Star F#@!e

With two hundred dollars in her wallet, three crop tops in her duffel bag, and a mouth full of ambition, Ava Clark stepped off the Greyhound bus like she was arriving at a movie premiere. She paused on the sidewalk, adjusted her oversized sunglasses—ones she bought from a gas station outside Gilroy—and took in Los Angeles as if the city owed her an apology for not discovering her sooner.

“With a name like Ava Clark, I’m supposed to be famous,” she whispered, as though saying it aloud would summon the fame gods directly.

The terminal smelled like stale coffee and dreams that expired in 2014. Her boots, which were not meant for walking more than a TikTok transition, were already pinching her toes. Still, Ava smiled. Pain was temporary. Fame was forever.

Her cousin had arranged a place for her to stay—some girl named Bianca who needed a roommate for her downtown loft. Ava didn’t know much about her except that she had pastel-colored hair, big boobs, and what could only be described as “controlled chaos energy.” When Ava arrived, dragging her suitcase like a broken promise, Bianca opened the door in a towel, a cigarette dangling from her lips, and said, “You’re cuter than I thought you’d be. Rent’s due on the third. Don’t drink my last White Claw and we’ll get along just fine.”

It was a loft in the most generous sense. Open space, no real doors, one suspicious-looking couch, and pipes that hissed like they were holding a grudge. But Ava didn’t care. When Bianca wasn’t around—which was often—it felt like Ava’s place. She blew up her air mattress, set up her makeup like it was a shrine, and practiced her Oscar speech in the mirror above the cracked sink.

She landed a job a few days later at a hotdog stand called Queenie Weenie. The building was shaped like a giant bun, complete with a cartoon sausage wearing a crooked gold crown. It looked like someone tried to franchise a fever dream. The uniform was tight, bright, and skimpy—orange and red with white trim, and a little hat that made her look like a flight attendant for a discount airline.

Her coworker, Victoria, was polite but icy. She had the posture of someone who took herself very seriously and the kind of face that frowned by default.

“You should take a Meisner class,” Victoria said on Ava’s second day, casually wiping down the condiment counter.

“I don’t eat gluten,” Ava replied without blinking.

Victoria blinked for her. “It’s acting training.”

“Oh. That’s cute.”

The customers were a mix of tourists, drunk film students, tech bros who loved irony, and wannabe producers with Bluetooth earpieces. Ava served them all with a pageant smile and a business card tucked into her bra—not a real card, just a napkin with her Instagram handle written in lip liner.

When she wasn’t working, Ava was out in the streets—hopping between bars, hotel lounges, rooftops, and pop-up galleries that may or may not have been someone’s garage. She had a sixth sense for spotting industry types: guys with too much wrist jewelry, girls with thousand-yard stares, and people who said “content” like it was a sacred word.

That’s how she met PD.

He found her outside a velvet-roped event she wasn’t technically invited to but had managed to sneak into with confidence alone. He wore a pinky ring, aviators at night, and had the swagger of someone who once got a fist bump from a rapper in a gas station.

“I’m PD,” he said, flashing a grin like it came with its own price tag.

Ava tilted her head. “P.D.?”

“Yeah.” He left it at that, like the letters explained themselves.

There was something greasy-charming about him. Not attractive, exactly—but magnetic in the way a cigarette spark is right before it catches fire.

“You got a good look,” he told her, like he was handing out golden tickets. “I can get you in the room.”

“What room?”

“The one with the yeses, baby.”

She didn’t know what that meant. Didn’t care. He spoke in vagueness and name-drops, but Ava heard what she wanted: access.

Back at the loft that night, she slid out of her Queenie Weenie uniform and lay across her air mattress, staring up at the exposed ceiling pipes like they held all her future credits. She imagined it—red carpets, camera flashes, someone yelling her name. Maybe even a slow-mo entrance at the Emmys. Not as a nominee, of course, not yet. But as someone on the arm of someone important.

Someone like… Jace Monroe.

But that meeting hadn’t happened yet.

Not yet.