All That Lies Within

by Lynn Ames

  “It was. Which, I might point out, also is not like you. But I still love you. And if you’d listened to me instead of going on national television and openly coveting the role, they might still be diddling around instead of getting it done.”

  “You weren’t too fond of my taking it public at the time.”

  Rick’s laughter echoed through the cell phone connection. “That was before you got the part. Now? I’m thrilled. Good call.”

  “I’ll remember that next time I do something that freaks you out.”

  “No you won’t, and that’s okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Bye, Rick.” Dara closed the Bluetooth and tossed it on the small table beside her chair. For several minutes she simply sat, mesmerized by the rhythmic slap of the water on the sand and the call of the gulls.

  Rick was right, she should be thrilled and doing a happy dance. So why wasn’t she? Playing the role that she wrote was a dream come true. She wouldn’t have to worry about whether the actress could do justice to a character so near and dear to the author’s heart. She was the actress. Everything rested in her hands.

  “Almost everything.” Dara corrected herself. The screenwriter, and most especially the director, would have a lot to say about how the book got brought to life. A scene shot this way or that, a choice of camera angles, a deleted line here or there—all of it contributed to the final product.

  Still, Dara had the part. Rebecca would be overjoyed to know. Dara groaned. That was the problem. She’d never get to tell her in a letter or in person and watch her reaction, to see those vibrant eyes light up… Stop it. You’re torturing yourself. Let it go.

  In the week since she’d come back to LA, Dara had replayed those few seconds with Rebecca dozens of times. What if she had stayed long enough to hear what Rebecca would say next? What if she hadn’t gotten so terrified and run? Why couldn’t she bring herself to write to Rebecca now?

  “Because you’re afraid she’s just like all the others and you don’t want her to be.” Dara shook her head in disgust. “And now you’re so pathetic you’re talking to yourself.”

  At the sound of the warning alarm that a car was in the drive, Dara got up and went back inside. No doubt, the script had arrived. She would be grateful for the distraction.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Welcome to Entertainment Tonight. Our top story comes out of Hollywood, where Entertainment Tonight has learned that Tinseltown’s torrid affair with actress Dara Thomas won’t be cooling off anytime soon.”

  Rebecca froze with a forkful of honey balsamic salad in mid-air. Her mouth went dry.

  A video clip showed Dara looking spectacular in a flowing indigo gown. Her hair was swept up in a French knot. Cameras flashed from every angle as she smiled and posed. Rebecca marveled at how calm, cool, and collected Dara appeared despite the frenzy around her.

  “I bet you hate that,” Rebecca muttered. The thought sent a renewed spasm of pain through her. It was yet another reminder that she would never again be privy to Dara’s thoughts or see those now-familiar flashes of humor.

  “Thomas, seen here at last night’s star-studded benefit for the AIDS Foundation in Beverly Hills, reportedly has signed on to play the role of Celeste in the troubled big-screen adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, On the Wings of Angels. The film languished in limbo for a long time following the very public firing of A-list actress Jessica Howland over her reportedly lackluster performance as the title character. With Thomas taking over the role, shooting on the film will begin in less than two weeks.”

  It took several seconds for the substance of the report to sink in. When it did, Rebecca’s heart fluttered on a surge of pride. Dara would get to play Celeste, after all. “I’m happy for you.”

  How the director ever could have thought Jessica Howland was right for the part was beyond Rebecca. Dara should have been the clear choice all along. But maybe her schedule hadn’t allowed for it.

  Rebecca turned off the television and picked up her copy of On the Wings of Angels. Rereading it somehow made her feel closer to the author. As she focused on Celeste’s spiritual journey, she imagined the dialogue being spoken by Dara. Yes. There really was no other choice for the part. She knew that when the movie made it to the big screen, she’d see it many times. It was as close as she was going to get to be a part of Dara’s life again.

  Dara tossed the script down on the table. “This is never going to work.”

  “What’s wrong?” Carolyn asked.

  “What’s wrong? Are you listening to these lines? This isn’t Celeste. I don’t know who the hell it is, but it isn’t Celeste.”

  Carolyn lowered her copy of the script. “It’s the screenwriter’s version of Celeste,” she said practically. “You know as well as I do that when Constance sold the rights, she lost any say over the film version.”

  “It wasn’t practical for me to write it. It wasn’t like Constance was going to be able to be on set to consult with the director, now was it?” Dara went to the refrigerator and yanked the door open. She looked inside for something to eat, decided she didn’t want anything, and slammed it shut again. When she returned to the living room, Carolyn was sitting there, patiently waiting for her.

  “Are you done having a temper tantrum?”

  Dara laughed. “It did sound a little like that, didn’t it?”

  “It’s been sounding a lot like that ever since you left New York.” Carolyn’s voice was gentle, but her message was unmistakable.

  “We’re not going to go there. You know that, right?”

  “You and I both know you’ve been miserable ever since the encounter with—”

  “You are so going there.” Dara shook her head.

  “Am I wrong?”

  Dara didn’t want to answer. They both knew it was true. “What do you want me to say?” She threw up her hands.

  “I want you to acknowledge that in the two weeks since, nothing has happened. Zero. No tabloids have run anything, no entertainment shows have broken the story. No magazines are talking about it.”

  “Yet.”

  Carolyn jumped up. “There is no ‘yet!’ For God’s sake. In that timeframe the whole world knows you were cast to play Celeste. Don’t you think that if Rebecca wanted to cash in, she would’ve outed you as Constance in that context? Really? Could there have been a better time for her to do it? A more profitable time for her to do it?”

  Dara took a step back. She couldn’t remember ever having seen Carolyn this animated. “What’s this really about?”

  “What’s it about?”

  “That was the question, yes.”

  “You’re being incredibly unfair. This woman hasn’t done anything to harm you. On the contrary, she’s respected you and your privacy. You, on the other hand, haven’t shown her anything close to respect. You’ve judged her without even letting her have her say.”

  “She had her say outside the studio.”

  Carolyn gave her a withering glare.

  “Change the subject,” Dara said.

  Carolyn shook her head in disgust. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  When she’d left, Dara stood in the middle of the room wondering what the hell had just happened.

  Carolyn drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She’d come perilously close to blurting out that she’d spent time with Rebecca and that the woman didn’t have a disingenuous bone in her body. Now, she was wondering what had stopped her from saying so out loud. She wanted to tell Dara about the meeting. She did. Who are you kidding? No, you didn’t. As angry and cranky as Dara had been since Letterman, Carolyn couldn’t envision an upside to disclosing the meeting. She didn’t think Dara could hear her.

  “And yet, here you are feeling guilty about keeping your mouth shut,” she mumbled.

  True to her word, Rebecca hadn’t tried to contact Dara or explain herself. She’d simply disappeared. Carolyn wondered how she was doing, and whether she was as ornery as Dara wa
s right now. “Probably.”

  Maybe she should reach out to Rebecca. And say what? That you’re sorry Dara’s being a butthead? That maybe she’ll come around? You can’t guarantee that.

  Carolyn pulled into the parking lot of her West Coast offices. When she took on other LA-based clients in addition to Dara, she decided it was time to establish a beachhead on the left coast. It wasn’t much, just a small boutique setup convenient to the major studios in Burbank so that she could be present for her clients in their hours of need. She also rented a condo nearby. As much as she and Dara loved each other like sisters, they each needed their own space.

  She checked her messages, returned phone calls, and answered e-mails. Then, unable to resist, she checked to see if there were any new videos of Rebecca’s classes online.

  Sure enough, the newest entry listed in a YouTube search was Rebecca’s opening lecture for the semester in her “Constance Darrow and the Modern American Heroine” class.

  An hour later, Carolyn was still sitting there, her chin propped up on her palm. The lesson was smartly crafted and the insights showed a remarkable command of the material, but… But, something was off. It was Rebecca. The passion from her previous semester’s classes was missing. The spark in her eyes had gone out.

  “You’re every bit as miserable as Dara.” The problem was, Carolyn wasn’t sure she could or should do anything about it.

  “No, no, no!” the director, George Nelson, yelled. “Stop!”

  The actors and actresses halted in the middle of the third rehearsal scene. Dara turned her head from side to side trying to relieve the tension. She could’ve told him the scene would never work as written. But it wasn’t for the actress to speak up in this situation; that was between the director and the screenwriter, in this case, Cal Whiting.

  “Cal, this just isn’t working. If this is what we shoot tomorrow, we’ll be wasting money and time.”

  “It isn’t in the words, George. I’m not sure what you want me to do here.”

  The director pulled the screenwriter off to the side, but Dara didn’t need to hear them to know what was being said. No doubt the screenwriter was complaining that the actors were underperforming. The director wouldn’t want his actors to be uptight before the shooting even began, so he would defend them and order the writer to figure something out.

  “Okay, people. Let’s move on to the next scene, shall we?”

  Dara noticed the writer hustling away. Revisions to follow, I’m sure. She only hoped the changes would bring Celeste closer to the complicated, conflicted woman as she’d written her.

  They moved on to the scene where Celeste meets Harold, a middle-aged man who has just lost his wife. He’s questioning his existence, pondering what kind of God could take the love of his life in her prime, and trying to find his way in the wake of his loss.

  “Dara, Sam,” George said. “You’re up. I’m planning to shoot this scene in tight, so I want to see plenty of emotion from you, Sam. Dara, how were you planning to play this?”

  Constance’s Celeste also was searching for something more after years of stumbling through life, never really finding any solace or meaning in her days. This script’s version wasn’t anywhere near as nuanced.

  “I think Harold and Celeste have a lot more in common than meets the eye. Although Celeste is much younger than Harold and hasn’t experienced nearly as much, she’s also questioning what the universe has in store for her.”

  “Sounds lovely,” the director said. “Except that’s not really the way it’s written. If you take her in that direction, it throws off almost every other scene between these two characters. Poor Cal would have to rewrite the whole script.”

  Dara badly wanted to point out that Cal never should have written the script that way in the first place, but that would be too far out of the norm for any actor to suggest.

  “Tell me what you have in mind and I’ll make sure I deliver it.” She smiled the sweetest smile she could muster. Dara prided herself on being a team player. No one had ever accused her of being demanding or difficult on a set, and she intended to keep it that way.

  The day progressed on in much the same fashion, as they blocked out and rehearsed the most critical scenes in the movie, going over motivations and mindsets, filling out the details that would bring the words on the pages to life. Finally, after eleven hours, the director told everyone to break for the day. Shooting would begin tomorrow.

  As Dara headed to her car, she dialed Carolyn’s number. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. How’d it go?”

  Dara groaned in response.

  “That good, eh?”

  “You have no idea. Do you have time for dinner, or did you already eat?”

  “I had a feeling I’d be hearing from you, so I waited. I’m starving, though, so hurry.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I’m already there.”

  Dara raised her eyebrows. “Where’s there? Your condo?”

  “Nope. Actually, I’m at your place. I figured you’d be beat and with tomorrow being the first day of filming, I thought I’d make this simple and bring in something light.”

  Dara was quiet for a moment.

  “But, if that isn’t what you want…”

  “No. I was just thinking about what a thoughtful gesture that was and how much I don’t deserve it. I know I’ve been a total bitch all week.”

  “Almost three weeks, but who’s counting.”

  Dara agreed. “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  In the end, she was there in ten. Carolyn already had everything on the table. “If Stan ever gets tired of you, you’d make a great wife.”

  “I already make a great wife, and I’m taken. Sorry, you’re going to have to go out and find your own.”

  Dara felt the edges of loneliness creep in. She’d spent enough time there in the last few weeks. “Nah. I’m good.”

  Carolyn frowned, but said nothing more on the subject. Instead, she asked, “So, how was the last day of rehearsal?”

  “In a word? Aggravating. George actually asked how I wanted to play that really crucial first scene between Celeste and Harold.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “What do you mean, uh oh?”

  “I mean, I read the book, and I ran lines for this scene with you. They bear precious little similarity to each other.”

  “My point, exactly.”

  “I suppose you told George that?”

  “Sort of.”

  Carolyn covered her eyes and peeked out between her fingers.

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid to ask how that went.”

  “I suggested the proper way Celeste should be played.”

  “And?”

  “And I got shot down.”

  Carolyn made a sympathetic noise. “It’s going to be a long three months, isn’t it?”

  “It’s looking that way.”

  “Remember, you wanted this.”

  “I did. But that was before I read the script.”

  “Please tell me you haven’t changed your mind.”

  “Okay. I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “Now say it like you mean it.”

  “I do mean it, Car.” Dara leaned forward. “But I can’t say it’s going to be easy.”

  “Your life seldom is, so why should making this movie be any different?”

  “This is different. This is my creation. My heart and soul are in those pages.”

  Carolyn got up to clear the plates. “You could always come out as Constance and suggest changes to the script.”

  Dara choked on the water she was drinking.

  “Well, you could.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “Why not?”

  Dara went to the sink and nudged Carolyn out of the way. “My house, I do the dishes. Besides, you got dinner.”

  Carolyn leaned against the counter. “You haven’t answered the question.”


  “I didn’t think you were serious.”

  “I wasn’t. But if it’s going to be such torture for you, it’s worth revisiting.”

  Dara turned off the water and faced Carolyn. “You’re my business manager. How can you ask that? Can you imagine how it would look to know that I campaigned to star in the adaptation of my own book without giving full disclosure? The press would have a field day, and George certainly wouldn’t want me on his set after that. There’d be too much tension. Do we follow the director’s lead, or do we go with the author/actress’s interpretation?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “But you knew all that already, didn’t you?” Dara said.

  “Of course.”

  “So that was for my benefit?”

  “You needed to get to a place where you understand why you’re only the lead actress on this set. Otherwise, you’re going to be miserable. You have to let go of this one and trust the writer and director to get it right.”

  Dara eyed Carolyn appreciatively. “That was pretty deft, you know that?”

  Carolyn winked. “I sure hope so.”

  “Is that why you’re really here tonight?”

  “I live to serve.” Carolyn bowed.

  “Right. Now get out of here before I kick you in the ass.”

  “That’s the thanks I get?”

  Dara leaned over and kissed Carolyn on the cheek. “Nope. That’s the thanks you get.”

  “That and five bucks will get me a latte. I’m out of here.” Carolyn gathered up her things and waved as she headed out the door.

  To the empty room Dara said, “Slick. That was very, very slick.”

  Carolyn was right, of course. Dara needed to stop fighting with the material and just suck it up and do it. She wasn’t in charge here; she was just a hired hand. It would be a struggle, but she’d try to remember that tomorrow. She turned out the lights and headed for bed. A 5:15 a.m. makeup call meant she needed to get a good night’s rest.