Chapter Text
She needs coffee.
In hindsight, maybe going out the night before wasn’t the greatest idea. It’d been Sophie’s suggestion, a celebration of the magazine’s successful month, and once she got word that the rest of their team would be tagging along as well, how could she say no?
Website clicks are up, engagement and follower counts on the socials are up, and sales for the most recent print copy are higher than usual as well. The Cortis and LE SSERAFIM double feature, both acts’ sections penned by Kat and Sophie respectively, is performing just about as well as they’d all expected. They had to celebrate.
The office is bustling as Manon Bannerman makes her way to her desk, the excitement of a new month with new assignments and new ideas and new experiences almost palpable. She passes a few of her friends in their cubicles, all looking ridiculously not-hungover, contrary to how she feels herself. She’ll be the first to admit she’s a lightweight and knows she shouldn’t have tried keeping up with the others, but she still kinda hates them for her own mistakes right now.
She’s just about to reach her desk when she’s intercepted by a hand holding a magazine in front of her face. She steps back a bit in surprise, the hand dropping to reveal a smiling Leon Barretto.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he teases, accent subtle but still there if you listen closely enough. “You look lovely, I see Soph and I missed a rather great night.”
“Leon, please,” she groans. The man is like an annoying little brother to her sometimes, and she knows he’s currently enjoying her suffering. “Maybe if you were there you could’ve stopped me! What do you want?”
He holds out the magazine in front of him for Manon to grab. “Hot off the press straight from Sophia, who needs you in her office when you get the chance.”
Manon takes it, unable to help the small smile on her lips. Getting to physically touch something she has such a huge part in never gets old. “Thanks, Lee. Did she say what it was about?”
“Nope,” he giggles.
“Are you sure? Or were you just too busy admiring her to listen to the words coming out of her mouth?” Manon narrows her eyes playfully, reveling in the slight blush she can see on her friend’s cheeks.
Leon salutes her with a “see ya.”
Manon laughs as he hurriedly walks away, continuing on her way to her cubicle. She drops off her bag, jacket, and phone once she reaches, absentmindedly pressing the power button on her computer before heading for where she knows Sophia’s office is.
She flips through the glossy pages of the magazine as she walks through the building, mostly skimming for now. Leon handed it to her Cortis-side up, the flip side featuring the girls’ cover.
The concept for the issue had been proposed by Sophie a couple months ago when the two groups announced a joint tour together. It hadn’t been too hard to get them in for an interview and photoshoot with Sophie easily working her magic with their teams, and The Spectrum had been the only publication to get the exclusive.
It was a proud moment for her friend, not having yet had her moment for the magazine until then. The issue being one of their most successful to date is a good look for the woman and Manon suspects she’ll be getting a raise or a promotion soon. She hopes so, at least. Sophie deserves it.
Manon’s moment had come around a year or so ago in the form of an article chronicling the life and achievements of legendary actor Priya Rajagopalan.
It was a chance assignment; she’d only been working for The Spectrum for three months at the time, as an intern no less, but Sophia saw something special in her and trusted her with it. She was a bit nervous around the older woman at first but Priya was kind the entire time, trying her best to make her feel comfortable and at ease.
They spent a couple weeks together, hanging out and trading life stories and forming a bond that Manon would’ve never expected to happen, and it only took her three days to write the piece once her observation period was over, beating the deadline by over two weeks.
It was a turning point, not just for Manon and her career, but also for the magazine. Both names suddenly meant something in the industry, and Priya is still sending her a monthly fruit arrangement in thanks.
Manon takes a detour to the break room, setting the magazine down as she pours herself a cup of coffee. She doesn’t even bother with creamer or sugar, just needing the caffeine to do its job immediately. Leon was a nice distraction for a moment but with her focus off of him, she’s quickly reminded that she drank way too much vodka last night and is absolutely paying for it.
Mug in hand, she continues her trek to Sophia’s office. She passes larger than life framed prints of the various covers from the last year on the walls. The two new ones lean up against the wall on the floor, waiting to be hung up.
Marquise Aura, Ezrela Abraham, Iliya, Prelude, Adéla, she mentally lists off. All now-major artists and groups whose management teams came banging on The Spectrum’s doors to get their clients a feature after the Priya Rajagopalan article blew up. It’s all still a bit surreal and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever have a prouder moment in her career.
Once she reaches the editor-in-chief’s office, she bypasses her assistant, opting for just waving at the girl kindly before knocking shortly to alert Sophia of her presence and opening the door.
“Miss Laforteza,” she sings, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. “Your boyfriend said you wanted to see me?”
Sophia’s head snaps from her computer screen toward Manon, eyes narrowed. “We’re just roommates.”
Manon giggles, dropping into the seat in front of Sophia’s desk. “Right.”
“We are!”
“Right,” she repeats, grinning around the mug in her hands as she takes a sip.
There’s still a slight pounding behind Manon’s eyes but messing around with Sophia makes it a little more bearable. These are the moments she cherishes most; when it’s just them and they don’t have to be anything but best friends.
Sure, Sophia is her boss and she’s scary as fuck when she has to act like it, but she knows the real Sophia Laforteza behind closed doors. If she didn’t know any better, she’d never think the flustered, blushing woman in front of her was one of the biggest, most respected in the industry.
Sophia rolls her eyes trying to act unbothered by the implication, clicking something on her computer before focusing back on the journalist, folding her hands on top of her desk.
Manon notices the mess then; colorful sticky notes stuck all over the surface, printed images from different photoshoots, sheets of copy paper with blocks of text on them that she can’t quite make out from where she sits. Leave it to Sophia to already be working on finalizing the next issue, the ink still wet on last month’s.
“So, I’m sure you want to know why I called you here.”
“I do, yes.” She drinks from her coffee again, finding an empty spot amidst the chaos to place the mug down after.
There’s silence for a few moments. Manon knows Sophia’s trying to be serious, trying to act like a serious boss for once, but she can see her fighting to keep the corners of her mouth down.
All she has to do is smile at her and the girl breaks, which then makes Manon crack too, both falling into a fit of laughter for no reason.
“Manon, please let me get through this,” Sophia pleads after they’ve calmed down, wiping at her eyes.
Manon lets out a sound somewhere between a scoff and another laugh. “I didn’t even do anything!”
Sophia chuckles, lacing her fingers together again and resting her joined hands back on her desk. “As I was saying, I have an exciting assignment for you.”
Manon sits up a little straighter, intrigued already. “I’m listening.”
“As you know, as we all know, your article on Priya Rajagopalan was a huge hit. Not just with Priya herself either, but also within the industry and with our readers. I’d like to give you the opportunity to do that again but even bigger.”
Manon’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. She’s written other articles since then of course, even doing Marquise and Iliya’s covers, but none were ever even remotely close to being on the same scale and she’s okay with that. How could she ever top that?
“Priya and her management company reached out to me. They’d like to commission you for another article, this time about…” Sophia trails off. Manon can almost swear she sees a slight grimace on her face but it’s gone before she can figure out if she imagined it or not. “Actually, I’ll let her tell you about it. I was briefed on the idea and what they’d like the final result to be like, and I like it. I really like it. And regardless of them specifically requesting you, I also think you’re the best choice for the assignment and it’s non-negotiable. Is that understood?”
A nervous laugh comes out of Manon’s mouth, subconsciously starting to pick at a fingernail. “You’re scaring me, Soph.”
Sophia smiles softly, a contrast to her no-nonsense tone. It makes her all the more scary. “Good. You’re my girl but I’m giving you six pages for this, so you have to take it seriously.”
Manon’s jaw drops, more shocked than she probably ever has been in her entire life. Six pages? Her Priya article had only ended up spanning three in print, and now she’s getting double that?
“Yeah, I know,” Sophia continues, grinning. “I don’t give anyone spreads that large. I believe in you more than I believe in myself sometimes, though, and I know you can do it and you’ll once again produce something that’ll skyrocket The Spectrum. It’ll be for our August issue and will be the cover story, if that’s not obvious.”
Sophia’s words are probably meant to motivate Manon and make her feel happy and proud that she’s the chosen one but they just cause anxiety to settle in her stomach instead. She knows she’s talented at what she does, she knows she’s done a lot for the magazine, but sometimes she really, really feels like an imposter.
How did she go from being an unpaid intern to getting assigned to The Spectrum’s biggest pieces in a year’s time?
Manon’s hesitation must be written on her face because Sophia unfolds her hands and leans forward to squeeze Manon’s hand comfortingly. “Non-negotiable, remember? I wouldn’t give you this if I didn’t think you were capable.”
“Right, yeah,” Manon mumbles with a slow nod. She nods again after the words settle in a little more, more sure. “Yeah, you’re right! I got this. When do I get to talk to Priya?”
“That’s the spirit.” Sophia sits back in her chair, reaching into a drawer to pull her phone out. “I’m going to text you an address, you’ll be meeting her and a few other suits at that location tomorrow at one. You’ll be given all the details then.”
“Okay,” Manon agrees, still not entirely confident about this but determined to not disappoint Sophia. “I’m going to make you proud, Fi. I promise.”
Sophia finishes sending the message, smiling at Manon. “I know you will. You always do.”
—
The MP Management building is a lot less intimidating than Manon expected it to be. She’d heard about it during her time with Priya, knew it was a few minutes just outside of Los Angeles, but never actually visited it.
She arrives fifteen minutes early having learned that in this industry, anything more suggests she has nothing on her to-do list and is a bit too eager and anything less leans toward the dreaded on time is late.
She says a quick goodbye to her taxi driver, stepping out onto the sidewalk.
Annie is something more of a personal driver at this point, insisting Manon calls her any time she needs a ride to a business meeting or event. These areas always charge the most ridiculous parking fees so it’s just easier to get dropped off rather than drive your own car.
Manon smooths out the bottom of her blush pink dress. It’s a little more modest than she’s used to and she starts to worry it’s maybe too businesslike; most of the people filing around her surprisingly dressed in jeans and fun-colored shirts instead of full suits and knee-length dresses like she’d been expecting.
They all seem happy and lively, likely returning from their lunch breaks re-energized and ready to finish the second half of their work day. She shrugs her white blazer off and drapes it over her forearm, hoping it helps with making her outfit appear more casual.
She glances around the area, falling into line behind a number of people entering MPM. The majority of the other buildings on the street are far less grand, but there’s one that comes close, and she has to squint but can just barely make out the letters spelling out Orpheus Entertainment on its sign.
The fact that the two biggest entertainment management companies in the country have their headquarters not just in the same state but also in the same city and on the same block is enough to make Manon laugh to herself. They’ve done a few features on Orpheus clients for the magazine, even a cover or two, but she’s a tiny bit biased and is always just a tiny bit more excited when they’re working with someone off of the MPM roster.
The click of her heels against the shiny tile floors seems to echo in the lobby of the large building as she enters. The large ceiling-to-floor windows allow the sun to beam inside. The woman at the front desk looks somewhat familiar as she beckons her over with a kind smile, dark hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, though Manon can’t immediately pinpoint where she could possibly know her from.
“Manon Bannerman?” she asks.
“Yes, that’s me,” Manon responds, slightly taken aback.
The woman smiles again, typing something on her computer before standing up. “I’m Julia, welcome to MP Management.” She motions for Manon to follow her, leading her down a long hallway. “My mom and Priya let me know to be expecting you.”
Her mom?
Manon doesn’t have time to figure out who she’s talking about, tasked with keeping up with the fast-paced walking girl. Framed photos of the different music artists, actors, and models the company works with adorn the walls. She feels a bit out of place just looking at all of the big names.
She follows Julia to a private elevator with a dragon’s head melded into the shiny gold doors. Julia presses a button on the wall and the doors open to reveal a rather normal interior. She’d thought it would be a little more fancy.
Manon takes the length of the ride to check her appearance and make sure she still looks okay. The two women don’t speak to one another during it but it’s not an awkward or uncomfortable silence, Julia radiating a sort of sweet and welcoming aura. There’s nothing to be scared of or intimidated by.
They pass more frames once they reach the correct floor. She can hear phones ringing, fingers tapping against keys on keyboards, and she even thinks she can make out low music playing somewhere. Julia takes a few turns, speaking to and waving at those that do the same to her along the way.
Eventually, they reach an office that Manon thinks she could very easily pick out of a lineup as belonging to Priya Rajagopalan. Julia quickly taps her knuckles against the propped-open door a few times, alerting the woman of their presence. “Special delivery, P.”
Priya’s face lights up when she looks over, motioning Manon to enter. She thanks Julia and the girl leaves, squeezing Manon’s shoulder on the way out with a mumbled good luck.
Everything involving Priya always feels so authentic and true to her, and her office is no exception. Manon takes in the deep red walls, gold accents, and fluffy fur rugs that probably cost more than her entire outfit. The actress’s desk chair resembles more of a throne, and there’s various swords lining the walls behind it. A seating area is set up on the other side of the room and she has to fight the urge to go and touch the 3D dragon made of gold plates above it, unsure if it’s real gold or not.
“My Manu, I’m so happy you’re here,” Priya says happily. She walks over to one of the living chairs in the seating area, and Manon gets to take in her outfit then; simple black slacks and a short-sleeved gray peplum top with a gold watch on her left wrist and a gold bracelet on the right. It’s nothing extravagant but it works for her. She’s a beautiful woman, especially for her age. She waves Manon over. “Come sit! Come sit! How are you, my sweetheart?”
A familiar comfort courses through her body seeing the kind smile on the woman’s face. Any underlying nervousness immediately dissipates and she feels right at home, settling into the couch across from her. “I’m really good, actually. The magazine’s doing well, Spoon is happy and healthy, I still have a job. Life is great. How about you?”
“I’m glad to hear that! I’m doing well, also.” Priya leans forward, eyes darting around the room conspiratorially as if someone can hear them. “I just wrapped another movie, but you gotta keep that on the low because it hasn’t been announced yet.”
“Guess I’ll be seeing you for the press junket. Make sure you pick me in the crowd to ask a question, okay?” Manon jokes. It actually means a lot to her that she would trust her with something like that.
Priya chuckles. “I will, but only if you do something for me in return. I’m sure your editor-in-chief let you know that we would like for you to write another article for us?”
“She did, but she didn’t give me much detail, just said you would do it instead. Do I get to write about the “M” in MP this time?”
“Well, not quite…”
As if on cue, the door to the office opens again and in walks Lara Raj. Or, more like, stumbles in, a small woman following behind her. Manon guesses she was pushed inside if the glare she shoots at the older woman is anything to go by.
She doesn’t even get the chance to register that she’s looking at Leon’s mom, who she’s met a couple times in passing, because it instantly clicks that there’s only one reason a member of the world’s biggest girl group would need to be at this meeting.
Her blood runs cold, a sickly feeling in her stomach replacing the comfort Priya previously brought her.
Priya Rajagopalan, Lara Raj… oh.
She knows all about Lara, the whole world does. She’s definitely a household name, and Manon would normally jump for joy at the chance to work with someone as huge as her, but Lara Raj has a terrible reputation.
Manon can’t remember the last time she saw a headline with Lara’s name in it in the press and it wasn’t for something bad. If it’s not her mistreating and blowing off her fans, it’s her walking out of interviews. Or almost fighting paparazzi. Or her bandmates. She thinks she also might’ve seen an article about her fighting her mother at one point?
Lara is extremely well known for being rude, violent, and unapproachable.
Manon doesn’t even want to think about the number of people she’s been linked to in the last year alone, like they’re toys she plays with for a couple weeks before getting bored of them and moving on to the next.
“Manzie!”
Manon blinks a couple times at the sound of a voice saying her name. It’s Leon’s mom, and she guesses Julia’s too, who’s now at the opposite end of the couch she sits on. Lara sits across from them in the other living chair Priya doesn’t occupy.
“You there, honey?” She tries again. Marjorie, she thinks her name was. Suddenly the name of the company makes sense.
Manon chuckles, trying to appear relaxed despite feeling anything but. “Yeah, sorry, just zoned out a bit. It’s nice to see you again, Marjorie.”
“I’m surprised you don’t come around more, I see Sophia all the time.” Marjorie crosses one leg over the other. “Our door is always open for you whenever you want to!”
That makes her smile, but she knows it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. The warmth of being wanted and invited tries its best to overtake the dread from what Sophia’s signed her up for but is unsuccessful.
“Thank you. I’ll try to come visit more, Julia seems awesome.”
“Well,” Priya cuts in, interrupting the moment. “To circle back to why we’re all here, NewCrazy is going on tour soon and we thought that’d be the perfect time for you to go with them and get the inside scoop – experience the life of a pop star firsthand, up close and personal. I think you figured it out yourself but, Manon, I’d really like you to write about Lara.”
Somehow, hearing it actually voiced out loud makes it fifteen times worse.
“I-”
“No.” Lara speaks instead, voice low and stern. “I don’t want or need someone like her in my business.”
Manon blinks, cold blood starting to heat up. “‘Someone like me’? What do you mean by that?”
Lara rolls her eyes. “No one was talking to you, I was talking to my aunt.” She spares Manon a single, quick, disgusted once over before turning and focusing back on Priya. “Like I said, assigning me some little follower isn’t going to work. I already have to deal with those- those- vultures with cameras and keyboards every time I step foot out of my house. At every event and every restaurant and every store. They’re literally outside right now! You want me to be okay with them invading my personal life as well?”
“Didn’t you see the article she wrote about your auntie?” Marjorie asks. Manon thinks she sounds like she’s trying to entice a toddler rather than a grown woman. “She’s not like them. She’s not trying to hurt you.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Lara spits. “They’re all the fucking same. I don’t know what she did to convince you otherwise but she’s got you fooled, not me. I’m not doing this.”
Priya’s face turns stoic, leaning forward to get closer to Lara’s face. “Listen to me. We already signed the contract with The Spectrum for a cover feature that’ll consist of an interview, a photoshoot, and an article showcasing them both. Manon will be shadowing you and you will be nice to her. You do not have a choice here. You’re mad about how the press treats you but here you are acting like a petulant child proving them exactly right.”
It’s all a bit too much, too quickly for Manon. Not even fifteen minutes ago she thought she was here getting briefed on another fun assignment and now here she is being talked about like she’s just a random fly on the wall by a spoiled brat of a pop star and her somehow-an-angel-on-Earth aunt. It makes no sense that the two are related to one another.
For a second there, she thought that maybe Lara Raj isn’t what she appears to be. That maybe the media got it wrong. That Priya and Sophia wouldn’t set her up for the worst experience of her life with one of the worst people to walk the planet. That surely it’s all fake. Maybe she just really wanted to believe it herself.
Because she was wrong.
Lara stands up abruptly, like she’s had enough. “Fuck that.” She focuses her eyes straight on Manon. “I don’t want your dumb ass article written about me. Don’t come anywhere near me, I mean that.”
Manon can’t even get a word in before Lara’s storming out of the room with a slam of the door. The three remaining are stunned for a few moments.
Priya is the one to break the silence, smiling at Manon apologetically. “I’m sorry, Manu.” She closes her eyes for a second, breathing deeply, before opening them again. They’re softer now. “I promise she’s actually not that bad. The press, the media- they just haven’t been the kindest to her, you know? It’s why I want this article done. When you did mine, it painted me in a different light and I wasn’t even in a bad one to begin with. People saw me more for me and not just some big shot celebrity. I want that for my niece, too.”
“Lara’s a good girl, she always has been. Underneath it all, I know she’s still there. We get glimpses sometimes, but she’s just a little lost right now,” Marjorie chimes, a sort of sad smile forming on her lips. “She’ll come around, you just have to be patient with her. Please.”
She really doesn’t know if she believes them but she trusts Priya, and Marjorie doesn’t seem like the type to lie either. It’s a little worrisome that they’re expecting this to be some groundbreaking piece that’ll completely change Lara’s reputation, because she doesn’t do fake journalism, but she’s willing to try for them.
She takes in a breath herself. “So, what’s my schedule going to be looking like for the next couple of months?”
—
The dial tone rings in her ears as she collapses into the backseat of her usual taxi. The second she stepped foot out of the building, she already had her phone out and a familiar number typed in. Her leg bounces as she waits.
“Hello?” The voice answers hesitantly, like it already knows what’s coming.
“Sophia Elaine Laforteza.”
“Wha- that’s not even my middle name?”
Manon glares at the cars in front of them in traffic, imagining Sophia’s in one of them and she has the ability to shoot lasers out of her eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me? Lara Raj? You couldn’t warn me?!”
Sophia laughs. “I take it the meeting went splendidly?”
“Sophia!” Manon exclaims. “Can you be for real for one second?”
“Okay, okay,” Sophia relents, but Manon can still hear that she’s smiling on the other side of the line. “If I would’ve told you who it was, would you have gone?”
Manon scoffs. “Abso-fucking-lutely I wouldn’t have, are you crazy?”
“Exactly, and that’s why I didn’t. MPM has been incredible to The Spectrum, and I’ve built quite the rapport with Marjorie and Priya themselves. Are you not a professional? You can deal with a tough subject if it means the story in the end is worth it.”
“But you don’t understand,” Manon whines, deflating even more against the seat. “She’s the worst. She wouldn’t even talk to me unless it was to tell me she wasn’t talking to me. And then she threatened to kick Spoon, burn my crops, and poison the city’s water supply before she stormed out in the middle of the meeting.”
Sophia laughs again, louder this time. “You say shit like that and you expect me to be serious? She did not say that.”
“Okay, she didn’t,” Manon admits with a giggle. “But she might as well have! She told me to stay away from her and said I’m a vulture. How am I supposed to work with someone like that?”
“Like the professional you are, Manon,” Sophia reiterates. “I told you; if I didn’t think you could do it, I wouldn’t have given you the assignment.”
Manon doesn’t reply for a few moments, thinking it all over. Ever since they said them, she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Priya and Marjorie’s words about how Lara’s actually some misunderstood, secret sweetheart, or something.
It just seems so unlikely with the way she acted today. She didn’t even give Manon a chance, nor was she the kindest to her aunt and her aunt’s best friend and business partner.
She still wants to believe that Priya wouldn’t purposely put her in a bad position. Sophia might, always wanting to test Manon and help her grow through challenge even if it kills her, but Priya? Priya’s too sweet to her.
She sighs. “I’m trusting you, Fi. I’m going to do it, not that I really have a choice anyway, but I’m really going to try. For you. And Priya.”
“That’s my girl.” Manon can picture the smile growing on Sophia’s face. “So, onto more important things…” she trails off, pausing for dramatic effect, “is she hot in person?”
Manon almost gags at the question. It’s kind of a no-brainer that she’s attractive, that’s the only real requirement to be in a manufactured group half the time, but her personality and attitude are so nasty they wipe out any physical beauty she might have.
Annie pulls up in front of Manon’s apartment building and Manon leans forward through the seats to give her a quick hug in thanks. “I’ll Venmo you when I get in, okay? Thank you for everything.”
Manon enters the modest building, heading straight for the elevator. She returns back to the phone call. “She has pretty eyes. That’s about all that I can give her.”
Sophia giggles. “Right, right. You sound like me when I first met Leon.”
“Even if I did think she’s cute, she hates me already and I’m keeping this strictly professional anyway.” Manon unlocks the door to her place, dropping her keys on the console table next to it once inside. “Plus, aren’t you my boss? Aren’t you supposed to be telling me to separate business and pleasure?”
“Oh, right,” Sophia says quickly. “Oh, no, Manon, don’t get with the hot bad girl. You should totally stay single the rest of your life. Leon and I love having you third wheel.”
Manon raises an eyebrow, kicking her heels off. “So you admit there’s something going on with you two for me to third wheel on?” It’s quiet for a while until she hears the beep of the call ending.
She opens up her Venmo app with a laugh, it’s always fun catching the two of them up about their relationship. It’s the most glaringly obvious thing that they’re together but they both refuse to admit it for some reason, preferring to live in denial. She sends Annie her fare before pocketing her phone and grabbing a bottle of water from her fridge.
Twisting the cap off and sipping from the bottle, Manon walks into her bedroom. It’s not as big or as extravagant as she’d like it to be, but it’s still hers and she loves it. She stops by her dresser, opening a drawer and pulling out a random tank top and shorts to lounge in instead of her dress.
Once changed, she plops down on top of the fluffy comforter on her bed, careful not to land on her laptop. She lies back and stares up at her ceiling for a moment. Is she really ready for the hell her life might become for the next few months?
With a sigh, Manon scoots toward her headboard, leaning back on her stack of pillows and pulling her laptop onto her lap. She waits for it to wake up and loads up her work email when it does. There’s a few random emails from some of her coworkers, but she opens up the one from Sophia: her schedule for the assignment forwarded straight from Priya.
She bites back a groan at the amount of things the girl and her group have scheduled. Priya and Marjorie gave her a vague outline during the meeting but insisted to her that it’d be easier to look at it in writing and she now understands why. Tour doesn’t officially start for two weeks but they still have a few promotional television and radio appearances before then, along with many scheduled rehearsals.
There’s an asterisk next to some of the dates so she scrolls down a little more to see the bottom of the email, finding the note explaining why; NewCrazy will be releasing a new single, a collaboration with the tour’s opening act, Adéla. These dates will be joint appearances with her to promote both the song and tour.
Manon’s exhausted just looking at everything they have to do. She understands it’s what they signed up for but, god, she doesn’t know how they do it. She suspects she’ll need a nap just after packing her bags to leave, she could never do interviews, performances, photoshoots, and whatever else all back to back.
She sends a quick reply to the email to show she’s received it before opening a new tab and stopping, her mouse cursor hovering over the Google search bar. Maybe it won’t be the worst thing in the world to get to know Lara a little better before she’s forced to spend every day and night with her. She types her name into the box and presses enter before she can stop herself.
Lara’s overview shows three photos; one of her on stage, one of her smiling on a red carpet, and a black and white shot from a photoshoot. At least Google had the courtesy to show her well in that regard.
Her mini biography says she came to fame as a member of NewCrazy at the age of fourteen, which takes Manon a bit by surprise. She knew they were all young when the band started, but didn’t know that they were that young.
Clicking her Wikipedia page, Manon uses the navigation to jump down to the early life section. Apparently, she was born in November to an actress and dancer mother and a musician father, along with her actor aunt.
The career section states that she was in her first commercial at three, guest starred on a number of kids’ shows and performed with her father a few times from the ages of six to ten, and was signed to a music label at eleven, releasing an EP that same year and, later, a full length album at thirteen. Nepotism runs rampant in this family, apparently.
She exits the tab and returns to Google, scrolling down a bit and being met with a section of Lara’s top recent news stories. And every single one looks to be negative.
Manon frowns. Yes, Lara’s awful and she’s experienced it firsthand, but is there really nothing positive for the press to talk about regarding her? Her band has a tour coming up soon that she’s sure is selling well, same with their last single that she thinks she’s heard on the radio a few times in passing.
Curiosity gets the best of her and she opens up one of the articles. It’s dated for an hour ago and the headline image is of Lara outside of the MPM building so she can already assume what it’s about. She skims the actual writing, more interested in getting down to the video which is at the very bottom of the page. She knows the tactic; clicks alone are great but the longer the visitor spends on the site, the better.
She presses play on the video, jumping at the volume of the voices coming through her laptop’s speakers and rushing to turn it down. The murmurs, to start with, are fairly noisy but the second Lara steps out of the doors, it increases tenfold; paparazzi shouting questions and requests to pose for their cameras at her, the fans who got word of her being there trying to get her attention for a selfie or an autograph.
It’s a lot.
Lara keeps her head bowed, a hand shielding her eyes from the cameras and the flashes, trying to navigate through the crowd which seems to be closing in on her the more she moves. Her fists are clenched and knowing she’s already mad from the meeting, Manon can’t imagine having to deal with this right after.
She almost feels… bad?
“Lara! Can you tell us about you and Adéla? Or is it you and Orlando? Or Drew? We’ve seen the tweets!”
“Lara! Are you and Daniela still close?”
“Lara! Tell us a little about the new tour!”
“Lara, over here!”
“Lara, look this way!”
Manon feels more and more overwhelmed the longer she watches. It’s like Lara’s an animal in a petting zoo. Where the hell are her bodyguards?
She’s almost able to navigate her way out enough to reach her driver, who’s standing on the sidewalk with the door to the backseat of the car open, until an especially pushy paparazzo steps back in front of her.
The rest of the shouts are so loud she can’t make out what the man says to her, but Lara pauses for a split second before pushing the man away roughly, his camera dropping to the ground as he stumbles. She can hear a few gasps and the rest of the crowd pulls back a little, finally allowing Lara to slip out and into the car.
The video ends with a few of the other paparazzi checking on the one that was pushed, like they hadn’t all just been treating the girl like she’s less than human until she snapped.
Manon scrolls back up to the top of the page to reread the headline, rolling her eyes at the way the news site is making Lara out to be the aggressor as well.
She can see from the social media buttons that the article has already been shared hundreds of times on both Twitter and Facebook and it just annoys her more. Lara hadn’t done anything wrong.
Priya’s words echo in her mind, “the press, the media- they just haven’t been the kindest to her, you know?”, and she just sighs, closing her laptop and pushing it next to her into an empty spot on her bed.
She grabs a pillow and buries her face in it, screaming. She thought she was just working for a silly, goofy little magazine. This job wasn’t supposed to get this complicated after being smooth sailing for such a long time.
She returns the pillow to its spot and climbs out of bed, heading for her kitchen to find something to eat.
This is going to be a long few months.