Page 2 of Marlowe Banks, Redesigned
“I ran into Angus over at craft services,” Cherry told Babs. “He wants a word about his leather jacket.”
“What about it?” Babs stood, tugging the hem of her blouse, perhaps to straighten it, perhaps to reveal a hint of cleavage, a habit she often succumbed to when Angus Gordon’s name was invoked. “Isn’t it the same one he wore last week?”
“Apparently there’s an issue with the fit. Again.” Cherry rolled her eyes. “He’s been hitting the weights harder than usual lately. Now he needs more shoulder room. I told him the jacket looked fine but he demanded a second opinion.”
“How many leather jackets can one actor go through in a season?” Babs flicked a pointed finger at Marlowe and Cherry. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” She dabbed at her eye makeup and smoothed her hair before exiting the trailer.
The second the door closed behind her, Cherry crumpled to the floor, lolling about like a restless cat, one torn between stretching and going straight to sleep.
“I’m sooooooo tired,” she moaned.
“Work late?” Marlowe asked, still sorting the remaining socks.
“My ex finally came to get the last of her crap from my apartment. Should’ve taken an hour, two max. Then we got to talking, which was fine at first but before long we were rehashing every argument about my tendency to prioritize work and her jealousy issues and why the hell do I assume a woman I’ve been assisting for four goddamned years is suddenly going to recommend me for my own design gig but I can’t give up now when I’m so close to a big break and you’re deluded, no,you’redeluded, and next thing I know it’s sixA.M.and we’re practically screaming at each other.” She yawned into a fist, long and slow, blinking through dense lash extensions before going limp again. “I’m making so many mistakes today. I don’t function on zero sleep. Something’s going to go horribly wrong and it’ll be my fault.” Never one to rest on ceremony about unnecessary conventions such as using chairs, she rolled onto her side and smothered another yawn.
Marlowe polished off her sparkling water while she could do so without censure.
“Anything I can do to help?” she offered.
“Any chance you can keep our friend Babs away from me today? She practically bit my head off this morning when I missed her text about picking up gluten-free, sugar-free scones with her coffee order. As if we don’t have a catering truck for all that.”
“Are their scones gluten-free and sugar-free?”
“Would anyone here eat them if they weren’t?” Cherry swiveled around and hauled herself to a seated position, darting a quickglance at the door. “Sometimes I swear Babs invents reasons to be pissed off, just so she can remind the rest of us she’s in charge. She was in our shoes once. Now it’s her turn to dole out pain. The film industry is basically an endless hazing loop.” She stretched her neck and danced her fingers along her spine, performing a self-massage.
At twenty-eight, Cherry was only three years older than Marlowe but she’d been working in the industry since she was eighteen: two years as a PA, four as a shopper and stitcher, and another four as Babs Koçak’s design assistant. As Cherry had explained to Marlowe, assisting was one of the best ways to land a design job. Not only did directors and producers get to know you, but if the designer was offered a film or series they couldn’t take, they might pass the job to their assistant. So far Cherry’s aspirations had proven merely… aspirational. Despite the long slog, and despite all of her complaints about the industry, she was determined to make it to the top. Marlowe admired Cherry’s drive. She also wondered how it reflected on her own.
She leaned toward Cherry and lowered her voice. “Do you think something’s going on between Babs and Angus?”
Cherry made a gagging motion. “God, I hope not. I mean, the guy’s a man-whore, so maybe, but she’s twice his age and he has waaaaay better options. I’m pretty sure the supermodel who snuck out of his trailer this morning wasnotthe one I saw yesterday.”
Marlowe frowned in the general direction of Angus’s trailer, curious which girl—or rather, girls—he’d been pursuing most recently. He was one of six lead cast members, in his mid-to-late twenties with red hair too bright to be considered auburn and too dark to be called ginger, though it suited him by any name. He played the town bad boy, always getting into trouble, with a shady past and a hefty chip on his shoulder.
Of all the celebrities Marlowe had encountered over the past few months, Angus was the one her friends in New York had been most eager to hear about. She couldn’t blame them. She’d been curious, too. His face had been plastered on tabloids and film fan sites for years, first as a teen heartthrob from a popular Disney show, more recently beside a rotating roster of beautiful actresses. He had the kind of rugged, square-jawed good looks that made girls stammer and blush in his presence, centering him in countless fantasies. He’d even maintained a high position on Marlowe’s Top Ten Imaginary Love Interests list throughout her adolescence, and she’d entertained a few steamy thoughts back whenHeart’s Dinerfirst aired, but that was before she met the man and realized he was the most self-involved human being on the planet. Now she avoided him, which was easily done as a PA whose tasks seldom included direct interaction with the central cast.
Her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and checked the screen without opening it.
Kelvin: How’s La-La Land treating you, Lowe?
Marlowe’s frown deepened. Problem number three: loneliness, and its annoyingly frequent companion, regret. Kelvin’s question was innocuous enough but the nickname still tugged at Marlowe’s heart in ways shereallywished it wouldn’t. Relationships were funny that way. People built a private language together. When the relationship ended, no one else knew the words and symbols so the language had to die, too.
Cherry clambered up and dusted herself off. “S’up?”
“Apparently it’s ex day.”
“He’sstilltexting you? He knows you broke up, right?”
“Yeah. No mixed messages there.” Marlowe tucked her phone back into her pocket. “We’re trying to work through the fallout so we can stay friends.”
Cherry eyed her sideways. “What, exactly, does ‘staying friends’ mean?”
“So far it means he texts me a random question every week or so. I answer, because I’m compelled by the gods of good manners to nevereverleave a question hanging. Then I ask him a question. He does not answer it.”
Cherry leaned toward the mirror and prodded the shadows under her eyes.
“I hate that benching shit,” she said. “All those little feelers that make sure you’re still there if someone decides they want you. As soon as you give them even the slightest hint that they have your attention, they vanish. You should seriously block him already.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Marlowe wrapped a hand around her ring finger, twisting at the base, a nervous tic she hadn’t yet managed to overcome. “A few friendly texts won’t kill me. I miss him. And I still feel like an asshole for bailing the way I did.”
