“I can’t believe we live in a city where that wasn’t just said ironically…”
Amanda shushed me with a warning look, and I dragged my weary eyes back to the mirror to see what new nonsense Paulo was up to.
I had wanted to move to Portland—not Los Angeles. It was a given that anywhere we’d like to live in San Francisco was going to be way out of our price range, and I had decided that Portland was the next best thing. The music and arts scene was on the rise, and all the pictures I looked at online had at least one person with a wizard beard. I was intrigued. But Amanda reminded me that cinematic glory wasn’t going to come to us, we had to seek it out ourselves. And the best place to do that, unfortunately, was in the belly of the beast.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have been so quick to move if she’d known about Mrs. Wakowski and the three parking tickets we’d get within the first two weeks of living here. Then again, perhaps she would. It was hard to tell with Amanda. You never knew which things she’d choose to desperately care about, and which things she’d let thoughtlessly slide.
“Anyway,” she answered my question from hours before, “you would have gotten an invite too if you’d come with me to the casting.”
“I told you—some of us have to work for a living. Not everyone can rely on their parents for rent.” I threw a hair tie at her playfully and pretended that Paulo didn’t slap my wrist.
Three hours later, we were back on the streets. Not the streets I would have preferred, mind you. Not my dear Westwood where I was still a local folk hero. No—we were prowling around the high-price shops and oxygen bars (yes, they’re real) of Beverly Hills. The agency that employed us to be unemployed actors had set aside a bit of a budget to make a good impression with the social elites at the party tonight. Since two of the four girls going had to drop out due to food poisoning (a lucky break for us, according to Amanda) that ‘bit of a budget’ had grown into more money than either she or I had ever spent in one afternoon.
Even I had to admit that after we left the chemical stench of the salon and stepped back into the sunshine, I actually started to have a little fun.
“Let’s grab another coffee, courtesy of the agency,” Amanda drawled in a Southern aristocratic accent she’d adopted specifically to pose that very request a million times. We’d already had three espressos and had stopped “just for a bite” at two different sushi restaurants. Still, we’d barely dented the funds assigned to ingratiate us into the land of giants.
“I can’t.” I grabbed her wrist and tugged her away from the Starbucks she’d started drifting into. “There’s so much caffeine in my system, I seriously feel like I’m having heart palpitations.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s just your heart being excited, Bex. It’s jumping for you.”
I stopped in my tracks and stared at her in awe. “You are a scientist; you know that? The medical profession has got nothing on you.”
She laughed and pulled me suddenly into a store with the scariest looking mannequins I had ever seen. “Fine, if the sponsored charm is beginning to wear off, let’s just get our dresses and find some shoes. It’s already coming up on five, and we’re supposed to be there no later than seven-thirty.”
“Hang on.” I hadn’t made it past the door, locked in a staring match with an eyeless mannequin. “This one’s trying to tell me something.”
“Oh my gosh, could you just come on already?” She trapped my wrist in her wiry fingers and pulled me farther inside. “And try not to embarrass me.”
I picked up an equestrian riding crop labeled “business casual” as we rushed past. “I always try.”
Chapter 5
An hour and a half later, I had self-exiled to a changing room. Wondering, literally, what in the world had I gotten myself into.
I liked to wear nice things. I liked to wear them just as much as any girl who wasn’t either kidding herself or on some existential cleanse liked to wear nice things.
But this…? This had taken that sentiment to a whole other level.
I looked as though I had been painted, skin to skin painted, in shimmer
ing metallic lace.
Amanda called it silver, but I had promptly dubbed the color gunmetal—hearing one of the salespersons mutter the word as I walked past. It was slightly darker than your average winter snowflake—with darker, stormy tints that gave it a bit of an edge. It clung to my body like a second skin but was in no way unflattering. In fact, it made my skin practically glow translucent white under its reflective swirling tints. It wound its way up around my neck like an elegant halter and then plunged down into the lowest neckline I’d ever seen. It was delicately beaded over a thin empire waist, but rather than flaring out in a loose skirt the way most dresses I owned tended to do, it hugged around my tiny hips and then fell straight down to the floor.
Enchanted, I snapped a picture and sent it to my mom before venturing out into the waiting room mirrors.
“Oh my gosh!” Amanda gushed all in one breath. “You look so different! You look beautiful!”
I paused a moment with a frown, considering her statement. “Thanks…? I’m not going to lie. I absolutely love it! I already sent a picture to my mom.”
Amanda’s eyes sparkled as she prepared to try on a gown of her own. “What did Sharon say?”
Right on cue, I glanced down at my phone as it beeped a reply. “She told me that grand larceny is a crime, and I’d better put it right back on the hanger,” I answered with a crooked grin.
Amanda laughed and disappeared into a changing room. A minute later, I heard her rustling around.
“Okay,” she opened the door with a flourish, “what do you think?”