Now Wilhelmina
Now WILHELMINA
I cry the entire drive home.
Not because the story is sad, but because I think I just had the best audition of my life. It was easy. It was natural. Ididn’t have to worry about the next line. I was present. After seven years, seven frustrating years of feeling completely erased from this industry, I felt welcomed home.
And doing it with Dax made it so much better. So much more real.
The next few nights I fall asleep praying to no one in particular that my phone will ring. But days come and go and there’s no call.
On Monday morning, my community service starts. One hundred hours. It’ll take me about a month, eight hours a day. And within six seconds of stabbing my first cigarette butt, I decide that, yep, I hate this. The only upside is that it’s a nice distraction from staring at my phone, waiting for the call.
I keep to myself most of the day. Head down, poking trash like it’s got Katrina’s face printed on it, and dumping it into a bag. Somebody drives by honking and blasting the Marnie theme song at one point, and I fight back the urge to laugh as they pass. I used to be really fucking famous. Now, I’m wearing a reflective vest on the side of the 101. If that’s not perspective, I don’t know what is.
Twenty minutes go by and that same car comes around again and pulls to the side of the road. I get a tight, nervous feeling. Maybe it’s some deranged fan here to murder me or maybe paparazzi hoping to sell the saddest picture ever.
But then, Daxon Avery climbs out.
The buzz among my fellow community servicers is immediate. The trash-stabbing stops. Everybody stares. Ikeep forgetting that Dax didn’t slip into obscurity. All his star has done in our time apart is rise.
“Can I help you?” our foreman asks.
“I’d like to help out,” says Dax pleasantly. He pulls the sunglasses from his eyes and tucks them neatly into the collar of his T-shirt. “If that’s alright with you.”
The foreman goes giddy as fuck . Clearly, he’s a fan. “That would be—let me just—hang on right there, I’ll go get...”
“I think he’s in love,” I say, as the foreman all but sprints for the supply box in the van.
“I’ll let him down easy,” says Dax.
“What’re you doing?” I shove my stabby-stick pointedly into the patchy grass.
“Wilhelmina, I am a hardened criminal looking to serve my community. You of all people should understand this.” He grins. I try to ignore the hammering that’s started in my chest.
Our foreman returns with a spare orange vest and a stick and hands them over to Dax. “I saw you in Son of a Gun ,” he says, completely fangirling. “I saw it twice. You’re so funny. Could I get a picture?”
Dax spends five minutes with him. Posing for a selfie. Talking about what it was like to make the movie. Someone calls the foreman over and I watch as he disappointedly peels himself away from his conversation with Daxon.
“Nice dude.” Dax pulls on his orange vest. It tugs up the sleeve of his T-shirt. Biceps. He has biceps . Not jacked, overdone ones, but gently defined, kissed-by-the-California-sun ones. And I don’t know who’s more taken with them: me, or the foreman who’s sneaking looks back over his shoulder.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say. Cars whiz by. The wind ripples Dax’s white T-shirt.
“Well, neither are you, but hey, here we are.” He leans on his stick, stuck into the ground. “I actually came because I have something to tell you. It couldn’t wait, and it wasn’t a phone-call kinda thing.”
“What?” My heart trips over its feet, running wild inside me.
Dax takes his time with it. He licks his lip. Looks around thoughtfully. Waves to the foreman. I want to smack him. At my expression, he breaks and grins. “You got the part.”
I scream. I full-out scream like a jungle ape and jump and throw myself at him for a hug. Dax hugs me back. The wind whips our hair. He spins us around and I’m laughing and sobbing. “Are you serious?” I cry.
“One month. You ready, Chase?” Daxon asks.
“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit!”
“Okay, no slacking on the job. Let’s go. Spit spot,” he says, trying not to laugh as he hands me my stick.
Tears on my face, I burst out laughing. “Get out of here!” I point towards his car, but if he tries to leave, I’ll full-body tackle him to keep him here. It’s normal for a second. Like we’re kids, like we’re seventeen, like we’re alone. Just as it was.
“What’re you doing after this? Wanna get something to eat? Celebrate?”
I’m about to say yes. But then I remember my resolve. What if it’s not just dinner? What if it starts out that way but then his hand brushes mine in the car, and suddenly he’s close and smells so good I can’t stand it and I hurl myself at him because we’re freaking magnets and it’s basically inevitable. Ishake my head. “I can’t,” I lie.
Daxon nods slowly. “No worries. That’s totally fine. Another time, maybe,” he says, and we walk together, poking garbage and shoving it into a trash bag—so far from where we’ve been but closing in on a new normal. Except that I want to jump on him right here, cars whizzing by, and feel his biceps underneath my fingertips and kiss him until my lips go numb and hear that rasped, whispered way he used to say my name as I plunged my hands into his hair.
Stop , I tell myself. Cool it.
Instead, it’s the fact that he’s here, next to me, all afternoon that I decide to tuck away in my memories. The sweat on his brow. A smudge of dirt on his cheek. The way he helps load the van at the end of the day. Our sweaty hug goodbye. I replay it over and over.
We’re about to start something life-changing. Career-altering. All the things I left years ago—the media attention, interviews, photoshoots, premieres—it’s all coming back. Whether I’m ready for it, or not. It’s coming. And what it’ll do for me, how many doors it will open, I’m not one hundred percent sure. But holy shit, I’m ready to find out.
In less than a month, we’ll be in South Carolina on location. I’ll be in pearls. He’ll be perfect in suspenders. And if I happen to survive, it’ll be a fucking miracle.