13
“Kieran Alexander Arrives After Rumored Girlfriend, Luna Aldridge, at the Luka Limited Release Party”
—WWC
IT WAS A relief to be inside. No shouting.
No watching. There were no photographers working for tabloids or reporters asking personal questions, only guests and their teams talking in hushed tones and walking through the exhibit, where the only light in the building came from small sconces.
Nari in front of me, we followed the throng of long gowns and suits into the main dining room.
At an event with half of Hollywood and almost every tabloid photographer, I should be keeping my head down, remaining out of the way. But instead, I found myself searching the room for her.
Bending down to speak with that young girl outside was… confusing. Out of character. As if a writer was feeling sentimental and decided to outline a scene where the antagonist chose to take a day off from villainous activities.
I hadn’t absorbed a single word from my team as I watched the two of them speak. Aldridge looked at peace, like a princess greeting her people. It reminded me of the woman I met three years ago.
But it was just that act again. A scene to perform for everyone watching.
She was definitely fooling my family. I wanted to rip my eardrums out when I took Franny’s advice to tell our family about the PR relationship with Aldridge yesterday.
Well, by “family,” I meant my abuela, because that was the equivalent of telling everyone: the keynote speaker in our neighborhood of gossip.
She gasped when I told her. “You’re telling me all those articles I sent you this weekend are fake?”
“Yes, Abuela,” I had confirmed over the phone.
“But, Alejandro,” she gushed, calling me by my (easier to pronounce) middle name in Spanish, “she’s so beautiful. Surely you two can come to some agreement and make this real.”
“No, no. Ms. Aldridge and I do not like each other. We’re doing this strictly to help our careers.”
“I don’t understand. It says right here that her career is tennis.”
“This has more to do with our reputations.” How was one supposed to explain a PR relationship to an eighty-seven-year-old Spanish woman?
“She’s a wonderful tennis player,” she awed.
“Are you watching a video of her playing tennis right now?” I could picture her in front of the computer with the mouse in her hand.
“You two would make beautiful babies—”
“I will talk to you later, Abuela!”
Dropping my phone in acid sounded more appealing every day.
I had no interest in my PR team’s motives to better my reputation, but I also knew they weren’t wrong.
I saw the quick insults about my character hidden between the lines of my interviews.
According to the press, I had no interest in long-term commitments, I was arrogant, I got jobs because of my looks.
Every comment was becoming synonymous with my name.
Those lines were only growing in popularity in articles about my work.
They had the opportunity to reduce my chances at future projects.
No one wanted to hire an actor people were uninterested in.
I couldn’t go back home to Spain as a working actor, let alone a failed actor.
We had to make this work.
So when I walked into the dining room, directed to a seat beside Aldridge, I hid my tongue.
Almost everyone was seated, drinking in front of the lamplit tables and place cards. The dining room was filled with long tables, draped in the same fabric that decorated the ceiling. It made the room dim.
But when I approached the table, I was stopped by an old costar holding two wineglasses.
I missed the first few words she said because I was distracted watching Aldridge pick up her phone to answer a call. There was no wrinkle in her brow or frown line around a pout. Actually, she was on the verge of laughing.
I wanted to hand the wineglass back over so I could find out what made such a high-strung woman laugh.
But I remained where I was, watching from afar.
It was better that way—to let the mirage of a woman I craved pass, rather than be reminded of a reality in which she never existed in the first place.