Chapter Two
“Here she issss!” Lola’s publicist, Kimberly, screeched the welcome, voice filled with delight. “Doll, you look gorgeous. Glam squad did good.”
Lola touched her blond, barrel-rolled curls that were so stiff with hairspray, they felt fake. Her stilettos were so high, she could practically sense the change in atmospheric pressure. “It’s not too much?”
“It’ll look great on camera,” Kimberly assured her, examining Lola’s face as shamelessly as an appraiser. “We might go heavier on the blush.”
The press day for Saturn Rising, a multimillion-dollar sci-fi space battle, was underway at the Four Seasons in New York City.
In the glitzy lobby, dozens of journalists from various media outlets were being told where to set up by busy production staff as hotel guests sipped morning coffee and lookie-loos openly stared.
Oversize posters of the forthcoming blockbuster flanked the elevator banks.
Under the sweeping title, six chiseled faces floated in order of importance.
Lola’s was the third. It was the biggest film she’d ever done: crew size, shoot length, paycheck.
Her big break, even if right now she felt like a Barbie on stilts wearing too much blush.
“Brett’s in sneakers?” Lola pointed to where her famous co-star was chatting up an enamored-looking receptionist. Brett Burns was in a T-shirt and jeans.
People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive hadn’t even shaved.
Lola tugged down the hem of her short, tight dress, feeling the familiar sting of the industry’s shameless double standards. “I didn’t know we could wear jeans.”
Kimberly waved this off. “But you look so hot! Like Charlize Theron’s little sister. I would do murder for your jawline.”
Lola didn’t love that her colleagues openly commented on her appearance but that, apparently, was how things were done. “Could I at least wear my flats until I’m on camera?” Her feet were already pinched and throbbing.
“You’re in Louboutins,” Kimberly enunciated. “Which means you’ve made it! C’mon, let’s show the world how gorgeous you are.”
“My face is probably the least interesting thing about me,” Lola said, following the experienced publicist through the crowded foyer.
Kimberly laughed heartily. “And my connections are the least interesting thing about me,” she joked back, stopping at an elevator bank and pushing the Up button.
“Okay—I know this is more than you’re used to, but you look great and you’ll be fine.
Just remember your media training. What’s the most important thing? ”
“Engage in meaningful dialogue that moves the cultural conversation forward and creates a more empathetic, deeply thinking society,” Lola replied.
“Smile.” Kimberly gave the correct answer, demonstrating it in a way that made her look like a possessed clown.
Lola tried not to laugh. Her reflection in the silvered elevator doors was that of a stranger, her makeup as thick as a stage mask. “Of course,” she said obediently, “that’s what I meant.”
They rode the elevator up ten floors, then navigated to a hotel suite. Even though it was balmy July in New York, the plush room was freezing, each window blacked out.
Lola arranged her body on a chair in front of blinding lights and a rolling camera, smiling at her first interviewer. Gemma Andrews was a peppy entertainment reporter in a candy-pink tube dress. “Lola, hi. So nice to meet you. Congrats on the film, I’m obsessed with it.”
Even though this was Lola’s first big press junket, she’d been in the industry long enough to know that obsessed could reasonably be interchanged with aware of. “Thank you, Gemma,” she said. “And thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.”
Gemma made an aren’t you sweet face and glanced down at her clipboard. “So, this is, like, your big break, right?” she enthused. “How does it feel?”
Not how I thought it would was the unexpected answer that bubbled up in her head.
Not the time to unpack it. “Wonderful,” Lola dutifully replied.
“I came up through the theater, starting in Rhodes, New York. I performed in plays for about a decade—lots of Chekhov and Ibsen—then made the switch to TV and film, as a way of opening up the sorts of stories I could tell.”
“Also more money, amiright?” Gemma winked.
Inwardly, Lola cringed. Sure, but it’d sound too lofty to claim art was more important to her, even though it was.
“And you’re thirty-six,” Gemma made it sound like Lola was one hundred and six. “You must have been wondering, ‘Is this ever going to happen?’ ”
Lola’s smile stayed frozen. Ageism wasn’t absent in the theater, just less unapologetic. “I don’t see life experience as an impediment.”
“That is so brave,” Gemma cooed. Her creaseless face suggested that, while likely born in the twenty-first century, she already got Botox, something Lola had so far managed to avoid. “You actually look way younger. Okay, so tell us about your character in the film—Zarina, right?”
“Yes, Zarina,” Lola said. “She was quite a challenge to figure out.”
“Why?”
Because Zarina was the most undeveloped character Lola had ever read.
A blue-skinned alien whose plot function was two-fold: To seduce Captain Chris, played by Brett Burns, in a gratuitous hookup scene, prompting the male lead to realize who he really loved, his plucky second-in-command.
And, second, to appear in a lot of skintight blue spandex.
“Zarina was a challenge to figure out because her backstory was so”—Lola avoided the phrase nonexistent—“mysterious. But that gave me room to build the character out myself. I had the freedom to make choices about her life and point of view.”
“Amazing!” Gemma trilled. “Obsessed! Okay, now something a little more hard-hitting.”
“Fantastic.” Lola shifted forward as much as her dress would allow, eager to begin a meatier conversation.
“I have to know,” Gemma said, “how did you fit into your costume?” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Ozempic?”
What sort of questions was Brett being asked?
Probably not how he fit into his space suit.
“I worked out three times a week for six months,” Lola replied.
“But that brings up an interesting question. Zarina’s look, her body—it’s all very much defined by what we as a society find attractive.
A product of the male gaze, no question.
And yet, Zarina’s from a different planet, a completely different culture.
What does that say about the universality of these ideals?
Is the male gaze something that exists beyond Earth, or is it just a projection of our own limited worldview?
Even in a film that leans heavily on spectacle, I think it’s important we engage with these larger, more philosophical questions. ”
Gemma blinked, glancing down at her clipboard with a puzzled frown.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lola saw Kimberly making a slashing movement over her throat while smiling demonically.
“Yeah, totally crucial…” Gemma tapped her pen against her lips. “So, Lola Wilson—who is your celebrity crush?”
Lola wilted like week-old craft services.
One part of her knew to expect this. That this was the game and these were the rules, and she wasn’t that na?ve.
But her most idealistic, committed, artistic part feared she’d made a much bigger misstep.
“Celebrity crush?” she repeated in a monotone. “I don’t have one.”
“What about Brett Burns?” Gemma pushed. “I’m so jealous you got paid to make out with him—goals.”
Brett Burns kissed like a dead fish. Lola had been single for over a year.
Trust issues, a therapist once diagnosed.
You leave them before they leave you even if they’re not planning on it.
Brett was the last person Lola would have a crush on.
But in the corner, Kimberly was giving two enthusiastic thumbs up.
Lola felt herself float up above the room, like a ghost with a SAG card. “Sure,” Lola said, her mouth gamely twisted into a smile. “My celebrity crush is Brett Burns.”
· · ·
Eight hours and twenty-five interviews later, Lola Wilson finally let herself back into her Tribeca loft.
Sweet relief to get out of her nightmare heels and feel the solidity of wooden floorboards under her feet.
She was exhausted. She was starving. And she was lost. Lola knew a day of TikTok and YouTube content creation was a far cry from her dream of being on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
But the lived experience of answering trivial questions designed for attention spans of three seconds or less left Lola feeling diminished and inconsequential.
After a long, hot shower, Lola dressed in jeans and an old T-shirt and wandered to the kitchen in search of a snack.
Her fridge, like the rest of the apartment, was distressingly bare.
She’d bought the loft last year, charmed by its high ceilings and exposed brick—everything she was supposed to want—but it never felt like hers.
When she’d first moved in, she’d been filming on location, so she had an interior designer set it up with the basics, intending to finish it herself.
Make it feel true to who she was: a lover of stories and big ideas.
Lola envisioned a lush, creative oasis full of beautiful memories and lush plants and things that’d spark unforgettable conversations.
A bookshelf filled with her favorite plays and memoirs, walls lined with framed playbills and art that moved her.
But Lola could never find the time or the inspiration. Her playbills were still in storage. The only plant she could keep alive was a cactus. And all her fridge was offering was a jar of dill pickles.