Lights, Camera, Omega (Hollywood Omegas #1)

“I’m a nobody. Don’t take it personally if a nobody like me doesn’t know.”

I hope for another laugh out of him for this one, but instead his beautiful face with its carved marble features becomes still and serious.

“You’re hardly nobody, Miss Dale.” He smiles softly, warmth glittering in his eyes.

“Well, in that case,” I bargain carefully. “Am I allowed to know your name?”

“Julian St. James, at your service, Miss Dale.”

My knees begin to buckle, forcing Julian to buoy me back to standing on our slow path to the trailer door.

“Are you alright, Daphne?” He looks at me with concern.

“I can get someone to bring a golf cart around if you don’t think you can make it to the gate.”

I nod dumbly like a dashboard bobblehead, head bouncing up and down, seemingly without end.

I let his introduction sink in.

Julian St.James!?! Thee Julian St. James—designer and rumored long time paramour of Magnus Wagner? You have got to be kidding me.

Julian looks at me, puzzled.

“Is that a ‘yes I am fine’ or a ‘yes, I need the golf cart.’?” Julian clarifies.

Lois and Carla exchanged girlish titters before Lois pipes up, “Mister St. James, I think right now—that girl needs all the help she can get!”

Lois and Carla had been right. The Omega Center was immensely helpful. The moment I arrived, they helped get me medicated and to a state where I could rest and recuperate ahead of my orientation with my caseworker and my physician team.

We went through the standard rigamarole; blood tests, lectures and packets about my impending heats, a nesting ‘class’ where I made myself a little cocoon of serenity in my sterile but soothing room at the center; and a fascinating appointment where a specialist captured some of my omega perfume for cataloging and scent impression for potential matchmaking materials.

The bed wasn’t bad, the food was certainly passable, but after only two nights away I was desperately missing Rupert, the dispensary down the block, and my freezer generously stocked with ice cream sandwiches and frozen fruit bars.

As soon as I was out of the center and back home, there was the matter of switching agents. As a beta, my former agent Martha Conroy was one of the best in the business for finding work for actors of a beta designation.

Now that I’ve entered my ‘Surprise! You’re an omega!’ arc, that means I need a new agent to go along with all these new bells and whistles. Martha was kind enough to refer me to another agent with plenty of experience in the industry, one who would be ready and willing to work with me right away.

Although it’s a little sad to say goodbye to Martha and to be written off of OotP, I’m too excited about the future to be too heartbroken.

Before I meet my new agent Vinny, I send him all my portfolio. There’s all my audition reels, my headshots, the few demo tracks I’ve recorded on the chance I might be asked to do something musical, the packets of monologues I typically run, along with my now outdated business cards that still read, ‘Daphne Dale, Beta Actor.’

At the beginning of the week, Vinny texts me to let me know he’s gotten everything, and to set up a lunch meeting at an expensive restaurant that the paparazzi love to frequent.

“Wear something pretty, something that shows skin,” He says in his clipped, heavy New York accent when he calls to confirm our appointment.

Something about the way he says it makes me want to talk back, to mouth off like a surly teenager and tell him to wear something skimpy if that’s what he wants. Martha never would have said this kind of shit to me, but I also have to acknowledge that Martha wasn’t ever looking to put me into roles where I might be the leading lady, I might be seen as desirable.

I shuffle through my closet, ultimately deciding on a sun-bleached floral dress for the occasion.

I twist my thicket of golden waves into a messy updo on top of my head and fasten the sloppy twist with a shimmering pearly hair clip, smoothing the blue florets and green leaf bud patterned cotton of my skirt as I look at myself in the mirror.

I feel a pang of anxiety. The look is giving ‘girl-next-door’ at its absolute best.

The little voice of self doubt starts to ring louder and louder in my ears as I take stock of my very wholesome mid-west princess vibe. Somehow I thought things would be different when I got home from the center, but at a first glance I’m still that girl.

Aren’t omega movie stars supposed to be smoldering sex symbols? Like, we’re talking full on sensuous glamor; sleek hairdos, designer clothing that holds and hugs every curve it doesn’t already expose, perfect makeup, always seen in the hottest, most exclusive places with other incredibly beautiful people.

I’m so far from any of those things, and making the journey toward becoming the mythical omega movie star beauty, feels beyond exhausting.