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“Fine,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t betray the millions of emotions roiling around inside me. “What’s up?”
“Your coach is here. She’s waiting.”
“I’ll be out in just a minute.”
Shit.
I’ve got to get through this acting lesson while pretending there’s nothing wrong. The irony that I’ll have to act while learning to act is not lost on me. And ten minutes later, after pulling on a blouse and jeans (I was planning on wearing my favorite skirt, but I want something sturdier now that I feel exposed in every other way), I leave the confines of the bedroom and venture into the living room where a surprising face awaits.
“Sarah?” I ask, the sound of her name without her last name still weird to my ears. Maybe it’s just me, but celebrities always use their full names, so being on a first-name basis with one is still something I haven’t gotten used to.
She turns around from a whispered conversation with Cory. Her smile is instant, but I saw how she slipped it on. Before I can ponder what the topic might have been before I appeared, and whether it’s related to the film industry or something more sinister, Sarah’s wrapping me up in a hug that feels put on.
“Augusta!” she says, planting a glancing kiss on both my cheeks. “How wonderful that we can see each other again so soon. Cory tells me that you’re concerned about how you present yourself.”
I don’t know if it’s her over exuberance or the way she words things, but it’s hard for me to take Sarah seriously. She feels too much like a caricature of herself, like she’s one of those over-the-hill celebrities who’ve gone overboard with plastic surgery, only managing to exaggerate certain features. Although Sarah’s face appears to be virgin from any modifications, her behavior feels put on to the point of straining.
“My audition didn’t go so great,” I reply.
“So I heard. The producers walked out, right? It stings, I know. I once had not three, but five people walk out of one of my auditions. The fact is that you can be the freshest, juiciest peach in the world, but there are still going to be people who don’t like peaches.”
I wasn’t expecting to hear such wisdom from the actress who played the lead character in Plastic Girls, a movie all about brainless trust-fund women who only know the latest trends.
“I’m probably more like the peach that fell off early and is already starting to get all squishy.”
Sarah pinches my arm and laughs. “You still feel firm to me. Now let’s get down to business. I made a reservation for all of us at The Red Door for lunch.” She raises her eyebrows at Cory who simply nods once. I still feel like there’s some level of this conversation that I’m missing. Like I’m hearing only what they want me to hear.
An absolutely crazy thought runs through my head. One that couldn’t possibly hold any water, but buries itself at the forefront of my mind, demanding that I give it all my attention: Could Sarah be in on this whole scheme too? Because no matter how I look at it, her and Cory are definitely hiding something. And judging by that text from Jeb Eli, it’s not a long stretch to connect them all together. But where their web points, and what my purpose is in it, still remains out of my grasp.
I find myself looking between the two of them like I’m wearing glasses for the first time only too realize that what I thought were green blurs at the tops of trees are actual individual leaves. There are other details I never noticed before as well. Like the way their body language shifts when they think I’m not looking. When I claim to have left my phone in the room and run off to retrieve it, I linger just out of sight around a corner. And the moment I’m gone, their jovial voices die away, hissed whispers filling the silence left behind. After tip-toeing to the bedroom and making some noise, I return. For a split-second before they notice me, the two of them are huddled together, debating something in desperate tones. Then they pull away and pretend to look at their phones, cooing over pictures of Sarah’s Welsh corgi.
“He’s the silliest animal on this planet, I think,” she’s explaining as though they weren’t just conspiring. Sarah should win an Oscar for the performance she’s currently putting on.
Sarah holds her phone out, showing off a picture of her pet.
“Very sweet,” I say in what I hope doesn’t come off as a completely fake reaction.
When Cory goes to grab my hand and sit on the sofa beside Lizzie, I pull away. I don’t even think how it must look, pushing myself away from him as though I’ve just smelled something horrendous. But I can’t help it.
“Hot Stuff? You okay? You’re looking a little green around the gills.”
Sarah gives a knowing look to Cory. “We could do this another day if she’s not feeling well.”
“Do what another day?” Lizzie pipes up. “We’re not going to Disneyland today?”
“I’m not sure if we’ll have time today,” I say in a consoling tone, hoping that she’ll drop it. But being a ten-year-old girl, she’s not about to let go of this dream so fast.
“But you promised,” she whines and waves her phone in front of my face. “You said I need to plan so we can go today or tomorrow, and I definitely want to go today.”
“I know,” I say, needing to go somewhere with this sentence but unsure where. I didn’t want Cory to know about this, but now there’s no turning back.
“You promised her to go to Disneyland?” Cory asks in a cautious but curious tone. “You know you need to prepare for your role. I put off filming to give you time for this.”
As soft-spoken as he is right now, I can’t help lashing out. Because he’s making me feel like the one in the wrong, which I know is exactly the opposite. He might not have dragged me here against my will, but he’s certainly not what he made himself out to be. And I’m not about to be made the guilty one when all I want is to give my daughter her dream trip to Dis
neyland while also keeping her out of the house of a potential rapist.
I’m a trapped animal with nowhere to run. And just like on the plane a couple of days ago, it’s Sarah that inexplicably comes to my rescue.
