Now Wilhelmina - 8 Months Later
Now WILHELMINA 8 months later
M argot’s careful fingers zip up the back of my dress.
Cassie does the grunt work of smushing my waist like a ripe banana to make sure it closes, because this thing is fitted . Margot takes the flowing bottom layer and gives it a practiced shake so that it lies clean and fanned behind me.
It’s silver, the dress. A-line. Hand-beaded thoughtfully, intricately, expertly across my chest, and then open in wide expanses along my waist, across a hip, down my left thigh to the knee. Soft, fine mesh silver letting the skin beneath show. Avant-garde and classic Hollywood had a baby, and I’m wearing it.
The train is like a dream made real, silvery and fluttering. Fairy dust.
I’ve been growing my hair out. Tonight, it’s slicked back and knotted at the base of my skull in a complicated twist. Braided pieces are tucked inconspicuously around a vintage silver brooch.
Looking at myself in the mirror, the way the beading catches the light, the way my skin complements the glowing fabric—I’m walking starlight.
Margot and Cassie stand back and do tiny victory claps. They’re so excited. They’re beaming. Even though my stomach is a black shriveled pit of nerves, I’m able to throw my head back and laugh. I’m excited, too. Or nauseous. It’s really hard to say.
Tonight is the premiere of To the Stars , and in a lot of ways, it feels like the premiere of... me.
The moment the opening credits start, I’ll be someone else.
Mostly, that makes me feel like lying down face-first on the floor and crying like a small child, out of anxiety and nervousness. But there’s a tiny part of me that feels like punching my fists into the air and screaming in triumph.
I didn’t think this day would come.
My phone buzzes from where I left it on my bed and Cassie grabs it for me because maneuvering in this dress is harder than it looks. It’s so tight. And the train is so magnificent and long that even turning around is a freaking feat.
It’s a text from Daxon:
Pumpkin carriage en route
ETA is right now because we’re in your driveway
Honk honk
It was his idea to go together. Well, not like together-together, but together. A united front. Which is what we’ve been the last six months when press began to swell. And what we will be, I’m sure, as it becomes this huge tidal wave over the next few weeks.
“Ready, Cinderella?” asks Margot, grinning wide.
I snort. “Does that make you my mice friends?”
“Um, we are your fairy godmothers, okay?” Cassie explains this like she’s deeply offended. She’s grown on me more and more as the years have peeled by. You don’t break into someone’s home, steal something priceless, get away with it together, and not wind up friends. I laugh.
“Okay,” I say. “I think I’m ready. To vomit. And then, eventually, a week from now, to go to the premiere.”
“The premiere of your own movie ,” says Margot. “That you’re starring in. Because you worked really hard.” Her eyes are welling. Her trembling lips are drawn into the widest smile I’ve ever seen there.
“Stop it, don’t you dare,” I say, jabbing a finger at her. “If you start, I’m fucking doomed.” Already there’s that familiar tightness behind my eyes.
“Wil, if you ruin that glam, I will smack you,” Cassie says. She raises a hand for emphasis and we all laugh.
“Okay, alright, no crying. Maybe some light panicked running away, a little shrieking, sure, but no crying,” I say. They roll their eyes at me and collectively push me towards the door, Margot scooping up the bottom of my gown.
Daxon is leaning against the limo, scrolling through his phone, when I open the front door and step out into golden hour.
At first, he doesn’t see us.
Then Cassie calls out to him, waving excitedly, and he looks up. Everything on his face changes. Where he was squinting against the dying sun, his eyes go soft. The concentration frown he wears because his eyes suck and he doesn’t have his glasses on goes slack.
He has the audacity to be wearing a dark blue suit that’s cut close and clean across his shoulders. I have to have a stern conversation with my stomach to chill out and stop going all fork-in-the-garbage-disposal berserk.
Friends . We are friends. Best friends. That’s it.
Dax waves weakly back to Cassie but he’s not looking at her. His eyes are on me. On my dress. Traveling up from my hand-beaded silver heels to the soft glow of diamond dust Cassie brushed across my chest with a poufy pink brush minutes ago.
Finally, our eyes connect.
“I was standing out here thinking shouldn’t the moon be out by now? And here’s my answer,” says Dax. He buries the tenderness, the nervousness, in his voice with a sudden laugh. Drops my eyes. Opens the limo door for me. “That’s a... dress ,” he adds.
I like the breathlessness there. It’s like, for a moment, his brain short-circuited. And I think maybe I’m the lightning storm that caused it.
I like that even more.
“Pretty good, right?” I ask him, starting to climb in. Margot carefully folds the train in after me and I collect the soft silver bundle from her, tucking it gently beside me on the seat.
“Home by midnight, Cinderella,” she says and winks my way. “Have fun, you two!”
“Pretty good,” he agrees, nodding too much. He’s still nodding when the door closes behind us and the driver pulls away from my house. What a dork.
“What’s with you?” I say.
Daxon swallows hard. “Who? Nothing. No one. What?”
“Should I call 911?” I side-eye him.
“I’m good,” he says quickly. “All good.”
“Can I tell you something?” I say.
“Anything.”
“I’m so fucking nervous.” My hands tangle in my lap. “Okay if I throw up on you?”
“I would be honored,” says Daxon without missing a beat. His fingers twitch up towards his hair like they’re going to run through it—his go-to nervous tick—but they’re stopped immediately by the gel and hairspray there. Whoever did his hair tonight is doing the lord’s work. Somehow, they got it slicked back but not gross. It’s relaxed and cool with this debonair edge.
Daxon Avery is not cool enough for this hair. But he’s doing a really good job convincing otherwise.
“Wanna drink?” I ask, pointing out a bottle of champagne chilling on ice. Two glasses sit beside it, clinking gently with the movement of the car as we head across Los Angeles towards the Fonda Theatre.
“God, yes,” Dax says, grabbing for the bottle.
We both yell excitedly as he works the cork. And, finally, it rockets into the padded ceiling, foam spilling from the bottle’s mouth.
“Not on the dress!” I say, scooping the fabric out of the way.
“That’s what she said.”
“Get out.” I point soberly towards the car door. Our eyes connect and we both break, laughing.
It’s so natural, so easy. And it was like that in South Carolina, too. Until the real world tapped us on the shoulder.
This next phase of my life—my career—feels like it’s walking one foot in front of the other, slow and wobbling, across a tightrope. If I take a wrong step, I’m done. That’s it. No more movies. Or limited series or original streaming whatevers. No more chances. I need to put my head down and focus. Do the work. No distractions. I don’t have time for a relationship.
The way Dax is looking at me, like I’m the moon rising, makes that so fucking difficult.