Page 26 of Director's Cut

“You okay?” she asks. “I won’t push if you don’t want to talk about it, but if the food isn’t right or anything…”

“No, no.” I consider taking a bite to buy time, but I let the sauce slide onto my fingers instead. “I just don’t go out much. I’ve had social anxiety for a long time, before the fame…”

Maeve frowns. “Val, I’m so sorry! If you need to leave, we can go somewhere else.”

A single laugh escapes my lips. “I didn’t tell you; you’d have no way of knowing. And it’s really not a big deal. I just don’t do crowded restaurants. This”—I motion to the empty patio—“is really fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” It helps that I love the way she says my name. Not Valeria anymore. Val. Like she finally considers me familiar. This do-over is really happening.

I take a bite of the slider. Maybe I’m biased from going so long without, but everything about this thing is amazing—the meat is juicy, the pulled pork is the perfect balance of sweet and tangy, the coleslaw’s crunch gives the necessary added texture. It takes all my willpower to not say Fuck, oh my god to Maeve, the acquaintance who I thought hated me two weeks ago.

“Okay, now I’m genuinely not sure if you’re okay,” Maeve says. “Blink twice if Hollywood hasn’t been letting you eat.”

I snort. “I refuse to disclose how correct that stereotype is.” Another swig of cider. Both of our drinks are draining dangerously quickly. “But don’t worry, I’d stab someone for my Urth order just like every other basic bitch in LA.”

Maeve chuckles. “I feel like that’d be funnier if I knew what Urth was.”

It’s the alcohol, but I do gasp out loud. “Okay, so you want your cultural tour of LA by a native? Urth Caffe is a ridiculous organic, fits-LA-dietary-restrictions chain. There are like twenty locations around Los Angeles, so there’s definitely one in your neighborhood. They’re crowded as shit, but their coffee products are truly top-notch. My favorite brunch in town.”

Maeve nods. “Well, I’d love to go sometime.” She looks at me, really settles her gaze on me, and, god, I can’t tell what part of my face she’s looking at. Maybe the cider has already softened me up, but I swear the floating feeling I have right now is because she’s looking at me like that. “What’s your ideal way to have Urth, then? Do you sit there?” she asks.

I snort. “God, no. Take out. I spent way too much money on a house with a panoramic view in Hollywood Hills, so on even a semi-nice day, I take the meal poolside.” You’re welcome to come over sometime. Just ask.

Maeve takes a swig of beer, grinning beneath the rim of her glass. “I can’t believe how close you are to my shitty place in Mid-Wilshire.”

I eye the last bit of gold still in my glass. Maeve’s pretty much done. There’s a tug in me, a little devil crooning that if I could just finish that drink, maybe I’d be loopy enough to invite her over. This friendship is so new, but there’s something about her. It can’t just be the alcohol. I didn’t even tell Luna about my own struggles with anxiety until well after we stopped dating. And Maeve has asked me how I am multiple times. Maybe it’s that she just feels so different from the type of person I’ve been associating with since moving back to LA from London. I feel like I don’t know how Maeve is going to respond to my questions. She doesn’t get my references, doesn’t speak Los Angeleno, doesn’t care to know Hollywood. It’s thrilling.

Our food is almost gone. Tiny clumps of students start filling the tables, and their conversations carry through the air. Our night is fading away.

I want out, but I don’t want to leave alone. I’m willing to accept whatever danger comes with that.

I chug the remainder of my cider and slam the glass on the sticky wood table. “Another round?” I give her my best crooked smile.

She bites her lip before saying, “Let’s do it.”

I know I’m not drunk. We literally had two and a half alcoholic beverages over the course of an hour’s worth of conversations about roller coasters, our theories about who killed JonBenét Ramsey, and waxing poetic about nineties queer cinema before packing up as soon as every table around us started to fill up. But I still managed to convince Maeve we should walk tipsily through Exposition Park until we were both sober enough to drive responsibly. I’m relieved that bonding with Maeve is going so well. I’m starting to feel like I could ask her for a job recommendation and she’d say yes.

The second we walk into the park and are surrounded by the rose garden and the fountains and the Natural History Museum (or is it the Science Center; they’re next to each other) on our left, everything smells nicer. I could just lie down and if Maeve wanted to lie down next to me that would be cool. Ideal, really.

So when Maeve stops to sit on one of the stone benches that flank the fountain plaza, specifically facing a nice bunch of flowers, I happily follow suit.

“I think it’s finally happened—I’ve become so pathetic that I’m feeling it after two drinks.”

Maeve snorts. “Well, if it helps, we’re in the same boat.” Given she’s swaying a little, I believe it. She raises an eyebrow. A rare, coveted skill I had to learn. “So does that mean you’re not a coke celebrity?”

“Ooh, no, I’ve only really done blow once.”

She leans in a little, and that one curl she’s always pulling behind her ear falls into her face.

“So it was a little while after winning the Oscar,” I say. “Some wannabe actor I was hanging with gave me some, and I ended up buying a night with a stripper at some club, but through circumstances I’ve blocked from memory, I ended up at my sister’s house—without said stripper or my pants—holding like five of those walking nylon animal balloons you buy at malls. There’s a fifty-fifty chance I got bath salts instead of cocaine. So…” I break out a smile as Maeve doubles over laughing. “No, not my current pastime. And I’m not a big drinker, as you can tell.”

She nods, that hair still in her face. “Right, I imagine you wouldn’t go to bars or clubs.”

“I need you to know that for every tale of debauchery, there are about five billion nights where I am at home doing photo shoots with my dog. I don’t even have a good story about my broken engagement.”

I lean over and push the hair out of her eyes. God, her skin is warm under my touch, and I can see the rose rising in her cheeks. Her hair fits perfectly behind the shell of her ear.

---