Not that she was sad. She wasn’t; she was thrilled about everything. She just felt a little at loose ends, that’s all.

She put her phone down, but it almost immediately buzzed. She picked it back up.

Proud of you, Anna baby.

 

She let the tears that had been in her eyes flow.

Thanks, Dad.

 

A few minutes later, her gate buzzer went off. She looked at the security camera, and it was Simon. Did they have a meeting scheduled today? Probably. She hadn’t been paying much attention to her calendar over the past few days.

She buzzed him in and wiped her eyes.

When she opened the front door, she was composed.

“I’m sorry, Simon—I hadn’t realized we were meeting today; Florence and I must have gotten our signals crossed.”

Simon walked inside, as impeccably dressed as always.

“We weren’t. Sorry for barging in. There’s something I wanted to chat with you about.”

This was weird. But it must not be bad news—Simon was always good about giving her bad news straight out, with no “we need to talk” preamble. It was one of the reasons she liked working with him so much.

She brought him into her office and sat down at her desk.

“What is it?”

He stood there looking at her for a moment before he sat down.

“The L.A. Times piece is out. Did you see it?”

She nodded.

“Yeah. I was happy with it. I mean, I’m always going to have things to criticize about what I said and didn’t say, but I think I got all of the important things across.”

Simon sighed. What was it? What had she forgotten? What had she said wrong?

“Simon?”

He pulled out his phone and read from it.

“ ‘And my friends were wonderful. Ben’s been so supportive,’ Anna said, in an apparent reference to her new boyfriend, Ben Stephens.’ That’s the only thing you said about him in the interview. Unless she just didn’t print the part where you said that you’re single now?”

She hadn’t even realized she’d said that.

“I totally forgot about that part. I didn’t even mean to say that. About Ben, I mean. I was just concentrating on saying all of the right stuff about anxiety and my career and everything else. Okay, well, I guess we’ll just have to figure out another way to do that.”

He sat back and crossed his legs.

“You know, normally, I’d buy that. But not from you. You’re good at this, you know how to do this stuff, but instead you said ‘Ben’s been so supportive.’ What’s going on between the two of you, Anna? Is there something you haven’t told me? Not that you have to tell me the details of your personal life, I hope you know that, and if you want me to butt out, just say the word, but from what you said last week, I thought the Ben thing was all over. But I know you too well to think that you just forgot to tell the world you’re single. In your mind, you’re still with him. Aren’t you? Are you two still—”

She shook her head.

“No, no, that’s all done. I told you, I just forgot, that’s all.”

She stood up.

“Was that everything? Because my trainer is coming over soon, and I have to . . .”

Simon didn’t move.

“You fell for him. Didn’t you?”

She sat back down.

“No! What are you talking about? That isn’t—that’s not what I wanted. We had a perfectly nice little fling; it’s over now, I’ve moved on.”

Simon just looked at her.

“Fine! He told me he loved me! Are you happy now? After the premiere. But I’m sure he didn’t actually mean it. People just say things, you know that. He was probably just caught up in the glamour of the night and everything. He left the next day, and I haven’t heard from him since; see, that’s proof, he didn’t mean it, it didn’t matter.”

“I saw the way he looked at you,” Simon said. “That wasn’t the look of a man who didn’t mean it.”

Anna brushed that aside.

“I told him to look at me that way. That was for the cameras. You should know that better than anyone.”

Simon shook his head.

“No. I’m talking about when there were no cameras around.”

Anna knew what Simon was talking about. She pictured Ben’s face, when he’d looked at her like that. She shook that off.

“Simon. It was business, you know that. He did help me through some stuff, and I was really grateful for it, I guess that’s why I said that in the interview, but that doesn’t mean anything like you seem to think it means!”

Simon leaned forward.

“What did he do—when you said he was so supportive? Were you talking about that day outside the restaurant when those photos got taken?”

She looked away.

“It wasn’t just that, there was a lot more to it, but yeah. I was really . . . that was a hard day. And he was great. Really great. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

She wanted to take that back as soon as it came out of her mouth. Of course it meant something. It had meant everything to her. But she had to make Simon understand it was all over.

“And yes, okay, I keep thinking about him, of course I do. But like I said, I’m done with that!”

She had to be.

“Anna.” He waited until she turned to look at him. “You don’t seem done.”

She felt tears well up in her eyes.

“He saw me at my worst, okay? And he was wonderful, yes. But I don’t want someone who has seen me at my worst! I want someone who falls in love with me at my best!”

Simon touched her arm.

“I understand that, but—”

“I don’t want love and all of that! I just want the old Anna back—the Anna from before everything happened! That Anna was great—she had so much fun, she went to lots of parties and dated lots of men and managed to ignore her constant anxiety!”

They both started laughing. Anna grabbed a tissue from her desk and wiped her eyes.

“Do you really want that, Anna?” She’d never heard Simon sound so gentle. “The old Anna was great, don’t get me wrong, that’s why I wanted to work with her in the first place. But what if the old Anna is gone? There’s a whole new Anna in her place. I like her a lot. It seems like Ben did, too.”