Beneath the Glitter: A Novel (Sophia and Ava London) (25 page)

Sophia bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I’m just nervous.”

“Really? I’m not. This is only the biggest moment of our lives, as you keep reminding me. I’m not nervous or concerned at all.”

Sophia started to laugh. “When you describe it like that, it doesn’t sound like such a good idea. Ava, I said I was sorry.”

“Sometimes sorry isn’t enough.” Ava batted tears off her face. “Sometimes sorry is just the beginning.”

The door of the trailer opened then to admit a procession of MM, Sven, Lily, and a delivery guy carrying a box filled with eight cans of hairspray and six gas masks. He put the box down and backed quickly toward the door, keeping his eyes warily on Lily.

“What’s wrong with him?” Ava asked.

“He asked what we were doing with the hairspray and gas masks and Lily said, ‘Hunting.’”

Lily shrugged. “People shouldn’t be nosy.”

The gas masks and hairspray were to create the elaborate updos that Ohlfons—who had called and begged to work with them again—had designed for Ava and Sophia. They were going to be costumed as mermaids with a Victorian feeling, and appear onstage as though they’d arisen out of the sea on a massive glass bottle.

Lily was studying the storyboards and gave a low whistle when she got to the last one. “Whoever thought of this was a genius,” she said, pointing to the drawing depicting how the bottle Ava and Sophia were seated atop was going to be pulled along the stage by six shirtless sailors.

“Just wait until you see the dance number,” Ava assured her.

“According to the
Los Angeles Times,
LuxeLife is putting six million dollars into this promotion,”
MM
said. “That’s almost enough for a celebrity wedding.”

“More than enough if the wedding is in the Bahamas or Canada,” Sven volunteered.

Lily patted him on the bicep. “I love this guy.”

“The
Times
also says that there have been almost a million hits of your promo video even though it’s only been live for a week.”

Sophia nodded. “It crashed the server, and our site almost went down too. The response has been amazing.”

“And that’s why you both look so happy,”
MM
said sarcastically.

“We’re just nervous,” Ava told him. Usually she loved having their friends around but today, somehow, she wanted to be alone.

Ava never thought she would see Ohlfons as the answer to a prayer but when he and Troy appeared a few minutes later and shooed everyone out, she was grateful. Although it also meant that they were only three hours from the launch.

Ava had the
Star
open in her lap as Ohlfons and Troy got to work, but her eyes kept going to Sophia in the chair next to her. She was bent over her phone, reading messages and thumb typing furiously.

Sure that she was busy, Ava opened her gossip magazine to the story about Sophia and Hunter. The facts were vague, it said, but sources suggested that Sophia London had run out of Mr. C in tears after a passionate kiss with Hunter Ralston. No one yet knew what caused her to leave but some of the suggestions were more imaginative (they were tears of sorrow because she found out they were brother and sister, they were tears of joy because she found out they were brother and sister, she was having an allergy attack) than others.

Sophia’s phone rang and Ava heard her gasp.

“What is it?” Ava asked. “Are you okay?”

Sophia held up her phone to Ava. “It’s Clay. After all this time.”

“Are you going to answer it?”

Sophia’s hands were shaking. “Should I?”

“
YES!
” Ava insisted. “If you don’t I will. Give me—”

“Hello?” Sophia said in what Ava thought of as her “polite professional voice.” Ava only got Sophia’s side of the conversation which went, “Oh hello, Clay,” still in the professional voice. “Thank you.” “Not quite.” “I beg your—”

At that point, the voice changed slightly into what Ava thought of as Sophia’s “I’m in control” voice and she said, “Oh really?” Then there was a long pause. Ava saw Sophia’s head bobbing. Finally Sophia said, “Well, congratulations to you too then. Thank you for calling. Good-bye.”

She hung up, turned back so she was facing into the mirror again, and in a calm voice she might have used to say, “Please pass the Twizzlers,” told Ava, “That was Clay. He’s getting married.”

Ava goggled at her. “How can you be so calm? You only broke up four months ago.”

“It’s the past,” Sophia said, still calm.

“But you loved him. And your hand is trembling,” Ava pointed out, “which always means you’re upset. Sophia, I am so sorry. I know if it was me—”

Sophia curled her hands into fists. “But this isn’t about you, it’s about me. And I’m fine.” Then turning her seat away from Ava she started dialing her phone.

“Lily? You’ll never believe what happened after you guys left.”

Ava felt wretched. Sophia had just literally given her the cold shoulder.

They didn’t speak at all during the remaining hours of hair, then makeup, then body paint and glitter, and when
MM
came to help them into costume they only talked to him.

He went with them to the room under the stage with the bottle they were going to enter on, and adjusted their gowns. He stood back and took a photo of them.

“You two look gorgeous,” he said, but there was something about his tone that was off.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he told them. “See?” He flashed them the picture which showed them sitting on their bottle. Their makeup and hair had been tinted a gray-green and their faces were highlighted with glitter that made them seem to have just risen from the water. With the gowns that looked like something a shipwrecked noble would wear to an underwater gala, the effect was romantic, striking, and very cool. Except in the photo they were both looking away from one another as completely as possible.

From outside they heard a noise like a gust of wind, which was the beginning of the soundtrack for the show. MM blew them both kisses and left.

And then it was just the two of them.

Ava glanced over at Sophia, who was turned away from her, and couldn’t take it anymore. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I can’t stand living like this. It’s like we’re strangers.”

Sophia’s head whipped toward her. “Going on with me? What about with you? You show up late to meetings, you haven’t properly blogged in days, and when that photographer stopped us on the way to the supermarket you could barely smile. It’s like you’re trying to sabotage everything we’ve worked for.”

Ava said, “You’re the one who ditched me at that party and then missed our pizza night. It’s like none of the things we used to do together matter anymore.”

“Would you stop harping on the pizza night?” Sophia said, exasperated. “That was one time. And I went to that party for us. To make connections.”

“I think you should admit what’s going on and drop the ‘S’.” Ava held up her hand with her thumb and pointer finger curved. “You did it for U.”

Sophia turned up her hands. “Do you seriously believe that? Because I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but live, breathe, and eat
our
brand. And it worked, didn’t it? Look where we are.”

“London Calling was supposed to be
about
us, not the only thing holding us together,” Ava said.

“Whose fault is that?”

Ava swallowed. “You never even showed me your photos.”

Sophia said, “You never said you wanted to see them.”

“Of course I wanted to see them,” Ava told her.

“How was I supposed to know? It seems like the only thing you’re interested in right now is Liam and proving to the world that you’re all grown-up.”

Beneath the glitter, Ava’s face was heartbroken. “That’s not true. You know me. How could I not be interested?”

“Do I know you? I’m not sure anymore.”

“And I’m not sure I know you,” Ava said, her voice almost a whisper. “You used to care about us and our relationship and building the business together, but now it’s like you don’t have time for me anymore. Like the business is all you care about.”

Sophia shook her head. “You pushed
me
away. You told me to leave you alone. Now you’re complaining I didn’t pay enough attention? How am I supposed to feel when you say things like, ‘Thanks, Mom’?” Sophia’s eyes flashed. “If you want to be treated like an adult, act like an adult.”

“You mean act like you?” Ava said, her voice rising. “No thank you. You’re so afraid of falling that you won’t ever be able to rise. But I’m not afraid to be a star and I’m tired of having you and your fears hold me back.”

Sophia twisted so her face and Ava’s were even. “Hold you back? All I’ve tried to do was protect you from falling.”

Ava gave a bitter laugh. “You see? You already assume I’m going to fail. Why can’t you imagine that I might succeed?” She gripped the side of the bottle as it began to rise. “Maybe you haven’t been cushioning my fall, maybe you’ve been holding me back. You can’t even decide on the right name for your kitten. How can you know best about everything else?”

The hatch above them opened and the bottle began to emerge onto the stage, but Ava and Sophia were too preoccupied to notice.

“You ungrateful—” Sophia stopped herself midsentence, clenching her fists until her knuckles were white. “You don’t want me to hold you back? You want to be left alone? You think I don’t take risks or do anything impulsive? Watch this.” Sophia ripped out her earpiece, tossed it aside, and marched off the stage.

Ava sat atop the bottle, alone on the stage, a sea of bottles with messages in them sloshing endlessly behind her on the video screen, wondering how she was going to explain what had happened to the three hundred people now gaping at her.

Only she didn’t have to worry about it. Because she and Sophia had been wearing microphones the whole time. Everyone there for the opening had heard their fight.

And within half an hour, another half a million people had listened to it on YouTube.

LonDOs

Check to see if your microphone is on

LonDON’Ts

See: Wikipedia.org, Ava London

See: Wikipedia.org, Sophia London

See: Wikipedia.org, London Calling

22

face-off

As she stalked from the stage Sophia felt furious, shaky, terrified—and free. She navigated around the cables attached to the generator and headed toward the first street she saw. She was just rounding the corner when she heard Lily shout, “Wait for me!” followed by Hunter commanding, “Stay right there, I’m going for the car.”

She ran faster.

There aren’t that many places where a woman with two-and-a-half-foot-tall hair in a watermarked silk gown and matching slippers with her face gently highlighted with glitter in the shape of fish scales could blend in, but the Santa Monica neighborhood of Los Angeles was one of them. She ran past a homeless man wearing a coat and hat both made of woven together pieces of newspaper, and a guy on a bike with a rainbow cape and a parrot on his arm passed her saying, “Looking good, sister.”

“Sophia, hold up!” she heard, and glancing behind her she saw Lily standing behind a surfer kid on a bike, her hands on his shoulders and her feet on the pegs of his wheels as he pedaled furiously in Sophia’s direction.

“Thanks, Marco,” Lily said to the kid, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, as she hopped off the bike.

“Any time, hot stuff,” he told her with a wink and he rode away.

“I’m not going back,” Sophia insisted, still running. “And I don’t want to see Hunter.”

Lily jogged along next to her. “Of course, that’s fine. But you’ll need these.” She pressed Sophia’s phone and her wallet into her hands. “Good luck!”

“Thank you,” Sophia said, clutching them to her chest.

Lily pointed behind her. “There’s a cab! Quick! Get it! I’ll distract Hunter.”

Sophia ran for it and got there just before the driver pulled into traffic. “Where can I take you?” he asked.

Sophia was about to say that she didn’t know, but realized that wasn’t true. “I’m going to see my friend Giovanni,” she said.

“What’s his address?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.” She got Giovanni’s number by calling Mr. C. She dialed it. Before today she would have been nervous calling him but somehow having destroyed everything she’d built her life around made calling a guy seem easy. What was the worst thing that could happen?

Still, she was relieved when he answered. And impressed when the first thing he said was, “Tell me where you are and I will come pick you up.”

“How do you know I need picking up?”

“
Stella,
do I need to again remind you I am psychic? Also, it stands on reason. You cannot stop thinking of my charms and require me to come and display them to you.”

Sophia laughed. “Actually, I’d love to see your studio. Can you give me directions from— Where are we?”

“Culver City.”

“Culver City?” Sophia repeated.

“Culver City? And who are you talking with? Already I am preparing to hear a story.”

Giovanni gave her his address, and before long, the taxi pulled to a stop just as he was coming around the side of the building. Sophia was maneuvering her hair out of the car and he stood glued in place, taking in her gown and hair and makeup.

“So you were at a small luncheon with friends?” he asked finally. “Something casual?”

“Hiking actually.” Sophia played along. “And then a picnic.”

“Ah, of course. The silk slippers, they were the giveaway.” Giovanni kissed her on both cheeks and led her through a small gate into a stone-tiled patio area. The walls were painted a rich cobalt blue and two of them were overgrown with bougainvillea which spilled fuchsia flowers all the way to the ground. There was a lemon tree with waxy green leaves in blossom in one corner, a handful of mismatched chairs painted bright colors, and a squeaky porch swing with cushions embroidered elaborately with fantastic animals. There were four doors, two of them with glass windows and one that said
RECORDING STUDIO
on it. A canopy of fairy lights stretched from one side to the other, giving the whole space a magical feeling.