Behind the Scenes

by Christina C Jones

  El hit me back right away, full of insults and congratulations in her signature blend.

  Logan… I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it definitely wasn’t her nearly instantaneous response.

  Really?! Congratulationssss! Can’t wait to read it! – L.Byers

  She punctuated the text response with three little heart emojis on the end that made my eyes go wide as I definitely read too much into them.

  Instead of saying anything about it, I pretended the shit seemed regular, and replied with,

  Yeah. Thank you. What are you doing up so late?

  The night we met aside; Logan struck me as the type to have a very specific bedtime she adhered to without much room for wavering. Especially since I knew she got up early as fuck for work.

  Can’t sleep. – L.Byers

  Ah, damn.

  That was too bad… even though it worked in my favor. Before I could give myself a chance to second-think it, it was the fuel I used to get up from where I was seated, clean myself up, and grab my keys, wallet, and laptop.

  Twenty minutes later, I was walking up to her building, where some kind soul must’ve mistaken me for a neighbor, because they held the door open when they saw me coming. If it wasn’t working in my favor I would’ve been annoyed – the building had keycard access for a reason.

  I couldn’t think about that, though.

  Instead, I thanked him and headed for the elevator, glad I had a good enough memory to recall exactly where Logan had led me before, almost three weeks ago.

  I didn’t get nervous about showing up uninvited until it was time to knock on the door.

  But… then I thought about those little hearts at the end of that text and knocked anyway.

  If I got cussed out or whatever… it wouldn’t be the first time acting on impulse had gotten me there.

  I was getting ready to knock again – not too loud, in case she’d managed to fall asleep – when the door opened, and Logan peeked out. Through the crack in the door, I could tell she was in a robe, no makeup, with a silk scarf secured on her head.

  And her eyes were glossy and red.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, frowning. “Is something wrong?”

  I shook my head, still half-distracted by the clear evidence that she’d been crying. “I’m good. I just…” I held up the laptop, showing it to her, hoping it conveyed why I’d driven here without me having to actually say it.

  Her eyebrows hiked up at the sight of it, then she gave me a questioning – but not confused – look. Then, she stepped back, opening the door wider.

  “Come in.”

  I followed her directive, stepping in so she could close the door behind me. Now that I’d seen her face though, I wasn’t that interested in what brought me over here. I was much more concerned with, “Hey… are you okay?”

  She’d – purposely, maybe – had her back to me, but when I asked that she turned in my direction. Without the door half-blocking her face, I could see now that the answer to that question was definitely not. She didn’t say that though.

  She didn’t say anything, just stood there with her emotions playing on her face, trying – and failing – to keep her composure. I’d just seen her, at the office, the usual picture of excellence and poise – no signs of whatever this was. And there was no doubt in my mind that if I wasn’t seeing her now, if our next encounter had just been at the office, all she would be showing the world was perfectly-put-together-Logan.

  “You want to talk about it?” I asked, no longer needing an actual answer to the question, especially since her struggle with it was so obvious.

  Unsurprisingly, she shook her head.

  I couldn’t just do nothing though, so I tossed my laptop onto her couch, and opened my arms, extending them in her direction.

  At first, she just stared at me.

  But then, she accepted the gesture, stepping between my arms for me to wrap around her, and for a moment I thought that was gonna be it. She would submit to this moment of vulnerability – of just needing a damn hug – and then make me vow to never mention it again, and then that would be it.

  That’s… not how it went though.

  She sank into me as soon as I closed my arms around her, like a warm embrace was something she’d been desperately in need of. But then… it was like the reins on her emotions broke, and whatever she’d been trying to hold back came spilling out. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just kept holding her, letting her sob into my chest until she finally pulled away, scrubbing her hands over her wet face in an effort to clear away her tears.

  “This is so fucking embarrassing,” she laughed at herself as she turned away. “So unprofessional.”

  “You’re not on the clock,” I said, hooking a hand under her elbow, keeping her from shifting in the other direction as I moved to get back in front of her. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Instead of agreeing, she shook her head, pushing out a deep breath as she scrubbed her face one more time. “No. You came here to show me your script, right?”

  “Not in any type of official capacity. And whatever is going on with you seems a lot more important.”

  She let out another wry laugh. “I promise you, it’s not. Not at all.” With another cleansing breath, she raised her shoulders, head held high, giving me her customary “office” energy. “So, go ahead and open it up. Show it to me,” she insisted. “And we can talk about it.”

  “Nah.” I frowned, moving with her to the couch as she headed for where I’d left the laptop. “That’s not even close to important right now.”

  “Pierre, please,” she countered, her voice cracking a bit before she cleared her throat, re-composing herself. “I… could use something else to think about. So… can we just…”

  Fine.

  I sat down on her couch and she joined me, sitting as far away as she could, clutching her robe around her.

  The prominence of her nipples through the thin, navy blue silk was distracting as fuck, but this was definitely not the time for that. I focused instead on opening the laptop, getting the script pulled up, and handing it to her to read.

  And then… I found something else to look at.

  While she read, I found myself drawn to a wall of pictures in her place – Logan throughout the years. There were other people in most of the pictures, sure, but I kept finding my eyes drawn to her presence in them. Holiday pictures, graduations, family portraits, sorority stuff.

  Pictures of her with her not-fiancé.

  In all of them, she looked happy. Like life had been nothing but good to her.

  Her tears tonight said something else though.

  Maybe she got into with her boyfriend.

  A week had gone by since that run-in with his coworker outside the restaurant, and she hadn’t mentioned him to me since. Not that she ever gave me unsolicited peeks into her personal life now that we were working together, but I wasn’t really getting much of “heartbroken” vibe from her.

  Because she’s so easy to read.

  She’d given a bit of insight about that the first night… a little more when I talked her into having dinner. But with Logan… I wouldn’t know anything she didn’t want me to know, until exactly when she wanted me to know it.

  I wanted to know if her and ol’ boy were back together though.

  That wouldn’t be so surprising, right? Couples swore they were done, then ended up right back in each other’s faces all the time. Maybe she’d given him another chance, since there was a ring involved.

  Maybe he still wouldn’t act right.

  I turned around, expecting to find her still reading. I wanted to take the opportunity for some blatant staring at her fine ass. What I found though, was that her gaze was already on me – or maybe she was staring past me, at the pictures I’d been occupying myself with.

  “I just finished.”

  She said it with a sad sort of smile that brought me back to the other side of the room, where she
was.

  “Okay, so…?”

  Instead of looking at me, her eyes went back to the screen, where she stared a moment before smiling again – none of the sadness this time. “It’s perfect.”

  My eyebrows went up. “Perfect?”

  “The way you’ve presented it, is perfect. What happens is… heartbreaking. But it feels natural. Like it was always the way it was supposed to be. There were other ways you could’ve taken it… the heavy clichés, or the subversions of what’s expected, yes. But I appreciate what you’ve done instead – just letting it unfold very quietly, and naturally. It fits. And it feels right. And Tracy and Jason get to be happy, so I’m a happy reader. Soon to be happy viewer, I guess.”

  I spent a few seconds, taking in her words, then dropped to the couch beside her. “Ay… you’re serious right now? It’s good as is?”

  “I’m not an expert, by any means – just a bit of an enthusiast,” she said. “But to me… I think it’s beautiful. And sad.”

  I nodded. “Sad how? I mean, beyond the obvious.”

  “I just hate that, after standing up for himself, securing employment based on the degree he’s going to get, all that… Jason is still drawn back to the family business that he never wanted to be in. I mean, yes, he’s proven that he’s good at it, and we know he’s willing to do what needs to be done. But he was free. He had his future ahead of him, and he has Tracy, and then… Jameson’s death pulls him right back. The family is successful, and respected, and wealthy, and all these things… but they’re also a curse he can’t get away from,” she finished, quietly. “That legacy, the expectation. He can’t escape.”

  Something about the look in her eyes, paired with the crumbs she’d dropped in the short time we’d known each other… “Why do I get the feeling you know a bit about that?”

  She smirked, shaking her head. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Just a little bit,” I laughed.

  Logan closed the laptop, handing it back to me, and I immediately put it on my other side, out of the way. As I watched, she clasped her hands in front of her, pressing them to her mouth like she was thinking hard about her next step.

  “My parents are lawyers, I think I told you that before, right?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “Well… so are my grandparents – both sides. Like literally everybody. It’s not as deep in the next generation up, but enough that it’s very clearly part of the Byers’ legacy. It was never impressed upon me to marry one, but it was evident from very young that I was expected to be a lawyer. Like my parents. Like my grandparents. Like my great-grandfather. Bonus points if I married a lawyer too though.”

  Sitting back, I smirked. “I dunno… I kinda fuck with the vision here. I get it.”

  “So do I,” Logan admitted, smiling. “It’s the sort of ‘Black excellence’ corniness people go hard for. And growing up, adhering to that was all I ever wanted to do. I got the grades, and I went to BSU, got my undergrad degree, got my law degree, passed the bar, all that. And then… I realized it wasn’t actually what I wanted. Once I had it all, and still wasn’t happy, it was clear to me that what I was really seeking was my parents’ approval. I just wanted them to be proud. And they were! Les and I met, and our families encouraged it, even though he wasn’t a lawyer – I would carry the torch. Until I wouldn’t. I wanted to do something else, wanting to be something else.”

  I blew out a sigh. “I can’t imagine they were trying to hear that.”

  “No. No, not at all,” Logan mused, blinking back fresh tears. “But being a lawyer wasn’t all they taught me – not even close. They raised me to be fearless, and focused, and ambitious, stuff like that. And once I had my mind made up, that I didn’t want to be a lawyer – that I wanted to help people organize their lives, or work through a huge start-up pitch, or integrate into a new job, or… whatever… that was it. I wasn’t scared to leave the firm and start something of my own. I was determined to be successful at it, wouldn’t accept anything less. I talked with Desiree about branding, and establishing myself, all that. And here I am. I make twice as much as I did at the law firm, and I love what I do, but my parents… they just still don’t really understand it. Why would you throw away your education and experience to be a goddamn secretary?”

  “That’s what they think?”

  She nodded. “Yep. They aren’t really trying to hear otherwise, either. Not that there’s something wrong with that job, it’s just not really representative of what I do.”

  “Right. After seeing how you’ve stepped in for me, even assistant wouldn’t even feel right. With all the shit you do, hell… you’re a partner or something. I don’t know.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re thinking of me as something more than your babysitter.”

  I frowned. “I already told you, shorty; I see the value.”

  Her shoulders sank as another audible sigh pushed through her nose. “At least someone does. My parents still don’t. And if that wasn’t enough, I’ve just about reached the end of my ability to avoid them any longer. I’m gonna have to tell them about the breakup with me and Les, which is just going to… secure their disappointment. And I’m mad at myself for caring so much, because I’m a grown ass woman, but… they’re my parents. I want them to accept me, and be proud of me, you know?”

  “Honestly… yes and no,” I admitted, relaxing back into the comfort of her couch. “I was a kid when I lost my mother, and my Pops… after she was gone, he…” I stopped and shook my head, trying to figure out how to frame this. “El was small, so she mostly just didn’t understand. But losing her… I don’t even know how to describe it. I just felt lost, and I think my Pops did too. Cause I remember how they loved each other, and man they loved each other. So not having her, kinda broke him. Me and my sister – me and Elodie – we ended up living mostly with my mother’s sister – Nubia’s mother. She took care of us, because he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Either way, that’s where we were, so we didn’t see him a lot. And then he started drinking, so we saw him even less. He was still working though – still making everybody’s favorite movies and shit. People loved him. My Pops was cool as fuck man, everybody wanted him. Professionally and otherwise. Wanted to work with him, wanted his money, wanted to fuck him, all that. And to my mind… man, that shit was the life. My grandfather was Pierre and made movies. My Pops was Pierre the second and made movies. So shit… I was gonna do that too, cause I was motherfucking Pierre Perry the Third.”

  Logan laughed, shaking her head. “I can just imagine you as a teenager, telling all the girls your daddy made movies, so you were gonna do it too.”

  “Damn right,” I chuckled. “Stunting like my daddy, all that. So when I was about sixteen, I moved back in with him. To learn the craft, you know? And for a little bit, that’s really what it was – he taught me screenwriting, how to use the camera, all that. He was proud that I wanted to follow in his footsteps, and he would tell that shit to anybody who would listen. I would be on set with him, absorbing it all, and I loved it. Meeting celebrities, learning how to do what my father did, what made him the man, all that. But then I started seeing more… getting exposed to more… experiencing more. Shit I really shouldn’t have at that age. I just wanted to do the shit I saw my father doing, so I did. Until it became a problem.”

  Logan nodded. “You mean like… addiction?”

  “Yeah.” I blew out a sigh, propping my head back to stare up at the ceiling. I hadn’t talked about this shit at length with… anybody, really. Nubia, Nick, and Elodie already knew it all, and I didn’t hang with anybody else tough enough anymore that I would share any of this with them. I wasn’t really sure why I was, now. But now that I’d started, it was pointless to not tell the rest. “He overdosed backstage, at an award show. Right after he won,” I admitted, shaking my head. “The people he was with, they were too fucked up to notice something was wrong, so by the time he got medical attention, it was too late. I was in the audience. Fucked up
too. I had no idea what was going on.”

  Sitting up, Logan reached forward, putting a hand on my leg. “Pierre… I had no idea that was how your father…”

  “That’s by design,” I explained. “Luckily, social media wasn’t as big yet, so his PR and all that were able to keep the details out of the news.”

  “At least that’s a small blessing.”

  “Real small,” I scoffed. “Cause they didn’t bother to stay off my ass. I was still with the wrong people, doing shit I shouldn’t. I couldn’t say shit, couldn’t do shit, without the press on my ass, talking about how I was messing up the legacy, would never live up to my father, blah blah. And it was just like… if you motherfuckers really knew – he was the one who introduced me to this shit! But Nubia put her homegirl Chloe on it for me.”

  Logan’s eyes went wide. “Chloe McKenna?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. She got them off me, got pictures cleaned off blogs, got my name and shit scrubbed. And she gave me some advice about the company I kept, among other things. And I didn’t listen. But luckily there were real celebrities to care about, so I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. It still took me a while to get my shit together. I got off easy though – probably easier than most. Only two stints in rehab, and just for the drinking. I was too pussy to mess with anything much worse than that – there’s the blessing,” I laughed, and Logan joined, shaking her head.

  “Man… Pierre, I really wouldn’t have known any of this. I mean, I’d kinda guessed there was a thing for you with alcohol, but I didn’t… I didn’t know where it came from. Where you came from. Chloe scrubbed the fuck outta this,” she laughed.

  “Yeah, between her and my father’s people – we’ve never talked about it, but I’m sure Nubia has something to do with it too. Protecting the family and all that.”

  “Very likely,” Logan agreed. “You’re lucky to have her in your corner.”

  “More than lucky – she saved my life, really,” I admitted. “When her and Steph got together, and she was pregnant… while she was going through chemo… it really made me take a hard look at my own shit and decide that I was going to do better. I told her that, and she and Steph made the arrangements for rehab. My second time. I’ll be five years sober in March.”