assistant in peak damage-control mode.
“No, I did not. But you know you are going to have to talk to her eventually, right?”
I slide up in my bed, waving a hand at her. “I’m sure she can handle it.”
“Really? You think this little incident is going to slide by unnoticed? I’ve worked with a few stars before, but no one’s been as delusional as that. You know you punched a reporter, right? Or did you black out and forget the entire incident? We could probably spin it that way if you wanted, but you know they’ll just double down on the alcoholic, drug-crazed rumors if we do. Not what we need right now.”
“No shit.”
Pain in the form of an intense burst of sunlight slices through my eyeballs when she opens the blinds on me with only the gentle whir of the mechanism to give me warning. I flop back down, tugging a pillow over my face.
Belinda steals that away too. “I mean it. You have to get up. We’ve got a meeting in two hours, and I need to brief you on it.”
“I don’t wanna go.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.” I’ve never been mean to a single person under my employ, but I’m starting to feel a little hostile. Can’t she just let me wallow in peace for one afternoon?
“Stop acting like a petulant child and I’ll stop treating you like one. This is it, Aura. I’ve got a lead on somethingfor you. Very promising, but there’s no chance of landing it if you hide under your covers for the rest of your life.”
“You don’t understand.”
“A hundred percent. I have no idea what it’s been like for you. But I do know that this was not your fault. Brad, the media, the reporter. People love dragging someone down when they reach a certain height of fame. Especially women. And if you let them, they’ll sink your career. But if you fight back like you have been, like I know you can, you can win, and you can show them. So get the fuck out of bed. Clean yourself up and come downstairs. I’ve got an offer. You’ve got five minutes.”
It takes me a moment to reel my jaw back in as she marches out of my bedroom door. I hear her heels clicking down the stairs and then her voice calls out, “Four minutes.”
I scramble up, leaving the sheets in a tangled heap. An offer? She can’t mean what I think she does, but she’s one of the few people I trust in this world, so I have no reason to doubt her.
I pad to the spacious bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. My hair is a wild mess, my eyes look hollow, and tears have left ugly black streaks of mascara on my cheeks. Ugh. This is going to take more than four minutes to really fix, so I settle for splashing some water on my face, then rip off the wrinkled dress I was napping in. A quick trip to the closet for a pair of leggings and a soft sweater, and I’m as ready as I can be.
Belinda is pacing around the living room when I get there. She’s got her cell pressed up against her ear,engaged in a heated discussion with someone, but as soon as she spots me she cuts them off, says goodbye, and pockets the phone.
“Coffee?” She waves a perfectly manicured hand at the coffee table, where I spot a coffee cup and a small brown paper bag—a replica of the ones that got trampled in the crowd out in front of Marino’s. The memory comes slamming back at me and anxiety squeezes my lungs.It’s okay, I’m not there anymore. I’m safe.
I snatch up the paper cup, hugging it to my chest, and flop down on the couch. It’s plush and comfy, just the way I like it. Sometimes you go to a party at some celebrity’s house and they’ve got the kind of furniture only intended for looking at, not for sitting on. At least not comfortably. But I refuse to allow that nonsense in my house. If I’m going to get managed and chastised in my own home, at least I’m going to be comfortable doing it.
Belinda perches herself on the wingback chair across from me, knees pressed together under her gray pencil skirt. She lets me take one long, glorious sip of the sweet beverage before she speaks again.
“Good news or bad news first?”
