Page 18 of Every Star that Shines

Delanie flashed a smile at her as she zipped up her second boot. “No problem, Mom. I’m happy to help.” Surprisingly, she meant it.

As she carried the box of albums out to her car, she realized that for the past fifteen minutes, she hadn’t thought about her career troubles once. And it had been wonderful.

Yep, maybe this was exactly what she needed.

Several hours later, Delanie and her mother had packed up the kitchen, putting items to donate in a pile in the shed and stacking the boxes of things to put in the yard sale in the living room. After a break to eat lunch, which consisted of some reheated homemade chunky soup from Nan’s freezer, they had tackled Nan and Pops’s bedroom. Cheryl was sorting the closet, and Delanie sat on Nan’s dressing table stool, deciding what to do with the collection of vintage perfume bottles and the other brass and glass items Nan had kept on the table. Nan did like her sparkle.

“So, how are things going with that young man you’re seeing?” Cheryl asked, taking an old blue button-down men’s shirt off a hanger and inspecting it.

Delanie studied the vintage glass perfume atomizer she had just picked up from Nan’s dresser, avoiding her mother’s gaze. “They’re not.”

In the dressing table mirror, Delanie saw Cheryl turn to her in surprise. “What happened? It sounded like he was a real gem, getting you that big role you wanted and everything.”

Delanie sighed. She put the atomizer in the box of things to sell on the floor beside her, then sat erect and tucked her hands together between her thighs. “Yeah, about that . . . he did get me that role, and then he took it away from me. We broke up.”

That wasn’t exactly accurate, but Josh may as well have taken her job away, even if the decision hadn’t been his. He hadn’t fought for her at all, and he had been the one to give her the bad news. Marie had been right about him all along. Chalk one more mark under Delanie only dates losers who stab her in the back.

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.” Cheryl’s arms encircled Delanie’s shoulders in an awkward hunched-over side-hug before Delanie even realized her mother had come around the queen bed. Then Cheryl straightened. “Well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. There’ll be someone else, you’ll see. I met a nice young man when I went to the clinic the other week for my check-up, a new doctor. He said he’s planning to stay in town for a while. And he’s single.”

There it was. Delanie rolled her eyes and picked up another bottle. Trust Cheryl Fletcher to start plotting Delanie’s next failed relationship in the breath after she had heard about the last one. Delanie wasn’t even shocked that her mother had asked about the new doctor’s relationship status—not after ten years of Cheryl trying to set her up.

“Mom, I appreciate that you’re trying to lift my spirits, but I’m not here to date anyone. I’m only here for two months, and then I’ll be going back to Vancouver. Besides, my love life isn’t exactly my biggest concern right now.”

“Oh?”

Surprisingly, Cheryl didn’t press, just kept pulling clothes from the closet and folding them in mid-air before arranging them in neat piles on the floral quilt. Delanie let the question hang while she sorted several other items between the give and sell boxes, then turned to her mother. She was going to have to explain the situation sooner or later. Might as well get it over with. She just wished her stomach would loosen its death grip on her spleen while she did it.

“So, do you remember my YouTube channel?”

“Yes, the one where you do little skits and songs and such? What about it?”

“I got cancelled last week.”

Cheryl frowned. “Cancelled? How can you get cancelled from a publicly available website? Did they close your account?”

Delanie had been afraid of this. “Not cancelled by the platform. Cancelled by my fans.”

Cheryl’s brow furrowed deeper in confusion.

Delanie sighed. “Some people got upset about a video I made a few years ago, and there was a huge deal about it on Twitter. That’s why I lost the job. The studio didn’t want to be associated with the controversy.” She picked up a tiny lead crystal bud vase, relishing the bumpy texture in her hand. “So I’m back to square one in my acting career. Worse, actually. I’m like a leper in the acting community now. No one wants to work with me.”

Cheryl came and sat on the edge of the bed next to Delanie. “So you got cancelled”—she made air quotes around the word—“because of something you did years ago? And that lost you your job?”

And my boyfriend. And at least half my Patreon supporters . . . so far. There was no need to say that out loud though. Delanie nodded, her throat tight.

Cheryl shook her head. “There’s just no grace nowadays. What was the video even about?”

“Something that had nothing to do with why they’re mad.”

Delanie explained the situation as briefly as she could, and what Marie had advised her to do. Saying it out loud again, she had to agree with her mother. That she should be cancelled for that made no sense to her.

Sure, she had painted Nathan Tait as a hero in the original video, because, at the time, he was the spokesman for a U.S. Shop Local, Shop American-Made campaign. It was the reason she had chosen Tait’s latest blockbuster as the source material for her skit in the first place. No one was shouting that you shouldn’t shop local now because Nathan Tait turned out to be a dirtbag. No, they had chosen to ruin her career, not his—not that his career was in any great shape either. He had already lost several big movie franchise contracts for roles he’d been filling for years. Still, he had earned his consequences, and she hadn’t.

Like her mother said, where was the grace? What happened to the years of putting out excellent content that her fans loved? Did those videos—and all the raving and approving comments that had gone with them—now mean nothing?

Had the trolls finally won?

“Well, that sounds ridiculous to me,” Cheryl declared. “I think your friend Marie is right. If you let this thing blow over, everything will go back to normal. People’s memories are short, you’ll see. And just like with the guy, this job must not have been meant to be. That means something better is waiting in the wings.”

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