Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(7)

She got an apartment and didn’t leave it for months.

She worked as a dog walker and house sitter. She changed the name on her headshot to Sarah Colt and started over. Sometimes when she went on auditions she wasn’t recognized and got a callback. Sometimes it wasn’t that easy.

I thought about her a lot, because what happened to her terrified me.

I didn’t want it. Anything but that. People looking at a picture and deciding I was a whore. Strangers making a judgment about me. My blood turned to ice whenever I imagined it.

“I heard Ray and Kendall went back to West Side and asked for a woman in her fifties.”

When Ray Heywood let me go I moved in with Blakely. Her job prospects hadn’t improved, but she could do her own shopping and seemed to be moving on.

“Menopausal women are the horniest,” Blakely said. “And West Side doesn’t do unattractive or older, sorry to say.”

An old Korean couple in plaid golf visors waved and smiled.

Ruefully, Blakely continued. “I wish I could just change my face sometimes.”

My phone chimed. Speak of the devil. My agent.

“Hi!” I said while Blakely polished off her water.

Laura sounded businesslike and positive when she delivered bad news.

“Matt and Dom fell through.”

“What?”

“Sorry, Cara. It wasn’t you.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t me?” I felt the world shifting under my feet.

“They love you, they just decided they wanted someone who speaks Spanish.”

“I speak French! What’s wrong with French? Willow Heywood is fluent because of me. Did you tell them that?”

“I’m sorry, Cara. We can send you out again. You’re easy to place.”

I wanted to throw the phone. Instead I just hung it up.

Blakely had heard everything. She put her hand on my back.

“You’ll find something.”

“Sure. I’ll get hired and go in like a little puppy, all tail wagging and wanting to do a good job, then one of two things will happen. No. Three things. He’ll look at me like I hold the keys to the life he wanted and missed, and I’ll quit before I ruin their marriage.” I counted off a second finger. “Or the lady of the house will start snapping at me every time he’s in the room, or I’ll hit the lottery and get a single mom who won’t fire me until she gets a serious boyfriend. Then I’m out. And it’s not fair. Because they only want pretty nannies. Having their kids toted around by someone unattractive or middle-aged is like a black mark on their records. And we’re like inanimate household accessories until the person in the house with the dick feels sad or lonely.”

“Wow. You need some ice cream.”

I was frustrated and disappointed. I also had no business complaining about any of this to Blakely, who had it ten times worse.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You were just speaking my mind.”

“Let’s go down to Cups and Cones,” I said. “I’m buying.”





CHAPTER 4


CARA


Things work out the way they do for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that the universe wants to screw you. For fun, maybe. Or because you getting screwed is in service of someone else’s “things happen for a reason.”

But the reason isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. When my parents got reassigned to Paris the reason was so I could learn French, and when it was Pakistan it was so I could stay in the house all the time, and when it was Korea it was so I could fall in love with a boy named Shin who clumsily took my virginity two weeks before we had to move again. When The American School in Stuttgart was full, Dennis and I went to Lycée Fran?ais and stayed. The universe must have wanted our lessons to be rigorous and consistent no matter where we were. Certainly, Dad didn’t mind that we were taught to always just be polite, deferential to authority, and keep our noses clean. But by fourteen, nothing about me was clean.

It’s true, sometimes things happen for a reason. And sometimes the reasons suck.

Moving around that much meant I didn’t have a chance to fall in love. And if I couldn’t fall in love, I was just going to let my body have a party. Free birth control in Belgium and not being anywhere long enough to get a “reputation” meant I could do what I wanted. I just had to make sure I kept away from other girls’ boyfriends and stuck to guys who didn’t talk so much.

When I was seventeen I cost my father his security clearance. I was caught in a car on a desolate Scottish road with a rugby player. People talked. My parents, who kept their noses so clean they glowed, asked for a transfer so we could start from scratch yet again. We went back to the states in deadly tense silence. After that, I felt as if I couldn’t do anything right. My parents made me nervous. My father in particular always seemed to look at me sideways, as if he was looking for me to get into some kind of trouble.

Once we settled in Texas I had a habit of not disclosing any information about anything. I got into and out of minor scrapes by being straightforward and respectful at the same time. I adapted easily to new situations and watched how other people behaved before I acted. I was a natural diplomat.

My peers and their parents may have been right. I might have been cold. I might have been unemotional. People and their judgments scared me. I was only really myself around children.