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Just the beginning

Mark Crimmins

She didn’t want to say his name, but if she said his name it would definitely be one you would instantly recognize, and she could assure you that you would be shocked if you knew exactly who it was that had pulled up alongside her in a white Rolls Royce while she was walking up the Avenue of the Americas and told her that she was beautiful and asked her if she needed a ride or wanted to go hang out with him, but she didn’t because, just because someone was rich and famous and instantly recognizable all over the entire world, in every country and on every continent—except maybe Bhutan and Antarctica—that didn’t mean that she was going to throw herself at them, even though it was nice to know that someone who only ever associated with the most beautiful women in the world (and in fact had practically had every single one of the world’s most beautiful women chasing him around in order to get into his pants) thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, which was what he had said, and he obviously wasn’t just saying this, because she could the see the sincerity in his eyes, even though it was a bit shady in the back of his Rolls, with its tinted windows, and it was kind of embarrassing, almost, but this wasn’t the only occasion, either, because she just happened to be at the Elmo when probably the most revered male entertainer of all time gave an impromptu concert, and he sort of singled her out at the table where she was sitting with her super-rich spoiled brat investment banker boyfriend, and it was like he—the performer—sang the entire set specifically to her, and then, when the absolute number one hottest guy in Hollywood saw her at Fisherman’s Wharf in Frisco—where he was filming—he actually got in a scuffle with his bodyguards because he wanted to stop her and talk to her, even though she was with her software developer karate champion boyfriend of the time, so she began to realize that all these things weren’t merely coincidences, and in fact she remembered that from the time she was little she had always sort of known that she would be a star, not someone who was special, exactly, but more sort of like someone who was extraordinary, so she quit her day job and started trying out for parts in commercials and then in no time she was featured in full-page ads for Revlon, and then they asked her to do a show in Milan, and before she knew it she was practically the queen of the runways and certain famous supermodels (who she wouldn’t even cheapen her friendship with and love for by mentioning their names) started calling her up, wanting to go clubbing with her, just so it would kickstart their waning careers, and that was just the beginning.

Mark Crimmins’s flash fictions have been published in numerous literary journals, including Columbia Journal, Flash Frontier, Pure Slush, Tampa Review, Atticus Review, Portland Review, Apalachee Review, Kyoto Journal, Litro, River Styx, and Flash: The International Short Short Story Magazine. He teaches Contemporary Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen.

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