17

Cannes is a dream come true, I keep telling myself.

Back in London I knew people who regularly attended, and always fantasized about being one of them. And though I know Clark is here not for glamour but for the Marché du Film, the marketplace where filmmakers in need of funding network with financiers, distributors and publicists, he’s promised we will have time for both.

But the reality is that it rains solidly for the first several days after we arrive, turning the view from our palatial hotel room from idyllic to rugged, the cape a sickly shadow of the images I had in my head. And Clark is gone all day, disappearing to meetings after our daily breakfast out on the terrace, leaving me with the daily festival trade magazines which list all of the screenings I can’t go to and the news I’m not breaking. Reel turned down my offer to work remotely from Cannes; they have more people on the ground here than they need and are short-staffed back at the office, which is why they offered me the gig to begin with.

In anticipation of my work in the office, I had been given access to Reel’s content management system, the back-end website that reporters use to upload and publish their stories remotely, and my login credentials have not been revoked. So in my grimmest moments I log in and just look at the queue of pending articles, the news breaks and the reviews and the interviews that I’m not writing.

Here, I don’t have press credentials, and without them the process of actually seeing films is labyrinthine, too overwhelming for me to tackle. I do have a badge for the festival, the best Clark could arrange at the last moment, but it’s the very lowest of Cannes’ many, many tiers of access, a badge that gives you a tantalizing taste of the festival but never lets you take a full bite. A surly employee at the festival office tries to explain it to me in French, and then in broken English, and though I smile at him and nod I leave feeling more confused than ever, understanding nothing except that I’m screwed.

The hotel is far enough from the centre of Cannes – half an hour in good traffic – that it’s impractical to return there during the day. So I wander alone up and down the Promenade de la Croisette, the town’s main oceanfront drag which during the festival transforms into a buzzing, chaotic thoroughfare for movie stars, industry elites and the press, the pavements becoming packed with throngs hoping for a glimpse of the stars. Lined on one side by the ocean, and private yachts on which exclusive parties are held, and on the other by a procession of grand hotels, each with their own outdoor patio bar out front, La Croisette serves as a reminder of all the places to which you are not invited. And without Clark, the list of places to which I am not invited is long.

Tom is here at Cannes too. We’re finally in touch again, tentatively, small talk only, and though we made vague plans to meet up while we were both here, neither of us has followed through. He’s here only briefly – Undead has been picked up for a full season, and though the show won’t air until autumn it’s already getting some significant buzz, thanks to the pilot leaking early online.

‘Guess we’re both moving up in the world,’ he said when we last spoke on the phone, in a tone that made me wonder just how much he knew. Right before he asked, sarcastically, if the pickup news made me more interested in seeing him.

‘That’s not fair,’ I said, but in fact it’s very fair. I’d put him out of my head with barely a second thought once things with Clark accelerated, with an ease that’s breathtaking to me when I look back on it. And so I don’t push when he says that his Cannes schedule is packed. I deserve this.

I stand for a long time outside the Grand Palais, the convention centre that serves as a hub for press attending the festival, and watch all the bedraggled, sleep-deprived journalists come and go with their credential badges in different colours, each spelling out a different level of access. I try to overhear their conversations, some loud, some muted; what’s the frontrunner for the Palme d’Or, whether that new Von Trier really deserved to get booed, why this year’s festival just feels more muted than last. I start eating things that I never eat – crusty brie-stuffed baguettes from a boulangerie at the far eastern end of La Croisette, Nutella and banana crepes from a vendor near the beach – during my walks up and down, anything to distract me from the overwhelming anticlimax of this reality.

My text missives to Faye betray none of this – I’m having the time of my life, I tell her, with the emojis to match. She has no idea that I’m here with Clark, or that we’re involved, and I’m going to keep it that way, because there is nobody more guaranteed to leak your secrets than Faye. And when I see Clark in the evenings, I betray none of this to him either, though he does know that I wasn’t able to get press credentials at short notice, and promises me he is ‘working on’ a solution.

‘So what have you been doing with yourself all day?’ he asks me, slipping in behind me as I’m lining my eyes in black pencil, his arms around my waist.

‘Oh, you know. Keeping busy,’ I tell him, flashing a charming and mysterious smile, because I do not want him to know just how unconnected, how helpless, how out of my depth I truly am. The power imbalance in our relationship is heavy enough already. He takes me with him to a party that night, an informal affair in the front garden of one of La Croisette’s hotels, where magnums of rosé are served beneath a marquee and the rain continues to pour. Rosé is a drink that only appeals in the sunshine.

Finally, on my fifth day of sad Croisette wandering, I make a breakthrough. I’m sitting on the nearest bench to the Palais feeling particularly dejected, when I realize a young woman nearby is looking at me. She’s petite and neat and polished, blonde hair in a sleek bob, immaculate trench coat tied at her waist. Her slim legs are crossed, her right ankle tucked behind her left calf in a way I find bewildering.

‘I know you,’ she says, so quietly that at first I think she’s talking to someone else. Her accent is German, I think, but subtle.

‘Oh, right!’ I say automatically, once I realize she means me. I don’t recognize this person at all, but I’m so bad at remembering faces that I’m functionally face-blind, and have found that pretending to remember everyone is the best way to avoid awkwardness. ‘We met at—’

‘Bâoli Beach.’

Our first night in Cannes, when I was feeling giddy and jet-lagged enough to risk attending the opening night premiere party with Clark, albeit in our usual separate cars. Held in a white marquee overlooking the beach, with white-gloved waiters handing out pink champagne flutes and ramekins of truffled mac and cheese, bona fide movie stars everywhere I turned, the afterparty felt like a dream.

We reintroduce ourselves and slip into conversation about the film, a bloated and self-indulgent biopic of Vincent Van Gogh which I’d had to force myself to stay awake through. Though it drew a seemingly endless standing ovation at the premiere screening we attended, the atmosphere seemed tense as the cast and director made brief appearances onstage – reports of jeering and booing had emerged from the first press screening that morning, followed swiftly by scathing reviews.

‘I thought it wasn’t so bad,’ Lina, the German, says with a shrug. ‘Everything at Cannes is always genius or trash, there’s no middle in the reactions.’

‘Yeah, I’ve always heard that. Didn’t expect to see it in action so quickly.’

‘What else have you seen?’

‘I actually don’t have a badge. I decided to come here kind of last minute, so.’

‘Still, there are ways.’

I scoot a little closer to her on the bench, leaning towards her like she’s about to spill state secrets.

‘You notice how there are these crowds of well-dressed people waiting beside the red carpet at premieres here? At the Lumière, the Debussy even. They’re in dresses, tuxedos, dressed up, but they don’t have tickets. That’s because they’re waiting to see if someone gives them a spare. You get penalized if you have a ticket and you don’t use it, so badge-holders will just give them away sometimes if you’re dressed well.’

‘That actually works?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘My friend and I, we used to do it all the time – it’s easy if you’re a woman. They always come to you first. I got in to see Foxcatcher this way, and Blue is the Warmest Color the year before. You just must pass the fashion test. Those guys, they won’t let you in unless you wear heels, a dress, nice jewellery. They love to turn people away.’

This sounds nightmarish, but I’m already mentally scanning the wardrobe options I brought. The premiere of the film I most want to see here is this evening.

‘You don’t do it any more?’ I ask her.

‘I don’t need to now. My boyfriend, he works in the industry, so I’m in for real. And you too, I think? The other night, you were with…’ She trails off, in the way people sometimes do in lieu of saying a very famous name.

‘Oh, Clark and I aren’t— We’re just friends.’

She smiles at me, knowingly, non-judgementally, and I realize she doesn’t know the backstory, probably does not keep up with American celebrity profiles, so I tell her. I’m a journalist, I just wrote a profile on him a few weeks ago, and we happened to run into each other at the party last night, it’s a small world after all. None of this is making her knowing smile go away.

‘It’s okay,’ she says, laughing a little, and I can feel that I’m not lying well, that my face is betraying me. ‘I don’t care, I’m not going to expose you.’

I’m not panicking. I feel strangely calm, even detached from the fact that I’m having a conversation with a stranger about my relationship with Clark, because on a gut level I can tell that Lina truly doesn’t care. She’s not an Us Weekly source undercover, or at least she probably isn’t.

‘It’s very new,’ I say quietly.

‘You know that you can’t be public with him. It’s something without a future. Which makes it appealing, no?’

‘I don’t see it that way. We can go public, we’re just taking it slow, waiting until the buzz around the profile dies down.’

She doesn’t press the issue, but the truth is she’s put a bug in my ear that I won’t be able to shake. Because when, exactly, will it be possible for me to go public as Clark’s girlfriend and not immediately torpedo my career? No matter how long we wait or how many more professional wins I can rack up, that profile will always be one of the first things people know about me; in all likelihood it will be the first Google result under my name for some time. What bothers me more than this fact is the question of whether Clark knows it, too. Whether he knows that there’s no future in this. Whether that knowledge is the real reason he’s interested in me.

There is no way for me to ask him without ruining my facade of breezy casual, and I know I need to play it cool; this is what you must do for at least the first three months of any relationship, no matter how hard you’re being swept off your feet. But the idea of going public, of being known as Clark Conrad’s girlfriend, has taken hold of something in my chest and won’t let go. The idea of everyone I’ve ever known reading about me, seeing me pictured climbing out of a car with Clark, eyes demurely downturned against the camera flashes. Heather Lamford, the girl who bullied me in such subtly vicious ways throughout year nine that I faked illness for a month; Harry Cromwell, the boy who took my virginity and then ghosted me. My mother, who has never made me feel secure in anything I do. My father, who walked out of my life without a second thought. I want all of them to know who I’ve become, and who I’m beside. I want him to lay claim to me.

All of this is still churning in my head later that evening when Lina and I are standing in formalwear at the side of the Grand Théâtre Lumière trying to look hopeful, but not desperate. We are both holding signs bearing the name of tonight’s film, which Lina assured me was the customary way of marking yourself out as a ticket beggar, and sure enough there are little clusters of people nearby doing the same.

‘You really don’t have to do this,’ I told Lina, conscious of the fact that she has a boyfriend who can get her in without this humiliation.

‘Oh no, this is fun. I like going back to a time when I had to try for things,’ she replies cheerfully.

We do not get in to the premiere, but the experience of trying is strangely enjoyable, less soul-destroying in a pair than I imagine it would be solo, and over the next few days I accompany Lina to a series of random events, some of them smaller screenings, some branded parties for companies with sponsorship deals at Cannes. We don’t have much to say to each other beyond small talk, nor much in common besides acquaintances, but for this kind of transitory travel friendship, it doesn’t matter.

One afternoon I catch sight of Skye across the hotel bar terrace, and for a second I’m sure I’m mistaken. Lina offhandedly asked me if I wanted to come with her to this L’Oréal party but immediately abandoned me once we were inside, anchoring herself to a group of similarly shiny young women who looked at me with vague bewilderment, their body language collectively telling me to excuse myself. I’ve spent the time since making notes on my phone about the decorations and the famous attendees I spot, half-heartedly thinking maybe I’ll pitch a writeup to Reel’s party diary.

‘Jess!’ Skye cries out, her stilettos making a dramatic clip-clop against the polished floor as she bounds towards me and hugs me. I give her a quick squeeze in return, jarred by this unfamiliar nickname from her.

‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ I joke, and she looks blankly at me. ‘Because I keep running into you at parties. What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve been here a long time,’ she tells me in an exaggerated whisper, leaning back in, her breath hot against my ear, ‘but it’s a secret. I’m keeping a low profile. The good news is I’m a total fucking nobody in Europe so it’s actually easy. What are you drinking?’

She takes the gin and tonic right out of my hand and sips it, then pulls a face and shoves it back towards me so hard it spills.

‘So are you loving Cannes?’ she asks, saying it like cans. ‘I just come to party but I think it’s boring after a few days, like the ocean back home is better and bluer and I get seasick on boats even when they’re not moving so I can’t go to yacht parties, which sucks because that’s where my friends all are right now, but now I get to be here with you instead so lucky us, right?’

There is something wrong with her, her pupils dilated, her skin flushed, her gaze unfocused, and she’s talking so fast I can barely keep up. She must be on something, and whatever it is it’s not the same something she was taking back in California. I insist on getting her water from the bar, and she drinks it like it’s the first water she’s had in days.

‘Does Clark know you’re here?’ I ask, and she laughs and says nothing, but I know the answer. There is no way he would have signed off on her coming here, to a place known as much for its parties as its prestige.

‘Wait,’ she gasps then. ‘You have to meet my boyfriend, come on.’

She drags me by the arm over to the outdoor portion of the terrace where a short, slim figure in ripped black skinny jeans and an oversized hoodie turns around to meet us, and I recognize Brett Rickards. Skye makes her singsong introduction – Jessica, Brett, Brett, Jessica – and he says, ‘Hey,’ with a bored glance up and down at me, barely feigning interest. Only someone this famous could get away with being this underdressed.

‘Love the new single,’ I tell him, which is a lie, since I don’t even remember the name of it, but it’s been playing in every other bar and ice cream shop I’ve visited here.

‘You and everybody else, I guess,’ Brett says solemnly, as though the burden of his music’s success weighs heavily on him.

‘It’s so fucking good, right?’ Skye yaps, and grabs two champagne flutes from a passing waiter, downing the first immediately like it’s just more water.

‘Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to drink?’ I ask quietly, while Brett appears distracted by his phone. It’s never been entirely clear to me how sobriety played into Skye’s rehab programme, but every time I’ve seen her up until now she has been markedly drinking mineral water.

‘It’s a great idea,’ she replies.

‘Yeah,’ I agree quickly, not wanting to rile her. ‘So… so you guys are…?’

‘Still going strong,’ Brett says lazily, an arm snaked around Skye’s waist.

‘That’s great.’ Everything I say rings hollow and false, like I’m a stand-in for this role of Cannes Partygoer With Celebrity Friends. But there’s also a part of me that knows whatever I can get out of them will make a good story, even though whatever they say now can only be used on background. ‘I know I should know this, but how did you guys first meet?’

‘Through her dad,’ Brett says, and gives a kind of half-laugh, as though acknowledging an in-joke.

‘Oh, Clark introduced you? That’s funny,’ I say, too heartily, because it’s not that funny unless you know that Clark hates Brett.

‘Yeah. Her dadager,’ Brett replies in his drawl, and I try to understand what he just said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, like a momager, only he’s her dad.’

Skye glares at him, but Brett’s already looking elsewhere. ‘Carl!’ he yells, and bounds across the room right into a bro-handshake with a bearded hipster type, who’s only slightly less underdressed than Brett.

‘Guess he found a friend,’ I say to Skye, trying for jokey, but she is not in the mood. ‘So what did he mean by that?’

Skye murmurs something in response that I can’t hear, her body coiled like a spring.

‘What?’

‘How did you pull this off?’ she says then, her tone completely changed. Now she’s furious. ‘You just appeared in our lives like you’ve always been a reality, but the thing is you have not. Groupies don’t usually hang around for this long.’

‘I don’t—’

‘You inserted yourself at some point and I want to know how you did it, and how I can un-insert you.’

This whiplash turn leaves me stunned. I have no idea what to say, which is not a new experience when it comes to Skye, and yet nothing about her is familiar. For the first time, the girl in front of me resembles the girl I always imagined her to be.

‘I don’t even know who the hell you are, but you’re in every room,’ she goes on, more quietly. ‘It’s a little creepy, to be honest. You just happened to show up on the worst day of my life, and then you just hung around like a curse. Hey – maybe that’s it. Are you a curse, Jessica? Because things have been increasingly fucked up lately, and now that I think about it the common thread is you.’

‘Things were fucked up long before I came in to the picture,’ I tell her. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous that he brought me here, and not you.’

There’s regret, somewhere deep in me, as soon as I say it.

‘Skye, wait—’ I try to hold on to her but she’s gone, floating away through the crowd, and drawing attention to myself with her is not an option. So I keep an eye on her from afar, watch her fold herself into Brett’s arms so tight it’s like she’s trying to hide inside him, all while he’s looking away across the room, barely acknowledging her. I watch her almost lose her footing as she leaves the bar, half-supported by Brett, and try to shake off dread.