It was 10:34 on a Tuesday morning when the news came out. Less than an hour later, the headlines had already gone global, leaving the internet aghast, full of questions, and in a state of heartbreak. The entire world mourned the loss of Tallulah Crain. On social media, red-carpet photos and video clips from her film roles decorated the profiles of friends and fans alike. “At only 26 years old,” the reports read, “the model-turned-actress was struck down in the midst of her rapidly rising stardom following a sudden accident.” The tabloids were already rushing to plaster her face onto the floppy bundles of paper that would stock the shelves at grocery checkout aisles. There was only one problem: Tallulah was alive.
Her phone had been ringing nonstop all morning. Tallulah was far too tired to answer it, having gotten back to her home on the outskirts of Hollywood Hills just an hour shy of the sunrise. It had been late—bordering on early, so Tallulah abandoned her suitcase in the hallway and collapsed on her couch instead of her bed. She woke again, after some much-needed beauty rest, in the early afternoon. The natural light filled the space with an ethereal glow. Ugh. Why the hell is it so bright in here? Tallulah pouted to herself. I spent 3 mil on this place, and they couldn’t even put in blinds. I should have just stayed in New York for the week.
She pushed herself to her feet with a whine, running a hand through her platinum-bleached hair as she stumbled to the kitchen. Then, fixing herself an espresso shot with the push of a button, she surveyed how her personal assistants had stocked her refrigerator in her absence. Green juice…no. Who even bought that? Someone’s getting fired. Anyways. Eggs for breakfast? I don’t feel like cooking. Yogurt it is, I guess.
One bite into her yogurt, Tallulah was already bored. Her hand dug into her pockets, searching for the cellphone that wasn’t there. She returned to her living room, vaguely recalling how she had flung the phone across the coffee table a few hours ago before rolling over and going to sleep. Sure enough, the sleek purple iPhone was on the floor, still twitching and buzzing with notifications. A single glance at the screen sent her yogurt plummeting to the ground.
“What. The. Hell?”
Her notifications were blowing up. She couldn’t even count how many missed calls there were with the number of text messages she was still getting. Her social media alerts were absolutely out of control; the sheer number of Twitter mentions alone made her consider throwing her phone down again.
The words on the screen began to blur together. Texts like “Are you okay? Call me back!!” bled into “lol your publicist is a genius.” Messages were accompanied with cryptic eulogies, tweets from fans, texts from old costars, and childhood friends saying, “Rip Tallulah,” and “fly high beautiful angel, we miss you so much.”
“‘Rest easy Lulu, we’ll love you forever,’” she read aloud, wrinkling her nose at the emojis of doves and flowers that accompanied the message.
“Lulu,” she scoffed, “I sound like somebody’s golden retriever. And why the fuck does everyone think I’m dead?”
Tallulah unlocked her phone, stepping over the spilled yogurt and collapsing back onto the couch. She hesitated, considering how she should probably text her parents and her manager, or at least post a heavily-Facetuned selfie with a playful caption to quell everyone’s fears. Her curiosity got the best of her first. Well, they’ve already waited this long. Tallulah shrugged, switching her notifications to do-not-disturb. Without a shudder or a second thought, she typed “Tallulah Crain dead” into the search engine. She laughed while reading some of the outlandish theorized causes of death: people were claiming that it was anything from a heroin overdose to a fatal allergic reaction to Botox and fillers. Bulimia seemed to be another popular theory, though seeing that made Tallulah’s cheeks burn.
“How many times do I have to fucking say that I’m just a paleo-pescatarian on a shifting restriction? I did not hire a personal chef just to end up on a Buzzfeed article about the dangers of diet culture!”
The varying theories and declarations of lament propelled her through social media posts. The beginnings of a conspiracy theory seemed to be in the works. Some of her more dedicated fans speculated that she’d been in a car accident, or that her plane back to Los Angeles had crashed and that the whole thing had been covered up by the news.
Now that I think about it, Tallulah realized, I didn’t call or text anyone when I got back. I got a cab home too, and that guy sure didn’t recognize me. She had thrown a handful of cash into the passenger’s seat instead of using her credit card when she paid, making the transaction untraceable. Even Tallulah’s bank couldn’t prove that she was still living. She didn’t dwell on it for long.
“Whatever.”
Tallulah opened a new tab. There were loads of second-rate news sites to scroll through, which she was resigned to use for research after the Twitter threads became too long to keep track of. From there, it took half an hour and several page refreshes to find what had claimed to be the original report.
“‘Tallulah Crain has passed away after a sudden, devastating accident. Our thoughts are with her family at this time’ Wow. That doesn’t even look photoshopped,” she tilted her head, “at least not badly. I can see why someone would believe it.”
She kept staring at the image that accompanied the now-deleted tweet. One side of it depicted Tallulah’s mother; she was covering her mouth with her hand, and her brows were pulled together as if she was in pain. Standing next to her in the photo was Tallulah’s father, with his head bent, looking in the opposite direction of the camera. A cut through the middle of the photo revealed a picture of Tallulah herself, smiling for her audience. She didn’t like it. The nearly fluorescent lighting was far too harsh on her features, and her smile… she shuddered.
“Jesus, when was that taken? And what was I on? Showing that many teeth—ew, and the crinkling around my eyes? What was I thinking!”
She glared at the phone screen, annoyed at the mysteriously unflattering picture and of herself. It has to be a red-carpet photo, since it was obviously taken after I got my hair dyed. But when could it have been?
Tallulah threw her phone across the room in frustration, her hands flying to her face. It felt slightly less soft and supple than usual, causing her to rush off to the nearest mirror, frightened that she might be greeted with the same version of herself that was captured in that atrociously bad photo. Her breathing grew shallow; she pulled at the apples of her cheeks. Tallulah whimpered to herself, unable to stop the spiraling of her exhausted mind.
“Am I… am I really dead?” Tears sprang to her eyes as she dragged her hands down her face, gripping her neck. “Oh god,” she moaned, “this can’t be happening to me! My makeup line is supposed to come out next month! And after that I was gonna go to New York fashion week!”
Tallulah recoiled into herself, her hands crossing her body to cling to the straps of her shirt in a shaky self-embrace. She started to hyperventilate; the sobs she had perfected for the screen spilled from her all at once. Her face contorted in pain as she gently wailed, pressure began to build up in her skull behind her eyes. She shuddered, feeling a trickling from her nose and delicately wiping her face. When she pulled her fingers away, they were stained with a bright red trail of blood. She stopped crying.
“Wait a minute,” Tallulah looked up to herself in the mirror. “Can’t get a nosebleed if you’re dead. Dumbass.”
She sighed, letting her whole body go limp as she thought about what to do next. It was strange. She shouldn’t even have had a second thought before declaring to the world that the rumors were false, but here she was, at nearly 3 p.m., contemplating how long she should let this all go on. Would a week be too much? I mean, it might be pushing it, but I really don’t feel like doing anything. I can’t even remember how many shoots I’ve done this last month, and the two commercial roles back-to-back were absolutely exhausting.
“Maybe a week and a half—or two,” she mumbled, going upstairs to take a shower.
As she washed the honey-scented bubbles out of her hair, Tallulah began to wonder how much money her death rumors have drummed up for her. Were people rushing to the stores to buy the perfume she had released last year? The thought of it made her giggle; she imagined people adding two zeros to the end of the price and reselling it, maybe even adding a third zero ten years down the line—that was, if she really had been dead.
I can see it now, she grinned, letting the water drip from her body to the floor as she searched for her bottle of leave-in conditioner. I could pawn off a few personal things I don’t need anymore: clothes, the books I bought just so that I could say I’d read them in interviews, maybe some of the outtakes from old photoshoots—autographed before death, of course. Maybe even some lipsticks and underwear for all of the rich creeps out there; I would make a fortune!
Tallulah looked at her dewy face in the mirror. She would need the perfect image of herself—not that horrible picture that was used to announce her death, something more seductive and tranquil: the perfect in-memoriam. She tilted her chin up slightly, looking out through half-closed lids, parting her lips with a slight pout, and concentrating on the muscles in her face to produce a playfully enigmatic smile. That’s it, she decided, squealing in delight. God, it would be perfect. My face could be plastered on everything from tote bags to t-shirts to coasters. It would be blown up on posters—no, billboards! Tallulah danced into her bedroom as she imagined Oscar-winning biopics, streaming-service produced documentaries, and songs written in her memory.
“Wait,” she spoke softly, her thoughts moving at rapid speed. “Why can’t I be dead? Being dead would be so much more interesting than being alive.”
Tallulah ran back to the bathroom mirror, bringing a handful of clothes to try on as she made up different poses. She imagined herself seductively laid in a plush casket, the pictures on the front page of every magazine and newspaper in the country. Death meant that all of her film roles would have a new depth to them, she realized in excitement, even the cameo roles and the ridiculous teen dramas she did in her earlier acting days. Every photo of her, either modeled or candid, would have a new tragic beauty. She didn’t have to be a model or an actress anymore—she didn’t even have to be a person. Who would choose to be a person? Why would I choose to be a person when I can be an image—an icon?
“I could be Marilyn,” she gasped, “I could be Diana.”
Tallulah held up her hair, making it look shorter than it was. It was gorgeous that way, more mature, she thought. Her features would perfectly preserve her youthful charm, and the shorter hair would give her the sophistication that always seemed out of grasp in life. She would have to get her stylist over right away and schedule a final photoshoot with a trusted source. Not like it would take much to get anyone to keep their lips sealed. Any photographer off the street would become a big name if they had the claim on Tallulah Crain’s last photoshoot, and that would be more than enough to shut them up. Hell, even the people she called her friends would be willing to keep her little secret; with her dead, they would be even more famous by association. Tallulah’s fingers flew across the screen of her phone, digging through her notes app to try and find the password her publicity team had set for her Twitter account.
It is Hollywood, after all; this can just be one of the little secrets that everyone knows and no one talks about. I can practically live the same life I’ve been living the whole time, but without the annoying interviews, the week of starving before the red-carpet events, the 18-hour workdays and filming schedules…and because I’m dead no one would say anything bad about me either. It’s a dream come true!
“Got it,” Tallulah bit her lip as she copied the password. “I’m in!” She cheered, starting to draft a new tweet. This’ll be great. I’ll let it circulate a while, then text my manager and publicist, then my agent and friends, then my parents, then I’ll find a photographer, maybe a business advisor, and I’ll get right back to work.
Her perfectly manicured nails clicked across the screen as Tallulah formulated the perfect message. Finally, she thought, finally I’ll have it easy; it’ll be the life I actually want, the one I’ve been working towards this whole time. I’ll have a legacy! A real legacy! She gave the tweet one more read before hitting send, satisfied at last.
“It is with a heavy heart that Ms. Crain’s team confirms her passing. Her family appreciates the outpour of love and support from her fans and asks for respect for their privacy at this time.”