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that first ultrasound revealed Aster was a girl, she was groomed to meet a set of expectations that seemed simple enough: be pretty, be sweet, get good grades, and keep her legs firmly crossed until she married the Perfect Persian Boy of her parents’ choosing the day after she graduated college, only to start producing Perfect Persian Babies a respectable ten months later.
    While Aster had nothing against marriage and babies, she was committed to delaying those dream stallers for as long as she could. And now that her big break had arrived,she was determined to dive in headfirst.
    â€œThis isn’t about the commercial.”
    Aster blinked, clutched the phone tighter, sure she’d misheard.
    â€œThey decided to go another way.”
    Aster’s mind raced back to that day. Hadn’t she convinced the director that completely foul cereal was the best-tasting thing she’d ever put in her mouth?
    â€œThey’re going ethnic.”
    â€œBut I’m ethnic!”
    â€œA different ethnic. Aster, listen, I’m sorry, but these things happen.”
    â€œDo they? Or do they just happen to me? I’m either too ethnic, or the wrong ethnic, or—remember that time they said I was too pretty? As if there was such a thing.”
    â€œThere will be plenty of auditions,” he said. “Remember what I told you about Sugar Mills?”
    Aster rolled her eyes. Sugar Mills was her agent’s most successful client. A no-talent pseudo celebrity discovered on Instagram thanks to the staggering number of people with nothing better to do than follow the daily adventures of Sugar’s Photoshopped body parts. Because of it, she’d snagged some high-profile commercial eating a big sloppy burger while wearing a tiny bikini, which inexplicably led to a role in an upcoming movie playing some old guy’s wildly inappropriate much younger girlfriend. Just thinking aboutit made Aster simultaneously sick and insanely jealous.
    â€œI assume you’ve heard of Ira Redman?” Jerry said, breaking the silence.
    Aster frowned and lowered herself back into the water, until the bubbles rose up to her shoulders. “Who hasn’t?” she snapped, feeling more than a little annoyed at a system that celebrated girls like Sugar Mills and wouldn’t give Aster a chance, even though she was a much classier act. “But unless Ira’s decided to get in on the movie biz—”
    â€œIra isn’t making movies. Or at least not yet.” Jerry spoke like he knew Ira personally, when Aster was willing to bet that he didn’t. “Though he is running a contest for club promoters.”
    She closed her eyes. This was bad. Very bad. She braced herself for whatever came next.
    â€œIf you make the cut, you’ll spend the summer promoting one of Ira’s clubs. Which, as you probably know, are frequented by some of Hollywood’s biggest players. The exposure will be great, and there’s money in it for the winner.” He paused, allowing the words to sink in, while Aster fought to keep her disappointment in check.
    She climbed out of the Jacuzzi. The heat of the water combined with the heat of her humiliation was unbearable. Preferring to finish the call barefoot, wet, and shivering, she said, “It sounds shady. And sleazy. And low class. And desperate. And just overall beneath me.”
    She gazed toward her house—an over-the-top, sprawling Mediterranean-style monument to her family’s wealth with its tennis courts, covered loggias, big cherub-adorned fountains, and rolling manicured lawns. Wealth that would one day be hers and her brother Javen’s, provided they followed her parents’ strict and uninspiring plans for their lives.
    She was tired of the way they tried to leverage her inheritance. Tired of the emotional turmoil they caused by insisting she choose between pleasing them and living her dreams. Well, screw it. She was done pretending. She