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1
WILLOW
On Wednesday morning, I spent an hour getting ready for a job interview that I half-knew was a waste of time. No, I fully knew it was a waste of time, but I pushed the knowledge down into the small, dark corner of my mind. Maybe this one would be different. Maybe this one wouldn’t already be promised to the best friend of the boss’s son or the daughter of the CEO’s golf instructor. Maybethisone I would have a chance at.
I blew out my hair, brushing it until it shined mahogany. I took an age to put on my makeup so that it looked so natural thatmaybemy gray-green eyes were just really wide and my skin pore-less porcelain. I used every trick in the book to look more sophisticated than my twenty-five years, even though the bulk of the duties of the job I was interviewing for involved being a gopher and coffee maker. Then I grabbed the only designer purse I’d ever owned, stepped into a pair of heels that made me 5’7 instead of 5’4, and powered over to the glass and chrome tower in the Westwood District.
Where I interviewed with a man who called me Willa and kept his eyes firmly fastened on my chest, even though it was covered up by my double-breasted blazer. I looked down a couple of times, wondering what he was so interested in, but they were well and thoroughly covered up. Maybe it was just a habit for him, as meaningless as the form e-mail rejections I got after interviews like this. God, I couldn’t even get a personalized sexual harassment out of this industry.
An insane urge to laugh bubbled up to my lips when he shook my hand and told my breasts that he’d be in touch.
“They’re looking forward to it,” I said solemnly, deciding I had nothing to lose. There was no way I was getting this job. There was no way this had even been a real interview. I was one of the obligatory interviewees brought in to hide the scent of rank nepotism.
I called my mom on my way home–walking instead of taking the bus because it was cheaper, and it wasn’t like I had a job to rush around for. “Well?” she asked as soon as she answered, eagerness evident in her voice.
“Nope,” I said, my voice a sharp pinprick in her enthusiasm. “They’ve already promised it to someone. I could tell.” I didn’t addanother damn nepo baby, but my mom heard it in my voice.
“Honey, I know it’s not right or fair, but this town is all about connections. You can’t blame people for using theirs. You can only….” she trailed off delicately.
“Blame myself for not using mine?” I finished for her.
I could practically see her shrug, the movement of her throat as she reluctantly swallowed the words she wanted to say. “It’s not cheating.”
“It’s notnotcheating,” I disagreed. “It’s gross. It’s line jumping.”
“No, it’s using a well-earned fast pass. Other little girls had dads who put their bikes together on Christmas Eve and drove them to their first high school dance. You have Fletcher.”
Fletcher James. At the thought of my father, I feel a familiar, queasy combination of irritation and wistfulness. I wanted to love him. I would have settled for not despising him. I wanted the dad who built the bikes and did the drives, but I’d have settled for one that remembered my birthday. Fletcher James was not that dad. Or maybe he was, but not to me. He had one daughter and two sons who shone like stars lined up on either side of him on the red carpet. I was the daughter he’d left on the cutting room floor. The brunette in the galaxy of blondes. The bastard in the ranks of legitimate heirs.
“I don’t want Fletcher,” I said, his name leaving a metallic aftertaste on my tongue that made me want to spit and wipe at it, but I was in public. “And I’m not going to use the Fletcher fast pass. I doubt it would work anyway.”
“It would work,” was all my mother said. She didn’t push me. She never did. She’d laid it out for me as soon as I was old enough to understand.This is your father. He was married when you were conceived. He stayed married, despite…well, it doesn’t matter. He pays for your school tuition and child support, even though he…well, that doesn't matter either. You can see him as much as you want, or never.
I was thirteen before I figured out the parts that “didn’t matter,” like how he’d told my mom his marriage was over. Everything but the paperwork, and she didn’t understand how long that took. The point was, it wasover. The ex had moved to their house in Palm Springs. Then I was conceived, and suddenly it wasn’t so over. Suddenlyshewas pregnant, too, and there was no way he could leave. Actually, there was no way I could even be his. My mom had to take him to court to prove paternity.
It didn’t make for a warm and cuddly relationship between us. I’d gone through a period where I really wanted to be close to him. I wanted to hear his side. I wanted to understand. I was sixteen before I fully understood that there was nothing to understand. Fletcher James was an asshole. A user, and a creep. A bigshot who had preyed on a twenty-something production assistant in five-star hotels and pretended it was love. Then pretended it was nothing. Then reluctantly introduced me to hisrealfamily and made the difference between us clear.
No, I didn’t want Fletcher James’ help in any way, shape, or form.
“I’d rather wait tables for the rest of my life,” I said defiantly. That was what I was doing right now. I was a cocktail waitress at an upscale bar and bistro near my apartment. The main allure was that I could walk there, and the uniform was short but not slutty.
“Whatever makes you happy,” my mom said dryly. She didn’t believe me for a minute. She knew that, hard as I’d fought it, my passion was the same as my father’s. I wanted to create. I wanted to find stories and curate them and build something from the foundation of the script pages. I hadn’t gotten Fletcher's last name, or his looks, thank God, but I’d gotten his love of movies.
“Are you visiting me at work later?” I asked to change the subject. My mom loved Cafe Bellissimo. She liked to come by toward the end of my shift so she could have a glass of wine and we could catch up in person while we rolled silverware for the next shift. I liked it too since half the time, she was off on this retreat or that. Doing yoga in Bali. Breathwork in Belize. God knows what in Peru.
“No, packing,” she said. “The photography safari, remember?”
I didn’t, but it was hard to keep up with her various pursuits. I pretended like I did and listened while she talked about it. By the time I got off the phone with her, I was back at my apartment.
Demoralized, I kicked off my heels as soon as I walked in and let the cool tile comfort my hot, tired feet. Then I dragged my perfectly blown out hair into a ponytail on top of my head and changed out of my interview suit into jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on my way through the living room into the kitchen. The makeup was still perfectly applied, but the illusion of sophistication was gone. I looked young and frustrated andhungryinstead of capable, confident, and ready for the responsibility of being a production assistant on a movie. Or a TV show. Or a freaking Doritos commercial, but God, give me something.
Then, as though the universe was answering my prayer, my phone rang. I pulled it out of my back pocket, expecting to see my mom’s name on the Caller ID.
Instead, to my shock, I saw the last name I ever expected to see.
Fletcher James.
2
