Nothing But the Truth

Chapter
1

Lucy Green stood on a precipice.

Really, she sat on a barstool contemplating her drink while she waited for her boyfriend, Caleb, who was working late again. If he didn't cancel altogether, they'd order another round, talk about their routine days, go back to his place and have mediocre sex, and she'd fall asleep listening to him grind his teeth because he refused to wear a mouth guard. And that would be how she spent the final night of her twenties.

But it was fine. She was fine. Everything was fine.

"Would you like something different?" the bartender asked her.

"Hmm?" She looked up and found a handsome face hovering before her. She'd paid no attention to him when she came in, ordered her drink, and immediately proceeded to check her email, because it had been twenty minutes since she left her office and literally anything could have happened in the world of celebrity publicity.

He looked like most bartenders in L.A.: tall, chiseled, probably an actor. Except in place of vain indifference was an interested warmth that made Lucy sit up and pay attention. He wadded a rag in his big hands then pointed to her glass. "Your drink. You don't seem to be enjoying it. Would you like something else?"

She looked down at her martini and saw two olives staring back at her like skewered eyeballs. Her boss, Joanna, favored the drink, and Lucy found herself aspiring to such sophistication. "I like it just fine, thanks."

He snorted a laugh. "That's a lie. You've taken two sips." He leaned in and whispered like he was telling her a secret. "And I make really good martinis."

Lucy's lips quirked, and she realized that she actually didn't care for a martini. Though she aimed to someday be as classy as Joanna, a woman she greatly admired, perhaps her beverage choices were not the means to that end. She didn't want to get drunk. She couldn't. She had too big of a day tomorrow, with a promotion on the line. But maybe something different would be nice.

She pushed the glass across the bar toward him. "All right, then; pour me something else."

He took the carefully crafted cocktail and dumped it into a sink beneath the bar with a flick of his wrist. "As you wish." He gave her a smile that could have easily landed him a role on a streaming series. He flipped his rag over his shoulder and turned around.

Lucy swiveled on her stool to face the door, watching for Caleb.

The bar had a beach-chic vibe with a big glass wall, white marble bar with copper finishing, and pops of teal and apricot on the walls, the stools, the chairs. It was more inviting than depressing, which was how Lucy found most bars. Open and airy, it didn't hide secrets in the dark.

No sign of Caleb.

She checked her phone again but only saw his last message from twenty minutes earlier.

Running late.

She scrolled up in their chat to see the selfie of the two of them standing in front of the condo they had just signed a lease on. They were two weeks from moving in together, and Lucy was counting down the days until she could stop tripping over all the boxes in her apartment and live with her boyfriend. Caleb was smart, kind, ambitious but not heartless; sometimes she couldn't believe he checked so many boxes. He was the guy she could see herself marrying and moving to the suburbs with to watch their two kids chase a labradoodle around a pool someday. After two years of dating, she was ready for him to drop to a knee and present her with the emerald cut of her dreams, and if Hollywood was to be believed, he would do it tomorrow on her birthday.

If only he could show up for drinks on time.

She distracted herself from waiting by scanning social media to make sure everyone was behaving. It was the best source for any breaking client drama. At the top of her search was her own problem child client, Leo Ash, whom she'd inherited when she made junior publicist at her firm, J&J Public. Leo was a rock star in his late twenties who got famous as a teenager and had a celebrity scandal rap sheet a hundred miles long. Next was one of her boss's star clients, Ms. Ma, a female rapper releasing a music video the next morning that was sure to set the music world on fire.

No scandals on either front.

"Here you are," the bartender said. "Something different." He slid a martini glass filled with lavender-colored liquid over the marble. Tiny bubbles spiraled from its center like it might have champagne in it. A lemon wedge clung to its rim.

Lucy huffed a laugh. "What is this?" She pulled it close and got a whiff of sugar. "It looks like something a sorority girl would order on her twenty-first birthday."

The bartender grinned. "Perhaps. But it'll cheer you up."

"Who says I'm unhappy?"

"You do. With the way you're checking your phone, watching the door, and ordering drinks you don't like."

Heat flushed her cheeks. She felt totally exposed. Naked in front of a stranger. But in his hazel eyes, she saw that he wasn't being cruel. Just observant.

Lucy smirked at him. "Aren't you keen."

"That's why they pay me the big bucks." He swung his rag over his shoulder again. "That, and making life-changing cocktails." A dimple popped in his cheek, and Lucy could easily see him on a red carpet, looking dashing in a tux.

She looked at her glass, and the playful swirl of purple inspired her to make a wish. It seemed appropriate on the eve of such a milestone birthday. Not to mention, she could use all the good luck she could get for her big day.

She tilted the glass toward the bartender with a smile. "Well, tomorrow is my birthday, so. Cheers."

As the tiny bubbles fizzed her tongue and the smooth liquid poured down her throat, she silently wished for the next day to be perfect.

"How is it?" the bartender asked.

"Life-changing."

He nodded in approval. "My work here is done. I hope you have a happy birthday tomorrow."

Chapter
2

Though she expected some kind of tectonic shift, perhaps cosmic acknowledgment that there was now a three in front of her age-a sore hip, a chin whisker, a wave of suffocating Millennial guilt that she hadn't accomplished anything despite her achievements-Lucy's birthday began like any other day.

She woke in her bed, alone because Caleb had in fact not shown up for drinks. Sorry, babe. I have to cancel. I'll see you tomorrow night. Although not surprised, she had been disappointed. She stared up at her powder blue ceiling, which she'd painted in a fit of freshening up her small living space the previous summer-she'd found the tip in an article called "How to Freshen Up Your Small Living Space"-and took a deep breath. It was a big day. Yes, her thirtieth birthday, but also the day she would secure her promotion at J&J Public, a Hollywood institution, and best the insufferable Chase McMillan, her workplace archnemesis.

His rise in rank right alongside her-intern, junior assistant, assistant, junior publicist-had earned him the nickname Chase McMillan the Supervillain in Lucy's innermost circle. Admittedly, he was excellent at his job, but he was also callous and often handed things Lucy deserved. They were both vying for a seat at the table with the senior publicists that had been left vacant by a recent departure, and Lucy would be damned if he beat her to it.

She wanted it so badly she could taste it. She could taste it like a champagne toast on the rooftop at Perch, the exact restaurant where she'd be holding her birthday party later that night.

After she got her promotion.

First, she had to nail her lunch date with Joanna and Lily Chu, the hottest new starlet in Hollywood, who was already generating Oscar buzz for her breakout role in an indie film. Lucy was no stranger to lunch with celebrities-it was literally in her job description. Like half of Hollywood, J&J Public was competing to reel in Lily, and Lucy was going to be the one to land her. Lily & Lucy: she already liked the way their names sounded together. She would win her over, she knew it. And Lily Chu as a client was the exact edge she needed to land that promotion.

All in a day's work.

                1.            Lock down Lily Chu.

                2.            Secure promotion.

                3.            Gracefully ascend into the divine decade of her thirties.

                4.            Have one hell of a birthday bash on a rooftop in downtown L.A. where her boyfriend would finally propose to her.

She was ready. She was ready. All she had to do was get out of bed and start her day.

She stretched her arms over her head. Her elbows popped, but that was normal, definitely not a sign of age. She threw back her duvet, swung her legs over the bed, and saw that her mother was calling her.

In fact, she saw that she had a missed call and two texts from her mother already-alerts she didn't hear because she gave herself the birthday gift of sleeping with her phone on silent.

She lifted her phone from her nightstand and looked at her mother's name on her screen. She considered giving herself another gift by not answering. Without a doubt, the phone call would include a birthday wish coupled with a reminder that Lucy was now in her thirties, not married, and had no children-things Maryellen Green had accomplished by the time she was twenty-seven.

Lucy was an only child, so her mother put all her reproduction stock in her, which meant things like publicly noting that her left hand was still void of a diamond and stockpiling hand-knitted baby clothes and blankets. If she listened closely enough, Lucy was sure she'd hear knitting needles clicking in the background while her mother pinched her phone between her ear and shoulder, refusing to acknowledge that speakerphone made life much easier.

She marveled at her mother's ability to instill guilt at the mere sight of her name, and surrendered.

"Hi, Mom," she answered.

Click, click, click. Right on schedule.

"Lucy, sweetheart. Happy birthday."

"Thanks."

Needing to get her day going, Lucy sidestepped a moving box full of books and headed toward her bathroom. Always one to be prepared, she had started packing belongings that could stand not being used in the coming two weeks until she moved. Boxes littered her small apartment like bins at a rummage sale, half full of a random assortment of art, dishes, seasonal shoes. Her efficiency would pay off in the long run, but the early preparation made her daily routine a bit of an obstacle course.

"I assume you're preparing for your big day today? You know, I saw that movie with Lily, and she is just fantastic. I hope you make a good impression on her," her mother said.

Annoyance prickled Lucy's scalp. Her mother fancied herself a coconspirator in her life, always knowing what was going on if she wasn't trying to orchestrate it herself. Lucy didn't even remember telling her about Lily, and Maryellen had remembered the date of their meeting. She even called her by her first name like they were acquainted.

"That's the plan, Mom."

Click, click, click.

The sound of the knitting needles was like a little bomb counting down to detonation. Lucy loved her mother, she really did, but she knew where their conversation was heading, and she quite honestly didn't have the patience for it on her big day.

"Good. And what about you and Caleb? You know, you better get married soon if you're going to have ch-"

"I don't even know if I want kids, Mom!" she snapped, shocking herself. She wasn't surprised they'd gone from happy birthday to discussing children in ten seconds flat, but she was surprised about what came out of her mouth. Even though she'd been the one to say the words, the confession felt like a slap in the face; she even flinched. Kids had always been at the back of her mind, an assumption, a future expectation, but she had never given it an honest moment's thought because honestly, she hadn't had a moment to think about it.

The world told her she wanted kids, starting way back with the toys she played with as a little girl: baby dolls, dollhouses. And then every plotline from bedtime stories all the way through award-winning films about the formidable and undying strength of a mother's love. It was supposed to be her purpose in life according to just about everyone. Otherwise there had to be something wrong with her; she was defective, selfish, she'd change her mind someday-she'd heard all the rhetoric.

"That's ridiculous, Lucy, of course you want kids," her mother cut in as if on cue. "And you're thirty now, so-"

"So, what? I've hit some kind of threshold?" She felt something take hold of her. Something invisible that was both binding and freeing at once. Before she could stop herself, feelings she'd never expressed came spilling out. "It's pretty unfair, you know. You spend all of your twenties trying not to get pregnant, then right when your career is taking off, the clock starts ticking and you're pressured to have kids before you're thirty-five because all the risks set in and suddenly, you're too old! It's a ridiculously small window for such a major life decision. And it's just expected that I want kids-that all women want kids! Maybe I do, eventually, but can I at least get a minute to think about it?" Her voice crescendoed into a shout that bounced sharply off her bathroom mirror. She blinked at the flushed woman she saw in the reflection, wondering where the hell she had come from.

Her mother, on the other end of the phone, was speechless.

Lucy didn't know what else to say, so she said, "I've got to get ready to go to spin class, Mom."

She ended the call and stared at her reflection. Despite that outburst feeling like it came from a stranger, she saw what she always saw: blue eyes, blond hair in need of a root touch-up, California sun-kissed tan. Tiny dark circles puffed beneath her eyes, but those had been there since she made junior publicist. She wore them like a badge of honor. And then caked them in layers of Bobbi Brown every morning so no one else could see her exhaustion.

She was staring at herself, Lucy Green, in the mirror, not some impostor. And those were her honest thoughts. She didn't know if she wanted children, not then anyway. And did she need to have an answer on her big day with everything else on her plate?