Page 14 of Marlowe Banks, Redesigned
Have you made any friends yet?
Are you dating anyone yet?
Have you inquired about a promotion yet?
Are you taking care of yourself?
Do you need money?
They were reasonable questions but theyets still stung, implying Marlowe was taking too long to advance her social life, her love life, and her career. Maybe she wasn’t applying her mom’s work ethic rigorously enough, but friendships were hard to form when most of Marlowe’s hours were spent alone in her car or briefly engaging with retail clerks and administrative assistants. On the dating front, ending things with Kelvin didn’t mean she was hopping onto Tinder, looking for a quick rebound. Career-wise she needed a lot more experience before she could move up the ranks in the film and TV industry. And no, eating cold tacos at 10:00P.M.right before falling into bed exhausted probably didn’t qualify as taking care of herself. Also, yes, she was flat broke, still trying to pull herself out of the debt she’d incurred in grad school. But the scent of roses…
She smiled at the sight of them, touched them, smelled them, wished everything was as simple, soft, and beautiful as the smooth curl of an ivory petal, tipped with a blush, embracing a slowly opening bud. Warmed by the thought, she ignored her mom’s email. She didn’t even open her dad’s, which promised to annoy her in similar ways. Instead, she risked a look at Angus’s socials, praying he hadn’t posted about producers forcing him to do a screen test with a “malfunctioning wardrobe girl.”
Thankfully, she found no mention of the day’s events. His Twitter feed was mostlyHeart’s Dinertrivia and his latest Instagram post showed him raising a beer while the sun set over the ocean behind him. Wrapped around him was Tanareve Hughes, her lips pressed into his cheek while he scrunched up his face against the pressure, half-cringing, half-laughing, and entirely happy. The caption read simply#LifeIsGood. The comments were mostly hearts, cheers, praise, and congrats for “getting back together.”
Tanareve was Angus’s on-again/off-again girlfriend of several years, and apparently the relationship was on again. She was an actress, best known for playing some superhero’s imperiled love interest. Marlowe couldn’t remember which superhero. After a while, they all blended together. Regardless of which spandex-clad muscleman had saved Tanareve from certain death, she was stunningly beautiful, with flawless sun-bronzed skin, bee-stung lips, impossibly thick lashes, and long, glossy chestnut hair that’d landed her an advertising contract with Clairol. She was also vegan and liked turtles. Marlowe wasn’t proud of herself for knowing anything at all about Angus or Tanareve, but celebrity gossip had a way of sneaking into life’s margins, especially if the subject of that gossip was the object of one’s teenage fantasies. And the object of a few significantly more adult fantasies, ones far more graphic than asmattering ofMB + AGhearts scribbled with glitter pens on colorful notebook covers.
Marlowe shut the app, reminding herself that even her most recent fantasies about Angus had ebbed years ago. Allowing the flowers to reignite her imagination would be a huge mistake. Angus had an entourage. Some assistant or other had bought the flowers and written the card. Gestures like this were probably standard procedure for celebrities, a way of tempering fallout from bad behavior. The same flowers would’ve been sent to hotel maids, waiters, media personnel, and anyone else Angus talked down to. Meanwhile, he was off living his glamorous, romantic, don’t-you-envy-us life while Marlowe was dripping cold mayonnaise into the cracks of her tabletop, looking out her window to a sea of moonlit headstones, no longer certain which dreams to chase.
Still, the flowers were beautiful.
For the rest of Marlowe’s night, that was enough.
“An orgy?” Marlowe’s eyes went wide.
“Not a real one,” Cherry said through a laugh. “A bit of raciness the writers have added to spice up Jane and Vivek’s marriage, or rather, to spice up ratings. Sex, babies, and weddings always draw an audience. Also amnesia, but I haven’t figured out why.”
Marlowe spun around in the fitting room, marveling at how much lingerie had been acquired practically overnight. As Cherry explained, shooting had paused for a few days while the crew prepped for the next episode. Thanks to last-minute script changes, the episode now included a location shoot at a Beverly Hills mansion with almost two hundred background players. Elaine would start background fittings that afternoon while Cherry and Babsdealt with the leads through private appointments at a specialty store.
“What’s on my list for the day?” Marlowe asked.
“Shoes,” Babs said as she burst through a door on the far side of the room. A giant purse swung from her elbow while she sipped from a bottle of coconut water. “I can’t believe they’re only giving us three days for this nonsense. Even a real orgy takes a little planning.” She marched to the desk where she thunked down her bottle and whisked off her sunglasses in dramatic fashion. “‘It’s only underwear,’ they said. ‘Should be easy.’”
Marlowe scanned the nearest rack of bras and underpants, knowing full well that “only underwear” was harder to design than office attire, evening wear, or even period clothes. Every actor’s insecurity had to be managed, tattoos and body piercings had to be addressed, as well as sensitive topics like body hair. Also, with only a few elements to tell a story or create a character, every detail counted. No wonder Babs was frazzled.
“What am I looking for?” Marlowe asked as she flipped through the bras, noting colors, textures, and style choices. “Are we going full fetish or more street wear?”
“I compiled research images for you last night,” Babs said. “Get the credit card from Elaine. Shop on spec where you can. Think black. Think strappy. Think sexy.”
“Did someone saysexy?” asked a gravelly voice on the other side of the room.
Babs, Cherry, and Marlowe all spun toward the open door. Angus was leaning against the frame, arms loosely folded, ankles crossed, peering over his aviators as though he couldn’t even stand in a doorway without posing for a camera, reveling in his self-declared sexiness. Hoping to avoid another blow to her alreadyshaky confidence, Marlowe busied herself by sorting through bras that didn’t require sorting.
“Angus, darling.” Babs strode across the room to exchange air kisses. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you off today? You should be out enjoying the sun.”
“The sun’ll be there tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.” He removed his sunglasses and glanced around the room, taking in the racks Elaine and her team had set up for fittings. “Looks like you have your hands full.”
“Don’t even get me started.” Babs flicked her dark bangs off her forehead, making her bangles jangle. “Producers think background actors show up wearing the perfect clothes from their closets and none of this takes an ounce of effort.”
Angus nodded thoughtfully. “Guess this means we can’t make that jeans run.”
“Today?” Babs swept a hand around the room. “Not possible. I’m up to my elbows in lingerie. We’ll go next week, when all of this settles down.”
“Sounds good, unless…” He wrapped a hand over his chin, rubbing at a cheekbone with his index finger, much like he had during yesterday’s screen test. “Unless one of your assistants can fill in. Did I hear you mention a shopping trip?”
Babs sighed the sigh of the deeply exhausted. “Cherry’s with me all day and Marlowe’s only a—Wait, I suppose you know each other now, what with all that Twitter fuss?” The last few words came out with a familiar hint of acid, one that promised to increase in days to come if Marlowe didn’t address it immediately.
“We don’t know each other.” She spun around, knocking several bras off the rack in her haste. Because of course she did. “I poured him coffee. Or poured coffee on him. Or near him. Whatever.There was coffee. That’s all. The waitress idea was a mistake. Everyone knows that now and it’s already forgotten.” She picked up the fallen bras and thrust them at Cherry, sneaking in a quick fuck-my-life look before spinning back toward Babs. “If you give me that research, I’ll find Elaine and head right out.”
