Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss

by Kasie West

  SCARLETT

  Then don’t tell anyone.

  Fifteen

  Those two days off were not good for me. I felt more out of character now than ever, having been only myself for the last two days.

  The morning started off bad and didn’t get any better. Each scene required more takes than usual—Grant and I were not in sync. Remy got grumpier and grumpier as the day wore on. Especially when my advocate said I’d hit my hours limit for the day. I left the set probably as frustrated as Remy.

  I was tough, I told myself. I needed to forget about the real world, my real life, for a while and put on my character off camera. I went out to the parking lot, fully costumed, to retrieve my Dancing Graves book from the trunk of the car. Grant’s fans were there, lining the barricades as always, holding their handmade signs. I thought about going up and saying hi. Showing them that I was nice and hoping they’d post something good about me. But in response to my publicist email, my agent had said, Just keep your head down and work. If we need a publicist, we’ll worry about that after filming, during movie promotion, when it will matter. I wondered if that was her nice way of saying I couldn’t afford one for a long period of time so I needed to time it right.

  I focused on my car, trying to keep a neutral expression on my zombified face as I walked. I popped my trunk and retrieved the book. I took a deep breath and tried to channel Scarlett. Maybe I needed to start calling Grant Benjamin on and off set. I flipped to page one as I walked back to my trailer. It had been a while since I read the book. Unlike the script, it fully immersed me in the character and world that surrounded her with detailed descriptions and back stories.

  I opened the door to my trailer, put the book facedown on the table, and went into the bathroom. The curtain was drawn around the small shower, which wasn’t how I’d left it. I reached toward it, ready to throw it open, when it was ripped to the side from within followed by a loud scream.

  I picked up my hairbrush from the counter and swung it with a scream of my own before I registered that the person standing in my shower was Amanda.

  “Were you going to kill me with a hairbrush?” she said through her laughter.

  “You are evil. Pure evil,” I said.

  She bowed, then stepped out of my shower.

  “The devil herself is what you are. You almost made me pee my pants.”

  She blew me a kiss and skipped out of my bathroom.

  “How did you even get over here before me? I just saw you on set,” I said as she laid herself on my couch.

  “I’m a fast runner.”

  “This is why Grant has security guards outside his trailer.” Apparently mine was Grand Central station, anyone and everyone was allowed in. Despite my still-racing heart, I found myself smiling.

  “Grant has security guards outside his trailer because he’s a big star.” She said the word big in a sarcastic voice, like it wasn’t true.

  “Uh-oh. What happened?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s the problem.”

  “You just gotta let yourself fall for me,” I said in a deep-voiced impersonation of him. “Are you sure you still want something to happen?”

  “He gave you the speech too?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded slowly. “He’s just doing what he always does, what works for him. Once he realizes that he likes me, he won’t flirt with everyone else.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Have you thought of a brilliant plan yet?”

  I hadn’t, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t. “Too bad it’s not you who’s kissing him on camera next week. I watched your videos. That would totally sway him.” I straightened up. “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?” she asked.

  “You’re going to kiss him under the pretense of giving me some pointers.”

  She sat up. “That’s a brilliant idea.”

  “I know!”

  “You’ll suggest this practice session at some point? If I do, it will be obvious.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “You’re the best.” She put her feet up on my coffee table. “How are things going with your boy?”

  “He’s not my boy.”

  There was a knock at the door. Speaking of Grand Central. “Come in!”

  Donavan walked into the trailer, and my heart stuttered. Why did it do that? I scowled at the reaction.

  “I see you’re so happy to see me,” he said.

  “She’s so happy to see you,” Amanda said. “We were just talking about you and I was just leaving.” She turned toward me and wiggled her eyebrows. I shook my head with a laugh, and she left.

  “I just came to bring you a fresh new homework packet,” Donavan said when the door was shut.

  “Scarlett doesn’t do homework.”

  “Lacey doesn’t either.”

  “Funny.”

  “Who is Scarlett?” He obviously didn’t remember my character’s name.

  I held up the book in my hand.

  “Oh, right.” He put the new packet on my table and turned to go. “So you’ll just text me a pic when you get some done, then?”

  He was leaving? “You’re not going to do the math with me?”

  He wrinkled his brow in confusion. “I thought . . .”

  He needs to leave, Lacey. You need to work on being Scarlett. He is a distraction. “Will you do it in character with me?” I asked, ignoring my better judgment.

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “You tutor me while in character. I do my assignments as Scarlett. It’s called method acting.”

  “And who am I supposed to be?”

  “His name is Benjamin. He’s a zombie hunter.”

  “Is that who Grant James plays?”

  I smirked. “Is that a problem?”

  “I am probably equally as good an actor as Grant James.”

  “So you have done some acting,” I said.

  “No. I’ll be horrible.”

  “Ouch, Mr. Reviewer. Pretty sure you’re already on Grant’s bad side. You don’t need to be walking around the studio bad-talking him.”

  He looked repentant. “I’m sorry. That was in poor taste.”

  I smiled. “I was teasing you.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure my trailer door was closed. “Sort of.”

  “So you want me to sit here and pretend to kill you for the next hour?”

  “No, he’s not trying to kill me, remember? He’s in love with me. Just basically say whatever you’re going to say, but in a British accent. I’ll figure out the rest.”

  “You really do always try to get out of schoolwork.” He sat down on the couch.

  I grabbed my packet and my book from the table and sat down next to him. “This is the opposite of that. This is a creative way of doing schoolwork. How is your British accent?”

  “Horrible. Very, very horrible.”

  “Hold on, before you start, let me . . .” I reached over and messed up his perfectly styled hair. He was cute—big brown eyes, nice lips, defined jaw. “There. Better. Oh wait. Can I just?” I pointed to his shirt.

  “What?”

  “Just the top button. Isn’t this choking you?” I unbuttoned the top one, then assessed the new look. Just those two changes made him look more relaxed, which was more him, I was learning. As much of a taskmaster as he was, he actually did have a pretty mellow personality. One that radiated calm. “This is what you choose to wear on a Wednesday?”

  “I came straight from work.”

  I cleared my throat. “Isn’t this work?”

  “I am also a waiter.”

  “Really?” I leaned over and smelled him. “You don’t even smell like food.”

  “You are so weird.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “It’s this little family-owned restaurant by my house called Bella’s.”

  “So wait, you’re a waiter and a tutor and you write reviews? When do you find the time to do your own homework?�
��

  “I’m not really a tutor.”

  I squinted my eyes. “Um . . . what do you call what we’re doing, then?”

  “Well, I mean, I tutor you. But you’re the only one.”

  “Oh.” I was even more confused now. “That’s why Taylor in the front office at your school had no idea what I was talking about when I said you tutored.”

  “Probably.”

  “Then how did you . . . ?”

  “Your dad seemed really desperate.”

  I nodded. “He often does.” Knowing my dad, he’d probably had the school give him the names of the three students who had the highest GPAs and he personally called them.

  Donavan patted the packet in my hand. “Are we going to do this or what?”

  “Yes, method acting. Let’s hear it. We are now in eighteenth-century England.”

  He gave me the world’s biggest sigh. “Here is you always getting what you want.”

  “You’re right. I do always get what I want. My father owns this mansion, this town, and you in it,” I said as Scarlett.

  He gestured for me to hand him the packet, and I did. He began reading the first page of instructions in what I assumed was his attempt at a British accent. “Don’t look at me like that. This was your idea.”

  I laughed. He was being a good sport. “Please, carry on.”

  “Are you going to stay in your makeup again today?” he asked.

  I’d forgotten I had it on. “Makeup? What makeup?”

  “Okay, you weren’t kidding,” he said. “I guess we’re doing this.”

  “While I’m reading these word problems, you read this chapter.” I handed him Dancing Graves and turned to a Benjamin-heavy chapter.

  “Why?”

  “It’ll help you.”

  “You mean it will help you.”

  “In this room, that is the same thing.”

  He took the book from me and handed me my homework.

  He was a focused reader. He concentrated on each page—his eyebrows drawn together, the tip of his right thumb clamped lightly between his teeth, fully immersed.

  I skimmed the first word problem and then skimmed it again. Easy enough. But of course doing this immediately took me out of character. How would Scarlett have completed this?

  “I’ll be right back,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if he heard me, because he didn’t look up.

  I left my trailer and walked with purpose to the mansion. It wasn’t a real mansion, obviously. They had shot some B-roll film of a real mansion somewhere in a forested countryside. But here in the studio each of the three rooms they’d built only had three walls. In the room that represented the library, I remembered seeing a quill and inkpot. I wasn’t sure if it actually worked. So many things were fake. But so many things weren’t. Amanda had to write something at some point, so I hoped this was one of those set pieces that actually functioned. I riffled through the items on the desktop. When I didn’t see it, I opened a side drawer. I started to shut it again when something caught my eye—my flesh-colored kneepads. I pulled them out, confused. How did these end up here? Maybe I’d left them on set one day and they got shoved in the drawer when things were getting packed away.

  “What are you doing?” a voice from behind me asked.

  I whirled around, tense, then immediately relaxed. “Oh, it’s just you.”

  Grant stood there between two stacks of coiled extension cords, holding an apple.

  I tucked the kneepads under my arm and said in a British accent, “I’m after a writing apparatus.” He was the one who told me to be Scarlett; I was going to be Scarlett.

  “Oh, are you now?” he said, easily slipping into a perfect British accent. Much better than Donavan’s.

  I smiled at him. “My father has sent a tutor to help me in my studies.”

  He hopped up into the mansion library with me. “You and your tutors. A woman shouldn’t take on more than she can handle,” he said. It’s what Benjamin would’ve said, and he knew that.

  “But alas, I do what I’m told.”

  “I have a sneaking suspicion that assertion couldn’t be further from the truth.” He plucked the quill and ink I hadn’t seen off the corner of the desk and handed them to me, then took another bite of his apple, his blue eyes sparkling with humor.

  “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “My pleasure.” He took my hand in his and kissed my knuckles.

  I started to walk toward the exit, our hands still linked. He didn’t move, and eventually our hands pulled apart. We maintained eye contact while I took several more steps, then I turned, flipped my greasy hair, and walked away. This method acting could actually work. That was more chemistry than I’d had with him since auditioning.

  I smiled as I walked down the hall, my kneepads still tucked under my arm, quill and ink in my hand. I came to the corner and was about to turn it when I heard voices. One I recognized immediately as Remy’s. The other I couldn’t place because it was a bit muffled, but it was low and intense. I didn’t want to interrupt them, so I stopped a moment, trying to figure out if I should turn back or wait it out. That’s when I heard, “She’s too new, and not very good. Nobody knows who she is. And those who do, don’t even like her. You should read the posts on social media about her.”

  I couldn’t even tell if it was a guy or a girl, because the voice was spoken in a loud whisper.

  “It would cost the studio a lot of money if we replaced her now.”

  “It might cost them a lot of money if you don’t.”

  I backed up slowly, careful not to scuff my feet on the floor. When I got far enough away, I turned and took another exit, for the long way around to my trailer. I got inside and leaned against the door, out of breath.

  Sixteen

  Donavan hadn’t moved from his position on the couch; he was reading my book. But when I continued to stand there, he looked up. “What’s wrong?”

  I put the ink and quill on the table and tossed my kneepads into the corner. “I heard someone talking in the hall to my director about how they think I suck. I kind of do right now.”

  “Someone said that? Who?”

  “I have no idea. What if my director listens to them? What if they’re someone who has a lot of influence?”

  Donavan stood and walked over to where I was standing by the window of my trailer. He took my hand and led me to the couch. “Sit down.”

  I did.

  “How do you take this off?” He pointed to my face. “Is there a special method?”

  I nodded toward the vanity. “There’s some Q-tips and a bottle of solution. And there are some makeup wipes up there.”

  He gathered the things I’d mentioned and brought them back to the couch. Then he handed them to me and sat down.

  I turned toward him, pulled my legs up onto the couch and crossed them. I dipped a Q-tip in the solution and held it out for him. “You use this when it doesn’t come off easily.”

  He hesitated as he stared at me, and I realized he hadn’t meant that he was going to take it off. He’d brought it over for me to do. My mind was a mess. I started to say as much when he took the Q-tip from me and asked, “I . . . does it hurt?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  He reached for a section and gently tugged. After freeing that piece, I held out an upturned hand and he dropped the latex onto my palm. Then he turned more fully to face me, matching my cross-legged position. He leaned in, his eyes as intent on my face now as they’d been on that book moments before, while he carefully removed more sections. My heartbeat picked up.

  I shifted, hugging my knees to my chest.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a makeup-remover person,” he said.

  “I know, what kind of second-rate joint is this?” Our position made it so I couldn’t look anywhere but at him. He was close, his brown eyes studying each section he removed as if this was the most important thing he’d done all day. His hair that I had messed up earlier flopped forward. I pushed it b
ack for him, out of his eyes.

  “Thanks,” he said. Then he brushed a finger over a bare section on my cheek. “Why are you always missing this big part? Have you not fully transformed yet?”

  “It’s the only section that’s premade, and Leah, my makeup person, takes it off before I leave the set for the day. She doesn’t trust me with it.”

  He nodded like this made perfect sense. Like he wouldn’t trust me with anything valuable either.

  He was quiet for a moment and then said softly, “You don’t suck. You deserve to be here.”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t been feeling like that at all lately.

  “You landed a movie with the Grant James,” he said.

  I smiled a little.

  “Not to mention, every episode of The Cafeteria was near perfection.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “You’re a fan of The Cafeteria?”

  “I am.”

  “So you saw my episodes?”

  “You were brilliant.”

  I was used to getting compliments, but from Donavan—the critic, the guy who seemed to disapprove of half the things I did—it felt bigger somehow. It made my cheeks go pink. I wondered if I still had enough makeup on to mask it. My eyes dropped to the collar of his shirt. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “No . . . well, yes, I am. But I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

  “What happened to being objective?” I asked.

  “I am being objective. I don’t think you need to worry about people gossiping in the hallways. You were hired because you’re good.”

  I bit my lip. “I didn’t realize you knew me before . . .”

  “I didn’t know you before.”

  “I mean, I thought this was how you saw me for the first time.” I held up the handful of latex in my palm.

  “No.” His eyes slid to mine. “I’d seen you. But I didn’t want you to think that’s the only reason I took the job.”

  “So it was one of the reasons?”

  “What? No.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Fine, it didn’t hurt.”

  I smiled. “So what was the main reason you took this job?”