A Safe Space (Someone Else's Fairytale #2.75)

Three: Connections

I stand in the dimness. The only light is from the room where Devon still stands. He walks up to me, making me feel shorter and more ridiculous with every step he takes. I brace myself for him to get inside my personal space or fire off an insult, but he doesn't. He just stops and says, "Can I ask you something?"

I shrug, too thrown by this change of demeanor to answer coherently.

"Why are you here by yourself, at night? Don't you have people? Handlers?"

"N-no, not really."

"But you're an actress. You had your own show."

"Right, and I used to have a day-to-day manager with me and a personal assistant and all that."

"So what happened?"

"They weren't a good fit." The words sound stupid, like they tumble from my mouth onto the carpet and stare back up at me with disgust. "My manager's trying to help me find new staff."

"What was wrong with the old staff?"

I let my shoulders sag with defeat. "I couldn't afford them."

"Oh."

Go ahead, I think. Laugh at me, the little child star princess who overspent her income. According to my legal history, I've been emancipated since I was sixteen, but the truth is, I've been on my own for much longer. My mother signed whatever people put in front of her, so I've endured poor contracts and two dubious "money managers" who put me so far into debt that I lost everything but one car, my clothes, and an apartment building here in Orange County that I purchased at the height of the property boom. It makes enough revenue to cover its mortgage, but no more. I can't afford to sell it because it'd only fetch sixty percent of what I paid for it. Instead, I live in it. That's why Clues films where it does—so that it's convenient for me to get to. It's a nice enough place, and there's a grocery store around the corner I can walk to—as the paparazzi have documented for America time and again, because I can't even grocery shop without people taking notice.

Fortunately, the paparazzi didn't follow close enough to find out that Kyra had to show me how to grocery shop for the first time on my own, nor did they get inside my apartment where Kyra had to teach me how to do laundry and use a vacuum cleaner.

Devon looks me up and down. "Hey, I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine. I don't need staff."

"Where's your family?"

"What family?" I say. "My mother is the only relative I know of, and she lives in Australia."

"You don't have grandparents?"

"I barely know my mother," I say. "She moved away when I turned sixteen. We talk, like, maybe twice a month? But you know, I'm fine. Really." I've already given him more information than I ever give anyone. As much as I like this turn of events, I also don't trust it. Devon's is a player, and I'm guessing this sweet, sensitive side he's showing is an act. Deep down he's mocking me, and now I've given him even more ammunition.

At least he doesn't use it right away. "Well, I mean it," he says. "You ever need anything, just ask. It's cool."

I nod and head for the locker room. 

"Lizzie?" says Devon.

I pause and turn. He's a silhouette now in the dark hall.

"Are you happy?"

"Sorry?" I say.

"Never mind. Forget I...yeah." He waves dismissively and heads off in the opposite direction.