La Vie en Rose

"ma cherie. Bon chance, et au 'voir," rain pattered a sullen grey sheen to a parting caress, leaving the glossy haired actress to shiver solitary and despondent in the downpour.

"Perfection my sweet, sweet star! Absolute perfeccion!" Director Marquis exclaimed. That with a snap of her fingers the rain water was shut off, the scenery cleared, and three stage hands twiddering over her with a fresh, fluffy towel, stripping away the wet sweater of her costuming.

Gushing and fawning just the same.

She replied like she always did with a radiant smile and tired thanks as if she'd worked herself till the fingers ran red.

"Next shoot in twenty my moneymaker!" she screamed out.

"Of course. Wouldn't miss it for all the bon bons in the world mes amis."

"I love it!"

Cynthia didn't see her Mother nearby. Had she gone to meet with her PR representative or with the agents navigating this novelty foreign backdrop contract to razz up her image for "more provocative elegance."

At a stand near the buffet spread for the day was a stand with every actor's personal bags. Inside her own, aptly labelled with her legal name Pearl Marsh, her phone buzzed.

Now there are many, many popular fallacies that the public, morons, and even the outliers of the industry liked to believe were true.

First off, an actor's beauty.

Any studio worth their credit or in following Child Safety and Health Guidelines made sure that roles were prepped in the safest, least invasive means possible under the supervision of a doctor. Under the employ of not the studio, not the movie, but of a legitimate clinic or hospital.

Meaning that when you got several pre-teens together after the first round of thirteen hour days it was a battle royale, free for all FEEDING FRENZY!!!

The buffet table was war.

Where the weak didn't survive.

Hence Cynthia using the one skill afforded to her.

Number Two: the backstory.

Actors actually come from all kinds of walks of life.

"Are you a bully?" she asked, summoning a sparkle of fat tears to her eyes. While she may have traded glasses for contacts, she was still small, bookish, and with too many various insecurities left over from six years of being the butt of an unseen, unwritten joke within society's grand plan of girlhood.

Leaving her to scarf down the best of what Germany, Little Italy, and the cute bistro on 9th had to offer.

Phone in one hand and plate in the other she gave a cursory glance toward her texts.

Six from some back home.

Myth three: Actresses only had specially approved, specially designed celebrity acquaintances, where the "commoners" were scorned.

Nooo. The common people Cynthia herself was 'friends' with were the titular harpies of her own Mean Girls life experience created from the depths of shallow, pink, and 1 percenter girlhood.

Many, many schoolmates and concerned parties-- (particularly her well-versed in girl warfare sisters Veronica and Nora)-- said nothing good could come of this.

They were... probably right.

Why did she keep in touch?

Because it simply made things easier the few times she needed to go back to her small town.

There were plenty of people she loved there sure; her Father, her sisters, her nerd squad back home, the fanclub-- yeesh wasn't that embarrassing to say-- and Freida.

Her first kiss and lesbian awakening but enough on that.

The last text being from an Ip inside the juggernaut of a studio.

From Breydan Nox.

Working on the set of a Modern Magic flick.

Who for now was off for the next two hours and...

'Needed her rose pink pillow for this damned chair.'

Tossing the half-eaten meal Cynthia was off at brisk, imposing pace for the set on a wholly different road from her own.

Meanwhile they were doing the trailer for another one of her contracted films.

This one having a supernatural antagonist and secondary threat now on camera.

Surely in their white Priestess suit.

"Bon chance, mes amis."

"You-- you were the reason! All of it, for so many years."

With a click, that door was closed and now was a dark hallway.

Among the rooms here was her own dressing room.

A strike of panic lanced through her to see the door she'd triple checked was locked and chained... Open.

Spilling the soothing light of her moon lamp.

"Nothing good can come of this," warned the voice of a college aged intern.

"We don't know that for sure and come on, you're the one with a crush on the poor girl," Sadie Novak chided, being fifteen herself.

"Yuck! It's-- it's a celebrity thing," he insisted. "I just like like her shoots, the way she looks!"

"Look don't worry about it, just never hit on her and you--" she saw her point at him, "keep this job you sorely need."

"I know, believe me I know I'm lucky to have this job."

"Yeah. Don't get me wrong though these things stars have with their makeup and other products really pisses me off."

"I still think it's a big job and besides, I've been taking notes from who did it before."

"Could be more about someone touching them in the first place," Sadie pointed out, "I dunno."

What she would have given to stomp in there insisting that yes, it was about touching her expensive and vital materials for her work and damn was that temptation deafening, but all the same she did what she could to push that aside for now.

As long as she was off-set, had a list ready anyway, Cynthia wouldn't be impeded or misstep when it comes to her prep.

Simply breathe in and out.

Besides, Brendan was putting a lot more on the line than her having been involved in a media frenzy last year for his elder sibling's possession charges.

The fire alarm went off at the end of the stairwell. Shit.

Nothing doing now anyway she supposed.

Between time and tears, in three years, she had foolishly forsaken Pearl Marsh. Now all left was an icon.

Cynthia Clairmoore.

Hardly a person and hardly definable if she didn't have a young lady on her shoulder. Had this been her fault? Defensive and cowardly as she'd first started, genuine confidence had come from a front.

Only, the confidence was real. But when she grew angry, tried to peel away and demand her progression, the genuine, hard fought fruits of her journey back-- she'd only found what was now pink petals bursting with nothing to hold it all firm anymore.