Vera's delicately musical ringtone sounded appallingly obnoxious at two in the morning.
Grumbling, she fumbled, eyes still shut, towards the sound assaulting her eardrums. Finding the cool plastic of her phone case with clumsy fingertips, she shoved it against her ear. "Hello?"
Gentle piano melody continued to stab her ears, now at painfully close range. With a groan, Vera pried her eyes open so she could actually find the button to accept the call.
Ivy's screaming replaced the cacophony of the ring.
"Jesus, Ivy," Vera mumbled, grinding the heel of her palm into her sticky eye. "It's too late for this."
"What the fuck, Vera! What the fuck!"
"Oh." Cottony brain spinning thickly, Vera rolled onto her back. "Did you see my post?"
"I saw your fucking post! You posted a picture of Carmen fucking Juarez!" Ivy screeched. "From inside her closet! Her beautiful, impossible, mouthwatering, I-want-that-fucking-closet closet!"
Vera snorted out a pleased laugh.
Carmen had immediately loved Vera's idea for a behind-the-scenes series as a perfect complement to her new strategy. The first post, a teaser, was already up. The next would go up in a week, and then one after their (hoped-for) win at Teen Taste. Frequent enough to capture interest while leaving Carmen's fans wanting more. And frequent enough to keep Vera in the conversation. Because as contagious as Carmen's passion was, Vera had to keep things in perspective. Carmen was fickle. She could fire Vera in a week. For Vera, leveraging this situation for her own career was more important than whether the actress got more headlines than Troy or won an Oscar.
"I told you, Ivy," Vera said. "LA."
"How? You-- I mean-- Seriously, Vee, what the actual fuck? Why didn't you tell me?"
"We were doing this trial thing. I didn't wanna tell you until I was sure it was for real. Plus there was this whole deal with the NDA." Vera let her free arm flop out onto the bed. She couldn't help the smug tone that crept into her voice. "Anyway, it's official now. I'm Carmen's stylist. Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?"
"Because I'm in Bali but like a good sister I needed to celebrate with you. I'm so fucking happy for you, Vee! This is so, so amazing!"
An embarrassingly big smile caught Vera's lips. She was glad Ivy couldn't see it.
"I want all the pics," Ivy said. "Is LA nice? Is Carmen really as hot in person? Oh my God, did you know you have like a hundred thousand followers now?"
"A hundred? It was only seventy when I went to bed."
"Oh my God, stop, you can't make me believe you're jaded about this already." Ivy laughed. "Not when Carmen herself is sharing your posts."
Vera snickered. "It just doesn't feel real yet. But this's the whole point. Carmen gets a glow-up and I get the credit. Next step, more clients and a million followers and a collaboration with Fatima Bhatia."
"You could never. She's top of the game. Totally out of your league."
"So is working for Carmen Juarez. But look where I am," Vera said.
"I'm seriously impressed," Ivy admitted. "That plaid look was iconic. Even I want it. You're really gonna be famous if you don't fuck this up."
Vera's happiness cracked like a stiletto heel through glass. "Really, Ivy? Can't you just be happy for me without being a bitch for once in your fucking life?"
"Well, I'm just saying." Ivy didn't sound sorry at all. "You never commit to anything. You throw yourself into things and then quit as soon as they get too hard. But this's a huge, huge deal. I can't imagine you'll ever get another chance like this."
Vera squinted balefully at the seams of orange light around the window. "I don't quit because they're hard, I quit because they're not making me happy anymore."
"Nothing's gonna make you happy all the time, Vee. Sometimes you have to push through the bad stuff to find the good on the other side."
"Are you my therapist now?" Vera groaned. "Can you stop with the advice, please."
"I'm just trying to help," Ivy said in that infuriating tone.
"You're not helping. Why don't you just show me what Bali looks like."
"Oh my God, it's gorgeous. You'll never believe our resort. Our room is right on the ocean."
They switched to video chat. Ivy put on her huge sunglasses and walked out onto the balcony to show Vera the hot evening sun throwing feathery light across the cerulean waves, lush greenery shading clean white sand below.
Ivy turned the camera back to face herself, her lips a little pink bow. A floral coverup slipped off her narrow shoulders and a prim knot held her sleek black hair on top of her head. "For our anniversary tomorrow-- Eric thinks it's a surprise but I made the resort people tell me. We're getting a couple's massage. Then they're putting a little table right down there on the sand by the ocean. Candlelit dinner in the sunset, our toes in the waves. How romantic, right? I think I might keep him." She laughed.
A week ago Vera would have been annoyed at listening to Ivy bragging about her perfect marriage, but now she found herself thinking about knees knocking together under a tiny table and it didn't bother her so much. "Yeah, totally romantic. Happy anniversary."
"I need you to start dating again." Ivy adjusted her sunglasses. "I wanna go on couple trips with you. When are you gonna get over that asshole Alex?"
Vera made a face, because she couldn't help thinking that Sharise and Ivy would get along and she didn't know whether that should worry her. She shifted her phone into her other hand. "I mean, it's super early and I definitely shouldn't be telling you this yet, but-- I kinda met someone?"
Ivy gasped. "Oh my God! Who? Someone in LA? That's just like you to move to LA and immediately start dating some glamourous artist."
Vera's laughter emerged half a snort. "We've been on one date and it ended kinda weirdly, honestly. But she's so hot and she's just... Like, she's a little serious but she's so sweet. She's always trying to take care of everyone. She brings me lunch. It's really cute."
Ivy went awww. "Pics, Vee. I need to see this girl who's stolen your heart after one weird date."
"That's exaggerating. I barely know her, really." But Vera found a photo she had taken, at dinner, with the fairy lights glimmering in Sharise's brown eyes and the tips of her teeth showing in a tiny smile that Vera had worked hard to earn, and sent it to Ivy. Huge sunglasses obscured most of Ivy's expression, but Vera could see the way her lips parted in surprise.
"Oh," she said, and apparently Vera was already used to actors who shuttered their emotions because Ivy's were so obvious that it hurt, this plummeting pain in Vera's stomach. "Not exactly your type, is she? I thought everyone in LA was supposed to be thin and beautiful."
"What the fuck." Vera laughed in disbelief. "You're such a shallow bitch."
"Me? You're the one who lost a job because you called a girl fat."
"Fat isn't--" Vera let out a frustrated breath. This was somehow worse than Ivy's usual judgement because at least she did that to Vera's face. But this was Sharise they were talking about, and she wasn't here to defend herself, and this whole thing reminded Vera, embarrassingly, of her own shallow first impressions of Sharise that she would rather forget. "Whatever. Keep your opinions to yourself. I need to sleep. I have work in the morning." She hung up.
But Ivy needed to have the last word. She texted, You don't need to get pissed at me. You only date beautiful people. It's a fact. I guess she must be pretty special.
Vera glared at her blindingly bright phone screen. "Sharise is beautiful," she muttered.
Tossing her phone onto the floor beside her bed, she buried her face in her pillow. That ache lingered in her stomach. Was that why Sharise had been weird after the whole chopsticks thing? Did she think Vera was so shallow as to be bothered by her size? She wished they'd had a chance to talk properly.
But the next day was so hectic, and the next. There was shopping to do (new heels and jeans and earrings for Carmen), and posts to write (one more post about Carmen and one about a musician who was putting out a line of sunglasses), daily street style to plan, an apartment to find now that she was here to stay (somehow even more expensive than at home; she didn't know how she was going to afford to live here without finding some more clients or sponsorships, fast). And looming over it all was the coming Teen Taste Awards and the need for a look even more attention-grabbing than the plaid.
Before Vera knew it, a week had slipped by and she had barely spoken to Sharise except for brusque exchanges of logistical information. The one day they ate lunch together, Carmen was there, too, and the discussion was around a magazine interview she was doing, and whether it was worth it to sell some "insider info" to the tabloids to counteract the increasingly predominant narrative that Troy had cheated on Carmen with Marina.
"I'm not a victim," Carmen said over the quinoa salad she wasn't going to finish. "I know no one's gonna believe we weren't hooking up. But is it really such a stretch that I might've been the one who didn't want to be serious? Like, look at the evidence. Troy is clearly into relationships. I'm out here living my best fucking life. Logically, people should think that I'm the one who ended it."
"But you didn't end it," Sharise said, poking through her own salad with the plastic fork to find a chunk of zucchini.
"That's not the point." Little bits of quinoa flew off Carmen's fork as she gestured with it. "The point is, they don't care about logic because an empowered woman doesn't sell magazines. It's fucking stupid."
"Do you not like the salad?" Sharise asked in a carefully neutral tone. "Do you want me to get you something else?"
"No." Carmen set her mostly full bowl down. "I'm full. I need to go to the gym."
At least Vera got to sit beside Sharise while they ate, close enough that she could admire the soft curves of Sharise's thighs without being too obvious about it. Sharise had great legs; long arc of calf swooping into dimpled knees and deep curve of hip, jeans creasing in the sweet dip of her pelvis. Vera appreciated those pants a lot. When she casually shifted her knee so that their legs were touching, Sharise pretended not to notice but she also didn't pull away. So that was like half a win.
With fashion and gossip blogs watching her more closely than they had in years, Carmen spent her time being caught by the paparazzi as often as she could without it seeming too contrived: grocery shopping, going to the gym and to a gala. In the magazine interview, she gave answers on the cusp between dishy and ambiguous, perfectly calibrated to keep people guessing. She posted selfies at parties with other hot young actresses and was seen out for dinner with two different men, a famous actor her age and an older director. She let Vera take photos for her series and bothered Sharise to book her more promo spots. If she cried again, she did it in private, where no one could hear her.
And she had Opinions about her Teen Taste outfit.
"I want virginal," Carmen said. "Some biblical, mother Mary stuff. White. Sexy but modest."
"Sexy but modest," Vera repeated, her eyebrows shooting up.
Carmen tossed her hair over her shoulders and sipped at her water, her eyes on her phone. "I don't want them thinking too hard about me fucking Troy, because then they're thinking about Troy. But I do want them thinking about how fuckable I am."
Vera frowned, flipping her rhinestone-encrusted pen over and over in her hand. "I get what you're saying, but, like, going virginal to make them forget about your sex life? That's such a cliché."
"But you can make a cliché feel fresh again," Carmen said, with an impish little smile on her lips. "I know you can. That's why I hired you."
The last thing Vera wanted to do was argue that she wasn't good at her job. Nibbling on the end of her pen, her eyes caught on the sheer pants that Carmen hated. Vera had hung them on the end of the rack, a palm of space away from the other clothes. "Okay," she said slowly. "Virginal but modest. Biblical. I have some ideas. Let me think it over a bit."
"Think as hard as you need to." Carmen bounced to her feet, a dangerous motion when she was wearing that tiny crop top with no bra, but the sight didn't set Vera's heart racing the way it would have just a few weeks before. "There's a rumour that Troy's bringing Marina as a date to the show. People fucking love them as a couple. If they get more attention than me I'll seriously have to shoot someone."
"Did Marina know that you and Troy were a thing?" Vera asked, trying to sound casual as she sketched out a silhouette in her notebook. "I thought you two were friends."
Pausing in the doorway, Carmen let out a cackling giggle. "Friends with that bitch? I didn't think you were that stupid. Oh, you're gonna stay after we're done Teen Taste prep, right?"
That surprised Vera into looking up. "Stay?"
Carmen screwed the lid onto her empty water bottle. "You guys can chill here while I go to the show. Watch the awards or have a pool party or whatever, I don't care. Like a little office party. You'll have fun."
She swept away without waiting for Vera's response, which was probably just as well because she was supposed to be working but sexy but modest on Carmen was so much less interesting than the image of Sharise in a swimsuit that now filled Vera's head.