Baking My Bully's Secret Bun

1. Millie

MILLIE

The golden light at the Ziegfeld Ballroom makes the room glow with luxury.

Champagne flutes sweat condensation onto tables dressed in ivory linen, and the catering staff moves through clusters of bodies with the near-invisible grace you only get when someone's paying enough to make invisibility a job requirement.

I recognize three studio heads within ten feet of the bar, a director whose last film swept Cannes, and at least two actors who've been campaigning for roles I turned down.

LaToya Jones, my manager, is somewhere to my left, working the room like a general in friendly territory. My face hurts from smiling.

The premiere went well. Better than well, if you measure by the standing ovation that stretched past four minutes. The film is good, I know it is, the early reviews are calling my performance transformative, a word I've learned means they expected less and got surprised into admiration.

"Millie, darling." Sandra Kim from Vanity Fair materializes at my elbow with a tape recorder already running. "Tell me how it feels to have your name in the awards conversation this early."

I smile, tilt my head just enough to look thoughtful. "It feels like the work is landing the way we hoped. The whole cast and crew put so much into this film, and to see people respond to it is really special."

Sandra nods like I've said something profound instead of the equivalent of expensive air. She is not stupid, she knows I'm performing, but the performance is part of the transaction. I give her the quote, she writes the piece, we both move closer to our respective goals.

She lingers another thirty seconds before someone more important pulls her away. My champagne is warm and flat. I set it down on a passing tray and feel my phone vibrate twice in the clutch under my arm.

LaToya finds me near the back corner where the light is dimmer and the noise drops half a decibel. She is wearing an emerald sheath dress that makes her look like money and power had a baby, which is more or less accurate.

"Good work tonight," she says, then lowers her voice to the register she uses when we're talking strategy instead of socializing. "We need to talk shop. Five minutes."

I follow her out into the hallway where the noise fades behind heavy doors and the air smells like new carpet. She checks left, checks right, then pins me with the look that means she's already thought this through from six angles and just needs me to catch up.

"You're in the conversation for Best Actress. Early, yes, but it's real. I've had three separate calls this week asking when you're sitting down with the Academy voters who do the LA brunches, and Clooney's publicist reached out about pairing you two for a Hollywood Reporter roundtable."

I lean back against the wall and let myself feel the exhaustion for five full seconds before I lock it back down. "Okay. What's the calendar look like?"

"Manageable if we're smart. Festivals through October, press junkets, a couple strategic late-night appearances. But here's the thing." She crosses her arms, which is never a good sign. "You're talented, you're respected, the performance is there. But you're not warm."

"…Excuse me?"

"Publicly. To middle America. You're brilliant and gorgeous and intimidating as hell, and that wins you roles but it doesn't win you Oscars. Voters want to love you, Millie. They want to feel like they know you, like they're rooting for a real person and not just a flawless piece of machinery."

I feel my jaw tighten and force it to relax.

She is not wrong, which is the most annoying part.

I've spent years building walls between Millie Harris the actress and Millie Harris the person who grew up in a two-bedroom in Washington Heights with a mother who worked double shifts and a father who left before I turned six.

The walls work, they keep me safe and focused, but now they are apparently a liability.

"What do you want me to do? Adopt a puppy? Post Instagram stories about my morning coffee?"

"I want you to be human. Give them something to connect to that isn't your Wikipedia page.

" She exhales, softens slightly. "You're campaigning now whether you like it or not.

And campaigns are about narrative. Right now your narrative is 'incredibly talented woman who seems like she'd eat you alive if you said the wrong thing at brunch. ' We need to round that out."

I stare at the abstract painting on the wall behind her, tossing her words over in my mind. "I'll think about it."

"Think fast. We've got months before the nominations come in and six before the ceremony. Clock's ticking."

She leaves me there in the hallway with the muffled sound of the party filtering through the walls and the beginning of a headache forming behind my eyes.

I pull out my phone to check the time and see two texts from Brianna, one from my mother, and a push notification from Twitter that I almost swipe away before the name catches my eye.

"Duncan Ellington trending in News."

My stomach clenches up. I tap the notification before I can talk myself out of it.

The story loads in pieces. Audio clip leaked, six years old, recorded at some party in the Hamptons where everyone was white and rich and apparently operating under the assumption that nothing they said would ever leave the room.

Duncan's voice comes through clear, a little drunk maybe, talking over someone about a woman who works at his company.

The language is ugly. Dismissive in the way men get when they think cruelty is the same thing as honesty, like he's describing a piece of furniture that isn't quite the right fit instead of a person.

The comments underneath are vicious. People calling for boycotts, for a resignation from his CEO position, for public apologies. Someone dug up his LinkedIn, his Forbes profile, a photo of him at some charity gala last year looking polished and respectable in black tie.

I should feel satisfaction. Vindication, maybe, watching the boy who once cornered me outside the theater room junior year and told me I was wasting everyone's time auditioning for Juliet because nobody wanted to see "that" in the lead role get torn apart by the same public court that has spent years deciding whether I'm pretty enough, Black enough, talented enough to deserve the space I take up.

Instead I feel exhausted.

I scroll further. Someone has already made a timeline of Duncan's business career, his investments, and the companies he has backed.

He owns a venture capital firm now, apparently.

Funds tech startups and real estate projects and has a net worth that reads like a phone number.

There is a photo of him from two months ago at some conference in San Francisco, standing on a stage in front of a projection screen with his hands in his pockets and his hair slightly too long in front.

He looks older. Still tall, still built like he played varsity soccer and never quite stopped, but there is a tightness around his mouth that wasn't there in high school. The caption under the photo says he's twenty-eight, same as me.

I close the app and shove the phone back in my clutch.

I don't know why I'm still thinking about him.

Duncan Ellington has been irrelevant to my life for ten years, a bad memory I've converted into fuel the way I've converted every other dismissal and indignity.

He doesn't get to matter now just because the internet decided he's worth hating for fifteen minutes.

But when I go back into the party and smile at the right people and laugh at the right jokes, I can still hear his voice from junior year, casual and cruel, telling me I should consider backstage crew because some people are just better suited to supporting roles.

And I can still hear his voice from the audio clip, older but it's the same shit coming out of his mouth, talking about a woman like she's disposable.

My phone chimes again as LaToya catches my eye from across the room and raises her glass slightly. Right, my Oscar narrative. The campaign that starts now whether I'm ready or not.

I lift my glass back and drink the rest of the champagne in one go, warm and bitter on my tongue.

The applause from earlier still rings faintly in my ears, and somewhere in the back of my mind I'm already wondering how many more rooms like this I'll have to smile my way through before they finally hand me the statue and let me rest.