by Lila Monroe
I follow her through the lobby, already dreaming of a hot shower, but she suddenly stops dead. “Oh my God,” Poppy whisper-squeals. “Is that Selena Owens?”
I turn to look at the gorgeous woman sitting at a table near the bar. Even incognito in jeans and Ray-Ban shades, there’s no missing basically the most famous actress in Hollywood. “Now, why couldn’t I have run into Wes looking like that?” I ask, taking in the glossy dark hair and luminous skin.
Poppy grins. “Because you’re not a mega movie star who probably spends five hours a day making her face look that perfect.”
“What’s five hours between friends? So, I’ll miss some sleep,” I quip, still staring. Me, and half the hotel lobby, too. Now I see why she’s always on the cover of some magazine or being voted Most Perfect Being to Ever Grace the Earth: the woman is stunning, and exudes a kind of charisma that makes it hard to look away, even when all she’s doing is sipping on an iced tea, chatting to some guy.
“I love her,” Poppy sighs. “She was amazing in Vampire Quest, and she and Ryder are the hottest couple . . . Is that him?” she asks, squinting for a better view. The guy she’s with leans back, gesturing for a waiter, and my heart plummets to the sub-basement level.
Because seriously? Like I haven’t suffered enough today.
“That’s no Ryder,” I gulp, hit with resignation and dread all at once. “It’s him.”
“Who?” Poppy frowns.
“HIM!” I hiss again, ducking behind a potted plant. Dammit. He must have jumped in a cab instead of schlepping the last few blocks on foot. “Wes!”
“Your Wes?” Poppy gasps. “The ghost of ex boyfriends past Wes? Oh my God, does he know her? Are they dating?”
“Don’t stare!” I try to yank her back, but it’s too late. Wes looks over and sees her gawping. And then notices me standing there, too.
He raises his hand in a wave.
Mothertrucker.
“What should we do?” Poppy whispers, frozen beside me. Then Selena Owens—Selena Owens!—turns and follows his eye-line. She murmurs something to him, then smiles at us, beckoning.
“She’s inviting us over!” Poppy squeals.
“Don’t you dare go.” I try to stop her, but Poppy is like a deer in the headlights, powerless to resist the Hollywood charm. She drifts towards their table like a woman possessed.
“Poppy!” I hiss. “Come back!”
“I can’t!” she says helplessly. “Her pores are so clear!”
I have no choice but to follow: still sweaty, still drenched in green smoothie, only now the mess on my shirt is congealed and drying, and the “mild whiff” is a full-on sewage stink.
This is officially the worst day of my life.
“. . . And you should have totally been nominated for an Oscar,” Poppy is saying breathlessly when I arrive at the table. “You were robbed!”
“Well, thank you.” Selena gives us a friendly smile. “You guys know Wes?”
“Katie is . . . an old friend of mine,” Wes jumps in, and I try not to wince.
Friend.
I mean if your friend slept over four nights a week and learned your breakfast order by heart and knows the face you make when you come, then sure, we’re just great pals.
“Wes is the best,” Selena coos. “He’s my knight in shining armor, aren’t you, babe?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Wes chuckles, because why not? Babe. If this was a contest in who won our breakup, he wouldn’t just be claiming the gold medal right now, he’d be taking a victory lap around the stadium, hoisted on the shoulders of the women’s relay team.
“Katie’s doing great, too,” Poppy blurts suddenly. “She has a blog. And a book deal. It’s coming out next month, she’s famous. I mean, not your kind of famous,” she adds to Selena. “But she has millions of readers and tons of clients. She’s brilliant,” she adds, giving Wes a pointed look.
God bless my friend.
“That’s awesome!” Selena exclaims. “What kind of blog?”
“Uh, it’s kind of a relationship/human behavior thing . . .” I say vaguely, but Poppy jumps in again.
“She’s the Breakup Artist,” she says proudly. “If you’re trying to get over someone, or figure out how to end things, she’s your girl. She’s helped thousands of people move on from the toxic assholes in their lives.”
Another glare at Wes, and I know I should stop her, but it’s not like I can brag about my own achievements. At least now he knows I’m more than just a girl who can’t even drink a smoothie right.
“The Breakup Artist . . .” Selena repeats thoughtfully. “What a great idea.”
There’s a pause. The place where Wes might say something pleasantly polite about my life, too. Way to go, Katie. Good for you. Hell, even a general murmur to acknowledge that I continued to exist after he decided to nope on out of our relationship. But instead, he just sits there, looking totally casual. Like I’m a former classmate or someone he waved at a couple of times on the train. Not the girl who would fall asleep in the crook of his arm and tied herself up in knots trying to make him happy, who thought the sun shined out of his perfectly formed derriere.
I guess I learned my lesson there.
“Well, it was great to meet you, but we should get going,” I say, before I can embarrass myself in some new, as yet unknown way. “Good luck with, umm, everything.”
“You too!” Selena beams. “Hopefully we’ll see you again soon!”
Sure, at the next swanky premiere, maybe. Or on the beach at St. Barts for New Year’s. I give another smile and nod, but as I drag Poppy away, I know I’m never laying eyes on them again. Never mind that Wes clearly runs in different, gold-plated circles from me now; my self-esteem could never stand it.
The Gods of Romance would never be so cruel.
2
Katie
I grab that change of clothes from Poppy before heading back downtown to meet my editor, Eliza, for lunch at a trendy little bar on the Lower East Side. As soon as I step in the door, I clock a server hurrying past with a tray of juicy-looking burgers and big green salads. My stomach lets out a rumble. The only thing better than lunch . . . is lunch on someone else’s expense account.
“Eliza!” I call when I spy her sitting at a bistro table by the window, tapping away at her phone. She looks like she tripped and fell directly out of a J.Crew catalog, with big round tortoiseshell glasses and lipstick in a killer shade of red. “Hey!”
“The Breakup Artist in the flesh!” she says, standing up to give me an enthusiastic hug. “How are you?”
For one demented second I almost blurt out the whole story of running into Wes—Selena freakin’ Owens! A green smoothie spray tan!—before pulling myself together and offering a wide, hopefully professional smile. We’re still in that weird place between “friends” and “my future career depends on your continued support,” and I don’t want her thinking she signed a total klutz. “I’m good,” I tell her, though I’m not entirely sure which one of us I’m trying to convince. “I’m great, actually. How are you?” The last thing I need is for everyone to know that the Breakup Artist of all people isn’t over her own ex—on top of which, I am over him. Completely. What happened between us is ancient history.
I was just startled, that’s all.
By his pecs.
And the rest of him.
Eliza’s only a few years older than me, and we chat easily about our respective neighborhoods in Brooklyn and a new Netflix documentary series we’re both obsessed with about a competitive shuffleboard team full of backstabbing and intrigue. When the conversation turns to my book, though—and, more specifically, the marketing plan, which was the whole point of this lunch to begin with—I see her hesitate.
“I’ll be honest,” she says slowly, poking at the quinoa in her salad. “The budget isn’t quite what we hoped for. The publisher is putting a lot of this season’s publicity resources toward Dick Johnson’s new book.”
I grimace, I c
an’t help it. “The Real Man’s Real-Man Guide to Being a Real Man?”
Eliza winces. “So you’ve heard of it.”
“I think everyone in the city has heard of it, honestly.” The bald-headed shock jock started his career as an angry, fist-shaking YouTube star before transitioning to a wildly popular satellite radio show. His first book comes out the same week as mine does, and it seems like he’s been everywhere for the last few months, challenging unsuspecting strangers to arm wrestling matches and spontaneously ripping his shirt open to pound his chest, his thick-necked picture leering from billboards all over New York. Just last week he was on Jimmy Kimmel eating a six-foot-long Italian combo all by himself while talking with his mouth full about how emotions are for weenies and you gotta show broads who’s boss. “He seems like a real charmer.”
“To be fair, I guess there are only so many things a person can do with a name like Dick Johnson,” Eliza says with a rueful smile. “But people can’t get enough of him. Marketing is sending him on a twenty-city tour of CrossFit gyms and Buffalo Wild Wings all across America.”
“Very on brand,” I agree, popping a French fry into my mouth. The truth is, I’m disappointed, but I try not to let it show. “So what you’re saying is that I shouldn’t expect to see my face on the side of a city bus anytime soon, I take it?”
“Honestly,” Eliza confides, “with the amount of money they’re allocating we’ll be lucky if I can find a pedicab driver to hold up a picture of you while they schlep a bunch of tourists through Little Italy.” Then she brightens. “But don’t worry! We’ll figure something out. We just have to get a little bit creative, that’s all.”
“I can do creative,” I promise, wracking my brain for ideas. “Like . . . I could stand in Times Square and offer to coach people through their breakups for free?”
“You could stand in Times Square in your underwear and offer to coach people through their breakups for free,” Eliza counters, then wrinkles her nose. “I’m kidding. I mean, mostly.”
We spend the rest of lunch batting other ideas back and forth—Breakup Artist starter packs with branded travel packs of tissues, a special Spotify playlist—but by the time we get the check I can’t help but feel a little bit deflated. Eliza is clearly trying to hold it together and put on a good show, but the low-grade panic is visible all over her face. She’s still at the beginning of her career, and I know she took a risk on me. I don’t want to blow this opportunity, for both our sakes.
“Don’t worry!” she instructs me as we’re hugging goodbye. “We’ll figure it out. It’s going to be fine.”
I try not to notice that she doesn’t sound particularly confident. “It’s going to be great,” I correct her. “We don’t need any of Dick Johnson’s ridiculous publicity stunts to sell this book.”
Still, I google “how many calories in a six-foot hero” on the subway ride home.
By the time I get home, I’m ready for happy hour. Or sympathy hour. Or any hour that involves wine. Luckily, my cousin, April, is already hanging out with our friend Natalie, a mostly empty bottle of wine on the coffee table between them.
“There she is,” April greets me cheerfully. “How was your day?”
“Oh, you know.” I smile tiredly, nodding at the wine instead of answering. “Is there any more of that?”
“Fresh bottle of white in the fridge,” Natalie reports. “That bad, huh?”
I pour myself a generous glass and bring the bottle back into the living room, topping off both their glasses before sinking down into the overstuffed armchair and filling them in on the day’s misadventures. It’s nice to have someone to talk-slash-despair with. I moved in with April a few months back, and soon found that the apartment is the unofficial hangout spot for all her friends, and her boyfriend, Seth. It can get loud, especially on Bachelor nights, but the truth is, I like the company—I’m an only child, and growing up I always wished for sisters.
And on days like this, the #girlsquad doesn’t disappoint.
“Screw that guy,” Natalie says when I’m finished telling them about my little reunion with Wes. “You’re better off without him.”
“Seriously,” April chimes in. “California can have him. And if the Big One hits and that part of the country just happens to break off and he goes floating away into the Pacific, never to be heard from again . . .” She makes a bon voyage gesture with her wine glass. “Well, good riddance.”
“Again,” Natalie finishes.
I smile. The two of them are nothing if not loyal. “I mean, he is the worst,” I agree, taking a sip of my wine. “But the more I think about it, I guess there’s also a part of me that’s grateful to him?”
“That’s very zen of you,” April says, eyeing me across the room.
“No, I mean it!” I insist. “Like, yes, he ghosted. Yes, he broke my tender, sensitive twenty-three-year-old heart.”
“Yes, the sex was only so-so,” April reminds me.
“Also true,” I say with a laugh. “But without him I never would have started my blog. I never would have gotten a book deal. I never would have become the Breakup Artist in the first place. Who knows what I’d be doing instead?”
Nat tilts her head to the side like, fair point. “To Wes?” she asks, raising her glass in a toast.
I make a face. “I mean, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Let’s not get crazy,” April agrees with a laugh.
We’re trying to settle on a dinner plan—Natalie wants takeout, and April is jonesing for a trip to the Korean barbecue place around the block—when my phone starts vibrating itself across the coffee table, a restricted number flashing across the screen.
“I should take this,” I say, peeling myself out of the armchair. “Could be a new client.” I head into my bedroom as I swipe to answer. “This is Katie.”
“Katie, hi,” says a smooth-sounding woman’s voice on the other end. “My name is Suzie Simon. I’m a publicist calling on behalf of Selena Owens. Do you have a minute to chat?”
What in the who?
I almost choke on my own tongue, tripping distractedly over the area rug in my bedroom and thwacking my shin on an open dresser drawer. “Ow!” I yelp, dropping the phone, which goes skittering across the floor and into the dust-bunny forest underneath the bed. I dive for it, fishing it out just in time to hear Suzie say, “. . . hello?”
“I’m here!” I all but shout, scrambling breathlessly to my feet. “I’m here. I’m sorry, you’re calling on behalf of who now?”
“Selena Owens?” Suzie repeats, a little curiously. “I’m calling to see if you might be available for a meeting, this evening if it’s not too last minute. We have an opening at 7:50.”
I sit down on the edge of the mattress, my head still spinning. “I don’t . . . I mean, what kind of meeting?” Nothing about this conversation is making sense. What on earth could Selena Owens want to talk to me about? Until today, the closest I’ve ever gotten to fame was standing outside the Today Show studio the first week I moved to New York, trying to get a glimpse of Al Roker.
“I think it’s probably better if I explain more in person,” Suzie says, “but apparently you made quite the impression on her this morning. She’d like to talk to you about a potential collaboration.”
“A collaboration,” I repeat dumbly. “Between me and Selena.”
“That’s right.” Suzie rattles off the address of the hotel from this morning. “See you soon.”
Once we hang up, I stare at my phone for a long minute before padding dazedly back into the living room, where April and Natalie are still bickering over takeout menus. “Katie, do you say ‘gyro’?” Natalie asks, looking up. “Or ‘yee-ro’? I can never get it right.”
“You are fully not going to believe this,” I report, filling them in on the call.
“You’re right,” Natalie says when I’m finished. Both of them are gaping at me. “I don’t believe it.”
“Maybe she was so taken with you at the hotel
this morning that she wants to offer you a role in her latest movie?” April suggests.
“Yeah, nobody wears a cup full of pureed kale like yours truly,” I joke. “There’s a spark to my work that can’t be taught.”
“You have to go, obviously!” Natalie bounces up off the couch and makes a beeline for my bedroom—and my closet. “If only so you can come back and tell us all about it. And find out what moisturizer she uses.”
“And her shampoo,” April agrees, crowding in.
“And if she really hooked up with the hot Hemsworth in the elevator at the Oscars after-party!”
“Which one is the hot Hemsworth?” I ask, distracted.
Both their heads whip around.
“If you even have to ask!”
After rifling through every item of clothing I possess—and half April’s wardrobe, too—we decide to go polished casual, in a pair of dark, high-waisted jeans and a sleek little blazer over a cream-colored T-shirt. “Perfect,” April claps as Natalie touches up my lipstick. “Very ‘Just dropping by on my way to fabulous drinks.’ ”
“I mean, that wine is pretty fabulous, so technically I am,” I crack. Then I see the time. “Crapwaffle!” I exclaim.
“It’s OK, I called an Uber,” Natalie says, checking her phone. “And he’s just arriving. Good luck!”
I race downstairs and pile into the car, my heart pounding. What is this even about? As the city blurs outside the window, I dig my phone out of my purse and type Selena’s name into the search bar.
Research, always key.
Some of what comes up I already know. She got her big break opposite Ryder Lowell in a blockbuster adaptation of a bestselling YA book five years ago. Cue their fairytale Hollywood romance, the houses in Malibu and Aspen and Cannes . . . I’ll admit to keeping a list of celebrity couples who could benefit from my services (Real Housewives, call me!), but it looks like the two of them are blissfully, sloppily happy. Filming just wrapped on their latest movie, a massive, gazillion-dollar sure-to-be blockbuster that Vanity Fair described as “Titanic in space,” and the gossip sites even have a paparazzi shot of the two of from just last week, sucking face in a private booth at a posh downtown club. Plus, they just adopted a designer doodle puppy named Jimmy Chew (and showed him off to their 3 million Instagram followers).
