The stage was set. She would walk upon it and give everyone what they wanted. Goldie ran through the whole process in her head, the walk, the sultry looks towards cameras, the flirty turn to glance back over her shoulder to give them one more meaningful smile as she walked away. She'd done this before and would do it again. This was the middle of her plan. After contracts were signed and her platform built, and before that final burst into the stratosphere where fame and fortune became close friends who would never leave her side.

She felt it in the static charge of excitement lighting up the room. She tasted it as the cloud of expensive perfumes mingled like a toxic aphrodisiac on her tongue. This was Goldie's element and she was in it. She'd felt a part of this world since childhood when her mother signed her up for beauty pageants and dance classes. Where other girls had complained about their hair pulled tight into elaborate braids, pancake makeup, and dieting, Goldie had kept any misgivings in the part of herself that was small and undeserving of a voice. Her mother's reasons were selfish, of course, but that mattered little to the preadolescent version of Goldie. The more Goldie got something out of the pageantry and dance lessons and modeling gigs, the less her mother's motivations mattered.

Goldie used her mother too. Neither were blameless.

Now, her mother wasn't even here, but Goldie was. Goldie could strut and present her business to the world. Goldie could build up that business and it was all her own doing. Becca existed as her dependent now. Even Paul's role had become increasingly nominal. She'd thanked them for their inadequate parenting by buying them the luxurious apartment next to hers and keeping Paul on her payroll, but they were secondary characters now. Occasionally useful, but seldom required.

If Goldie had it her way, nearly everyone in her life would be that way. To make things easier for her to give back to her fans. To make herself selfless.

One day, her name would be an unquestionable force spoken with reverence and then she would achieve true freedom. Enlightenment, even. When people looked at her, they would see only light.

This was how she walked through Glamour days. A strutting beam of sunshine. A flirtatious smile and a kind face for her fans if they required it. She signed autographs and built up her upcoming brand. Not quite ready, still in production, but don't worry... in a few short weeks, she'd have a preview. Her own event, without the competition Glamour days presented from other influencers and cosmetics companies, but almost as big. Certainly, as important. That's the way people would see it. She'd already seen it. The outcome shined clearly in her mind. No one could beat out the sun.

Her Glamour Days entourage interpreted things differently. Ashley, Tiara, and Gretchen remained enthusiastic players. She remembered why she liked to keep them close. They were of this world. She'd modeled with all of them at one point. None had that spark that she had but there was nothing wrong with lesser suns. She loved them just as they were.

And then there was Tam and Jasper. Awkward Tam—this was so not her world. She was too new to understand the merits of gossip. Jasper didn't have Tam's excuse, but his behavior was just as obvious. Lately, he'd been throwing cold water on nearly everything she did.

"Are you jealous?" She asked him on the second day, after a meet and greet with fans that he'd excused himself from at the last minute.

His eyes flickered and he crossed his arms in front of him. Classic defensive stance.

"Who would I be jealous of?"

"Me. Duh. You're such a bluenose, Jasper, but honestly, you've taken it too far."

"If I knew what the hell a bluenose was, I might have the energy to feel offended."

"It's flapper slang for a killjoy. It means you do nothing but live to brood, even more than usual lately."

"I'm supposed to have been wronged by the girl I liked. I'm playing the part."

"It would be brilliant if that were the case, but that's not it. You can tell me what's wrong, Jasper."

"Fine. I'll tell you if you tell me where you went and who you were with when we were in the Maldives."

"Not going to happen."

"Then we've reached an impasse. I'm going to brood to my heart's content and you're going to maintain the pretense of your secret affair and that's that."

She would have argued, but she was due for an interview with Entertaining Hollywood. And she needed her makeup touched up before she went anywhere near a camera.

"You do realize you don't have to stay, right? You aren't a prisoner; you can leave."

"And miss all the fun?" He gestured around him. "Never."

Tam rushed up to them, phone in hand, and a Glamour Days pass dangling on a lanyard from her neck. "Goldie, you need to be at the EH set in two minutes."

Jasper set himself on a course for the bar. "I was wrong, Tam."

"What?" Tam glanced at him and then away. It was shamefully obvious to Goldie, what they hid from themselves, all while acting like magnets with opposing fields.

"I told you day three but it's only day two and I've already achieved the fuck them all hard state of existence."

Jasper walked away, leaving Tam to scuff the floor with the Louboutin mesh flats Goldie had loaned to her.

"Mind my shoes and let's go, Tam," She pulled on her assistant's sleeve. "Don't let Jasper's desperate attempts for my attention make me late. Which direction do we need to go in?"

Tam led her to the elevator, up a floor and down a hall to where two reporters and their crew had set up in one of the smaller conference spaces. She positioned herself in front of their backdrop and let her people perfect her hair and makeup. Eyes closed, she rehearsed what she would say, about Lucre, about the latest EpiGold, about her future. "Whatever happens, happens. I have my family and my friends. All of this is exciting and I'm super grateful but it's the icing on the cake, you know? I already have everything I could truly wish for."

Goldie had watched real journalists interviewing world leaders, but that wasn't the sort of interview this would be. She prepared herself for a few ingratiating questions. Sasha and Evan, Entertaining Hollywood's team of plastic-faced reporters welcomed Goldie with the enthusiasm of sorority pledges.

They asked her about Lucre, of course. "It's going really well—Wonton Cosmetics has been brilliant, but it's so much work, and, oh, I don't want to say too much... you'll all get to see firsthand what it's like to get a makeup line up and running because my next EpiGold will be all about it. I can't wait to put that together for you!"

"Speaking of EpiGolds," Sasha's brunette blowout moved with her as the reporter angled herself midway between Goldie and Camara B. "I watched the latest one as soon as it dropped."

"Did you? It was so much fun to make!"

"For some people more than for others."

Goldie's smile stayed in place. "No, we all had fun. How can you have anything but fun in paradise?"

Your stepbrother," Evan chimed in. "The drama with Tam. Are you saying it wasn't real?"

"Oh, that! You know what? Jasper and Tam have their own...arrangement." She made herself laugh. "You can't get me to say anymore, so don't you try! What you need to realize is that we came to the Maldives as a happy family and we left the Maldives as a happy family. No one is mad at Tam."

"People have not been kind to her on social media."

"That's not very nice of them." She made sure to scowl, then turned directly to the camera. "I want to tell you all, you're my fans and I love you no matter what, but I don't condone bullying. What happened between Jasper and Tam is their business, but..." she winked at the camera. "I've caught them in some interesting positions since we arrived home. So, if Jasper isn't mad, you shouldn't be either. Okay? Let's move on."

"All right," Sasha nodded. "Let's move on then to your own part in that instantly infamous EpiGold."

"Instantly infamous! I like that!"

"Everyone is dying to find out, were you really with a couple of socialites? You've been guarded about your personal relationships in the past. Is it possible you were with a romantic partner and you didn't want anyone to find out, even your own mother?"

"Yes, I have been guarded. And you're going to get less out of me with that one than what I said about Jasper and Tam."

"So, you were with someone! Give our audience something. Is it a man or a woman?"

"Yes," she said with a laugh. "There, I gave you something. I mean, I wasn't off alone meditating in a cave, so of course I was with someone. Maybe more than one someone. Whether it was for romance or otherwise, I'll let your viewers be the judge of that."

They didn't push the issue further. Their job was to ask provocative questions without pissing off the celebrity they were interviewing. Give people something to chew on, share clips of the interview on social media. They spoke about the timeline for Lucre, gushed about how excited they were to see her success and ended the interview. She removed herself from Sasha and Evan as soon as she could politely do so.

Tam waited for her next to the set. "Thanks." She toyed with the laminated event pass dangling against her chest.

"I said I'd fix it. Not that there was anything to really fix. You need to learn this. In this world—our world—scandal is currency."

Tam squeezed her lips together. She probably wasn't ready to accept that yet, but she'd need to eventually and Goldie was just the person to school her on it.

"Remember when I was supposedly engaged to a Saudi prince, or when fans started a rumor that Jasper had a crush on me, and we were dating in secret?"

"Some people still believe that one."

"Yes, and I denied it, or course, and so did Jasper. I mean really, my stepbrother? But people believed it, and as bad as it seemed when they posted about it all over the Internet, it only made us more famous. My followers grew by two hundred percent across platforms in less than a week over that one stupid rumor. That's why to this day if I'm asked about it, I roll my eyes and change the subject, but I never outright deny it. People will believe what they want to believe. You've heard the saying, there's no such thing as bad press, right?"

Tam nodded.

"Well, it's true. What's next on my schedule?"

By the time the final Glamour Days banquet arrived, Tam seemed to have taken her advice to heart, blending in with Goldie's friends, laughing at their jokes. The dress Goldie had picked out for her fit her like it had been custom made. She caught the eyes of nearly everyone and seemed unaware of the attention. It was something Goldie could be proud of, this quiet, poor girl from an awful family now associated with one of the biggest influencers ever. Goldie could make people if she chose. That was part of what it meant to have fame and fortune in your corner. You weren't simply an influencer; you were a creator. A creator of people. She could make them, and if she wanted to, though of course she wouldn't dream of it, she could break them too.

-----

Goldie is at Glamour Days and she is in her element. But is she completely at ease? She owns the stage, but... 

Thank you for joining me for this installment and I'll see you back here next time!