Will opens the door to Marty’s Tesla. His tux is way too tight on the shoulders, like he’s deliberately trying to show off his physique. It’s something Jamie does too, wearing too-tight T-shirts.
As I slip into the passenger seat and pull down my skirt to cover my legs, I realize that I’m being a pot calling the kettle black. I know that my body and the way I look is all part of the image I have to project and that, as Marty says, showing skin sells records. I tried to argue that things were changing, namedropped a few female singers who don’t conform to beauty or fashion standards, and Marty scoffed and told me that they got away with it because they had unique sounds and unique personalities, which is basically him telling me that I have neither.
I take off my shoes, unbuckling them as Will gets in the driver’s seat of Marty’s Tesla beside me. Two minutes later I’m barefoot with my feet tucked under me, and we’re still sitting at the valet stand.
“Are we going to sit here all night?” I ask, worrying that the whole decoy car thing will be moot if I’m spotted.
“I’ve never driven a Tesla,” Will says with an embarrassed laugh.
“You push that button,” I tell him, pointing and rolling my eyes.
He presses the start button and the screen lights up. He stares at it. “It looks like a spaceship.” He starts to press the buttons on the screen, like a kid with a new toy at Christmas. “I thought these things were meant to drive themselves,” he mutters.
I am about to laugh, but then I remember him talking to Natalie back inside the hotel and the way he was flirting with her, and my laughter dries up. I don’t know why it’s annoying, but it is. Am I jealous? No. I’m not jealous. It’s more envy. Natalie is beautiful. I can see why he’d be interested in her. And maybe, too, I’m upset as no one ever really talks to me like I’m a regular person. I can never have a normal conversation with anyone, not even a barista when I order a coffee.
Will finally figures out how to drive the car, and we pull away from the valet stand. I sink back into my seat and retrieve my phone from my bag.
I swipe on Instagram, although the voice in my head is warning me not to because nothing good ever comes from a late-night scroll through Instagram. Almost immediately I am slammed by a deluge of messages and tags, all of them leading to a photograph someone has posted online of Jamie with some girl. She’s pretty, way prettier than me: Japanese, and stylish in a way that looks artless but is undoubtedly artful. Jamie has his arm around her, and they’re sitting in what looks like a bar or a restaurant booth. My heart almost explodes in my chest, and I get a panicky sensation that there isn’t enough air in the car and that I’m going to suffocate within seconds.
Who is she? No one online seems to know, either. My hands shake as I scroll through the comments. Everyone is wondering if the mystery girl is Jamie’s new girlfriend, and a few people are asking what that means about Jamie and me, and if it’s confirmation that we’ve broken up for the millionth time.
It has to be a mistake, I tell myself. She’s probably just a fan. I go back to studying the photograph, zooming in on every detail. They’re sitting so close she’s practically in Jamie’s lap. His arm is across the back of the booth, but his hand is resting on her shoulder. Is that friendly or is there something more to it? They’re not even posing for a photograph. It looks like it was taken surreptitiously, with a long lens when they weren’t looking. I tell myself to shrug it off. It doesn’t matter. We’re not together. He can do what he wants.
“Can you stop at In-N-Out?” I blurt.
Will glances over at me. “The burger place?”
“Yes,” I say. “There’s one on Sunset.”
I feel an overwhelming urge to eat a burger. I’m starving and my head is spinning and I don’t want to go home just yet, where Marty will be waiting and no doubt will want to talk through my schedule for tomorrow.
I have to give Will directions to In-N-Out, because he doesn’t know his way around LA, and teaching him how to use the built-in GPS will probably take an hour. When we pull up outside five minutes later, I take one look at the twenty-five-car line for the drive-through and tell him to park instead.
“Can you get me a cheeseburger?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says, sounding amused. “You want ketchup or fries? Anything to drink with that?”
Is he being sarcastic? I can’t tell. His face is inscrutable, but his top lip seems to be twitching into a smirk. “No, just a cheeseburger,” I say.
“Sure?” he asks.
I roll my eyes. “Yes.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” he tells me as he gets out of the car.
Ha ha, I want to shoot back at him. As if I could. Even if I had a pair of shoes I could actually walk in, I can’t go anywhere. Firstly, I’ve got nowhere to go. I don’t have any friends who I can call. Secondly, I’m locked on a schedule, and as Marty reminds me every opportunity he gets, I can’t let people down. Not my fans, not the people who work to make me a success, by which he mainly means himself, and not my family, either, who need me.
But oh my God, how much would I love to jump behind the wheel of this car right now and take off? I’d love nothing more than to disappear, for a month or a year, or maybe forever. I’d love to stop being Luna Rivera and be someone else, try out a different life, a normal one. But how would that ever be possible? There’s nowhere on the planet that I could disappear to where I wouldn’t be found or recognized or where someone wouldn’t stop me for a selfie. And on top of all that, how could I ever leave Matias?
I watch Will head inside the fast-food restaurant, noticing the looks he gets from a group of drunk women in their twenties whom he holds open the door for. They flirt with him like middle-graders, cackling something and then giving him suggestive glances over their shoulders as they walk away.
I dig out my phone again and let my finger hover over the dial button. I shouldn’t call Jamie. I should have some self-respect. But the buzzy feeling in my chest is getting worse. I’m so antsy I feel I could scratch my skin off. I need to know what’s going on and if this girl in the photographs is just a random or someone he’s hooked up with, or someone he’s dating. Even though I know this makes me look desperate, I can’t help myself.
I write and rewrite at least a dozen texts without managing to land on the right wording—the whole time the voice in my head berates me for being pathetic, yelling at me that I’m a loser—before Will shows back up with my burger. He gets into the car, and the smell of grease hits me immediately, and my stomach growls in response. I haven’t eaten a thing since the eggs Carla made this morning, and now that I no longer have to worry about squeezing into this ridiculous dress, I’m free to splurge on calories. I reach over to grab the brown paper bag from his hand, but he holds it tantalizingly out of reach.
“What?” I say, snatching the bag from him, irritated.
“You’re welcome,” he answers sarcastically.
“What is this?” I ask as I unwrap my burger. “It’s not a cheeseburger.”
“It’s animal style,” he says.
“Animal what?”
“Animal style,” he repeats. “You’ve never tried one before?”