The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

30

SOMEHOW, THE LITTLE MERMAID WAS a huge hit. Maybe because people didn't realize they needed a live-action and remake of it until it happened, or maybe it was because all the actors and actresses in it, well, had a gene lottery. That was including me, and I was suddenly all over Beijing again, but this time, I was bigger. And it wasn't just Beijing, it was all of China. I was, what I had always wanted, all over the screen.

It's really funny how people can just forget or ignore all of the bad stuff you've done and pretend to love and adore you when you're suddenly the trend. Nobody really talked about Ma Jie Hao/Nathan Ma or Klarise Kong when they mentioned me, no one related me to G.W.F., well some did, but not as much anymore. They were simply talking about me, my face, my biggest hit movie, my whatever you name. It was just 孙雪莉 (Sun Xue Li) this, 孙雪莉 that. That movie was what brought me up from the gutter, that movie had made me famous enough to become more famous. And I thought, at the time, that that was the best thing to have ever happened to me, that that was all the glory and love in life I needed and wanted.

Money and income was coming in, both from signings for fans, commercials I was being hired to do, photoshoots, and already more producers running up my way to ask me to star in their films. And as soon as these money came in, me and Mason moved out of that crappy place. He didn't want to though, saying that we might need the money for other uses, but still, even he knew that we couldn't stay at that place with his roommates if I was going to be actually famous.

It wasn't really big, the apartment we started to rent. As popular as I suddenly was, I didn't have enough money to actually buy us a place. But we try not to think about the bad things when there's so much other good, do we?

"And that's the last packaging." Mason, in rolled up sleeves, sets a huge box of his stuff down in our new place. It was ordinary, but I was glad I didn't have to live with those bastard roommates of his.

"It feels..." I raised my arms out, breathing in the new furniture air in front of a window that led to the balcony. "Free."

He laughed and walked over to me. "When did you become so dramatic of things?"

"Acting can get you to a way of exaggerating simple words and gestures." I grinned back at him.

A text sounds from the phone in his pocket, and as he looks down to check it, his face pulls into a too wide of a smile that those cheeks of his could barely hold.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh Mason, is it Cameron again?"

It's been a few months since I took the movie, also a few months since I've got to know Cameron. And here's what I learned: he was cold on the outside, cold to those he had just met, but his insides were knotted with affection and humor. How many times did he make me laugh by just saying some random things? As old as I am, I think most of the smiling wrinkles on my face were due to Cameron making me laugh. I'd pay a million dollars now just to get one of those random things he did back then that made me smile.

Mason could barely look up from his phone. "Yeah, he says he's trying to get in some time to come see our new place and help move things into place. Sadly though, it seems like something is keeping him back so he might not make it." That happy grin drops a little.

The words were out of my mouth too quickly. "Is it Klarise?"

"No——"

"You don't need to lie about it to protect me, I'm old enough to know what is what." I crossed away from the early morning light window and walked towards the shadows, starting to unpack one of the cardboard boxes.

I feel rather than see Mason approach me, his shadow towering and overlapping over mine. "Sometimes I don't think you are, Maeve, I'm worried. There's so many other girls out there, you know you can try and find happiness with them rather than looming over her, right?"

He was right of course. There were other girls, and I sometimes found my eyes wandering on and off between them, famous or not. But it just didn't feel the same I guess, and as old as I felt that time, I was young. What? Eighteen? Nineteen? Young, sometimes you're young and just simply hard-headed, like you think you know who you are and that your exact choices are the right ones, when really, sometimes you're just far off the road of the right path. I was stuck on Klarise.

I didn't say anything as I took out a small lamp and started moving it to a good spot in the apartment. Mason follows me.

"She's moved on, she's forgotten about you." I turned my back against him but his voice just kept coming. "You should move on, do you think she's really worth it? You deserve better, and if she doesn't love you, stop giving your love out to her. There's plenty of other people that are more worthy, I know you'll find someone there."

I turn in another direction, wanting to block off all the sounds.

"She's getting married, Maeve."

I finally turned around, and looked at him. I hated to think about that fact, as much as Cameron was helping me in my career, or supporting, as funny and kind as he was, I disliked him for that. But I didn't really have a right to dislike him like that, he didn't know about me and Klarise, what could he do?

I was shaking with a flower pot in my hands, and I felt the sudden single drop of tear roll down my left cheek. But then, Mason, his own face was wet with a grudge, mirroring me.

"Yes, they're getting married, it's happening. There's a date."

I wiped at the tears streaking down my face. "When?"

"December."

I felt like someone clogged my lungs and I couldn't breathe. "I don't like what you're telling me."

He wiped at the tears coming down on his face, forcing a laugh out of himself. It came out more like a small shriek. "Hell, I don't like what I'm telling you either. The person I love is marrying someone else."

"So am I."

We were both quiet for a moment, just crying and in our own thoughts. Then Mason, as always, got himself together first.

"Stop emailing her, I know you have. She's not coming back, and Cameron..." He wiped away his last tears. "He and I will figure something out. For now, me and you will focus on our careers, you hear me?"

I didn't want to hear him, but I also, even with my lingering days of feelings and hope about me and Klarise someday being together, I was real about acting. I wanted to go big, go so big my mother, and now adding to that list, Mr. Wang, will regret doing what they have done to me.

"OK."

He smiled and walked over to me, hugging me. I hugged him back and closed my eyes, feeling too many emotions in me to accept what they all meant.

A few months after that day, Klarise and Cameron's wedding was canceled.