Picture Perfect

‘If I can,’ the girl said. ‘I also do waitressing and valet parking, anything really.’

‘Good for you,’ said Maggie, aware that it might sound patronizing, but she truly did respect hard work.

Maggie sat on the round love seat in the centre of the room, and pulled off one purple Givenchy shoe.

‘Wearing these shoes is what I imagine Chinese footbinding was like,’ she said as she rubbed her feet. ‘I said I’m an eight but I think I should have taken the eight and a half.’

‘Yeah,’ said the girl. ‘I’m an eight in some shoes and an eight and a half in others.’ There was a pause and then the girl spoke again. ‘Your dress is amazing.’

Maggie looked down at her figure-hugging lilac Lanvin dress and sighed. ‘It’s okay, I guess. Took me and my stylists over half a year to organize this outfit and I wasn’t even presenting. Sometimes it’s exhausting being perfect,’ she said dramatically and laughed.

The girl smiled shyly and Maggie shook her head. ‘Are you sure you’re not an actress? Have you ever tried it? Even modelling, perhaps? The camera would absolutely love you, you’re incredibly beautiful.’

‘I never really thought about it,’ said the girl, blinking a few times and frowning. ‘My parents think being an actor is a waste of time and education, unless of course you’re on Broadway in some obscure Russian play.’ She laughed.

‘Maybe,’ said Maggie defensively. ‘But my house in Malibu is evidence that they’re wrong.’

The girl laughed politely. ‘I guess I’ve never even thought about acting.’

Maggie narrowed her eyes at her. Was she being disingenuous or was she serious? False modesty was something Maggie couldn’t stand, along with liars and cheaters, which often made her wonder why she was still living in LA.

‘What do you want to do?’ she asked.

‘My mom would like me to do law, but I can’t see myself doing all that arguing every day,’ she said. ‘If I get to choose, I guess I’d like to be a social worker or something.’

Maggie’s head snapped up.

‘What for?’ she said. ‘Social workers are assholes. They say one thing, but do another.’

‘Really?’ The girl frowned. ‘I just like helping people.’

‘Then I suggest you find another way,’ said Maggie roughly as she stood up, shoes in hand.

‘Okay,’ said the girl, looking intimidated.

Sometimes, Maggie knew, she could be almost too candid, too raw. But this was also what made her such a powerful presence on screen. She wasn’t afraid to show her character’s pain on her face or in the way she moved.

Softening, she smiled at the girl.

‘I haven’t introduced myself, I’m Maggie Hall,’ she said, extending her hand. She hated it when big stars just assumed everyone knew who they were. Manners are free, as Zoe always reminded her clients.

‘I know who you are,’ said the girl shyly, taking Maggie’s hand. ‘I’m Dylan Mercer.’

‘And now I know who you are,’ said Maggie warmly. ‘Great name; you really could be an actress,’ she said again, laughing.

‘And you could be an agent the way you hustle,’ Dylan laughed back. ‘I’ve been watching all the business going on here tonight, it’s crazy.’

‘I know.’ Maggie shrugged. ‘I could have been, but I like the free clothes too much.’ She winked at Dylan, looked a little closer at her and shook her head. ‘God, you remind me of someone,’ she said. ‘Hey, can I have your number? I mean, I know you don’t want to be an actor, but sometimes my assistant needs a little help. And you did say you like helping people. Maybe, if you’re interested, you could do a few errands for me here and there?’

Dylan nodded excitedly, pulled a pen from her pocket, and wrote her details on the back of a card from the events company.

Maggie took the card and handed her shoes to Dylan.

‘Hold these, would you?’ she said as she put the card into her clutch purse and smiled. ‘Thank you, Dylan, I’ll be sure to keep you in mind.’

Turning, she walked towards the door.

‘Your shoes,’ said Dylan, holding out the strappy Givenchy’s.

‘Keep them,’ said Maggie with a toss of her shining blond head. ‘I don’t need them. You might make something on eBay with them—Maggie Hall’s shoes from Oscars night—or keep ‘em and they might make a great story one day. Either way, you win.’

Chapter 3 (#ue3922b53-1c39-52b3-a21e-b444c5ff5ebd)

Dylan stared at Maggie Hall’s discarded shoes in disbelief, turning them over and studying each detail.

She had never owned anything as gorgeous and frivolous as these, she thought, quelling the desire to slip off her plain black flats from the Gap, and try on the Givenchy’s. Her mother believed in buying the best you could afford, but ‘functional is always better than fancy,’ she would tell Dylan whenever she lusted after something pretty and useless.

She shoved the shoes in an empty gift bag left by a guest and placed them under the bench, then looked at herself in the mirror. Was she really as beautiful as Maggie Hall said?

She was okay-looking, she thought, but growing up with intellectual parents meant you were much more focused on your brain than your looks.

Dinner time in the Mercers’ brownstone was spent discussing her mother’s ethical legal riddles from her university tenure and her father’s more bizarre psychiatric cases, while Dylan tried to keep up with the conversation.

She was bright, but she had to work hard for her marks and staying on the honor roll wasn’t easy but she did it because her parents expected nothing less of her.

Sometimes Dylan longed to remind them that she didn’t have their genetic code so it was unreasonable to expect her to be as brilliant as them, but a part of her was grateful that they treated her as though she was an extension of them.

That was until she found the letter they had never shown her.

‘Excuse me.’ She heard a voice and turned to see another famous face, a starlet who had recently been named as the sexiest woman in film. ‘Do you have a Band-Aid? My shoes are killing me.’

Dylan opened the first-aid kit, took out a Band-Aid and handed it to the girl. Now she was beautiful, Dylan thought, after the girl had left the bathroom.

She glanced at her face in the mirror again. It was too wide; the sort of face that didn’t look right in everyday life, but it did kind of work in photos. She might have sought out modelling work, if she’d even known where to start, but it never seemed like the right time to say that to her law professor mother, with tenure at Columbia, or her ailing psychiatrist father, who had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

As more women came into the bathroom, there were several faces Dylan recognized, but she wasn’t as star-struck any more. Hell, she had Maggie Hall’s Givenchy shoes! She couldn’t wait to get home and tell her best friend back in New York.

That was the sort of thing Addie loved to hear. During their almost daily Skype sessions, Addie always wanted to know what celebrities Dylan had seen in LA.

But in the two months she’d been in LA, Dylan hadn’t seen many, until tonight. She thought she’d glimpsed Kevin Bacon in a frozen yogurt store, but couldn’t be sure. A Kevin Bacon sighting probably wouldn’t impress Addie anyway, but Maggie Hall was different.

Her supervisor walked into the bathroom with a sour face. ‘You can go now. Make sure you sign your hours sheet before you leave.’

‘Okay,’ said Dylan politely. The woman had been a total bitch all night, but Dylan refused to let it bother her. This job had been way better than working nights at the greasy chicken shop downtown, trying to avoid the slick on the floor and the even more oily owner.

Dylan picked up her bag and put the gift bag with the Givenchy shoes in it over her shoulder. ‘Thanks, it was fun.’

The woman looked at her and made a face. ‘Being stuck in a bathroom with needy celebrities bitching about each other and fighting over the mirror was fun? You’re nuts.’