Page 13 of Sizzle Reel

And I guess now I’ll get to see one of her movies, finally.

The lights go down. I can’t say Romy has made me feel any more secure in whatever I’m doing with this queer thing, but there’s at least the assurance that I have someone to talk to to figure it out. Are you happy with the way things are right now? Sitting in that movie theater, I’d kill for some stability in this identity. An anchor. Something that tells me this isn’t all in my head. That I can fight back against the people like Alice in my life. That I’ll eventually be confident enough to answer the barrage of questions I’ll get when I tell people like my extremely heteronormative parents I’m bi, even if I haven’t been with a girl.

I find it exactly twenty-two minutes later.

chapter four

Based on what I’ve just said, one might suspect that my life, if divided into a before and an after, would be bisected by my sexuality. But no, it isn’t. It’s bisected by Before I Fell in Love with Valeria Sullivan and After I Fell in Love with Valeria Sullivan.

Before I.F.I.L.W.V.S. Luna had limited movie taste. Before I.F.I.L.W.V.S. Luna was very, very concerned that discovering the wonders of the female aesthetic because of Rachel Brosnahan might have meant she was in love with her therapist. Before I.F.I.L.W.V.S. Luna, if I’m being honest, had never truly had an all-consuming crush. Definitely not with Wyatt. Not with the handful of Hinge dates in college or the boys from across the classroom in high school or that one female physics teacher in college.

Now, After I.F.I.L.W.V.S. Luna is a baller. No, I get it now. I get what it feels like to sit in a move theater and see an attractive woman I met once be transformed into someone larger than life, on a screen where I could see the flecks of green in her eyes, see her silhouette framed against sunsets and grimy streets. To cravethe sound of someone’s voice, to want to know what every tone and word sounds like from her mouth. To feel like an archivist of my own mind, desperate to restore the not-so-present memories of my time physically in Valeria’s presence. I get it now. When I told Julia all this the next day in therapy, she smiled and called it my “first girl crush.”

First girl crush.

I kind of love it.

“Text me before midnight tonight,” Alice had said to me after I left work.

But it’s five p.m., work and therapy are over, and I’m in a dress that stops midthigh and enhances my decidedly average-to-small chest as best it can. Red lipstick and eyeliner and everything. It doesn’t even matter that I’m going out with the other talent assistants to fucking Dave & Buster’s in Hollywood & Highland. Ordinarily, this particular location’s proximity to the Walk of Fame, a.k.a. the worst place in L.A., would have me ruffled. But this girl-crush thing is getting me high, and my brain is working in overdrive. Even just sitting at an overcrowded booth, Romy’s hand on my shoulder to keep herself from falling out of said overcrowded booth, I feel creatively turned on for the first time in years.

“Here’s to another week of survival,” Wyatt says as everyone raises their drinks.

Most of my other coworkers are two drinks in by the time we get appetizers and everything, but my first drink’s still half-done. There’s something about larger social gatherings where I’m just less inclined to go hard.

“Except you, Romy,” Trevor, the assistant who sits across from me, says.

Romy laughs. “Yeah, well, you know I am paid at the same hourly rate as you guys for half the workplace abuse.” She sips her drink. “Plus tips.”

“You’re the literal worst,” Wyatt says. Cassidy, one of the other future-manager-type assistants, nods along.

“Hey, you guys can abandon your shitty paths too. Especially the creatives in the house.”

Rain, Trevor, this guy Jared, and I exchange looks.

“Okay, so,” I say. “While everyone’s sufficiently drunk, poll: Do I stay with Alice or bounce?”

Romy gives me a look. The kind of look that somehow perfectly says, This is something you should ask Julia, not your drunk coworkers.

“There’s a floater out there who just woke up from a badly timed sleep in a cold sweat saying, ‘Is a desk opening up?’ ” Trevor says.

Everyone laughs.

Rain crosses her arms. “I heard the dirt on Alice from Benjamin once. He says she only places about half her assistants if they don’t quit first.”

“Can you even get really good gigs for cinematography from a manager?” Trevor asks. “If Alice isn’t offering up some big fish, like naming a client she’d hook you up with, it sounds like a bad fit.”

I’m buzzed, but, man, is that buzz being swallowed by everyone’s words. I can’t even bear to look at Romy right now. As usual, she was right. As usual, my best bet in outings of more than three people is to shut up.

“All right, people, let’s not scare her,” Wyatt says. “We’re all stressed enough as is.”

Rain leans back in her seat. “Speaking of which, did anyone find a nondrug catchall stress reliever?”

“Come on, Rain, everyone knows it’s sex,” Trevor says. “The only way I survive is having my girlfriend sleep over every night.”

My heart twinges. The direction of this conversation is so obvious. The feeling is old, familiar, but much like stubbing a toe, no amount of experience makes the pain less surprising.

Rain exhales. “It’s hardly been a cure for me.”

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