by Lucy Lambert
Vance, popular as he was, needed a comeback picture. A good guy repentance film to wash the bad taste of last summer out of the film going public’s mouth.
Of course the film had him fighting these quintessential bad guys.
I wished so much that I could read the script. Or better yet, somehow jump forward in time and watch the film.
In my wildest fantasy, I found myself walking the red carpet when the movie opened, arm in arm with Vance Tracker…
“You okay?” Danny asked. He knelt beside the crate, pulling the remaining banners out. “Don’t go crazy on me now. This shoot’s going to last all summer! I don’t think Mitch would give me another partner as cute as you.”
“Or one who’s not afraid of heights?” I said back. I tried to ignore the cute bit. I knew Danny had a bit of a crush on me. And he was nice enough, but not my type.
In fact, I didn’t even want to have a type. Not for a while, at least. I wanted to concentrate on myself, on my education and my career, not on a relationship, not on a man. Especially after my last breakup.
But I didn’t want to think about that, or him, either.
“That, too,” he said.
I didn’t even mind scooting up the high ladder, the evil red banner draped over one shoulder. I hung it on the pegs installed by the carpentry crew and let it unfurl down the false wall.
Danny stood at the bottom of the ladder, holding it steady and staring up at me.
Mitch saw, and gave us a double thumbs-up.
I paused at the top and looked down. The tiniest tinge of vertigo spun in my head and stomach before going away. Even being up so high, the ceiling of the warehouse still vaulted a good dozen feet or more over my head.
Cool, dry air issued from an overhead vent in the ductwork, tugging and teasing at my hair.
We got all four installed by the time daylight spilled in through the side entrance and Vance came in.
I looked over at him, taking in his new costume. He wore an old-fashioned, WWII combat uniform that flattered his broad shoulders and narrow waist.
Yes, whoever cast him for this movie was a genius.
Another man, tall and thin wearing normal street clothes stepped in. He lifted up what looked like a big professional Nikon and began taking snaps of the set.
Some journalist doing a piece on the production of the film for the numerous film news websites, magazines, and papers. A fairly common sight at most shoots.
I almost didn’t see the last banner I hung start slipping off its pegs.
“Erin!” Danny shouted, pointing at the thing I’d already noticed.
I didn’t think; I lunged, shifting my weight to the right. I caught the banner before I could fall, the smooth fabric wrinkling in my fist.
“Got it!” I said, triumphant. Up this high, my voice carried farther than intended.
Pretty much everyone in the warehouse, from the carpentry crews putting the finishing touches on the castle walls to Vance and that journalist, all looked up at me,
Looked up in time to see that in my haste I made a fatal error. I shifted too much too quickly, and Danny, who’d taken a hand off the ladder to point, couldn’t stop me from tipping.
Tipping and falling something like twenty five feet straight to the concrete floor of Stage 9.
The ladder listed drunkenly until it stood balanced on only one leg.
My heart dropped into my stomach like a hard, heavy rock. I caught a glimpse of Mitch, both fists buried in his hair like he wanted to tear it all out.
I leaned over to the left as hard as I could. It was too much. I’d over-corrected.
The ladder fell down onto both feet and then leaned in the other direction. I see-sawed twice more like that, the final time the upper ends of the ladder leaving their spots against the fake wall.
I stood balanced like the world’s tallest, most inexperienced stilt walker.
I could taste the copper tang of rushing blood at the back of my mouth.
I’m not going to make an appearance on the red carpet. I think the only ceremony in my future is the Darwin Awards.
“Help!” I shouted. Or just thought. I wasn’t sure which.
Below, people swarmed about in unruly chaos. Troy Sanders screamed for some order but got drowned out.
The journalist’s camera flashed again and again.
I started tipping backwards. I leaned forward against it. Not enough to put me back safe against the wall, but enough to stop the fall. I did it all on instinct.
“Get out of the way!” someone said. My brain on autopilot didn’t recognize the voice.
I started my slow backwards fall again. I leaned forward, but couldn’t break the momentum a second time. I kept going backwards.
This time the sickening feeling of vertigo swept over me unabated. Unable to blink, I watched the crenelations of the castle wall drift away.
Then the ladder stopped with a jerk and a jolt. My knuckles went white around the knurled top rung.
The ladder tilted forward and hit the wall hard enough to shake the whole set piece.
“It’s okay, you can come down now, Erin!”
That voice, I know that voice.
Some part of me wanted to remain frozen at the top. The rest of me wanted the hell down from that place, right now.
I climbed as quickly as I could. My entire body shuddered badly with the hot and cold rushes of adrenaline.
“I got you.” A hand took mine and helped me down off the ladder.
Everyone started clapping.
Should I take a bow or something? I wondered, still confused and shocked. Then I looked and saw my savior. Vance still held my hand. He wore an Allied uniform that made him even more dashing than usual.
“You’re safe now,” he said, when he saw me come back to my senses.
I couldn’t say anything. White-hot embarrassment filled up my chest and stomach. I wanted to run and hide somewhere. Jump back on a bus or plane to Maine and forget about all this.
Another overreaction on my part, but it had its attractions.
“Thanks,” I said.
Mitch shoved his way through the crowd and I braced myself for the tongue lashing of a lifetime. Instead, he just hugged me. He smelled of nervous sweat and cheap aftershave.
When he let go, Vance hugged me too. He was solid beneath that uniform. He smelled of more expensive aftershave—something with leather or sandalwood—and clean laundry from his uniform.
And, if I could fall into a moment of fangirlishness, he smelled of what dreams were made of.
That camera kept flashing.
“This is the second time I’ve saved you today,” Vance said. He still held me, and only I heard him. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were doing it on purpose.”
Oh right, he’s a jerk. How could I forget?
“Thanks again,” I muttered, pushing away from him.
Mitch found me a few minutes later. I loitered by the craft services table, slowly working through a ham sandwich on rye.
I didn’t really taste it. My mind kept flashing back to my near-death experience. And also to the way that Vance’s arms felt around me.
Mitch put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, I think you better head on home for the day.”
My stomach dropped out again. “Are you… am I… am I getting fired?”
Realization flashed across Mitch’s face. “No, no, of course not. It’s just that Troy and I think you’ve had a long day and that maybe you need some rest.”
I started to disagree. Started to say I had more energy than I knew what to do with. But my body chose that moment to crash from its adrenaline high. Exhaustion settled deep in my bones, so heavy that I put a hand on the plastic tabletop to hold myself up.
“I wanted to see the filming,” I said, needing to put up at least a token denial.
Mitch smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get a peek at the footage. Go. Now.”
Being in my senior year, I no long
er lived on campus. Instead, I rented an apartment with three other girls in Brentwood. I could walk or bike to school from there, and it was close to other necessities like Starbucks.
I had to bus back and forth from the movie studio, but I didn’t complain. Working on movies was the whole reason I came out here.
Though the beautiful weather and the beaches didn’t hurt.
None of my roommates were in when I opened the door. Good, I thought. We usually talked for a bit and I just didn't have the energy.
I kicked off my shoes, leaving them in the disorderly pile of boots and sandals and tennis shoes by the door.
I bee-lined for my bedroom, like a goose migrating for warmer climes. I’d never been so exhausted after a shoot before and I knew exactly why.
Two words. Vance. Tracker.
I pitied anyone who worked with him directly. If I felt this way after a single day, how did someone like Troy get up every day at four A.M. to do it all over again?
I pulled my cell out of my pocket as I entered my room. I smiled when I saw my bed. Nothing special - an IKEA frame to go with the rest of my IKEA ensemble which consisted of a small dresser, a nightstand, and a reading lamp.
But it was mine. And when I fell down onto the duvet, which I hardly used in the heat, I thought it fit for a king.
I managed to set an alarm for a few hours from then on my phone, which I dropped on my nightstand, before my suddenly leaded eyelids slammed shut.
Will he be in my dreams? I wondered.
If I did dream of Vance, I couldn’t remember it. For which I was thankful.
I woke up to pounding on my bedroom door and the buzz-buzz-buzz of my alarm. In my half dreaming state, I thought it was a monster battering itself against the gates of my castle. And my castle had walls of wood painted to look like stone and I just knew any second they would break…
“Erin! Hey! You in there?”
I stirred. I’d slept with the side of my face planted against my pillow. My hair stuck to my face when I did a half push-up and then rolled onto my side so that I faced my nightstand.
“Yeah, sorry, I’ll kill the alarm,” I said, my voice hoarse and froggy. I grimaced at the taste in my mouth.
“I thought you were dead in there or something!” It was my roommate Mandi. The door between us muffled her voice. She worked nights over at a warehouse and guilt flooded my stomach when I thought about accidentally taking some sleep from her.
I brushed at the hair stuck on my cheek while I sat up. “Not yet,” I said.
I grabbed at my phone, meaning to turn it off. I looked. It wasn’t my alarm, but a call coming in. Unknown Name, it said, with an LA number I didn’t recognize underneath the blank grey portrait the phone always displayed in such circumstances.
It doesn’t look like a telemarketer… I thought. It wasn’t a 1-800 or 1-888 or whatever.
I rubbed at a crick that started in my neck when I saw up. I looked down and saw I slept in my clothes and sighed. The phone continued buzzing in my hand.
Curious, I answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Erin.”
My body stiffened like someone replaced my spine with a steel rod. I sat speechless on my bed, breath held.
“…Erin?”
“Vance? Mr. Tracker, I mean.” The initial shock gone, I pushed up off my bed and went over to my closet, which was the kind with two huge mirrors on its sliding doors.
I started straightening my hair, pulling my fingers through the curls in a crude comb. I wiped at the sleep in the corner of my eyes. I did this until I realized that Vance couldn’t see me through the telephone.
My shoulders drooped and I shook my head at my own ridiculousness.
“Just Vance is fine,” he said, and I could hear his smile.
“Why… what… uh…” I said. Great, really articulate. Bet I’m impressing the hell out of him.
Except I didn’t want to impress him. Did I?
My brain was still too fuzzy with sleep think any deeper than that. I took a breath, pinching the bridge of my nose while I did. It helped. A little.
“Mr. Tracker, is there something I can help you with?” I said, trying to make it clear in the tone of my voice that I had no idea what I could possibly help him with that either one of his assistants or the director or any number of other people could help with better.
He chuckled. It was a pleasant sound, even over the phone. Deep and resonant and I wondered how it might sound in person.
“Nothing you can help me with, actually. I called to check on you.”
My cheeks became ripened tomatoes of redness. All the little foggy tendrils of grogginess still digging into my mind disappeared like morning mist on a lake under the sun.
I stared my reflection in the eyes. Reflection-Me’s eyes sparkled with a girlish delight that I resented.
In that reflection, I saw a star struck girl on the verge of bursting at the seams at the idea of speaking to a real life movie star like Vance Tracker on the phone.
“Oh, well, thank you. I’m fine, actually. Totally fine. Just a bit tired.”
“Right. You seemed a little irritated that I saved you from becoming a woman-shaped pancake on the floor. I’m also checking up on you for me, you know.”
I frowned. “And why is that?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to make you mad enough to manhandle me like you did with Linda. There won’t be any beer bottles on set anymore, by the way.”
Is he flirting with me? No, there’s no way. He’s just being nice. Or pretending to be nice, like he’s so good at doing.
“Well,” I said, “I am fine. Thanks for the call. I’ll see you on set, Mr. Tracker.”
“Erin…” He started. I cut him off.
I sat on my bed and looked down at my phone, which I held on my lap. Sleep had wrinkled khakis and my shirt. That was okay, I’d picked up a few sets when I knew I was starting this PA position.
Then I looked at my phone again. The screen darkened, about to go to sleep. I thumbed it so it brightened again.
Without the call taking priority over the rest of the phone, I saw the call log. The little red square with the 10+ in the corner showing all the missing calls.
I checked them. Most were from a private caller, starting about half an hour ago. The last group, six in all, were all from the number I’d seen before answering and discovering it was Vance.
There were no messages from the previous calls. No texts.
I tried going back to sleep. I’d gotten home around five and passed out right away. My phone read a quarter after nine in the evening.
I could still feel the tiredness inside me. Not quite as deep as before, but still lingering there, still weighing on me. But weighing more like a sheet instead of the suffocating blanket it had been.
But a confluence of factors stopped me.
First, I couldn’t get comfortable. I tossed and twisted and turned. I contorted my body into pretzels, let this arm or that leg dangle over the edge. Nothing. The longer I lay still the more restless I became.
Second, hunger. Like I sad, I’d come home at supper. My stomach, awakening to this fact, became a complaining, aching ball inside of me.
And finally, third: Vance Tracker. Or his telephone call, at least. Why did he do it? Was it really him who called all those times?
Those questions bounced around in my head like I’d shouted them at a canyon wall.
“Fine. Fine! I’m awake,” I said, acknowledging that sleep eluded me.
So I stripped down, threw on my bathrobe, and went hopefully to the washroom.
Why hopefully? Well, when you live in, around, or near LA in an apartment with three other women and only one bathroom, hope was all you could have.
Someone, whether Mandi getting ready for her shift, Jennifer frying her hair with a straightener, or Sam standing with her face an inch from the mirror while she applied mascara, was always there.
And I couldn’t discount myself. I took my fair share. Maybe
sometimes more.
This time, at least, the stars had aligned and I found the bathroom empty. Half an hour, a hot shower, and some me-time in front of the mirror later, I sat at our little dinette table with my laptop open in front of me.
I’d thrown on some sweats and an old but comfy Hard Rock t-shirt.
Mandi rushed in when I opened the door, wanting to get ready for work. The steam from my shower swirled and recoiled when it met the cooler air in the hallway.
It was well past supper time so I skipped and went straight for breakfast.
A milk-drowned bowl of Shreddies, the silver handle of the spoon poking out over the rim, sat on the table beside the laptop.
I leaned over it, ready to take a bite. The buzzer went off.
I waited, but no one else answered. It buzzed again. My stomach growled in complaint when I stood up.
I went to the intercom and answered. “Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Danny.”
“Good for you,” I said. Danny and I went to a few of the same classes and getting this assistantship together put us in that somewhere between acquaintance and friend zones. I’d had him back here after one day of shooting for some well-deserved espresso.
That was before I saw what a slacker he was.
And I was the one usually responsible for taking in all that slack.
He laughed nervously. “I thought maybe you’d want someone to talk to who could empathize, you know?”
“Did you?”
There was a bit of a pause. I guess he thought I’d be letting him up at this point.
“I, uh, I brought coffee.”
“You should have led with that one,” I said. I took a moment, then pushed the buzzer to let him in. Coffee sounded good. Especially coffee I didn't pay for.
Besides, talking to someone who could understand my situation did sound good.
No one really understood what making a movie meant. They didn’t see the sixteen-hour plus days that the cast and crew put in. They didn’t see how it took seventeen takes to get one small scene just right. They didn’t see the construction crews building elaborate sets, or the makeup artists or the costume designers or any of it.
Ever since I learned what film-making really meant, I resented audiences for walking out of theaters when the credits rolled.