It was a glossy black-and-white headshot. Bare face, bare shoulders, the harsh lights of the studio narrowing her pupils to pinpricks. She stared directly into the camera, stunning, defiant, hair framing her face in delicate tendrils. He’d been watching her in Lucy LaVey drag for so long that he’d almost forgotten how much of a separation there was between her and the character. This picture, though, was one-hundred-proof Grey.
He was careful not to spend too long staring at it as Lucas made his way over to the couch with a heaping plate of pizza. He flipped to the next page, which was all text. It wasn’t until his eyes fell on Sugar Clarke’s byline that he realized: this was the profile they were supposed to have done together. Classic Audrey.
Ethan glanced up at Lucas.
“Do you mind?”
Lucas shrugged. “Take your time.” He pulled out his phone and started scrolling.
Ethan settled back into the couch and began to read.
You Don’t Know Grey Brooks
Then again, maybe you do. Maybe you were one of the million people who tuned in regularly to Poison Paradise, the prime-time teen cable drama on which she played bright-eyed good-girl Lucy LaVey for six years. Maybe you saw her running for her life fetchingly in the sleeper horror hit Don’t Forget to Scream four (or was it five?) summers ago. Maybe you recognize her from her stint as a child actress, back when she was still Emily Brooks, during which she made guest appearances on just about every soap opera and procedural ever to shoot in New York City.
Or maybe, like most of us, you first became aware of her earlier this year, when she began stepping out regularly on the arm of Ethan Atkins.
The first time I meet Brooks, we’re sitting on the roof of Lexington House, the luxe West Hollywood members-only club to which neither of us belongs, sipping iced jasmine rose tea. Brooks is twenty-seven; by the time you read this, she’ll be twenty-eight. Depending on the way the light hits her face, she looks both younger and older than her age, girlish and world-weary all at once. She’s beautiful, of course—the girl next door, but in the most Hollywood sense of the term. Still a fantasy, but with the crucial illusion of attainability.
She’s ill at ease but trying to hide it. It could be the unfamiliarity of the atmosphere. It could be (as she tells me) her nerves at being profiled by a major outlet for the first time, despite a career that’s already spanned more than two-thirds of her short life. But when I bring up Atkins, she flinches.
It doesn’t take a leap of imagination to figure out why. Full disclosure: until two weeks ago, this story was intended to be a joint profile of both Atkins and Brooks. That is, until a racy series of photos of the two of them in flagrante began to circulate, sending the most spotted couple in town back underground, the current status of their relationship a red-letter question.
When I tell her we don’t need to talk about Atkins if she doesn’t want to, she smiles wryly.
“It’s fine. Whether I talk about him or not, you’re still going to put his name on the cover anyway, right?”
Still, she declines to respond when I ask for details about how they met, or whether or not they’re still together. When I bring up the unconfirmed rumor that her offer of a role in the hotly anticipated adaptation of Golden City was rescinded as a result of the pictures, the look on her face says it all.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” she says. Her voice is calm, but her hands betray her agitation by delicately shredding her paper napkin as she speaks. She fixes me with a piercing blue stare. “I don’t understand why I’m the one suffering the consequences for being violated by the press, for having my most private moments made public without my consent. For falling in love.” When she says the word “love,” her voice catches. For all the cynical whispers that the union between her and Atkins has (had?) the distinctive whiff of a publicity stunt, the glimpse of pain in her eyes before she looks away seems agonizingly real.
Ethan read that last paragraph twice. Three times. With trembling hands, he forced himself to skim through the rest of the story. It contained a few new details he hadn’t known about her, including that when she was thirteen, she’d been one of the final two actresses in contention to play the titular regular-girl-slash-secret-pop-star on the hit Disney Channel show Virginia Virginia—though, of course, she’d lost out in the end. He flipped through the other pages; more photographs of Grey, looking varying degrees of wounded and fearless.
Suddenly, with perfect clarity, Ethan realized what he had to do. He looked up to see Lucas, already down to the crust on his second piece of pizza, watching him intently.
“I need your help with something.”
THE DAYS LEADING UP TO her birthday filled Grey with dread. Even under the best circumstances, she’d never really been a fan: in her line of work, she’d been conditioned to see birthdays as one more precious year slipping through her fingers, her goals still just out of reach. This year in particular didn’t feel like there was much worth celebrating. Still, she’d agreed to let Kamilah take her out to their favorite dim sum place and stuff her full of veggie dumplings.
They trudged up the stone pathway to their front door, stomachs bursting, giggling about the job Kamilah had booked for the next week—a repeat gig directing a music video for a boy band with notoriously overzealous fans.
“Can you please give Thorne my number this time, at least?” Grey teased as Kamilah pulled her keys out of her pocket.
“I should. Last time all he did between takes was sit around eating Swedish Fish and not talking to anybody. You two would probably get along.” Kamilah unlocked the door and Grey tilted her head back dreamily.
“Man, I haven’t had Swedish Fish in forever. Remember in college when we ate that two-pound bag from Costco in one sit—”
As Kamilah pushed the door open, Grey was drowned out by a chorus of shouting voices:
“Surprise!”
Grey blinked, her mouth falling open. Her house was packed with people. As she looked around the room, registering the faces beaming back at her, it seemed like everyone she’d ever known and loved in L.A. was there.
Well. Almost everyone.
She looked at Kamilah, mouth still hanging open. Kamilah grinned.
“I thought you might need a little distraction after all.”
Grey barely had time to thank her before Mia pounced, eager to introduce Grey to her new boyfriend. The party swung into gear, people spilling out into the backyard, which had been set up with a booming sound system and strung with twinkle lights.
As soon as Grey stepped into the backyard, someone pressed a can of beer into her hand, cold and slick with condensation. She whirled around to see who it was, accidentally bumping into Renata, who squeezed her shoulder and planted a fat red lipstick mark on her cheek.
“Happy birthday, kiddo,” she said fondly. “How you been holding up?”
“Better. Still not great,” Grey replied honestly, cracking the beer open and taking a sip.
“Are you ready to get back out there soon? No pressure.”
Grey couldn’t hide her shock. “You have work for me?”
“Nothing that’ll knock your socks off, but it’s starting to pile up. You’re definitely on people’s minds, for better or worse. How’s the script coming, though? This might be a good time to strike on that.”
“Good. Really good, actually. You think you can get us some meetings? Because of my…because of everything?”
Renata nodded. “Absolutely. It’ll get you in the room, at least. If they underestimate you, fuck ’em. That’s their mistake.”
Grey felt a rush of gratitude and wrapped Renata in a hug. “Thank you, Renata.”
Renata stroked her hair. “Of course, my love. You know I’m proud of you no matter what, right? You’ll fight your way through this. You always do.”
Grey blinked back tears, clutching Renata tighter.