Lost in Scotland

by Hilaria Alexander

  “Just Sam,” I replied. My name was too long of a story to get into. Thanks, Mom. Sometimes I wished I could switch with Amira. Sure, it was still an ethnic name, but I always felt it would have suited me better than my sister, especially with my hair and skin tone.

  “Are you guys going to the pub?” Jake asked.

  “Sure we are! Let’s go!” Cecilia exclaimed excitedly, turning around to wink at me. I rolled my eyes and hoped it was just going to be one pint as she’d promised.

  Cecilia told me that St. Martin, the town where we were staying, was an old fisherman’s village on the East coast of Scotland and had been a ghost town for years. Locals had moved to bigger cities over the last thirty years, and the town was mainly rented by movie companies. She said that the staff of Game of Thrones had stayed in the townhouses we were occupying during season two and part of season three. The locals understandably loved the influx of cash big production brought in, and they were very welcoming of the casts and crews. It was a nice change of pace for the usually quiet town.

  As a huge group of us left the building—an old movie theater that had been converted and was being used for the town’s assemblies—I took in the atmosphere around us. It was so cheerful, it looked as if school had let out for the year. There was palpable excitement and joy, and everyone had big, happy smiles on their faces.

  It finally hit me.

  Working on this show was a big deal—a huge deal. First of all, it was a co-production between the US and the UK, and according to the projections, the show was going to be a hit. It was a mix of fantasy, romance, and adventure. The main hero was a warrior, a dragon slayer, and, from what I’d read, a bit of a Casanova. I was still working my way through book one. If shows like Game of Thrones and Outlander were any indication, this was going to be a worldwide phenomenon. The fans of the books were hardcore about the series, and according to what everyone kept telling me, the actor cast in the main role was hot as hell. I still hadn’t Googled him since my cellphone reception was spotty at best—though, surprisingly, it had worked when I was FaceTiming with my mom. Anyway, as I slowly started pulling my head out of my own ass, I realized how lucky I was to be there. In Scotland.

  Working on a mega production.

  Which had been my dream before I’d gotten “stuck” working on primetime TV.

  Before I graduated, my dream had been to work on movie sets. In fact, my degree was in prosthetics and special effects.

  But then when Eric and I got together and got serious so fast, it was hard to stay away from Los Angeles. A year into our relationship, I had the chance to go work on a movie set in Morocco. Like the fool I was, I turned it down. I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to leave Eric. It didn’t help that he begged me to stay, and I decided to turn the opportunity down. So stupid. For a while, I used my degree and worked on special effects in California, but when other states started offering big tax breaks, a lot of productions moved elsewhere, and I started missing out on a lot of good opportunities.

  Going away to shoot on location wasn’t what I wanted anymore, and it didn’t help that Eric guilted me into staying. We were crazy about each other, and because I was young and stupid, I refused to listen to anyone who told me to put my career first.

  When Eric got his own show, it seemed only logical to start working with him, so we’d be on the same set. Hi, My Name is Georgia was about a quirky woman in her mid-thirties who shares an apartment with two guys, and after a one-night stand gone awry, she finds out she’s pregnant. Besides a couple scenes with a pregnant belly here and there, there was not a lot of room for special effects. I missed working on what I thought had been my strongest asset, but I loved being close to my man, supporting him and sharing everything with him. Eric kept telling me he wanted to get married, and that once he had a well-received show under his belt, we would eventually move in that direction. When the show was nominated for three Golden Globes, we all cheered and felt so relieved, and I hoped that soon enough he’d propose and put a ring on it—but then he had to go and ruin everything.

  Fucking bastard.

  I clenched my fists thinking about how much I still wanted to punch that lying, cheating motherfucker while I walked behind Cecilia and a few other members of the staff.

  She turned around and looked at me, eyes wide.

  “What’s with the murderous look, love?”

  “Nothing…I was just thinking about my ex-boyfriend.”

  “Ahhh. Lying sack of shit, hey?”

  “How did you know?” I asked her with a smile.

  “Aren’t they all? Fucking bastards—well, at least most of them. Did you give him a good bollocking?”

  “A good what?”

  “Did you make the bastard pay?”

  “Oh, yes. I made him pay, all right.”

  A smile stretched across her face, and it made her blue eyes light up even more.

  “Come on,” she said in a cheerful tone. “Let’s go get a drink and forget all about your wanker ex-boyfriend.”

  We spent the night with many of our coworkers and even met the senior makeup artists, Margaret and Blair, who were in charge of the male and female leads. Blair was a spitfire brunette with an amber complexion, while Margaret was tall, blond, and skinny…with a visible baby bump.

  “I’ve been attached to this project for a while, and my husband and I had kind of given up on the idea of getting pregnant,” she admitted. “I didn’t think it was ever going to happen…but then it did.”

  “How far along are you?” Cecilia asked. Margaret had to be at least five months, and shooting was scheduled to require eight months with just a short holiday break in the middle.

  “I’m twenty-four weeks along. I know what you’re thinking: how is this going to work? I already talked to production and they will have one of the other makeup artists fill in for me when the time comes. We’ll have to talk it out with the team and see who’s the best fit to substitute for me. It might even be one of you guys.”

  That sounded like a great opportunity, but I wasn’t that interested in having more responsibilities on set. I was just trying to cruise through the next few months without any accidents. After a while, we said good-bye to Margaret and Blair. Thankfully, I was able to drag Cecilia out of the pub before she ordered her third pint.

  We said good-bye to the rest of our team, knowing we had several long meetings about our schedules and assignments the next day. Before we left, the key makeup artist, Gertie, said something about “assessing our skills” in the next few days, whatever that meant. Was there going to be a test? Were they going to make us compete and see who was the best? I hated competition. I was good at what I did, but I wasn’t looking forward to being put up against any of my colleagues. I didn’t have a competitive bone in my body. Maybe if I did, I would have tried to win Eric back—not that the fucker deserved it.

  As Cecilia and I walked back to our place, I noticed a tall man with broad shoulders walk down the street. He was wearing a jacket that looked just like the one the guy I’d seen up on the mountains earlier in the morning had worn.

  I wondered if he was the same guy, and I grimaced, remembering how I had looked like a complete fool. Was he a local? Did he live here? Or was he here with our production? He hadn’t been at the orientation with the rest of us.

  Did that mean he was one of the actors?

  I hoped I would find out soon.

  Sam

  I woke up before my alarm that morning.

  That didn’t happen very often; usually, I loved to sleep in. I could only remember waking up early when I was about to start a new job.

  I was nervous.

  I was afraid to fail. Margaret and Gertie’s words had gotten me worried. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough after all, afraid what I had been doing the last few years was not enough. I didn’t know if they were going to use me for regular makeup or prosthetics and special effects.

  Just take a deep breath, Sam. You’ll do fine.

&nb
sp; I was happy to be there, grateful to be given the opportunity, but I did feel lonely. I couldn’t help but miss my family and friends. I wanted to call my dad, especially after I found a note from him wishing me luck, but it was the middle of the night in LA.

  Cecilia’s bedroom door was open. I peeked in and saw she was still asleep.

  I took a shower and got dressed, and when I went downstairs to the kitchen, Cecilia was dressed and chipper, sipping on a cup of tea.

  “I wanted to make you a cup of tea, but something told me you’re a coffee person.” She winked, and I smiled at her.

  “You got that right!” I turned on the coffee machine and checked the time to make sure we weren’t running late.

  “Is our first meeting at nine?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, stifling a yawn.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I couldn’t go to sleep last night, even after the day we had. Usually, I pass out when I’m tired and have something to drink, but nooooo…I don’t think I fell asleep before one o’clock.”

  “Why couldn’t you go to sleep?”

  “I don’t know…I guess I was nervous. I am nervous,” she admitted with a shy look and a shrug of her shoulders.

  I smiled, suddenly feeling better. It wasn’t just me—Cecilia had first day jitters, too.

  “Can I tell you a secret? I’m super nervous, too.”

  She smiled, looking relieved.

  “You know what we’re going to do?” I asked.

  “What?” She looked up at me from her cup of tea, her blue eyes bright and curious.

  “When we get back tonight, we’re going to start making this place our home.”

  “So, in the end they did test us! Those slags!” Cecilia laughed.

  “What does slag mean?” I asked, rubbing my hands against each other. I had forgotten my gloves. Dumb move, Sam.

  Cecilia gave me a sly look. “It means…bitches!” We both laughed, glad the day was over. We had been in meetings for over four hours, and then we’d done a few “test runs” to see how well we worked on prosthetics versus regular makeup.

  It had been a long day. During the meetings, we went over our schedules for the next few days and all the things that needed to be organized before we would start shooting. We learned that the actors had already been there for a week so they could start training for horseback riding and sword fighting. Most of them had a lot of action scenes, and even though there were always stuntmen available, the majority was probably willing to do most of their stunts. Gertie told us we had two more weeks for rehearsals before we’d officially start shooting.

  In the next few days, we would get to meet the actors and would be told whom we were working with. Makeup artists like me and Cecilia had a list of actors we’d work on along with the extras for each day.

  Speaking of the cast, why had we not met a single actor yet? They’d had some extras come in for our “test.”

  “They seem to be particularly precious with the cast, don’t you think? How come we haven’t met any of them yet?”

  Cecilia shrugged. “Well, we met them the other day at the party. You weren’t here yet. It is a bit weird, though, you’re right. They’ve probably been too busy training. I heard some of them had never been on a horse, and they have barely two weeks to master that.”

  “That’s not a whole lot of time.”

  “It isn’t, and on top of that, they must learn to sword fight and stuff like that. Have you looked at our schedules for tomorrow? We might get to meet some of them. I think I saw something about a screen test.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “So, what’s making you so fidgety? Are you that impatient to meet McHottie? That’s it, innit?”

  “McHottie?” I frowned.

  Cecilia pulled out her phone and showed me a picture of a shirtless dude with at least twenty pounds of muscles on his arms. “Yes, silly! McHottie. The star of the show. This guy!”

  I leaned in closer and studied his face. Straight nose, piercing blue eyes, strong jaw. Yep, I recognized him. It was the guy I’d met on my failed hike.

  “He is the star of the show?”

  “The very same,” Cecilia said with a long sigh.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “You haven’t looked Hugh MacLeod up yet? Bloody hell, Sam! You need to study up!” she said, giving me a playful slap on the arm.

  “I’ve been…preoccupied.” More like my head had been somewhere else entirely. I felt as if my body was in Scotland, but my mind hadn’t caught up yet. Between jet lag and training, I felt like a spaz. Plus, to be completely honest, I was still nursing my wounds. It had been months—when was the bitterness of my breakup going to go away?

  “What the bloody hell is that?” Cecilia asked as I opened a package from Amazon a day later.

  “Watch and learn, young Brit. This is called a Crock-Pot.” I pulled the black pot out of the box and placed it on the counter.

  “And what are we doing with that?”

  “We’re cooking.”

  “In that?”

  “Yep.”

  “You know, when I said we should make this place a home, I thought we would go down to IKEA in Edinburgh and pick out a few throw pillows. I never thought it would involve cooking.”

  “I saw a nice little market not far away from here. They probably have local produce and—oh, are you vegetarian or vegan?” She shook her head no. “We can have some nice stew cooking for us while we’re still at work, and then we’ll come home and ta-da! Dinner is served.”

  She rolled her eyes as if I was missing something. “Two words, young American: catering service. We don’t have time to cook, Sam, or even have a life by the look of things—not for a long time. We’re going to be working ten to twelve hours a day, five days a week.”

  “You’re right, but aren’t we going to get tired of catering services? It’ll be nice to have a home-cooked meal every once in a while, you’ll see.”

  “Whatever. I’m going to see if I can order throw pillows from IKEA and maybe a cozy blanket,” she replied, waving me off.

  “We’re just going to show her how wonderful you are,” I said out loud, talking to the Crock-Pot. I was talking to inanimate objects…yeah, I needed a drink.

  The next morning, I got up early again. It wasn’t even light outside; I figured I was still jet-lagged. I had only been there a couple days, and I had yet to sleep eight hours straight. Cecilia’s door was closed, so I went downstairs as quietly as I could.

  I put my sneakers on and got the warmest jacket I had. I grabbed my gloves, shoved them in my pocket, and headed out. I wanted to run, but I hadn’t scouted out a good place to do that. I decided to go on a walk and study the area where I was going to live for the better part of the next year.

  A gust of chilly wind blew in my face just a few seconds after I headed out, waking me up completely. I started walking as fast as my legs could go. I didn’t have a set destination in mind, but I found myself at the bottom of the trail I’d checked out a few days prior.

  As I watched the valley in front of me and felt the wind blow through my hair, I thought about the feeling of recklessness when you go down a hill on your bike—the wind on your face, the feeling of lightness. I thought about going fast and feeling like you could crash any minute if you weren’t careful enough. When it came to dangerous stunts, that was as far as I’d go: going fast, down a hill, on a sturdy bike. Overall, I had always been a safe person. Maybe it was because I was the oldest and always felt I needed to watch out for my siblings. I never felt the need to be reckless; out of the three of us, I was the nurturing one.

  Amira was the true daredevil of the family.

  A lot of times, I would go along just to make sure she didn’t get into any trouble. Soon, Rob followed her lead, even though he used to be a real crybaby when he was little. He had sure gotten over that—these days he was all about extreme sports.

  He spent all his time exercising, lifting
weights, doing yoga, and rock climbing—which was kind of surprising since he was one of those techy developer guys. Rob developed apps, and although he still hadn’t come up with something as big as Snapchat, I was sure it was only a matter of time before his big break would come.

  Amira always said that Rob was the perfect package: smart and good-looking. As much as I hated to even remotely think of my brother that way, I had to admit she was right. If only we could find guys that were as handsome and smart as him.

  Unfortunately, finding someone worthy of her time seemed to be hard even for my sister, the movie star. In truth, Rob was no saint. He was just like all the other men—a goddamned player.

  When the three of us got together, we basically tortured him, lecturing him about not being just another douchebag on the dating scene.

  I laughed to myself, realizing just how much I missed my brother and sister.

  I hadn’t thought I would feel this way so soon, and I wondered if it was just because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see them for a while. I had no idea what my actual schedule was going to be for the next few months or if I would be able to go home at all.

  Maybe I could get them to come visit me. Rob would love Scotland.

  I had no idea what Amira’s plans were for the holidays. It seemed that every single year she was in the running for some award, so she always spent November and December promoting a new movie or campaigning for a prize. A lot of times, we had to fly across the country around Thanksgiving or Christmas in order to spend a holiday all together. Our parents were divorced, but somehow we still managed to get along. The willingness to make it work was one of the things I loved the most about my mom and dad.

  Anwar and Kathleen Farouk decided to split up when I was eighteen, and it took all of us by surprise. Amira and I were pretty self-absorbed with our teenage lives, and Robert was just a kid. We didn’t understand why. Our parents hardly ever fought, and our father worshipped our mother, treated her like a goddess who walked on water. At the time, Amira was fifteen, and Robert only thirteen. He was the one who took it the hardest; it was no wonder he didn’t care about being in a committed relationship. We were all in shock for weeks and felt hopeless.