Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
The Mystery Girl
OFF THE RECORD
Hollywood’s most unattainable bachelor is now off the market. Seen at a house party surrounded by opioids and threesomes, the infamous party thrown by Daphne Woods only became interesting when Holden Strauss was seen exiting with a Mystery Girl.
Details are still emerging on who the brunette in the photo is, but something tells us this girl won’t remain a mystery for long.
Another article… Does anyone sleep in this town? I’ve only slept for four hours and the texts are pouring in. Everyone who knows me seems to have caught on.
Lena: You go girl! *dancing emoji*
Aidan: I’m hung up at a networking mixer for a few hours today, but are you free tomorrow for lunch? Let’s say 1 at Crumbs and Coffee
Chris: Stay home today. We’ll discuss this photo tomorrow.
Mom: Char, did you break up with Aidan?
Out of all the messages, my mother’s words just about send me over a giant cliff. Uncontrollable laughter bubbles up inside of me. It takes a few minutes to settle down from the full-body giggles that have taken over me. When the giggles turn into tears, that’s when it becomes real…
“I am losing it.”
On instinct, I call for her, touching my necklace, waiting for the glow and the chant that follows.
“Ghosty, for once, please show up when I need you.”
And never in my life have I begged for someone to show up like this, but desperate times…
The windows burst open and a sigh of relief washes over me. In a sparkly new outfit, she materializes right in front of me. Ghosty is wearing an aquamarine dress that screams glitz and glamour.
“Look who is on the other side of the headline. I knew you could do it.”
She’s smirking, almost satisfied by my state. I clear my throat and continue to grab my laptop from my desk.
“What? I’m impressed. You surprised me.”
She elevates her voice as she follows me. All I can seem to do is analyze every inch of this photo, sizing up “Mystery Girl.”
My hair is pulled back in a high ponytail. I’m wearing a black bodysuit with a cheetah print maxi skirt. I’m holding on to Holden’s arm as we walk on the gravel pavement. His face is visible, whereas I’m staring at the ground, trying to avoid falling.
By the angle of it, I got lucky. If they were any closer, they would’ve seen my anxious eyes or my rosy cheeks. From afar, I look—
“You are finally being noticed.”
“I never wanted this kind of visibility.” I turn my computer screen over to her. “I look like his arm candy.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“Yes! Of course it is.”
Everyone who saw me yesterday knew what I was wearing, so that means everyone in the office is thinking one thing: Charlotte Tate is a whore. That’s why the man who doesn’t believe in sick days gave me a day off.
I grind my teeth as I look Ghosty up and down once more.
“Why did you dress up for prom today?” I gesture to the sequined floor-length gown she has decided to wear at eight o’clock in the morning.
“Oh, this thing? I found out I can change my clothes when I see something I like. This girl in our building was wearing it yesterday and boom! I’m wearing it.” She giggles.
Ghosty swings her dress back and forth, twirling a few times, radiating a smile.
“Boom!” I mock, opening the laptop again to type his name in the search engine. And there it is, five more articles popping up from last night. The words “Plain Jane” are sticking out now.
“I’d rather take Mystery Girl now.” The inside of my mouth suddenly becomes dry, grasping the definition of plain Jane. Ordinary, unglamorous, unattractive. Is that how the world sees me?
A stale piece of toast?
“I think plain Jane’s better than being called a whore.”
“Oh great, so everyone does think I’m a whore!” I slam my laptop shut again, trying my hardest to not go back to the newsfeed that is making me break out in hives.
“You aren’t a whore or a plain Jane,” she says flatly.
“Tell the internet that.”
Through the rows and rows of hangers cluttering my closet, I flip through everything to find an outfit.
Tomorrow, Aidan will be sitting across from me and the last thing I wanted him to see is a plain Jane.
It takes fifteen minutes for me to land on the blue dress at the back of the closet next to my winter coats. A casual yet formfitting dress that hugs all my curves.
A dress Aidan has complimented in the past.
“Why don’t I wear this more?”
Ghosty is behind me, bursting with the energy of someone given a hundred sugar sticks. I’ve never seen a person so alive first thing in the morning, smacking her gum and repeatedly jumping up and down on my mattress.
“Are you always so…”
“Beautiful? Radiant? Just all around amazing?” she yells.
“Nope, wasn’t thinking that.”
I take the blue dress to the bathroom to try it on and see if it still fits. When I come back out, she’s sitting on the bed—no longer jumping and calmer than before.
“This definitely screams ‘don’t break up with me.’” Her words come out cold and sharp. A definite observation that makes me panic.
“You think he’s gonna break up with me?”
“I mean, hopefully.”
“What is wrong with you??”
And somehow, I’ve turned from laughing uncontrollably, to crying, to now being flat-out angry.
She’s just a ghost. She is just a ghost. She is not real. If anything, I’ve just been suffering from a long form of psychosis that has led to my own psyche torturing itself.
A glutton for my own self-loathing.
Sitting at the vanity, I pull my makeup out of the drawer, applying my foundation with a beauty blender as she watches me carefully.
She doesn’t say a word, but the pendant does.
“A luz sabe.”
The chant has always been like an old soul speaking to me in another language.
For the first time, I can feel her chilling hand graze against my shoulder. Her face appears in my mirror.
The same face I’ve seen time and time again over the past few weeks, but now it becomes unmistakably obvious…
“Your name is Skye, isn’t it?” The realization has me trembling. A shaking sensation that ripples throughout my body, going from my hands to my feet.
She nods.
All I can say is, “I wish I figured this out sooner…”
Because what else do I say to her? I’ve been so caught up in my own shit I didn’t realize until now that she—
I can’t even picture that night, because every time I do, I have nightmares. She must have them too…
Skye’s voice is nothing but calm as she forces herself into composure. No accents. No wild hand gestures. Just blunt words paired with distant eyes.
“The one and the only,” she says casually, whereas I look like I’ve had five cups of espresso upon hearing this information—bug-eyed and jittery.
She stands up to turn her back to me, now facing the family portrait I have hanging near my reading nook.
“You need to do something, Charlotte.”
“I need to do something about you being dead?” My voice is pitched higher as my gaze watches her carefully.
“No! The press release. Chris took that out from under you. Holden is clearly not okay with it, because why else would he call you in the middle of the night?”
She is gathering her hair into a ponytail as if she is about to fight someone, gripping her knuckles at my personal life, still staring at the picture of my mom, dad and me ten years ago at a theme park in Florida.
“If Chris had a client who was spiraling and lost all of his confidence, what would he do?”
The jump from my realization about Skye to Holden’s career feels like a mental whiplash. My attention drifts to the window. The leaves outside twist and carry themselves wherever the wind decides to take them.
“You are right.”
The statement comes out as more of a whisper. Mulling over the idea that she may be onto something this time.
Holden was missing something. It didn’t take a genius to realize the “nobody cares about me anymore” sentiment is probably his reason for why he came into our offices in the first place.
My attention snaps back to the window, where all the leaves shudder against the glass as the wind picks up rapidly. Everything shifts all at once.
“I’m going to sign him up for an acting class.”
“That’s perfect.”
Skye is back to her upbeat self, twirling around my room. I’m just as relieved that we are no longer talking about the fire.
Within two hours, my scenery has changed. From a dull, time-suck of a bedroom to the black leather interior of Holden’s Porsche, on our way to an underground studio in Burbank. Off to see Mr. Lafayette, the master of the master class.
“So, are you going to tell me where we are going?”
“You waited this long since I messaged you, might as well wait a few more seconds to see where we are going.”
He shrugs, walking into a sepia-lighted room with a stage at the center of it. All the students are in folding chairs on the stage, in a circle. Waiting patiently for the class to start.
“Go on. You were the last sign up in the class. They are waiting for you.” I push Holden forward. He gives a half turn as he makes it down the aisle to see if I am still there behind him.
“Welcome! Welcome! For anyone new, I don’t care.
We are here to become different characters.
Real names don’t matter, only executing the scene does.
Now, everything I do… I want you to react to the emotion that should follow.
I look sad, what do you choose? No wrong answer. Just act!” Mr. Lafayette says.
The man theatrically throws his hands up in the air, like a true thespian, as every student springs to their feet. It’s the first thing I’ve done all day that takes me out of my head—watching strangers act like fools on stage.
When the exercises are over, the students finally sink their teeth into an improv scene. They aren’t allowed to ask questions, only react to their scene partner.
A redhead says, “You don’t mean it.”
Holden follows with, “I meant every word you overheard.”
The redhead continues, “So I mean nothing to you? The circus means more?”
Holden says, “The circus is my home.” I can almost feel his pain.
The redhead goes on with, “Home? I thought I was your home.”
The woman turns her back to Holden, fighting back tears. He looks the most free I’ve ever seen him. It is about another hour of scenes where the class acts out with different pairings of people.
I am enamored.
His posture, his voice—everything about him changes as he snaps into the scene. My instincts tell me to capture the stillness of him on stage. Doing what he does best…
Performing.
I pull out my camera app on my phone, quickly snapping a photo before anyone can notice the flash. One person from the stage catches me. I sink a little further in my chair.
My stare deepens at the photo. A quiet fear settles inside of my chest.
Somewhere some big conference hall, Aidan is schmoozing up another start-up and I am staring at another man, wanting to smell his cologne and feel the pressure of his skin against mine. If Aidan knew my thoughts, he would hate me.
It’s an all-consuming feeling that has overridden my sense of time.
Before I know it, Holden is striding back to me with a goofy grin on his face. I’m shoving my phone back inside my purse.
As I am about to open my mouth to ask if class is over, he pulls his keys from his pocket and tosses them right at me. All the folding chairs are folded back in half and dragged to the end of the stage.
“Let’s take a drive.”
“Why are you giving me the keys?”
“Because you’re driving.”
“I can’t drive, you know that.”
“Well, I guess we aren’t going anywhere.”
With a sly smile, he walks right past the chair I am sitting in. My fingertips scramble for the strap of my purse hanging off the armrest.
He walks out of the building.
In a matter of seconds, I am in the driver’s seat as he is getting secondhand joy from how my shoulders tense up behind the wheel.
I’m having an out-of-body experience.
It’s just me and the road ahead and the only thing separating us is me moving the gear into drive.
“I don’t think we should do this. Like, at all…” I stammer.
“Why not?”
“Like I said when we first met, it’s better when other people drive. I don’t want to ruin anything.”
“Stop assuming we’re going to crash,” he says firmly. “Just drive.”
I take the biggest exhale of my life and pull out of the parking lot. My heart is drumming in my chest as I press on the gas.
“So…” His voice teases me as the road ahead of me looks like one big pileup waiting to happen.
“Would you rather have feet for hands or hands for feet?”
“What?”
“Answer the question. You aren’t getting out of this.”
“I guess feet for hands.”
“Wow, I am never shaking your hand again.”
“Do you mind pulling over here?” he says as we pull to a four way stop down South Lake. A small smile creeps in, drifting my eyes for a second off the road and onto him.
“Mm. I see what you did there.”
I signal and make a careful left turn, hands locked at ten and two, too focused on the road to look at him.
“So why public relations?” he asks.
“Why not?”
“It just seems kind of beneath you. You’re smarter than half the people in that building.”
“That’s very nice of you to say. But that’s definitely not true.”
“Take another left.”
“Are we just making a bunch of left-hand turns?”
“You’ll see.”
For a while, we just drive while he keeps asking random questions, filling the silence until I see where he is taking me.
We pull into a hillside overlook, the city stretching below us, the Hollywood hills glowing under the setting sun.
“You can stop now.”
I park a safe distance from the edge, hands still on ten and two. He gets out first. He leans against the side of the car, watching the sunset with the most satisfied grin on his face. I find myself jumping out of the car to do the same.