“What’s the deal with the script?” I asked him as he sipped his second glass.
“What? What deal?”
“There’s no title.”
“I can’t risk people knowing what the movie’s called ahead of time,” he said. He reached over and flipped through some of the pages. They were watermarked with my name on them: Jane Roadborn.
“Here’s what happens,” he continued. “Little Jane’s walking around and leaves the script in her hotel and the cleaning lady finds it, steals it, and sells it to one of the film gossip sites. So we watermark it to know whose script was leaked and we can properly penalize that person.”
“You don’t actually have a title, do you?” I asked him.
“I have lots of ideas, Jane. Some of them are titles, some of them scenes for your character, but all them involve you getting paid. So don’t worry,” he said, as only a dick-headed director could put it.
I stood up from my seat and laid on my back on a long couch that looked like a caramel bar.
The script was in my hands, I decided to read it and reread it, trying my best to memorize the script Michael wrote. Even if the film turned out to be an Oscar-winning film or a turd that matched Michael’s personality, I at least wanted to continue to get work. That meant I had to give it my all.
An hour went by and I had finished the script, my first real read through. I’d only been given snippets to read before, when I’d auditioned opposite Henry, my co-star. It was a very good script, at odds with the director who’d written it. It was an honest but heightened romance that showed more empathy for the people on the page than the people in Michael’s own life.
Then I decided to look up any new info on Henry from any of the gossip sites, the same ones that probably wouldn’t hesitate to leak Michael’s script.
Glancing at some of the sites, I discovered Henry had just come off a big breakup with Jessica Nakamoto. She was the hot newcomer, a beautiful mix of Japanese and American. She came up through modeling and gee, she was showing more skin in some of these shirt ads than I did in those photos Michael had of me. Which got me thinking that maybe I could get those photos off his phone. Even if he might have already uploaded them to his cloud account, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
***
After I finished the script, I stood up from the couch and saw Michael nice and comfy in his seat, looking out the window. His phone was in his hand, probably sending my “nekkid pics” to his “bros.”
I appeared behind him and started massaging his shoulders. “Busy, huh?” I asked, trying to get a better look at the text he was crafting. Landing soon, get everybody ready, his message read. Probably to the film producers down in Texas.
“Real busy, oh, that feels good,” he moaned.
“You like that, huh?”
“Oh, I do.”
I grabbed the bottle of wine and poured myself a glass, before refilling his.
“C’mon, put the phone down, let’s enjoy the first day of filming,” I said, trying to push him to put that damn phone down.
“Why suddenly in the good mood?” He smiled.
“Just, y’know, I finished reading the script and thought it was good. Really good.”.
“I’m glad you liked it, I hope you like me too,” he said.
I nodded, pushing the glass to his lips as he smiled. I drank too but deceptively so, drinking it in and slowly letting the wine fall back into the glass. Gross, I know, but I couldn’t get drunk.
We kept drinking, or more correctly, I kept flirting and mixed in with my flirtatious act were prompts to keep him drinking, which he did.
After about forty minutes, he was starting to slur his words and his eyes were glassy.
“You know what I like about you?” he said to me, slightly drunk.
“What’s that?” I asked in my best fake drunk voice.
He smiled. “Everything.”
It was hard not to like him; at least he wasn’t an angry drunk. He was actually quite charming when he wanted to be.
“That’s good,” I said, pouring more wine into his glass, all the while looking at his cell phone in my peripheral vision. Now I didn’t want him to see me looking at it, I had to be sneaky.
“You’re not drinking, come on, drink!” he gregariously shouted. “Let’s go!”
“Yep, let’s go.” I half-heartedly smiled. Surely he was too drunk to detect my sarcasm. He was probably too drunk at this point to detect if this plane was heading into a mountain, but I wanted to be a good sport and drank my share of half a glass.
“Yeah, good girl.” He put a hand on my leg, a little too close to my baby-making machine, so I put a guarding hand on top of his. I gave his hand just a light squeeze.
It must’ve been the combination of the high altitude and the alcohol, but he was out quick. Drooling on himself. Great. I wanted to take a picture of that but I couldn’t waste any time. I made sure he was out cold, which he was, then grabbed his phone from the table.
I grabbed the phone before it locked itself and was staring at Michael’s home screen. Lucky me. There were so many things I could’ve looked at: his emails, his texts, his contacts and get the names of Spielberg and Nolan, but no, my mission was simpler; erase the pictures of myself he took without my damn permission while I was drunk.
His eyes opened, heavy with the drunkenness, and I slipped the phone behind my back. He looked at me and touched my face. Good, yeah, just keep touching my face, you pervert, I thought to myself.
It was only moments before he closed his eyes again, a soft smile on his face.
I opened up the Photos app and went to his library, scrolling through his most recent pictures which were landscape photos, probably for the film.
The only thing missing was my pictures. They weren’t there. I wanted to break the phone over his damn head or at least open the emergency door and let him and his phone get sucked out into the sky above Texas.
I should’ve been happy that they were at least gone but I couldn’t be sure they weren’t backed up somewhere else.
“We’re now landing, please take your seats,” the pilot said through the speakers.
Michael opened his eyes with a smile and I set the phone on the table behind me.
This should be fun at least. My plan to get my photos had backfired and now I had to deal with a drunk director on our first day together.
***
The jet landed at the airport with a soft touch on the asphalt.
“We’re here? That was quick,” Michael said.
“Yeah,” I said, ready to get the heck off this suffocating can with wings.
As we exited the jet, the stiff, hot Texas air hit me like a wall. Michael almost stumbled down the steps but I held him up.
“Jane Roadborn?” a voice asked. It was a woman in her early forties with blond hair.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Michael?” she asked, coming closer to us with worry on her face.
“That’s me,” he slurred.
“What happened?” she asked, getting a little angrier.
“He had a little too many drinks on the place.” I tried to laugh it off, but she wasn’t interested in laughing.
“Michael, you have a movie to direct today. You made a bad mistake,” she said.
“Excuse me, do you work for Michael?” I asked.
“No, I work for the movie studio that’s producing his movie. Using their money to fund his movie while he’s using their private jet and getting drunk,” she said, her tone rising with anger.
“Right,” I said, struggling to hold up Michael’s weight as he leaned on me.
“You were flying with him?” she asked me with a parent’s tone like after they’d found their kid with a bag of marijuana in their drawers. “Why the hell didn’t you stop him from drinking?”
“I’m not his mother, he can do whatever he wants,” I said.
“What are you, his girlfriend?” she asked me.
Before I coul
d utter “No,” Michael had already said, “Yes.” She gave me a look like this wasn’t the first time she had seen this kind of behavior from Michael. She was a few seconds from rolling her eyes completely at me.
“Great, well both of you guys screwed up. Idiots. Idiots!” she yelled out on the empty airfield. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and composed herself. “Okay, right, well, we just have to roll with the punches,” she said, raising Michael’s head to look into his eyes. “We’re going to get you some coffee and you’re going to do some jumping jacks and we’re gonna try to get you ready for the shoot, you giant child. I knew he was an amateur, I warned the studio, y’know,” she said to me, as she started walking to her car. A big black SUV was sitting on the airfield like an obsidian rock. “They didn’t listen to me, I told them this was his first big movie. We shouldn’t give him something like this.”
After she’d pushed Michael into the car, she grabbed my hand. “If you don’t help me get Michael on his best behavior for the entire film shoot, I’m gonna send your ass back to LA or Kansas, or wherever the hell you come from because there’s a million girls who look better than you and can suck his dick better than you,” she said, getting in my face. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on, okay, I’m his producer. I know everything. I watch the money and I watch the crew. Don’t think I’ll go easy on you because you’re a Roadborn. It’s the twenty-first century. Roadborn means nothing now.”
Okay, then. Wow. Michael might have been the least of my problems, now that I had this crazy bitch in my face.
“I’m Stacy, by the way.”
Right, crazy Stacy, I’m sure that was her high school name. She could actually use a drink, or maybe go drown herself in a pool. I would gladly help her.
***
Stacy drove Michael and I to the set of the film as Michael was sipping on some coffee from a local place. It didn’t seem like it was helping him as he was still quite drunk.
I was surprised about the location; it was out in the middle of the desert. A cavalcade of vehicles and tents surrounded a small trailer park, which I guess, was the home of my character, Emily. The sight was unlike anything I had ever seen and I wasn’t just talking about Michael’s drunken head falling into my lap, which got me some unwanted angry glances from Stacy in the rear view mirror. It was like a small army was bringing Michael’s vision to life and here he was, drunk.
We stepped out of the car and a small group of people were waiting for us. Their eyes widened with worry as they saw Michael hanging onto me to stop himself from falling.
“What’s going on with Michael? Is he alright?” a Mexican woman with brown hair and blond tips asked.
“He’s not alright, but we’re going to make it through if we can,” Stacy interjected before I could answer.
“Well I hope he’s alright,” she said.
Michael keeled over, his body heaving up and down, and a loud gurgling sound preceded the violent vomiting that came. The thick yellow splashed in the Texas desert sand and splashed on my feet.
Great. Just great.
“I’m good, I can direct, Stacy,” Michael said, the syllables in his words sticking together like goo.
“Okay, let’s get the A.D.,” Stacy said.
“AD?” I asked.
“Assistant directors.”
“Hi.” The Mexican woman reached out to shake my hand. “I’m Tina, your makeup artist.”
“Awesome, thanks,” I said, shaking her hand.
The woman beside her was a black woman with a spiky red Mohawk. “Belinda, I’ll be doing your hair,” she said with a smile.
“Cool, I can’t wait!” I said, full of glee.
“And I’m your personal assistant, Katie Kish,” a blond girl with a big smile said. She looked young enough to still be in high school. “Anything you need, coffee, a sandwich.” She leaned in like she was about to whisper a secret. “Or some drugs.”
“Right.”
“That was a joke, I’m sorry,” Katie said, lowering her head.
“Ha, right, sorry, I’m still flustered with Michael being drunk and all,” I said.
“Listen, Jane,” Belinda started. “I know sometimes you have a bad day, sometimes you have a good day. We all do, but hey, it’s your first movie. And sometimes you have to take some bad days more than the good days at first.”
She wasn’t talking down to me, but instead was trying to help me understand, which I appreciated.
“Thanks, I understand,” I said and the three women whisked me off to the inside of a trailer which turned out to be my own makeup and hair trailer.
Katie waited nearby as I took a seat in front of a big mirror and Tina started on my makeup as Belinda worked on my hair. I felt like a queen, getting my hair and my skin nice and polished for the cameras.
It was exciting but I felt the butterflies flying around in my gut. Katie’s fingers were off dancing across her phone, probably texting a boy.
“Katie?” I asked her.
She looked up from her phone. “Yeah? You need something?”
“Sure, I was just curious if there was anything I needed to know,” I asked, wanting to know more about the filmmaking process but hey, I didn’t want to show any weaknesses. I didn’t want to get pegged as the dumb actress.
“Know that the cinematographer’s in charge of the lighting. So if you don’t like how you look, you talk to him, or the makeup department.”
“Okay.”
“Hey!” Tina shouted. “We never make anyone look bad. I’m a pro,” she joked.
“I know, I know, just showing her the ropes,” Katie said.
“What about if I need help remembering my lines?” I asked.
“The script assistant, she’s always by the director. You forget a line, just ask for one. She has your back.” Katie smiled.
“Great, that sounds alright. I can do that.” And now it was time to dovetail into my Henry question. “Do you happen to know what time Henry is coming by?” I asked, just a little shy. Hopefully a smooth transition.
Katie smiled. “I do. Why?” She was trying to press me, I could see it in her eyes.
“Just curious,” I said, then I saw Tina and Belinda snickering in the mirror. “Honestly,” I said.
“We’re all waiting for him. He’s something else, huh,” Tina said. “You guys are gonna make a great movie couple.”
“I hope,” I said.
“He’s actually arriving right now,” Katie said.
“Really?”
“Settle down, Jane, you still have another thirty minutes in this chair so get comfortable,” Belinda said with a smirk.
Oh, boy, this was going to be the longest hour of my life. Some people might pull out their phones to play a game, but I was going to spend it thinking about Henry.
***
I looked almost like a completely different person with my hair and makeup done. While I was sitting in the chair I’d felt like a queen but now I looked more like a poor trailer park housewife. They messed up my hair and my face for the character, needing someone who was a little more homely that would transition into a more beautiful character.
A character that was broken. Vulnerable. In pieces. And ready to take back her life. Much like me. I felt like I could do a good job with the character as I felt so close to the character of Emily.
I was glad they’d had to spend an hour to make me look ugly versus me arriving at the makeup chair and leaving two minutes later. That was one upside.
They walked me to the set, which was a trailer that looked like it had survived decades of negligence. They had a tent set up outside with a camera crew getting ready. There were so many things happening, I could barely get my head around it.
A man with glasses walked up to me. “Hey, I’m Andy, I’m the assistant director, I’ll be working with you today.”
“Great, Andy, uh, where’s Michael?” I asked.
“Well he’s in video village over there, that’s wh
ere we monitor what the camera sees,” Andy said.
I looked behind Andy, peeking around, and saw Michael passed out in his chair in the tent. His assistant was trying to get him to eat a piece of bread. It was quite amusing, knowing it was all me who did it.
“Well, great, and Henry?” I asked.
“He’s here but he doesn’t have any scenes until tonight so he’s actually rehearsing in his trailer. Let’s head into our movie trailer.” Andy led me inside the small trailer where the air was stiffer than a coffin.
“Act good!” Michael shouted from outside, presumably directed at me. And holy crap my ankles scratched against the inside my shoes as my feet trembled. This was my first film. I didn’t want to screw it up. I guess if I did, I could always move to Mexico like someone who hadn’t paid their taxes.
Andy introduced me to a tall blond man who towered over me by at least three heads, he could barely fit in the trailer. He certainly looked like the type of the guy that Emily would try to run away from. Deep sunken eyes from drinking, stubble on his face, and a dirty muscle t-shirt. Yeah, it all checked out.
“This is Morgan, he’ll playing the role of Bruce, your abusive husband. We don’t have any time to rehearse, so we’re just gonna for it and shoot a couple of takes, alright,” Andy said.
“Yeah, okay, I’m ready,” I said.
I took a deep breath, trying to remember my lines. It was quite normal to shoot the film out of order so we were starting on page ten. Emily and Bruce were high school sweethearts that drifted apart as she realized she wanted more from the world and he wanted to keep her in the small trailer she saw as a prison.
“Action!” Andy shouted and immediately Morgan, or I mean, Bruce went into it. Aggressive. Intimidating me into the corner of the trailer.
“You think you can run away from me?” Bruce said. “You think you can try to break up with me? Don’t fool yourself, baby girl,” he said in a great Texan accent.
My Texan accent wasn’t too hot but I gave it a shot.
“You don’t own me. I’m tired of being cooked up in here like a pig. I’m not your slave that’s here just to have sex with you, I want my own life back!” I shouted.
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