Not in the Script

by Amy Finnegan

  I give Rachel a tight, supportive squeeze. “I heard that her hips were actually mechanical and made of gold. Who could compete with that?”

  My mom laughs, which is a nice break from her usual glares of disapproval. That is, until she says, “You two should try to act like grown-ups once in a while. You might like it.”

  Rachel scrunches up her face. “I did try it once—a few summers ago—but it gave me hives. I think I’m allergic.”

  Dang, I love this girl.

  Rachel and I are always at our best when we’re goofing around, like we did all the time before tabloids, audition opportunities, and award-show swag bags began to dominate our conversations. I realize we can’t make jokes about hula hoops and lizards forever, but couldn’t we somehow return to … a better balance?

  Mom’s phone rings, so I tell her Rachel and I will be finishing up the boxes in my bedroom, and we head for the stairs.

  “Holy crap, Emma,” Rachel says as soon as she sees what I’d already accomplished on my own. “It’s like a giant marshmallow exploded in your room. What’s with all the white?”

  “Oh,” I reply, having earlier thought the room felt perfectly calm and peaceful this way. But now that I look at it as a whole, I get what she’s saying. So far I have a white four-poster queen bed with matching dressers, a white eyelet comforter set, and no kidding, swooping white curtains. I must have been in one of my clean-freak moods when I bought it all online. “I’ll have to add ‘brightly colored, fluffy pillows’ to my shopping list.”

  “Yeah, that and a few new posters of Brett!” she says with a playful nudge. “I saw some seriously delicious ones the other day.”

  I’m sure she did, but she still isn’t getting how desperate I am to desensitize myself to the actual, seriously delicious Brett. I’ll be working with him in just five days.

  “But why would I need that view when I already have this one?” I ask, and throw open my bedroom curtains to expose the gorgeous mountain range out my window. I had expected it to be totally flat here and covered by nothing but dirt and sagebrush. And, yes, there’s plenty of that in Tucson—and it feels like the sun is a million miles closer than anywhere else I’ve ever been—but here in Sabino Canyon, I’m a full twenty minutes away from the hot pavement of the city center. I even have a river out my back door. “Check out that sunset!”

  “Wow,” Rachel breathes. “It looks like someone smeared orange sorbet across the sky. I have got to capture this on film.”

  Rachel has been getting into photography this summer and she’s a real natural at it. She mostly just uses her phone to take photos of whatever inspires her, but then she manipulates them in ways that make them look like stunning digital art. Some of the so-called snapshots she’s taken of me are better than magazine covers I’ve been on.

  Her Twitter feed, which used to just be a constant stream of her latest thoughts on casting news, tabloid rumors, movies, and television shows, is now peppered with professional-quality images that she presents as perfect shooting locations for this or that upcoming film, or ideal mood-setting shots, such as this sunset. She’s even chronicled my move to Tucson, which has been half-fun, half-annoying, but her followers have doubled this past week, so I’m okay with it. They’ll soon see that there’s much more than boring old me to stick around for.

  “Marshmallows, ‘seriously delicious,’ and now orange sorbet?” I ask Rachel. “Either you didn’t eat enough today, or your sweet tooth is acting up.”

  “Definitely hungry again. Didn’t I also say that I wanted to eat bugs?”

  I laugh. “I thought you were talking about the lizards doing that.”

  She considers this. “Oh yeah.” She takes a few shots of the sunset from my window, says she can’t see enough of it from this view, then races for the door. “I’m gonna be a while!”

  With photos on my mind, I decide to start unpacking my big box of pictures. I unwrap the first frame to find a photo of Rachel and me in the English countryside last summer. We’re standing in the color-infused flower garden behind William Shakespeare’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and smiling like we’d found our motherland. I’d had a movie premiere in London earlier that week—for a historical-novel adaptation that I wished I could’ve lived in forever—so Mom let me splurge and bring Rachel along. The two of us spoke to each other in perky British accents the entire week, and my mother wanted to toss us into the Thames.

  It was my favorite vacation ever.

  We spent our days visiting dozens of sites that totally blew my mind, and at night we went to play after play in London’s West End, and were awestruck by the quality of the acting.

  I doubt I could ever perform live like that. I love that if I mess up on film, the director just says, “Cut! Go again!” and I can fix my mistake as if it never happened.

  How great would that be in real life?

  The next picture I unwrap is of my family. Levi and Logan, who are seven now, grin back at me with half their front teeth missing. I was an only child for over ten years, and I’m pretty sure my parents had meant to keep it that way. But whenever I get homesick, my brothers are almost always the reason. My heart twists a little, wishing they were here.

  I unwrap the next frame, but it’s the paper, rather than the picture, that catches my attention. Rachel packed some of these boxes for me, and although I’m grateful she sacrificed some of her tabloid collection to use as packing material, I notice the publication date on this particular issue of Celebrity Seeker and feel a stab in my side: March.

  Everything about last spring was … ugh.

  I tear through the rest of the box anyway and find the cover: EMMA LOSES TROY TO SAND SIREN. I never actually read this article, so I open the pages and force myself to do it:

  Poor, poor Emma Taylor. Her eyes are probably red and swollen today after learning that yet another one of her boyfriends has cheated on her. Troy Dawson, her beau of six months, was seen at the Santa Monica Pier this past weekend wrapped around another beauty in a barely there bikini.

  “He definitely wasn’t trying to hide anything,” reported an onlooker. “It was hard to tell whose hands were whose.”

  This shameless display in broad daylight supports recent rumors that the superstar relationship is on the rocks. “It’s about time Troy moved on,” said a friend of the young actor. “Emma is impossible to keep happy.”

  Another source claims she saw Taylor and Dawson arguing at a party the night before his fling on the beach. “I could hear Troy screaming at Emma over the music. She kept trying to calm him down and saying that they should leave.”

  This isn’t the first time Taylor has attempted to curb a boyfriend’s appetite for wild parties. It also isn’t the first time she’s failed to curb a guy’s appetite for other women. “For whatever reason, Emma can’t keep a guy faithful,” said a Hollywood insider. “And having three boyfriends in a row cheat on her, she’s gotta be wondering if she’s the problem, not them.”

  The conflict has yet to reach the boiling point. Taylor and Dawson still have another month of filming before their television series, The First Family, wraps for good. Heartthrob Dawson was brought on to play a love interest for Taylor’s character this season, likely to distract viewers from the real-life drama taking place behind the scenes between another Hollywood couple.

  That’s when I stop reading because my eyes are burning, and I refuse to cry even one more tear over Troy Dawson. The story is right about us arguing the night before he cheated on me, but I wasn’t trying to “curb his appetite” for anything. That particular night, another guy—who was one of my Mountain Home costars—gave me a big hug when he saw me. And then we had talked … too long, and too friendly, and too everything for Troy. He had acted overly possessive a couple of times before, but that night was the first time he yelled at me.

  I knew I wanted out right then, but I decided to cool things off slowly to draw less attention to the breakup. My apology—explaining how I knew the other guy,
and that he was ten years older than me—wasn’t enough, though, and Troy thought he could teach me a lesson by showing up on a full-page tabloid cover, playing his own version of Twister on the beach.

  That was nothing compared to what followed.

  I refused to take him back, so for weeks after we broke up he left creepy phone messages, saying he was watching everything I did, and he proved it by listing specific places I’d been. Then after his last day of work on The First Family, he chased me for over an hour, with me darting my car in and out of crazy L.A. traffic. I thought I’d ditched him, but when I returned to my aunt’s house, he was waiting in the driveway.

  I unrolled my window just an inch to try to defuse the situation, but he immediately started swearing at me, saying how stupid I was being, that I had started all this by flirting with other guys. “Come on, Emma. Get out. Let’s talk,” he said, finally in a calmer tone. But he’d held my arms so tightly before we left the studio, I could already see bruises forming. So I was scared to unlock the door.

  That’s when he tried to put his fist through my window.

  There was blood all over the broken glass, but I backed up and sped off again, too shocked and horrified to consider how badly he’d hurt himself. And I haven’t seen him since.

  I sometimes wonder if he’s more freaked out about what he did than I am.

  I realize I should’ve filed a restraining order, but I still can’t get past what feels like the equal threat of the media. Even now, tabloids would slap together whatever pieces of the puzzle they could find, filling in the missing details with pure, tantalizing fiction. They would dig up photos of me looking weepy, terrified, or both—poor, poor Emma. And they would splash my face across every cover for weeks, alongside photos of Troy looking cruel and menacing. But they would likely have to pull those from acting clips, since Troy so rarely shows that side of himself in public.

  He’s always the charmer. Always the guy every girl wants.

  Exactly the type of guy I’m fooled by.

  “Emma,” Mom says from the doorway, making me jolt and scramble to my feet. She eyes me suspiciously. “The studio just called. Brett Crawford has a conflict with his appointment with the costume department next Monday, so he’ll be there during your time tomorrow morning. I just thought I should warn you.”

  What? No way.

  “Let’s reschedule,” I reply. “I think I’m getting sick, and I’ll probably be worse in the morning. My hands are shaking. See?”

  They really are.

  “We’ve been through this Brett thing—you’re over him, remember?” she says. “And you’ll have to meet him in a few days anyway. It might as well be tomorrow.”

  Why? So she can be there to stop me from swooning?

  I fall back onto my bed like dead weight. “It isn’t Brett,” I reply, because it isn’t, not really. I shouldn’t have read that article, a stabbing reminder that being in the “public eye” gives tabloids the legal right to share my every mistake, mishap, and humiliation with the world, for the sake of entertainment. “I just suddenly feel like crap.”

  “Ill, Emma. You feel ill.”

  “No, I feel crappy.” This is only a fitting. Costumes can work me in another time, right? “Why don’t I just swap times with Brett and go Monday when he was supposed to?”

  Mom comes over to check my forehead, like all good mommies should do. “You are a bit clammy.” Her dark brows pinch together. “But calling back after I’ve already said you’d be fine with sharing your time might make you seem high maintenance—and no one likes a diva. So I surely hope you’re not faking this.”

  I wish I was. I would rather be known as a diva than poor, poor, Emma Taylor, the girl whose dating life is perfect fodder for the tabloids.

  Rachel returns right then and immediately notices what my mother hadn’t. “Oh my gosh!” she says, rushing for the cover of Celebrity Seeker and stuffing it back into a box. “I didn’t realize this story was in the stack of tabloids I brought to your house. I’m so sorry!”

  I shrug and shake my head, like it doesn’t matter, and glance at my mom. I expect her to say something along the lines of “Heartbreak is not a legitimate reason to cancel an appointment.” But she just walks over to my box of photos, finishes unwrapping the frames while Rachel sits on the bed and tries to cheer me up, then leaves the room with a big box of toxic waste in her arms.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I say as she shuts the door. And I mean it.

  About thirty minutes later, Rachel presents me with a gift so awesome that I’m sure we’ll laugh about it for years to come. She’s used her mad photo-editing skills to cut off the head of the barely there bikini girl and put Troy’s head in its place.

  “Look at his scrawny little arms!” I say when I finally catch my breath. “But he looks surprisingly good in pink. And I love those itsy-bitsy polka dots you added.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Rachel replies. “Because I just anonymously posted it online, and it will probably go viral.”

  Jake

  Only a few weeks after my first meeting with Steve McGregor, I’m walking into Desert Productions Studios in Tucson. The entire cast and crew should be on set today. I check in with security and am escorted through the main doors to where a production assistant gives me a schedule and a hanging name tag: JAKE ELLIOTT, CAST.

  A guy I recognize right away as Brett Crawford is talking on his phone just a few steps from me. “No, seriously,” he says. “I do remember you! I just forgot your name for a sec.”

  While listening for a reply—I can hear a girl’s high-pitched, flirty tone from here—Brett rolls his eyes and laughs. To himself, it seems. “Tonight? Ah, dang! I’m not in L.A., or I’d totally come over.” He notices that I’m watching him and shakes his head at me with a look of terror on his face, as though he’s trying to tell me she’s scary.

  Brett is so loud that even after I turn away and walk toward the main area of the studio, I can still hear him say, “Sorry, gotta go! They need me on the set … yeah. Yeah, of course. I’ll call you later.” Then somehow, he’s right next to me again, slapping a hand on my shoulder. “Chicks, man. They’re crazy. I have no idea how she got my number.”

  I stop and look at him. “Caller ID?”

  “Nah. I’ve never called her. We hooked up at a party … I think.”

  This guy has mastered the art of first impressions. I start walking again, and he follows. “Was she ever alone with your phone?” I ask.

  “Uh … I might’ve left it sitting around while I grabbed some drinks or whatever?”

  “Then that’s probably when she used it to call her own cell,” I explain.

  Brett thinks this over as if he’s doing long division in his head. “Dude, I hadn’t even thought of that,” he says. “No wonder I get calls from girls I can’t remember meeting.”

  Several minutes later, Brett is finally finished giving me a tour of his big-time-famous career—as a player, that is. When I spot the row of cast chairs lined up in front of what looks to be a classroom set, I take my designated seat, and Brett says, “Wait, I thought you were crew!”

  Taking a chance that he can actually read, I hold up my name tag.

  “Oh!” More laughter. “I didn’t recognize you—fully clothed, I mean. You look different than you do in those Abercrombie ads.”

  “Armani,” I say. For a second, I think I might punch him. I’ve only done a few shirtless ads, but they’re all people seem to remember. Brett is making an attempt at male bonding, though, and I’m being a jerk, so I add, “Abercrombie requires full exposure of a guy’s eight-pack, and I draw the line at six.”

  He finds this comeback hysterical—or if the last fifteen minutes is any indication, he laughs at everything anyone says to him—and starts into anecdotes he’s collected during his many years of doing photo shoots. I turn my attention to more interesting things.

  From the street the studio looks like a massive warehouse, but the interior is more like a gig
antic house that’s been turned inside out. The exterior walls of each set are rough with exposed two-by-fours, plywood, and electrical wires. Furniture and smaller props are scattered everywhere I look. The air is infused with the smells of duct tape, lumber, and … chaos.

  Just from my viewpoint, I count over fifty crew members. The constant flow of movement reminds me of an amusement park on a busy day.

  The crew hauls around equipment and props, and sets up cameras and lighting. Assistant directors and department heads are easy to spot—they’re the ones talking nonstop and pointing fingers in all directions. Then there’s Steve McGregor, shooting between sets like a torpedo. Two-way radios and earpieces are glued to pretty much everyone.

  The only cast member I’ve met before today is Kimmi, and once was enough. She had caused the costume department to be an hour behind schedule when I showed up for my fitting. I’d overheard McGregor trying to calm the costume designer—he said it wasn’t easy to dress a pit viper with legs—then Kimmi had stormed out of the room, nearly bulldozing me, and said, “These people are impossible to work with.”

  McGregor now stops in front of where Brett and I sit and scans over the cast chairs. “Where are the girls?” he asks no one in particular.

  A production assistant appears out of thin air—PAs seem to be everywhere, all at once—with folded papers sticking out of both back pockets, a radio in one hand, and a clipboard in the other. “There was a transpo issue with Miss Taylor,” he says. “We hadn’t been cleared at her security gate to pick her up, and we had a wrong cell number. But we got it sorted out.”

  McGregor keeps his hard stare locked on the guy. “And Kimmi?”

  The PA speaks into his radio. “Anyone have eyes on Kimmi?” A few seconds later the radio blurts something about heads flying because her dressing room isn’t ready, and the PA replies, “Copy that.” He starts to answer McGregor, then stops to motion in the direction of a tirade making its way toward us. “I think we just found her.”