Lucky Star: A Hollywood Love Story

by Rebecca Norinne Caudill

  “Yeah, well, it’s her own damn fault, isn’t it? Maybe she deserves to freak the fuck out for awhile.” I hadn’t meant to snap at him, but when he pushed me I realized I was delaying the conversation with her because I wanted her to know what it was like to panic. And yeah, I maybe to punish her a bit. Understanding my motivation though didn’t make it any better. Instead, it only made me feel that much worse.

  “Fuck,” I grumbled, resting my head against the cold metal of my locker. I gripped the back of my neck tight enough that it should have hurt but the pressure seemed to lessen the headache I felt coming on. Or maybe it just refocused the pain somewhere else. When I was a kid if I stubbed my toe or something and had whined about how bad it hurt, my dad would flick my ear. When I’d grouse about that pain, he’d point out that at least my toe, finger, or other body part didn’t hurt anymore. “Everything about this situation is just so fucked up.”

  “I’m not gonna lie to you,” Mike volunteered as he sauntered over to this locker and stepped into a pair of faded jeans torn at the knee. “You’re a handsome devil but I don’t envy you. I wouldn’t want to deal with this bullshit.” Pulling a gray t-shirt with the gym’s logo over his head, he added, “This is why I stay away from women.”

  That drew a laugh from me. “You don’t stay away from women. You surround yourself with them,” I said, pulling on my own clothes.

  “Ah, but here’s where I’m smarter than you,” he teased, pointing a finger at me. “I don’t fall in love with them.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “But only because you don’t let them stick around long enough for that to happen.”

  As we exited the locker room into the main area of the gym, he grew serious again. “All joking aside Cameron”— he dropped his hand to my shoulder — “Sarah’s a good woman and she loves you. She wouldn’t have agreed to this if she didn’t honestly believe it was the right thing to do.”

  I grunted because I was still bitter she’d done it at all. When she’d laid the argument out, it had made sense, but I still couldn’t accept that she’d been the one to convince me. Even now I wondered if she’d told Broderick what she’d said to make me agree to something I found so inherently distasteful. Right now I wasn’t sure what hurt worse – the fact that she’d agreed to play a role in this whole stupid plan or that she’d practically bribed me to go along with it. Because at the end of the day she’d been right about one thing: I wanted nothing more than to marry her and get us the hell out of Hollywood. I wanted to settle down with her in a place I knew, where I trusted the people, and where she and I could be ourselves and live life on our own terms. And those damn kids she promised me? The mere thought of them had been what made me capitulate.

  “I don’t know Mike. I’m sure you’re right, but right now it doesn’t feel like it,” I confided. “She blindsided me and it’s going to take some time to come to grips with that. For fuck’s sake, this weekend we threw a party announcing our engagement and now I have to call everyone and tell them to keep it quiet? How am I supposed to explain that in a way that doesn’t make me sound like an asshole?”

  I shook my head and paced. “‘Sorry folks, but you know your good friend Sarah? Well, my boss, the famous Hollywood director, doesn’t think she’s good for my image so we need you to keep our relationship real quiet because I have to pretend I’m on love with someone else.’” Going back to my own voice, I added, “Yeah, that’s going to go over real fucking great.”

  Mike shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, that sucks man. I’m sorry … but let me ask you something and try not to punch me when I do.”

  I notched my chin, agreeing and telling him to go ahead all in that one small gesture.

  “Who do you think this whole thing hurts worse, you or her? Because honestly? You come off like a dick for doing it in the first place, but she has to face her friends and family knowing your boss – fuck, her boss – deemed her unworthy. How do you think that makes her feel? It’s one thing for her to have to pretend she isn’t in love with you to perfect strangers, but to look us all in the eye while we all know what happened? That’s gonna fuck with her worse than anything you might have to go through.”

  He was right, I did want to punch him. Not because he’d said the wrong thing. In fact, it might be the only thing anyone could have said to snap me out of my self-pity. He was right. This whole thing might be inconvenient for me – hell, it was more than inconvenient – but it was downright insulting to Sarah. And yet she’d chosen to bear it for the sake of my career and then I’d rubbed her nose it in. The cherry on the shit sundae. I was a fucking asshole.

  We ate dinner together and things seemed fine. Not great, but … amiable. Cameron grilled up some ribeyes while I made a salad and then joined him in the courtyard, two beers in hand. We chatted guardedly about what I knew about my new job – I didn’t tell him about Broderick’s “hush money’ yet – before we moved on to how excited he was to begin some of the more interesting pre-production work. We kept the conversation light and avoided the one-ton elephant in the room we knew we needed to address but couldn’t bring ourselves to. Skirting the issue, I told him how Jillian had cornered me awkwardly in the bathroom and complimented his grandmother’s ring. That was how I referred to it the first time. The second I just called it “the ring.” I’d stopped thinking of it as mine. When the conversation bordered on awkward, I’d smiled and wondered aloud if we’d ever get the chance to meet the mysterious Murray. After that Cameron clammed up and our easy conversation fell by the wayside.

  We did the dishes side by side without talking, our bodies close enough to reach out and touch one another but seemingly miles apart. When I tired of the heavy silence between us, I retreated to the bedroom to read. Cameron joined me forty-five minutes later smelling of my scotch. I was surprised when he took the Kindle from my hands and placed it on his nightstand. He rolled back toward me, levered his body over mine, and cupped my cheeks. Staring into my eyes, he searched my face for several long moments, kissed me lightly at first and then deepened his pull on my lips, sucking my tongue into his mouth where he tasted of brine and peat. Quietly, he undressed me and then made love to my breasts with his mouth, tasting first the left one as he tugged my right nipple between his fingers, and then switched his mouth to the right. As he entered me his face looked sad and my body didn’t respond to him the way it normally did. It was like we were two people who’d lost their way and were only going through the motions for the sake of physical release.

  He rocked his body in and out of me and I held on tight, wanting him to show him with my body, if not my words, that everything would be okay. As he came he whispered my name and then dropped his forehead in the crook of my neck. I felt his lips against my throat, a smatter of feather light kisses, before he rolled away. He’d left me staring up at the ceiling, my body unfulfilled and my heart tormented. Despite knowing exactly where to touch me and how, he hadn’t taken the time to make me come and the sex had been perfunctory. Tears burned my eyes for our loss.

  “Goodnight Sarah,” he spoke into the darkness. When he added “I love you” as an afterthought, the words sounded hollow to my ears.

  I lay in quiet contemplation for several minutes, considering what I should say or do. I hadn’t the foggiest notion how to repair what I’d shattered and he’d broken between us. To scared to speak, I listened to his breathing, waited for the change in depth and cadence that indicated he’d fallen asleep. When after ten minutes it didn’t come, I realized he lay awake as well.

  “Cameron?”

  “Go to sleep Sarah,” he responded several heartbeats later.

  I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hands so that I could look down at him. “Please talk to me,” I coaxed. “We have to fix this.”

  Cameron rolled onto his back and rested his head on open palms at the back of his head. “I’m …” he began then stopped, thinking better of speaking aloud whatever had been on the tip of his tongue. “We�
�ll be fine. I just need time.”

  “Time for what?” I asked, pushing him to speak instead of clamming up.

  “Time not be pissed at you.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  He huffed. “Fair? You want to talk about fair? You blindsided me today.”

  “I told you—”

  “Right, you were just doing what was best for my career. Without asking me how I felt about it. What if I had done the same thing to you?”

  Don’t be reactionary. Keep your cool. Don’t yell.

  I reacted. Angrily. “What, you mean like not telling me that you’d struck an entirely new deal with the devil? That you were going to blindside me in that meeting by pretending you and Jillian were already together? You mean like that?”

  If I’d done something wrong – and I was willing to admit I hadn’t approached the situation in the best way – then what he did afterward was leaps and bounds worse. I could have handled the situation in Vancouver where we were on neutral ground, but L.A. was my home, the place we’d built our friendship. I was trying to be reasonable about the situation, take responsibility for the role I’d played in the whole sordid affair, but damn it all, I was the one getting the fuzziest end of the lollipop. I was the one who had to hide in the shadows, who’d been told she wasn’t good enough, desirable enough. Sure he was mad, but I was downright offended.

  “I’m sorry, but what the fuck?”

  “Let it go, Sarah. It’s late and I want to go to sleep. This has been a shit day and I just want to get it over with.”

  “Like you got fucking over with a few minutes ago? You didn’t even care if it was good for me,” I accused and he bit back an oath.

  “Is that why you’re pissed? Because you didn’t come?” He reached for me and I swatted his hand away.

  “Don’t you dare touch me, you fucking asshole. If I want to get off, I can get more intimacy from my vibrator. At least it won’t judge me and find me wanting.”

  I jumped off the bed and paced the room. Goddamn it, and now I was crying too. Sucking in a lungful of air, I clenched my fists at my side. Speaking into the darkness of the room, I gave him an ultimatum. “You have two choices Cameron Scott. You can sit up and talk to me or you can leave my house.”

  I heard him scooting up in bed and resting against the headboard. He flicked on the bedside lamp and turned his head to look at me. “Your house?”

  “You know what I meant.” I’d called it “my house” unintentionally but right now I didn’t care that he was feeling butt hurt over the exclusion. Obviously this was our house now. I raised my right eyebrow, daring him to argue semantics with me.

  He sighed and looked away. “Fine, talk.”

  “Let me see if I get this straight. You’re mad at me?”

  “I’m pissed off at everyone Sarah. But yes, especially you.”

  I stared at him, trying to discern my own feelings. I was disappointed in him, seeing a side of Cameron I’d never noticed before. His only concern seemed to be the fact that he wasn’t getting his own way. I’d given up my fucking pride for his career! What didn’t he get about that? I wondered, albeit briefly, if we’d made a mistake by getting engaged so quickly. I’d known every thing there was to know about him … as a friend. As a partner, he was an entirely different man. I didn’t know this Cameron.

  Since he was behaving like a selfish, petulant child, I decided to be the adult. Calmly, like speaking with a five-year-old, I asked, “Do you mind telling me why you’re pissed at me? Specifically?”

  He looked me up and down and then dropped his eyes from me and deliberately stared at the armoire next to me. “You didn’t even fight for us.”

  Oh, isn’t that precious?

  Yes, I’d played a role in convincing him to go along with the studio’s plan, but since he had gone along with it, I figured he could only be so mad. And he’d significantly upped the ante when they’d upped the stakes. If he was truly as distraught as he made himself out to be, he could have told me no. Or, even after he’d agreed to the first half of the plan, he could have said the second, newer plan wasn’t an option. His agent could have told Broderick to shove Aerin’s amended plan up his ass. Oh, sure, he’d acted like that’s what he’d wanted to do, but when push came to shove he hadn’t fought too hard himself. He’d ranted and raved and then marched his ass back inside the building. And then he’d sat there, refusing to meet my eyes, when they’d dropped their bomb on me. No, he’d had his opportunity to make a stand and he hadn’t. That was irrefutable. And now he laid the blame for everything at my feet, even his own culpability.

  “You didn’t either.”

  “What was I supposed to do Sarah? You came to me with it all figured out. You’d already decided to go along with whatever Broderick proposed. You could have said no. You could have told him to go fuck himself.”

  “So could you Cameron.”

  “Could I? You’d already fallen into line and you told me yourself if I didn’t as well he would fire me. Is that what you wanted?”

  “What about afterward? That new and improved plan?” I asked, putting air quotes around new and improved. “At least I had the decency to warn you what was coming. But you? No, you let me walk into that meeting blind! Do you know afterward when I confronted him about it Broderick told me the plan was on a “need-to-know basis only” and I hadn’t needed to know? I’m your fucking fiancé and I didn’t need to know I was going to have to sit there and keep a straight face while Aerin announced you and Jillian had been together since your first screen test? And then watch as you made cow eyes at each other and she laughed like a fucking school girl when you touched her? If I’m going to tell anyone to go fuck himself, right about now that person is you.”

  He jumped out of bed and wrapped the sheet around his waist. “Answer me this, what did Broderick promise you for convincing me to go along with the plan in the first place?”

  I sucked in a breath. What had he heard? “He promised me he wouldn’t fire your ass?”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then why’d you do it? I could get another job.”

  “Right, because that was going so well for you.” I winced when I spoke, not meaning for the words to come out as they had. Cameron’s lack of success was something I tried to stay away from at all possible costs because I knew how demoralizing it was for him. Especially since by so many people’s estimation he should have been a star by now. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He scoffed and ran his hand through his hair. “That’s real nice Sarah. Tell me, when was the last time you sold a painting.”

  Ouch, low blow. I hadn’t meant to be mean but his aim on that insult had been a little too true. The fact was it’d been over a year since any gallery had asked to display my work and my Etsy sales had dried up a couple of months after. Then again, I hadn’t actually painted anything worthwhile in at least six months. I hadn’t seen the point. All of my friends already had Sarah Travers Originals up somewhere in their homes and my house only had so much wall space.

  I took a deep breath and prepared to launch into a volley of his many failed auditions but at the last second stopped myself. That’s not what this conversation was about. His luck up to now had nothing to do with the fight we were currently embroiled in and bringing up the past when it carried no relevance to the current situation would just derail us.

  “I just want what’s best for you Cameron.”

  Given his vitriol of a few moments ago, his answer surprised me. “You’re what’s best for me.”

  I stopped to consider how those words made me feel, reminded myself how just before I’d walked into Broderick’s office this afternoon I’d thought my relationship with Cameron was bad for me on so many levels, not the least of which was my emotional well being. The acid currently churning in my stomach and fighting its way back up my esophagus was a stark reminder that it might be bad for me physically as well.

  During the s
hort while we’d been together, I’d been happier than I’d ever been, but I’d also been sadder and angrier than I’d ever been as well. There were times where I’d felt marginalized, and ever since I’d read those texts from his friends, I’d worried how others judged me. Maybe it was all in my head, but when a person feels something as keenly as I had those emotions, it became real. Until I’d fallen in love with Cameron, I’d never lacked for confidence, but since I’d accepted his proposal, I’d constantly questioned whether I was good enough. The reactions of his friends and the studio had been resoundingly clear. I wasn’t.

  “Your friends don’t think so. The studio doesn’t.” I pushed the words from my choked up throat.

  “I don’t care what they think. You should know that by now,” he responded gruffly.

  Except I didn’t. I took some time to measure my reaction to his words and found they didn’t ease my pain. I wished that instead of Cameron telling me their opinions didn’t matter, he would have told me they were wrong. Again, semantics, but responding in such a way would have made me feel better.

  “Let me ask you something.” I marched forward with the ugly idea that’d unfurled in my gut. “Would you have really thrown it all away? Would you have walked away from the movie and your chance of making it big? You’ve worked so hard and for so long that I thought I was doing the right thing by you when Broderick approached me. I thought you’d understand why I did it. But if you tell me now that I’m more important to you, that our relationship is more important than your career, I’ll walk away with you.”

  He waited a few beats to respond and when he did, it crushed me.

  “They’ve already announced the cast and promotion has started. I’m locked in.”

  I dropped my head in defeat. Based on how upset he’d been and his talk of me not fighting for him, I truly thought he’d answer in the affirmative. Perhaps it had been naïve for me to assume when I offered to walk away with him he’d agree. When he hadn’t, when he made excuses for why he couldn’t, I was honestly shocked. Saddened.