I was lucky. That’s what they said. Look at her—the stripper’s daughter—with that big rock on her finger. Engaged to a Newsom. How’d she get him? No one local really wondered. My mother was a wealthy man’s plaything, a wounded bird that Deacon’s father tried to save. He failed. I used to have this dream where she was drowning, kicking hard and pushing me up toward the surface. I’d break through and just start gulping down air. I had that dream, of breathing, on my wedding night. Hours before I left my one and only love, my beating heart, there at the altar. Regret is a complicated thing. But pride is more so. I was a dancer, like my mama. Just came natural. When I ran, I ran from those dry Texas oil fields out to Hollywood and worked my way onto the billboards. Ever Roach became a big star. Now I’m Evette Landry. Yes, that Evette. Evette Lingerie and Evette Naturals. I’m in magazines, in films, on catwalks. Everywhere. Strike a match at one of Deacon’s oilfields, and it still won’t burn as bright as my star. Does it matter to me that he married my best friend? No one’s ever asked, so I don’t have to know the answer. I’m okay. I made it. That’s the only thing I care about. Until the letter comes—a summons home. When I get there, nothing’s as it seems.