The Comeback(75)

They don’t want you to win.

I let the negative energy bubble up inside me, summoning it, trying to mold it into something else: a protective shield of armor around me. They don’t want you to win. I breathe in and out, every nerve in my body firing until I start to fill the whole fucking parking lot with my light, soaring above these people and their impatience, their passive-aggressive power moves and their time commitments. I channel Sienna, queen of Euron, gathering her strength to defeat the final galaxy, her reluctance to lead ending up being the very source of her strength.

“I never asked for any of this, don’t you understand that?” I start, and my voice rings out, clear and perfect through the air. I can see the assistant glance quickly at me out of the corner of my eye, but I keep my gaze focused on the producer, burning into him with every word I say. “I’ve always seen it as a sign of weakness. That people who want too much of anything are flawed.”

My words cut through the open structure like flaming arrows, pulsing out of my body one after the other at lightning speed until they create a ring of fire around me. The casting director puts her phone down and watches me with interest. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as the power flows through me in intense waves.

“But after what they’ve done, do you think I have any choice? That I have any other possible life to live?” I continue, my eyes filling with tears as I say the lines because at least I know now that nobody can take this away from me, however hard they try. This is what I do.

“So you ask me why I want to win this war, and I’ll tell you this: I never once wanted to rule over Anatopia. It is my destiny.”

When I’m finished there is a silence, before the casting director turns off the camera and John nods approvingly.

“Great job, Grace,” he says warmly. “Do you want to watch any of it back?”

I shake my head. I already know I nailed it from the look on his face.





CHAPTER FORTY-THREE





I park on a side street off Melrose, underneath a blossomless jacaranda tree, and check the directions to the restaurant that Laurel texted me. I feel invigorated from the audition, as if I’ve just remembered who I am after the longest time away. As I walk, I call Emilia to fill her in on my screen test, but it rings through to her voicemail. I haven’t heard from her since our talk in her kitchen yesterday, but I feel so relieved about that now, too, safe in the knowledge that I made the right decision in not telling her the truth. Maybe the past really is just that, something to forget ever existed. I feel wildly happy all of a sudden, like maybe if I run fast enough I could even take off from the ground. The feeling is vaguely familiar to me but in the past it was only ever drug induced and not caused by something that genuinely has the power to save me, like this god-awful, beautiful fucking movie.

There is a magazine stall on the corner of Melrose and I slow down, scanning the titles. My face is on the cover of at least five magazines, but only one of them is still leading with the deranged photos from PCH. The rest have followed Vanity Fair’s lead in recasting me as a survivor, traumatized by a life spent in the spotlight. I lift one up so that I can read the headline: “Grace’s Tragedy: The Real Reason She Left LA.”

I drop the magazine without reading it and walk into the restaurant. A woman on her way out recognizes me and digs her daughter in the ribs, but she’s too late, I’ve already passed them.

Roots is a new vegetarian restaurant, right in the heart of Melrose, with swaths of outdoor seating so that everyone can see you from the street. Green cacti swing in macramé planters above jewel-toned velvet sofas, and trays filled with brightly colored food decorate the gold tables. Everyone is beautiful and tattooed and locked in intense conversations, but they all still stare at me as I make my way through the restaurant. Laurel is already waiting at a table just inside, set back behind a giant cactus.

“Didn’t they have a table outside? I’m worried nobody will see us here.”

“Wow, hi to you, too, Grace. Since when do you care about being ‘seen’?”

I sit down opposite her and roll my eyes. “I was talking about the servers, obviously.”

“Sure you were,” Laurel says, studying her menu. “How was the audition?”

“I think it was good. It felt good. You were right, it turns out I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“And John? I’ve heard he’s kind of a creep.”

I think about it for a moment. “I guess kind of, but in a nonthreatening way.”

Laurel raises her eyebrows. “Thank heavens for that.”

“I mean, at least it’s all on the surface with him,” I say, thinking of Able’s perfect white teeth that will drain your blood faster than a leech, before I quickly add, “I did feel a little like he was pushing for a date more than the movie at first . . . Do you think that’s crazy?”

“Probably not. As I said, he doesn’t have the best reputation,” Laurel says.

“Yeah. I think I actually felt grateful that he didn’t make a big deal when I rejected his dinner offer. Isn’t that fucked?”

“Sounds like the patriarchy,” Laurel says, signaling the server, who comes straight over. We order a few different plates, and then the server asks us how successful we’ve been at manifesting our goals this year, and Laurel laughs in her face until she leaves, because apparently only she’s allowed to ask me that type of thing.