“A first walk down the red carpet deserves a first dress,” she told me when she and Cory presented the dress they had chosen for me. Well, really Sarah chose it and Cory paid for it.
I strip out of my pajamas and I’m standing there in just my black panties. I step into the dress and pull it up over me as Cory watches with lustful eyes. Again, we should take advantage of this free time—it’s not like it’s going to hurt if we get to the festival half an hour late—but I can’t even think about sex right now.
“Sorry,” I say when he plants a kiss on my exposed collarbone. He pulls back with a look of understanding. But from the way he’s pressed against me, I can feel that his manhood is ready and raring to go. “Tonight, I promise. If we don’t totally bomb.”
Thirty minutes later, we’re in the back of a rented limo, pulling up to a surging crowd of fans, reporters, and celebrities. Lights flash, phones wait to record our movements, and a hand opens the back door so that we can step out and onto the red carpet.
The first thing to hit me is the smell. On top of a faint musk of sweat, there’s a dizzying wind of colognes and perfumes from the others walking ahead. Fragrant and heady, they heighten my senses. Next is the sounds. Thousands of voices, hundreds of conversations, and a barrage of questions aimed right at Cory and me. He fields them with a deft hand, answering but never slowing for long.
Lastly, what I see is a collage of fame.
Real celebrities walk just ahead of us. Directors I’ve seen in interviews on Youtube. Actors whose voices I would recognize with my eyes closed. And a light dashing of musicians, government officials, and men and women who dress as though they’ve never eaten a single meal without a golden spoon in their hand.
What I feel is exposed. The dress is thin, and I know from looking in the mirror before heading out that my nipples poke through the fabric in even a warm room. I can’t imagine what I must look like walking up this carpet on a night where the winds are more inline with autumn weather rather than summer vibes.
Thankfully, the reporters who step up with outstretched microphones are focused not on me but on Cory. I get hit with a few softball questions, like how it was working under Cory Flint (a question that drips with innuendo), but the rough topics are aimed squarely at Cory.
“Rumor has it that you funded this movie by yourself. Is there a reason you went from Hollywood’s darling to its dejected ex-lover?”
Cory, ever the professional, is all wide smiles and lighthearted banter. “Dejected ex-lover? That’s harsh. I may no longer be Hollywood’s darling, but that’s only because that role now belongs to my lovely lead, Augusta Summers.”
The reporter turns to me, but Cory’s already pulling me across the red carpet and to the doors where the questions end and I finally remember to breathe.
“Hollywood’s darling?” I ask. Cory just shrugs, and while I find the terminology comical, I have to admire the way he answered the reporter without giving the real dirt she was looking for. She wanted to know why producers had apparently shunned him. What he gave her was another advertising slot with my name in bright lights.
We’ve arrived half an hour before our movie is to screen, which should give us plenty of time to find out seats and mingle with whoever we’ll be sitting beside. I imagine the faces and names of who my end up next to us, but my fangirl daydreams hit a wall when Cory spots someone across the room.
I follow his gaze but don’t see what’s stopped him in his tracks. Cory then makes up an excuse to get away.
“I’ll grab us some snacks. How about you go and find our seats?” he says while staring off in the distance. And though I know something else is going on, I’m too overwhelmed to argue with him. I almost ask him how we’re going to find each other in the huge theater, but then I remember the badge I’m wearing on a lanyard, my assigned seat number printed helpfully on the front.
Even though I’m dressed the part, I still feel like an imposter who’s snuck in and will undoubtedly be found out soon enough. When I pass through the doors into the theater, a security guard scans my badge and waves me on. A wave of relief passes over me, even though I had no real reason to worry. But then, just three steps inside, I stop in my tracks, look up at the ceiling, and feel my heart stop to take in the view.
This isn’t anything like the theaters back home, with sticky floors and maybe 200 seats. This is an amphitheater, with seating for thousands and ceilings that stretch up as high as the room is wide. It’s so cavernous that it would be easy to make the mistake that I’ve stepped outside. The films we watched yesterday were in a smaller side theater, not this main one reserved for our movie tonight.
Despite the fact that I’ve starred in a film directed by Cory Flint—Hollywood’s ex-darling according to that one reporter—and have attended several parties around Los Angeles since, this is a grandeur I could never have prepared for. It’s not even like I’ve found the secret lives of the rich and famous; it’s more comparable to stumbling into Mount Olympus and walking amongst the ancient gods.
It’s at this point that I remember the promise I made to Lizzie. I pull out my phone and start filming my surroundings, hoping this is good enough for her project she hasn’t stopped talking about since she got that movie-making book yesterday.
A quick glance at the rows and my badge get me moving again as I seek to find my seat. It’s towards the right side of the auditorium, not too far back, but certainly not in what would be considered the primo seats. I’m just about ready to slide into my row and take my weight off these heels, which have been hurting since the moment I put them on back at the hotel, when I see him.
That stubby body and hairy arms. A smile that’s all plastic with teeth more like fangs ready to tear me apart. When I first met him, I thought he was lovely, if a little on the strange side. Now I can’t help but view him as the scum that he is.
“So lovely to see you again,” Jay says. Jeb Eli’s brother-in-law looks me up and down, his gaze lingering on the curves this dress accentuates. “And I do mean ‘lovely’.”
Chapter 33
Epilogue
“What are you doing here?”
“Why I’m here for the film festival, of course. Just because I didn’t back your film doesn’t mean that I didn’t choose other more promising projects.”
I a
lways wondered how deer could be so stupid to stop in the middle of the road, frozen before the headlights of the car that will inevitably smash through them, but here I am, falling into the same unfortunate response.
But unlike deer, I have a voice, and while I can’t find the will to move, I manage to get a shaky threat out. “Jeb’s going to prison. And you can bet you’ll be next.”