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Her eyes widen as she leans across the table. “I know, right? And they want to pass legislation on Terra to give them personhood rights! Can you believe it?”
I lean back against the seat and smile warily. “Oh. You’re from Terra?” She doesn’t look like a Terran. No pointed ears, isn’t over six foot.
Dionne takes another sip of her drink and waves her hand dismissively. “No. I mean, I live there. Now. In New York City, where HAHA’s HQ is, of course. They send me out on assignments all over the universe, though, so I’m barely there. I’m from Luna. Like you!”
My heart skips a beat. It’s rare that I meet another Lunite. A warm, buttery feeling runs through my body as I watch the corners of her mouth tug upward.
“It’s hard out there for us Luna girls, isn’t it?” she says. “Having to claw our way through the galaxy just to prove we can hang with the actual planets, right?”
I laugh and shake my head. “Exactly. Yeah, it’s been tough.”
“You left Luna when you were eighteen?” she asks, her eyes flicking back to her terminal.
I nod and unconsciously rub my arms. “Yeah. Eighteen. With Margot, my manager. She wasn’t my manager then, though. Obviously.” I laugh awkwardly.
“And then your big break at twenty. Lucky you. WonUniverse’s Next Top Talent. Got yourself that big studio deal. Dreams came true, huh?”
It’s not a question, so I’m not sure why she’s giving me a history lesson on my own life. I nod again, but this time, I’m not smiling. I thought we were supposed to discuss my tour? A sour taste creeps up on the back of my tongue, and I take a drink of my water to get rid of it.
“You rose to stardom pretty fast. You’re, what, twenty-five now?” Dionne leans back in her seat, staring at me with a look I can’t decipher. The opaque screen in the middle of the table is distracting, too. Call me nosy, but I’m dying to see what she’s writing down on her terminal. We’ve barely said two words to each other, so she can’t have that much dirt on me already, right?
“Twenty-six,” I correct her. “I turned twenty-six three weeks ago.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Happy belated, girl.”
“Thanks!” I chirp, then immediately mentally smack myself. I’m letting my emotions show too much. Getting thrown off balance. We haven’t even discussed anything uncomfo—
“Let’s discuss that photo that’s been going around,” she says, her eyes narrowing as she brings up the photo in question and turns her terminal so I can see it. A photograph of me, mid-makeout, with a woman whose name I can’t even remember. The image all but screams at me from the screen.
My body stiffens, and Dionne definitely takes notice. Her eyes light up like she’s finally snared the rabbit in her trap.
“Ah, you recognize it, I guess. What can you tell me about this? About her?” Dionne leaves the photograph on the screen, pointing right at me.
“I….” I trail off, unsure of what to say. For once, I don’t have a clue how to answer. The room whirls, and Dionne’s face goes in and out of focus. I spin around, searching for Margot’s face, but she isn’t at the bar anymore. Maybe she left to go to the bathroom? Or maybe she left to take a call? Maybe she just left, period.
Sharp pain beats behind my eyes. My stomach flip flops. God, what’s wrong with me? It’s just a question.Shut it down, Kal. Shut it down. Tell her the truth. No, wait, don’t tell her the truth, you’ll out yourself. You don’t want to do that. Don’t. Do. That.
“Kallista?” Dionne’s voice cuts through the silence, but I’m not listening. “Kallista!” Why is she yelling?
And then I realize I’m no longer in the booth with her. I’m running out of the café, out of the hotel lobby, into the busy streets of Latrixia. Dionne yells my name again, but I’m already gone.
6KALLISTA
“Ican’t believe you! You don’t just leave in the middle of a fucking interview, Kal!”
Margot hasn’t stopped pacing since we got back to our hotel suite, and I’m pretty sure at this point her aggressive treading has left burn marks in the rug. I sit on the edge of my bed, hanging my head like a child getting a scolding. I knew this would happen, but in the moment, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was removing myself from a situation I knew I couldn’t win.
“She was trying to get me to out myself,” I murmur. “What was I supposed to do?”
Margot stops in front of me and throws her hands in the air. “Decline! Say you don’t want to talk about it! Do anything but run out of the room like a … like a….”
I shoot her a glare. “Like a what, Margot? Finish your sentence.”
“Like a crazy person,” she says quietly, her bottom lip trembling. “Lydia has been freaking out nonstop because of this. You just made her job a million times more difficult. Did you know that?”
I flop back onto the bed and groan at the ceiling. Lydia, my publicist, is damn good at her job so there’s no doubt in mind she’ll find a clever way to put a positive spin on this whole debacle. But still, I do feel guilty for inconveniencing her. There’s no way to tell Margot that I was in the middle of a panic attack and couldn’t breathe without her launching into another rant, however, so I just go with a quick, “Sorry.”
Wrong move. Margot growls and races into the other room, probably to make more calls. My agent is furious. Lydia is freaking out. And HAHA Entertainment is laughing all the way to the bank with their super fun headlines that read,“Has Kallista finally lost her mind?!” Emphasis on thefinally, as though everyone was waiting with bated breath to see when I’d snap.
