by Ariana Rose
“You wanted a grand entrance. So now this isn’t good enough? What a shock!” I slide the polished hand off that’s made its way to my knee.
“Are you going to be an asshole the whole night? The cameras will pick up on it. Do you want the wrath of Daddy and Jack on you too? Isn’t it easier to just please them and me?”
“Please you, Quinn? Is that even possible?” Before she can pop off a smartass reply, we roll to a stop outside Nan Thai. I have to close my eyes and remind myself that this is only ninety minutes of my life. Once my eyes open, the mask is on. The smile is just that, a smile. My acting coach gave me a great piece of advice once. He said that photo shoots are like live theater. There is a distance, a disconnect. You can give them what they want without having to necessarily go there but once on set, in film, they have your full eyes. There is no way you can bullshit your way past it. If you don’t feel it, the audience won’t see it. That is where I will live for this dinner. I will disconnect. Quinn is so self-involved that if I give her what I think she wants, my job tonight will be done.
I push open the car door and the cameras click instantly. The full setup of this is over the top, even for her. It’s in that moment I realize what this is. It’s our first official date to the world. I turn my back as if to help her from the car, and she gets the last real emotion from me this evening. It’s that of pure hatred.
I offer her my hand. “Since you were the only one in the know this evening, give them a show.”
She takes it with a wicked smirk that radiates from her eyes. She knows she’s got me.
I CAN HEAR my dad now. Early bird gets the worm, he says. Even as corny as it sounds, he’s right. There is never enough preparation for this job. Ten steps ahead aren’t enough. So here I am, working through dinner on a Sunday night. The studio is deserted, except for the rogue security guard. The hype for season two has been so great that there have been random break-ins and fans managing their way to the set. It’s become such an issue that we’ve had to move the actors to a back lot where there is no outside access. Quinn has been complaining about the walks back and forth. Of course she has. Her little fits have become a bit of an inside joke with Becca and me. We have codes we walkie out, depending on her mood. Code Black has been on lock the last two days.
I open the door to her trailer to make sure it’s all set for the morning. Taking those first steps in her door are always uneasy. I always feel more watched when she’s around. I set her script on the table where she likes it, with the outline she demands. She must be one of the laziest actors I’ve ever seen. She has someone do all the research for her. I don’t know how she expects to be authentic when she’s blank inside. I know for me, when I’m writing, I need to feel the characters and understand my feelings about them to make them real. Julian studies so hard. He asks the easy and the hard questions, just to make sure everything is perfect in his heart. His heart…
I look to my right to her wall of pictures. Most of them are of her… covers, articles, the basic red carpets. There is one of her with Lainey. I look at them standing next to each other and don’t understand how they can be sisters, or even from the same gene pool. Anyone with eyes could see the light and shade, the bright and dark, the sweet and the sour. Then there is the thing that I recognize. It’s the lava that boils beneath the surface. Quinn has the same look that Hunter always had. I can’t stop the mental comparison. Their similarities are striking and scary to me. I shake my head free of the path I just traveled in my thoughts. As I reach the door, heading back to the present, I hear the faint sound of music. Who is here? I peek out the crack of the door. I don’t see anyone, but now not only is there the music but singing along with it. Fuck! Did someone break in again? I reach for my phone, where it usually rests in my back pocket, but come up empty. Shit! I can’t call for help to the gate. I’m on my own.
Think, Lex. Think! I look around for a bat, coat hanger, a piece of wood… anything! Of course I’d have to be in Quinn’s trailer when this happened. If it isn’t fluffy or silky, it’s not in here. The only device I can find to arm myself with is the salon aerosol hair spray from her vanity. I pop the cap and hold my finger over the button. Spray and run… that’s the plan. I slowly open the door and tiptoe down the stairs. I try and listen to see if I can hear which way the music is coming from.
At first, it echoes from the left then no, I hear it clearly to my right. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before. There is a dim light coming from the base of Julian’s trailer door. I’m either about to be really brave or really stupid. I silently make it to the corner of his trailer. Yet another downside to being fun-sized… I can’t see in the damn windows! All right then. One… two… three… I fling the door open with my eyes closed, violently spraying the hair spray in every direction.
Once I hear the choking, I open one eye a slit to see Julian fanning the fog away from his face with his ballcap. “What the fuck!” he exclaims.
“Jesus Christ, Julian! What are you doing here?” I ask, beyond irritated.
He sits, rubbing his eyes with the inside of his t-shirt. “Assault with a deadly hair spray? What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I was trying to protect the set and your stuff. I was thinking I was going to have to defend myself.” I look at my hand with the nearly empty can in it and can’t contain my laughter. “I wanted the singing intruder to have perfect hair before they went to jail?”
We laugh together. My God, he has the perfect laugh. It’s deep and joyful. The smile he has radiates through his eyes. I realize I haven’t seen it much, if at all before. This is his true self in this moment. He’s absolutely beautiful.
“I’m really sorry. Are you okay?” I ask.
“Once I shower, I will be,” he jokes, while trying to put his guitar away.
“I had no idea you played, Julian. Were you singing too?”
“If you call it that. I only play for me.”
“What I heard was really nice. What were you singing? I was on such overload plotting my run-by spraying that I didn’t catch your set list.” I sit down on the chair across from him.
“It was nothing.” He looks down at the strings and slides his fingers along them.
“Well, I heard notes. I heard lyrics. It wasn’t nothing.”
He never looks up and replies, “It was an original.”
My heart leaps into my throat. “You write? Music and lyrics?”
“Only a couple people know that, but yes. I have since I was about fifteen. My mom was the first to know. She didn’t have a hair spray container with her, but I was about as startled. She was quite amazing about it. She was the one who bought me my first acoustic guitar.”
“It’s nice that she supported you like that. So… did Lainey know?” The question pops out before I can take it back. Fuck! Did my brain leave along with my filter?
He looks up at me with a paled complexion. “How do you know about her, Alexandra?”
“I… I… I came across her name in the research I did before I started.” It’s a little white lie I hope doesn’t bite me in the ass later. “She was… she was your girlfriend?”
“No!” he snaps. “She was my fiancée. We were going to be married, and then…” His voice trails off as quickly as his music.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about her.” I rise slowly from my chair, with the air between us as thick as the wall seems. “Since I know you aren’t a trespasser, I can go.”
He strums his guitar in the saddest minor set of chords I’ve ever heard. As the notes fade into the space between us, he asks a question I didn’t expect. “Will you stay?”
“I’ll stay if you want me to.”
“I want you to.”
I slide in beside him on his couch. “Will you play for me what I so rudely interrupted?”
He hesitates for a moment, but then puts his hat back on his head and pulls it down, hiding his eyes. The guitar rests softly across his lap. I notice a c
ouple nicks in the wood and the handle is slightly worn. He closes those barely visible eyes and begins to pick across the strings. His voice is very soft and tentative. I turn a bit to face him, closing my own eyes, and intently listen to the lyrics. He speaks of regret and all that follows.
His song hits me nearly instantly. I lose myself so completely that I didn’t realize he’d stopped until I feel his thumb slowly swipe across my cheek. When I open my eyes, I find him studying me as hard as I did his lyrics just a moment ago.
“You’re crying,” he remarks. “Was it that bad?”
“No. No, of course not. I hadn’t realized I was. It’s just… That was really beautiful, honestly. I lived those words. They were honest. It touched me.” I break the distance I’d been keeping and raise my hand to cover his on my cheek. “I have regrets like the ones you talked about.”
His voice husks, “What are your regrets, Alexandra?”
“Not being able to say I love you to my mother one last time. The entirety of my last relationship.” I wanted to also add not waking up that morning in his arms, but the words wouldn’t come. That was more honest than I was ready for. Last time, he came to me. This time, without knowing it, I’d come to him. The air is just as charged as it was in the first storm in the gazebo, even the second in my apartment, but in the charge is a quiet calm. I take a huge risk and lean in to kiss him. I wait for him to stop me, but he doesn’t.
He matches my touch, just as soft. There is an understanding beneath it. I know he doesn’t want to talk and neither do I. We feel so much and for so long that we’re tired. We want to simply just be.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND what I’m doing. She gets within feet of me and I can’t settle on which way is up, down, or sideways. I know it’s not intentional, but she completely confuses me. It’s not in the same way Quinn does. With Quinn, everything is to take a swing, gain herself something. With this one, she’s pure. She’s nearly like…
I can’t finish that thought in my head.
Stay in the present, Julian!
That’s the thought that’s creeped in to replace it. I’ve heard my father yell it at me a thousand times. I’ve had Quinn snark it at me a thousand more. My acting coach has directed it, along with Jordan, when I struggle. I’ve even had it from Troy who has become like a therapist. It’s the last one that’s resonating with me in this moment.
I look down at this girl curled against my chest, and her hair wild across my skin. We’d made love in such a different way than the night I came to her in a driven crusade. Tonight, was soft and slow. There was no time to think or plan. It was a melting of understanding and hiding of secrets. Neither of us was willing to trust enough to let go to honesty in the moment. Instead, we gave in to the physical expression. It felt odd to be held. I’d all but given up on that physical connection since Lainey died.
I close my eyes and drift near sleep. I don’t know how much time has passed before Alexandra breaks our silence. She begins to mumble softly. At first, I smile because it’s halfway between a snore and talking. It’s not until I can make out a few words, “no” and “please don’t,” that I stroke her hair and whisper softly, “You’re all right. Alexandra, wake up.”
Her small frame jerks and her hand presses against my chest. Her head lifts ever so slightly away from my body. “Where are we?”
“It’s nearly daybreak, Alexandra. You’re in my trailer on the lot. Do you remember now?”
She rests her delicate fingers against her forehead, trying to recover our reality. “Oh… oh yeah. Daybreak, you said? Like, nearly five? Fuck!”
She rolls off me and tumbles to the floor.
“Where are you going?” I watch her crawl around in the dim light.
“I need my clothes, Julian. Shit! Everyone will be here soon. I have to go. No one can find me here. No one.”
“Calm down, Lex. Please? I know this place like clockwork. The security is in at five. Jordan is always first, and that is at about 5:48. You have time.” I reach down, and grab hold of her wrist. “Breathe, Alexandra, please?”
She sits back on her heels and slides all her silken locks over her left shoulder. “I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know what we’re doing. Not that I need to, I just… Last night was really unexpected.”
Her candor is refreshing and terrifying in the same breath. “It was unexpected in every way. I’m not sorry.”
I think that was what she was hoping to hear. She rises to her knees and slides the gap between us closed. She leans up to my chest and places a couple of gentle kisses where her head had been just moments before. Her kind eyes stare right into mine. “You were the best non-intrusion. I’m going to go before I get us both into a situation where questions have to be asked or answered.”
I watch her pull up her jeans and leave my nondescript white t-shirt on. With her tennis shoes tucked under her arm and her hand on the knob of my trailer, she turns back. “I’ll bring you some coffee later. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”
“I’ll look forward to it, Alexandra.”
Once the door latches, I roll over face down into my pillow. I can still hear her, feel her, and smell her. I take a deep breath and relax. My body isn’t fully healed and needs more care than I give it. Just twenty minutes, then a shower, and then straight to hair and makeup. I allow my mind to go blank for that time. Think of no one and nothing; that was the other technique I’d been trying to practice.
My bliss is broken with a gentle hand at my back. “You’re back,” I mumble.
“Julian, it’s nearly 6:30. You’re going to be late. Did you fall asleep in here again?”
The sweet voice morphs into a bark with the word again. “Just five more minutes.”
“Julian, get up!” Quinn’s voice goes high and shrill.
“Fucking hell. Do you wake up like this, or is it just for me?” I grunt into my pillow.
I feel my denim shirt hit my head. “We have to be on set at eight. You haven’t even showered. Is this the level of professionalism I’m going to get today?”
“I have time, Quinn.” My back is stiff from the hour we spent on the floor, combined with the lingering damage from the accident. I struggle up to a sit with my head in my hands. “Could you possibly give me just a little latitude and quiet to get my head in the game?”
“That would take more time and patience than I have.” She takes a seat next to me, knocking my guitar over.
“Could you possibly watch what the fuck you’re doing?” I pull my guitar upright and hide it off to my left side.
“Touchy touchy! You are fucking grumpy when you have been without.” She tries to play with my already fucked hair.
“You are walking a very thin line, Quinn. Back the fuck off!” I get off the couch and take a couple steps back to create some distance while I pull my jeans tight and slide my shirt on. “Don’t you need, like, another hour for the painting crew to do what it needs to with your face?”
Yep, I said it, and I’m not sorry…yet.
She narrows her eyes. I fear I’ve awakened the beast. “I’m going there soon, Jules. I needed to pass along an amazing message first. The location for our shoot at the end of the weekend has changed.”
“What do you mean, changed? Where is it now? We aren’t going to St. Petersburg anymore?”
She smiles wickedly. “No, they had a small fire on property, so it’s no longer available. Luckily, I was around when the call came in this morning and I saved the day with one phone call.” She lays back on my couch, perching herself on her side like a kitten pleased with themselves.
“A fire? Saved the day? You’re speaking in code. Could you just get to the fucking point already? I’m growing tired of your little game. Spit it out!” She rests up on her elbows, posing so her robe falls, exposing she’s sans anything beneath it. “And could you please put that away?”
She doesn’t move. “I called Daddy.”
“Of course, you did. When you say you saved the day, you really mean
you whined to him and to get you to stop, he gave you whatever you wanted.”
“Oh Julian, I’m a master at getting what I want. We needed an old-world resort look. I asked Daddy if we could use a division of the Davis resort on Jekyll Island. I think you know the one.”
I instantly feel sick. I think I knew what she’d planned from the minute I heard the word old-world. I turn and look at her. “You can’t do that. You know… You can’t do that!” Every emotion I’ve been holding back bursts out in a fit of rage. “You bitch! How could you expect me to go back there? How could you think that was even remotely okay? That place is sacred to your sister and me. We were… I won’t do it. I refuse!”
“Oh, my dear Julian. That’s the beauty of contracts and a very thankful producer.” She splits her legs a bit wider before standing up. She rests her chin on my shoulder and whispers in my ear, “You don’t have a choice. It’s do it or else.” She places a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll see you on set.”
HEARING JORDAN SAY “Cut…print” was music to my ears. Knowing that Alexandra is on this location is all that is even remotely keeping me together. This place… How did we end up here? Jekyll Island…
I know it’s very popular for filming, but we could have been different. I keep hearing the water just beyond the dunes. God, Lainey loved this place. She always said it has an old-world elegance with a connection to the earth that simply called to her. There’s that word again; old-world. It was the very essence of who Lainey was. She should have been born in another era. She had been my grounding device.
The only thing coming close is that girl over there. Alexandra will hand me a hot tea with lemon when she knows my voice is at its limit without me having to say a word. My script always shows up before everyone else’s because she knows I want the extra time to process. She actually cares about me… the real me. There is no hiding, no planning, no scripting my words, no mask. I’ve shown her things about me only Lainey knew, and she seems to only want to know more. I feel the same way.