Page 41 of All Signs Point to Malibu

Until five minutes ago.

My phone chimes with a text and, taking it out of my pocket, I see a message from Sonia that reads:

Crisis. Need your help asap!

Trouble in paradise? My fingers fly over the keys.

Meet me at my place in fifteen.

Thirty-seven minutes and a speeding ticket I couldn’t sweet talk my way out of later, I sit across from a frazzled-looking Sonia. “I’m rethinking all of this,” she says, definitely flustered, blowing her nose into a tissue. This is the first time I’ve seen her look unpolished and slightly unhinged. Her voice sounds scratchy. There are definite mascara tracks on her cheeks and the skin around her eyes looks puffy. She’s been crying and I feel bad, but also a little hopeful. I mean, sure, I just spent five hundred dollars on desserts for an engagement party, but I could find another use for them.

I’m going to hell. There will be no resetting my karma after this.

“The wedding?” I say gently, knowingly, as though she’s finally come to her senses.

She looks up above the snotty tissue. “No,” she says as though that was never a consideration. “The acting thing.”

Oh, right...

My own hopes dashed, I take a breath and reset. “Why? What happened?” Did she tell her father about it and he threatened to disown her, cut her from the will? He seems more than capable of that kind of overreaction and based on my brief interaction with him, he’s certainly still controlling aspects of Sonia’s life.

One kink in the Banks family armor.

“I reached out to that contact list you gave me and I didn’t know there were so many different versions of ‘fuck off,’” Sonia says instead.

Oh hell, if she’s going to let a few “no’s” stop her from achieving her goals, she’s in for a rude awakening.

Though, I could have predicted this outcome. Under normal circumstances, I would have given my previous clients on that list a heads-up, paved the way for Sonia reaching out, but I’ve been single-minded in my focus on Operation Breakup. Not exactly doing my best to help with her career.

“Maybe I’m not cut out for this,” she says. “My skin’s not thick enough for rejections.”

Probably because she’s never had to deal with one in her entire life.

“Just relax,” I tell her as I reach for my cell phone and dial a number.

The call connects after the first ring and I put it on speaker.

“Go for Jay.” Jay Ashley’s thick Southern accent competes with the sounds of wind and traffic.

He must be in his convertible—the dream car he’d had on his vision board for six years before he reached out to me for coaching. He could finally afford to buy it after our six-month partnership. I was the first one he took for a spin the day he bought it.

“Jay, it’s Hailey Harris. I have someone you should meet—an aspiring actress who is the next Cameron Diaz.”

Across from me, Sonia shoots me a look.

“What’s she done?” Jay asks.

“Nothing yet, but there’s interest.”

Another look from Sonia. If she’s going to be successful, she needs to understand that the lightning speed way to achieve her goals is to pretend she already has.

“Like to help, Double H, but my roster’s kinda full right now,” Jay says dismissively.

Oh, how quickly people forget what it’s like to be new to town, with limited experience and contacts, and be shut out of every opportunity. When Jay first came to me, his non-Californian upbringing was hindering his ability to secure meetings with potential clients. The big agencies wouldn’t touch him despite a mediocre client list in the Atlanta film industry because he wasn’t part of the Hollywood boys’ club.

Appealing to his good nature won’t work and I’d never make my clients feel as though they owe me one, so...

“Okay, no problem. She’s meeting with Executive Talent but I thought I’d do you the solid of seeing her first,” I say.

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