Page 1 of The Small-Town Seduction Plan

1

AVERY

“How does it feel to be the most hated woman in America?”

“Come on!” I protest, driving up Cape Cod with my phone on speaker and the AC working overtime against the summer humidity. “What about the woman who sent death threats to that TikTok kitten? Or that girl who catfished six different guys into taking her to Disneyland by pretending she had cancer? Or Meghan Markle?”

My cousin, Brooke, laughs down the phone line. “You’re right. You’re not famous enough to be number one.”

Not famous enough… yet. But I’ve spent the past ten years giving it my best shot: clawing my way up the Hollywood ladder, from sketchy modeling assignments and bit parts in soap operas and soup commercials– all the way to the red carpet, and a real acting career.

Starring roles. Decent movies. Fame.

I was so close to the A-list dream I’ve always wanted, I could almost taste it. But now, when I’m finally making headlines, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Be careful what you wish for, babe.

I give a rueful sigh, watching the sandy highway speed by outside the windows; the ocean roiling in shades of grey under cloudy summer skies. “I don’t understand it. All I did was call off my wedding– to a man who didn’t want to marry me all that much, either,” I point out.

“A massive, multimillion-dollar spectacle of a wedding, packed with famous celebrities,” Brooke points out gently. “You’d already invited all those photographers and magazines… did you really think they would just shrug, and go home, and leave all those column inches empty when you handed them an even bigger scandal to write about?”

“But it wasn’t even a scandal! Robert’s fine. He was relieved when I called it off.” I argue. “Why isn’t he getting bitchy gossip items written about him?”

“Because of a pesky little thing called patriarchy,” Brooke replies, sounding amused. “Nobody cares when powerful men hook up with women half their age. Didn’t Taylor Swift write a song about that or something?”

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I grumble.

“I log into your social media accounts every day and delete every mean, awful, and pornographic comment so you never have to look at them,” she replies, and I wince.

“You’re right, I love you,” I reply immediately, grateful. “I just thought it would have died down by now. Can’t they find someone else to write about?”

“I guess it’s a slow news season,” Brooke says sympathetically. “And those old photoshoots didn’t help…”

I wince. “Note to eighteen-year-old Avery: if some shady dude pays you three hundred bucks to play ‘trophy wife caught cheating on ancient husband with the pool boy’ for a stock photo site… don’t.”

Talk about adding fuel to the tabloid trash-fire. If leaving a bigwig producer at the (million-dollar, custom-made) altar wasn’t bad enough, those old pictures are what took me from “minor scandal" all the way up to “Hollywood laughingstock”. Somehow, I managed to kick off a debate about gold digging and the modern economics of marriage that made it all the way to the Opinion pages of the New York Times.

Never mind that I didn’t actually marry Robert in the end. Never mind that I chose to walk away from a lifetime of ease and security for the chance at finding real honest love one day. Those are just pesky details when it comes to tabloid news.

Now, half the country thinks it was a betrayal of feminism. The other half thinks it was a “post-feminist betrayal of traditional family values”– whatever that means. And everyone uses it as an excuse to run those damn photos of me in a cheap pink Victoria’s Secret panty set, pouting like a barely-legal porn star.

It doesn’t exactly scream ‘Avery Lawrence, future Oscar-winning actress’, that’s for sure.

I shake off the unpleasant memory, catching sight of a gas station up ahead. “I better go stock up on Diet Coke and Jack Daniels while I have the chance.”

“Are you traveling back to 1923?” Brooke teases.

“I might as well be,” I reply grimly, easing off the highway. “I haven’t seen a Starbucks in forty miles."

“However will you cope without your skinny venti no-whip oat milk chai?” Brooke laughs, and I can’t really argue, because yes, that’s my order, and yes, the thought has definitely been running through my mind the farther up the Cape I drive.

“Call me when you get there,” she adds. “And enjoy the vacation! Fingers crossed, if you lay low for the summer, the gossip machine will move on. One of the Real Housewives could come out as gay, or be indicted for tax fraud. Or both!”

“Here’s hoping!”

I pull over at the gas station, fill my tank, then grab my sunglasses and shove a baseball cap over my blonde hair before venturing inside, incognito. I know I should bypass the magazine rack and save myself the torture, but some punishing instinct draws me over and I can’t help but look at the row of tabloid headlines.

‘But I Don’t: Behind the Wedding Scandal of the Year!’

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