Cindy Fay

I’d been stood in the bathroom for thirty minutes already – perhaps even longer. My suit tie felt too tight, my collar was scratching at my neck, and my palms were sweaty. Why couldn’t I get them to stop sweating? I’d already used over a dozen paper towels to dry them off, and the bathroom was starting to look a mess with all of the discarded balls I’d scrunched up. I couldn’t figure out why the trash can was so small, or why the place was so pristine. None of the men’s rooms that I had been in before had ever looked like this. Then again, this was the Hollywood Rosebud Opera House, and the host of the gala was the ever-miraculously perfect Cindy Fay.

Geri was blowing up my phone, asking where on earth I had gone. I let her know that I had gone in through the back, and skipped the dramatics of the red carpet. For an actor, I wasn’t much into anything theatrical. Geri was, though, and I was pretty into Geri. She was the only reason I’d gone that night; after co-starring in a small indie film together, we’d somehow received an invite each to the benefit, despite neither of us having ever had anything at all to do with the untouchable Cindy Fay. Geri, being a devoted CF fan, and an even bigger advocate for promoting her own celebrity, insisted that we went. And so, along I went.

I wiped my palms on my trousers once more, popped a thin mint in my mouth, and went out into the hallway. It was there that Geri stood, arms crossed, leaning against a marble pillar, with a thoroughly unimpressed look on her face. 

“Geri,” I grinned as I went in for an embrace. “You look ravishing.” And that, she did. Her wild auburn hair was elaborately coiled into a careful up-do, adorned with small white feathers to compliment the slinky pearl slip dress she so effortlessly pulled off. Geri never failed to take my breath away, and I thought to myself with adamance that she should be the one to perform that night.

The compliment seemed to have no success in lifting her mood. “We were supposed to do the carpet together,” Geri hissed. 

Okay, so she was mad. I explained to her that this wasn’t really my thing, how I considered myself to be more of the low-key, humble artist type. She wasn’t interested. I then asked her if she’d had a good time, anyway, despite my absence, and she told me that no, she absolutely had not.

“I don’t think I saw a single flash,” she ranted in hushed tones as we made our way toward the main event. “The photographers didn’t care about taking my picture at all. It was utterly humiliating.”

Ah, and so we had found the root cause of the problem. Geri was struggling to grapple with the fact that, at thirty-five, she wasn’t getting as many lead roles as she once had. It didn’t help that nothing she had done in her twenties had launched her into movie-stardom, and the photographers’ indifference towards her had served as a cold reminder that her dreams may have been dwindling before her eyes. 

Geri was done speaking. I was the scapegoat – an easy blame for her disappointment of a night. As much as I enjoyed our conversations, I was appreciative of the silence and it giving me the opportunity to people-watch. In an environment like the one I was in, that simple act was riveting. Singers, actors, socialites and models swanned around me, each with such inherent focus. Those that were lesser known, like myself and Geri, were desperate to be seen. They wore flamboyant garments, and walked with their heads held high, intensely staring down each passer-by, as though they were daring anybody to challenge their belonging. Those that everybody knew looked to be in constant fear that somebody might approach them and ask for an autograph, and so they protected themselves in huddled groups with the other ultra-elites. And, in every corner of the room, was Cindy Fay. Pictures, awards, published memoirs and records graffitied each table. She was unavoidable, and yet, the real Cindy Fay was nowhere to be seen.

“Excuse me.” A firm tap on the shoulder told me to turn around. A pretty man with sleek hair and an excellent handlebar moustache stood before me. His face was certainly familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“Collin Jefferson?” That is my name. “I’m a fan of your recent works. Particularly the last film you were a part of.”

Geri’s eyes lit up, and she was back. She was a swan again. My most recent film was her’s too, and she had a fan. I let Geri do the talking with the moustache-man, because I had suddenly become very distracted by a conversation happening between a pair of cater waiters.

“It’s not just tonight that’ll be ruined,” the shorter of the two muttered. 

“Well, yes, it’s her that’s ruined.”

“She’s broken.”

My overwhelming curiosity got a hold of me, and I edged closer to the waiters. The gala was an annual affair that took months of planning – a well-oiled machine that must have been accounted for in every sense. What could possibly ruin that night, and who was the broken woman?

“They’ll have to find a replacement.”

“But what will they do about her? People will ask questions.”

“I don’t know.”

One of them had caught on to my eavesdropping, and the gossiping abruptly halted. A few feet away, Geri was still in deep conversation with her new friend, and so, I took hold of my chance and slunk away. The rest of the opera house was magnificent, and I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore it without the disturbance of hordes of people.

Guests had stopped arriving now, and the doors to the main entrance were closed and guarded by men so big I could’ve been fooled into believing that they had on padded suits. The hallway was eerily quiet, apart from the sound of distant chatter from the gala seeping through the walls. I allowed myself a moment of peace, a much-needed escape from the chaos of fraternising with Hollywood’s most privileged. I admired the grandiosity of the staircase, with its complicated gold railing. I knelt down and pressed my hand on the white marbled floor, smooth and ice-cold to the touch.

I was shortly disturbed by the sound of footsteps, gentle but hurried. When I looked up, I caught only a glimpse of a small golden-haired woman in light blue silk and bare feet. She’d reached the top of the staircase already, and was slipping out of sight. Perhaps it was my apathy towards the rest of the gala’s guests, the waiter’s conversation I’d overheard earlier, or my growing annoyance with Geri and a lack of desire to continue in her presence, but I was compelled to follow the lady. 

On the first floor, which I’d made my way up to with caution, stood the young woman with her back turned to me and nose pressed against a cracked-open window. 

“You didn’t see me,” she uttered after some awkward silence. Her eyes were still fixed firmly on something outside.

I chuckled in hopes to relieve some of the stifling tension in the air. “Are you a gala runaway, too?”

She turned to look at me, and it was only then that I realised exactly who it was that I was talking to. In the last decade, Cindy Fay had become Hollywood’s most-beloved sweetheart, the face plastered on every billboard across each coast. That face was never seen without a meticulous makeup job, and, in Geri’s opinion, retouching on every picture. Cindy Fay’s image was flawless – she was famous for it, and yet she stood before me with total vulnerability. Her dress looked as though it was yet to be tailored, with safety pins still holding parts up, her face entirely bare and her hair free flowing. She was crying. Sobbing.

I regretted my jovial approach to our introduction. She didn’t move when I took a step forward. I considered patting her on the shoulder, but was slightly afraid she might break. She looked so pale in this light, hollow, almost translucent. 

“Please, don’t tell anybody that you saw me?” Cindy was pleading with me, and I obeyed. 

Instead of scampering upon getting my word, she stayed and sat with me. We leant against the wall, with our knees to our chest, and for a long time, didn’t speak.

Eventually, I couldn’t stand the silence. “Why don’t you want to be seen?” I asked.

Cindy stared at me. I noticed how foggy her expression was, as if she was only somewhat present. Slowly, she pushed a side of her hair back, scraping at her hairline, to reveal a shimmery scar and ever-so-slightly raised lump at the top of her forehead.

She let me stare, before clarifying; “They took out a part of my brain.”

I wasn’t sure I understood. “You were … lobotomised?”

She nodded, and I struggled to find words. I was sure that lobotomies were a thing of the past, and so I couldn’t possibly believe her. I didn’t know Cindy – maybe she was drunk, or took something else. She seemed sober, though, and genuine. She had evidence for her case – faint, silvery, painful evidence.

Cindy told me her story. About how she’d won a talent contest when she was fifteen, and that a year later she had a record deal and a manager. A man with sleek hair and a handlebar moustache that had promised her the world, and all of her dreams were suddenly coming true. But that at sixteen, with new money and fame, she was becoming hard to control.

“My ‘good girl’ image sold best,” Cindy explained. “Sales were all that mattered, and my autonomy was the biggest threat.”

She’d woken up in a hospital bed one morning, with a pounding head and tales of a wild drunken night that had gone horribly wrong. That she’d hurt herself, and needed to accept that things were going to change. She was completely powerless, surrendered entirely to those that profited off of her. A puppet made from flesh and blood.

“So, how did you find out that it was all a lie?” I asked, trying to piece together the clues. “Did one of the cater waiters tell you?”

“Cater waiters?” Cindy looked at me blankly. Her eyes then flashed with realisation, and she laughed softly. “No. Nobody told me. If they know, they’ve got a part in this. Half the people at this gala do. This whole thing is a complete scam.”

It occurred to me that Cindy, despite millions of adoring fans, was the loneliest person in the world. Broken and abused, surrounded by predators, without a soul that she could trust. There was still one missing puzzle piece, though. Something that I couldn’t understand.

“Cindy, how do you know?”

And that was when she told me. That, by some miracle, her brain was repairing itself. The connections between her frontal lobe and thalamus were fusing back together, and the stolen brain tissue was growing back, rapidly, with vengeance. It was medically unchartered territory, and Cindy was enemy number one.

The star was unpredictable, unexplainable, and far too big a risk to be put in front of the public. Her performing that night was out of the question.

The hum of conversation coming from the gala died out, and Cindy and I stopped to listen. A microphone squeaked, and a smooth Irish voice began to talk. One that I recognised from earlier in the night, that I’d foisted onto Geri.

“Stephen …,” Cindy whispered, her face frozen.

She stared at me, and we didn’t need to say anything. I understood.

I left Cindy by the window, knowing what she had to do, and paced down the stairs. On the ground floor more men in padded-looking suits had appeared. Some looked alert, as though they were searching for something, or someone, and I was sure that they were involved. But others looked bored and empty, with foggy expressions that mirrored Cindy’s, and that frightened me far more.

I cracked open the door leading into the gala and my eyes lasered their focus onto the stage. Stephen was apologising for the absence of Cindy Fay, explaining a sudden comedown of the flu that had rendered her unable to sing, but that to everybody’s luck, he’d found a replacement act. His moustache was upturned from his grinning, and even from where I was stood, I could see his snake eyes gleaming.

To his left, in the wings of the stage, was Geri. Dressed all in white, flushed with excitement and pride, hands clasped with anticipation. She was the perfect bride. Wide-eyed and unsuspecting, totally submissible. After this song, she’d make her vows, offering all that made her Geri, promised that she’d be a star. Soon, Stephen would have her entirely to himself, and a part of her that mightn’t ever come back.