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CHAPTER
9
Joanna drove a silver Mercedes that made Lucy feel like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. Except she sat in the passenger seat while Joanna drove, not in the back like the only person whose opinion mattered when it came to couture fashion.
The Palm was a stone’s throw from Rodeo Drive in the heart of Beverly Hills. They passed glossy storefronts, cruising Ferraris, and manicured palms. Joanna kept the music low, tuned to some Zen meditation station. The whole car was rather Zen, closed off from street noise by triple-sealed luxury doors and the smoothest suspension that made it feel like they were flying in space. Lucy had been in Joanna’s car once before, on a similar lunch date when they wooed one of the reigning queens of the pop charts. Lucy had just been along for the ride that time, a pupil under Joanna’s wing to learn how it was done.
Joanna was discreet in her mentoring, never one to explicitly call out pay attention to this, it’s important. But Lucy was keen enough to know when Joanna was demonstrating for her benefit.
She was also keen enough to know that Joanna reserved Lily Chu for her because she wanted to give her the opportunity. Everyone knew Lily was on the verge of superstardom, and the likes of such promise would normally go to a senior publicist at J&J, or even to Joanna herself. But Joanna had kept Lily behind a gate that only she and Lucy had the key to.
Her faith was both inspiring and intimidating.
Joanna slowed to a stop outside the restaurant and prepared to let the valet take over. She turned to Lucy and lowered her sunglasses. “Lucy, I don’t have to express to you how significant this opportunity is. There’s a reason you are here instead of anyone else.”
Her chest warmed even as that inspiring intimidation lodged in her throat like a rock. For a second, she wavered on telling Joanna the truth—that she couldn’t lie and it was bound to make lunch with Lily difficult. But she saw the faith in her eyes. The belief that she picked the right person, and Lucy had better not let her down.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, Joanna,” she said, and found her own words reassuring.
She’d been preparing for this moment all month, since they first got word Lily was looking for a publicist. And the moment had finally arrived. The fact that she admitted there was nowhere else she wanted to be—and it had to be true—instilled confidence she was going to make it through lunch unscathed.
And then she got out of the car and saw Chase McMillan approaching the restaurant with Shawn Stevens. They were impossible to miss; Shawn was nearly seven feet tall and trailed closely by a man who could only be his agent, who was wearing a tee shirt under a suit jacket with his phone pressed to his ear.
Lucy caught Chase’s eye and gave him the meanest glare she could.
He glared back, and she wondered if Joanna would look the other way if she went over and slapped him.
Vicious thoughts of sabotage danced in her head: poison his salad, trip Shawn Stevens and ruin his season, stand on a table and announce that Chase McMillan was a backstabbing suck-up who cared about no one but himself.
They had been friendly once, long ago. But then it became clear they were both very good at their jobs and they wanted the same thing. More than once, Chase won out on opportunities simply because he spoke up first or louder or more aggressively—behaviors that would have labeled Lucy as shrewd or bossy. He’d taken things from her without even trying, and she’d had to work twice as hard just to keep up. The sting of the inequality had faded with repetition, and she rarely complained to anyone but Oliver. Mostly, she was just tired from it all.
But that didn’t mean seeing him try to take another opportunity from her didn’t strike a match inside her that could grow into a raging wildfire if she let it.
She wanted to push him from her mind like she pushed Caleb in the fountain and focus on her lunch date, but to her horror, Chase waved at them.
“Joanna, Lucy!” He sounded like a long-lost friend thrilled to be seeing them again. The agent stepped aside, still on his phone, while Shawn stayed with Chase.
Of course they couldn’t ignore him. Not only would it be rude, it would be bad for business.
Joanna took her ticket from the valet and approached them with a winning smile. “Chase, I didn’t know we’d be running into each other here.”
She was the supreme master of chaos control.
“Yes, it’s quite a coincidence,” Chase said, lying straight through his teeth. “This is Shawn Stevens of the L.A. Lakers.” He gestured to the tree of a man beside him who needed no introduction. Lucy had to crane her neck to look in his eyes.
“Shawn, this is Joanna Jenkins, our VP. And this is Lucy, one of my fellow publicists.” He gave her a smile laced with arsenic, and she shot one right back.
“Nice to meet you, Shawn. I’m a fan,” Lucy recited.
Because of her job, she dabbled in what she and Oliver referred to as the sampler platter of sports and entertainment. She knew enough about each topic area to hold a conversation, recognize faces, know names, remember critical stats and figures. She was excellent at trivia night. She’d seen Shawn live on the court twice and on TV plenty of times. She knew he had an obscenely large rookie contract and a deal with Nike and that he averaged twenty points per game.
And he wasn’t even her client.
“Hi, Lucy. Joanna,” he said in a voice deep enough for someone with three-foot-long lungs. “Are we all having lunch together?”
“No!” Lucy and Chase blurted at the same time.
Good god, how awkward would that be?
