your own. This was what Orla had amounted to, in her mother’s eyes: an expensive collection of instincts, useless on the other side of the river.
* * *
It took a while for Orla’s official Flosston Public offer, the deal that would make her a regular part of the cast, to come through—the studio had to approve it, then the network. When Orla asked Craig what was taking so long, he went on about holidays. To hear Craig tell it, there was always a festive reason he couldn’t reach someone in Hollywood. The Fourth of July gave way to Labor Day. Rosh Hashanah turned into Yom Kippur, which put everyone “out of pocket.” He wouldn’t call anyone with an Italian last name for a full week surrounding Columbus Day.
Finally, the contract arrived. Orla would make sixteen thousand dollars an episode—“really decent for a minor player,” Craig said. Orla just nodded—she had no way to tell otherwise. She hesitated with the pen in her hand, thinking of her mother’s angry gaze, then of Floss in the karaoke room, so sure her real dream wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t forever, this show, Orla reminded herself. The show would pay her rent, and give her a platform—a place to start when she was ready to send her book out and be an author. Once her book sold, Flosston Public would become trivia, moving steadily down her Wikipedia page as the years and her accomplishments piled up. She would laugh about it later, on a stage somewhere, as an author in conversation.
After she signed the papers, Aston gave her a high five and a wet willy.
Melissa emailed her a summary of her fees, ending the message, “Of course, I know you can’t afford me now, but for the future.” She tacked on a winky-face emoji. Orla looked across 6D, at Melissa’s actual face. It was trained on her phone and stony.
Mason handed Orla a pair of glasses—glossy, gaping, black. She held them awkwardly, the pads of her fingers pressed into the lenses.
“But I see fine,” she said.
Mason nodded. “Yeah, we think it helps establish your character,” he said. “You know, your corner of the brains-brawn-beauty trinity. Heh heh heh.” Orla didn’t have to ask which corner was hers. She put the glasses on and everything looked the same.
Floss was draped on a chair, letting someone touch her up before her next shot. She winked at Orla and said, in the voice she used to only use on other people, “I love you in glasses. This is gonna be so fun.”
* * *
When the New Year began, Flosston Public was the biggest thing on TV. The one-sheet Melissa always used to describe it summed up the gimmick thus: “A wackadoodle, white-hot celebrity couple and the sarcastic schlump who shares their living space.” Orla’s name appeared, in parentheses, after the word schlump.
Money accumulated meaninglessly. Floss and Aston did big things, like chartering a yacht to watch a rare comet (but everyone got drunk and forgot to look for it). Orla did small things, like running up four-digit bills at Saks, pushing away the sense that she would be exposed as a fraud, asked to give her items back, by the time she reached the golden doors.
Though Orla and Floss could have afforded to, they didn’t move. They stayed in the little apartment, where the paparazzi knew to find them. The five of them—Orla, Floss, Aston, Craig, and Melissa—were nearly always in 6D, five coworkers, each with their own dress codes. Floss never changed out of lingerie, Aston tramped around in designer tank tops, Orla wore yoga pants and hoodies, and Craig and Melissa dressed respectably, in pants that zipped closed. Melissa arrived first, at nine sharp, bringing coffees for herself and Floss and Aston, as if walking into a room of four people with three coffees was the most natural thing in the world. Aston would take his and pull himself up cross-legged on a bar stool, arranging his crystals and chanting. Floss would review the selfies they had taken in bed that morning, usually ones with her breasts artfully hidden by the sheets, and ask Melissa which one she thought she should post. (She almost never used Melissa’s choice.) Melissa would give Floss and Aston what she called “their assignment” for the day—she might ask them to take a slow stroll through the Bronx Zoo in matching beanies, or to scoop corn at a soup kitchen in the East Village for fifteen minutes. In the pictures,