Jasper hadn't been completely wrong. Tam's first impressions of Glamour Days might be compared to an introvert being forced to attend a keg party. She felt expected to like it. Normal people liked glitz. They aspired to glitz, they wanted it. Tam had convinced herself several times throughout her life that she wanted it too.

Thirty minutes at Glamour Days and she dreamed about being alone in her apartment in a pair of sweatpants. This event existed for the Goldies of the world, the people whose job it was to commodify image. People who were so convincingly perfect, they'd cultivated fandoms, vast swaths of fans who either idolized them as superhuman or fantasized that they couldn't possibly be humans at all. So perfect, they were villainous. If anything, subhuman.

The desire to be the biggest name with the biggest following and largest bank account made the air of the convention center heavy with conceit. And who was Tam to stand amongst the perfect people. Goldie was right; she was desperate. She lacked confidence. She couldn't even back away from a person who had orchestrated her public humiliation. She saw it in the glares of the perfect people and their aspiring perfect entourages. She was a known woman now. She had a reputation.

If only they were aware of her older secrets.

She spent a day and a half keeping to the backs of rooms and darkest corners whenever possible. Goldie needed her to keep her schedule but as soon as she deposited her boss to her next destination, she could fade.

Before Goldie's Entertaining Hollywood interview, Tam checked in with their assistant to make sure they knew Goldie would be using her own makeup and wardrobe. While she was there, one of the reporters bounded over to her.

"Evan Michaels." He nodded to her. "You're Tam Martin, aren't you?"

"In the flesh."

"Which we've seen a lot of."

"Excuse me?"

"Would you be willing to be interviewed as well?"

"Me?" She was an imperfect person. A desperate person who pretended to deserve tropical vacations and access to Glamour Days. "Why?"

"Our viewers want to learn more about you and what happened in the Maldives."

Tam flinched. "This is because of the infamous EpiGold, isn't it?"

"Infamous EpiGold... I'm going to use that!"

She'd convinced him that Goldie wouldn't want to share the interview with her. No, she could not be swayed. The idea of being on camera and having to lie about Jasper pushed bile up her throat. She'd puke all over Evan Michael's crisp white suit of this conversation continued.

She ended up walking away while he was in mid-sentence. The day continued its nosedive, but then was saved by the most unlikely player, Goldie herself.

Goldie had promised to smooth things over and she had. Scandal, she'd told Tam, wasn't as bad as it seemed and was often helpful. It advanced the careers of perfect people because as it turned out, perfect people's imperfections made them relatable, the way a beauty mark can enhance rather than mar otherwise flawless skin.

She approached the rest of Glamour Days as she had her departure from the Maldives. Let it happen, stop resisting, blend and accept. On day five, she climbed her way into the Vera Wang gown Goldie has lent to her and borrowed Goldie's beauty team. When people turned to stare at her, she lifted her chin. Fuck them. Fuck them hard.

She sat with Goldie's friends but not with Goldie, who had an honored spot at the head table, like an influencer bride and her wedding party positioned so that the reception guests could gaze in awe at them. She imagined people clanking their forks against glasses so that Goldie could kiss her groom, a giant pile of money.

The banquet was a charity event, raising money for kids left disproportionately behind due to the coronavirus and economic collapse. One would never imagine such a tragedy had touched the world from within these walls. The perfect people had ridden out the turmoil from the confines of luxurious estates. But of course, they gave back. They raised money for the children. Goldie saved the whales. They used their wealth for themselves sure, but also for the greater good. Everyone was happy to shell out twenty thousand a plate because it meant they were good perfect people. Not like those shallow ones. These people, they checked their privilege with a deep dive into their wallets.

Jasper was a no show, his expensive plate remained empty, which meant Tam could breathe easier. There was something about that man's cold reception that was worse than the ramifications from any scandal. She supposed he didn't consider himself a perfect person either, yet he seemed trapped being perfect person adjacent. Not so different from herself.

Maybe he hated her because she was the same as him, rather than different.

#

Glamour Days didn't kill her. She hated that she didn't hate it altogether. She showed up the next day to Goldie's house, ready to tackle the development of the next Lucre-themed EpiGold.

Ten in the morning and the apartment remained dark. Jasper had already said he wouldn't be there until afternoon, but usually Goldie was up by then. She'd just let herself in when Goldie's dog walker trailed in behind her.

"No sign of Goldie," she told Tam as she unclipped Bailey from his leash. "It's going to be one of those days."

"What do you mean?" This was an unnecessary question that made its way out because it seemed appropriate to be naïve. Goldie was having another Maldives moment.

The dog walker shrugged and left. Tam wandered over to Goldie's bedroom door, Bailey Boo at her heals. She knocked. "Goldie? It's me. Bailey wants to come in."

No response.

Tam slipped open the door, letting both her and the dog in. Bailey Boo jumped onto the bed and nestled next to his human. "Goldie?"

She approached the bed the way a child approaches an open casket, with a timid fear of what she might find there.

Goldie groaned and turned away. "Not today, Tamara. I have a headache. Too much champagne at the banquet."

"Okay, but yesterday you said you wanted to start planning the EpiGold first thing this morning."

"I said, not today!" She pulled the blankets over her head. "I'm giving you the day off so say thank you and then leave. Water my philodendron before you go."

Tam spent the rest of the day reading about herself online. The Entertaining Hollywood spot had aired last night and now it seemed, she'd become a room divider rather than a pariah.

"If Goldie forgives her, so do I."

"So maybe they both get to sleep with other people. That's their business."

"No, not buying it. Goldie only said that stuff because she's too nice. Tam Martin is still trash."

She scrolled on and on, desperate Tam warring with thick skinned Tam as to whether she should be horrified or not give a fuck. The day ended with a stalemate.

When she showed up the next day for work, she entered the apartment to Goldie's laugh, as clear and melodic as a songbird. Goldie sat on a stool, her stylist wrapping her hair in foils. "Tam, finally! You're not late, but it feels like you are. I've been up since four. I told Jules I want a bit of red in my highlights this time. Isn't she a doll for rushing over here? Get ready to take notes. I have so many ideas for the next EpiGold. I swear, they're going to explode out of me."

#

That night, Tam stepped out of her shower, wrapped up in a towel, and checked her phone. There was a voicemail from Goldie, which was notable because Goldie never called anyone.

"It's been such a shit night. I wish I didn't have to do this..." A sob interrupted her message. "Tam, please, when you get this, come over."

She called back. No answer. Texted. No reply.

Fifteen minutes later, she rang Goldie's doorbell. Same result. She let herself in with the code Goldie had assigned to her.

"Goldie?" Bailey Boo whimpered from his velvet purple dog bed but didn't get up to greet her. Tam's heart sped. Goldie wasn't in the kitchen, or the production center. She kept one hand in her purse, clutching her pepper spray.

In the bedroom, Goldie's laptop glowed from a corner nightstand. On the wall opposite, a glass door leading to the balcony stood ajar, letting in a stagnant heat that competed with the air conditioning.

Tam slid the door open all the way and stepped out, lights from nearby high-rises glaring brightly after the dimness of the bedroom. Goldie's apartment faced the back of the building towards an alley. This, Goldie had told her, was a transitional apartment—a layover for a star destined for penthouses with panoramic views and vacation homes on the shores of several oceans. Like the resort in the Maldives, it was luxurious but not next level luxurious. There was better to come.

The balcony was empty, save for an overturned chair. Goldie's chair, the one she'd sit on at night to clear her head. The hair on Tam's arms raised. She stepped towards the balcony's rail, a metal framed barrier that came up nearly to Tam's chest.

Over the ledge. Down at the alley eight stories below.

Silence. Realization. Then a scream, reverberating off cement and glass and steel.

She ran, back into the bedroom, through Goldie's apartment, down the hallway. The only thing she remembered about the elevator was pressing the down button over and over, willing the stupid thing to move faster, or perhaps to move back in time to before she'd seen what she'd seen. She clasped her phone to her ear as she sprinted around to the back of the building. Had she told the doorman what happened? She struggled to form words, like she imagined would happen if she were having a stroke.

She managed to communicate something intelligible to the dispatcher. "An ambulance."

That's what Goldie needed. An ambulance. Medicine. The EMTs would fix her. Lucre previewed in fourteen days. They'd use its mineral-based foundation to cover up fading bruises. Everything would be okay.

Red light from a building's exit sign competed with an alley lamp as they both flickered over Goldie's upturned face. Red, yellow, red yellow. Tam had to stop herself from reaching down to reposition her boss's neck. Such an impossible angle. Still, those lips shone—like she'd been kissed by King Midas. Gold, but worthless, toxic. Fatal.

As fatal as a fall from the sky. Crimson blood sullied her perfect makeup. It bubbled up over her mouth onto her chin and neck and hair and the cement beneath her. Flecks of metallic pigment shimmered within a darkening pool. Her eyes stared up towards her balcony as though she couldn't believe she'd fallen so far, so fast. Tam sunk to her knees. She waited for the ambulance, the worthless EMTs, the police; she waited with the calm of the dead.

Desperate, but good at hiding it, Goldie had once said about her. How much longer, she wondered, would she keep up that façade.

--------

And with that dramatic moment, the curtain draws on Act 1. Goldie, influencer extraordinaire and up-and-coming world phenom, is dead. Why? Did she jump? Was she pushed? What happened and who will be blamed?

There is so much more to come and I'm excited for you to read along with me. Thank you for your support!