Breaking Character

by Lee Winter

  Elizabeth gradually started sharing snippets about herself. Not a lot, but more than before. Often it was about her childhood and home. She quoted literature a lot, and finally admitted the habit had been picked up at her mother’s knee.

  “Live with a literature professor and I dare you to come away not knowing how to cite your sources,” she teased one night, leaning back on the couch, eyes half lidded, a genial smile on her face.

  It was the most relaxed Summer had ever seen her. She wished she could freeze-frame the image forever.

  Summer, in turn, told her about growing up with her crazy, chaotic family. “You have to love awkwardness, that’s rule number one; color, that’s rule number two; and not question the absurd, rule number three.”

  “The absurd?”

  “Vibes, feelings, and so on. Doing or believing things because they feel right, not for any logical reason.”

  “And does your father go along with this too?” Elizabeth asked, leaning forward. “Brock doesn’t seem an illogical man.”

  “We all go along with it. Mom is too hard to argue with. You have no idea. It’s exhausting. Don’t even start me on the year she decided we would embrace feathers as fashion.”

  “Feathers?”

  Summer sighed. “It was way worse than it sounds.”

  “Oh I doubt that. It sounds dire. So what influences did your father have on you? I’m suspecting it’s not your co-ordination.”

  “Ha-ha. Yes, Dad worked out pretty early on I was useless at martial arts and all the other physical things he tried to teach me. He says I have the balance of a day-old fawn.”

  “Imagine that.” Elizabeth didn’t hide her smile.

  “So he did the next best thing: taught me how to fall correctly, so I wouldn’t hurt myself on landing. Boy, has that come in handy.”

  Elizabeth burst into laughter. It was the sweetest sound—high, light, and unexpected. She herself seemed stunned by it. “Oh my God. I haven’t laughed like that in…” Her face fell. “Years?”

  “Tales of my parents do have that effect on people.”

  “Oh, I’m quite sure it’s not your parents. It’s more…” she drew her finger in a circle in the air around Summer’s face. “The Summer effect.”

  “There’s a ‘me’ effect?”

  Quirking her lips, Elizabeth said, “There certainly is. I’m not sure how to quantify it. You probably defy science. I’m certain of it.”

  “I do?” Summer looked at her, lost. “Um, what science?”

  “The statistically improbable ability of lowering my defenses to the point you make me laugh like that.” She looked bemused. “I’m not sure what to make of it. You’re certainly my favorite scientific anomaly right now.” She smiled and took another swallow of tea.

  Oh. Wow. Summer felt warm, pleased, and all sorts of gooey. Sadness washed over her so abruptly that she almost gasped. Confused, she pushed it away and grinned, topped up their tea, and continued regaling Elizabeth with more absurd tales from her childhood.

  When she went to bed that night, Summer turned over her sudden sadness, unable to pinpoint its source. About two in the morning she sat up as the stark truth hit her.

  Elizabeth was like being shown a precious gem, and being told she could get as close as she liked to admire it but could never touch. That it wasn’t for her, and never would be. As their relationship deepened, the knowledge that Summer would never have all of her hurt more each day. Now it was a constant, low-level ache.

  She couldn’t stay here. It was too easy in this wilderness, alone with Bess, for the world to dissolve, to get lost in the messy, inconvenient feelings that were becoming too powerful.

  The next morning, Summer packed up and offered her excuses—lame ones that made Elizabeth’s eyes cloud with confusion and her lips open with unasked questions. Summer was glad she didn’t ask them; she couldn’t bear the lies she’d have had to tell.

  In front of Jean-Claude and a few of the yawning production crew, they shared a rather awkward, brief farewell kiss and a soft, tingly hug, before Summer retreated to her car and floored it out of Kings Canyon National Park.

  When she got home, Summer crawled into bed for a few days, not in the mood for human interaction. Wallowing felt like an appropriate life goal.

  Around day three, Chloe threw a pillow at her and told her to stop brooding.

  It wasn’t brooding if she had a legitimate broken heart, was it? Well, not broken-broken. More like dented. Slightly bruised? The worst part was, that heated kiss still filled her dreams, and left her body burning each morning.

  Autumn’s unannounced arrival the next day interrupted Summer’s steady new diet of ice cream and daytime soaps. She answered the door in her PJs at eleven and shuffled back to the sofa. “There’s Diet Coke in the fridge,” she told her sister, who’d followed her.

  “You know I don’t touch black death. You shouldn’t either.”

  “You sound like Bess.” Damn it. She’d been trying not to think of her every five minutes. She tried to focus on a soap star’s impossibly handsome head instead. He had an odd tic of licking his lips before delivering each line.

  Autumn snatched the remote from her hands and switched off the TV. “We have to talk.”

  “Hey! How’ll I find out who’s the father of Crystal’s baby?”

  “Summer? It’s about work.”

  That got her attention. “Choosing Hope?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ve finally fired me, huh?” She slumped. “Well, Ravitz did have his beady little eye on me. Like he was figuring out where to bury my body.” Wouldn’t this top off her month perfectly? Heart squished (a little). Pay check axed. Back to the auditions rat race.

  “Not fired,” Autumn said cautiously. “It’s something else.” She slid her gaze upwards and flared her nose.

  Uh-oh. Bad juju ahead. “Shit, what is it?” Summer sat up, worried.

  “Look, while you were off in the middle of the wilds, your final Hope episodes aired—the ones where you and Thornton had that weird vibe around each other? What on earth were you trying to play, anyway?”

  Summer shrugged. “No idea. We never did figure it out.”

  “Apparently that was a common reaction.”

  “Huh?”

  “Fans noticed. Along with thousands of new fans they recruited to try and figure it out with them.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You’re being ‘shipped’ together by viewers. Hunt and Carter now have the portmanteau of ‘Hunter’. I hear the lesbian fan fiction and artwork is melting the internet. Hunter’s the fastest growing fandom in the world right now.”

  “Lesbi…fan fiction? The hell?” Summer struggled to make sense of the words. It sounded an awful lot like people wanted her and Elizabeth’s characters getting it on.

  Autumn exhaled. “You heard me. Now Ravitz and Lenton have called in you and your accomplice for an urgent meeting. It’s next Tuesday at ten. Dress smart. Be polite. Don’t try to be funny.”

  A meeting? So they did want to fire her? She hadn’t thought her acting had been that out there. Sure she’d been in a dark place for most of those weeks. How awful had she been? “Ah, crap.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But why are they hauling Elizabeth in too? She only ever reacted to what I did. She didn’t contribute.” Had Chief Hunt been acting differently too? Maybe a tiny bit less mean? Summer wracked her brain trying to remember, but that time for her was clouded in a swirl of misery. “Anyway, they can’t fire her for what I did. Besides there’s no point firing someone they’re already planning on writing out in the upcoming season.”

  “Maybe they’re bringing her exit forward?” Autumn suggested. “As in rapidly forward? I get the impression they’re not fond of her.”

  “They’re not. It’s not her fault,
either. They had some shitty plot lined up for Hunt to have a drunken one-night stand with a barely legal intern, and she refused to do it. In retaliation they deliberately fucked up her character. They gave Hunt Mendez, only for her to break his heart in the cruelest way to turn the fans against her.”

  Autumn regarded her. “Summer, listen to me really close. Whatever they do to her on Tuesday is not your concern, okay? If they decide to punish her, fire her, or make her character join the circus and juggle skunks, don’t react. That’s for her to work out. Say nothing that doesn’t relate to you. I know you care for her…” She paused, then lifted her eyebrows.

  Summer waited for her to finish.

  “Oh, we’re not going to do this anymore?” Autumn asked. “Your automatic denial that it’s not what I think, and that was only when you were young?”

  “You can leave at any time.” Summer scowled.

  “Damn it, damn it, damn it. Fuck!” Autumn burrowed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “This…is not helpful. That shoot was supposed to cure you, not make it worse. And now we have Hunter to contend with, too? What is it with you two that you keep attracting the gay? Especially the gay with each other?”

  If only she knew. “Autumn,” she tried for her most conciliatory tone, “I’ll behave at the meeting. Anything else?”

  “No.” She sighed. “Summer, are you okay? You haven’t seemed yourself since you got back. Did anything happen out there?”

  “Not a thing. Unless you count a few mosquito bites.”

  “And did you cope okay with the sex scenes? Was it hard or did you get over it?”

  “Both. But I’m fine.” Summer reached for the remote. “I think Javier’s the baby daddy. He was always around when Crystal was dating that media mogul.”

  Autumn took the hint. “You can always talk to me, you know. And I do get just wanting to lounge around, but pajamas in the middle of the day, Summer? Seriously?”

  “It’s my vacation.” She glared.

  “Okay, okay.” Autumn held up her hands. “I’ll see you Sunday for lunch like always. But remember, next Tuesday at ten.”

  Summer stabbed the On button and her soap resumed.

  It had been nine days since Summer had last seen Elizabeth. She was counting and didn’t even bother denying otherwise.

  Summer was in two minds about seeing her again. On the one hand, they’d left things as friends. On the other, Summer’s growing feelings couldn’t be switched off like a faucet. The memory of the kiss taunted her often. Just as strong was the memory of their talks each night.

  Of course, the triple threat was that Elizabeth still looked…gah. Amazing. Her hair tumbled loose over her shoulders. Did she have to wear a navy vest over that crisp white shirt? Is she trying to kill me?

  Summer slid into a chair beside Elizabeth, opposite director Bob Ravitz, showrunner Stanley Lenton, chief writer Hugo Pollard, and the son of the network president whose name she could never remember. He never visited the set. These were the big guns. Her anxiously thudding pulse calmed down a little. Surely they wouldn’t invite him or Hugo to a firing?

  Elizabeth glanced over, giving Summer a polite nod.

  How had she taken the news of their “Hunter” fandom? Were her people feverishly working on strategies to hose it all down into a lovely sheen of vanilla heterosexuality? Probably.

  “Ms. Hayes, at last, thanks for joining us,” Lenton said.

  Ass. Summer wasn’t late. She murmured something suitably polite back.

  “I appreciate you and Ms. Thornton coming in on your time off before we’re officially back for season seven,” the showrunner continued, his gaze flickering between them. “As you know, during hiatus, the final episodes of last season aired. It was…quite an eye-opener seeing the reaction.”

  Elizabeth darted a glance at Summer.

  “Hunter,” Ravitz took over. “That’s what they’re calling you two now. You thought we didn’t know what you were up to?” The director pinned his dark eyes on Summer. “I discussed it with Stanley when you put the first lesbian subtext in…that episode with the dyed fingers?”

  Summer’s heart rate nearly tripled. Shit, he noticed that?

  “God, everyone’s trying to find a way to get noticed on TV. So that was your play? I get it. I’m only surprised you talked her into going along with it.” He pointed at Elizabeth, who didn’t react at all. “I talked it over with Stanley, and we decided not to stop it and see what the fans did with it. See if they even noticed.”

  “They fuckin’ noticed all right,” the network man said. “This lesbian crap’s everywhere. Memes, art, social media, all of it. People are writing damned theses on what emotional state you two were playing.” He snorted. “Christ almighty, viewers must be bored.”

  “Yes, Jason.” Lenton gave him a shiny, alligator smile. “They certainly must be. So, well done, Ms. Hayes. You did what you set out to, and got yourself noticed in a big way.”

  Summer stared at him, unable to think of anything to say.

  “We had been trying to understand what was in it for Ms. Thornton, but now we know.” The showrunner turned to Elizabeth. “You thought we wouldn’t figure it out?”

  “What would that be?” Elizabeth’s shoulders tensed, although her tone sounded relaxed.

  “Damned sneaky. First adding the subtext. Then the snaps from the paparazzi—who you obviously tipped off to be waiting.”

  Summer shook her head to interrupt but he held up his hand.

  “Don’t bother. Look, Hollywood’s a small town. We know everyone’s secrets. So I happen to know that you two spent your hiatus doing some artsy queer flick playing lovers for Jean-Claude Badour. So all this earlier stuff’s been a covert publicity stunt, using our show. You probably figured by the time those episodes aired, people would be talking about your chemistry and the gay rumors. Then word would be put out that there’s an actual sex scene in that indie flick, and they’d all rush out and see it. Clever. Stealth fuckin’ marketing at its finest.”

  Mouth falling open, Summer made to object again. Elizabeth’s hand pressing urgently on her thigh made her clang her jaw shut.

  “Well, I suppose the gig’s up,” Elizabeth said smoothly with a tiny shrug. “So you’ve caught us. Now what?”

  Lenton laughed. “I knew it. Sly as hell.” He didn’t seem too annoyed. Actually, he looked pretty pleased at being right.

  Elizabeth’s hand disappeared off Summer’s thigh. The warm buzz remained. Traitorous leg.

  “We’ve discussed it and we’re getting in first,” he said. “We’re gazumping that French flick and using your stealth marketing for our own ends. The network’s behind it. Not surprising when you see the ratings we’ve been getting since you two started your Hunter stunts. We’ve got all these new queer fans tuning in, and they’ve told their friends, and straight viewers are all ‘What’s the damned fuss about?’ And now…” He held up a page with a list of numbers. “Choosing Hope’s officially the number one non-sport show in the US right now. Not just our network. Not just dramas. All of it. All shows. All channels. We’re it.”

  Holy shit! Summer gaped at him.

  Elizabeth’s mouth had dropped slightly open. “How exactly are you planning on working this to your advantage?” she asked Lenton, voice silky.

  “For starters, we’ve decided we’re supporting Hunter’s fans. More than that, we’ll make it real for them.”

  What. The. Hell?

  Elizabeth stiffened beside her.

  “This’ll give our diversity quota for the network a boost, too,” the network man cut in. “We’re going to milk the hell out of this. A sizzling lesbian romance by fan demand.”

  “Dr. Hunt’s the villain.” Caution edged Elizabeth’s tone. “Why do I think there’s more to this than a romance?”

  “Perceptive.” Lenton’s smile turned mean. “
Let’s just say that plot you objected to so vigorously? It’s been rewritten. There’re no drunken escapades this time. And your love interest’s obviously older than some wet-behind-the-ears intern, so your precious character’s integrity is intact. But all the rest stays.”

  “Hunt is still Carter’s boss.”

  “I’m well aware.”

  “There’s a power-balance issue.”

  “But not an age or an alcohol one. You got two out of three. I’d take that as a win. Right?” His gaze sharpened.

  Elizabeth hesitated. “And Dr. Hunt is now bisexual?”

  “Fuck no.” He chortled. “We’ll discover the reason she was such a bitch to Mendez was because she’s been hiding her inner gay all this time. Hundred percent homo.”

  “Um,” Summer said, “sorry, but isn’t Joey straight? Hasn’t she been flirting with Mendez? Well, more him flirting with her, really, but still, I thought, she was written as—”

  “She was straight,” Lenton said. “Hunt’s going to turn her queer as a three-dollar bill.”

  Turn her?

  Turn. Her?

  “That’s not how it works.” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed.

  “It is now.” Lenton gave her a withering look. “Do you think I give a fuck about the laws of sexuality? Hunter fans want action. Ratings speak. So that’s what’s happening.”

  “But, Mr. Lenton,” Summer said carefully, “won’t this come across as predatory? Innocent, sweet Joey being seduced by her wicked boss?”

  “Yes.” He all but beamed. “It will. Hunt’s the villain for a reason.”

  Elizabeth frowned.

  “Okay, so won’t that, ah, piss off your lesbian viewers?” Summer tried again. “If you’re suggesting she’s some sort of scheming, predatory dyke?”

  “Well, I’m sure Ms. Thornton can walk the line delicately, so we keep the queer-loving liberal fans as well as the edgy plot.” He swung his gaze to Elizabeth, challenging her with a stare. “I was under the impression you’re a brilliant actress. Shakespeare and so forth? Was I misinformed, Ms. Thornton?”