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Waiting outside The Orchid, let me know when you want to head to the afterparty. I’m so proud of you xx
Half an hour passed. Harper didn’t see or hear from Mia. Instead of getting annoyed, Harper decided to go back inside and look around for her. She was probably still there. Surely she wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.
“Have any of you seen Mia Cortés?” she asked a group of socialites, a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice between them.
“Oh, she left a while ago with some other people. They said there was an afterparty happening somewhere and they were going to that. Do you know her?” asked one of the women, champagne flute delicately held up.
Harper thanked them for their time and left, calling her driver. Mia leaving without letting her know where she was going was irresponsible, but Harper tried to not let it get to her. She was young and tasting stardom for the first time, and that kind of attention could be irresistible. Harper thought back to when she first started getting real attention in the industry, the kind of attention that means VIP access, having a private driver and getting opportunities simply because you were in the right place at the right time. It could feel overwhelming but addictive. You could lose yourself to it.
Harper tried to quiet her mind on the drive home, but as her driver pulled up to the block of apartments, she couldn’t help but worry. It didn’t help when he said, “Mia not back from the party yet, Ma’am?”
“I think she’ll be out late. You head on home for the night, Michael, I think she’ll be alright without a ride home.”
“Thank you, Ma’am, will do. Have a nice night.”
Harper had similar conversations with the doorman and the receptionist. She really hadn’t considered how much Mia had slot neatly into her life, how much she had become involved in Mia’s life too. When she arrived home, she texted Mia, letting her know she had gotten home safely, and noticed that Mia had read the message she sent at The Orchid without replying.
She thought about it more as she got ready for bed. Taking the supplements her personal trainer recommended to her, Harper thought about how close and involved they had become in such a short amount of time. While washing her face, she worried about how Mia would deal with the amount of attention she would be getting and made a note to make sure she got some media training the following week.
She didn’t really settle into bed, instead climbing under the sheets in an old college sweatshirt, tossing and turning. She had gotten into the habit of listening to Mia’s demos as she fell asleep—the old ones, from her website. Her disdain at the quality had faded a little, being replaced by easy enjoyment. She couldn’t bring herself to listen to them now. She was too worried about Mia and, in a way that she thought was selfish, worried about herself.
10
Aweek. It had been a week since Harper had even heard from Mia and she was beginning to lose her mind. She continued to fill out the online calendar with bookings, communicate with the recording studio. She also realized that her focus on Mia had made her neglect some of her other clients, so she got into contact with a handful of other artists she represented. Some of them had managed to land big opportunities while she was working with Mia, and while she was happy for all of them, she was mentally kicking herself for not being more involved. Things really came to a head when she called Mia that evening.
“Mia!” she had opened, trying to stay as calm as possible. “You doing alright, sweetheart? Anything career-ending I should know about?”
She heard Mia laugh down the phone, that sweet, magnetic laugh.
“Hi Harper! I’m doing really good, I’m here with Rebecca and Landon, but I don’t think you know them—Oh, Stefan and Taylor are here too!”
“Hey, Harper!” the two men chimed in. Their voices slurred. They were partying, that much was obvious. Just as Harper was about to ask where she was, a voice chimed in from somewhere and the line cut out.
“Whatever happened to professionalism!” she asked Deborah, nursing a negroni at a booth in the Indigo Lounge an hour later. “I give that girl the opportunity of a lifetime, hell, several opportunities of a few lifetimes in the space of about a month, and she doesn’t have the fucking decorum to text me back?”
“Harp, you’ve gotta give her a minute to settle in,” Deborah said after a sip of her pineapple mojito. “Though I’ll admit, this isn’t like her at all.”
“We’ve talked about professionalism! She knows from experience what a lack of communication can do to a professional partnership!”
“Easy, tiger, you’ve also had her tongue in your mouth. I think your worries extend slightly past the professional.”
Harper felt she couldn’t really say anything to that. Deborah was right, as per usual. Sipping her drink, Harper remembered why she had come to Deborah in the first place. She, like Harper, was a powerful woman who would say it like it was, and right now Harper needed somebody else who understood the situation and would be honest with her. That meant that she had to be honest with Deborah, too.
“I think she’s losing herself in all of this.”
Deborah nodded, urging her to go on.
“She’s spending hours at a time with people she barely knows! She’s become completely swept up in the attention, but if anything, and I mean anything goes wrong, it will become an instant scandal, and she’ll have to start fresh.”
Deborah pursed her lips together, and something clicked in Harper’s head.
“Oh God, this is all my fault. I’ve encouraged her to tap into her stage persona more, but what if that’s overshadowing her actual personality? She such a sweet person, I can’t have her lose that because of assholes who might take advantage.”
“Harper, I feel like you can’t be the only person to blame for this, she’s a grown adult.”
“But she’s barely in contact with me because of it, and I encouraged her to act that way! I said it would make her powerful, oh my God.” She dropped her face into her hands, genuinely exasperated. She didn’t want to look at Deborah. Here she was, a grown woman, with her face in her hands because her crush wouldn’t text her back. She was surprised at herself more than anything else.
Deborah gently reached out and touched her wrist. Harper looked up, realized what she had to say, what she had known the entire time but couldn’t bring herself to admit to another person until then. Still not looking Deborah in the eyes, instead focusing on an old k.d. lang poster across the room, Harper sighed.
