Go home and sulk

The view, in sharp contrast to her mood, was beautiful. The L.A. evening sun dipped the city into a dark orange light, making the distant houses glitter and shine like diamonds while the surrounding hills were turned into a magnificent, warm orange, dappled with dark dots and small trees.

Jessica grimly took a sip from her wine glass, savoring the tart, sweet taste on her tongue before swallowing. She really sat out here far too rarely, the west-facing balcony that was attached to the master bedroom of her house probably provided the best scenic view of her entire property, yet when her husband and kids were around there were few opportunities to properly enjoy it. Now the sundeck and terrace downstairs were a construction site, so she had taken her bottle up here to nurse her bruised ego.

She felt her lips quiver for a moment and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath through her nose, she let it out through pursed lips to calm her rising emotion and fought back the onset of tears as her mind once again returned to her current, problematic situation.

Her life somehow seemed like it was on the verge of falling apart. Everything she had worked so hard for within the last twenty years suddenly seemed poised to go down the drain and no matter what she tried; she simply couldn’t stop her own downfall. Her company was in more than rocky waters, the former success story was in the process of turning back into a pumpkin in front of her very eyes as all the important metrics seemed on a nosedive in the last few years. Changes in personnel, strategy and PR had done little to alter the course and Jessica had already felt dirty when she had finally decided to use her “side hustle” to garner attention for her company. Getting back into the Hollywood limelight felt like a cheat code to turn her company’s fortunes, like she was taking the pretty girl’s way out. It was humiliating.

What was even more humiliating was to have that attempt die in the cradle. After carefully scouting the market for over a year to find the perfect project for her to make her comeback with, that role had finally come around. For the first time in years, after close to a decade of choosing small projects simply because she liked them, she’d attach her name to a top shelf movie, storm back into the a list and make her comeback. After all, Sean was the one responsible for the project. Using her friendship with him didn’t feel wrong to her in the slightest. That simply was how Hollywood worked.

While she had been nervous to meet up, she had deep down believed that he would get her the role. It had all just been too perfect not to go that way. Then came the revelations. Nudity. Her perfect role came with strings attached, literal strings in this case as Nancy would get tied up. She could hardly stomach that, but it didn’t even matter because Sean, her old friend, flat-out declined giving her the role.

“Fuck,” Jessica muttered to herself, downing the last of her second glass of wine. Without hesitation, she set it down on the balcony’s wooden railing and reached for the bottle to give herself another refill.

It had taken her a while to collect herself after Sean had taken off. She had sat there and just stared at the fancy white tablecloth, her head spinning, as she came to terms with what this failure meant for her career. The waiter had come over twice to check on her, asked her if she was alright and how Jessica hadn’t broken out into tears she didn’t know.

The tears had come on the ride home in the car, however. She had to pull over to the side of the road and stop the car as emotions suddenly overwhelmed her and she had just allowed them to wash over her. Crying intensely, not holding back, she had let some of the frustration out, screaming at her steering wheel for several minutes until she calmed down and finally was able to continue her drive home.

Her face was a mess, streaked with dark trails of ruined make-up as she entered her house and for once she was glad that her folks weren’t home so she didn’t have to hide her emotions. Carelessly tossing her keys and purse aside, she had headed straight upstairs, already feeling the tears return.

She hadn’t wasted any more time. Going immediately into self-care mode, she had gone straight for the bathroom, shedding her clothes on the way and treated herself to a long, hot shower. As the water washed over her, she allowed herself a second tantrum, letting all the hurt energy out until she felt herself getting tired.

Finally working through her anger phase, she had switched the tabs off, toweled off, grabbed the most comfortable clothes she could find as well as a pricey bottle of wine and had headed out here, to the balcony. Staring into the evening sunset, throat raw from screaming, she felt engulfed in a thick, heavy cloud of dejectedness.

It was kind of funny, she mused. She had spent the last fifteen years trying to turn her back on Hollywood, prove that she wasn’t defined by her beauty and the business. She had built her own company, a life away from the glamour, yet now she was back and instead the business was turning its back on her. She had known that the day would come and after years out of the limelight she wasn’t the first name to call when there was a pretty woman to cast. If only the situation weren’t so dire…

Yet, if even Sean wasn’t ready to give her a shot, maybe she really was done this time.