Damage Control (The Hollywood Series Book 2)

by Jae

  “Ooh, that’s good. But I think you’d need something else to balance all the destruction and the chaos in the rest of the script. How about adding a love story?”

  “A love story?” Grace scratched her head. “Between who? There are no men in this script who’d make believable love interests.” In fact, the story focused mostly on the two young women’s struggle to survive, learning to overcome their class differences and their fears as they saved each other time and again.

  Amanda gave her a pointed look. “I wasn’t talking about one of the men.”

  “Oh.” Grace stared down at the screen. “Oooh. You mean…?”

  “Why not? I read only a little bit, but the chemistry between those two just jumps off the page. Didn’t you think so?”

  Grace clicked through a few pages and read bits and pieces here and there. Maybe Amanda was right. Very little was missing to make the audience believe that the two women were falling in love with each other while trying to survive the inferno. She rubbed her chin. “But wouldn’t that narrow the commercial appeal of the script?”

  “Maybe,” Amanda said. “But I think it might be worth the risk. It still wouldn’t be a lesbian movie, just a movie about two women who happen to be lesbians. I’d like to think that audiences could deal with that nowadays. I mean, just look at the episode we’re about to shoot.”

  “Right. I almost forgot that you and Lorena are supposed to be honeymooning in Vegas before you get involved in that case.”

  “Well, Detective Halliday and Dr. Castellano, not really Lorena and I, but a lesbian storyline on a prime-time TV show is a good indication that including a little same-sex romance in a script like this,” Amanda pointed at the screen, “is a viable option. Or do you think the writer would be adamantly against having a lesbian relationship in one of her scripts?”

  Grace tried to hide her grin. “No, she definitely doesn’t have anything against lesbian relationships.”

  “Good.” Amanda reached for her own script again and started mouthing the words, making little gestures, as if she were already getting into character.

  Grace watched her for a while. When Amanda paused at the end of a scene, she gathered her courage. “Can I ask you something?” She pitched her voice low so that the people surrounding them wouldn’t hear.

  With one finger between the pages, Amanda lowered the script. Her eyes twinkled. “No, I didn’t get a boob job; yes, the scar on my shoulder really is from a camel that was co-starring with me in a commercial, and no, I didn’t sleep with any of the producers to get the lead role in Central Precinct.”

  “Uh, thanks for that enlightening background information, but that’s not what I wanted to ask.”

  “So what did you want to know?” Amanda asked, now with a more serious expression.

  Grace nibbled her lip. “The woman who dropped you off at the airport earlier…”

  “Her name is Michelle.”

  Amanda’s tone was so soft that Grace didn’t need to ask the other questions running through her mind. Clearly, the tall woman wasn’t just a fling or a nice distraction between shoots for Amanda.

  “You didn’t know I’m a lesbian, did you?” Amanda asked.

  Grace shook her head. “Why do people always think it’s somehow tattooed on their foreheads and I should be able to tell?”

  “People?”

  “Jill.”

  “Aha. Well, Jill was deeply in the closet up until a very short while ago, but I never was. Every tabloid from here to New York City wrote about it when we first introduced the romantic storyline on Central Precinct.”

  “That may be, but I never read those gossip rags unless my mother brings them to my attention,” Grace said.

  Amanda shrugged. “Guess she missed those headlines.”

  Thank God. If her mother knew that she would be working with an actress who didn’t just portray a lesbian on TV but was gay in real life too, she would have been even more insistent about Grace pulling out of that lesbian show.

  They were silent for several moments, the muted conversations of other passengers and the hum of the engines filling the space between them.

  “Doesn’t it affect your career?” Grace asked after a while.

  “Me being gay?” Amanda leaned her head against the backrest and seemed to think about it. “Hard to say. I’ve never been in the closet, so I don’t know if it made any difference. Maybe it did. It took me forever to break out of commercials and tiny little walk-on roles. But in the end, it might have even helped me. When the powers that be were looking for an actress to play a lesbian detective, someone thought of me.”

  Grace considered it for a moment. “I doubt it would be like that for an actress in my genre. Tough, crime-fighting heroines can be gay, but the cute girl-next-door the hero is supposed to fall for? I think some people would have a problem with her being a lesbian.”

  “Well,” Amanda flashed a grin, “good thing you’re straight, then.”

  “Yes. Good thing I’m straight,” Grace repeated and went back to reading the script.

  God, what a day. Lauren felt as if she hadn’t slept in days as she pulled into the parking garage of her apartment building. One of her clients had been caught buying cocaine, so Lauren and her team had worked their asses off trying to control the damage to the singer’s career. When her cell phone started to ring, she jumped. “Jesus Christ!” She parked the car, turned off the engine, and then reached for the phone. If that was Marlene or a client, she might go ballistic.

  A glance at the display made her frown. It was an out-of-town number that she didn’t recognize. “Lauren Pearce.”

  “Hi, Lauren. This is Grace.”

  So it really was a client. Lauren smiled and released the seat belt. Well, she didn’t mind hearing from this particular client. “Hi. How are things going in Sin City?”

  “So far, so good.”

  “No ugly headlines for me to handle?” Lauren asked and grinned. “Drunken brawls in the hotel? Skinny-dipping in the Fountains of Bellagio? Losing millions in the casinos?”

  “We don’t have time for any of that. Oh my God, your father is a slave driver! He had us shoot eight pages of script today! Eight pages! If we have to do the same tomorrow, there will be a real murder to solve for Detective Halliday—even though she might be involved in the crime.”

  Chuckling, Lauren got out of the car. “Tell me about it. I grew up with that man.” More or less. Her father hadn’t been around much while she was growing up, always on location or traveling to promote a new movie. She closed the car door with more force than necessary.

  “Where are you?” Grace asked.

  Lauren started to wonder why Grace had called her. She didn’t mind at all, but Grace had never called her just to chat. Did she feel lonely in her hotel room in Vegas? “Just getting out of my car and heading to my apartment.” Lauren covered the phone with her other hand when she had to cough.

  “You’re just now getting home? You’re really working too much.”

  The concern in Grace’s voice warmed her, but she didn’t want her to worry. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Oh, no? Then why are you coughing?”

  Damn. That weird little trait was a dead giveaway. “Maybe I’m getting a cold.” She tried to sound innocent.

  “Nice try, but you should leave the acting to me,” Grace said.

  Her other clients would have let her get away with her evasion, but Grace seemed to really care about her well-being. Usually, Lauren carefully avoided mixing her private and her professional lives and smothered any attempt by a client to become friends. With Grace, she didn’t have the heart—or the will—to push her away.

  Lauren unlocked the door to her apartment. She kicked off her shoes as she entered and padded to the fridge. After a
day like this, she didn’t have the energy to cook, so she began to slap a sandwich together, the phone tucked between her ear and shoulder. “Other than having to shoot eight pages a day, how do you like shooting a TV show?”

  “It’s definitely a change of pace,” Grace said. “Very different from shooting a movie.”

  “How so?” The sandwich and a beer in hand and the phone still tucked against her shoulder, Lauren opened the balcony door and stepped outside.

  “It’s more intense. There’s not much time to rehearse, and you can’t do as many takes to get a scene just right.”

  Lauren took a big bite out of her sandwich and then set the plate onto the small table on one side of the balcony. She leaned against the railing and enjoyed the cool night air. “Sounds stressful,” she said and sipped her beer.

  “It is. But it’s also fun. There’s a great sense of camaraderie on set, and the script is good.” Grace paused. “Speaking of scripts…I read yours.”

  Beer dribbled down Lauren’s chin as she nearly choked on a mouthful. Her hands started sweating, even though she was clutching the cold bottle. The bite of sandwich sat like lead in her stomach. “Oh.” So that was why Grace had called her. Maybe she was just as nervous as Lauren about it, so she’d struck up a friendly conversation first to soften the blow. “So what did you think?” She tried to sound confident, as if she let people read her scripts every day.

  “It’s wonderful.”

  “Really?”

  Grace chuckled. “Don’t sound so skeptical. It’s great.”

  Lauren’s tension receded. She wiped one palm on her slacks and took a swig of beer. So the friendly conversation wasn’t just to soften the blow. Grace liked talking to her—and she liked the script. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “I do. Is this the first one you have written?”

  “No. Not by a long shot.” Over the years, she’d written dozens.

  “Have you ever shown one of them to a producer or a director?” Grace asked.

  “No.”

  “Not even to your parents?”

  “Especially not to my parents,” Lauren said, surprising herself with how openly she talked to Grace. While Grace was still a client, she was beginning to feel like a friend too. With her workload, Lauren didn’t have many of those. “If one of my scripts is ever turned into a movie, I want it to be because of its quality, not because of who my parents are.”

  Grace made a sound of approval. “I respect that. And if I’m not mistaken, you don’t need your parents’ influence to sell this script.”

  “You really think so? But what about the ending?”

  Something rustled on the other end of the line.

  Bedsheets? Was Grace already in bed? Lauren tried not to dwell on that thought; she focused on the conversation instead.

  “Yes, I think you were right about that. The ending needs to be revised. Maybe you could tweak it a bit, have it end on a high note, not with a shot of San Francisco lying in ruins. People need to see that the city will survive.”

  “So I end with a shot of the stores opening again or city hall being rebuilt?” Lauren’s mind was already busy coming up with new scenes.

  “Or maybe the cable cars start running again,” Grace suggested.

  Lauren abandoned the half-eaten sandwich and went back inside to get a sheet of paper and write it all down. “Ooh, I like that idea. They could catch the first cable car and…” She plopped down on the couch and started scribbling down ideas. Finally, she paused. “Do you really think that’s all the script needs?”

  “Well, it could do with a love story too.”

  Lauren laughed. “A love story? Are you a closet romantic, Ms. Durand?”

  “As my publicist, you should know that I’m not in the closet about anything,” Grace said with a faux haughty tone.

  “Whatever you say. You’re not romantic at all. Got it.”

  For a moment, only the sound of Grace’s breathing filtered through the line. “Actually, I wasn’t the one who came up with the suggestion to introduce a little romance into the script.”

  Lauren clamped her hand around the pencil so tightly that the writing utensil nearly snapped. “You showed it to someone else?”

  “Yes. No. Well, not on purpose. I read it on the plane, so Amanda saw it.”

  Amanda. Okay, that wasn’t too bad. She owed the actress one for saving her from Mrs. Duvenbeck.

  “I’m sorry,” Grace said quietly. “I know you didn’t want anyone else to read it. I didn’t tell her who the author was.”

  What was done was done. Lauren dropped the pencil and shook her stiff fingers. “It’s okay. So, what did she think?”

  “She just read a couple of scenes, but she loved it too.”

  A warm feeling spread through Lauren. Two experienced actresses couldn’t both be wrong about the quality of a script, could they? Maybe her script wasn’t that bad after all. She stretched out on the couch, folding her free arm behind her head. “So Amanda wanted me to write a romance into the script? Since the men in the script are mostly minor characters, are we talking about a lesbian romance?”

  “Yes. She thought it was a really good idea.”

  “Of course Amanda would think that,” Lauren said before she could stop herself. She hadn’t meant to out Amanda, since she wasn’t sure Grace knew her colleague was gay. “I mean…”

  “I think it might be a good idea too,” Grace said.

  Lauren blinked. “You do?”

  “Yes. Well, I’m not sure if it would make the script harder to sell, but it would fit the story and the characters.”

  Huh. What do you know? Grace Durand suggests a lesbian romance subplot for my script. Lauren still wasn’t sure about it, though.

  “You don’t like the idea?” Grace asked.

  “I’m not sure it’s the kind of story I want to write.”

  “What kind of story do you want to write?”

  Swirling her fingertips over the laptop on the coffee table, Lauren said, “Thrillers. Historical dramas. Stories about ordinary people going through extraordinary circumstances.”

  “Well, falling in love during a major earthquake could be seen as an extraordinary circumstance, couldn’t it?”

  “Depends on who you fall in love with,” Lauren mumbled.

  “Sounds like your relationships weren’t all that extraordinary. Not that I’m one to talk, since I’m going through a divorce.” Grace was quiet for a moment and then started to chuckle. “Maybe I should risk some of my millions in the casino. Unlucky in love, lucky at cards, right?”

  If that was the case, maybe she should take up gambling too. “I’ll think about rewriting the script, weaving in a love story.”

  “Let me know if you want me to reread anything,” Grace said.

  “Thank you.” Lauren coughed and emptied her beer bottle to get rid of that dry feeling in her throat.

  “I’d better let you get some sleep,” Grace said. “I wouldn’t want your boss to have to deal with headlines like ‘Grace Durand’s publicist collapses after working too hard.’”

  She was right, of course. It had been a long, busy day, but Lauren still found herself reluctant to end the call. “When will you be back?”

  “The day after tomorrow. We’re shooting the big finale with a lot of stunt scenes tomorrow.”

  Last night, Lauren had watched the first Central Precinct episode in which Grace had starred, so she knew the kind of fast-paced action scenes the show was known for. “You’re not going to do your own stunts, are you?”

  “Just some of them,” Grace said. “Nothing too dangerous.”

  Somehow, that didn’t appease Lauren’s worries. “Please be careful.”

  “Are you worried about me?” Grace
sounded as if she was smiling.

  Lauren tried to shrug it off. “Ah, you know. Just trying to spare myself the work of having to deal with—”

  “The headlines about my unfortunate accident on set, I know.”

  Grace’s laughter, warm and soft, trickled through Lauren, soothing her stressed nerves. She grinned into the empty living room. “Yeah, exactly.”

  They were both quiet for several moments, then Grace said, “Well, then… Good night, Lauren.”

  “Good night.” Once the call ended, Lauren lay there and stared up at the ceiling, watching the fan move around in circles. She liked talking to Grace. You like it a little too much. Sighing, she squeezed her eyes shut. Just one more minute, then she’d drag herself into the bathroom for a shower and then to bed.

  That was her last thought before she fell asleep.

  The next morning, she woke up on the couch with a crick in her neck, still clutching the phone to her chest.

  CHAPTER 17

  At first, it had been a little weird to see her colleagues kiss, but after the first two takes, Grace realized it wasn’t any different than watching a film kiss between a man and a woman. Of course not. What did you expect, idiot?

  “Can you turn a little to the left, Lorena?” Leonard Pearce called from his director’s chair while the prop people prepared the third take. “Slide your hand into her hair but don’t hide her face.”

  Lorena followed directions, looking as if she didn’t mind kissing another woman.

  And why would she? Grace thought as she watched them do another take of the kiss scene. This is probably more pleasant than having to kiss Russ. With all his stubble, kissing her co-star in Ava’s Heart had at times felt like kissing a hedgehog.