Page 24 of Sizzle Reel

I take a deep breath. “Rachel Morrison, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, Ellen Kuras, Iris Ng.”

She looks up from the photos. There’s a smile on her open mouth, like she’s somewhere between beaming and perplexed by what she’s seeing. Ready to say something but it keeps slipping away. It’s an expression I’ve never seen her use in film. It’s almost…giddy, childlike.

“Are these all L.A.?” she asks.

“Yep. With film school, you don’t go much past L.A.”

She zooms in on one image, but I can’t see what it is from my angle. “This doesn’t even look like L.A. It’s got this mood that feels almost otherworldly. You’re, what, early twenties and already have this point of view? I could hardly operate a new iPhone at your age.”

I laugh. “I’m twenty-four, and I hope you’ve figured it out since.”

Valeria just shakes her head. Takes the résumé back with a flourish. The air from the movement puts the fine hairs on my arm on end. “U.S.C. Okay, so good education.”

“I have some of my shorts on Vimeo. They were all supposed to be like three minutes, so…”

Valeria takes out a pen and hands me back my résumé. “If it’s password protected.”

I raise my brows as I write down the name and the password. “Right. You guys do the locked thing for audition tapes.”

I slide the résumé back to Valeria. She smiles. I smile back, my insides positively on fire. I must be dreaming. There’s no way that shitty white male move actually worked. There’s no way Valeria just saw some of my photography and asked to see a video. This is too—

And for a moment, I think we both forget what we were here for.

Valeria looks up first, her mouth forming an O. “Shit, we were supposed to talk about a personal assistant gig, weren’t we?”

She chuckles, and I follow suit. “I think so.”

“I really don’t want to subject you to it. I’d hate being my personal assistant.”

A bolt of cold goes through me. This meeting wasn’t about showing my art. It was showing my art to get Valeria to remember me, so she’ll hire me as a personal assistant, so we can get close and hook up and maybe fall in love or whatever.

“Really, I’m sure your life is super interesting. Even just watching you on set when your movie starts filming would be incredible.”

“Your talent is so wasted…” She takes a long sip of her drink. “I’ll get back to you.”

Suddenly even more clarity falls upon me, the part when I said I’d stay with Alice for another year, when I’m pissed at Wyatt. “Could you contact me directly? I just—I don’t want Alice to get the news before I can tell her, you know? And the office is so gossipy.”

Valeria’s eyebrows raise and she pushes the résumé back to me. “Yeah, go ahead.”

I write down my personal email and draw a smiley face for noreason.

When I look back up at Valeria, she’s frowning. “Are you doing okay, by the way? I got the impression you hadn’t told Alice about your sexuality.”

My whole face goes hot. It’s as though Valeria has stumbled upon a picture I’d saved of her in that first frenzy of obsession. “Yeah, I’m doing okay. Thanks for asking.”

She runs a hand through her hair. “Sorry I disappeared. I just—” She licks her lips, and the image sears itself into my memory. “It was messed up and I’m sorry it happened. If it is still a secret, it’s safe with me.”

Her words are like being lowered into a warm bath on a cold night—safe, secure, at a distance from the chaos around us. Like the walls in this café have fallen away and the only things that exist are Valeria, me, this table, the résumé, and the two steaming coffee cups.

But I can’t express that kind of gratitude. All I can do is smile.

“I don’t know who you’d tell anyway,” I say.

She gives me a look. “Accept my attempt to apologize for my manager, please.”

I take a faux deep breath. “Okay, fine.”

We say good night with nothing but smiles and handshakes. Her hand is soft, her grip tight and strong. She has a vein that’s raised on the back of her hand, like the kind my brother, Noam, gets when he goes on his gym sprees.

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