Chapter 19
She whispered this to Leo in the dark, as if saying it out loud would manifest something new: This is my year. It has to be.
Nora was used to this by now, but still, as she pushed past a crowd of drunk people on the street to get to the train, she hated the way she always felt a little lost, a little empty when Leo tossed her aside for his real life.
But when he called her three days later with what he promised was a way to make her New Year’s pledge come true, she remembered again that it was all worth it.
At the end of April, Nora flew to LA for three weeks.
Leo’s bit of January hope had been an audition for a very small supporting role in an original musical movie.
The script wasn’t very good. LA wasn’t her scene.
Film wasn’t her medium. But Leo had set up the audition through a friend of a friend, and she’d gotten the part.
It would pay well, and Devlin St. Claire, Hollywood’s up-and-coming It man, was the lead.
The truth was, Nora hadn’t exactly known who Devlin St. Claire was when Leo first told her about this movie.
His breakout was a role in a TV series based on some children’s books she had never read.
But when she mentioned it to Julia, Julia said she and Veronica had read all the books and they’d seen every season of the series so far.
“Nora!” Julia had exclaimed over the phone.
“How cool is this?” Then she’d added, “Do you get to meet Will the Wizard? Or um, I mean, Devlin? He is, objectively, very nice-looking.”
Julia wasn’t wrong. (Julia was never wrong.) But when Nora first caught a glimpse of Devlin St. Claire on set, her immediate reaction was that Julia had severely undersold him. He was, objectively, extremely fucking gorgeous.
He was medium height and build, with wavy brown hair, and deep blue eyes that reminded her of the color of the ocean on that rare sunny May afternoon in Coronado.
There was something magnetic about him, the velvet sound of his voice, the bright sound of his laugh.
Nora watched him for a few moments and she immediately felt her skin growing hot.
He suddenly seemed to notice her standing off to the side, all by herself, watching him, and he jogged over and introduced himself.
“Oh!” he said when she told him her name.
“Nora May. You’re the one playing Rosie.
I love your song.” She enjoyed the way he said the word love, like it was both sweet and a little salty on his tongue.
“I love it too.” She laughed.
She had one song, and only a few short scenes, but he was right, the song was a good one.
It was, above anything else, what had ultimately excited her about this job.
This feeling, that if this one song could be her breakout moment, she could show people what she was made of, maybe finally go somewhere in her career.
“I was just about to get out of here and get a coffee down the street. Do you want to come along?” Devlin asked.
“Sure,” Nora said, trying hard to sound cool, to keep her voice steady and pretend like she got invited to coffee by famous gorgeous actors every day. No big deal. “I had a really early flight this morning. So coffee would actually be great right now.”
He grinned and bit his bottom lip in this incredibly sexy way, so she felt it like a jolt in her thighs.
Then he fastened a Dodgers cap on his head and motioned for Nora to follow him out the back door of the set.
She followed him through a parking lot, down a hill, and then they cut through an alley filled with trash cans.
“I am not kidnapping you,” he said. “I promise.”
Nora laughed. “I didn’t think you were.” (There was honestly no way kidnappers were this hot.)
“Too many cameras out front,” Devlin said. “And sometimes I just want a cup of coffee without someone taking my picture, you know?”
Nora nodded sympathetically, like she did know. But of course, she might die of happiness if someone ever cared enough to take her picture while she was simply going for coffee.
They finally hit the glass door of the coffee shop, and as Devlin reached for the handle Nora heard a man’s voice yelling: “Hey, Dev! Who’s the girl?”
Nora spun around, and a paparazzo stood across the street, camera around his neck, waving to get Devlin’s attention.
“Jesus,” Devlin said quietly to Nora. “They’re relentless.” Then he turned and shouted back: “Hey, man, we’re just trying to take a break from set to get a cup of coffee, okay?”
Devlin opened the coffee shop door and ushered her inside first, hovering behind her to shield her from the paparazzo’s camera across the street.
“Sorry about that,” he said softly. He stood close enough that she could feel his breath against her hair as he spoke.
“I make the worst first impression these days.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Nora said. Truth be told, she was finding this all a little thrilling, and for the first time, she actually felt truly excited about the prospect of shooting this movie, of spending the next few weeks in LA.
They walked farther into the shop and when she turned around to see if the paparazzo was still out on the street, Devlin’s face was right there, and he smiled.
The bright afternoon sunshine streamed in through the front glass windows of the shop, making his beautiful features temporarily awash in yellow light, glowing. Nora suddenly understood what it meant to feel starstruck.
“How was your first day on set, kiddo?” Leo asked over the phone later that night. He spoke in hushed tones—Nora realized it was already after midnight in New York and he’d probably snuck down the hall while his wife and kid were asleep to call her.
Back in her hotel room, Nora was bingeing the first season of The Wizards of Central Park on pay-per-view.
She was three episodes in by the time Leo called and already considering herself a Devlin St. Claire superfan.
Devlin was not only, objectively, very gorgeous, but also, objectively, a very good actor.
She could see why both her sister and the paps were obsessed.
“It was good,” she told Leo, struggling with the remote, trying to figure out how to pause the show so she wouldn’t miss anything.
“The most LA thing already happened to me today.” She recounted following Devlin out the back of the studio, through the trash can alley, and still somehow being followed by a paparazzo.
“Nora, that’s brilliant,” Leo said.
“What do you mean? Getting coffee with Devlin?”
“No. Yes. I mean, keep hanging out with him while you’re there, get photographed as much as you can, and we can capitalize on this.”
Nora suddenly felt dirty hearing how Leo wanted her to take advantage of Devlin’s kindness. “He actually seems like a nice guy,” Nora said. “There’s something weirdly genuine about him, considering how famous he is.”
“Even better,” Leo said, his voice thick with excitement. “Get close to him. Get your name and your face out there. It could be really great for you!”
“So what are you, like my pimp now?” Nora said abruptly, feeling annoyed with Leo, this conversation. With herself. Why was she even still talking to Leo after all these years? What was wrong with her?
“Hey, kiddo.” Leo’s voice softened. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just thinking about your career. You said it’s your year, remember?”
Nora sighed. She had said that to him, on New Year’s. And she supposed he wasn’t wrong. But still, she fought the urge to tell Leo to go back to bed and fuck his wife. “I should go to sleep,” she said instead. “I have an early call tomorrow.”
But when they hung up, Nora did not go to sleep. Instead, she stayed up way too late, bingeing the rest of the first season of The Wizards of Central Park.
On Nora’s last day of shooting, Devlin invited her to have dinner at his house.
Doing a movie had turned out to be both more stressful and more exhausting than she could’ve imagined. Nora had barely thought about Leo’s advice, much less had the time or energy to really hang out with Devlin or be photographed.
“Nothing fancy,” Devlin said. “Just my little way to say goodbye and good luck before you head back to New York.”
Nora hesitated for a moment, thinking about the way Devlin’s blue eyes were bright, his smile sincere, even after a long day on set. Did the man ever look anything less than perfect? She’d spent a lot of time in makeup this morning as they’d worked on the dark circles under her eyes.
“I don’t mean to sound like a creep, inviting you to my house,” he continued. “But dinner there is more private. It’s also Tuesday, and I make very good tacos.”
Nora laughed. “You sound a little bit like a creep. But I do love tacos.”
“Worth the risk,” Devlin joked. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
“Okay,” Nora said. “It would be a shame to leave LA without at least trying your tacos.”
“I’ll send a car to your hotel in an hour? Gives you time to shower and change if you want?”
Nora nodded. “I actually haven’t had a home-cooked meal in…” She couldn’t quite remember when. She certainly never cooked in her shoebox kitchen in Brooklyn. Maybe last Christmas, when she’d gone to Julia’s house? “Well, it’s been a really long time. This sounds great. Thanks for the invitation.”
Two hours later, full from his delicious tacos, a little tipsy on her second glass of sangria, Nora sat in Dev’s kitchen and laughed when he asked her to name her favorite Broadway show.
When she had first arrived, she’d been acutely aware of how large and expensive-looking his Malibu house was, how famous he was, but now, three carne asada tacos and almost two sangrias later, she felt oddly comfortable sitting across the small kitchen table from him.
She wasn’t putting on a show, or overthinking her answers, she was just… being.