“Letter, Reilly,” said Melissa, holding up a forefinger to underscore her point. She didn’t seem to notice the warning in Reilly’s body language telling her that she was on fragile footing. She continued in an angry voice. “A single letter. And I knew it was a mistake as soon as I saw it in the magazine. I never let them publish another one. I told you that I was sorry.”
“Yes, you did. But for what, Mother? What are you sorry for?” demanded Reilly. She lowered the volume of her voice. Even she felt the ice in it. A producer, who had been lingering nearby, walked away like an animal fleeing a wildfire.
“I’m sorry for making you feel like this, of course,” Melissa stammered.
“No, Mom. I don’t think that’s what you’re sorry for at all. I think you’re sorry because you misjudged my potential reaction. And that you let someone publish a letter that talks about things you won’t even talk about yourself. Why did you give them the first letter? What possessed you to do that in the first place?”
“I don’t know. Things were so weird for a while. I didn’t want anyone to forget you. It was a misguided action. I said I was sorry. I don’t understand why you’re so angry,” breathed out Melissa, a weary surrender in her voice. Her shoulders lowered. Reilly wondered if her mother was backing down or if her sudden change in demeanor was just another manipulation tactic.
“Of course you don’t,” said Reilly. Something new inside of her replaced the anger. She’d lost all of her steam. Her voice was quiet and her arms hung at her sides. “And it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I’m done,” she shrugged.
At last, Melissa seemed to understand the depth of her daughter’s disappointment. Reilly stood as her mother’s eyes searched hers. She kept her gaze steady.
“Done with what?” asked Melissa, when she realized that Reilly wasn’t going to elaborate.
Reilly paused, gathering her thoughts. She hadn’t been sure either, until just that moment.
“Done with this,” said Reilly, gesturing between the two of them. When she saw the confusion on her mother’s face, she knew that she needed to be specific. She couldn’t let her mother misunderstand what she was saying. “I can’t work with you anymore.”
A parade of emotions swept across Melissa’s face as she tried to determine her next move, and Reilly felt a cold sort of detachment as she wondered which of the emotions were real and which were manufactured.
“You can’t do this, Reilly. You need me,” said Melissa, squaring her jaw. She shook her hair back and adjusted the strap of the Louis Vuitton bag that hung from her shoulder. Reilly almost felt sorry for her mother then. The bravado seemed so thin.
“I have an agent to get me jobs, Mom. I have an accountant to deal with my finances. Shit. I even have a personal chef to feed me, and a best friend to dress me,” Reilly laughed, but there wasn’t any amusement in her eyes. “I guess that I’m old enough to take care of myself—or at least to pay people to do it for me.”
“You need someone who knows you, to promote you, to hone your image. Someone to line up fashion lines that don’t make you look like a hoodlum.” To prove her point, Melissa reached over to the back of the chair that Reilly had been sitting in earlier and picked up a black hoodie with a zombie poodle embroidered on the sleeve. She examined the garment with a look of distaste and tossed it back onto the chair.
Reilly ignored her mother’s jibe at Hank’s clothing. She knew that her mother still blamed him for encouraging Reilly’s choice of gender in bed partners. He had come out of the closet first, and therefore, he bore the sin for Reilly’s journey into the world of forbidden love.
“I think I can figure out how to promote myself,” replied Reilly.
“You haven’t done such a—” began Melissa, and then reconsidered her response. “There is far more to what I do for you than you know, Reilly. What you see is just a small part of it.”
“I know there is, Mom. And I’m sure that I’ll miss some of it. But I can’t do this anymore,” said Reilly. Her shoulders dropped, and she heard the tone of resolution in her own voice. She spoke in a quieter tone. “We’ll talk about arrangements later. And I haven’t forgotten the contract. Even if there wasn’t a contract, you and Dad have nothing to worry about. You’re still my mother. I love you. But I just can’t work with you anymore.”
“Reilly—”
“Mom. Please,” said Reilly, interrupting her. She glanced toward Cray and Drew who stood on the other side of the studio pretending not to notice. “We’ll talk later. I have an appointment right now.”
Reilly stood, silent, and willed her mother to leave. She had been stretched to the breaking point and she needed some space, at least from her mother. Melissa snapped her mouth closed and searched Reilly’s eyes before she turned away without another word.
Reilly wanted to feel something, to understand how much damage this fight was going to have on them, but she felt nothing. The sting never came. She watched Melissa walk away, her silhouette getting smaller in the sunlight framed by the massive open studio doors. Soon her mother turned the corner and was out of sight. The sounds of the busy production set filtered back into her awareness. She looked around and people were busily doing their jobs as if nothing had just happened.
A deep sigh escaped her, and Reilly shifted her gaze to Cray and Drew standing near the open doors, talking. There was no doubt that everyone in the building had heard the argument. She wondered if Drew saw her as a callous diva, a person who treated her own mother like an employee. Only Sylvie and Hank knew how much she had tried to build a relationship with her mother. As soon as she thought that, though, she knew that she wasn’t being truthful, even to herself. She had wanted the relationship, but she hadn’t tried very hard, often letting her childish responses take over their conversations. She was no better than her mother.
That sudden realization hit Reilly like a punch. Cloying guilt upset her stomach. The relationship she craved with her mother would never exist. It was then that the pain set in. Losing what she had with her mother was not painful. But losing the mother that she wanted to have was devastating. Tears threatened to come, and Reilly used all of her will to push them down.
The Memories Are Still There
REILLY DIDN’T WANT TO FACE Drew in her emotional state, and she wondered if she could beg out of the yoga session. She mustered a smile as Drew approached, a few tactful moments after Melissa’s exit, and hoped that her acting ability would get her through the next few minutes.
“Hi, Reilly. You look amazing,” said Drew. Her eyes traveled over the skintight dance costume that Reilly still wore from the scene that she and Cray had just rehearsed. The unexpected glance and compliment helped to distract Reilly’s spiral into a burgeoning breakdown.
“Thanks,” said Reilly. She ran nervous hands down her flat stomach. She was glad for all of the practice that she’d done to get in shape for the strenuous part. “It’s good to see you, Drew.”
Drew smiled, and things tilted a little more back to right. The serenity that Drew always carried with her seemed to surround Reilly in a calm embrace. Reilly gladly succumbed to its thrall.
“Are you ready to get your yoga on?” asked Drew.
Reilly, who had been less than a minute earlier trying to figure out a polite way to ask Drew to leave, now didn’t want Drew to go.
“Definitely,” replied Reilly. “I’m amazed that you’d come out here at the last minute to do this. Thanks.”
“I have a big gap in my schedule most afternoons, so it works out perfectly, actually. It allows me to do location work. And Cray told me to remind you that the studio pays very well.”
“Do they? Because I can—”
Drew rested a hand on Reilly’s arm and Reilly forgot what she was saying.
“They really do. You can relax. This is far from an inconvenience for me.”
Reilly stared at Drew, entranced by the smile in her eyes. She forced herself to look away so that she could continue the conversation.
>
“I guess I need it. Especially after that thing with my mom,” Reilly groaned. She couldn’t even explain how she felt about the argument with her mother, but she was compelled to share it with Drew, knowing that, somehow, Drew would make it better. And she did.
“Mothers! They aren’t doing their job if they aren’t making us crazy,” Drew laughed. A simple, undemanding response.
In just a few minutes, Drew had calmed the storm of emotion in Reilly. Not completely, but enough to get through the next hour or so without a breakdown.
“Do you have a place in mind to do this? A room? A trailer? Anywhere without distractions will do,” said Drew, scanning the area.
Reilly had long since accepted the fact that Drew would always be a distraction to her, but she didn’t mention that. She considered their options. She had expected to use the trailer that Marty used for massages, but when she asked, he told her that the break for dailies was his busiest time. There was only one place she knew that would be quiet enough.
“How about my trailer? I think we’ll have room.”
Drew shrugged.
“Sure. I’ve done it in trailers before.”
Reilly knew that she was feeling better when her inner twelve-year-old snickered at the unintended double entendre. Struggling with restraint, she turned before Drew could see her smile. She led them toward her trailer without comment.
Apparently she hadn’t turned quickly enough.
“Yes. I just said that,” said Drew, with a slight blush and an impish grin. “Sorry. I blame it on Cray. He was being, well, being himself earlier when we were talking. It rubs off. I’ll smack him when I see him next.”
“That’s our Cray,” Reilly said, through her own blush. “I can’t imagine you smacking anyone, though.”
“Why? I can give a good smack down when the situation warrants it!”
“Like, let’s see, when stoned assholes hit on you in restrooms?” returned Reilly. It came out as a surprise, even to her. Her heart beat out of tempo at the reference to the first time she had seen Drew. An unexpected memory of Drew’s lips touching hers made her stomach flutter.
“Yes. But, in that particular kind of situation, I prefer to slay them with my wit, rather than with violence,” replied Drew.
“I’m fortunate that you held back with me, then.”
“Oh, you were never in any danger, Reilly. That Amazonian warrior you were with, though. She was treading pretty close to summoning my slayer,” said Drew. She lifted an eyebrow when Reilly glanced at her.
Reilly was glad that they arrived at her trailer right then, because she didn’t want to think about Sylvie and Drew in any common context, even if it were with Sylvie as the victim. She only smiled and opened the door. She tried not to stare at how well Drew’s yoga pants fit as she followed her up the short set of steps. When she closed the door, silence fell over them, and the only sound in the space was the sound of their breathing. Some of her nervousness came back. It intensified when she brushed past Drew, who stopped just inside the door to scan the open room.
As one of the leads in the movie, Reilly’s contract stipulated a private trailer. She sometimes felt like it was an extravagance, but she was grateful for it when her work required eighteen-hour days and she needed to slip away for some much-needed quiet between takes. Cray had a similar set up next-door. At thirty-one feet long and eleven feet wide, the trailer had plenty of space, with a bedroom, bath, kitchen, and a small sitting area. It was outfitted with all of the amenities she needed to be comfortable between shoots, and more. She appreciated the state-of-the-art sound system, which she used a lot, but the wide-screen televisions in each room were wasted on her. Slide-outs provided additional space in the sitting and sleeping areas. For one person, it was more than enough space, and for two women doing yoga, it was big enough.
“Is Cray going to join us?” asked Reilly, wondering if they would have enough room with him there.
Reilly couldn’t read the expression on Drew’s face. Was it disappointment?
“He made it sound like you wanted a private session. Did I misunderstand?” asked Drew.
“No. Um. Well… I didn’t even know that you did this sort of thing. Cray suggested it. I just thought that he—” Reilly stammered.
“Do you want me to text him?”
Reilly didn’t want him there, but she didn’t want Drew to know why. Hell, she didn’t even know why.
“He knows where we are. If he wants to join, he’ll come over.”
“Sounds good,” said Drew, looking relieved. She took a rolled-up yoga mat out of the colorful cloth bag she kept it in. “Is here okay?”
“Anywhere is fine. I’m going to change into different clothes and take off some of this Spackle,” said Reilly, indicating the thick stage makeup that had been applied for lighting checks earlier in the day. I’ll be out in a minute. Help yourself to anything you need. There’s water in the fridge.”
Reilly shut the door to the bedroom, and her awareness of the woman on the other side of the door was acute. It took but a few minutes to wipe off the makeup and get changed into the exercise clothes that she had brought with her that morning, but she took a few extra minutes to compose herself. Between the emotional discharge with her mother and the simmering sense of expectation that Drew inspired in her, her barriers were feeling weak.
When she re-entered the common area, Drew was examining a red-spiked fruit that she had found in the basket on the counter.
“I’m always finding interesting things on my step when I’m filming,” said Reilly coming up behind Drew. Drew twitched and Reilly knew that she had startled her, but Drew didn’t give any other indication of her surprise. “That fruit basket is courtesy of the car service that picks me up and drops me off every day, since Alison is on vacation. The one with all the chocolate in it on the table is from the studio.”
“This thing looks like a sea anemone,” said Drew, turning the red fruit with long, bristle-like spikes in her hand.
“That’s a rambutan,” said Reilly, resisting the urge to touch the fruit that Drew held.
“It looks dangerous. Are they good?”
“Their looks are deceiving. They’re very good. Sweet. Slippery, like a ripe grape. Be careful of the seed, though. It’s large, but easy to swallow. It won’t hurt you. It’s just a weird feeling going down. And if you believe the father of a friend of mine, it will grow in your stomach. Don’t let that scare you from trying it, but be warned.”
Reilly remembered the first time she had tried the delicious fruit and how the seed had slipped down her throat while she was sucking the attached flesh from the large almond-sized stone. She’d panicked at the feeling, but had laughed when Angel, the set security guard, had teased her about the fruit growing in her stomach.
Drew studied her for several seconds, an unreadable expression on her face. Then she smiled.
“Warning acknowledged. Maybe I’ll try it after we’re done. How did you get so knowledgeable about the—Rambo-ton fruit?” Drew made a final inspection of the fruit and placed it back in the basket.
“Ram-boo-tun,” Reilly pronounced it carefully, over-exaggerating both the pronunciation and her facial expressions in a parody of the stage training exercises she had studied. It had the desired effect and made Drew laugh, which made Reilly smile in turn. Drew’s company, while definitely distracting, was just what she needed to help her forget the heated exchange with her mother. “They’re native to the Philippines. I saw a lot of them on one of my first location shoots.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Drew. “The one where you played the kidnapped daughter of the missionaries. You were so young.”
Reilly smiled. Drew knew her movies. And not just the blockbusters.
“Yeah, Sampaguita Mists. It was my first movie and the first time I had been out of California, let alone the United States. My mom didn’t want to go and tried to get my father to go with me. She was worried about the bugs and the danger of being kidnapp
ed. In that order,” laughed Reilly. “My dad couldn’t go because of work, as usual. So, she ended up going with me anyway. She stayed in the trailer almost the entire time we were there. Being in the Philippines was like being in another world. I loved it there.”
“I hear it’s beautiful.”
“It’s gorgeous. But it was the people that I remember the most. They were so hospitable, more so the farther we traveled outside of the cities. Everywhere we went, we were offered gifts. Fruit, homemade food, things they made. They’d offer you the last morsel of food they had in the house, even if they were starving. And they’d be offended if you didn’t take it. I had to buy another suitcase for the presents they gave me while I was there. But what I liked best was the way they listened. Like they were really interested in what you had to say. They expected nothing in return.”
“I’ll bet you treasure the gifts that you brought home.”
“My mom called it junk and threw it out when we got back.”
Drew paused in her inspection of the other fruit in the basket and glanced at Reilly. Reilly didn’t know why she’d offered the last bit of information. It was true, but full of too much baggage to lay on someone new. Maybe she said it so Drew wouldn’t judge her so harshly about the argument that she had seen.
“Too bad you lost those memories.”
“Oh, the memories are still there,” said Reilly, picking up the unique fruit and rolling it in her palm.
A montage of images fluttered through Reilly’s mind as she was transported back to a time and place that she hadn’t thought about in years. Suddenly, she was a thirteen-year-old girl again, experiencing the tropical island of Luzon, the largest of the Philippine islands, situated where the Pacific meets the Indian Ocean.
The memories, so long ago tucked away, came back with a vivid clarity that amazed her. She could almost feel the humid stickiness that had coated her as soon as she stepped from the airplane when they landed; the smell of jet fuel, frangipani flowers, and sewage tickling her sinuses as she accepted the flower necklace of the airline attendant on the tarmac at the bottom of the steps; the crazy cab ride from the airport to the hotel—a dingy place in contrast to the ones she had stayed at in the States, but opulent when compared to the others in the area; downtown Manila, where a hodgepodge of buildings crushed together around a swarm of people dressed in odd clothing and bizarre vehicles that moved in all directions; sleek glass office buildings separated by tarp-covered caves full of vendors selling anything and everything, exploiting every crack and open space. Then, there were the roads, cram-packed with pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists, with no regard to any obvious rules. She relived the bone-jarring drive to the outer-barrio village where the film was being shot, and the relief that came when the streets had opened up and the dare-devil driver didn’t have to honk his horn to edge into impossible spaces to inch forward. Reilly remembered the awe that she had felt when she finally took her hands from her eyes during the drive long enough to watch the colorful birds that flitted through the greener-than-green branches of the trees that overhung the roads. Pieced-together houses constructed from cinderblock and metal roofs had flown past, and children ran with sticks and straps of fabric in dirt yards. Everywhere her eyes had landed, strange plants and stray animals had amazed her.
Life in High Def Page 21