Behind the Scenes

by Christina C Jones

  Ah, hell.

  How was I supposed to resist that?

  I checked the time on that text to see when it was sent – just a few minutes ago, actually. So… yeah.

  I pointed my car toward WAWG.

  20

  Pierre

  My eyes were swimming.

  Staring at the weekly schedule on my screen was starting to give me a headache.

  It was so much, packed in so little time that all the days were starting to swim together, which made it even more vital to make sure the schedule was followed. If not, it meant that somebody wasn’t going to be where they were supposed to be at the right time, and it would trigger a butterfly effect of a bunch of shit getting messed up.

  Some irrevocable mistake?

  Probably not.

  But we were in too good of a groove to slow down now.

  I closed my eyes, reclining back in my chair as the episode I had watched with Logan last night played in my head. Even more than that very first day of shooting, when we just had those few minutes, it was clear now that we really had something special on our hands.

  It would not do to fuck it up.

  A knock at the door made my eyes pop open, and I yelled for whoever it was to come in. As soon as I saw Anthony Cottrell, I had to check my reflexive disdain over his presence.

  Speaking of having something special on your hands that it wouldn’t do to fuck up.

  “Hey bruh,” he greeted, those casual words not even sounding right from him. “I was looking for Logan, but I haven’t seen her anywhere this morning?”

  I don’t know why the fuck you asking me…

  “She’s offsite this morning, man,” I told him, taking pity on the fact that she must not be answering texts or phone calls either if he didn’t already know that. “You must have fucked up.”

  Why did I say that shit?

  He took that as an invitation to start chuckling, pushing through the door like we were suddenly homeboys or something. Now that half of his body wasn’t tucked out of sight, I could see that he was holding a vase of flowers.

  Tulips again, but a different color than the ones he’d given her a couple weeks ago at that set design review meeting.

  “I think I may have a little bit,” he admitted. “She has some stuff going on with her father, and she was telling me about it, but I think I may have taken the wrong side in that situation.”

  I shook my head. “I’m no expert man, but I don’t think y’all been kicking it long enough for you to take anybody’s side except hers if she’s confiding in you about something. Especially if that’s not something she typically does with you,” I told him, wondering why he was now venturing even further into my office, all the way up to the desk. He put the flowers down on the desk, which I guess was fine because Logan would be back to get them.

  But then he took it upon himself to take a seat.

  “I was just being honest with her you know? I didn’t want to be hyping her up to be pissed at her father, and then later on they’re fine, but she and I get into it, and she tells her old man ‘yeah daddy, he don’t even like you, he was talking shit’, you know?”

  “Are you dating him, or are you dating her?” I asked, and then internally scolded myself for asking this dude follow up questions as if this was a conversation I even really wanted to have.

  I had other shit to do.

  Like for real.

  “I get your point but man, you know who her father is right? Franklin Byers, from all the commercials about their family law firm. One of the top firms in the city; somewhere I could actually see some upward mobility. I can’t chance fucking that up.”

  My jaw went tight. “So… you’re only with her because of her connection to some job you want? Like she’s a stepping stone or something?”

  “No. Not… only,” Anthony quickly corrected. “I mean there’s plenty – and I do mean plenty – to like about Logan on her own. I mean, you see her everyday right? I know there’s a professional line and all that, but… you ain’t blind,” he chuckled, while I gave him the blankest of stares.

  He must have caught on that I wasn’t about to commiserate with him about this shit because he cleared his throat, quickly wiping the goofy ass grin off his face.

  “I’m just saying that, when this thing with me and her goes somewhere, I want to make sure I’m in a position to really enjoy every available perk.”

  How much trouble would I get in if I was to break this dude’s jaw?

  While I didn’t get the impression he was using Logan outright, like that had been the goal… it was clear as fuck that he was willing to.

  And I didn’t like that shit at all.

  “I’ll make sure she knows you dropped by,” I told him, sparking another big ass grin as he stood, extending his hand.

  “Good looking out, man, I appreciate it.”

  I would have stared right in that nigga’s face all day, not touching his offered hand, not even acknowledging it honestly. But then Logan came breezing through the door.

  If Anthony thought there was anything strange about me not immediately returning his gestures, he didn’t say anything about it. He just gave me this look like we were in on something together before he turned to a surprised Logan.

  Damn she looks good today.

  With our shooting days starting so early and ending so late, she’d taken to not straightening her hair. Now, she wore it in various natural styles, a new one everyday, something I’d come to look forward to.

  Today, it was parted in the middle in a way that made her natural curls frame her rich, pretty brown face. With all our back and forth, and long hours of standing, she’d traded her signature heels for lower profile shoes. Somehow, like today, she would pair them with a dress and still look good.

  Today’s dress was patterned with big ass flowers and ties on the sides that cinched the soft fabric to her waist before it flared out to accommodate her hips and ass.

  I’m probably looking at her a little too hard right now.

  “Logan, just the woman I wanted to see,” Anthony said, stepping toward her with his arms out.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked submitting to a very quick, very stiff hug before she put some space between them. “I thought we talked about stuff like this at work?”

  “I’m not trying to hold you,” Anthony insisted. “I just wanted to drop off these flowers to hopefully brighten up your day. And apologize for that little friction between us yesterday. But like I said I won’t hold you. I know you’re busy woman.”

  Logan’s gaze went past him, to me, then to the flowers, then back to me before she finally looked at Anthony again. “Thank you so much for the flowers, but we’ll have to talk later. It really is a very busy morning.”

  She wasn’t lying to him.

  The only reason he’d even gotten ahold of me was because Nick was directing this episode, so I wasn’t absolutely needed on set.

  I was making my way over there soon, but him being in control gave me some license to step away and get some other things done.

  Things that did not include hearing about the relationship woes between this little wack dude and the woman I wanted.

  Since I was fully admitting it to myself now.

  “Yeah, I’ll see you later,” he agreed, finally taking the hint enough to go ahead and make his way out the door.

  As soon as he was gone, Logan turned to me with clear embarrassment on her face. “I am so sorry about that,” she said. “He wasn’t bothering you too much, was he?”

  I shook my head, chuckling. “Nah, not at all. You were a little cold to buddy though. Something going on?”

  Logan pushed out a sigh. “Not exactly. I’m just not that sure about him.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “There’s just something off,” she told me, shaking her head. “Like I just get this feeling he hasn’t been completely honest about some stuff to do with my family. Not even like he’s lied, just not saying eve
rything he probably should, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  “And then… okay, so yesterday I finally sat down and had a conversation with my father, right? So we have it out, get everything out on the table and we agree to just at least try to understand each other a little better. Afterwards, I go and talk to Anthony about it. You and I have talked about this before, so you know what I’ve been going through with my parents, but this is my first time talking to him about this.”

  She stopped, sighing again like she was trying to figure out her words. “Instead of I don’t know just listening, or empathizing, he starts telling me about how if he’d done this and that for his kids, he would hope they wouldn’t squander it. And he wished he’d had the opportunity to work at a prestigious law firm like I did, and just some stuff like that. Which… okay fine, I get it, I’ve had opportunities people would give everything for. But… that really doesn’t have anything to do with me. Because what my parents want would be a dream for somebody else, I should just shut up and take it? It’s just really frustrating, because it feels like I’m being called selfish or ungrateful, and there’s this weird manipulation almost. Like when your parents say, well don’t you know there’s kids going hungry? to get you to eat your food. Yes, I do know there’s kids going hungry, and I feel really bad about that. Can we give this to them? Because I don’t want to eat it!” she laughed. “You get what I’m saying? Like I should take whatever is handed to me because of what some hypothetical person doesn’t have.”

  I chuckled, nodding. “Actually yes, I know exactly what you mean about those conflicting feelings,” I told her. “Like when my mom died, and I was sad about it, there would be people who would say, well there’s some people that don’t have either of their parents so you should consider yourself lucky. It could be worse. And then, after my dad it was, yeah you lost both your parents, but you’ve got money. Like these constantly moving goalposts of what you get to feel, based on somebody else’s feeling about your situation. Yes, we have a certain level of privilege, that a lot of people would do anything for. And it’s not like it’s something we earned. It’s inherited, because of what our parents did before we came along, and then went through once we were here, whatever. So… yes, it’s something to be grateful for, and we should be. We should be able to see that,” I admitted, then sat back.

  “But on the same token… people always have an opinion on what they would do if they were you,” I said. “And it’s all based on their traumas, their experience, whatever options they didn’t have. It’s got nothing to do with you, but they’ll make it about you. Which is ironic because, they’ll be quick to say you’re selfish, or not grateful enough, but they’re not thinking about you – they’re thinking about them. All that if it was me or I wish I had… all of that is just projection. It’s a manifestation of their own unmet desires, that they want to turn into yours.”

  Honestly, I’d heard it all.

  If I had a famous mom and dad like that, I’d be over here doing this, that, and the third. If my bank account was like his, I’d be doing this, this, and that, he don’t even deserve it. You’ve got this, so why aren’t you doing this over here, why aren’t you doing what I want you to do.

  Usually from people who’d never done anything that wasn’t for themselves. Who wouldn’t do or sacrifice even a fraction of what they were expecting from you.

  It was fucked up.

  It was also understandable though.

  Everybody had things they wanted that were outside of their reach. Nobody, no matter what kind of front they wanted to put up, had it all. So they thought, they dreamed, and they wished they had things that weren’t theirs, because the people that had them weren’t using them the way they would.

  It was selfish, and it was unfair, but it was human as fuck.

  “I guess that’s a way to think about it,” Logan agreed. “It just frustrated me so bad in the moment because it’s like… why should I be miserable you know? Why does it make me ungrateful to not want what’s being offered when I’m not complaining about it? I’ve never complained about going to get what I wanted on my own. I could see it if I acted like what my parents were willing to give me wasn’t good enough or something. But it’s never been that. I’ve never asked for more. So to treat me like I’m being some brat when all I want is respect for building something on my own... It’s wack. But I didn’t know if I was just in a bad mood after the talk with my father, and I didn’t want to take it out on him. So I cut our little date short, but he could tell he’d pissed me off. I guess that’s what the flowers are for.”

  I nodded. “So you said this was just yesterday? So when you came to watch the rough cut with me yesterday evening, that’s where you were coming from?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you were in too bad of a mood to kick it with him, but it was no problem for you to come kick with me?” I asked, teasingly tossing my hands up in triumph, which brought that gorgeous smile to her face.

  She shrugged. “What can I say? I really wanted to see that episode, and it was completely worth it. Turned my whole mood around.”

  Her phone buzzing in her hand pulled her attention away to check the screen. Whatever she saw pulled a big, deep frown to her face. I was getting ready to ask her about it, and make sure nothing was wrong, when my own cell started buzzing from where I’d tossed it on the desk earlier.

  I reached for it, but Logan was faster, practically sprinting across the office to snatch it up before I could.

  “What the hell is that about,” I asked, confused, pushing up from my seat so I could approach her and get my phone.

  Logan shook head. “You don’t need to see this,” she warned, plastering on a smile. “Let’s just put all these notifications on do not disturb like they should’ve been in the first place and go down to the set and immerse ourselves back in the show.”

  “Logan…what’s going on?” I asked, eyebrow raised as I pulled my phone from her reluctant grip.

  Only because of the forthcoming show had I made any type of return to social media.

  I hadn’t been posting anything yet, because that was going to be handled by someone hired specifically for that purpose. They were on my phone so that I had access and could check on things when I wanted, and maybe post if I felt inclined.

  I had no interest in it on a personal level though.

  Elodie had been tagging me in things left and right, and there were a couple tags from Nick, and Nubia, but that was mostly all. I wasn’t in the spotlight like that, so I didn’t even have a bunch of followers.

  I could only assume, based on what I was seeing now on my screen, that was about to shift.

  Fresh Outta Rehab: Hollywood Brat Using Decimated Inheritance to Make a Comeback.

  That was the headline chosen by the gossip blog who was running what was essentially a hit piece they’d decided to actually tag me in. There wasn’t a ton of text, which explained why Logan had so quickly known to try to get this out of my reach, but what was there... Damn.

  The loss of my mother, my father’s death, the downward spiral of drugs and alcohol.

  According to a “source”, I’d run through most of the money my parents had left and was using the remnants as a last-ditch effort to make a cash grab. Supposedly, I was putting together a fantasy version of my own life that omitted too many of the real details, cleaned everything up too nicely to be anything more than a snore fest that took itself too seriously.

  Which… maybe I could swallow that.

  What made the pill a lot larger and more jagged though, was the pictures.

  Just three of them.

  My father strapped to a gurney while paramedics tried in vain to save his life right after the overdose.

  Me, out in the club with a full bottle in my hand, turned up for me to pour it straight down my throat.

  And probably the worst, because of the implications, was a picture of me, Sienna, and some others at the very sa
me house I was living in now. Everybody was on the couch, drugs clearly visible on the table, with me slumped over, passed out.

  It was bad.

  Now, I wasn’t necessarily ashamed of the shit I’d done, the shit I’d tried. It wasn’t good by any means, but I was doing the same shit as everybody else around me. Alcohol, weed, mollies, oxy, shit like that. I was lucky enough – if you wanted to phrase it like that – that the “least” harmful shit had been what did the most for me when I was trying to self-medicate my way through my pain.

  But I never lied, not even to myself, about what I did and didn’t do.

  The shit on that table in the picture?

  Was some shit I didn’t do, because of what I’d seen it do to others… including my father.

  The picture of him… there was no telling where they’d gotten that one. But I knew those other two pictures – and probably what little information they had about the show that wasn’t locked inside iron-clad non-disclosures – had come straight from one “source”.

  Sienna Sparks.

  “Hey. Hey,” Logan said, grabbing either side of my face to physically pull my gaze away from the screen. “This means nothing, okay? You are whole, and sober, and making a dope ass show – old pictures and hater commentary don’t change that.”

  I swallowed. “Yeah, but… fuck,” I muttered, pulling away to retake my place in my chair. “I’m trying to understand why she would… why do this? What does this shit accomplish?”

  “Chaos,” Logan easily replied, coming around to my side of the desk, and taking a seat on the edge. “She’s still in her struggle, and you aren’t, so she has to create chaos to level the field. I’ve got something for that ass though,” she mumbled, holding up her phone. Her fingers traveled over the screen at lightning speed, typing something out before she looked up at me with a smile. “She’s from LA, so maybe she doesn’t know like I do – you don’t wanna be on the wrong side of Desiree Byers. And we’ll get in touch with Chloe McKenna too, for good measure – a PR dream team that will get this shit squashed before it gets any leverage.”