The First Assistant by Clare Naylor

Author:Clare Naylor
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Hollywood is a place where they’ll

pay you a thousand dollars for a

kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

—Marilyn Monroe

It was strange being back in Los Angeles. Right after I’d left for Thailand, Lara had gone over to Luke’s and piled my belongings into a duffel bag or three and slid the key back through the mail slot. So now, as I sat on the plush double bed in Lara and Scott’s guesthouse, where I was staying until I found somewhere new to live, I rummaged through the remnants of my former life as the girlfriend of Luke Lloyd. A life that seemed so far away that I’d almost forgotten who that girl was. The Lizzie Miller sitting here now was a slightly more cynical, much more resourceful and worldly creature than the girl who’d hopped on a plane to Thailand a month ago. Which had its drawbacks—now I was also less sure than I had ever been in my life of just what direction my life and career should take. Which wasn’t a state I was given to. So maybe this was the moment—maybe I’d finally grown up enough to know that you can’t always know.

Fortunately I wasn’t due back at The Agency until Monday—three days away—so I had a little time on my hands to ponder my future. Unfortunately this process was more painful that I could ever have anticipated. Most significant, it was the first time since I’d first laid eyes on “that photograph” in People magazine that I’d had to listen to myself think. For the past five weeks I’d endured an unending cacophony of demands from Emerald, so silence had never been an option. Now, though, in the still of the afternoon, it was deafening. Forget facing the music, now I was forced to face the silence.

I pulled out my black Azzaro dress. The night I had worn it I’d gotten my first hint that Luke and I had not been alone in our relationship. Emanuelle had glued herself to Luke’s side during the premiere and my insecurities had bubbled to the surface when he’d almost proposed to me. I should have gone with him to Prague, I should have given up my dumb, meaningless job and followed him. I could have read Russian novels all afternoon, learned rudimentary Czech, volunteered at a local school, and looked pretty and ready to take to dinner when he came back from a cold day’s shoot. Then all this would never have happened. Luke was a man like any other and he wanted his woman by his side, I thought with the lunacy of heartbreak.

Clearly five weeks in the presence of Tomorrow’s Woman, aka Emerald Everhart, had made me wary of emancipation, financial independence, and a woman’s right to wear anything other than a burka, I thought with alarm as I pulled a stray sock of Luke’s out of a duffel bag. What did my world hold without him, I wondered. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do my job anymore, playing nursemaid to someone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.