Page 8 of Blue Moon

“Pretend she’s Mark Antony,” the photographer told me. “If you can’t smile, at least go for sultry.”

I froze. “What did you say?”

“Go for sultry.”

“No, the first part. Mark Antony?”

Mark A? Was he here in the hotel? A member of the crew? If he was, I’d have to instruct my lawyer to ask Julius to tell the creep to stop sending me weird notes.

“Cleopatra’s husband.” Yikes, seriously? “Didn’t you study history at school?”

“I didn’t go to school, you dumbass. I went into showbiz.”

But you know who did go all the way in school? Cordelia. She’d even studied history at Oxford University, which figured, seeing as she was part of a thousand-year-old institution that lived in the past.

“Take it easy,” Paul murmured.

“Oh, you think saying that will help? How many times in the whole history of telling people to take it easy have they ever actually taken it easy?”

“She has a point,” Aisha told him.

Movement caught my eye, and I was ninety percent sure I saw one of the hotel staff tucking a phone into their pocket. Great. My rant would be up on the internet before my venom-filled body was cold. I wanted to confront the jerk, but knowing my luck, he would turn out to have been texting his sick mom, and I’d look even more “difficult” than I did already.

“Just keep that freaking snake away from me, okay?”

4

LUNA

Two shows down, ninety-six to go…

I’d gritted my teeth and apologised to Paul for snapping, but the photoshoot still cast a shadow over the day. The video of my outburst had appeared on BuzzHub before I managed to change into my gold bikini, and from there, it had quickly spread to TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. In my previous life, I’d checked my socials hourly—okay, minutely—with a sense of anticipation, but now that had turned to trepidation. Last week, everyone had been worried about me, and my comments were filled with numbers for crisis hotlines and therapy recommendations. This week, the public had turned, and now I was a slut, an attention seeker, and a bitch for ignoring my fans, all at the same time.

Predictably, Cordelia’s next message had arrived right after I changed into regular clothes. A bunch of emojis followed by Unbelievable. But they clearly didn’t teach emojis at etiquette school because she was confused, drunk, and tired. And also a squirrel, but I figured that was an accident.

The show in the evening had gone well, but Paul was still off with me. He’d barely spoken in the car on the way home, not that he usually spoke much, but tonight he’d said, like, three words, and those were “See you tomorrow.”

The car sped off the instant the door to my apartment building clicked shut behind me, and I realised I needed to apologise better. Something else to google. Should I buy Paul a “sorry” gift? A man would send a woman flowers, but Paul didn’t strike me as the floral type. Maybe…beer? Gah. Life had been so much easier when I pretended not to care about anyone.

My fifth-floor apartment was far smaller than my old home, with just two bedrooms, an open-plan living area-slash-kitchen, and two bathrooms, one with a shower and one with a tub. My bedroom had a small balcony with a table and chairs I never used, not that the view was much to write home about anyway, and long, gauzy drapes stopped people in the opposite building from spying on me.

I hadn’t met the neighbours on either side of me, but occasionally, I heard a shower running in apartment 503, which made me think the soundproofing wasn’t fantastic. I still sang to myself, but quietly. Just ballads. Several times, I’d seen the brunette in the apartment opposite leaving for work as I got home. She wore a uniform from the Nebula, which would once have taken a prize for the shabbiest casino in Vegas, but in the past couple of years, new management had given it a makeover, and it was super luxurious now. She’d flashed a smile and muttered a “Hi” before she hurried to the elevator. The ring that glinted on her left hand suggested she was married.

In this new place in life, I felt lonely, but safe.

At least, I did for the next forty-seven minutes.

I took a shower, washed off the sweat and grease and glitter, and discovered my tan was going blotchy. Lourdes, the tanning technician who used to come to my house, did a better job than the lady at the theatre. With Lourdes, I’d stayed beautifully bronze for a whole week, but now I was fading after only three days. I needed to get Lourdes back. But I didn’t have her number, or her surname, and I couldn’t remember the name of her business. Which meant I’d have to suck it up and text Jubilee, and I didn’t want her to know what a poor job I was doing of fending for myself with my pile of dirty laundry and my TV dinners for one. This morning, I’d run out of toilet paper. Thankfully I had tissues, but the groceries weren’t being delivered until Monday, and how did people remember all this stuff?

I couldn’t even remember to take a lasagne out of the freezer.

Lunch was a distant dot in the rear-view mirror, I’d been on stage for nearly two hours, and my stomach was doing that weird yawny thing that meant it was beyond empty. This was all so…so overwhelming, and I almost curled up and cried, but then my eyes would go puffy and I’d still be hungry. I set the microwave on high power and checked my socials again. I’d posted a picture of myself backstage this evening, an attempt to mitigate the damage from the photoshoot, but nobody wanted to see me happy and smiling. Misery and drama gained all the attention. Oh, and naked flesh.

The buzz of the intercom made me jump because who the heck would be outside at nearly midnight? Or had somebody’s drunk boyfriend hit the wrong button?

“Who is it?”

“Delivery from Carlo’s.”

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