For once, she failed to tempt me whatsoever. “Katie!” I snapped. “We’re talking about my daughter, here.”
“Mmm…” Her face twisted. “Half an hour.”
“I have to go. Right now.”
I threw my clothes on, shaking my head as rage built inside me. How could I have thought Katie was mature enough to date? She had zero understanding of what it was like to be a single mother. She wanted me to put myself before Emma, and that wasn’t something I was ever going to do.
I stormed downstairs, and I was putting my shoes on when she caught up with me. “Sarah, wait. Just for a second.” She looked sleepy and repentant, and it would’ve made my heart melt if I wasn’t so damn mad. “Katie’s not in danger, right? She’s at her friend’s house. You said you already told the friend’s mom about us, so she’ll understand you being a little late.”
“Emma is waiting for me,” I said curtly.
“I know, but it’s not the end of the world, is it? Waiting a few extra minutes isn’t the worst thing ever.”
“She’ll have been waiting half an hour by the time I get there.” I opened the door. “Having her in bed on time is important to me. I want to keep a sense of normalcy for her now that I’m dating again.” Or else maybe I shouldn’t be dating at all.
As if sensing the unspoken part, Katie wrapped her arms around me. “I’m sorry. I really am. I shouldn’t have let you fall asleep like that, and it won’t happen again. We’re still okay, aren’t we?”
I hugged her back. “Yeah, we are. Just, please… don’t let anything like this happen again. I want to be your girlfriend, but I’m Emma’s mom first, and if I ever have to choose between you…”
“I know,” she said. “I wouldn’t want it to be any other way.”
A quick peck on the cheek, and I headed off into the night.
Twenty – Katie
With episode six in the can, I arrived at the studio excited for cold-reading number seven – the third-from-last episode. With Sarah’s no-sleepover policy, I’d had time to memorize my lines, and this episode was going to be a good one.
A middle-aged woman with thick glasses stopped me in the hall. I didn’t recognize her, but I guessed who she was before she could introduce herself. “My name is Laura. I’ll be tutoring a child on set. Do you know where I should go, or…?”
“Nice to meet you!” I shook her hand, wondering if I should mention I was the one paying her salary. “Emma won’t be free until after lunch, but I can show you where to find her and her mom. I’m going there, too. Maybe Sarah will give you the morning off.”
“Oh, you know them?” she asked, following me to the boardroom.
“Very well.”
I took my usual seat across from Sarah while Laura introduced herself to Emma. Apparently she was going to have to wait around until the cold read was over.
“You could stick around if you want,” Sarah told her. “You could observe Emma’s reading skills, or… I don’t know.”
“That’s fine,” Laura said. “I’ll find some way to entertain myself. From what you told me about this show, I’m definitely going to be watching it, and I don’t want any spoilers.”
She took off, and my heart warmed at the look of relief on Sarah’s face. If I’d had any doubt in my mind about making her get a tutor, it was gone. Laura seemed lovely, and I had no doubt Emma would love her, too. Sarah was still going to be stressed out juggling helping Emma and her transcription work, but at least she’d have time to sleep.
“Okay, let’s get into it.” Jim looked at his watch with a frown. Was he seriously that disturbed by us starting two minutes late? Laura had to figure out where to go for her first day. If Jim was that bothered, maybe he shouldn’t be directing a show that used child actors.
I gripped the edge of the table a little too hard, conscious that I was getting pissed off on Emma’s behalf. Maybe I was overly sensitive since I’d been a child actor not so long ago, too. Could it be that I saw myself in her? It was cheesy as hell to put it that way, but in a way, she really did remind me of me.
“So, we’re starting off with a shot of Wesley tied up on the ground,” Jim said. “The other two have restrained him with the conveniently-located twine, and—”
“The other three,” Emma interrupted. “I helped, too.”
“Yes, sweetie, you did.” Sarah patted Emma’s back as Jim shot the two a dirty look.
“Moving on,” he said. “Wesley is restrained on the ground and the three others are sleeping sitting up, Naomi and Ivy huddled together against one wall, Gavin against the other, closer to his father. A beam of daylight spills through the window.”
“Daylight!” Sarah whispered out loud.
Jim whipped his head around to see who’d spoken, and I could tell he was ready to go off on whichever actor hadn’t even read the first lines of the script. When he saw it was Sarah, his features relaxed. “Pretty good, huh?”
“Maybe Emma’s going to be okay after all.” She put her arm around Emma. “Keep going, I won’t interrupt.”
“Ivy is the first to open her eyes and see the beam of light,” Jim said. “She immediately shakes Naomi awake, gesturing at the window.”
“Mommy, the snow is melting!” Emma said. “We’re finally going to be able to leave!”
“Shh,” I said. “We don’t want to wake Wesley or Gavin—”
“Gavin lifts his head,” Jim read.
“The snow is melting?” Cole said. “Let’s get out of here, right now!”
“Not so fast,” I said. “Most of the window is still iced over. There’s only an inch of light coming in.”
“Well, check the door, dammit!” Cole said.
“Ivy rushes to open the door,” Jim read. “It’s still completely blocked by snow, and a few flakes fall onto her before she closes it with a sigh.”
“I guess we’re not getting out of here yet,” I said without looking at my paper. “The one good thing is that none of us are dead. Sorry, Gavin, but it looks like your dad must’ve been the killer.”
Jim gave me an approving look, seeming to notice I’d memorized my lines, for once. “On the floor, Wesley struggles to sit up,” he said. “He realizes he’s bound, and his face fills with rage.”
“You fucking assholes,” Aaron said. “I didn’t kill anybody. It was one of you!”
“You can give up the innocent act,” I said. “No one’s dead this morning, and you were tied up. I think it’s pretty clear those two things are related.”
“It proves nothing,” Aaron growled. “Believe what you want, but you’ll see the truth when your daughter is dead!”
“Are you threatening me?” I gasped.
“Ivy grabs Naomi and brings her to the other corner of the room, as far from Wesley as she can possibly get,” Jim read.
The episode went on from there, more distrust developing between the characters as the stakes rose higher and higher. Even I was getting stressed as the drama led to its inevitable conclusion.
“A thicker shaft of light shines through the window,” Jim read. “A new morning is here, and the snow has melted a little more. Ivy and Gavin sleep, while Wesley looks at Naomi with a sick expression on his face. The camera zooms in on Naomi. She isn’t breathing.”
The room was still in a way it’d never been for the other character deaths. This was worse—a child’s death was always sadder than an adult’s, and in this case, it was Emma. It was safe to say that everyone here had fallen in love with both her and her character. The show would be worse for not having her on it, and so would the atmosphere on set.
We had time to leave for lunch a few minutes early, and I lingered around as most of the actors left. I usually would’ve either gone out with Sarah or studied with her and Emma. Now that Laura was in the picture, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.
“You good, kiddo?” I asked Emma, reaching out to ruffle her hair.
She looked a little teary, although I could’ve been imagining i
t. “Yeah. I just wanted to be the murderer.”
I laughed. She’d be just fine.
*
The next few days of filming went well, even if a cloud was hanging over us. Or maybe it was just me who felt it.
Not only would Emma be leaving at the end of next week, but Sarah would, too. So much for my grand gesture of hiring a tutor. Laura would only be employed for two weeks.
Emma would go back to school, back to normal life—at least until the show came out and rocketed her to stardom. As for me, I wouldn’t see Sarah every day anymore. What would happen to our relationship when she wasn’t on set anymore? Would it deepen, since we wouldn’t have to worry about work during our time together? Or would it fade away once we weren’t forced to be around each other?
I was afraid she wouldn’t make time to see me once she went back to her normal life. She was so busy now, and as the old saying went, “out of sight, out of mind.” She said she’d make me a priority, but what if her attraction to me evaporated once the stars were out of her eyes?
The one good thing was that Laura’s brief tenure here allowed us to go out for lunch together again. Sarah worried that Emma needed her to be there for their lessons, but Laura reminded her she wouldn’t sit in on Emma’s school classes, either. So we made the best of our time, grabbing lunch every day at various spots in the area.
“You know what I miss about being a child actor?” I asked one day over sushi at a Japanese place.
“I’ll bite. What?” She took an actual bite, making her roll of sushi collapse and spill onto her plate.
“Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing. It was the worst.”
“Jeez, was it that bad? Emma seems to have enjoyed it so far.”
I took a sip of green tea. “It’s still new for her. After a few months or a year, you start wanting to just have a normal childhood. But by then it’s too late, you’re locked into a multiple-year contract, and…” I shook my head.
“God, I’ll have to be careful about that if Emma’s offered other projects.”
“I don’t mean to make it sound so doom-and-gloom,” I said. “As long as Emma’s having fun, she should keep doing it.”
“I just can’t believe there was nothing you enjoyed about it.”
I pushed a dragon roll around my plate. “Bear in mind I didn’t have a nice, supportive mom to talk to on set every day. She dropped me off and did her own thing.”
“And I’m sure your fake mom wasn’t as nice as Emma’s.” She gave me a smile.
“She was okay. I don’t think she made much of an effort to get to know me.”
“So there was really nothing you liked about it?”
“The money was nice,” I said.
Sarah gave me a dirty look. “What about discovering your great passion in life at such an early age?”
“Do you think acting is my great passion in life?” My chopsticks paused halfway to my mouth. “I won’t argue that it’s been a passion, but the great one?”
“You tell me.” She sat back in her seat, folding her arms. “What else do you think you might be passionate about?”
“Oh, no. You’re not going to play this game with me. Save the ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ for Emma.”
I did wonder what else I might do when this show run was over. I’d have enough money to last a while if I was frugal, but assuming the show did well, it’d be smarter to go for more work right away while my name was hot in people’s minds. I might not have another chance for a comeback.
Acting had been the only thing I was good at ever since I started. I’d chosen business as a major for my short-lived college career, and even that was on a whim—I’d never had much interest in the field.
I’d been passionate about that one indie film, Trail Mender… but after how poorly it was received, I had no interest in trying anything similar again.
“Anyway,” I said, “we’d better get back to work.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Six and a half more days.”
Twenty-One – Sarah
Now that the end of Emma’s time on-set was drawing near, the days were flying by. Even the weekend had been a blur. All of a sudden it was Wednesday, and Emma only had two more days of filming. After that, everything would go back to the way it’d been before.
Things wouldn’t be completely the same, of course. Her classmates would be awed by her celebrity status, and she would’ve missed out on inside jokes with her friends. As for me, I’d go back to transcribing from home, except my mind would be full of memories from the months I’d spent with Emma here.
And then there was Katie, the biggest change I could imagine. I’d have her to text during the day, her to meet up with at night. Maybe she’d even hang out at my place during the work days, since she’d be free, too. Maybe she’d come with me to Emma’s gymnastics lessons and keep me company while I watched and waited.
Today I stood on the edge of the set, watching Emma film one of her last close-ups. She repeated the lines from the script with depth and emotion, even though she was only speaking to a camera lens rather than a person.
My heart swelled with pride as I looked at her. I’d been proud this whole time, but now that the end was coming, it overwhelmed me at random moments. The tiny baby who’d grown from nothing inside me had turned into a girl with spirit and passion. She was a smart, talented, spunky little thing, and I might never know where she’d picked up all those traits from.
Katie appeared at my side, nudging me in the ribs. “Want to go for a walk?”
My breath caught at her closeness. “They’re not going to need you soon?”
“Nah, they’re doing more close-ups.”
I took another glance at Emma, who was hamming up a moment of panic, playing it up for the camera. She’d be fine without me for a minute. “Sure.”
We walked off together, weaving through actors and camerapeople to get to the hall. It felt odd to not hold her hand when we were so physically affectionate in private. Soon we’d be able to, though. Soon even Emma would know about us.
“Boardroom?” Katie asked.
I peeked in to make sure no one else was in there. I already had an idea of what was on Katie’s mind. Since it was empty, I held the door open for her—and the moment it shut behind us, I pushed her up against the wall.
Our lips locked, and my body thrummed as I pressed it against hers. We fit so perfectly together, from our heads to our toes. I breathed in her fragrant scent, relishing the feeling of her soft skin under my fingertips. As I kissed down her neck, I wished we had somewhere more private to go.
“Okay, you’re heading into dangerous territory,” I said as her palms slid over my bra cups. “If you take this too far, I’m not going to be able to stop.”
“No one’s going to catch us,” she breathed.
“Anyone could catch us.”
Rather than taking my hands off her, I cupped her ass instead. A signal was radiating from my core, telling my whole body to go on high alert. My entire system expected more to happen soon, and I hated to think of disappointing it.
“Hang on, hang on,” she said as I went to pull up her top. “I only planned to make out with you in here. This is a terrible idea.”
“Terrible?”
“We should at least go into a bathroom stall.” Her eyes were bright, her breath shallow. “You leave first, and then I’ll come a minute after…”
“Sounds sexy.”
I wasn’t one for risky behavior, but with the slightest touch, she had me going out of my head. Soon this wouldn’t be an option anymore. What if I never got another chance to have sex on a TV set?
“Okay,” Katie breathed. “The first part is you leaving.”
“Mmm… I don’t want to stop touching you.” I brought my lips to hers again, keeping them an inch away. “One more kiss for the road.”
She gave it to me, and we lingered there for a long moment, my excitement rising with each taste of her tangy lips.
And then the door banged open, and we jumped apart.
“Mommy?” Emma asked, wide-eyed. “Katie?”
I adjusted my shirt, my heart pounding. “Were you looking for me, sweetie?”
“What were you doing?” she asked, looking from me to Katie and back. “Were you kissing?”
My face felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t look at Emma, couldn’t look at Katie either. “Um…”
“We were going to wait to tell you,” Katie started.
“Don’t!” I raised a hand to stop her, but it was too late. Emma stormed out of the room.
“I’m sorry,” Katie said. “I felt like I had to say something—I shouldn’t have—I—”
“Save it,” I snapped. “I need to comfort my daughter.”
I raced out of the boardroom, panic rising inside me as I scanned the hall. Where had Emma gone? No one else was around—they had to all be on set. Maybe Katie was wrong about the close-ups, and she was supposed to be on set.
Not that it was important now. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’d managed to show Emma I was dating again in the worst possible way, not to mention the fact that I was dating a woman. She had to be so confused right now—confused, and angry, and maybe even a little betrayed. I should’ve known keeping secrets from her wouldn’t be a good idea.
I cursed myself over and over as I stomped through the halls. I couldn’t have kept my pants on for a few more hours? I couldn’t have met up with Katie after work, if I was so desperate to get my rocks off? Fuck, even if we’d just been kissing it would’ve been bad enough, but she’d had her hands up my shirt. We’d been about to get it on in the bathroom.
Stopping short, I took a breath. Of course—the bathroom. Emma had to be hiding in there. I backtracked to the nearest one. A single stall door was closed, and two pink-sneakered feet were visible underneath.
“Emma?” I called.
She didn’t answer.
“Emma, I know you’re in here. I can see your shoes.”
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