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And I hide in my locked cubicle, too scared to say anything to reveal my presence here.
“Did you see Victor?” Ashley is asking her subordinates.
“Oh, he’s so good-looking,” someone else coos.
“Yes, indeed,” the actress replies in a singsong voice that has clearly enchanted many casting directors. “He’s such a lovely thing to look at, isn’t he? So pretty.”
“Wasn’t he with some girlfriend?” another girl asks. “I thought he was a single bachelor? I didn’t even recognize that girl. She’s certainly not from around here.”
Now Ashley laughs. It’s incredibly loud – the laughter of a woman who has no earthly concerns.
“Yes, he did have a girl with him,” she announces. “Some little fragile birdy he pulled from some suburb.”
“She didn’t look like anything special,” one of the other voices chip in.
“No, she really isn’t,” Ashley says. “I saw her up close. She’s a plain little thing. No one important. I feel sorry for her, though. Victor always breaks a girl’s heart, and this girl is such a little darling that I’m sure he’ll break her heart into a million pieces before too soon...”
And it all comes dawning on me as I sit here in the cubicle and listen to this gaggle of socialites and movie stars. Maybe I needed to hear Ashley’s nasty words to really understand the situation I’ve put myself in.
I’ve opened myself up to pain.
I’ve let my guard down.
Victor is going to break my heart. It’s as sure as anything. It’s encoded in his DNA.
And I feel like every single one of Ashley’s words is true, and I need to do something about them, and about where I’ve ended up...
And I need to do it now. Before it’s too late.
69
VICTOR
Josie marches toward me, and I can already sense that, whatever her furious pace is about, it is not good. Not at all.
I glance around. I’m surrounded by people mingling inside the theatre after the premiere.
“It’s all fake, isn’t it?” Josie asks me once she reaches me. She’s not keeping her voice down. There’s an urgency in her tone.
What is going on with her?
I glance around again. People haven’t realized the tension. Yet.
It’s only a matter of time...
“What’s all fake?” I ask her, keeping my voice low and soft. I can’t have this thing blow out. There are journalists here and colleagues of mine.
Whatever it is she wants to talk about, we can’t have it here.
I can’t have Josie jeopardizing all that I’ve worked for. She looks pissed off, so I know it’s a possibility.
“Us.”
It’s one word from her, and it is enough to make my heart skip a beat. And, with that one word, I understand exactly what she’s saying and why she stormed across the busy theatre to speak to me.
Not here, though. Not now.
“You mean what we’re doing?” I ask her, even though I don’t need to know the answer. “Of course it is fake. That is what we’re doing. That’s what you signed up for.”
