WHEN I WAS a kid, and I used to follow Dad around on his shoots, I went to lots of the studios. None of the huge ones, of course. But plenty of little ones like Pear Magic, which were generally pretty underwhelming. A few warehouse-looking buildings crammed with people and props and cameras and pouty actresses who ordered my dad around like he was their dog. And some doughy guy eating cookies in a tiny “security” building at the head of the driveway, acting like he could do something if you wanted to bust your way inside. One time, when I was fourteen, one of the security guys at a studio I can’t even remember the name of tried to kiss me when I was hauling one of Dad’s anvil-like camera bags through the parking lot. Even though he was kind of cute in a completely unkempt way, I was still skeeved out and elbowed him in the ribs to let him know I wasn’t into older guys with neck beards. I tried not to go to too many studios after that.
Chris inched his car up to the security hut and rolled down his window. An impossibly short guard with a buzz cut ambled to the car, one thumb tucked into his waistband like he was some sort of Old West gunslinger.
“Help you?”
“Celeste on set today?” Chris asked.
The guard frowned, tapping his finger against the front of his pants just under the waistband. “She expecting you?”
Chris opened his mouth, and my world exploded with yellow. If I let him talk, he was going to blow everything. I lunged across the seat so the guard could see me.
“I’m late. Sorry,” I blurted. Chris and the guard looked at me with equal amounts of surprise. I had to come up with something, fast. I tried not to think about it too hard. “Makeup?” I said, miming brushing something onto my cheeks. “I’m her makeup artist.”
“I thought Jayelle was—” the guard started, but I shook my head to cut him off.
“Something about a situation at home? I don’t know. The agency sent me to take her spot.”
“And you are . . . ?” the guard asked Chris. I could see the back of Chris’s neck instantly redden.
“He just carries my kits.” I stretched my lower back, the fact that the guard’s eyes followed my breasts with his eyes when I did it not lost on me. I held the stretch a beat longer. “I’m recovering from a surgery. He stays in the car when he’s done hauling stuff. The agency doesn’t mind. It’s not a problem for him to be here, is it?”
The guard narrowed his eyes. “I probably should double-check,” he said. “I’ve got a number somewhere.” He started toward the hut.
“Miss Day is waiting, though,” I said. I tried to take the panic out of my voice and replace it with authority. “She can’t go on set until I apply the . . .” I mimed some more motions around my face.
“Oh, you’re the blood girl?” the guard asked. “They’ve been waiting.”
I nodded frantically. “Yes! Exactly. They’ve been waiting for the blood. I’m the best the agency has. Honestly? I’m better than Jayelle. I’ve won awards.”
“Okay. Yeah. You should get back there. The director doesn’t like it when he has to wait for people. He’s probably going to lay into you a little.”
I hung my head, contrite. “I deserve it.” I smacked Chris on the arm. “I told you we didn’t have time to stop for that Cronut.” Chris’s eyebrows went up. His lips were parted, as if he wanted to speak but didn’t have the first clue where to start. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
The guard stepped off the curb and gestured toward a small building. “Miss Day’s in building three. You can park in the lot right next to it.”
“Thanks,” Chris finally said, and rolled up his window. It wasn’t until we had driven forward a few feet that I finally let my laughter loose.
“Oh my God, you should see your face,” I said. “You’re a detective. Shouldn’t you be better at playing along?”
“You’re the blood girl?”
“You had a better plan?”
“Yeah, actually. Show him my badge and tell him we needed to talk to her.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What? You’d be amazed what people will spill when they’re confronted with a badge.”
“Right,” I said. “And this girl is just going to hand Luna over on a silver platter. Because Luna’s friends are all so well-adjusted and cooperative. Give me a break.”
He rounded the corner and parked the car. “You do realize you’re going to be expected to actually”—he mimicked my hands flailing around my face—“do something with her makeup now, right?”
I shrugged. “It’s all in the authority. You pretend you know what you’re doing, and people believe it.”
“Do you know anything about theatrical makeup? Anything at all about blood?”
I flashed back eleven years. Nikki . . . go. Mom, lying in a pool of her own blood, her hand outstretched. Me, kneeling next to her, trying to get her to stay awake, to come back.
“You’d be surprised,” I said as I got out of the car.
CELESTE DAY WAS not the type of actress to get a giant, luxury dressing room all to herself. But it appeared that, even if she was, Pear Magic was not the type of studio to give her that, anyway.
I stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking the purple after-sun shadows out of my eyes while they adjusted to the light change. When I could finally make out what I was seeing, I glanced around a sleepy studio trying to get ready to work. Off to my left was a set: what looked like a kitchen in a run-down, beat-up house with a red splash—meant, I assumed, to look like blood—up one wall. A large man in ripped clothes and shadowy eyes sat at the kitchen table, idly puffing on a cigar and talking to who I imagined to be some sort of assistant. She kept pushing her glasses up on her nose as she giggled at whatever he was saying.
Men and women wearing all black shifted around behind cameras and boom mics and lights, none of their movements looking particularly urgent. A woman wearing flannel and boots tromped around the set, softly fretting as she moved things a quarter of an inch here, a half inch there. She looked like every stressed-out director’s assistant I’d ever seen when working with Dad.
I heard the rattle of plastic tubes and turned to my right, where there was a black wall with light radiating out from behind it. I peered around the corner to see a dressing area—about eight mirrors lined side by side with soft globe lightbulbs dotting the perimeter of each mirror. There were small stools in front of each station, and a handful of actors occupied them, leaning toward the mirrors to fix their ghostly faces or leaning back for a stylist to rat their hair or worry over their faces with makeup brushes.
It was easy to find Celeste Day. She looked just like her IMDb photo. Shoulder-length chestnut hair, stiff with curls, soft, wide brown eyes that looked like pure innocence, high “actress” cheekbones, full pink lips, and curves for miles. She was exactly what Hollywood was looking for in an actress, and I guessed it wouldn’t be long before sneaking in on Celeste Day would be impossible due to all the bodyguards.
Celeste was absently rubbing lotion on her elbows, the chairs on either side of her unoccupied. She was dressed in a royal blue men’s button-down shirt, her legs bare all the way up to a pair of very short, very tight boy shorts only visible when she shifted to uncross her legs. She snapped the lotion bottle closed, stood, and leaned toward the mirror, fiddling with blackheads across the bridge of her nose.
Now or never, Nikki. You will be noticed if you just keep standing around.
Definitely. I already stood out enough next to the bohemian styles of the artists working in their yellow-lensed glasses and smocks and combat boots.
I took a deep breath, walked into the dressing area, swiping a makeup box from a cart behind an actor whose artist was busy gluing on the ugliest toupee I’d ever seen. I disappeared behind a costume rack and rooted around until I found a ratty-looking knee-length cardigan. I pulled the hem of my T-shirt into a knot at my back, exposing my belly button, and shrugged into the cardigan. I quickly plaited my hair into two braids that hung down my shoulders and wrapped a silky orange scarf around my hair like a headband. I fumbled through the makeup kit and pulled out the liquid eyeliner. I was terrible at makeup. Always had been. Even as a little girl, fooling around with Mom’s makeup in the bathroom, I never could quite figure out what was supposed to go where, and how. Mom always made it look so effortless—she never looked like she had makeup on; she just looked fresher somehow.
There was no mirror, so I moved where I could see myself in the long costume rack pole. My face was warped, convex. But good enough. I drew severe lines across my bottom lids, swooping them up into cat eyes, then found a tube of red lipstick. I was all eyes and lips when I was done. I felt ridiculous, but I fit in much better.
I rubbed my lips together, straightened my plaits, picked up my toolbox, and made a beeline to Celeste Day.
She saw me in the mirror and stopped poking her face. “Who are you?” she asked.
I held up the makeup kit, and she frowned.
“Where’s Jayelle?”
That was a good question. A really good question, actually. Somehow I’d gotten lucky enough to pick a time when Jayelle was not around. But I had no idea when she would show up, so I decided to cover my bases.
“I’m just here to get things started while we wait. I’m sure she’ll be here any minute.”
Celeste gazed at me, her eyes uncertain. She licked her lips nervously. I pretended I didn’t notice. I set the makeup kit on the table in front of her and opened it. In the light of the mirror, I was finally able to see everything inside. And I had no idea what half of it was for. I rooted around until I found a thick, pouffy brush and a canister of loose powder. At least I knew what to do with this. I held up the brush and looked at Celeste expectantly. She eased back in her chair, still eyeing me dubiously. I swirled the brush around in the powder and leaned forward, trying to surreptitiously look around her dressing area while I swept the brush across her forehead.
“That’s not my color,” she said.
I studied her in the mirror. Sure enough, the powder I’d just dusted her with was about two shades too dark for her. She watched me.
I checked the bottom of the canister. “Oh. Looks like someone put the wrong lid on it,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. “I hate when that happens.” I rooted around in the kit, looking for something lighter. I came out holding another canister victoriously.
It was a matte foundation; something much closer to Celeste’s skin color. At least as far as I could tell. I found a sponge and dabbed the cream-colored makeup onto it, then quickly—hoping I looked like an expert—smeared it across her forehead, taking extra care to smooth it in at her hairline. I leaned back and studied my work. Not too bad. Maybe I could do this after all.
“That’s not mine, either,” she said. Her chair rippled with various shades of green. She didn’t trust me.
I tried to smile, which wasn’t something I’d normally do when being challenged. I hated looking stupid. But if I dropped into typical Nikki eat-or-be-eaten mode, I would give myself away for sure. My smile felt wobbly; a little on the grimace-y side, so I concentrated my acting skills on staring at my makeup kit, dumbfounded. “Sorry,” I said. “I really do think someone must have messed with my kit.”
She tilted her head to the side and studied what I’d done in the mirror. “That’s okay. It’s close. You almost can’t tell. But trust me, the director will notice.” There was a soft twang to her voice—something I would usually associate with the South rather than upstate New York.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I think I’m just flustered today. Should I start with something else?”
“Maybe you should just straighten my hair. We can save the makeup for when Jayelle gets back.”
“Of course.” I closed my kit—glad to be rid of it—and began hunting around for a straightener, picking up things on the counter and bending to look underneath. All that was under the counter was a handbag. Not only was I not finding a straightener; I wasn’t finding anything that could possibly link Celeste Day to Luna, either. There had to be something.
“It’s over there,” she said, pointing to a cart that held massive amounts of hair appliances and accessories. I went over, grabbed a straightener and a wide-toothed comb, brought them back, plugged in the straightener, and began softly combing out her springy curls. I wanted to ask her what she knew about Luna. Why her name was written on a pad in Luna’s getaway car. But I had learned something about my usual tactics: they didn’t work so great. I kept surviving by the skin of my teeth. Instead, I tried small talk.
“So, who’s directing this?” I asked. “It’s not, like, Steven Spielberg, is it?”
She looked up from her phone. “In a place like this? I don’t think so. As you can see, there aren’t exactly any megastars here.”
“Hmm, I don’t know. To me, you’re a megastar.” Barf, barf, barf. Gray, lying barf with a side of yellowy-olive disgust.
She didn’t respond for a while, then said, to her phone, “You’ve never heard of him. It’s his first film.”
I dragged the straightener through a swatch of her hair, tugging her head backward slightly. She resisted a little but didn’t complain. I straightened another.
“Do you think you’ll ever get to work with someone like Steven Spielberg?” I asked.
She barked out a laugh. “Well, I guess anything is possible.”
I smiled. She seemed comfortable with me. I decided to go the direct approach. “Speaking of directors, wasn’t it crazy what happened with Bill Hollis? I mean, he was, like, a big deal when I was a kid. I personally think he was innocent. But nobody ever asks me what I think.” I chuckled, hoping she couldn’t hear the nerves behind it. “And his son,” I said, my lips going numb. “He was superhot. Do you know who I’m talking about?”
“I mean, I saw the news, I guess.” She was still fiddling with her phone. If she had a Hollis connection, she wasn’t showing it.
I raced to think of another way to approach it. Somehow bring Luna into the conversation. But before I could gather a thought together, a woman whisked behind me. She threw a toolbox down on the counter and immediately began unpacking it. Vials and tubes and powders and brushes, all expertly placed in order.
“Oh. My. God. I can’t even tell you. So sorry I’m late. The guard is freaking stupid. When are they going to fire him? He acted like I wasn’t supposed to be here. Like I haven’t been here every freaking day for the past month. I step out to grab a coffee and the moron doesn’t want to let me back in? I swear, we need to call the staffing company about him. Get someone good out here. I mean, he’s supposed to be security. We can’t have some idiot in charge of who’s—what the hell happened to you?”
She had finished unpacking and had turned to Celeste with brush in hand, but had stopped short and was staring at Celeste’s forehead.
Celeste lowered her phone into her lap and blinked, confused. “Your replacement.”
“My replacement?” The woman—obviously Jayelle—turned to take me in. “What replacement?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Not really a replacement,” I said. “More like a floater.” I bent to meet Celeste’s eyes in the mirror. “Sorry, you must have misunderstood.” I straightened. “I’m just supposed to fill in here and there when someone needs to step out or something. It’s a new thing the agency is doing.”
Jayelle stared at me with her mouth hanging open. My palms began to sweat, the straightener sliding against my skin. This was what Chris was always complaining about—that I dove headfirst into situations with no plans on how I would get myself out of them. He had a point. But somehow things always just seemed to work out for me. It was the synesthesia. It helped me read a room and know when to get out. Problem was, my synesthesia was telling me two conflicting things right now. The greens that radiated off Celeste also pooled around Jayelle’s feet, but they were much weaker. And the longer she stared at me, the weaker they got. But as they got weaker, Celeste’s got stronger, until I felt like I was in a forest. Celeste was pretending to be cool, but I was making her nervous as hell.
Jayelle broke the tension by abruptly tossing her brush into her kit and fumbling around for something else, turning her attention away from me completely, the greens evaporating.
“Just like the agency to make a change without filling everyone in. Whatever. I’m back, so I don’t need you now.” She turned to Celeste. “Why don’t you go wash that nonsense off, and I’ll just work fast when you get back.”
Celeste hopped out of her chair and sped toward the ladies’ room.
“Don’t worry. They can’t have the show without the star,” Jayelle said to Celeste’s back, still searching in her kit. “You won’t miss anything. Now where is that blusher . . . ?”
Without even acknowledging that I was still standing there, she scurried back the way she’d come, patting her apron pockets bewilderedly.
I was left standing behind an empty chair, holding a hot straightener in my hand, looking absolutely ridiculous in my braids and headband. One thing was clear. It was time to move, or I was going to end up caught. Chris was going to be full of I told you so’s when I showed up at the car with nothing for my efforts once again. Maybe Celeste was just an actress who Luna admired. Or someone Jones wanted to hook up with. Or maybe the pad was already in the truck when they bought it and Celeste Day had nothing to do with them whatsoever. Without flat-out asking Celeste, I would never know. And I’d already managed to make myself look suspicious enough. The last thing I needed was to have some overzealous security dork call the cops on me. Then the I told you so’s would be full of laughter that I would never live down.
I stepped forward to put the straightener on the counter, my eyes landing on the bag that had been tucked beneath. It was a Givenchy—a little pricey for a B-list actress, if you asked me, but I would never understand the people of Hollywood, even if you gave me a billion years—and it was yawning open. Something inside the bag caught my eye. A familiar flicker of color.
Orange and lunch-meat pink. A and E. But it was the shape that they were in that triggered a memory.
Mom, proudly carrying a black canvas bag as she headed off to work. The bag was full of props and lights and cameras and odds and ends that she thought she might need on one of her locations. I loved that bag, because she always slipped a few toys into the very bottom of it, just in case I should be tagging along and she needed to keep me busy. When Mom was carrying that bag, it was a mix of emotions for me. She was leaving. But she was always so happy when she was carrying it, like she was in the middle of her own dream.
And I could clearly remember the colors that emanated from the side of that bag. Orange and pink. A and E, shaped into a couple of angry-looking eyebrows, over the swoosh of an elephant trunk.
Angry Elephant.
The studio where my mom worked all the way up until the day she was killed.
I did a double take, leaning closer to the bag. I was so confused at this point, my synesthesia wanted me to see things that maybe weren’t even there. It was a matchbook. Why would Celeste Day be carrying a matchbook from my mom’s studio? She couldn’t be. No way.
But the closer I leaned, the more sure I was. The letters swooped and swayed and dipped into the shape I was so familiar with. Angry Elephant.
I could hear Jayelle’s voice. I peeked over my shoulder and saw her coming closer to the dressing table, still patting herself down and ranting about missing something that the star needed immediately.
Time to boogie.
I didn’t give it any more thought. I reached into the bag and snatched out the matchbook, ignoring what felt like tingles of electricity shooting through my palm. I closed my fist around it and left, going the opposite way of where Jayelle was coming from and hoping that I wouldn’t run into Celeste Day on my way out.
I stole around the costume rack and into a hallway that was painted all black, even the ceiling, and I felt like I’d been thrust into a tunnel. The walls felt very close. I could still hear Jayelle’s voice, and then Celeste’s too, and I thought maybe I heard the word floater and I hurried through the hall, one hand clutching the matchbook and the other running along the wall.
The hallway took a sharp turn and I could see a lobby at the end, which housed the front double doors. It let out onto a different parking lot from where Chris was waiting, but I felt like I could more easily get to the car unnoticed outside than in.
I picked up my pace and was almost at a run when I popped out the end of the hallway.
And right into a chest.
The matchbook flew out of my hands and skidded across the floor, bumping to a stop against the wall. “Shit,” I breathed, scrambling for it.
I snatched it up, and it wasn’t until I straightened that I saw who I’d run into.
It was the belt buckle I recognized first.
Mustard. Candy cane.
Holy crap.
I slowly raised my eyes, only to find myself staring into a pair of eyes so pale blue they almost looked light gray. The white-blond-haired man. The one who’d been driving the truck. My heart squeezed until I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.
His jaw tightened, and then he said, in a cold, threatening voice, “Nikki,” sending waves of chills up my spine that almost knocked me over. He started to reach for me, and I jumped back.
“Where is she?” I asked. My hand trembled around the matchbook, and I pressed my fingers in on it tighter. “Luna?” The word scraped out of my throat like shards of glass.
His lips curled up in a growl over his perfect and blindingly white teeth. “You shouldn’t have follow—”
“Director?”
A young man wearing a headset had come into the lobby from a different hallway. We both jumped.
The man turned toward the voice and then back to me.
“I think we’re about ready to shoot the sidewalk scene?” the young man said, clearly nervous to be talking to this man. This white-blond-haired man who looked like the devil in my eyes. This man who knew Luna and knew Jones and knew Celeste.
Director? He was the director?
“I’ll be there in a minute, Corey,” the white-blond-haired man said. “I’ve got—”
But I didn’t give him the chance to finish the sentence. I shoved past him and bolted out the door.
I veered away from the front doors wildly, guessing at which would be the faster way to Chris’s car. I’d lost my bearings in the dark building. I tried to jump over a low bush but was too nervous to clear it and tumbled. I let out a grunt as I hit the ground and rolled, my shoulder groaning under the blow. I thought I heard the swish of the door opening behind me but was too panicked to look back. I scrambled, pushing myself back up onto my feet and churning through the grass, cramming the matchbook into my pocket as I went. I turned a corner, nearly colliding with a Dumpster, and my feet hit asphalt. Thank God. I pushed harder, raced faster, until I saw Chris’s car, which was already on the move, coming for me.
I dove into the car, breathing so hard I was gagging. Fucking cigarettes. I pulled the door shut, and Chris took off out of the lot. We were probably a mile down the road before one of us finally spoke.
“I would ask you what happened and why you’re dressed like that,” he said. “But I have a feeling I already know.”
I was breathless from my run, and in no mood for his judgment. “Just keep driving,” I said. The matchbook pressed into my hip, but I didn’t tell him that.