Chapter Text
Christen hates this part of her job the most.
She's an actor; people should only care about her films or her next appearance on whatever late night show her publicist her has booked her on. Instead, one candid fan-photo of her entering her favourite coffee shop is posted to twitter and suddenly every paparazzi, whether amateur or professional, is lining the street outside just to get any picture of her that they can get to sell to whichever tabloid will buy it.
She just wants to drink her over-priced coffee in peace, not be featured in next week's edition of Celebrities: They're Just Like Us.
So she's hiding. Christen has crept away to the back of the shop, hoping that they'll get bored or that another celebrity more famous than her will be spotted and they'll all flock to them. The cafe is fairly empty now and Christen is slumped into her favourite comfy sofa in the corner. It's been over an hour but the paparazzi don't seem to be leaving. She's already gone over all of her lines in the script for her next movie, making notes in the margins with her red pen for the read-through tomorrow.
Pulling out her planner, Christen decides to plan out her day tomorrow while she actually has a chance to. The rest of her day today is quite busy and she wants to get it done before she's about to fall asleep tonight. The table read-through isn’t until late afternoon, leaving her morning and most of her afternoon free. Christen decides she's going to sleep in until 10, followed by yoga at 11, and a run on the beach at 12:30. That should leave her enough time to head home to get cleaned up before she has to head to the studio for the read-through.
Christen closes her planner, looking towards the exit and hoping to see that the street has cleared. Unfortunately, she knows she's out of luck as she sees a man with his eyes cupped to the window and a camera hanging around his neck.
She's still not used to the fame aspect of her job. Christen was acting in minor roles for a long time before she got her Big Break. Apparently soccer movies with a lot of latent homosexual subtext can make you famous practically over night.
There have been talks of a sequel, which could be the reason for the hoard of photographers hanging outside the coffee shop. Christen has been trying her best to talk around the sequel in every interview for the past few months, but apparently it isn’t working.
Christen has to leave soon. She knows the manager of the store, Alyssa, will let her sneak out the back, but it makes Christen feel like she'll owe her something, and Alyssa probably doesn't want or need another autographed headshot.
Maybe she'd like a visit to set.
According to her planner, she has about 15 more minutes that she can waste hiding until she has to be at a wardrobe fitting. She considers texting a former co-star, hoping that they'll make an appearance on the other side of town so she can make a clean getaway. It's unfair and definitely won't work, but it's an idea and surprisingly not the worst she's ever had. Making her way to the cashier, she sees that all the paparazzi are still lined outside on the sidewalk. There’s less of them, but if Christen stalls any longer, the producers are going to be mad at her tardiness.
She pulls out a $20 bill and stuffs it into the tip jar. "Hey Lys," she greets, offering a shy smile at the woman behind the counter. Alyssa finishes wiping the counter before tossing the cloth into a small bucket of water. She returns Christen’s smile as she stands in front of the cash register. "They're relentless today." Christen gestures vaguely in the direction of the front of the store, where she can see the masses of people with their cameras at the ready. "Can I get another and a danish, to go this time?"
"Do you want to go out the back again?" She offers a sympathetic smile, while moving to the espresso machine to start on the latte.
Alyssa hands Christen her finished latte and she pays, dropping her change into the tip jar as well. "Only if it's not too much trouble," Christen sighs in relief. She hates asking because it makes her feel like she thinks she’s better than everyone else, but Alyssa knows how much she hates the attention the paparazzi give her. Especially since she'll probably never live down the truly unflattering photo of her terrible posture that's still being circulated around the internet.
"It's never too much trouble for our best customer," Alyssa jokes, although she's not lying. Not only does Christen buy at least three coffees a day, but ever since a paparazzi photo of her holding a Red Stars coffee cup got published in several different tabloids, their sales have increased substantially.
Alyssa hands Christen her pastry, gesturing to the swinging door that will bring her to the back exit. Christen always feels awkward when she leaves this way, passing employees on their breaks who are staring into their phones. She doesn't know whether she should put her hair into some sort of makeshift ponytail. Christen's never worked in the food service industry, but she always thinks about the lunch-ladies with their hairnet covered hair as she passes through this way. Alyssa's never said anything about it, though, so it must be fine.
They make it to the back door and Christen gives Alyssa a loose hug. "Seriously, thank you," she says, relief evident on her face. "I owe you so much."
"It's not a big deal." Alyssa shrugs, opening the door for Christen. "I'm sure you'd do the same for me."
"If you ever want to go to any movie premieres..."
"I'll let you know," Alyssa jokes.
The door shuts behind Christen as she's searching her purse for her keys. When she finds them, she looks up and notices a paparazzo searching through pictures on her camera, a few feet away from her.
"You've got to be kidding me," she says harshly, making the paparazzo jump slightly from her position leaning against the brick wall. Christen immediately uses her free hand to cover her face from the woman. "Please, no pictures."
The woman lifts her hands into the air like Christen was the police and had asked to see the woman's hands. "Shit, sorry." Her camera is hanging around her neck. "I wasn't expecting anyone back here."
She looks genuinely surprised as she relaxes her arms, adjusting her SnapBack before dropping her hands to her sides, grabbing her phone from her pocket on the way down. She doesn't look like the paparazzi that Christen is used to. They're mostly creepy looking men with unkempt facial hair and ratty looking clothes, whereas she's quite pretty with her natural looking makeup and a well put-together outfit.
If this were any other moment, Christen would probably be flirting with the woman, much to her publicist's chagrin.
"I swear I didn't take any pictures," the woman says, her voice smooth yet lazy, which succeeds in breaking Christen out of her staring. "I kind of ran out of space on my memory card." She shrugs, gesturing at the camera against her chest.
"Aren't you supposed to have a backup?" Christen asks, curiously. She remembers shortly after her Big Break came out that one paparazzo had followed her around the city all day, taking hundreds of thousands of pictures and filling up multiple memory cards. Christen knows that's an extreme case, but she's sure that they normally have extras.
"Well, yeah." The woman's fiddling with her phone. "This is actually a brand new one, but there was this cool tree and I took more pictures than I meant to. And then there was this building and honestly I just kept taking picture." She shrugs again. “Of course I forgot to pack an extra one.” She leans back against the wall behind her. "That's why I was back here."
Christen copies the photographer's position, bending her right knee and resting her foot on the wall behind her. "What? Deleting pictures?"
"Yeah," she replies. "Tabloids don't pay for pretty trees.
Christen laughs turning her head to look in the direction she should be leaving in. She should leave now, but she knows the moment she steps out of the alley and onto the sidewalk she'll probably be swarmed by paparazzi.
Something about this photographer calms Christen. It might be because she's looking at Christen like an actual person, and not like a slab of meat with a substantial payout. Or it might be how carefree she seems with her black ripped jeans, her Wild Feminist shirt, and her black snapback that's perched backwards on her head. Whatever it is, Christen let's her guard down, something she hasn't done around a stranger in years.
She suddenly hears the loud click of a picture being taken, before the woman is swearing and lowering her hands to her side.
Christen turns back to the woman across from her, crossing her arms over her chest, letting her warm coffee rest against her right arm. She can't believe she trusted her to leave her alone. Christen can't believe how stupid she was around this stranger and she can physically feel her walls being built right back up. "That was my phone." She says, as if it makes a difference. "I swear I'm not going to sell it." She looks genuinely sorry, but Christen doesn't care. "I'll delete it, I promise. You just looked really pretty."
The woman is blushing at her confession, refusing to look at Christen and instead is searching the ground between them. Christen suddenly feels something, and it's not anger. It sort of feels like embarrassment at her quick reaction to get mad at the woman. "Well let's see it then." Christen is stepping closer to the photographer, reaching out for the phone in her hands.
Without arguing, the woman hands Christen the phone, adjusting her hat again. Christen's not sure why the paparazzo trusts her with the device, she's heard horror stories from her publicist of celebrities smashing cameras and phones after the owner took a picture without consent. Christen never would, but this photographer doesn't know that.
The picture is pretty good, considering it was taken on a last generation iPhone with a crack down the centre. Christen looks relaxed, with the hint of a smile playing at her lips. The sunglasses perched on her forehead are pulling her curly hair away from her face. Her one hand is resting on her hip and the other is holding her coffee as she leans against red brick wall. She naturally dresses well when she leaves her house each morning, so her tight black jeans and her loose white blouse accentuate her body nicely.
The woman clearly has a good eye for pictures and Christen's been unfairly rude so far, so Christen decides to give her a break. "You're not too bad of a photographer," she comments, starting to hand the phone back. "Do you mind if I send that to myself?" Christen asks. It's pretty good and Christen is in desperate need of a new twitter profile picture.
The woman nods, letting Christen take back the phone so that she can text it to herself.
"I'm Christen, by the way." She realizes that she has yet to introduce herself as she places the phone back into the photographer's hand.
The woman quickly stuffs the phone into her pocket. "I know, I mean." She pauses, adjusting her camera around her neck. "I'm Tobin?" It sounds more like a question than a statement, making it more than obvious that Tobin is still somewhat nervous.
"Well, Tobin," she says while starting to walk away. "Nice to meet you, but I've got to go." She's probably going to be a little late for her wardrobe fitting, but honestly, Christen doesn't really mind. Tobin seems nice, unlike other paparazzi, and she actually wouldn't mind getting photographed by her while she walks down the street.
"I know it's a long shot," Tobin calls after her as she begins to walk out of the alley. Christen turns around, looking at the photographer as she fiddles around on her camera. "But can I just get one picture?" She's holding up her fancy camera, which Christen assumes she managed to make room on.
Christen's feeling generous, and she actually genuinely likes Tobin so she agrees. "Yeah but only if you get my good side."
Tobin's camera snaps a few times. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you don't have a bad side."
She can feel her cheeks heating up as she walks away. "I'll see you around." She calls over her shoulder, listening to one final click before she rounds the corner onto the main sidewalk and getting swarmed by the hoard of paparazzi down the street