She knew the answer to the question, had always known it. People would rather see female success as blond, pale, and pretty, as if a woman’s fame and fortune were like beauty itself—unearned gifts from the gods, not the result of grinding work and nurtured talent. People saw what they wanted to see, even when it was a willful lie. She’d fallen into that trap when she’d sent in a photo so polar opposite to who she actually was.
“No,” Paris said. She wasn’t going to double down on a mistake.
“The soup isn’t what you wanted?”
“No, you can’t go about pretending to be Anita Topaz.”
“Don’t you even want to hear my proposal?”
“No.” She stirred her chowder, wishing she hadn’t ordered it. She wanted to leave but if she bailed, Lisa would want to know why. She didn’t want to explain any of this to anybody.
“It would be only for that meeting they want. To go and tell them face-to-face to stop asking. I can do Garbo.” Diana struck a tragic reclining pose and intoned sadly, “I want to be alone…”
Well, damn it. The part of Paris’s brain that wanted Boss Anxiety to leave her life forever, and would do anything to get some peace, thought that was a feasible idea. But the part of her brain that was the anxiety immediately cowered at the possibility of being discovered a liar.
She’d have to run again, the voice of anxiety warned. She’d have to find a new place to hide and she liked where she was. She’d been safe until—until the letter. Safe until Diana showed up with her magic hands and now her ridiculous ideas.
“You wouldn’t have to pay me much, only enough to live on until the meeting.” There was a whisper of desperation in Diana’s voice. “That’s a couple weeks rent, some food money. It would give me enough time to line up my next gig. Without having to sponge off my parents who think I ought to be a dental hygienist and marry the richest patient I can find.”
Suspecting she was being teased, Paris risked a glance at Diana’s face. “What happened to your freckles?” Again, it wasn’t the question she meant to ask.
The blue eyes blinked in surprise. “Full coverage foundation. Are you listening?”
“Yes. Still no.” The eye color must be contact lenses. Was the blond hair real, or the red hair she’d worn before? Or neither? Diana was like a gamer’s avatar with swap-out options. If so, did that make Paris the game? Or was life in general Diana’s playground?
“It would get everyone off your back. I could do imperious. Eccentric. Or Tipsy McStaggers. If they think you’ll be an embarrassment—”
“N-O. No.”
“Can I have your oyster crackers? If you don’t want them.”
Paris sighed and handed them over.
Diana tore open the packet and popped several of the tiny saltines into her mouth. “Thanks. I skipped lunch and the vodka is going to my head.”
“That’s not good for you.”
With a gesture at herself, Diana said, “This took more than two minutes in front of a mirror.”
“I’m sure it did. What did you do to your shoulder?”
Diana reflexively glanced at the telltale bump. “War wound.”
Sure. That was believable. “Which war?”
“It was a conflict of many nations.”
“Right.” Paris made herself eat her soup and a long silence fell between them. When her spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl there was only a thin line of liquid left in Diana’s cocktail glass. “Look, I’m sorry you went to all that trouble—”
“It’s not the first time I didn’t get the part after killing it in the audition. I did get her right, didn’t I?”
Paris did not want to admit that Diana did in fact look the part. “Anita Topaz doesn’t exist—except in that stupid picture.”
“Was the picture your idea?”
“It was the publisher’s annual manuscript contest. They wanted a photo with the submission, and I wanted my odds to be the best possible.” And she hadn’t wanted anyone who followed gaming to recognize her. But she wasn’t going to tell Diana that.
“And judges like glamorous blondes,” Diana said, half to herself. “This dress has landed me more than one part.”
“I’ll bet it has.” Paris didn’t mean to sound so fervent, and Diana’s brows immediately lowered.
“They get to look. Nobody gets to touch.”
Lucky Nobody. Paris was flooded with relief that she hadn’t said that aloud. “I can’t do it. So no. Thank you for—for being concerned about me.”
“Well, enlightened self-interest played a part. I am about on my last dime and it’s official. No more play paychecks. The idea of a luxury weekend and theater and free food, it was really tempting.”
“It wouldn’t work out.”
“You could change your mind. I’ll hold out hope.” Smiling, Diana slid a piece of paper across the table. “My phone number. Just in case.”
“I won’t change my mind.” She tucked the paper in her pocket. It wasn’t as if she could leave it on the table for anyone to find.
“I don’t suppose you’d sign my book, would you?”
“I—Nobody has ever asked me to do that before.”
“I promise not to put it on eBay.”
Diana’s American accent had slipped a little. She still didn’t sound at all like Irish Lass had—more British than that. The sheer flexibility of Diana’s voice and manner would be fascinating under other circumstances. “How do you think Anita would sign it?”
“With a big red marker, and she’d add XX-OO-XX at the bottom.”
Paris frowned. “You know, Anita is sometimes called the Queen of the Smart Bodice Rippers.”
“I know. I saw it on the covers of the first two books. I really like that the women are smart and ambitious and, well, know how to do things. They’re competent. And take care of themselves before they meet Mr. Right.”
“I think smart women are sexy,” Paris admitted.
Diana blinked. “So smart women don’t like red ink and X’s and O’s?”
“Maybe some do.” It was oddly thrilling to consider how to sign the book. That she’d published five and never done it before was a cost of her seclusion. Like standing up for her adorable landladies at their wedding, it was another experience sacrificed at the altar of safety.
She set aside the sharp prod of bitterness. “I only have an ordinary pen. It’ll have to do.” She scribbled a few words, signed “Anita Topaz” awkwardly and pushed the book back across the table to Diana.
Diana opened the book to the cover page and read aloud, “To the most amazing actress I know.” The smile she gave Paris was dazzling. “Thank you! That is the best review I’ve ever received.”
“Lisa still hasn’t recognized you.”
“I am good at my own makeup and costume.” She tucked the book in her handbag. “And I don’t suppose I could ask you for one small favor?”
“You can ask,” Paris said warily.
“I don’t suppose you’d buy my drink?” Diana’s eyelashes fluttered so hard and obviously that Paris had to laugh.
“Sure. Not a big deal. I was going to offer.” Which was the truth.
“Thanks.” Diana rose gracefully to her feet and snuggled her fur coat around her shoulders. The boots added at least four inches to her height, but she still seemed tiny. Fragile even, Paris thought. “See you around maybe.”
“Maybe.”
She blew a kiss to the guys at the bar and then the door closed behind her. A moment later she passed the window and Paris watched her until she was out of sight.
She was relieved. Diana’s frivolous, risky proposal was out of her reach.
Lisa filled the seat that Diana had vacated. “Spill it.”
“I don’t—”
“Yes you do. That was quite possibly the strangest woman to ever walk in here, and that includes you.”
“Why am I strange?”
“A, you bake brownies for a bar. B, you don’t need the money. C, you don’t
even drink.”
“I told you, I anxiety bake and I don’t want to eat it all by myself. I’d end up with a coronary.”
Lisa cocked her head. “D, you’re a butch that bakes and you’re single. I mean, that right there puts you the category of Things that Make Me Go Hmm.”
Paris dug in her pocket. “I got this letter,” she began. Her head was spinning. “Look.”
Lisa unfolded the paper and read it. “Wowie zowie. Hamilton tickets? You’re going, right?”
“I can’t. I don’t want to do their conference talk, and besides, they think I’m someone else.” As Lisa’s eyebrows shot up, she hastily added, “I mean, they don’t know I’m me. Who I really am.”
“A butch who bakes?”
“Yes, they don’t know the lesbian thing. They don’t publish queer books. Plus they think I’m a willowy fragile blond bombshell.”
“Why would they think that?”
“I may have sent them a photo, years ago. Which I totally regret now,” she added hastily.
“A photo like the woman who just left? In the really bad fake fur?”
“It was fake?”
“Yes, most fur is fake these days, but this was bad fake fur. But I’d bet my eyeteeth that those mammoth rocks she was wearing were the real deal.”
Diana the starving actress had real emeralds? “You really didn’t recognize her?”
“I felt like I’d seen her before. Like a bit part in a movie.”
“Change the hair to red,” Paris suggested.
Lisa gaped. “You’re kidding. That was Fiona?”
“Fiona?”
A fine line appeared between Lisa’s eyebrows. “The actress. Tomato soup and a half-pint. Fiona.”
Paris didn’t know if she should tell Lisa that “Fiona” also went by “Diana.” If she’d felt bewildered before she was way past that now. “That was her.”
Lisa’s brow was furrowed. “So she found your letter the other day. This letter?”
Paris nodded.
“And now she wants to pretend to be you for this meeting. Hamilton tickets, weekend in the big city, all that.”
It was Paris’s turn to gape. “How did you figure that out?”
Lisa’s shrug said that it was obvious to a child. “It makes sense.”
“On what planet? Who wants to bamboozle a conglomerate with boatloads of lawyers on speed dial? Not me. I’m already on shaky ground having sent in a fake photo for that contest. I can’t double down. And I don’t want to go to their freaking meeting.”
“You should go.” Lisa said it with an air of finality, as if she’d run the entire game play through in her head and had the inescapable winning play strategy. Her certainty was deeply annoying.
Paris pushed back her chair, ready to flee. “We’re not going to agree.”
“You should go and be you. Don’t worry about the photo. Let them see you. The real you. That’ll be the end of it.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Paris snapped.
“Don’t be thick. They want her.” Lisa pointed in the direction Diana had headed. “Every newscaster on their network looks like that. But they’ve got you. If they’re chauvinist assholes—and they probably are—the meeting will last five minutes. There’s a chance, I suppose, that they could be decent people. That they’ll listen to you explain that you can’t do public appearances and leave you alone.”
“Have you ever read anything about the CEO, Reynard? He’s Jabba the Hut and thinks he’s Han Solo. I’d have never chosen them as a publisher. Just my luck they bought the one I had.”
“He’s not Jabba the Hut. Don’t give him that much credit ”
“Okay, you got me there.” Paris’s laugh turned rueful. “I can’t. You know why.”
“I know that it wouldn’t be easy.” Her eyes were more sympathetic now. “I never had anyone make a video game where the goal was raping and dismembering me. I can’t even imagine it and that’s probably good. I get how scary that was.”
“And then they told the world where I lived.” Paris rested her elbows on her knees, though she was still primed to head for the door.
“Little dick asshats. Do they run Anita Topaz’s life?”
“No. But they still scare Paris Ellison. They’re still out there.”
Lisa was shaking her head. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go to this meeting. You say ‘This is me, I’m of no use to you the way you want,’ and you tell them to get someone else. Then you go see Hamilton. Come home and write books. It all works out.”
“And if they decide I’ve been a fraud and dump Anita Topaz?”
Lisa’s eyeroll was epic. “Laugh all the way to their chief competitor. Honey, you’ve got bank and you’re bankable as a writer. Surely that counts as some kind of armor.”
Paris shook her head. “You make everything sound so simple.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.” She waved a hand as if to vanquish all such criticism. “Look. I don’t have anxiety disorder and I’m not an introvert on top of that, so, yeah, I know, I look at it differently than you do.” She glanced at the far end of the bar where loud words were being exchanged over baseball and politics. Twisting her long hair around her hand she pushed back from the table. “You can do it Fiona’s way if you want. Though I don’t know where she got those emeralds.”
Utterly bewildered and bemused, Paris watched as Lisa approached the argument, timing the release of her hair so it spilled around her shoulders in a dazzling distraction. “Fellas, fellas,” she cajoled. “Don’t make me shoot you.”
Chapter Eleven
With a wave at Lisa she headed out in the opposite direction from Diana, even though that meant going the long way around to the grocery store. At least the wind had finally let up and the sun was warming when it peeked between the clouds. Laden with chocolate chips, flour, sugar, and all the other necessities of her break-even brownie-making sideline, she made it home feeling as if she’d escaped from sirens trying to pull her into their alluring vortex.
Diana’s phone number felt like fire in her pocket. She immediately dropped it into the kitchen junk drawer where, like so many of her favorite utensils over the years, it would never be seen again. With any luck.
She was putting the groceries away when Hobbit scratched at the door. He preferred mornings, but sometimes he showed up for tea as well. “Beggar,” she said as he coiled past her ankles to sniff disapprovingly at his bowl. “Just how many houses do you hit in a day?”
Hobbit assumed a stony vigil over the empty dish and fixed her with his yellow eyes.
Paris caved in five seconds. “What? You don’t like that I’m so judgmental about it? Truth is truth, buddy.”
She was setting the bag of dry food back into the cupboard when the answering machine picked up an incoming call.
An unrelentingly perky voice announced herself as calling from Reynard House. “Mr. Reynard has personally asked me to reach out to you about an exciting new agenda item for the meeting. A teleplay of Hands Off the Merchandise is being negotiated! Mr. Reynard is trying to arrange for you to also meet the screenwriter who might be taking on the project. We are all so thrilled to be able to elevate the Anita Topaz brand to such a high level. I am looking through the file for the meeting and I don’t see that we have noted your arrival time. I would appreciate it if you would call me back…”
The voice was still talking but Paris couldn’t take it in. They were offering a movie deal.
Diana’s plan floated through her mind. Then Lisa’s insistence that Paris should go, and it would all be okay.
“Foul word,” she muttered. Then burst out so loudly it echoed, “Foul, foul, foul word!”
The answering machine let out an off-key beep as the call disconnected.
What was she going to do? They were determined to make Anita Topaz more famous. Yes, yes, yes, this was a happy problem. Lots of people would give up body parts for an opportunity like this.
The
encounter with Diana underscored the cherry on top for them: sure Anita made them money, but they also thought she was their version of an ideal female. That’s who they wanted as their Reynard Media Group Publishing Poster Girl.
Also true—book money paled next to movie money. It raised the stakes all around. If she still said a big N-O to personal contact and publicity, they’d probably move on to someone more agreeable. Anita Topaz was a name but this business had a lot of names.
When women interfered with making money, the world was merciless. She could never forget that. Anonymous Internet trolls had threatened her life, sent the most ugly and disgusting pictures, and loaded emails with viruses and ransomware. Reynard House wouldn’t do any of that. It would be bloodless: they would fill her place with another player without a moment’s hesitation.
And she’d lose a possible movie deal. Just like she’d lost her old life and a girlfriend and signing books and talking to fans at ComicCon and PAX West.
All the bitterness welled up, stunning her to tears. Her mother would call this maundering a foolish waste. Bitterness will rob you of your will to overcome, she would have said. She missed her mother every day, and yet was glad Momma hadn’t been around when ugliness had pulled her daughter’s life down into the deep.
Wiping her eyes, Paris struggled to take a few calming breaths. Anxiety was popping at her eardrums and had leached color out of her vision. Too many choices, too many unknowns.
Honeysuckle and gentle surf. Deep breath. Her adorable landladies getting married. Deep breath.
After a few minutes she could take comfort in the soft purple curtains at the kitchen window and the steady crunch of Hobbit enjoying his snack. Another near miss from a full-out anxiety attack—she couldn’t go on like this. Ignoring the situation wasn’t working. She had to make a decision.
One of her biggest triggers was too many choices. Struggling to anticipate every possible outcome put her mental processes into a spiral loop that eventually crowded out everything else. It was probably why she had felt so comfortable gaming. Choices were limited, outcomes were knowable. There was always an off switch, and it was possible, even advisable, to start over sometimes.
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