Page 41 of The Spirit of Love
“I can help with your boobs,” Yas calls, waltzing into Olivia’s dressing room.
Masha strokes the back of my head. “Fenny? You okay?”
I hear a squeak. A zip. The casting aside of a curtain.
“Wow, you’re good,” Olivia tells Yas as she steps into the shop’s main room wearing nothing but a slip. “Fenny, what’s wrong?”
Then both of my friends are at my side, and although I can’t think of a more sympathetic audience, I’m still dreading what I have to say. Because telling your best friends the disastrous details of your life makes the disaster real.
It’s all a dream until you say it out loud to someone you love.
“Upsy-daisy.” Olivia rolls me over, hoisting me up on the couch until I’m looking into her soft brown eyes. “Take it from the top.”
“Did something go wrong on set?” Masha asks, scooting closer. “It was just your first day. I tell Eli this every time he’s starting new rehearsals: It takes time to get in a flow—”
“There will be no flow,” I say, blowing my nose on the tissue Masha hands me from her purse.
Yas holds out a tray with flutes of champagne. I toss back one glass quickly and then reach for another.
“What do you mean ‘no flow’?” Olivia asks. “Wait, you’re not pregnant, too, are you?”
The next thing I know, the three of us are curled up together on the couch, sipping champagne and sparkling water. Masha brings out a Tupperware of pierogies. Yas keeps topping us up and then goes back to pinning the bust of Olivia’s middle-finger-to-tradition, deep-purple wedding gown.
“I’ve been replaced.”
Masha gasps. “On your first day?”
“What’s his name, and where do I find him?” Olivia’s face twitches. She’s gone into fight mode. “I’m going to make Beyoncé’s video for ‘Hold Up’ look like a bouncy-house party.”
“Jude de Silva,” I say through my teeth.
“JDS?” Olivia says, hand to her mouth.
“Why are you calling him that?” I ask.
“People call him that. The internet. Emmanuel Macron. Jake.”
“Oh, really? Whose side is Jake on?” I dare her to respond.
“Jake had JDS on the show when his latest film premiered,” Olivia says. “He has a reputation for being very intense, but actually, he and Jake hit it off.”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” I cry and resume my face-down position.
Now the whole awful story tumbles out. I tell my friends about the vision board I made for Buster, about Aurora’s gift this morning, about Ivy running to get me, and the horror film that followed, right up to the compliment bomb Jude de Silva detonated two hours ago in the Huntington cactus garden.
“So in a way, he’s your biggest fanandyour biggest rival?” Olivia says, biting into a pierogi and then slyly trying to put it back in the Tupperware and take another. “That’s going to be tricky.”
Masha busts her pierogi switcheroo, handing Olivia back the half-eaten one. “Mushrooms are good for you.”
“I know,” Olivia whines. “But I like pork better.”
“Or maybe he was lying?” I wonder aloud. “What he said about my writing. Just trying to butter me up so I don’t throw a wrench in the works? Oh my God, it almost worked.”
“That feels like a stretch,” Masha says gently.
“There’s something about him,” I go on, reaching for more champagne. “Something that’s not quite right. Like he’s hiding something. Wearing a mask.”
“But isn’t that why people move to LA?” Olivia asks. “To hide the ugly things inside? To try on endless masks?”
