Fade To Black

by Nolon King

  “That’s not how it works. Remember the model, Dominic. Other people’s money.”

  Dominic offered his hand to Melinda.

  She took it, then they started walking off the lot.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said.

  But Melinda already knew. “Someone else dropped out, didn’t they? Who was it?”

  “Fairfax.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I took his call on the way over here, but we came in together, and then I had to deal with Nash.”

  “So, now I’m caught up. And we both know Sloane’s worst fear is being realized.”

  Dominic said, “We just started shooting, and that’s three hits in one day. We could rationalize any one of those events on their own, but the three of them together tell a story that’s hard to refute.”

  “This film is Wentz’s worst nightmare, and there’s probably nothing he won’t do to stop it.”

  “So long as he knows he won’t get caught.”

  “We need a plan.”

  “We have a plan, Melinda. Hundreds of them.”

  And they did. Hollywood was one of the most ambitious places in the world, and the Shellys put much of the industry’s drive and vision to shame. Dominic and Melinda had been steadily amassing their empire for twenty years now and had plans on top of plans on top of plans. They were creating a new and unprecedented platform and had quietly built the content, relationships, and infrastructure to cement their place in the streaming wars with an immediate and lasting foothold.

  The Shellys had made an awful lot of noise on their way to the top and were now entering battle with a few enemies eager to see them dead. Not just the biggest players who didn’t want to face their stiff breed of competition, but men like Liam Wentz. The uber producer had been holding a grudge against them, standing in the way of their success in obvious yet invisible ways for two decades, ever since they intervened to help Sloane when the press was rolling her in tar and feathers for accusing the predator of making advances on her and Nicole.

  They stopped in front of their twin Teslas, parked side by side. Melinda’s was white and Dominic’s was black, but his was backed in so the driver’s side doors were next to each other.

  “We have to strike hard,” Melinda said.

  “I don’t disagree in principle. But we need to be careful. We don’t know how much Wentz knows.”

  “I’m not afraid of him. You shouldn’t be, either.”

  Dominic shook his head. “I’m not afraid of Wentz at all, but I’m not willing to lose everything we’ve built here.”

  “Do you believe the light kit could have been an accident?”

  “Of course not,” he said.

  “Do you believe either of our investors pulling out is a coincidence?”

  Dominic looked at Melinda, not needing to dignify her question with a response.

  She finished her thesis. “If we know all of those things, then we have to do something.”

  “Yes. Absolutely. But at the moment, that something should be keeping an eye on things. We sharpen the axe now, knowing we’ll need to chop the tree later. For the time being, our focus should be on Sloane and making sure she’s safe.”

  “Do you think he would be bold enough for a direct attack?”

  “If Wentz thinks he has no other choice?” Dominic shrugged. “Sure, I do. And so do you.”

  Melinda nodded.

  “We’ll beef up security around the set and assign her a detail.”

  “She can’t know. Not until the last scene is shot.”

  “Of course not,” Dominic agreed.

  But something inside him insisted that the situation might already be out of their—

  Chapter Four

  Sloane

  Control.

  That’s what Sloane needed most right now but couldn’t seem to get.

  She was already feeling disappointed for letting it slip away from her so soon into the production. That chagrin led to shame and guilt, which then dragged her down into a spiral she had to claw her way out of.

  So, no surprise, the rest of her day on set was a bust.

  She tried to resurrect the situation, and Lila did her best to help, but Sloane’s head wasn’t in it and she kept making dumb but obvious mistakes. Cassie and Orson separately gave her a timid “You sure?” for things they shouldn’t have had to question. She felt ashamed of wasting everyone’s time, but that guilt was still better than knowing she might be ruining her movie.

  Eventually she called it quits without having to call it a day, declaring that Cassandra and Gina — the actress playing Jennifer — needed some extra rehearsal time. An excuse for sure, but not exactly a lie. The girls were happy to run their lines, and Sloane could go over the dailies again if she needed to.

  But she didn’t.

  And thinking about what she actually did need, Sloane knew she should get away and regroup before losing her shit in front of everyone. Right now, it felt like she was location-scouting an upcoming nightmare. She wanted to grab Jolie and hit the road. Too many harsh memories were suddenly assaulting her, and a Hollywood backlot was the last place in the world she wanted to be.

  “You sure you want to go right now?” Lila asked.

  It was an annoying question, and Sloane worked to keep herself from snapping back. Losing face was the last thing she wanted to do. Of course she wasn’t sure, of course she already felt like a failure, and of course she was already doubting whether she really had what it took to be a director on a film of this scale — so much bigger and bolder than the trio of indie releases she’d nailed on her own.

  “Trust me,” Sloane replied, mustering confidence she didn’t come close to feeling, drawing from the same well of malleable emotion that had put her on the shortlist of up-and-coming child actors two decades ago, before she opened her mouth and ruined it all. “It’s not just me. This day is off the rails already. Let’s all get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll catch up tomorrow.”

  Lila looked at her watch then nodded. “You’re the boss.”

  But that didn’t make Sloane feel better at all.

  She went to the trailer where Jolie was still playing with Connor. She knocked once then entered the room with a smile that was hard to wear and even harder to keep on her face.

  “Mommy!” Jolie looked up at her, beaming.

  “Hi, Sloane.” Connor gave her a sheepish smile.

  Tiffany didn’t say anything, but at least she wasn’t on her phone and appeared to have been engaged with the children before Sloane even entered.

  “Hello, Jolie. Hello, Connor.” She found herself smiling back and meaning it, glad Connor had used her first name instead of calling her Miss Alexander like he had been. “Grab your stuff, sweetie. It’s time to go.”

  Jolie scrunched her face. “I thought we were going to be here until after dinner.”

  That inspired Sloane with an idea. “We were going to be. But I thought you might want to go out for a special dinner instead.”

  “I love special dinners!”

  “I know you do,” Sloane said.

  The trailer door opened and everyone turned. Orson entered with a friendly wave. “I heard a rumor we were done for the day. Is that right?”

  Sloane nodded.

  “Where are we going for our special dinner?” Then before her mother could answer, Jolie offered a suggestion. “How about Pirate Pizza?”

  Sloane hated everything about that dump. “Sure. We can go to Pirate Pizza.”

  “Yay!” Jolie started clapping.

  But that didn’t keep Sloane from feeling suddenly embarrassed, realizing that she’d just admitted to taking her daughter to a place that made Chuck-E-Cheese look like it deserved a Michelin star, and she’d done it in front of a Hollywood legend in the making.

  “Can we go to Pirate Pizza, too?” Connor asked his father, sounding absurdly excited.

  Orson laughed then turned to Sloane and Tiffany, explaini
ng the obvious. “He loves Pirate Pizza.”

  Tiffany shrugged. “I think it’s like the law when you’re little.”

  “I’m not little.” Connor crossed his arms.

  “Me neither.” Jolie followed his lead.

  She was little enough to still like a dump like Pirate Pizza, but Sloane wasn’t about to push the point. Her stomach was churning and a migraine was surely on its way.

  “Are you ready?” she asked Jolie.

  “Can Connor come with us?”

  “If he wants to,” Sloane replied, only feeling the full weight of her embarrassment once the words were all out of her mouth.

  “PIRATE PIZZA!” Connor yelled.

  “Sounds fun.” Orson smiled, surprising the hell out of Sloane.

  Tiffany shot her a barely perceptible look. Might have been jealousy.

  “You don’t want to do that.” Sloane shook her head.

  Orson Beck was a movie star, and on this particular set, she was his boss.

  “Nonsense. I imagine you’ll want to head home right afterward, so we can take separate cars. Which one do you guys go to? The one on San Fernando?”

  “That works for me.” If it had to.

  Sloane couldn’t believe that Orson Beck had ever been to the Pirate Pizza on San Fernando Blvd. The place felt more like a public restroom with a ball pit and a couple of arcade cabinets than any place a movie star would want to spend so much as a second of their time.

  Tiffany got paid the same whether they quit early or not, so she was thrilled with the new development. Sloane agreed to meet Orson and Connor at Pirate Pizza, then she held hands with a giddy Jolie all the way to their rental car — a RAV4 she expected to hate but was warming up to fast.

  Jolie talked nonstop until her mom was pulling into the parking lot. She talked about how much fun she had with Connor, about all the games she was going to play and all the prizes she was going to win at Pirate Pizza, and about how she and Connor had both decided that they might want to be actors, just like their parents. It wasn’t the first mention, and each one was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable.

  “I’m not an actor,” Sloane reminded her.

  “But you were,” Jolie argued, without sounding argumentative. “Remaking Christmas is my favorite holiday movie.”

  “That’s only because your mom was in it.”

  “We’re here!” Jolie jabbed her finger at the window.

  Sloane parked, feeling like an idiot and seriously second-guessing herself. What was she thinking, inviting Orson Beck to their Pirate Pizza excursion?

  Where was he? And what if he didn’t show? She shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get in line. Now they were next, but Orson and Connor had yet to arrive.

  “What are we going to order, Mommy?”

  Sloane looked at the menu, wondering what the hell she’d been thinking. The pizza here was a joke. Salty and greasy, it sat like a rubber tire in her stomach every time. But that’s what Jolie always wanted. A burger and fries would surely be terrible, but it had to be better than the pizza.

  “I’m going to get a burger and—“

  “But we always order pizza.”

  “Why did you ask me if there was only one right answer?” Sloane looked at Jolie for a long moment before she finally finished her thought. “Like I was saying, I’m going to order a burger and fries. You can join me, or you can have a pizza all to yourself.”

  “I want a pizza all to myself!”

  “Pepperoni?”

  “Next,” called the cashier.

  There was an explosion of noise from somewhere behind them. Pirate Pizza was undiluted chaos, with every kid indulging in bedlam, animatronics singing cringey sea shanties and telling jokes that even toddlers considered stupid, and colored strobing lights that seemed designed to inspire seizures.

  Sloane and Jolie moved to the front of the line.

  “Ahoy, matey,” the eyepatch-wearing cashier said with an illegal degree of enthusiasm. “Welcome to Pirate Pizza. Would you like to order a Davy Jones Locker, now with twice the cheese?”

  “YES!” Jolie yelled.

  “I guess so.” Sloane smiled at the cashier. “Can you please tell us what comes with that?”

  “Of course!” She beamed, hard enough to lift her eyepatch just a little. “It’s a large one-topping pizza with twice the cheese, a drink, and fruit cocktail.”

  “Fruit cocktail?” That sounded like a terrible idea.

  “What’s fruit cocktail, Mommy?” Jolie asked.

  “It’s the hot dogs of fruit, honey.”

  Jolie made a face.

  “Exactly,” Sloane said.

  “So, no fruit cocktail?” Then, as if it might influence her decision, the cashier added, “It’s not extra.”

  “Are there any substitutions?” Sloane asked as though she cared.

  “No, ma’am.”

  Annoyed, Sloane said, “Fine. We still don’t want the fruit cocktail, but I’d like an order of onion rings.”

  “I don’t want onion rings — why is fruit cocktail like hot dogs, Mommy?”

  The fried onions weren’t for Jolie. “Hot dogs are made from leftover meat. Fruit cocktail is made from leftover fruit, drowned in syrup.”

  “I like syrup.”

  “Not on your fruit, honey.” Sloane could feel irritation from the people behind her, though the cashier appeared perfectly patient, looking back at them expectantly, waiting for a firm yes or no on that fruit cocktail.

  “What would you like for your drink with the Davy Jones Locker?” the cashier redirected them.

  “Lemonade!” Jolie told her.

  “Would you like to make your drink Buried Treasure?”

  That meant super-sizing it. “Sure. I’d also like a cheeseburger and an order fries — actually, can you make that a double cheeseburger?” She turned to Jolie. “Do you want fries instead of fruit cocktail?”

  “I want to try the fruit cocktail.”

  “Can you make that two orders of fries?” Sloane asked the cashier.

  “Plus the fruit cocktail?”

  “No fruit cocktail,” Sloane corrected her.

  “What about Connor?”

  Sloane glanced at the entrance. Still no Orson. “They’re not here yet.”

  “We should order for them.”

  “We don’t know what they want.”

  “They want pizza,” Jolie said.

  Sloane gave the cashier an apologetic glance, but she was still just looking back with one eye covered, her smile as wide as it could be.

  “I’m sure Connor’s father will want to order himself.” He was probably only allowed chicken breast and kale, seeing as today was one of those days ending in Y.

  “But then they’ll have to stand in the line.”

  Jolie was right. The line was a lot longer now, and they were helping to lengthen it.

  “Can we get another Davy Jones, please? And another order of fries … do you have salads? Never mind.“ She shook her head. “I can imagine your salads. Let’s get another burger. And two more drinks.”

  “Is that three or four?” asked the cashier.

  Someone groaned behind them.

  “Do you have any hard liquor?” Sloane laughed.

  The cashier failed to return her mirth. “No ma’am.”

  “Just water for me, please.”

  “So I have three drinks and a water, two Davy Jones with extra cheese — no fruit cocktail — three orders of fries, and one order of onion rings. Would you like all the drinks to be Buried Treasure?”

  This place kept pissing her off. Why couldn’t they just say large?

  That was a lot of food, especially considering one of the grownups almost for sure wouldn’t be allowed to eat.

  “Sure. Supersize everything. And can you please add another order of fries, and another order of onion rings.” Just in case, she didn’t want to get this wrong. “And another pepperoni pizza.”

  “Who’s that for?”
Jolie asked.

  “In case Connor doesn’t like extra cheese.”

  “What if he doesn’t like pepperoni?”

  “I don’t know, Jolie.”

  Sloane could feel the stares, and hear the grumbling behind her.

  She was ordering like a glutton, and even before the cashier delivered her total Sloane knew what she was actually doing, finding an excuse to shove a bunch of garbage into her gullet, because that might make her feel the weensiest bit better for a few fleeting seconds.

  Until she was back to feeling terrible.

  But even knowing the hangover was a sure thing didn’t curb her desire to drown in salt, sugar, and fat.

  “Connor probably wants his fruit cocktail,” Jolie argued on his behalf.

  She glanced at the door again. Dammit Orson. “Fine. One fruit cocktail.”

  The cashier nodded.

  Jolie said, “I want my fruit cocktail!”

  Sloane was all out of fight. She also didn’t want to get murdered by the people behind her. “You can go ahead and give us all the fruit cocktails.” She smiled, hating this moment and its location.

  She paid, after adding four ice creams to her bounty of garbage, feeling safe to do so after seeing that the desserts looked like they needed an hour to thaw.

  She and Jolie shuffled off to the side and waited for their order. Every second Sloane spent standing there dragged her deeper into doubt. She was a hog who couldn’t control stop herself from ordering a trough full of slop.

  Their number was called. She collected their trays with Jolie’s help, looking down at the smorgasbord of terrible choices, suddenly horrified of Orson walking through the door.

  Just as she was adjusting the three trays packed with trash, and figuring out how she could get to the tables in a single trip, he did.

  Chapter Five

  Sloane

  In no particular order, Sloane wanted to laugh, vomit, and disappear into nothing.

  She and Jolie were sitting across from Orson Beck and his son. Weirder still, the four of them were having a great time. So far.

  That should have been enough for Sloane, but the day’s events had her spiraling. And like usual, the spiral had her questioning every little thing she did. Over ordering was bad enough, but now she wasn’t even eating. Sloane was afraid to put a single fry in her mouth, now that she felt him watching.