with what I had on.”
“These old things?” Her sister Noelle nudged the pale pink button-down and khakis lying in a heap on the floor with her foot. “Please. They made you look like a hausfrau. Now you’ve got a waist. And an ass. And how about those boobs? I feel like I’ve just unearthed Atlantis.”
“Which brings us to our next problem.” Holly toyed with the plunging neckline of the silk blouse, another loaner from her baby sister, who, at twenty-six, was a full-blown fashionista. “Isn’t this a little...”
“Flattering? Attractive? Eye-catching?”
“I was thinking more like revealing. Inappropriate. Slutty.”
Noelle put a hand to her heart and staggered as if she’d been shot. “You wound me, sis. That’s my lucky Marc Jacobs chemise. I wore it to my first opening night party. Giselle.”
Holly trudged to her bed and collapsed. All this primping was exhausting. First, Noelle had insisted on styling Holly’s notoriously stick-straight hair. Then she’d spent an hour applying just the right amount of makeup. And now she was forcing Holly to play dress-up. It was like senior prom all over again, when twelve-year-old Noelle had schooled Holly on all the “girlie girl” things that were still so foreign to her.
“It’s not that I’m not grateful for all your effort, Noe.” Holly flopped onto her back, bouncing a bit on the too-firm mattress. “I just don’t understand why it’s necessary.”
“First of all,” Noelle began, sitting on the bed next to her and holding up one finger in a gesture that said a list of reasons was forthcoming, “you deserve a little pampering after the past couple of years you’ve had. Consider it your reward for dumping that bottom-feeder, Clark.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Holly pushed up onto her elbows. Her sister didn’t know the half of it. No one did except the police and a handful of medical professionals.
“And second—” Noelle held up another finger “—you’re a big-time playwright now. You’ve got to look the part.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “I’m nowhere near big-time.”
Noelle gave her a playful smack upside the head. “Wake up and smell the success, girl! Your play’s headed for Broadway. With at least one, maybe even two major movie stars. I’d call that big-time.”
She had a point. But Holly had a hard time thinking of herself as anything other than the perennial screw-up in a family of overachievers. Her three younger siblings had each climbed their career mountains and planted their flags on top, wisely ignoring the example of their hopeless older sister. Holly had had more jobs than hairstyles, from substitute teaching to bartending to dog walking. It had become something of a family joke, guessing what she’d “explore” next. “Holly’s follies,” they called them.
The “follies” stopped a couple of years into her five-year marriage, when Clark had decided he wanted her at home, happy to greet him at the door each evening with a gin and tonic in her hand and dinner on the table. Always game, Holly had tried the new role.
Massive mistake.
Domestic goddesshood evaded her, at least in Clark’s estimation. Dinner was always overdone or underdone, the toilets never sufficiently shiny, his shirts never starched enough. Her saving grace—what made the debacle bearable—was an article in a women’s magazine about the benefits of journaling.
And thus H. N. Ryan, author, was born.
“I’ll believe it when I see the marquee go up.” A healthy chunk of her still doubted that would ever happen. There were too many ways things could crash and burn in high def. “Until then...”
“Honestly, Holls.” Noelle pushed a strand of long blond hair, so different from Holly’s, behind one ear. “You worry too much. You said the producers signed Malcolm Justice to play the cop, right?”
Holly nodded and sat up fully.
“And this new guy? The one who’s reading for you today?” Noelle turned away from Holly to the selection of shoes she had lined up at the foot of the bed. Holly groaned inwardly. Not one of them had a heel less than four inches.
“No clue. All Ethan would say is that he’s a grade-A film star and major heartthrob.”
Which was strange, Holly thought. They never kept secrets. Ethan Phelps had been her best friend since their freshman year at Wesleyan when she’d helped him conquer Chaucer and Dickens. He’d rewarded her with the irritating nickname “Hollypop,” a name he unfortunately still insisted on using.
When her agent told her that The Lesser Vessel had been optioned for Broadway, her second thought—after Are you drunk?—was whether they’d consider Ethan to direct. Fortunately, the producers loved his regional-theater work.
“What if it’s George Clooney?” Noelle froze, her ballerina’s feet in a pensive third position. “Or Tom Cruise?”
Holly shook her head. “Too old. And too...Tom Cruise.”
“Ooh, how about Nick Damone?” Holly almost choked on her tongue, but Noelle, who had moved on to a collection of jewelry spread across the dresser, didn’t seem to notice. “You could finally do something about that crush you had on him in high school.”
“What do you mean?”
“Please, Holls. Give me some credit.”
“But you were ten.” And all this time she thought Ethan was the only one who knew. She’d confessed her long-ago crush on the now-famous movie star one night shortly after her divorce was final, an aftereffect of too many rum and Cokes.
But she’d never told anyone—not even Ethan—that she was the one who’d convinced Nick to ditch his football scholarship and go to New York, or that he’d kissed her that night at the cast party. Her first kiss, and no other boy had come close to making her heart race and her insides quiver the way Nick had. Of course, that magic moment had ended all too soon when Jessie Pagano came looking for her camera. Right. With one crook of her perfectly manicured finger she’d lured Nick away like a pied piper in do-me heels.
Ethan and Noelle would have never let her live that down. So Holly resorted to the safest tactic she knew: deny, deny, deny. “What did you know about crushes? I do not, did not, have a thing for Nick Damone.”
“Then why are you blushing like a virgin at a strip club?”
“I am not blushing!” Holly covered her face with her hands. Crap. Her sister was right. Her cheeks felt as hot as the pottery kiln she’d bought during what her family referred to as her “terra-cotta phase.”
“It’s no big deal. I’ve got a thing for Ryan Gosling. Seven minutes alone with that man in a closet and I’d definitely be in heaven.”
“Thing or no thing, it doesn’t matter. According to Variety, Nick’s still in Hong Kong shooting the new Trent Savage flick.”
“Well, whoever your mystery movie star is, you need these to close the deal.” Noelle picked up a pair of silver peep-toe sling backs and dangled them from her fingertips. “Christian Louboutin.”
As
