Absolutely True Lies

by Rachel Stuhler

  As we pulled up to the Bradley Terminal, Camille gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me. But her attention was quickly diverted to Vaughn, who (along with Derek, the apparently still-­employed producer) was corralling an enormous group of people.

  “Make sure you nail him before you leave European soil,” Camille said as she popped the trunk and started to step out of the car.

  “He hasn’t kissed me,” I hissed as quietly as I could. “He didn’t even walk me to my car. It wasn’t a date.”

  “Even if it wasn’t officially a date, he wanted it to be a date,” Camille replied, walking around to the back of the car and yanking out my suitcase. “Make a play and he’s yours.”

  Because it’s my life and it often plays like an Abbott and Costello sketch, Vaughn looked up and spotted us exactly at that moment. I don’t know if he’d heard Camille, but she wasn’t speaking particularly softly. I wanted to punch her in the head.

  “Hey, Holly. Hey, Holly’s friend,” Vaughn called out.

  Rather than simply wave and get back in the car like a reasonable human being, Camille made a beeline for Vaughn. She shook his hand with what looked like enough force to break his fingers. “Camille,” she said brightly. “Glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard great things.”

  “So have I,” he replied. “I’m Vaughn.”

  Camille threw a mischievous look back over her shoulder at me. “Oh, I know what your name is, Vaughn. Do me a favor and take good care of our little Holly, all right?”

  “You have my word,” Vaughn said with mock seriousness.

  I wanted to melt into a puddle and die.

  “Little Holly?” I heard the question followed by an amused giggle from somewhere in the pack of crew members. I recognized Daisy’s voice immediately, but it took me a second to spot her Thumbelina frame amid the crowd. “More like ‘Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman.’ ”

  We hadn’t even gotten inside the terminal and already this was like some high school field trip, and I was the audiovisual geek. I quickly gave Camille a hug, trying to force her on her way. I could have sworn she reached into my jacket pocket, but I figured it was just my imagination, so I ignored it.

  It actually wasn’t until twenty minutes later when I was disrobing in the security line that I realized what she had done. And several minutes too late.

  Vaughn was a person ahead of me in line, and he cleared the metal detector just as the first of my belongings disappeared into the X-ray machine. I had just pushed in my carry-on when the TSA agent stopped the line and pulled out my jacket.

  Figuring he’d want to talk to me, I hurried through the detector and made my way toward Vaughn, who was putting his shoes back on. I never even got a chance to speak to the TSA agent before he pulled a handful of bright gold metallic condom packages from the pocket of my jacket. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Vaughn’s mouth was just as agape as my own.

  The TSA agent chuckled a bit to himself, then put the condoms back into my pocket, patting it. “For future reference, sweetheart, those should probably go in your carry-on.”

  I nodded, grabbing my things swiftly from the conveyor belt. I was so mortified I couldn’t even look at Vaughn as I forced a laugh and said, “That Camille, she has a real sense of humor.” I had to say something to stem the tide of my terror.

  Much to my relief, Vaughn burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he had to stop tying his shoes and double over for a minute. “Wow,” he said, straightening up and wiping his eyes, “Camille is a real jerk.”

  “She’s not,” I replied. I don’t know why I was defending her just then, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

  Vaughn finally stopped laughing and put a hand on my shoulder. “Not an actual jerk. I meant the lovable kind that tortures you in ways no one else can.”

  “Oh.” That was certainly true enough. “Then yes, she’s a jerk.”

  Vaughn put an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get to our gate.”

  • • •

  I’d flown first-class to Miami (and coach on the return), but the experience was nothing compared to transatlantic first class. The aisles were wider, the seats cushier, and I was shocked to discover that they reclined flat. I was still raising and lowering my seat when Vaughn put away his luggage and sat down next to me.

  “It’s a long flight. Pace yourself. Save some of the amusement for hour nine when you want to bang your head against the window.”

  The chairs were more comfortable than my bed, and I had a TV in front of me. How could I possibly get bored? “You don’t like flying?”

  Vaughn shrugged, settling back into his seat. Now that most of first class was on board, the rest of the crew was streaming on. I was again struck by just how many people were coming with us. “I don’t mind it. But I have to go to New York a lot so I’m kind of over it.”

  I zoomed my seat up and down one last time. “I don’t think I could ever get tired of this.”

  He put his hand on mine and patted it. “Trust me. By the end of your time with Daisy, you’ll be over it.”

  Speaking of Daisy . . . I looked around the cabin and didn’t see her. There were still two empty seats at the back of the first-class cabin. “Where is she, anyway? She was at the curb with us.”

  “She’ll be here,” he told me. Vaughn leaned into my ear, his breath ticklish. I had to fight the urge to giggle like a little girl. “I guarantee she’s hiding out in the first-class lounge until everyone else has boarded. That way she doesn’t have to say hello to everyone and pretend she cares.”

  Of that statement, only one part stood out to me. “There’s a first-class lounge? What did we miss?”

  Vaughn laughed, squeezing my hand. I was starting to feel like this trip wasn’t the worst idea after all.

  CHAPTER 12

  When you hear about a film set, it seems like the only folks fans want to talk about are the actors and directors. But it takes so much more than just little old me to say a few lines and smile. We have talented writers who make up my words, hair and makeup people to help me look my best, a camera department to capture it all, and world-class editors to cover up any mistakes I make! These are the real heroes of my show, and I hope they know just how much they mean to me.

  I enjoyed the first couple hours of the flight, but as the night wore on, it did get pretty dull. Vaughn fell asleep around 10:00 P.M., joining most of the rest of the cabin in their weirdly synchronous snoring. I was more than a little jealous, as I stayed awake despite my ever-growing exhaustion. No matter how heavy my eyelids felt, I couldn’t fall asleep. I did flip through the movies but couldn’t pay attention to more than thirty minutes at a time. I was also upset to discover that Jamie wasn’t on the flight with the rest of us; I’d been hoping to badger him for my check while he had no way to escape.

  Vaughn woke up just as we started to descend into Frankfurt, our layover airport. The late-afternoon sun streamed through the windows, stinging my overtired eyes.

  “Not a bed, but not terrible, either,” he said, stretching.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I told him. I was rapidly approaching a toddler-­like level of grumpy.

  “Walk around the Frankfurt terminal while the sun sets. It’ll help your body get used to the time change. Then you can at least grab a nap on the next flight.”

  “Where will you be?” I asked.

  “While I’d rather explore the German version of American fast food with you, I have to powwow with the other producers.”

  “Boo,” I told him.

  • • •

  I did as Vaughn instructed, spending time in the waning daylight, but it didn’t help. Nearly everyone passed out again on the Frankfurt-­Rome flight, but I stayed wide awake, glaring out the window at my second sunset in twelve hours.

  As we deplaned and went through customs, my body was thoroug
hly confused. I’ve taken plenty of cross-country flights home for Christmas and other visits, but I’ve never experienced the jet-lag hell that is crossing an ocean. When we landed, it was nine-thirty at night, the exact same time as when we left Los Angeles. I was both hungry and a little nauseous, and plain worn out. I don’t recall ever being that tired in my entire life. I wanted to pay attention to every detail of one of the oldest cities in the world, but everything seemed shimmery and a little out of focus. I felt like I was in some crazy dream.

  I was also a little dazed by the reorganization that took place at the Fiumicino airport. Though most of the crew had been in economy class, we were still—all 150 of us—together in some sense of the word. This changed immediately once we collected our bags.

  I was literally pushed into a group with Daisy, Faith, and Derek (and about ten others I didn’t know), while the rest of the crew and Vaughn headed out toward a bus at the curb.

  “I’ll catch up with you later,” he told me, waving.

  “Where are they going?” I finally asked. At that moment, I wasn’t really worried about where Vaughn was disappearing to, I was just too addled to make sense of what was happening.

  “The crew has their own hotel,” Faith told me, her tone intimating that I should have already figured that part out for myself.

  “Isn’t Vaughn a producer?” Maybe he was one of those bosses who tries to pretend he’s one of the little guys. They always think it boosts morale, but in the end, it appears condescending.

  “Do you think those monkeys can check themselves in?” Daisy snorted. “John’ll be back at our hotel in a couple of hours. He needs to get the grunts settled and pay out their per diems.”

  There was that term again. Per diem. I took Latin in high school, mostly because I had airs and wanted to be different than the rest of the French- and Spanish-taking students, so I knew that it translated to “per day.” But I didn’t understand what it meant in the work sense. I was just too embarrassed to ask. I was also irritated by Daisy’s disdain for her crew. It wasn’t like she was about to be poached by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory herself.

  “You don’t call them monkeys at work, do you?” I asked. It was perhaps an unwise question, but I wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

  “Daisy has a lot of respect for her crew,” Faith piped in with what I assumed to be a stock answer. “Don’t you, baby?”

  “Yes, Mama,” Daisy replied automatically, and with zero sincerity.

  I thought about pointing out that her crew was filled with people far more skilled than she, and that the last person I would want to piss off was someone like a focus puller, but I kept my mouth shut. If she wanted to make fun of some poor grip and then risk having a stand “accidentally” fall on her head, that wasn’t my problem. It also hadn’t escaped my attention that Axel and Sharla, who seemed to be the closest to Daisy save her mother, were relegated to the monkey hotel. So much for loyalty. I wondered if that meant Faith would be sleeping next to her darling daughter.

  A small van pulled up and the producers and execs began loading themselves into the back. I started to move toward it, but Daisy quickly grabbed my arm and made a clucking noise.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” she exclaimed.

  I didn’t bother responding, I just turned and waited for Daisy to explain her objection. Maybe she was supposed to get in before me, maybe we were being helicoptered to our hotel, I didn’t really care.

  “Our car will be here in a minute. We don’t ride with the producers.”

  “They like to talk shop in the car,” Faith added, trying to make Daisy’s words sound less offensive. I wondered if Daisy had any idea just what the rest of us thought of her. Or if she even cared. As soon as the execs had all loaded in and pulled away, Faith leaned in to my ear and said quietly, “You know, your friend Vaughn worked pretty hard to get that seat next to you on the plane. There was no room left in first class—he had to bribe one of the other producers to move back to coach.”

  I didn’t answer her. I was so tired and weary that I couldn’t even make sense of what she’d just said. We waited for another two to three minutes (with the silent, unnamed bodyguards, of course) before a large Mercedes SUV pulled up and we were finally allowed to get the hell out of the airport. I was still excited about seeing Rome, but the only thing I really wanted to see at that moment was a bed. I didn’t care if it was the hotel for the haves or the one for the have-nots. As long as bugs didn’t crawl all over me and there was a reasonably clean blanket, I would be just fine.

  • • •

  I noticed very little about my room upon check-in. I dropped my suitcase in the doorway, used the bathroom, and then fell almost facefirst onto the bed. It was after 11:00 by the time I fell asleep, and so I was completely chagrined when I woke up with a start at 3:00 A.M. My body felt like I’d just gone seven rounds, but my mind snapped back on the instant I opened my eyes and I knew that trying to return to sleep was futile.

  I was also ravenously hungry. We had been served a meal on the first flight, but after crossing a zillion time zones, I didn’t know what time I’d last eaten. I also had no idea if there was any restaurant or store open, but I thought I might as well give it a shot.

  Before I left the room, I decided to shower, lest I offend anyone with my day-old outfit and inevitable airplane stink. Now more awake than when I checked in, I noticed the peculiarity of the Italian bathroom for the first time. The toilet seat was almost nonexistent and there was a strange metal cord hanging down in the shower. I tugged on it and played with it for a few minutes, but I couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to do. I felt like I’d fallen through the looking glass and everything had minute and subtle differences from the United States. Part of me almost expected the shower to shoot Prosecco instead of water. In my present state, I wouldn’t have minded.

  By the time I made it out of my room, it was nearing four o’clock. I didn’t try to call anyone, lest I accidentally wake up some lucky soul who was able to sleep, so my only real option was to head down to the front desk and talk to a hotel clerk. I had only just turned the corner from my own little stretch of hallway when I heard voices.

  A few seconds later, I walked by a room with the door propped open. I didn’t mean to glance inside, but I’m nosy and couldn’t help myself. The room had been appropriated by Daisy’s show, and there wasn’t a bed in sight. Instead, there were a number of desks in two rows facing each other, and then a couple of couches. Several men and a woman were arguing about the date of the fall of the Roman Empire.

  I smiled to myself and tried to tiptoe by to avoid disturbing them, but I hadn’t even cleared the door when I heard, “Hey, you’re the ghostwriter, aren’t you?”

  Surprised, I looked up to find that all the eyes in the room were on me. “Yeah,” I answered, suddenly feeling shy. “Hi.” Per the endless reminders that I had signed a nondisclosure agreement, I wasn’t sure what I could say or how much they knew. The people in the room had a definite advantage over me.

  An enormously tall man with slate black hair and eerily gray eyes stood up and crossed to me, shaking my hand. He was so handsome it was almost intimidating. “I’m Ben. Welcome to the writers’ room.”

  I surveyed the group, a little wide-eyed at the thought of gainful writing employment. I’d never envisioned a writing career that included a steady, living-wage paycheck. “I’m Holly,” I replied, waving to the rest of the group. “You’re all writers for the show?” There had to be eight of them, which was blowing my mind. It took eight people to create Daisy’s bubble-gum dialogue? Considering their highbrow topic of conversation when I entered the room, I was willing to bet several of these people had Ivy League educations. The fact that they’d ended up here made me terrified for my own prospects.

  “The rest of these no-accounts, yes,” Ben replied, smiling. “I’m the production designer.”

 
I suddenly realized I was standing in front of Benji, interior designer extraordinaire. I couldn’t believe Faith had left out of her description how incredibly hot he was. No wonder all of her girlfriends wanted to hire him. “I’ve seen your work . . . on the stage and in the Dixson living room,” I said. “Faith is a huge fan of yours. What are you guys working on?”

  Ben laughed, blushing and looking away. So the hot guy was also humble. “The writers and I are trying to work around some of the location challenges.”

  “And why are you doing that in the middle of the night?” I asked.

  One of the men sprawled on a couch spoke up. “Because the cheap-ass producers only gave us a day to make changes. Tuesday’s the first day of shooting.” Until that moment, I had forgotten that we lost Sunday completely in the transatlantic voyage.

  A pretzel magically flew across the room and hit the man in the face. I realized it had come from the woman writer when she hissed, “And you shouldn’t talk like that in front of Daisy’s lackey. Keep running your mouth and we’ll all get fired.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Believe me, I’m not a tattletale.”

  “Right,” the woman said, heaving herself out of a chair. “Listen, Benji, you can flirt with the production puppet, but we’ve got to get some sleep. Pages are due by two P.M.”

  Grumbling, the writers all began to stand and file out of the room. Not one of them made eye contact or spoke to me as they left.

  Ben patted me on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about them. They’re just jealous that you work fewer hours and probably get paid a lot more.”

  Maybe I could befriend them by admitting that so far, I wasn’t getting paid at all. “Please, you don’t have to stay up on my account. Feel free to go to bed.”

  By way of an answer, Ben stepped back and gestured for me to enter. He crossed to one of the recently vacated couches. “I wish I could. I can’t sleep more than three hours with this jet lag.”

  “I didn’t know that was a thing until tonight,” I said, taking a seat on the opposite couch. I didn’t remember him from the plane, but then, there were only a handful of people in first class with Daisy. There must have been dozens of crew members I hadn’t seen yet. “I’m hoping it’ll wear off by tomorrow night.”