Breaking Character

by Lee Winter

  “Product placement? Seriously?” It seemed so tacky, but Summer could hardly take the high moral ground. She was here to take part in a flash mob performing Jemima’s hit song from the Spies film, after all. The new movie was a mega-hit, so it was a bit sneaky to use its success for their own ends, with only the most dubious spy connection, but Autumn was adamant that no one would care and everyone worked the angles in Hollywood.

  “Actually no, it’s not product placement. Look opposite.”

  Leaning over the railing, Summer looked down. Just behind a plastic palm tree, a camera was being set up discreetly. An overly hairsprayed woman in a navy pant suit was talking to the cameraman.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Summer nodded toward the woman. “Katie Rivers?”

  “Yes. I called in a favor. By the time you’re done, not only will you be hashtagged to all the news sites…” she waggled her own camera, “but also featuring on Celebrity Entertainment. I’ve given Rivers full bio notes about your new role on Choosing Hope. From teen spy to junior surgeon. She loved it.”

  “Joey’s not a surgeon, though.”

  “Semantics. Katie doesn’t care. She loves ‘whatever happened to child-star X’ stories. Right. Get down there, stun the shoppers into a stupor, be your usual friendly self to fans, and remember your number one rule.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Summer groaned. “Don’t fall over.”

  “Exactly. You’ll be great.”

  On Sunday morning, Elizabeth found herself tucked up on the couch with the sad clown movie and one of her oldest friends, Alexandra Levitin. Alex was an indie film director, but they’d come up through Cambridge’s Footlights theater club together.

  “I can’t believe Jean-Claude asked for you,” Alex said as the opening credits flickered in the background. She ran her fingers through her cropped red hair. “That man is so big right now. Or about to be.”

  “Big ego, too, if his interviews are anything to go by. Oh, for God’s…” Elizabeth pointed at an artsy special effect. “Weeping watercolor. The man’s a genius,” she drawled.

  “Hush,” Alex said. “He’s a poet and you know it.”

  “That rhymes.”

  “Infidel. I think I liked you better in London. And not just because you were in my bed.”

  Me too, Elizabeth wanted to say. She didn’t. It was a can of worms, their covert six-month fling, and she wasn’t planning to reopen it. Still, sometimes she missed the simplicity of being a no one. She could flirt furiously and make love with anyone she wanted. Not that she had back then, but the principle sounded good.

  Now she dragged her male friends to red-carpet events to play coy, double-entendre games for the cameras with her. All so the insatiable Hollywood press could become breathless at the thought that Elizabeth Thornton might have found love. She’d have preferred to avoid the events altogether. Unfortunately, her laid-back manager and hard-nosed agent had been in lock-step agreement. Out-and-proud lesbians don’t get cast as leads. Neither do anti-social hermits.

  Everything had seemed so clear back when she was young and treading the boards in London. She would become a great theater actress. She would take a string of beautiful lovers, be interesting and witty, have a full life. She had not planned on enduring humiliation on the set of a top-rated, B-grade medical drama. Nor on developing an almost reclusive existence, broken up only by shopping-list chats with her elderly housekeeper and occasional catch-ups with the same six British theater friends—including her ex-girlfriend, Alex.

  She pursed her lips and reached for the popcorn.

  By the end of the film, Elizabeth had to admit it was beautiful, if a little pretentious, as only French films could be.

  “What did you think?” Alex asked, eyes shining.

  “False advertising,” Elizabeth teased. “No clowns were involved in the making of that production.”

  “Don’t be so literal. What’d you think? Really?”

  “I think I’ll be doing lunch with Jean-Claude Badour.”

  “Good. Hell, if I could make films half as well as him, I’d be delirious.” Alex glanced at the clock. “Speaking of lunch, when will the rest of the group be around? I’ve been missing everyone. And I have a desert shoot soon, so I’ll be away for a month.”

  “Soon.” Elizabeth pressed Exit on Netflix and the TV shifted back to regular programming. She sighed at the upbeat, over-the-top frivolity of Celebrity Entertainment.

  Which star has run off with his assistant for a Vegas wedding? We’ll tell you next! But first! Hollywood Mega Mall patrons were treated to a flash mob yesterday, thrilling crowds when a group of seemingly ordinary shoppers suddenly burst into song. Their musical choice? The catchy Just Like Spies theme song. And fittingly, there was a famous TV spy singing along with them!

  “Ugh, turn it off,” Alex complained. “Too much shallowness and I lose my will to live.”

  Elizabeth didn’t budge, eyes narrowing at the screen. “I believe that’s my co-star. The idiot who drenched me in fake blood.” She pointed the remote at a young blond woman who’d stepped out from behind a pillar to add her voice to the chorus of singers.

  “Her?” Alex squinted. “Huh. Looks sweet. Oh, ouch.” Summer had bumped into a singer attempting a few dance moves. “She’s not very co-ordinated, is she?”

  “No, she’s not.” Elizabeth scowled.

  “Aww, look. Good recovery.”

  Summer laughed and, while still singing, grasped the hands of the woman she’d bumped into, twirled her around, and let go again without missing a beat of the song. The girl could think on her feet. When she could stay on her feet, of course.

  Summer Hayes, who played Punky Power for three years in Teen Spy Camp, caused a riot with excited fans in line to see Just Like Spies.

  The camera cut to the hundreds of fans surrounding Summer as she signed autographs on bare arms, posed for selfies, and joked around.

  “Look at her, Bess.” Alex smirked. “See, that’s how you interact with fans. Take note—not a scowl in sight.”

  “I hardly think that’s relevant, since my show’s fans all hate me.” Elizabeth smiled smugly.

  “Way to look on the bright side.”

  “I am. I prefer my existence to that. Who’d want to be mobbed every time they shopped?”

  “Price of fame.”

  “No, it’s the price of playing the game. That’s all this is—it’s just a marketing stunt.”

  Hayes will soon be seen as Joey Carter on the hit show Choosing Hope. From teen spy to junior surgeon! All the details are on our website. More after this break!”

  “See?” Elizabeth felt a little deflated. But why shouldn’t her co-star promote herself? It was just that it all felt so…Hollywood. “And Summer’s character isn’t a damned surgeon, either.”

  “That’s what you’re fixating on?” Alex laughed. Her look became speculative. “She’s good-looking, you know.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Elizabeth folded her arms. “She’s a public menace.” With good taste in tea.

  “Boy, you sure are testy over a cute LA chick.”

  Elizabeth just glared.

  Brian Fox and Rowan Blagge rolled in first. Eternally wry Brian and his dapper, long-faced boyfriend were discussing the best neck-tie knots as they settled into their favorite armchairs. Elizabeth placed a platter of finger foods in front of them, wondering if they could find a duller topic.

  “Windsor knot. Half Windsor in a pinch,” Rowan declared, reaching for the peanuts.

  “Plattsburgh. Obviously,” Brian countered.

  Amrit Patel wafted in a little later. Six-foot-four and gorgeous, he was most famous as the one-time international face of Cartier watches. Next came Grace Christie-Oberon, England’s national treasure and the queen of English historical dramas—with the BAFTA awards to prove it.

  In
the US, she’d been dubbed Gracie-O. And yet, despite her astonishing talent, Rowan’s sad-sack comedy routines were still more well-known here than she was, and Elizabeth was vastly more successful than all her friends put together.

  Grace had far too much class to ever say a word on that topic. Besides, her whole focus at this moment was very much on Amrit. She slid her elegant frame—adorned in a dropped-waist lace dress—onto the couch beside him and offered a sultry smile.

  The final member of their group, Zara Ejogo, dashed in late, looking harried. She might have started out in drama at Cambridge like the rest of them, but her talent for creating costumes on the fly had seen her snatched up by Hollywood first.

  “Finally,” Alex drawled, crunching on a carrot stick about as wide as she was. “I was beginning to fear Rowan would do his Montreal Comedy Festival monologue about living in a basement as we waited.”

  Rowan gave her a long-suffering look. “I’m only pleased my pain is giving pleasure to others.”

  Nudging him, Brian said, “What pain, love? You’re not living in your parents’ basement anymore.”

  “Scarring lasts a lifetime.”

  “Didn’t said basement have a spa in it, though?” Grace asked. “And wall-to-wall murals of beautiful rainforests?”

  “Pain is not a contest,” Rowan said, lips ticking up. “I never said mine was the worst.”

  Grace glanced at Elizabeth. “Bess, could you be a dear and fetch me a nice glass of white to wash down Rowan’s manly tears.”

  Brian cleared his throat. “I have an announcement. I have a new movie role. Alien Zombie Apocalypse.”

  “Do you play the scientist?” Amrit asked. “Or the villain? Or the villainous scientist who unleashed the plague on us all?”

  They all laughed.

  “At the risk of sounding typecast,” Brian said, injecting his most theatrical voice, “I am indeed the evil scientist who undoes society as we know it.”

  “So a regular Tuesday for you, then.” Grace glanced at Elizabeth again. “Or fetch a tea if the wine’s too much trouble.”

  Elizabeth paused. Grace sometimes forgot she wasn’t a national treasure in their little circle. She stood anyway, and glanced around. “Anyone else?”

  A smattering of drink orders were called out.

  “I’ll help.” Zara followed her to the kitchen.

  As they prepared the drinks, they heard Alex in the background, regaling the rest about her new project, something to do with global warming. And quiver trees, whatever they were.

  “This is a bonkers town, isn’t it?” Zara added sugar to one of the teas. “Yesterday I was working on a lizard outfit. But when I quote King Lear, everyone looks at me like I’m the nutter.”

  “It’s what we signed up for.” Elizabeth stirred another tea vigorously. “More or less.”

  “You know, I never really understood why you came here. The rest are obvious. Rowan got his comedy tour, so Brian went with his man. Amrit came for the adventure, and I presume, the pretty young men and women who fawn over him. Grace came because…” She glanced at Elizabeth and hesitated.

  “Officially…the next big career step,” Elizabeth supplied.

  “But we know why she’s really here.” Zara peeked out the archway at Amrit. “That must have been one hell of a fling if she’s still not over him.” She put down her spoon. “I know why I’m here, ‘Oscar winner for costume designs’, just wait! And Alex’s indie films were getting her noticed. But you?”

  She studied Elizabeth, who shrugged. This again. Zara tried to find out the answer to that burning question at least once every six months, always asking in a slightly different way to try to lure a different answer out of her. Elizabeth had no intention of sharing the real reason.

  “I missed my friends. London wasn’t the same without you all. One by one, you up and left until there was only me.”

  “But your theater career was taking off.”

  “It didn’t mean much with no friends to enjoy it with. Besides, the action’s in Hollywood, apparently.”

  “But Bess, you always wanted to be on the stage. You could do Broadway. Why LA?”

  “I like the weather. Very…sunny.” Elizabeth opened the fridge to get the milk.

  “Sure you do.” She eyed Elizabeth’s pale complexion. “Sun worshipper that you are.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “There’s plenty of work here, too.”

  “True. Unless you’re Grace. But maybe she’s too picky. She could have work if she lowered herself to do American TV.”

  Elizabeth gave the fridge door a heavier slam than strictly necessary.

  Zara’s face transformed into mortification. “Oh bollocks. Hon, you know I didn’t mean it like that. No offense.”

  “None taken. It does feel like lowering myself these days. Do you remember the original premise of Choosing Hope? A teaching hospital which focuses on minorities? Real, gritty stories? Doctors from all walks of life overcoming the odds? It’s why the damned thing was called Choosing Hope in the first place. It was supposed to be about giving people hope, no matter where they’re from.”

  “Well, that, and the hospital is called Martina Hope Memorial.”

  Elizabeth poured milk into several of the cups. “My point is, the premise was different and interesting. I was proud of it. Chief Hunt was a mentor to these young doctors. And now…” Her face hardened. “Attila the Hunt. If that’s not bad enough, you should see the newest cast member—this entitled-looking blond girl who should be doing swimwear ads, not gritty dramas about medical students pulling themselves up by the boot straps.”

  “Come on, your show went south long before they cast some entitled chick,” Zara said. “Are you really annoyed at her or is it that Hope is selling out? Because I caught a few eps last season and that show’s turned like week-old Chinese leftovers. Everything’s about who’s shagging who. And let’s not start on Hunt’s tragic love life.”

  “Beginning of the end,” Elizabeth muttered, arranging the cups on a tray.

  “True, but at least it got you this amazing house.” Zara nudged her.

  Why did everyone keep reminding her of that? She glanced around. Her four-bedroom Los Feliz home was nestled in the hills and had impressive views, the most spectacular of which was from the pool deck that looked out toward Santa Monica Bay. Inside, the surfaces gleamed, from the honeyed hardwood floors to the polished granite countertops. It suited her tactile tastes. She loved to stroke smooth surfaces.

  Elizabeth was well aware she was lucky to have this place, and her career. She was grateful for the opportunities Hollywood had afforded her. It was just that she had a hard time letting go of what the show had been. A show she’d emotionally invested in. Now, it was obvious where it was going.

  “Come on, let’s forget about work and enjoy what it got you. The views up here still get me orgasmic.” Zara strode off to the living room.

  Elizabeth’s guests turned to look at her as she entered after Zara. She headed for Grace first, giving her the wine.

  “Thank you,” she said, accepting it. “Now what’s all this Alex tells us about you getting a Badour film? That sounds promising. More so, perhaps, than what you’ve been doing lately?” She smiled to take the sting out.

  Elizabeth felt it anyway. She shouldn’t. But looking like a failure in the eyes of your mentor cut deep. “It’s more a lunch with the hope of a job,” she said. “Although he did have me in mind. He saw me in Shakespeare’s Women.”

  Grace’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows shot up at that.

  Elizabeth had pitched the idea of that show to her back in London, hoping Grace might come on board and champion it. Instead, she had frowned. “No props, no costumes? Theatrical suicide,” she’d said. “I’m so sorry, Bess, I can’t endorse it.”

  She’d disappeared to LA shortly afterwards, and Elizabet
h had raised the funding herself and put the play on with a shoestring budget at a family friend’s theater that just barely counted as the West End. It had drawn strong crowds and enough excellent reviews to be dubbed a critical hit, and even made a modest profit. That had been the first time Elizabeth had stepped out on her own. The play meant everything to her.

  “Badour liked your little show? Well, for a Frenchman he has some redeeming qualities then.” Grace’s tone was amused.

  A thrill shot through her. That meant Grace had liked it too? When had she seen it? Elizabeth’s mind skidded back over the times, dates, days, desperate to remember.

  “Anyone who appreciates the Bard is in my good books,” Grace clarified.

  Oh. Of course. Elizabeth’s smile dimmed.

  Alex shot her a sympathetic look.

  Christ. Am I that transparent?

  Elizabeth settled in her armchair, sipping her guayusa cacao tea. It was some generic version, not a patch on the exact variety she adored, but it was the best substitute she could find.

  The tea only reminded her of Summer Hayes. So young. Eager to please. Beautiful. Little wonder Ravitz had his eye on her. Funniest thing, though, the girl seemed oblivious. How could any actress who looked like Summer be so unaware? She hadn’t noticed the way the boom operator’s eyes had slid over her, either. Or how the extra whose chest Elizabeth had been working on had smiled up at her appreciatively when they were re-setting for close-ups. The girl wasn’t much of an observer then. Not to mention being too clumsy to function.

  That felt churlish. Summer seemed nice enough. Maybe Elizabeth was becoming the bitch they all said she was? Her bad-substitute tea suddenly tasted bitter.