VANCE: A Movie Star Romance

by Lucy Lambert

  Then I saw Linda. She stood off to the side, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed. She wore a blouse, the shirtsleeves rolled up, tucked loosely into some high and tight fitting khaki trousers.

  Her makeup and costume had her blonde hair in beautiful disarray around her shoulders. She also bore a nice black shiner on her left eye and a trickle of fake blood threaded down one cheek.

  She saw me looking and caught my eye. She smiled.

  It wasn’t a kind smile. Rather the opposite, actually. More like a got you smile. I didn’t think it possible, but my stomach tightened even more and seemed located somewhere beneath the floor rather than in my abdomen.

  Everyone took their places. Linda and two of the uniformed men went behind the set. The other man, an officer of some kind, his jackboots shiny and black, leaned with casual ease against the desk on set.

  Troy looked over at Brad, who glanced at the monitors receiving feeds from the cameras, and then gave a thumbs up.

  “Action!” Troy said.

  The camera on the dolly watched the big red door in the bunker. Someone knocked on that door.

  I felt like it should have been an impressive, booming knock that reverberated, but it wasn’t.

  They’ll just add it in post production, I thought.

  This was what I lived for. I loved being on set. Every nerve and fiber in me sang out. My cheeks hurt, and I realized I was grinning.

  “Come,” the uniformed man leaning on the desk said.

  The big door swung inward. Two German soldiers dragged Linda between them, each gripping an arm at the wrist and elbow.

  “Ah, the beautiful spy. Perhaps luckier for you if you had died in that fall,” the officer said in a German accent.

  The camera on the dolly tracked, following her progress across the set.

  The soldiers tossed her on the floor. Linda pushed herself up to her feet, her lovely hair hanging around her face.

  She shook that hair out of her eyes and then stared defiance at her enemy.

  I had to admit, she was good. I became so involved in the scene I almost forgot my job. I shifted my light a little. Not much. With the big filter on it pointing largely at the floor, diffusing its soft glow, it didn’t need a hell of a lot of moving.

  The officer looked at his henchman and dismissed them with a shake of his head. Then he grabbed a black riding crop – why did they always have riding crops? - and advanced on her.

  She took a step towards him and stopped.

  “Still some strength left in you. Good, good,” he said.

  He started walking around her, apparently taking her measure. I made the smallest adjustment in the light.

  I wished desperately to get my hands on the script. I wanted to know what was happening. Why it was happening. What was going to happen.

  But Troy Sanders was notorious for keeping his movies a secret. Almost to the degree of Spielberg or JJ Abrams. I’d even signed a hefty non-disclosure agreement before being allowed on set my first day.

  Linda turned as well.

  “You… God damn it!” She threw her hand up over her eyes like someone just flicked a bright light on in front of her face.

  Is this part of the script? I wondered. I didn’t think so. And there was something else, too. A sudden hurrying of my heart, a sick feeling in my stomach.

  It wasn’t Vance who insisted I come on set today. It was Linda.

  The German officer broke character, looking back at the director and shrugging. “What?”

  “Cut!” Troy said, “What is it, Linda? That was perfect!”

  A storm brewed behind Linda’s eyes, and for the second time I watched anger transform her from a beautiful young woman into something ugly.

  She stabbed her finger at me, the rest of the fingers on that hand clenched hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

  I tasted bile at the back of my throat. What now?

  “She blinded me!” Linda said, “She kept moving the light around. I couldn’t focus!”

  Here, the man in the officer’s uniform frowned. He was a character actor I didn’t know. He clearly had no idea what she was talking about.

  Troy looked at me, then back at Linda. He held up his hands, one still clutching his ubiquitous clipboard, in a supplications gesture, “I don’t think she could have with that particular light, Linda…”

  Linda didn’t want any of that. She wanted blood. Mine.

  “Are you calling me a liar? She kept moving it and it kept distracting me. She clearly has no idea what she’s doing, with the light or with anything else to do with making a movie. I want her gone, Troy.”

  Yet again I found myself the object of everyone’s attention, caught in the headlights. I felt like I couldn’t move.

  Except this time was different. This time there were witnesses. Witnesses other than Vance Tracker.

  It was a different mood. Everyone kept glancing at each other, giving little shakes of their heads. Even Troy and Brad, the director and the director of photography, shared a glance like that.

  “It had to be something else, Linda,” Troy said. “There’s no way the light she’s using could have distracted you.”

  Linda crossed her arms and grinned. The expression clashed with her beaten-up appearance. “So you are calling me a liar, then.”

  Now, instead of head shakes, I saw rolling eyes. Linda certainly already had the prima donna part of her celebrity personally down.

  “So fire her or I quit,” Linda said, “I don’t want her working on this movie, or any other one that’s not being filmed in her parents’ basement, ever again.”

  Troy didn’t say anything. Even from where I stood I could see his jaw tightening, could see the way his fingers gripped the clipboard.

  I could see him considering what she said.

  Even though they knew she was wrong about it, it might be easier just to get rid of me. If only to avoid any further blow-ups on Linda’s part.

  It wasn’t fair, but they had a movie to make. I could see all the pieces of this argument falling into place in the mind of Troy Sanders. He even snuck me a guilty glance, confirming it all.

  Again I got that feeling that everything was slipping away and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  “Be reasonable, Linda,” Troy said, apparently trying one final sally before giving in.

  “I’m being more than reasonable,” she replied.

  Well, this time I meant to do something about it.

  I swallowed against the lump in my throat. Now or never, I thought.

  I let go of the lamp and stepped around it. That lump climbed right back up my throat. It was my nervous heart trying to escape.

  Chapter 7

  VANCE

  I decided to go to the studio that morning on a whim.

  Well, a whim - and a hope that I might catch that cute PA again. Erin. Not just “PA.”

  I’d already worked out for an hour with my free weights. Had my breakfast, caught the early news.

  Saw the picture of me holding Erin spread all over the Internet.

  I smiled when I sat in my Corvette, the lights of my private underground garage spreading over the sleek cherry red paint job.

  Chevy had given me the car for free. I guess they saw it as advertisement for them if people saw me driving it around.

  It was funny, the richer and more famous I became, the more free stuff I got. Free cars, free clothes, free drinks and food. Well, free in that they didn’t cost me any money, anyway.

  I’d even had fans pay for my meals at restaurants, too. Expensive ones.

  Before the breakup with Sandra, anyway.

  My insides twisted at the thought.

  But then I thought of Erin again. I couldn’t get her out of my head, and I wanted to see the real thing instead of the picture in my mind’s eye.

  I turned the car on, and the engine growled and purred beneath the long hood. I pulled out, traveling down the pathway of my underground garage. Then I hi
t the button connected via Bluetooth to my garage door when I started climbing the ramp upwards.

  Soon I emerged into the light of the early morning, the sun a ribbon of angry red to the west.

  Even this early in the morning, Santa Monica Boulevard had a fair amount of traffic on it.

  My phone went off, playing the opening lines to an old Queen song called “I Want It All.”

  I tapped the answer button on my steering wheel, “Hey, Rudy,” I said.

  “Vee Man! Wasn’t sure if you’d be up or not,” Rudy, my agent, said. He’d been the one to land me my first few breakout roles and I’d stuck with him ever since. It was a good relationship.

  Or it used to be, anyway.

  “You know my schedule. I’ve been up a couple hours now. What’s up?” I asked.

  I could hear that tone in Rudy’s voice. That exploratory tenor that said he’d thought up something new. Something he found exciting and wanted to run past me right away.

  I used to like new and exciting. Not so much anymore.

  I could see him in my mind now, sitting in his office with his Italian loafers resting on his desk, one hand busy with the phone while the other twirled a pen in endless, lazy circles.

  I caught a red light at Rodeo Drive. I glanced at the sky and saw that before long the sun would be up over the horizon and glaring right into my eyes if I didn’t hurry things up a bit.

  “You and this chick from yesterday, that anything special?” Rudy said.

  Of course he saw the news, browsed the web. It’s his job! I thought. My first instinct was to protect Erin from Rudy’s influence, which was also something new and different.

  New, since Sandra and I split. I used to go along with whatever Rudy suggested, trusting him.

  It had taken me considerably longer than most to realize that you can’t trust anyone in show business.

  “No, nothing there,” I said.

  Rudy started saying something, but the light blinked down to green.

  I floored it.

  The five-hundred horsepower engine resting under the hood woke up. It roared.

  The traction control kicked on, but not in time to stop the back tires from screaming a little. The car blasted through the intersection.

  The big, invisible hand of momentum shoved me back against the bolstering of my seat, and I grinned. It felt good.

  I slowed before any irritable early shift cop could flag me down.

  “What was that last bit? I didn't catch it,” I said.

  “Said you guys look cute. Real cute. Hey, don’t enjoy that ‘vette too much. We don’t need that sort of story out there right now. Your comeback’s gonna be huge. Don’t let anything get in the way of it.”

  “Sure,” I said. I thought about Erin again, wondered if she was at the set yet. I wondered if she really was okay. Almost taking a big fall like that could shatter a person’s nerves for a bit.

  Yeah, because you really just want to make sure she’s doing okay. That’s all, isn’t it?

  “Vee Man, everyone loves a good comeback. Everyone. You thought you were big before? You’re gonna be bigger! Trust me on this. Vee, I got Fox and MGM and Paramount sniffing around just based on the rumors of how big Warhawk is gonna be!”

  Warhawk was the title finally settled on for the film. The research firm the studio hired said the word had good buzz. Named after some US warplane. Patriotic and macho, but hopefully not too macho to not get the women into the theater.

  Of course, getting women into theater seats was one of the reasons they’d cast me.

  “I know it,” I said. I didn’t need Rudy trying to blow smoke this early.

  “Hmm, that’s too bad about the girl. I gotta tell you, you guys look good. Real good. Better than you and Sandy…”

  “I don’t want to talk about Sandra, Rudy. I told you that already. I’m almost at the studio, so if you have a point, I think you should make it because I’m hanging up when I park.”

  I goosed the engine a little, knowing he could hear it. The Corvette rumbled its agreement.

  “Hey, sorry, man. Look, the buzz with you and this mystery girl is good. Real good. You know, I think she could be just the little push to really get you to the top. Meeting some cute little nobody on set like that? That’ll make everyone forget San… well, you-know-who. I can make the arrangements.”

  Then he went quiet. Rudy usually wasn’t quiet, and when he was he used to emphasize what he said. Give his words some sinking in time, I remember him calling it once.

  My first thought was outright refusal. I didn’t want to use Erin as another rung on my ladder back to the top.

  And this had so many echoes of what happened between Sandra and me.

  “Look,” Rudy said, apparently deciding that I took too long to think. “You’ll be doing both of you a favor. She’ll make you Hollywood’s sweet-hearted bad boy again instead of its black sheep, and she’ll be able to get work with any studio she wants after.”

  “After?” I said. My hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  “Yeah, after. After Warhawk smashes the box office, after you’ve finished all the interviews. After the two of you call it quits. More amicably this time. She’ll do for now, but people’ll want you in a power couple. Someone famous again. Like that Linda Campion you’re filming with. You want to be back on top, don’t you?”

  My jaw kept tensing. My fingers squeezed the hell out of the leather-wrapped wheel.

  I almost missed the turn to the studio lot. I slammed the brakes and nearly spun the ‘vette out. The tires squealed again.

  “What’s it gonna be?” Rudy demanded. “You want back on top, you want to put everything else behind you, or not? Because you’ve gotta start ASAP, my man. Like yesterday. Although I guess you did start yesterday, didn’t you?”

  My jaw clenched again, and I forced it to relax.

  “Well?” Rudy said.

  I walked onto the set and into a storm.

  “Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are?” Linda screamed at Erin.

  Even from here, I saw the red rage in Linda’s face. Her fair hair only made her cheeks redder, and the bit of fake blood running down one side didn’t help things.

  Erin stood her ground. Her ground happened to be a couple feet in front of Linda. She stood between the actress and a big, soft light pointed mostly at the ground designed to keep the shadows soft and diffuse.

  The rest of the crew just stared. On set drama was the juiciest drama, after all. No one even noticed me come in, not even the security guard by the door.

  I’m sure that there’d have been people recording on their phones, but thank God for small blessings, Troy Sanders was such a stickler for secrecy that he had everyone surrender theirs when they got to work.

  A few men in German uniforms milled around on the bunker set, looking decidedly absurd.

  I watched a little longer, seeing that Erin held herself in that same defiant way that she had back at the trailer.

  “Ms. Campion, I really am sorry, but it couldn’t have been my light that distracted you. Both Mr. Sanders and Mr. Mills agree.”

  At the mention of his name, our good director, Troy Sanders, swallowed heavily and looked at the floor. Mills, the DP, stared straight at his monitors as though trying to decide how best to frame the argument in camera.

  “Now you’re calling me a liar, too? You?” Linda said. She took a step towards Erin, narrowing the distance between them.

  It was designed to intimidate, to make Erin step back. She didn’t, which made Linda turn even redder somehow.

  I smiled, feeling a swell of pride.

  But then I decided to step in. It was clear Troy couldn’t control her. And even arriving late, I could tell that there was no way Linda had been blinded or distracted by Erin.

  Soon enough, Troy would decide the easiest way to solve the problem would be canning Erin, even if it wasn’t technically the moral thing to do. Path of least resistance and all that.


  I steadied myself, shook my shoulders, straightened my back, pulled at my leather jacket.

  Then I entered the storm.

  “Ladies! I’m gone for not even a day and everything descends into chaos,” I said.

  All eyes switched over to me. I didn’t mind. I was used to being stared at. You might even say it was my job, or something.

  Linda glared at me, her eyes narrowing in cold calculation. I saw then it was all an act: the rage and anger and yelling. All an act to get rid of Erin.

  But why? Is it really all because Erin had the gall to step in and stop her from braining me with that beer bottle? Or is it something else?

  Seeing the calculation in her eyes made me believe the latter. I didn’t like it.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” Linda said.

  “But here I am. Funny, that.” I smiled, one corner of my mouth going up a bit higher than the other. I could be calculating, too.

  “Hilarious,” Linda replied. She looked at Erin. “You’re still gone. He’s not saving you this time.”

  “I never asked him to save me,” Erin retorted.

  I lowered the pitch of my voice, taking a stab at something approaching privacy. “Linda, if we fired every PA that annoyed us, there wouldn't be any left after the first day of principal photography. Besides, she’s already been in the news…”

  “Thanks to you,” Linda cut in, eyes flashing.

  She would have been on some sort of news either way. Young Woman Falls on Set of New Vance Tracker Movie, I thought.

  “Sure, I guess,” I said instead.

  “Uh, do I get any input in this? I mean, it is my life and all,” Erin said.

  I stifled a flinch, instead shooting Erin a quick glance that said, If you want to keep this life then shut up!

  I had to give her credit; she wanted to keep going but instead kept her mouth closed. And good thing, too.

  Again, what Rudy told me entered my mind. I pushed it away. Not the time.

  Erin’s eyes burned twin holes in the back of my Ralph Lauren leather jacket.

  “Well, we can do without this one,” Linda said. She didn’t bother lowering her voice at all. She wanted everyone to hear all this.