On Screen & Off Again

Now Wilhelmina

Now WILHELMINA

I t’s nearing midnight when I land at LAX, but still, cameras flash. Which is so supremely surreal. Like a memory feeding through an unfocused lens.

It’s been a long time since cameras cared about me. And yeah, this movie is a big deal. I get it. Greg and Daxon and a bestseller-turned-blockbuster. But this is nothing like Marnie ; they were everywhere. Anywhere I went, they followed.

Then, suddenly, almost overnight, they were gone.

Maybe I should be glad that I’m relevant again. But really, I’m thinking about how much I hate airports. How seven years ago, I was standing in the Connecticut airport with Dax. Holding on to each other for dear life as rushing currents pulled us in separate directions. He had school. I had a life across the country to sweep the broken pieces of into a dustpan and find a way to move on.

That was the first day I knew it was over between us.

We never said that it was, but I knew.

I keep my eyes on the pavement through the sea of paparazzi and curious travelers. How long until it gets out? That I’ve abandoned the set of this huge movie. That I had my one chance at a dream come true sitting pretty on a silver platter and I drop-kicked it into the ether.

On the way home, driving across Los Angeles, all I can see are places teenage Dax and I used to haunt. Restaurants and shops. That one sloping street where he kissed me out in the road until a honking car brought us back to reality. We ran, screaming, laughing, for the safety of the sidewalk. Fingers tangled. Invincible.

And there, right up there is the observatory where we held each other on the hood of his car, looked up into the sky and only saw ourselves reflecting back at us—the brightest constellation.

I didn’t know it then, but he had already extinguished the fire we both built stick by stick.

When my agent reached out about renewing my Marnie contract, I said yes without another thought.

Maybe I should’ve had another thought. Or several hundred. It was time to move on from that show. But I was clinging to Marnie like a cat on a shower curtain as the bath fills up, so unbelievably scared to let go and get wet.

I needed to jump for myself. Instead, I got pushed.

And now I know who did the pushing.

I’m back in la!

Are you out?

Margot texts me back immediately:

Yes!!!!!!!!!! Impliquer on Melrose

Get your ass over here!

By the time I walk into the swanky, dark restaurant, I can barely keep my eyelids from falling closed. But I missed Margot, and sitting in a private booth with her and Cassie and a few other girls I don’t know well is a nice distraction. Even if I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes and the skin around my eyes is swollen from crying into an airline napkin, it’s still nice.

They pepper me with questions about the movie and the costumes, the hair and makeup. When one of the girls I don’t know asks me about Dax, I say something vague and change the subject. Margot’s eyes narrow slightly from across the table, but she doesn’t ask. I love her for not asking.

We split two bottles of champagne between the six of us, and when I can’t stay awake anymore, I call for a car.

“But you just got here!” Margot whines, standing with me on the curb while I wait. A few rogue paparazzi cameras flash in the darkness.

“I know,” I tell her, pivoting away from their lenses. “I’m just so tired.”

“Wil...” She gives me a look. “You’re gonna tell me why you look like shit eventually, right?”

“You’re so kind.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“I’m okay. Really. I swear. I just needed a little break, that’s all.” My car pulls up at the curb and I hug her quickly. “I’ll text you. Get home safe, okay?”

“You’re sure you don’t wanna stay? We’re going clubbing!”

“Goodnight,” I call from the back seat. Margot rolls her eyes in a silly, dramatic way and waves me off.

But when I wake up, I’m still tired, like I haven’t slept at all. I pour myself coffee. Still tired. Walk out into the backyard and sit on the side with my bare legs in the cold pool water. Still tired. It’s only when I catch my reflection in the hall mirror that I realize what I’m wearing.

It’s an old Magicworks company Christmas party T-shirt.

I must have pulled it on last night in the dark, half-asleep, half-drunk on champagne. My stomach twists. Not because I’m still mad, which I am, but because I know where I need to go to make peace with it.

Benny still works Security at Studio 7B on the Magicworks lot.

His familiar face answers the buzzer.

“Wilhelmina Chase, no freaking way. That you?”

I laugh, genuinely. It’s a weird sound, given that I’m half-dead. But it feels so good.

“It’s me,” I say with a pathetic flourish of my hands for effect. “I was nearby and thought I’d swing over here, see what they’ve got set up in 7B.”

“You wanna take a look?” he asks. Thank god. I was imagining I might have to beg, or cry. Maybe wind back up in jail for trespassing.

Benny leads me down the familiar hall of machinery and wires. The old linoleum flooring is the same as it was seven years ago (and long before that). Faded spring-green and flecked with white. Beyond towering lights and ladders, just around a slight corner, is the stage.

It’s currently set as a diner for some new show. For some new cast to gather in. To make something glittering and magical together under these lights for a live studio audience.

That’s what Marnie was. Magic .

The authentic laughs from the studio audience after we delivered our lines. Sweet, tiny faces beaming and hoping for me to stop and say hi on my way out, or even just to wave from right there.

I walk out into the middle, to center stage. The ground is covered in tiny tape X’s and T-markers, just as it was then.

Feels like a thousand hours went by of waiting for that tape to go down. For the lights to lock, for the camera to be ready and in position. Dax and I would make up the silliest shit to pass the time between scenes. Handshakes and secret languages. At some point, we tried learning Morse code so that we could blink things to each other from our marks even after the director called for quiet.

So many things were said here. Frail, silly, forgettable nothings. I mean, they were somethings to me back then. But in hindsight, all I can hear is what we never said.

“Can we turn the lights on?” I ask Benny over my shoulder. He nods, disappearing to flip the right switches.

This place was my home. Here, with the warmth of the lights on my face. The soft shadows of seats just beyond where I can see, empty and waiting. Where applause and laughter ghost through the air.

Studio 7B is the house that made me.

Literally, in the sense that it birthed my career. But really, I became me right here.

“Okay if I hang out for a few minutes?” I ask Benny. He nods and shifts away down the hall. I sit down on the stage and draw my knees into me, wrapping them up in my arms.

Dax walked away from this show, but I’m the one doing it now, walking away from everything I wished for. Relevance again, a career again. A chance, a real chance at being an actress again. At booking and succeeding and pushing past this soundstage on to bigger things.

I don’t know what to do.

Behind me, distantly, a door opens with a squawk and shuts. Maybe that’s my cue to get out. I wouldn’t blame Benny if it was—a welcome is only warm for so long before it starts to go cold.

“Sorry, I’ll get going,” I call over my shoulder, not looking.

“Hey,” says Daxon Avery. “You busy?”