Chap­ter 13 starts with an inti­mate and rather unex­pect­ed ges­ture from Don. On the morn­ing of the first day of rehearsals for Lit­tle Women, he wakes the pro­tag­o­nist with break­fast in bed—half a grape­fruit and a lit cig­a­rette. The sim­plic­i­ty and the thought­ful­ness of this ges­ture make the pro­tag­o­nist feel spe­cial, and as Don leaves for the day, he offers words of encour­age­ment, men­tion­ing that today she would show Celia St. James what it tru­ly means to be an actress. The pro­tag­o­nist, feel­ing both cared for and sup­port­ed, eats the grape­fruit with a smile before mov­ing on with her morn­ing rou­tine. She leaves the tray in bed and heads for the show­er, already men­tal­ly prepar­ing for the work ahead.

When she exits the show­er, the pro­tag­o­nist finds her maid, Paula, already clean­ing up the room. Paula is qui­et­ly pick­ing up the remains of the cig­a­rette, a reminder of the protagonist’s chaot­ic, untidy lifestyle. The pro­tag­o­nist is not par­tic­u­lar­ly neat, as evi­denced by the scat­tered clothes, slip­pers, and tow­el in the room. Paula, who clear­ly dis­ap­proves of the dis­or­der, has her work cut out for her. The pro­tag­o­nist, in a hur­ry to get dressed for the set, asks Paula to leave her alone for a moment. Although not tru­ly in a rush, she does­n’t want Paula to wit­ness her dress­ing, espe­cial­ly because of the bruise on her ribs. The bruise is a painful reminder of an inci­dent nine days ear­li­er when Don pushed her down the stairs. Though the pro­tag­o­nist feels a need to defend Don, the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion remains dif­fi­cult to deny.

The pro­tag­o­nist, still pro­cess­ing the inci­dent, reflects on the cir­cum­stances lead­ing up to her injury. The push was not as severe as it may sound, she tries to con­vince her­self, but the truth is, it caused a painful fall. When she land­ed, the han­dle of a draw­er had hit her rib cage, leav­ing a bruise that was slow to heal. Even though Don seemed con­cerned after the inci­dent, his words felt hollow—his non­cha­lance in ask­ing if she was alright was jar­ring. The pro­tag­o­nist, feel­ing emo­tion­al­ly con­flict­ed, had con­vinced her­self that she was fine, though the bruis­ing told a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. When Paula reen­ters the room moments lat­er, the protagonist’s frus­tra­tion peaks. She had asked Paula to leave, but the intru­sion felt even more unbear­able because of the per­son­al nature of the pain she was endur­ing. She felt betrayed by the maid for not report­ing Don’s actions, espe­cial­ly since Paula seemed intent on focus­ing on her own sto­ry rather than the trou­bling sit­u­a­tion that had tak­en place.

Two hours lat­er, the pro­tag­o­nist arrives on the set of Lit­tle Women, where the set has been trans­formed into a New Eng­land cab­in com­plete with snow-cov­ered win­dows. As she walks in, she is remind­ed that work must go on despite per­son­al dif­fi­cul­ties. Ruby, her co-star, is there, and the two of them quick­ly bond over their shared resent­ment of Celia St. James. The new­com­er, despite her charm and appar­ent inno­cence, is an unwel­come pres­ence for Ruby and the pro­tag­o­nist. Both women see Celia as a threat to their roles in the film, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing how the audi­ence tends to favor the actress play­ing Beth, giv­en the emo­tion­al weight of the char­ac­ter. The indus­try, as they know it, is cut­throat, and no one tru­ly believes that a ris­ing tide lifts all boats—it’s a mat­ter of com­pe­ti­tion, and there’s no room for any­one else to over­shad­ow their per­for­mances.

When Celia approach­es Ruby and the pro­tag­o­nist, she exudes a child­like vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that feels out of place among the com­pet­i­tive nature of their envi­ron­ment. Her soft, girl-next-door appearance—complete with big, inno­cent blue eyes and long, flow­ing straw­ber­ry-red hair—strikes the pro­tag­o­nist as almost too per­fect, too sim­ple. While Celia is the epit­o­me of a fresh, unblem­ished beau­ty, the pro­tag­o­nist feels like the type of beau­ty that is unat­tain­able for most women—a beau­ty that is dif­fi­cult to repli­cate and sets her apart. Men may admire Celi­a’s looks, but for women like the pro­tag­o­nist, there’s a sense of iso­la­tion in being per­ceived as some­thing unat­tain­able. The con­trast between their looks and per­son­al­i­ties reveals the ten­sions that already exist beneath the sur­face of their pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship. For the pro­tag­o­nist, Celia’s entry into their tight-knit world only com­pli­cates things fur­ther, mak­ing the desire to prove her­self even stronger.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates the ten­sion that can arise on set when per­son­al lives are mixed with pro­fes­sion­al ambi­tions. The protagonist’s feel­ings of iso­la­tion are under­scored by the way Celia’s inno­cence con­trasts with her own hard­ened per­sona, honed by years in the indus­try. The bruis­es she car­ries, both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, are part of her inter­nal strug­gle to rec­on­cile the demands of fame with the real­i­ty of her per­son­al life. The women around her, par­tic­u­lar­ly Ruby and Celia, rep­re­sent dif­fer­ent facets of her Hol­ly­wood expe­ri­ence: com­pe­ti­tion, cama­raderie, and the poten­tial for both friend­ship and rival­ry. As the pro­tag­o­nist nav­i­gates this com­plex envi­ron­ment, she’s remind­ed that while beau­ty and tal­ent are vital, it’s often the rela­tion­ships behind the scenes that define suc­cess in Hol­ly­wood. Through her inter­ac­tions with oth­ers, she learns more about herself—how much she’s will­ing to sac­ri­fice, what she’s will­ing to endure, and how she can use her expe­ri­ences to fur­ther her career. The chal­lenge, how­ev­er, is in main­tain­ing her sense of self while climb­ing the lad­der of suc­cess.