Page 6 of Blue Moon

Stop sending stupid notes! Are you six years old? Don’t you think you made your point the first time?

Cordelia

What are you talking about?

Me

Don’t play dumb. Why are you always trying to ruin my life?

Cordelia

Did someone send you a note? Maybe if you didn’t prance around with so much flesh showing, you wouldn’t attract the wrong kind of attention.

See? No manners whatsoever.

Me

At least I have a job.

Cordelia

My job is to represent the family. A family you seem determined to scandalise.

Me

You think a scandal is showing an ankle in public. Loosen up.

Why couldn’t my mom have had a one-night stand with a regular guy? Why did she have to hook up with the Duke of Southcott? My dad was a snob, and Cordelia was unbearable. I tried Jubilee instead.

Me

Do me a favor and tell Cordelia to quit with the notes. It wasn’t funny the first time, and it isn’t funny now.

Jubilee

What notes?

Arrrgh. I’d tossed the phone, then cursed in my head as a spiderweb of cracks spread across the screen. Was anything going to go right today?

Luis handed me the new phone, and the screen lit up with notifications. Insta, BuzzHub, TikTok… I’d posted one picture of myself last night, an arty backlit shot taken by Paul, and the likes were pouring in. Mom would be so proud of the numbers, but I found I no longer cared. I’d spent my whole life trying to make her happy, to make her like me, only to finally realise it was an impossible task. But hopefully my new, classier image would stop all those pious people who offered to pray for my soul from commenting.

Me

Try asking Cordelia.

“Ms. Maara?” an assistant said. “The photographer is ready now.”

For the show, our costumes were Ancient Egypt-lite. I wore a black-and-gold minidress with a matching headband, a turquoise playsuit with a snake belt, and a white maxi dress with winged shoulders and gold embroidery on the neckline. But for this photoshoot, which would be used as promo for the hotel, I’d be going full-on Cleopatra. A black wig, heavy make-up, an elaborate gold headdress that had to weigh twenty pounds. Apparently, it had been borrowed from a museum somewhere, and it came with its own security team. My vertebrae might get crushed in the name of marketing, but at least Mark-the-weirdo wouldn’t be able to get near me today. Not that I thought he truly existed, but Cordelia might be mean enough to hire an out-of-work thespian with dubious morals to pretend. She acted all offended by my publicity stunts, but Mom said that secretly, she was just jealous. Mom talked a lot of trash, but I thought she might actually be right about Cordelia. I opened festivals. Cordelia opened shopping malls.

The first outfit reminded me of something out of the Gladiator movie, except in gold and with more cleavage showing. Not that I had much cleavage, but I could fake it. A push-up bra, careful use of bronzer… Everything in my life was fake. The whole of the Nile Palace was decorated to look like Ancient Egypt, so it hadn’t taken much for the photographer’s team to transform one of the event spaces into Cleopatra’s bathing chamber. Yes, my second outfit would be a bikini. Dad was going to lose his mind.

I eyed up a basket beside my fake throne. “Is the snake in there?”

“The snake handler has it in a box,” the assistant said. “We just need to get some shots of you and the, uh, gods first.”

They’d dressed Venus, Aisha, Luis, and Paul up as Egyptian deities with black-and-gold dresses—even the men—leather sandals, and animal heads. A cat, an eagle, a jackal, and a cobra respectively. The problem? They’d forgotten to put eyeholes in the masks, and Aisha bumped into me as she tried to find her way to the set.

“Sorry, sorry.”

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