Hollywood Empress of the west

The plane ride from London was, all things considered, a decent affair—decent in that curious, melancholy way of long-haul flights undertaken alone, the cabin lights flickering

through the circadian haze and the engine's hum a constant, aural anaesthesia. I wore my best approximation of composure, the sort that suggested I was accustomed to such transitions, when in truth every crossing of the Atlantic brought a distinct ache: a tug of longing for some imagined tether, a gentle dread at hurtling into the unknown. In the aisle seat, knees pressed to the tray, I watched my reflection in the oval window as clouds trailed off beneath us, growing fainter, then dissolving into a sun-flushed sea. My seatmate, a wiry businessman from Oslo, had already surrendered to the sedations of gin and Ambien, his occasional snores the only punctuation to the monotone drone.

There was a brief moment of turbulence over Iceland, during which I gripped the armrest and recited silent lines from old plays as a sort of incantation. Somewhere in the dark, I nursed a plastic cup of white wine—the taste reminiscent of linoleum and distant summers—while drafting mental lists of the things I'd left behind: the staccato click of Mum's typewriter; my brother's surly, adolescent mutterings; the fraying playbills that wallpapered my childhood. Now, at thirty thousand feet, I felt suspended between two stages: London's familiar, rain-damp alleys, and the technicolour promise of Los Angeles.

I expected more drama in this literal crossing, but the universe had other plans—ease, emptiness, anticipation. In that liminal cocoon, I rehearsed possible futures, rolling each monologue over my tongue, testing how the words would taste in a new world. By the time the captain announced our impending descent, my heart was beating with an urgency I could neither name nor direct, only honour as the price of admission.

The journey itself, though long and vaguely dreamlike, had passed in a sequence of small, cinematic vignettes—each one a rehearsal for the role I was about to play.

I had barely made it past baggage claim, that gauntlet of carousels and listless travelers, before the first encounter staged itself. I was lingering at the curb, my phone already sweating under the LA sun as I summoned an Uber, when I noticed them—a woman with a jawline you could slice citrus on and a man whose blazer seemed to dare the world to accuse him of irony. They approached in the uncanny unison of a practiced routine. The woman's smile was surgically precise, and the man's greeting came with the damp eagerness one reserves for the last seat at a sold-out show.

"Excuse me, are you Rose Olivier?"

I blinked, heart skipping the requisite beat. There are moments, in the theater at least, when the lights come up and you realize you're already onstage. This was one of them. I nodded, feigning nonchalance.

"We're with Prism International," the woman said, sliding a card across the top of my suitcase with the cunning grace of a Vegas croupier. "We'd love to talk to you about some unique opportunities. Modeling, possibly acting. You've got the right look—very classic, but with an edge."

The litany, I realized, had been delivered a thousand times before. Variations on a theme, but always the same pitch, the same glint of possibility. I tried to remember every warning my parents had ever scrawled into my subconscious—never trust a smile that arrives too quickly; never follow a stranger, even if they know your name. I mustered a smile that said, thank you, but also, I am not the mark you're looking for.

"That's very flattering," I said, "but I'll have my people look into it first."

The man chuckled, as if delighted by my wariness. "Of course. We wouldn't expect anything less from someone with your background."

The woman, unflappable, offered a final crisp nod and melted into the crowd, leaving me clutching their card like a losing lottery ticket. I felt the twin pulls of skepticism and curiosity; the former bred into me by generations of Olivier women, the latter my own private vice.

I made a note to send the card to Mum as soon as I reached the Airbnb. If there was a scam angle, Mum would find it—she could smell pretense the way sharks scent blood. My brother, too, would no doubt have scathing commentary on the "bloodsuckers and bottom-feeders" of the LA scene. I almost looked forward to the family inquest, the collective picking-apart of the stranger's business card as if it were a prop from a particularly seedy melodrama.

Even so, I couldn't ignore the flicker of something like hope, or at least morbid curiosity, at the prospect of an agency with enough gall to recruit from an airport curb. Maybe they were frauds, or maybe—just maybe—I was exactly the mark they wanted. Either way, the city was already auditioning me, and I would've been lying if I said I didn't want the part.

My phone buzzed: the car was six minutes away. I slipped the card into my carry-on, where it nestled among my dog-eared scripts and vitamin C packets, and set my sights on the unfamiliar skyline.

I wasn't going to let them affect me too much, as I had things to do and people to see. Now that I am in the mecca of Hollywood, aka LA. Where all the film stars are set to live and work. Being a Lady from the United Kingdom, I find the pretentious nature of the LA natives and the celebrities that look to be there to be nauseatingly dull and look like parasites that will leech onto anyone who has had any modicum of success

I wasn't going to let them affect me too much, or so I told myself, marching through the arrivals hall with the brisk, staccato gait of someone who has perfected the art of appearing unimpressed. There was a kind of performance to it—shoulders squared, chin at a provocative tilt, a carry-on in tow like a trusted understudy. If London had trained me to withstand the leering bravado of West End critics, LA would surely present no greater challenge. But still, the air outside bristled with a new species of predation: sunny, insistent, and a touch cannibalistic.

My Taxi driver was waiting, a former screenwriter turned ride-share philosopher named Darren, eager to confer the local wisdom upon me before we'd even cleared the terminal parking lot. "You're from the UK, right?" he prodded, glancing up at me in the rearview with a look that dared me to confirm or deny. "You must get so bored with all the fakes here." I offered him a diplomatic smile and murmured something about being open to new experiences. Darren, undeterred, launched into a monologue about how the real Los Angeles—meaning his Los Angeles—wasn't about the stars or the studios or even the weather, but about the hustle, the constant recalibration of dreams. "Everyone's a mark and everyone's a player," he said, as we merged onto the freeway. "You'll pick it up."

The drive into the city felt like drifting through a hallucination rendered in saturated technicolor. Billboards for tv shows I'd never heard of reared up beside palm trees, and every third car seemed to be piloted by a sunglasses-clad prodigy with a miniature dog in their lap. Downtown shimmered at a remove, its glass towers softened by haze, while the streets closer in were a parade of eager, glistening faces, all of them performing some version of aspiration. I tried to catalogue the differences: in London, even the famous wore their ambition as a kind of necessary shame, a secret unspoken. Here, it was a perfume, spritzed liberally, as much a part of the wardrobe as the shoes. From the backseat, I watched as a woman in yoga pants and a neon sports bra jogged past a group of paparazzi, waving as if she'd been waiting her whole life for that exact moment.

It might have been easy to scoff, to gather these first impressions and stow them in a mental folder labeled "Evidence for the Prosecution." Yet even as I assembled my case, I caught myself—more than once—gazing out the window with something like envy for the city's reckless conviction. There was a naked hunger to it, an optimism bordering on the grotesque, but also the possibility of reinvention. For a second, I wondered what it would be like to surrender to that current, to let it buoy me past my own ironies and hesitations.

At a red light near Sunset, Darren pointed out the graffiti on a half-demolished warehouse: "MAKE YOURSELF UP." The words were stenciled in bubblegum pink, as if the city itself were giving me permission to improvise. I thought of my grandmother's old advice—never enter a room without knowing your exit lines—but maybe this place was asking me to do the opposite. To stay, to perform, to see what happened when the script ran out.

As we neared my apartment in Los Feliz, I found myself rehearsing the scenes that might unfold over the next few days: auditions, interviews, maybe even another encounter with the Prism people. I reminded myself, with a mixture of dread and anticipation, that this was why I had come—to test the limits of who I could be when no one was watching, and also when everyone was.

In the end, it wasn't the city's pretensions that threatened to unmoor me, but the possibility that beneath all the costuming, LA was the only place that genuinely believed in transformation. It terrified and thrilled me in equal measure.

Yet, despite my distaste, I couldn't help but feel myself drawn—imperceptibly, inexorably—toward the promise of this new world, and into the orbit of its most ruthless satellites.