cease and desist

by stephen david hurley

  Will that defense save the new messiah of reality-drama? The district attorney for New York City, where the second incident was filmed, gave this statement: “We consider any set where movies or TV shows are filmed to be a place of work, and an employer can be held responsible for any real injury that occurs there. Any sex scene that involves real intercourse with a minor will be prosecuted.”

  That’s tough talk, but legal experts have serious doubts on how he’s going to win an assault or statutory rape charge against a bunch of teenagers being filmed and voted on by others, many of whom are adults. Regarding the sex, the DA would need an eyewitness, as just about all love scenes can be digitally altered. And then there’s the question of coercion from an online audience that votes on each candidate. That might make getting a conviction nearly impossible.

  One thing’s for sure; Francis is hiring people with a history of violence to cover himself in the event of real injury. The first boy killed had just been released from juvenile hall; the two ex-cons were, well, ex-cons.

  And what about the finalists? Have they harmed people in the past? A police report obtained by RHI shows this isn’t the first time Stephanie Coombs has had to defend herself. She once “subdued” a man who attempted to rob her in New Haven, Connecticut, while she was a student at Yale Drama School.

  You don’t have to look far to see Eve Lonnia, the daughter of Christopher Lonnia, a screenwriter, has been around the block. Without naming names, the Hollywood scuttlebutt shows her involved with drugs and underage sex.

  And what about that mysterious girl no one can take their eyes off? The tough virgin, Cease de Menich? She’s not as clean as the virgin snow, a source tells us. A missing girl…and her brother’s suicide on the night they were together raise serious questions about what Cease is willing to do to get ahead. But, of course, all of this is on the QT, from OTT as brought to you on RHI.

  I look down at my phone and see Nina’s called three times and hung up three times, without leaving a message. Three times. For a family that has lived the tragedies and probed the depths of the human condition, we in the House of de Menich sure have a hard time talking about our real feelings. I call her back and hang up when she answers.

  I call her again. She answers on the third ring. “Nina? I’m sorry I shouted this morning. “I think my character’s trying to help me.” I pick up Esme’s card and put it in my tablet’s plastic case.

  “Jeanne just came by and said hello,” I say.

  “Jeanne?”

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘Jeanne’.”

  “I must’ve meant, Jean, one of the production assistants.”

  “What do you think she’s trying to tell you?”

  “Who? Jean?”

  “No. Jeanne.” Nina’s nervous laugh puts me at ease.

  “I guess I need to be forgiven too…”

  I unzip the bag I’d put beneath my desk and find one of the genealogies next to a Ziploc of almonds and two brownies Nina must’ve snuck in as well. “Nina. Thanks for the almonds. I guess you put the genealogy in my bag too. Why did you choose Volume I?”

  “What? I didn’t put any book in your bag. Be careful, my child. You have no idea what you’re getting into.” There’s a long beat.

  I take a deep breath. “Stephanie’s got the gift, too. I guess some families are born to this kind of…what? I don’t want to call it a gift anymore…this kind of power.”

  “Many are called, but few are chosen,” Nina intones.

  I’m sick of this bible crap, Nina. How the hell is all this happening?

  “Why is that book in my bag?”

  “Read what your brother found. You must decide on your own.” I hear an air horn and see the electronic board’s blinking.

  “I’ve got to go, Nina. I love you.”

  I rush out to the courtyard, a huddle of Francis, Susan, and Craig, who are holding their sides with the lights flickering to from red to yellow, and I have nothing.

  “Francis. I didn’t get my sides. You can’t—“

  “You’re not in this scene,” Francis says, with a sinister leer. “But I don’t want you to feel left out.” I know why he called me as soon as the rehearsal begins. It’s a love scene. Craig kisses Susan as she gently caresses his steep jaw with her thumb and forefinger. She slowly moves his hand to her breasts. He moves in with his lips against her mouth, pressing deeper…

  You’re a pervert, Francis. You think the only way I’m going to win votes is by taking it all off…but you’re wrong, mister.

  I turn and walk back to my trailer. I’ve got an idea on how to win Craig and it doesn’t involve having sex for all the world to see.

  I frantically search through the heaps of clothes piled on my bed. I need Craig. I need to gain his trust before Eve sinks her claws in him. He’s a man who can save me from this all too real drama, from men like Francis and all those other sweaty fingers pushing down on the consoles, voting for the girl who comes out on top. There’s blood on my hand from a cut in my fight with Eve. I must’ve torn at the scab. It gives me an idea. I find a bandage in the first-aid kit beneath the bed. I wait just outside Craig’s trailer and make some noise until he opens the door and sees helpless me.

  “Need help getting that on?”

  From behind him in the trailer comes the noise of an announcer speaking in Spanish, calling a soccer match.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  He smiles. His eyes twinkle. Craig has the body of a muscular boy, the rugged face of a man.

  “You need some antiseptic for that, too.” He lets me in, opens the cabinets beneath a sink until he fishes out a white box. His entourage is out, and while I imagined him walking into some exclusive club or restaurant with a woman on each arm, he’s here, by himself, just watching a game.

  “You can sit here.” He pulls out a chair from the oval table beneath the flat screen. It is set with embroidered place mats, flatware, and real china. He picks up his script from the table behind him.

  “What do you think of Francis?” I say, nervously, and before Craig can answer, I add, “He was a real bastard before you came on board.” I make a fist with my right hand and punch it into an open palm. “Now he’s a lot more affable but I think there’s something up…”

  “He’s got a lot on his mind.” Craig sighs as if he has just emerged from a high-level negotiation with his manager and Francis’ people and knows exactly what Francis has on his mind. He reaches back, pulls open a drawer beneath a microwave, and pulls out a big, thick leather wallet—the kind that could only fit in a breast pocket, and I think about all the times I enviously watched Serena Van der Ebb pull out her credit card and place it on the glass counters of Saks or Bendels and wait for the clerk to recognize the name. Craig tucks a receipt from his breast pocket into the folds of the wallet and puts it back.

  “I’m glad you stopped by, Jeanne.” It comes out perfunctory, the way Craig calls me by my character’s name; but it tells me he hasn’t let fame get in the way of his training as an actor. “I just don’t understand this character. He’s much more complex than anyone I’ve played before, though maybe that’s not saying much. After all, I’m just Hector.” He’s trying to be disarming, referring to The Illegals, the semi-satirical TV show of a resident alien who dreams of becoming a Los Angeles detective. It won him two Emmys.

  “This is going to hurt.” He dabs alcohol on the gash.

  I feel a sting, but not from the antiseptic. Craig’s voice trails off as he tears the bandage wrapper open. There’s something about him I don’t like. Maybe something that scares me. He sounds as callous as Rex, but with a helluva lot more talent.

  The flat screen flashes a replay of a team scoring a goal.

  I wanted to call Nina as soon as I saw him with the reporters on the red carpet. I didn’t need to check his history online the way Nina had checked the other characters for me. Craig Sterling didn’t come from money or a family of famous entertainers. His history was as weird and
humble as mine.

  Talk about what you have in common. Make him feel in charge. Stars like that.

  “I bet you’ve got a few stories about what it felt like to cross over into a mainstream audience.”

  OK, that sounded pretty stupid, Cease. Just nod your head.

  “I don’t like it when people get into my business,” Craig says as he tears off the adhesive. “I can always tell an actor’s lying when they say they had a real traumatic childhood and then they talk all about it.” His affable look suddenly seems more calculating. “Because if you really had a shitty past, you can’t bear to talk about it, now can you?”

  His look makes me feel exposed—guilty—as if that script in his lap contains a detailed file on my personal life. He must sense it. He rests his hand on my shoulder as if we’ve been friends for years, but I’m not feeling it. All that gushy love that welled up in my chest as I sat with Brad on our first date is gone. (Maybe I am ready to step up to a real relationship.)

  “I come from a pretty normal family,” he says. “Normal. That’s where I tell everyone I’m from—a town called Normal, but don’t try to find it on any map.”

  Normal—God, how I want to be from that place too. It sounds like the first drops of rain I could almost hear when the applause begins. A small house on the Hudson where I’d wanted to take my brother, a yard—maybe even a view of the Tappan Zee…

  And then he looks around the trailer in a restive, cautious way I recognize—fame had landed on his doorstep with the same weird backlash that it had landed on mine. We have something in common: what it felt like to suddenly land that plum role everyone told you was out of reach, as if we didn’t deserve it, as if it were all just a big mistake and soon there’d be someone who’d show up at our door and take it all away.

  “Normal’s a tough place to come from in this business.”

  “I know what you mean,” I chime in. And I did.

  “There. All better.” He rubs my forearm, gives my hand a quick peck. His lips are so sensitive, a real contrast to that rugged face. “Turning the other cheek is a stretch for me. My mother taught me to forgive my enemies—but my father taught me to never forget their names.” He picks up the script. My mind races as he turns the pages.

  “I had you checked out.” He snaps the first-aid kit shut. “Don’t be offended. It comes with the job. I was sorry to hear about your brother. My manager told me to walk on this project after my cameo, but I need this show. I need to nail this character.”

  “But it’s just a feeling. And you don’t know why?” I offer.

  “Oh. I know the reason why. It’s because of you.” I feel my knees go weak and am relieved to be sitting down. My skin prickles. “Besides, you white girls are a helluva lot easier to handle than Latinas.”

  What the hell is that supposed to mean, mister heartthrob?

  He puts his hand on my knee and suddenly I feel like am sitting with a stranger—that no matter how grown-up I appear to the world, all adults are strangers, nothing more than a faceless mass in the darkness beyond the footlights; they judge you, they applaud, but also cough and talk, munch on popcorn, sometimes even hiss. When you take off your clothes, a hush falls over them as if they are little more than dressed-up children. They can’t be trusted, except for my Nina, and these days I don’t trust her enough to tell her everything. I wonder how many women Hector seduced with a line like that.

  Don’t fool yourself, Cease…he wants a woman, and with those almond-shaped, emerald-green eyes, that gorgeous brown skin, he can have just about any woman he wants.

  But he needs me…at least, that’s what I’m feeling. Why?

  Because he needs to cross over. Because there’s a line between you. You’re a white girl, he’s a Latin star who needs to cross over…Hollywood isn’t colorblind and neither is the Great White Way.

  I remove his hand from my knee, gently. The announcer shouts goooooal. Craig gives me an irritated look. I need to make a choice. I could run back to that doll’s house where Brad and I had played grown-up or I could stay here, stand my ground.

  Keep him talking. Maybe he’s just as insecure as I am.

  “I’d love to hear how you first crossed over,” I state matter-of-factly. I know if I play a groupie that hand will return to my thigh. Craig shifts in his seat, crosses his legs at the knee.

  “Well…our music was still mostly popular with a Latin audience, but I remember walking down main street and running into a sorority girl the week they picked up our pilot. I was just in high school, but we called all the rich, white girls sorority girls—not that it mattered—none of them ever talked to us. But this one did. She even asked if I had a date for the prom.” Craig shrugs and glances up to the soccer game. “What a difference a day makes,” he boasts. His hair has a coppery hue beneath the halogens. I can hear someone outside counting down from ten.

  I wonder if men really do kiss differently.

  “You can’t be as scary as a sorority sister.” Craig says. He glances down at the script in his lap.

  “But—it appears I’m easier to control than a Latina.” I stand, level a finger at the heartthrob’s chest. “I may not be a woman, but you’re not going to treat me like a fool.” I swallow. After a beat and a deep breath, I feel it; we’ve just clicked, in that genuinely awkward way Francis would love.

  So just what the hell do I do now? What the hell would a woman do?

  You bargain. You show him what you’ve got and what you can give him if he wants to make that transition to real drama. Craig’s an adult and that’s what adults do. If I want to be taken seriously, I’ll have to step up and show him our chemistry isn’t based on a girly crush.

  “I can help you nail this character. I know life isn’t supposed to be like the movies, but in my case someone’s making an exception,” I say. There’s a loud bang outside. I feel a jolt through my chest. Craig looks cool. I study his eyes. “You need to win a white girl’s heart. That’s what you need to do if you expect to make the crossover you want to make.” He looks out the window and when he does I steal a glance at his scene.

  Scene VII. A little soiree to celebrate the perfect couple. All those who were passed over or died on the battlefield are invited to meet and mingle with the perfect couple. Secrets to the future will be shared. The past will be revealed. The setting: a stately mansion outside Paris. Time: The future.

  I may just be a girl, but I’m a girl who knows the score. And when it comes to the movie business, it’s always later than you think.

  His left eye twitches. I hold out my hand. He gives me the script. I read his lines, think about what Francis is really driving at, and then smile because I can tell where we’re headed.

  “Here.” I point out a section of script. “Where you say, ‘Loving me is hard.’ What do you think your character is really trying to say?”

  “That I’m a human and you’re someone special, like a saint.”

  “Yes. But you’ve got to think in stronger terms, Craig. What if I were a vampire and you were a human? Or what if your respectable family hated my family and they said if we fell in love you’d be banished. What would you do then?”

  “I get it.”

  He gives me a look of disapproval and I feel the way I’d felt in my climax yesterday with Brad and Eve. I want to kiss him the same way I wanted to devour boys when I played a vampire.

  What’s this scene really about, Cease?

  It’s about me kissing a man.

  What else?

  It’s about me kissing a man and not falling in love the way I almost did with Brad.

  “Do you get it?” Craig asks. His look is almost a leer as he stands and puts his hands on my waist. “Because if we want this scene to work—if we really want to nail it—our kiss isn’t gonna be one of those pecks on the cheek that I used to get on that sitcom.”

  I take one of his hands in mine. “I know the score, Craig. I’m a girl and you’re a man. And I’m a white girl.”

  Ther
e. Suck on that, mister heartthrob.

  He coughs and I know my white-girl line has found its mark. The game’s over, at least on the flat screen. Two men are talking about the performance of the players. After a sigh, Craig says, “Francis is sick of the studio. Who can blame him? All those people know how to do is typecast actors. He’s got a big surprise, a peripet…” Craig stops, looks unsure.

  Be careful. Don’t push too hard. Let him think he’s in control.

  “Peripeteia? Is that the word he used?”

  “Yes,” he says. “What does it mean?”

  “It’s from Greek tragedy. It means a sudden reversal.” I feel the bolt of grief sink deeper in my chest. I know the word by heart. I’ve lived it. “A reversal—usually from good to bad…” my heart sinks as I think about the secrets Francis might share with the world. “What kind of reversal is it going to be?” I demand. “How’s this show going to end?”

  “It takes a saint to unlock the true secrets in a man’s heart,” Craig says. I laugh because he says the line in the voice of Hector—his character, the wannabe alien detective on the Illegals. I give him a regal kiss on both cheeks.

  There’s a handwritten note on the floor of my trailer someone’s slid under my door.

  I know what you did to that girl, you sick fuck and I’m gonna tell.

  I shrug it off. There’s a secret on how I can survive this all too real drama hidden in the pages of my past. I race to the genealogy sitting on my desk. I open to a yellow ribbon; lines down to another branch of fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, cousins but none of the special lines connecting them. With each page, with each generation, the thin, blue line traveled. It felt as if I’d tapped into some current that flowed beneath the randomness of time; the wars, fame, murders, rape —all that mindless caprice that ravaged the ages.

  Pages fluttering in a darkness that lies beyond an unbelievable plotline.