1. Avery
Avery
“ A very.” Jamie looks at me with hopeful amber eyes. They’re calm and remind me of the sun striking through a glass of iced tea in the middle of summer. “Will you marry me?”
The party guests around us in the warmly lit bar wait with bated breath, clutching their glasses.
Somewhere behind me there’s the telltale sound of a drink sloshing to the floor.
My hand flies to my mouth. Jamie, my boyfriend of a year, kneels in front of me in his navy suit.
His dirty blond hair is styled in a swoop with a few pieces breaking free, preventing him from appearing too clean-cut.
It’s perfect…Well, until one of my fake eyelashes droops, obscuring my vision and cutting the image of Jamie’s chiseled features in two. It only serves to emphasize how he really is the most symmetrical person I’ve ever seen.
“CUT!” Kendal, the director of our engagement, calls. “Cut, damn it! Where’s makeup? Can someone glue this eyelash back in place?”
And just like that, the illusion dissolves. The venue lights flare to life as some of the guests slump. A mop slaps against the dark wood floor as a crew member cleans a spill.
It’s not just an engagement shoot; it’s the actual engagement because it has to look perfect from the moment the news breaks. Or at least that’s what my manager Emelia says, and historically it’s easier to do what she says than to argue.
“At least this means we get a break?” Jamie smiles, rising to his feet and dusting off his pants, unbothered that he’s been repeatedly having to kneel on the floor of this hotel bar for the last two hours. “This is why I’m usually behind the camera and not in front of it.”
He’s a promising new Hollywood director and great at his job, which is how we met a year ago.
I have a small cameo and am on the soundtrack in his new film, The Excavators, coming out next week.
Which is why we’re doing this shoot in the first place, to help create a last push of buzz about the movie and secure ratings that will help ensure the franchise’s success.
I like Jamie well enough. He’s driven, respects the people he works with, and reliable, but our fling was only supposed to be short lived. All plans of that died when paparazzi caught him leaving my apartment the morning after one of our rendezvous.
“Though it does seem like Kendal is enjoying herself,” I note, watching his assistant director give pointers. She’s younger—mid-twenties, I think—with a blunt brown bob. “I guess I should go get this lash fixed so I don’t hold up the shoot.”
“Hey,” Jamie says, causing me to pause. “Thanks for doing this on your birthday.”
“No problem.” My lips tighten into a smile.
Kendal strides over to me as I walk over to the portable vanities lining one wall that have been set up for hair and makeup. “Can I give you a quick note?”
“If I say no, will you give it to me anyway?” I ask.
“Let me put it like this, I’m going to pretend for a second the only reason you aren’t looking at Jamie with heart eyes is that we’ve been at this for two hours.”
“Yeah, I think I lost that first-time glow five takes ago,” I agree.
It’s no secret to anyone here that this is a publicity stunt, but because most of the guests are cast members they also benefit from this working.
Did I expect things to escalate this far?
No, but a week ago I was told “We think you two should get married.” Words I’d expect to hear in a Regency era period drama, not a conference room in Manhattan’s financial district.
But with our love story becoming an unexpected focal point of the press junket, both of our teams thought it would be beneficial for us both.
I’ve gotten some kickbacks too, offers for small acting gigs.
My songs overtaking the top ten spots on the Hot 40.
Frankly, it’s good press. And even though I’ve taken on the role of America’s pop-rock princess, I’m always one slip up away from being seen as the crass girl I used to be, always on the verge of a reckless outburst. It’s been a decade since I accepted that biting my tongue and doing what my label and management tells me to do was easier than being defiant.
Write more love songs? Done. Do a movie cameo for Hollywood’s “Hot New Director”? Of course. Marry him? Why not? Who else do I have knocking at my door?
“My suggestion? You’re a performer. Perform.” She places a firm hand on my shoulder, inadvertently pressing the rough beaded strap of my dress into my flesh. “Now, let’s take care of that lash so it doesn’t look like you have a butterfly hanging off your face.”
The performance doesn’t end when the camera stops rolling or I step off stage. It’s all a performance and the people who last are the ones who convince you it’s not.
I take a seat in front of the mirror and a waiting set artist removes the remainder of the lash from my eye and gets to work re-securing it.
“When you invited me to your birthday party, I was expecting more dancing and less being yelled at for standing like a robot.” Evelyn takes the seat across from me, resting a paper plate full of cake on her lap.
She’s my closest friend, and though I still talk to some of the guys from Fool’s Gambit, she’s the only one who’s truly still in my life.
And no matter how staged this night is, it was important for her to be here for my engagement.
“I wish it had worked out differently. It’s the only time we could find that would make sense with everyone’s schedules,” I apologize. “And my birthday is a good cover for all of us being together.”
“As long as I keep getting refills, I’ll survive, but I do wish the music was better.”
“Hey, could someone put on a Lyla West song? Loud as you can! We got a special re—” I start to call out before she leaps up and her hand clamps over my mouth.
“Don’t do it!”
“It’s not like anyone heard me.” I quirk a smile.
I don’t know if it’s sad or ironic that between Luca and Evelyn, she’s the only one who still plays music.
She does it in secret now as Lyla West and is successful in her own right.
Though I’m not sure she’ll ever share it with the world.
After Fool’s Gambit broke up ten years ago, Luca stopped playing, and I know Evelyn feels guilty that she has a music career and he doesn’t.
“Excuse me,” the makeup artist says, holding the lash with tweezers.
Evelyn steps away, taking a sip from her glass. “You know what? Maybe I will leave.”
“You know you won’t,” I say, trying to stay as still as possible as glue is applied to my lash line and the lash is fixed into place.
“Yeah, but only because it would kill me to not be in your engagement pictures.”
“All right, everyone! Get your refills. Powder your faces and get back in position!” Kendal announces.
Evelyn downs the rest of her drink and salutes me before heading for the bar.
“You should be all set, but I recommend not standing under any AC vents,” my artist says.
“Thanks.” Maybe I should follow Evelyn’s lead and take a shot. It’s getting harder to fake it with each take. My mouth is sore from forcing the exact right type of smile that reads excited yet utterly surprised.
“This time, let’s have Evelyn standing farther to the right, and you two…
” Kendal says pointing to a pair of P.As.
standing off to one side. “Yes, you. Stand with the group up front. We want to see the cast, but the last thing we need this to look like is a movie poster.” She claps.
“Take sixteen. Let’s make it the last one but feel like the first one. ”
Perform.
When Jamie sinks down on one knee, I open a door in the back of my mind. His full mouth tilts, just the slightest bit lopsided, like he has a joke tucked in his cheek saved for later.
Amber eyes shift to a blue that gets darker just along the edges, like ripples on a lake.
“Will you marry me?” The words form on his lips but what I hear instead is “ Marry me. Nothing more to it.”
“Yes,” I gasp through a soft smile as my vision blurs. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
Finally, the shoot is over.
All it took was thinking of him .
I’m slinging my purse over my shoulder when my assistant Harper bounces over to me. She’s a short girl with honey colored hair who drinks iced coffee like water and has been working for me since she graduated from NYU. My life, with all of its moving parts, would fall apart without her.
“This came over by courier for you,” she says brightly as she holds out a thick manilla envelope. It arrived faster than I anticipated.
I take it, gripping the paper so hard that it crinkles. “Why don’t you head home for the night? It’s getting late.”
“See you tomorrow. Text me if you need anything.”
The moment she walks away my index finger is peeling open the seal. My heart thunders as I discreetly peer inside and read the bold heading on the top page, already knowing what I’ll find.
Petition for Divorce