Star-Crossed Summer

1

Now

Ah, there she is! One of the world's most beautiful people."

I shuffle into the kitchen in my pajamas, bleary-eyed and disheveled, curly hair piled atop my head in a tangled rat's nest. "Thanks, I woke up like this."

"Remember Scarlett, success starts before the world opens its eyes," Kendall recites in the chirpy voice of someone who's definitely had caffeine.

"Winners make moves while losers hit snooze," I say around a yawn, climbing into the folding director's chair my sister's set up next to the island. "Yeah yeah, I got it. It's too early for Dad's motivational catchphrases."

She grins as she continues laying out her assortment of compacts, palettes, and bottles in neat rows. I make a grab for the stack of papers she's got tucked under one arm, but she smacks my hand away in a lightning-fast kamikaze move. "Patience, grasshopper."

"I've been patient long enough," I say sharply, removing all traces of humor from my voice. I lift my chin and square my shoulders in what I hope is a convincing display of authority. "As the executive producer on this project, I demand you show me your progress materials, or you're fired."

"If that was supposed to be your 'intimidating boss' tone, it needs work," she says absently, fanning out an impressive collection of makeup brushes on my countertop.

I sigh, letting my shoulders drop. "What, should I make my voice deeper?"

"I'm not sure that's gonna cut it," Kendall says wryly, but she must take pity on me, because she crosses to my expansive marble island and starts doling out her inspiration images one by one, like a pit boss dealing cards at a blackjack table. I squeal and jump back up, crowding over her shoulder to study them: There's Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, Sienna Miller in Factory Girl, Sharon Stone in Casino, and Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle, along with a bunch of Polaroids of me in various seventies looks taken at my costume fitting.

"Ready to be turned into a disco diva?" she teases, and I throw my arms around her neck and squeeze.

Today we're testing makeup looks for my upcoming role in The Ingenue, the bombshell, true-life tale of legendary actress-turned-CIA-asset Elise Rhodes, alleged to have seduced and blackmailed some of the world's most powerful men over the course of three decades. The details of Elise's gutsy, glamorous life, as told to a ghostwriter in a series of interviews conducted prior to her death and released posthumously, contain all the elements of a dramatic Hollywood spy thriller: power, peril, international intrigue, and high-stakes sexpionage, all carried out by a woman most Americans viewed as the demure "girl next door."

With her clandestine double life finally revealed, the battle over who would bring Elise's story to the big screen began-and a bare-knuckled brawl it was, with every studio executive in town fighting to land the film rights. In the end, it was a combination of industry clout and lucky breaks that pushed my pitch over the finish line. Chief among them: a commitment to star in the film myself-Elise was apparently a fan of my movies, a tidbit shared by her children that delighted me to no end-and her own stipulation that any adaptation be helmed by a woman. Gotta love a lady who manages to call the shots from beyond the grave.

I'm as excited about the project as I am daunted by it. It's the buzziest, highest-profile feature I've taken on yet at Violet Femme Films, the production company I founded several years ago to create more opportunities for women both in front of and behind the camera. Playing Elise is a dream role for any artist, a once-in-a-lifetime part actors spend their entire careers chasing. It's also the biggest risk I've ever taken, both personally and professionally. Not only am I taking a major financial stake in the project, but there's nothing the entrenched Hollywood boys' club loves more than a box office bomb they can pin on the fairer sex, if only to prove their archaic thesis that "a woman can't open a movie." We'll see about that.

Kendall holds up a photo of Heather Graham in Boogie Nights next to my face before shaking her head and setting it aside. "I want to go full femme fatale for this. Elise will be at the height of her influence at this time. We need something iconic for the character, a signature look that will transcend the time period. Like Michelle Pfeiffer's cat eye in Scarface," she says, plucking a photo from the stack and holding it up. "Now, that's iconic. Those bangs, that lip, the smoky eye-it's perfection. It's subtle and sophisticated, but there's still an innocence to her. And it's so simple. It really shouldn't work as well as it does . . ."

She continues muttering to herself as she shuffles through the inspiration photos, and I have to hide my smile. I love seeing her in her element like this, when she's completely consumed by a project. It's something the two of us share: passion for our craft, and an obsession with getting even the tiniest details exactly right. It's why I can't imagine working with anyone else but her; she cares every bit as much as I do. We like to joke that we were both bitten by the Hollywood bug, just infected by different strains.

My sister's been my makeup artist practically as long as I can remember, since I shamelessly pulled some strings to land her a job as a poorly paid assistant in the makeup trailer on one of my first big jobs. Not that it mattered; she would have done it for free. She was in hog heaven, learning from the best in the business and making herself indispensable to everyone on set, using her sunny, easygoing personality to build relationships she'd eventually use as a springboard for future work. While I may have helped get her foot in the door, she's made a name for herself all on her own. She's become one of the most in-demand makeup artists in the industry, a testament to her genuine talent and exceptional work ethic. I'm prouder of her success than my own.

I wish I could say she just follows me around all day making sure I never have a false eyelash out of place, but at this stage in her career, she's as much a collaborator as a cosmetic artist. Honestly, I'm just grateful she still prioritizes my projects because her steady, reliable presence in my life is one of the last remaining tethers to normalcy I still have. She's my best friend and most trusted-really, my only-confidant.

While Kendall finishes assembling her tools of the trade, I grab a green juice and settle back into the makeup chair, admiring the panoramic view of the glittering Pacific Ocean I paid so handsomely to wake up to every morning. Kendall calls my Malibu mansion "the lighthouse" in a dig at my isolated lifestyle, and I suppose she's not too far off. I do technically have neighbors, not that I've ever met them. The uber-rich industry bigwigs, tech moguls, and foreign nationals who buy cliffside homes all the way out in Malibu don't tend to be the sociable, welcome basket types.

But I've learned to embrace the solitude, especially after so many years spent on crowded, chaotic film sets and all the extroversion my job requires. It was either a secluded beachside retreat or a bachelorette pad in the Hollywood Hills, where I'd be forced to endure double-decker buses crammed with rubbernecking tourists streaming past at all hours of the day, desperate to catch a glimpse of their favorite leading lady taking out the trash. It wasn't a difficult decision to make. And I do love my house, even if it is unbearably quiet and lonely at times. If I have to live in a cage, at least it's a gilded one.

Kendall starts to shake up a bottle of primer before poking me in the shoulder with the pointy end of a makeup brush. "Stop slouching."

"Okay, Mom." I smirk at her eye roll, then slide on the velvet headband she hands me, meant to keep my strawberry-blond waves (or whatever color my hair is this week) out of my face while she works her magic. I do straighten my spine, though, once I catch sight of my rounded shoulders in the brightly lit portable mirror she's set up on the island. My Pilates instructor-to whom I pay a small fortune and credit with an extra half inch of my height-would foam at the mouth if she saw me hunching like this.

"Speaking of Mom, when you don't call her back, she hounds me instead," Kendall scolds as she squeezes some foundation onto a sponge, and I grunt dismissively. "No, do not brush me off. If I have to keep running interference, I'll contour you so the camera adds twenty pounds instead of ten."

I gasp theatrically. "You wouldn't dare."

"Try me."

I sigh and relent. "She's harassing me about Christmas plans and it's midsummer! It's not like I can commit when I have no idea what will be going on with the shooting schedule," I gripe, twisting the top off the green juice and taking a long pull. Not to mention, I really don't feel like fielding our mother's prying questions about my breakup with Elliott, however well-intentioned they might be. It's truly a curse to be one of my parents' only children without a significant other. Kendall seems to evade scrutiny as the baby of the family, but my immunity expired years ago, right alongside my anonymity. I love my family, but there's only so much third-wheeling a person can take. "Even if the shoot is going well, spending the holidays with the Everhart family zoo won't exactly be the relaxing break I need. I may just want to go sit on a beach somewhere."

She gives me a sympathetic look. "You know everyone just wants to see you."

I soften. "I know. I want to see them too." Even if I do feel the gulf between us widening every time I go home, the reality of their busy lives full of children and routines is about as far from my jet-setting, transient lifestyle as it gets. Not for the first time, I wonder what my life would look like if I'd never left small-town Indiana, if I'd never gone after this big dream, if I lived within ten miles of my childhood home like so many of my high school friends still do. And the tricky part is, from the outside in, I know how enviable my life looks. I'm the "hometown girl made good," living a life with all the comfort and perks of celebrity, and if there's one thing I know, it's that no one feels sorry for the girl who's been handed the world on a silver platter. I only wish I could explain how, in the decade since "making it big," that world feels so much smaller.

"I get it. I'll buy you some time, but I won't run cover for you forever," Kendall warns.

I squeeze her arm gratefully. "Thank you."

"So what else do you have going on this week?" she asks, stippling foundation onto my face in a way I find so relaxing, I've been known to fall asleep sitting up.

"Tons of prep, mostly. I have production Zoom calls coming out of my ears. Oh! I meant to show you . . ." I pull out my phone, scrolling through my inbox until I find the email from my publicist. "Avery sent over some of the photos from the Vanity Fair shoot."

"Ooh," she says, zooming in on a couple. "Scar, these turned out fantastic! You look gorgeous."

"Thanks to your handiwork."

She preens, passing the phone back to me and resuming her sponging. "When's the profile coming out?"

"Next week, I think," I say, hoping I don't regret granting the in-depth interview, the first I've sat for in quite a while. The profile is meant to be a rebranding of sorts, showcasing my transition from likable actress to serious producer, a professional pivot I've been working toward for years. At this point in my career, I don't do much press; I've earned the right to guard my privacy. I've always felt that the less people know about me, the more believable I am as an actress. Not to mention, it's a delicate dance to deflect questions about my personal life without coming across as cold, evasive, or ungrateful to my fans. Still, there's so much riding on this film that I gave my publicist permission to book a few high-profile interviews, and I'm crossing my fingers that my industry evolution will be taken seriously, that it won't be dismissed as a vanity project.

"Headline guesses?" Kendall queries, and I grin. It's a game we like to play, to see if we can predict the puns and double entendres magazine editors love coming up with for their clickbait-y-and often cringeworthy-headlines.

I think for a minute. "'Hollywood's Double Agent Doubles Down.' Or maybe, 'Scarlett Spies Her Next Horizon.'"

Kendall snickers. "Not bad. I'm going with, 'All Rhodes Lead Here: Inside Scarlett's Most Daring Role Yet!'"

"These almost make me miss 'Happy Everhart After,'" I say with a groan.

There's a gleam in her eye. "But nothing tops-"

"Don't say it-"

"'America's Sweetest Sweetheart,'" we say in unison, and I make a retching noise. It's my least favorite headline of all time, and Kendall loves taunting me with it.

"There are worse things in life than being universally beloved," she reminds me, motioning for me to close my eyes. I oblige, and a moment later, I feel the cool mist of the setting spray.

I wish I could say she was exaggerating, but in Hollywood, they actually have something called a Q Score, which is essentially a likability index that measures your audience appeal to determine how bankable you are (see perennial high-scorers Sandra Bullock, Tom Hanks, and Meryl Streep, to name a few). My Q Score is impressively high, a fact my agent insists on reminding me of at every opportunity in hopes of deterring me from any major missteps or public meltdowns. Fortunately for her, I've managed to stay scandal free, save for the unavoidable social media rumor mill every celebrity must contend with. I rank particularly high for "relatability" and "girl next door"-that is, if the girl next door lived in a twelve-million-dollar Malibu mansion Barbie could only dream of.