Chapter 4 #2
“Charlotte,” she says calmly. “How long have you been here?”
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, fighting the tightness in my throat. “Two and a half years.” My voice strains, the realization hitting me harder than expected. The edges of the room are blurring.
Lena draws out a long breath before she sits on the toilet seat to gather her thoughts. I could tell it was my turn to embrace brutal honesty.
“That’s long enough to know how this place works. You have this. Everyone needs an opening—this is yours. So he is probably testing you, don’t sweat the reason. Just focus on the advantage this can create for you here. You are finally getting what you want.”
She says it like it is simple. Like everything in life was this logical… There is no gray area to overthink, just to let it be.
If only she knew how crowded it was in my mind.
“You don’t get it,” I say quietly. “I’ve fantasized about what it would be like to pitch a client and handle a situation from top to bottom, but maybe I am only really good at fetching things for people.”
Unfazed, Lena riffles through her purse, trying to find something. Ten frantic seconds later, she looks up. “Do you have a tampon?”
I slide my purse off my shoulder, diving through the contents of wrappers and random pen caps to find one, muttering to myself, “Mm-hmm, I must have one… Nope, not it… Definitely, not that.”
My hand rummages through my bag, as my fingertips land on something cool. I pull it free of the bag to get a better view: a thin, delicate silver chain with a pendant hanging off the center.
“What’s that?” Her words fade into static as I stare at it, enthralled. I’ve—I’ve seen this before… “Wow,” she breathes. “That’s gorgeous.” Lena’s eyes are entranced by the pendant.
She grabs it from my hand, taking a closer look. “If I were you, I’d wear this to our meeting. It’s too good not to show off.”
The lights flicker. A whisper curls over my shoulder, low and somber. “A luz sabe.”
My head snaps to either side of me, searching for the source. It wasn’t even a question, just a statement that only I seemed to hear. I hear the expression two more times before the deep echo stops.
Lena finishes fastening the necklace around my neck, unaware of what just happened, only commenting on how gorgeous it is.
“Did you hear that?” I ask, scanning the room.
“Hear what?” Lena’s gaze follows where I’m looking, confused.
The pendant glows soft, blue, almost celestial. My fingers close around the necklace, now around my neck, instinctively. For the first time in days, my nerves settle. The pit in my stomach fades.
I rub my left hand against my right arm, moving it up and down, unable to shake the sudden chill that has entered the room.
“It’s so cold in here,” I murmur, still rubbing my arms.
“These bathrooms are basically Antarctica,” Lena says, then takes a breath before saying, “I’ll follow behind shortly… Got to deal with some business, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, right!” I resume my original search for that tampon, digging around my bag some more before I finally manage to find my last one tucked away in a zipper pocket.
“Thanks, girl. And Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to be fine.”
I step out of the stall and stop to look in the mirror before leaving.
The pendant is still glowing faintly in the reflection.
Distracting me from the dark circles under my eyes, the frizz of my hair begging for a keratin treatment and my outdated Marshall’s blazer that all screams one thing: Charlotte Tate. I hate it.
“I’m fine. I’m going to do great,” I say to myself, unconvincingly.
A sudden cool draft sweeps across my neck making me shiver.
“Are you sure about that?” A voice unlike my own cuts through my thoughts, slow and high pitched, sending chills along my shoulders. My eyes dart across the empty bathroom before I finally step back out into the office.
Back at my desk, another set of notifications await my return. All I can think to do is look up that expression I just heard. The translation appears in Portuguese—“the light knows.” A chill crawls up my back.
What the hell does that mean?
Before I am able to process, a message from Aidan pops up on my screen.
Aidan: Sorry, hun. You know I can’t properly sleep unless I am in my own bed.
I sink back into my chair, feeling my limbs loosen before I start to reply.
Charlotte: Okay, we’re good? I just don’t want us to be weird.
He responds within seconds.
Aidan: Of course we’re good, Charlotte. Same old, same old.
Charlotte: I’m about to go into another big meeting that they invited me to. Things are looking up. Might even impress Cheryl and John Whitmore.
It doesn’t go unnoticed that he didn’t even mention the late-night drive. I begin typing the words I could really use… when Chris walks into the office for the first time today. I shove my phone in my drawer as I frantically tap on my mouse to light up my computer.
I dive into my research for Holden.
Chris walks straight into his office, sunglasses on, lowering the blinds down on every panel of glass until we can no longer see him.
My eyes revert back to Holden’s IMDb, scanning his last five projects. Every review is more brutal than the last when I pull up each project on the most notable reviewer page, Apples for Apples.
Nothing really stands out since All or Nothing from 2017 to 2021. From there, I dig into every salacious article written about him in the last year. My Word document is flooded with shorthand notes that make sense only to me. I think I have a grip on why this hasn’t been working out for him.
Before the meeting, I even research the restaurant menu so I can preplan my meal—something that would be good as leftovers for two more meals.
I settle on the penne pasta with creamy chicken, mushrooms and asparagus, paired with a sweet tea, rehearsing in my head how I would go about bringing up my ideas this time.
An hour later, a group of us are seated around a circular table in the back of Giardino Segreto’s. I’m ready.
In the array of options he could have chosen from, I am surprised it’s here. A well-known Italian restaurant in West Hollywood. It’s no Nobu or Mr. Chow, but it’s the best Italian you are going to get in this area.
The guest of honor is missing.
His absence is well-known, as it’s been forty-five minutes of us sitting, picking at bread sticks while we fumble around with small talk, waiting for him.
A group of people who are of a variety of different ages with nothing in common except for the place we work at.
When Holden finally arrives. His eyes look strung out. Instinctively, I clutch onto the pendant as soon as the “real” conversation comes into play, tightly grabbing my phone on my lap with my notes ready.
The glowing blue light appears as soon as the conversation starts. No one in the room seems to notice except me.
Holden takes off his leather jacket and places it over the back of the chair. His muscles are defined even when he is relaxed. Blinking quickly, I re-center myself on the current conversation.
Beyond notes, I had mapped every detail of his life for the next three months. Sinking in my chair, I watch him speak, knowing it’s Chris’s play at the end of the day.
Chris bumps playfully into Holden’s shoulder. “Reality shows do have a way of changing perspectives. We can make you seem like a good old-fashioned guy—someone everyone’s just been misunderstanding.”
Holden raises an eyebrow. “Who else would be on the show?”
“Your family, your friends, old castmates…”
“Nope,” Holden says sharply.
Chris smiles, undeterred. “The idea is to show you’re multifaceted. You act all the time. Why not act on your reality show?”
“What would you all like to order?” the waiter cuts in, abruptly halting the conversation.
This has been going in the same direction as the first meeting. Chris leads. Holden postures defensively. The suits offer nothing but weak ideas.
My fingernails grip the table tightly when the mention of his series gets brought up again. How did everyone not see what I was noticing? The series is definitely an off-limits conversation.
Desperation creeps in at the table and so does the paparazzi. In under sixty seconds, we’re swarmed, outed by someone in the restaurant. Flashes happen rapidly and we are all blinded as the intrusive questions commence.
“What do you think about being passed up for the new Demarco movie?” the reporter asks. Holden doesn’t respond as the questions fire off, one after the other.
“Do you keep in contact with Sloane and Graham?”
“When are you checking into rehab?”
“Any thoughts on the resurfaced video from the set?”
It’s too much and I’m not even the one they’re prodding. I suck in a breath, preparing myself for his answers.
“I’ve been auditioning for a variety of things.
I’m sure whoever got the role deserved it.
Those are big shoes to fill.” His emerald eyes look greener than they ever did on screen.
“Sloane and Graham are doing so well and it’s amazing to see where we all started.
As for rehab, ask me on Tuesday and I might have a different answer.
Plus, with how good your sources are, I’m sure you will figure that one out quickly. ”
I chuckle at his last remark, feeling like I was witnessing a master class on deflecting. From every angle of their cameras, they’re eating it up.
After the final question, Holden throws his napkin off his lap and onto the chair, pushing from the table and standing without saying a word to anyone. No polite explanation. Nothing but a singular goal in mind—to get the fuck out of here.
Nobody could blame him with that level of scrutiny. After all my sweating before the meeting, he didn’t look at me once. I’ve returned to a human sticky note, pasted to a wall.
A wave of discomfort rushes over me once the realization hits. My eyes follow him as he disappears through the kitchen toward the exit. Every instinct in me wants to follow him.
In the background, Chris is demanding to speak to the owner of the restaurant. A purple vein bulges out of his neck as he yells inches from the man’s face. My gaze reverts back to the direction Holden went.
“A luz sabe,” the chant hisses at me, curling in my ear, over and over.
While voices rise around me among the people at the table, I clutch my ear, unable to drown out the sounds of this chant, heat flooding in my chest.
“I would follow him,” the upbeat voice echoes. In the midst of the chaos, I can’t help myself.
I just keep walking. I walk and walk until I am at the service entrance. A few cooks in the kitchen point me in his direction.
Once in the back lot of Giardino Segreto’s, a sudden gust of wind stops me cold. I stand there, unsteady, trying to get my bearings.
Snapping the necklace off my neck to get a good look at it as it falls to my palm, pain flares instantly, hot and biting, spreading across my skin like it’s been scorched. The pain is relentless, lingering until I hook the chain back on. An allergic reaction is left on my skin.