Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
A MEETING WITH SELENA
Celeste
The following Monday, I'm still riding the high from my weekend with Max. Saturday found us in the ocean, my triumphant moment of actually standing on a surfboard earning his wolf-whistle from shore. Sunday, we wandered through stalls of a Farmer’s Market, my arms gradually filling with heirloom tomatoes and zucchini that later became dinner for the three of us—Max, Rosa, and me.
Now, with salt still seemingly embedded in my hair and the memory of Max's appreciative second helping, I head to my meeting with Selena.
Selena's voice ricochets off the glass walls like a thunderclap.
"Celeste!" Her corner office crowns the sixty-eighth floor of the Horizon Tower, its floor-to-ceiling windows framing the hazy Los Angeles skyline like a living painting.
Behind her sleek obsidian desk—rumored to cost more than my yearly salary—she presides over an army of fifty agents who prowl Hollywood parties and producer lunches with predatory focus, their Bluetooth earpieces perpetually glowing as they chase down scripts that might become next summer's blockbuster. “Get over here, you.”
She wraps me in a hug that smells of Giorgio Armani En Jeu—her signature scent since forever.
Selena towers at my height, 5'10", but where I'm all angles, she's solid muscle and curves.
The kind of woman who could bench press you while negotiating a seven-figure deal.
Her black curls cascade freely around her face, framed today by square rainbow glasses—just one pair from her legendary collection.
Everything about her commands attention: her style, her stance, her smile that's both inviting and slightly terrifying.
When Selena enters a room, the room adjusts to her, not the other way around.
I follow her into her office, my stomach twisting itself into knots.
Ridiculous. This is just Selena—the same Selena who once spilled an entire dirty martini down her blouse at The Edison and continued her pitch meeting with the stain spreading across her chest. The same woman who texts me olive emojis whenever she's three drinks in.
The same agent who overshares about her downtown loft throuple arrangement with those two live-in boyfriends—what was it she called them?
Her "emotional support himbos." We've traded secrets over countless happy hours.
She's seen me ugly-cry over pilot season rejections.
This shouldn't feel like walking to the principal's office. But somehow, it does.
My palms leave damp prints on my skirt. This time, it's not someone else's script we're discussing over coffee—it's mine, spread across her desk with those little yellow Post-its stuck to who knows how many pages.
Selena doesn't hold back. I've seen writers leave her office looking shell-shocked after she's taken her red pen to their "promising but not quite there" screenplays.
Now I'm on the other side of that table, watching her flip through the pages of my heart with those manicured fingernails, probably wondering how her star agent ended up with such amateur work.
She slams both palms on the desk and leans in until I can smell her $500 perfume.
"Listen to me," she says, her voice dropping to a near-growl.
"When Max called, I almost hung up. I thought, 'Great, another CEO's pet project I have to pretend doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out.
'" Her eyes flash dangerously. "But your screenplay kept me up until four in the morning.
Four. In. The. Morning." She jabs her finger with each word.
"Where the hell have you been hiding? Do you have any idea what you're sitting on? "
I smile, the tension melting from my shoulders like ice cream on a hot sidewalk.
She must really like the script—I assume it's the Varian Fry one, the historical drama about the American journalist who rescued artists from Nazi-occupied France, although I can't be sure. She has that script and another one I wrote—a slice-of-life comedy about three generations of Greek-American women running a failing diner in Chicago while harboring family secrets that spill out during a chaotic Thanksgiving dinner. I leaned on my mother’s stories about her own Greek family for that story.
“Selena,” I say. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I really thought you might just be taking me on as a favor to Max.”
She leans forward over her desk conspiratorially.
"About Max," she says, eyes narrowing to slits.
"I mean, we'll talk about your screenplays in a minute, but holy shit, I've been dying to ask you about him.
What the hell is going on with your marriage?
" She slaps her palm on the table. "One minute you're a nobody development exec deleting Tinder and complaining about the jackasses who ghosted you, the next you're Mrs. Fucking Kensington.
" Her lips curl into something between a smile and a snarl.
"Not that I blame you—the man's walking sex—but everyone knows he's the kind of manwhore who'd rather die than wear a ring.
What kind of black magic did you use on him? "
I flash Selena my most dazzling smile. "Well, it's actually quite the story.
" My rehearsed lines flow effortlessly after weeks of practice.
"Picture this: pouring rain, me frantically checking my phone for my Uber, then diving into what I thought was my ride.
" I roll my eyes dramatically, remembering how Max insisted on this ridiculous tale despite my protests about his Rolls Royce Cullinan SUV being the least convincing Uber vehicle in existence.
He liked the story because it makes him look spontaneous and charming, while making me look like an idiot, but whatever.
"Instead of kicking me out, this gorgeous stranger offered to drive me all the way to Claremont.
Two hours of gridlock later, we'd shared our entire life stories.
Three days after that?" I wiggle my ring finger.
"Sometimes when you know, you just know. "
Selena's coffee sprays across the table when I finish telling her, she’s laughing so hard.
"No way," she says, dabbing at her blouse with a napkin.
"That sounds like the pitch for some ridiculous rom com. You know, the kind where some ordinary girl somehow lands a billionaire after they meet cute?” She leans forward, eyes narrowed. "Come on. What actually happened?"
I smile. Well. This is a scenario that I somehow didn’t see coming.
But no way can I tell her the truth. She’s not known to be the most discreet when it comes to really juicy Hollywood gossip.
She knows the truth, then the whole town knows the truth, which would be embarrassing to both Max and me.
But I should’ve known that she would be too smart to fall for the bullshit story Max and I came up with.
I meet her gaze, my voice flat. "Just your classic Tinseltown romance.
There I was on Hollywood and Vine, rocking stilettos and a platinum wig, barely covered by this white dress, when he rolled up in his fancy silver Lotus.
Rich boy couldn't work a stick shift or find his hotel, so guess who played tour guide?
" It's straight from Pretty Woman—a reference any woman breathing would catch, because seriously, who hasn't seen that movie at least once?
My smile is all teeth, no warmth. She opens her mouth, then thinks better of it, reading the warning in my eyes. Point made.
She nods. "About these scripts of yours.
" Her eyes widen as she shakes her head.
"Celeste, how are you not already writing for a living?
Reading these felt like stumbling across buried treasure on an ordinary beach.
They're all extraordinary, but especially—" She taps the cover page of my Thanksgiving family drama.
"This one stands out above the rest." In my greatest fantasies, I've always pictured Alexander Payne directing it—his signature touch with family dysfunction would be perfect.
Sometimes I fall asleep imagining him bringing my words to life, the way he did with The Holdovers, that David Hemingson masterpiece that wrecked me when I saw it last year.
I nod. “I like that one, myself,” I say. “Is that the one you want to sell?”
Her eyes gleam as she leans forward. “Bidding war with this script and the Varian Fry screenplay.” She taps the script with her manicured nail.
"This one's gold. The way you wove Fry's rescue of Chagall with their personal journeys...
" She presses a hand to her chest. "I actually cried.
Three times. It's criminal no one's put Fry on screen before, but that's about to change.
" She gives me a knowing look. "When Academy voters see this? They'll be reaching for their ballots."
I can't believe this is happening. Selena Farley—the Selena Farley—is sitting across from me discussing a potential bidding war over my screenplays. My screenplays!
"This all sounds incredible," I manage to say, fidgeting with my coffee cup. "But I have to ask—you're not just doing this as a favor to Max, are you?"
She gives me a look that could wither concrete.
"Seriously? Listen, when these scripts landed on my desk, I couldn't figure out why you weren't already being fought over by every major agency in town.
CAA, William Morris, UTA—where have you been hiding?
Did you stop submitting or what's the story here? "