It had been ages since I’d set foot on a step-and-repeat. How I used to love it! Like standing before the sun if the sun shone only for you. All its white-hot energy directed at you, wanting your attention, calling your name, showering you with love and light. But in that moment that night, I would rather have had my fingernails pried off than stand before the flashbulbs. It was too much, too soon. I needed a cigarette, but I couldn’t let any of these Hollywood health nuts see me smoking.
A woman with a clipboard greeted us at the top of the stairs and recorded our names, then conferred with the photographers while we waited.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered to Felicity.
The woman pointed at me and waved me forward impatiently.
“You’re a star; go shine.” Felicity gave me a little push.
My heart hammering, I stepped onto the red carpet in front of a backdrop emblazoned with the name of whatever the evening’s charity was. I pressed my lips into a smile, feeling like a specimen under a microscope as the flashes popped. A man’s voice yelled that I was looking good. Another wanted to see the back of my dress. The fear began to melt.
I stepped off the carpet dazzled, some part of my effervescence restored by the brilliance of the flashbulbs. Felicity linked her arm through mine and led me around a giant marble statue of a naked Venus and into an enormous living room, where a man in a tuxedo played Elton John on a white grand piano. Ornate chandeliers twinkled overhead, and endless pink roses gave off an intoxicating scent.
A beautiful girl in a black cocktail dress proffered a tray of champagne. Felicity accepted a glass; I sadly had to pass to maintain the illusion of New Stella.
“You can have some of mine when no one’s looking,” Felicity whispered.
Washed in the lavender of the fading sky, the rolling lawn was set with what must have been a hundred round tables covered with white tablecloths, each adorned with centerpieces of pink roses. At the far end of the lawn was a stage prepared for a band.
I was initially disappointed to find there was no one famous or powerful at our table, only a bunch of rich people who actually paid the $5,000 for their plates. But Felicity was undaunted. Before long we were drawn into a discussion about the continued relevance of my film Under the Blue Moon with the man next to me, who turned out to be a fan. His adoration warmed me like a sable coat.
At some point, Felicity returned from the bar with a sparkling water for me that turned out to be mostly gin. The band had started playing a song I heard on the radio ad nauseum, and most of our table had gotten up to dance.
“Wanna dance?” Felicity asked.
I pushed up to my feet. “I’d rather take a walk around.”
The alcohol hit me as I stood; darkness vignetted my vision. I must’ve swayed, because Felicity caught my elbow, steadied me. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe in my Spanx. The night was too close. I was suffocating.
As though reading my mind, she gently guided me between the tables toward the house. “I bet it’s cooler inside,” she murmured as we tripped across the manicured lawn.
Up two steps, and we were caught in the crowd gathered around the chocolate fondue fountain, inconveniently positioned blocking the French doors that led into the house.
Felicity’s eyes lit up when she saw it. “We have to try, don’t we?”
We’d just joined the jovial crowd around the fountain when I heard my name. I turned to see none other than that bitch Hannah Bridges, her thin lips curled into a cruel smile, her flat blue eyes directed at me. Her platinum hair was board straight, her skeletal frame draped in gray sequins.
Hannah, once my best friend and closest confidante. Hannah, never as famous as I until she sold the most hurtful story of all to the press and took up with Cole before we’d even divorced.
“So good to see you out and about,” Hannah said as we air-kissed. “Rumor had it you’d died. Overdose, I think?”
I was meant to have overdosed on pills in a hotel in Rome. Why Rome, I wasn’t sure (I’d only been there once), but I always did like the spirit of it. If I ever took a nosedive into the infinite abyss, Rome sounded like as good a place as any to do it. In my weaker moments I sometimes wished the rumors were true. Then at least I’d be immortalized, tragically preserved in time instead of barreling toward anonymity in middle age.
“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” I quipped gamely. It was my party line, designed to prove my sense of humor was intact, and generally got at least a polite laugh. Not this time. “I’m sober now,” I added.
“Whatever you want to call it.” She sniffed as though she smelled alcohol on my breath. “Good to see you’re back from the dead. Maybe you’ll book a Hallmark movie and finally refill your pool.”
The air went out of me. How did she know about my empty pool? I was flabbergasted, acutely aware of the dinner guests watching our exchange like a tennis match but at a complete loss for words.
Felicity leaped to the rescue. “So thoughtful of her, right? With this drought, it’s just terrible how some people continue to waste water. Stella was really impacted by all the work she’s been doing building houses for refugees—”
Hannah stared at Felicity, confounded. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
I noticed more than one cell phone, angled vertically. At least one of them was likely live streaming.
“I’m her assistant.” Felicity’s hand flew to
