Lou
I glanced around the luxurious bar; its arched windows were letting in beautiful, soft lighting, the type that made everyone look ten times better.
Not that any person here needed it. They all beamed elegance.
They were it. Successful, rich, accomplished.
The men wore crisp shirts, top buttons undone to reveal more of their sun-kissed skin.
The women had perfect posture, shiny hair, and glowed from within.
Everyone here was somebody in the movie industry, in town for the festival, which started today. They belonged.
And I was here, belonging with them. I felt so moved by this memory in the making, a moment I would remember forever.
The bartender approached. She, too, dripped with chic in her formal uniform. Compared to her, I felt crummy, sagging from the nine-hour time difference from Los Angeles.
“What may I get for you, madame?”
Her formal tone lifted me right back up, the reminder that I was the customer here. I had flown over to Cannes on an impulse, feeling maybe just a tiny bit like an impostor. But only until the premiere, tomorrow. Then the world would know Lou Ocean Utley. Me, I mean.
“I’ll have a glass of champagne. The best you have.”
Whoops. Had I just blurted out a line from a script I’d read?
I should have ordered rosé, or perhaps a sparkling water with a slice of lime, which was all I could afford.
Maybe not even the lime. I couldn’t really afford to be in Cannes at all.
My bank balance—which I’d checked when I landed a few hours earlier—was the stuff of horror movies.
The poor thing had been brutally slaughtered.
But I shooed it away with a smile, as if somebody was watching.
When all you ever wanted was a life spent in front of the cameras, you had to cross your fingers that somebody was watching.
And tomorrow they would be. At long last.
I glanced at my phone, but there was no new message from my agent, Liza Blick.
There in ten! the last one said.
Ten was right. Because ten had become my lucky number.
Ten whole years of lining benches outside casting calls with hundreds of other girls, desire drumming loudly in our ears.
Ten years of filming reels in the tiny bedroom of my shared apartment, no rest until it was absolutely perfect, double chins and twitchy eyes begone.
Ten years of casting directors and filmmakers swearing up and down that I was incredibly talented.
But. Ten years of praying they would take the “but” back.
And, in the meantime, ten years of calling out strangers’ names to come collect their orders at coffee shops around Los Angeles, because if acting wasn’t going to pay the bills yet, then grinding coffee beans in an unflattering apron would.
Now, at the age of twenty-nine (ancient by Hollywood standards but still young enough to have a thriving career, right?) I was about to become an overnight success. I needed Liza here to celebrate with me.
“Here you are, madame.”
The bartender placed the champagne flute on top of a thick paper coaster stamped with the hotel logo.
“Merci,” I said in my best accent.
I would be coming to Cannes all the time now. Promoting movies and being a star and affording champagne. No trouble. Better start learning French.
“Lou!” came a voice behind me.
My agent was here at last. I got up to hug her. Liza was in her forties, sporting wavy strawberry blond hair, a wardrobe of bold prints, and her ever-present red leather bag.
“The airline lost my luggage for a hot minute,” she said in a huff. “I had this horrifying vision of arriving in Cannes in sweatpants.”
“You look fabulous.”
I took in Liza’s matching skirt and shirt ensemble, adorned with a jungle print: pink zebras and green tigers.
A choice. Not that I would judge, when my own wardrobe consisted of a few thrifted dresses (which, hopefully, wasn’t too obvious) and simple jeans and tops that I made work for both auditions and nights out.
Throw in a few sundresses and denim cutoffs for summer, and that was it.
One day I’d have money to spend on fancy clothes, and that day was approaching gloriously fast.
Liza’s smile fell as she took in my drink. “Champagne?”
“When in Cannes!” Liza kept looking at me strangely, so I added, “Let me order you one, too.” That was the polite thing to do.
I waved to the bartender as Liza settled in, so giddy that I forgot to think about who would pick up the tab. Not me was always the hope.
“You’re here,” Liza said, like I wasn’t seated next to her. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
I smiled brightly, jaw pulled extra tight.
“I’m here!”
She studied me sideways. “The family visit was good?”
I suppressed a yawn. “It was great. Clara—that’s my sister—was so happy to have me over. The kids looked all grown up! And Milan is stunning. Have you been? I loved it.”
Liza watched me more intently. “So you just arrived from there?”
I drank my champagne, allowing myself the faintest of nods.
The bartender brought over Liza’s flute, and I clinked mine with hers.
I took another, more generous sip. That was the problem with lies.
Five seconds on the lips, and forever having to keep up their spirit.
Growing up, I was taught to always be honest, to do well by doing right.
Everyone knows lying is bad karma, especially to one of the most important people in your life.
But that was before Liza told me that, unfortunately, the movie studio didn’t have it in their (ridiculously large) budget to pay for my trip to Cannes so I could meet my triumph.
“You’re a great aunt, flying over to help your sister,” Liza added.
Geez. My lie had a few too many layers.
The story was that my older sister Clara, the accomplished architect, lived in Milan with her handsome Italian husband and their two bambinos.
Clara wore pantsuits that never creased, and my nephews were so well mannered they put the rest of us to shame.
And I probably would be a good aunt, if I saw them more than once a year during my dreaded yearly visit to our parents in Chicago for Thanksgiving.
It wasn’t always like that. My siblings and I were raised to believe we could accomplish anything we put our minds to.
Work hard and strive for success! And that’s what the three of us did.
Except that my version of it didn’t include a prestigious college education or a secure job that paid real money. My dream was different.
At sixteen, I announced I would move to Los Angeles to pursue acting after high school.
My parents tried hard to talk me out of it, but that was my destiny.
And who’s going to turn down meeting their destiny?
Eventually, they recovered. They lent me a little money here and there when things were tight.
They consoled me when I called, in tears, about yet another role I didn’t get.
And I could always come home! It wasn’t too late to rectify the course of my life and score a great job, along with a loving partner.
After all, my older sister and younger brother did it.
I was the one squished in the middle, with my little dream that couldn’t.
A few years in and with only a handful of commercials and small roles to my name, the veneer started to crack.
Did I realize my “career” consisted primarily of serving coffee?
Was I really going to have roommates forever?
I was getting too old to accept handouts.
I started ignoring the notifications from the family group chat.
I stopped calling. I couldn’t afford to visit.
I didn’t even tell them when I got this role.
They’d watch me on the big screen and see for themselves how wrong they’d all been.
But Liza didn’t know that my darling sister would never beg me to come help look after the kids while her husband was on a business trip, that she would definitely not offer to cover the cost of my flight because it was my own fault that I was always broke.
So I made up the Milan trip, which—what a happy coincidence—ended just as the Cannes Film Festival started.
Here I was, “popping over” on my way back home to Los Angeles.
Milan was so close to Cannes, it would have been a shame to miss that opportunity.
I shrugged. “Family means a lot to me.”
Liza sighed awkwardly. “It sucks that studios only comp trips for the big-name talent, but that’s how it is. Hollywood politics!”
I laughed like the whole thing was absolutely hilarious.
“I’m here now, right where I should be.”
Liza looked me deep in the eyes. “I’m glad you didn’t spend all your money coming to Cannes at this stage in your career. Like I always say, we’re playing the long game.”
I might have flown across the world on a whim, but I was not as deluded as it seemed.
You see, after I’d been in LA for a while, I made a pact with myself.
I would give it ten years. If my breakthrough hadn’t happened by then, I’d accept defeat.
I’d admit that my family was right. I’d move home and find something else to do with my life.
I’m not sure if I meant it, or if it was simply helpful to have a timeline in mind.
Did destiny have to be so vague? But in the end, I never had to find out.
I got the role in Don’t Be Sad! exactly one week before my ten-year anniversary of moving to LA.
If that’s not a sign, then I don’t understand the universe.