23
MY PHONE WAKES ME UP. IT’S PENELOPE. I FROWN. IT’S SIX O’CLOCK IN THE morning in LA. She’s never up this early on a weekend.
“Hello?” I say, my heart in my throat.
I’m relieved when I hear her voice. “Elle,” she says. But then my chest clenches when I hear her tone.
“What’s wrong?”
She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and I don’t think I’m breathing. Then: “You haven’t seen, have you?”
“Seen what?”
“I’m getting on the next plane. I just bought my ticket. I’ll be there by late afternoon.”
I rise out of bed. My body feels like it’s bracing itself. My heart is thundering. “Penelope. What’s wrong? ”
She sighs. There’s a ding against my ear as a message comes through.
“I’m sorry, Elle.”
That’s when I see it. My face, in the preview, and the headline beneath it:
“Billionaire Bachelor’s Mystery Girlfriend Revealed to Be Previously Anonymous Screenwriter.”
No.
My world turns over. I can’t breathe. I sink to the floor.
I click the link. They know everything. Every screenplay I’ve ever written. Who my father is.
There’s a quote from him in the article: “I’m proud to have supported my daughter from the beginning of her career and helped her become one of the world’s leading screenwriters.”
I’m going to throw up. Anger chokes me.
“How dare he?” I say, the words scraping against my throat. My phone is on the floor now.
It’s everything I was ever afraid of. Every reason I became anonymous. The moment the world knew my dad is some big-time CEO, they would assume he’s responsible for my career.
And here he is, not even having known what I did for a living a few days ago, now taking credit for it.
The comments below the article might as well be my own worst fears, typed out plainly. “Her boyfriend probably funded the last movie she wrote.” “I always hated the last movie in the franchise, now I know why.” “Wow, it must be nice to be handed over your entire career, some of us actually have to work for it.”
These people don’t know me. They have no idea what my life has been like. The wider population—the people who go see my movies, the people who matter—likely won’t even hear about this, or care.
But I do. Because my mom would be furious . She would see all my accomplishments being reduced to the men in my life, and she would have hated it.
Someone is banging on my door.
I pick up the phone with shaking fingers. “Thank you for telling me,” I say to Penelope.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ll be there soon,” she says. I hang up.
I don’t entirely feel my body as I walk toward the door. I hear his voice through it. “Elle,” he’s saying. “Elle, please open up.”
I do, and he goes still.
He sees my face. I must look like a wreck. My eyes are burning. I can feel the tears, frozen on my cheeks.
Parker shakes his head. “Elle, I’m so sorry. It was Richard,” he says. “He gave the mail to the journalist. He’s already been let go. It was illegal what they did, my lawyers can—”
I put my hand up. I don’t care who did it or what can be done, it is over . That kind of information can’t just be unsaid. There will never be a yesterday again, when I was blissfully unknown. “It’s my fault,” I say. “I never should have done this, I never should have trusted it would be okay.”
It was stupid, putting myself out there, when my anonymity meant so much to me. Thinking that my identity could remain a secret when linked to someone the media is so obsessed with.
He shakes his head. He runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up wildly. “I’ll buy the newspaper. I’ll have them retract it.”
I just blink at him. Of course that’s his solution. Of course Parker thinks this is something he can buy his way out of. That’s how he thinks about everything. I remember his words in the stairwell: I can buy anything I want.
“I’ll buy every goddamn newspaper, I’ll—”
“It’s done,” I say. “This . . . development . . . should tide over the press for the rest of the summer, until your acquisition goes through.”
Parker’s entire body tenses. He straightens. “Elle,” he says very slowly. “What are you saying?”
The words are out of me before I can regret them. “It’s over. This whole thing, it’s over. You got the PR you needed. My screenplay is almost done. We both got what we wanted.”
Parker doesn’t look like he got what he wanted at all. His eyes look glassy, but no—why would he be upset? It’s not his entire life and career that’s been turned upside down.
“Elle—”
“I think it’s best we don’t see each other again.” A clean break. No need to make things harder than they need to be. Parker isn’t to blame, but none of this would have happened if we hadn’t made this stupid agreement.
Regret sinks its teeth into me. I never should have put myself out there. I never should have taken this risk. I should have known this would only end badly.
“Bye, Parker,” I say, before he can say another word.
Then I close the door, sink to the floor, and cry.
TRUE TO HER WORD, PENELOPE IS AT MY APARTMENT LATE THAT afternoon. She has a carry-on behind her and a CVS bag full of ice cream.
I burst into tears again when I see her, and she’s ready, wrapping her arms around me, ice cream cold against my spine.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it’s not the end of the world,” she says.
“It is,” I say, because it completely feels like it. “It really is.”
“It’s not.”
She shuffles inside, still hugging me, and says, “Did Sarah call?”
I nod. CAA’s been calling me all morning, mostly to calm me down.
“How are the studios taking it?”
I sigh. “They don’t really care. Their movies did well, and they’ve underpaid me for years.”
“And your current screenplay?”
“They still want it the week after Labor Day.”
Penelope nods. “Well, then that’s settled. Your career is fine. See? The world isn’t ending.”
I shake my head. “You know it was never about my career, P. Not really.”
“I know,” she says. And then she hugs me again.
Taryn calls half an hour later. “I’ve been offline all day, but I just saw the article. I have a take-out order placed, and Gwen and Emily on standby. Can we come over?”
That’s how I end up with an apartment full of takeout, more ice cream, and women in loungewear.
Penelope loves them immediately. They immediately love Penelope. Without furniture in the living room— You’ve been on the floor all summer? —we open the plastic-wrapped linens and make a “Princess and the Pea” situation, with blankets instead of mattresses, on the floor. We line the wall with pillows. Then we watch a rom-com. When the all-is-lost moment makes me burst into tears, Taryn pauses the movie and says, “Is it something you want to talk about?” And that’s how I tell them all about the fake dating, about the entire summer.
“You can’t stay here,” Taryn says. She lowers her voice to a whisper and points behind her. “Not when he’s a wall away.”
“What am I going to do? Get a hotel?”
“Of course not,” Taryn says. “You can stay with me. My roommate just moved out, I have an extra bedroom.”
It’s a nice offer. So nice, I can hardly think what I did to deserve such a great group of friends.
“She has a terrace, it’s super cozy,” Gwen says.
Emily pops a chocolate-covered almond in her mouth. “Yeah, Taryn’s place is objectively amazing.”
It sounds incredible. “I’d love to, but the renovations last another week. I promised my sister I would oversee them.”
“I’ll stay here, then,” Penelope says, like it’s an easy solution.
I look at her, like, Do you suddenly not have a job?
“I’m doing work from home for a week.” She looks around. “Or, I guess, work from your home.”
I consider it. It is, at least, nice to have the option.
Half an hour later, everyone is asleep around me, the movie is still playing its credits, and I’m staring up at the ceiling.
I am not an island. I am not deserted. I have friends. I’m not the same person I was at the beginning of the summer. Screenwriting is not my entire life.
Still, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.