738 Days: A Novel

by Stacey Kade

  “Come on in, hon,” she says to Amanda. “You can sit over there if you want.” She points to an open swivel chair at the next station over.

  There are only two stations in the trailer and not much space between. It’s smaller than what I’m used to from my Starlight days. But so is everything on Coal City Nights, and I don’t care. I’m just grateful to be here.

  Hair and Makeup is your first stop on a working day, so the people there generally see you as you are. In my case, that was: frequently hungover, tired, and a little late. During the second season, at least. Toward the end of the third season, it was more like: still drunk, belligerent, and really late.

  Being late to a set is a huge deal. It’s disrespectful, a slap in the face to everyone else, not to mention pricey. Time is literally money because the equipment is rented, the clock is running, and everyone is being paid whether you’re there or not.

  But no one’s going to take a chunk out of the star for being late, not at first anyway, so instead the crew catches shit for it. They’re the ones pushed to move faster, to make up the difference and still produce quality.

  I knew that, but I didn’t care. Not then.

  Yeah. I was a massive dick. There’s no arguing or excusing it. Nothing to do but take responsibility. Which I’m ready to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

  It’s always harder with someone who knew you before everything went to shit. They have, or had, expectations that you’ve managed to disappoint in every way possible.

  Karen’s mouth tightens as she looks me over from head to toe, taking me in with a professional eye and also a jaded personal one.

  “You’re on time. Early, even. That’s a first,” she says. “Are you actually sober or just doing a good imitation of it?”

  I flinch, though she’s dead right to be asking.

  “I’m sober,” I say to Karen, standing my ground. It’s the only thing I can do. Besides apologize, which is also on my list. Making amends.

  “Everyone else is already on set,” Karen adds, and it sounds like an accusation, even though I’ve done nothing wrong. This time.

  Amanda gives me a guarded look but says nothing as she sits in the designated chair. She knows something’s wrong.

  Karen lifts her hand in an impatient, what-are-you-waiting-for gesture at me.

  I shrug out of Smitty’s carefully and precisely dirtied hoodie, hanging it on a hook behind me, and sit in the chair at her station.

  She wraps a cape around my neck before handing me the tube of industrial-strength moisturizer to apply myself. It’s almost like sliding backward in time to the first days on Starlight.

  “You don’t look quite as much like a rough patch of road,” Karen says, eyeing me critically, as she works a glob of product into my hair.

  “I’m trying,” I say, then wince. Because I know I’ve said that to her before. So many times over the years.

  She grunts in response, which is more than enough to convey her skepticism. Her touch is cool, brisk, professional.

  I swallow hard. “Listen, Karen,” I say quietly. “I need to apologize—”

  “So what are you doing mixed up with this circus?” she asks, raising her voice to direct the question to Amanda. She’s obviously not interested in my apologies—something she’s said to me more than once as well.

  “Amanda’s here to—”

  Karen glares at me in the mirror, hard.

  I shut my mouth.

  Amanda, watching the interplay from three feet away, frowns.

  “I’m a Starlight fan,” she says simply, after a pause.

  Her gaze catches mine in the mirror in a small private moment, and a tiny smile plays at the corners of her mouth.

  I want to laugh. Yeah, such a fan.

  “You’re a fan. Of his?” Karen asks. “Really.” Her tone conveys both skepticism and severe disapproval at once.

  “Yes,” Amanda says, tipping her chin up in defiance. I know her well enough now to hear the pique in her voice. She doesn’t like to be questioned. Too many people try to question her, to make her into their own vision of her.

  “No accounting for taste, I suppose,” Karen mutters.

  “Hey,” I say in warning. It’s fine for her to take a chunk out of me; I deserve it. Amanda doesn’t, even if her fandom is fake.

  Karen lifts her shoulder in a half-shrug and redirects. “How long have you been visiting?”

  “Just since yesterday,” Amanda answers warily.

  “What did you do last night?” Karen asks.

  She’s digging, trying to work out what’s going on, what I’m up to. Fuck. Elise’s scheme, and my going along with it, will only confirm that Karen’s right to think the worst of me.

  I’m feeling queasier than ever about what I’ve done.

  But Amanda has it well in hand. “Ate dinner,” she says with an economy of words, a challenge to Karen’s nosiness. “Went to bed.”

  Karen raises her eyebrows.

  “Alone,” Amanda adds dryly. Her face is a bit pink, but she’s holding it together. Is it weird or wrong that I’m proud of her? I don’t know, but I am.

  Karen continues to pepper Amanda with questions as she works, applying the base layer of foundation before adding the details.

  Amanda watches the bruise appear around my left eye. The cut over the bridge of my nose. The redness around my eyelids and at the base of my nostrils. All signs of an addict, a user, on a bad day in a hard life. Which could just as easily have been me in reality as Smitty in this version of the world.

  “Wow,” Amanda says to me. “You look terrible.” But her eyes are bright with humor.

  Before I can respond, Karen cuts in. “You think this is rough, you should have seen him when he was drunk and fell over a chair on set.”

  Humiliation burns up my neck and into my face, and I want to look away, hide from the judgment, but there’s nothing I can say. It happened; I did it. I can’t change the past.

  Eric and I were out late the night before. And then the night before stretched into the morning of. It was the tail end of the third season of Starlight, and I could see the show unraveling week by week and taking my career with it.

  Before that, I tried to stop it, tried to make things better, to point out where Brody was no longer being Brody, not just changing as a character, but becoming completely inconsistent. That was my job, right? To look out for Brody. To be the best Brody I could be. I’d been playing him for a couple years by that point, so I felt like I knew him, even cared about him like someone separate from me.

  But unsurprisingly, my input was not welcome. I sort of knew that going in—actors are actors, not writers—but I felt like I had to try, even as a last-ditch effort.

  Which then utterly failed.

  And hey, when your life is spinning out of control and you feel helpless and useless, what better way to handle it than to get wasted and blot out all your worries?

  The only problem with that method is that sobering up is inevitable, though not always timely, and the worries and fears come pouring back in with a vengeance and compounded by whatever stupid or shameful thing you’ve done in the meantime.

  Like stumbling into work and falling over a chair in front of everyone.

  “They had to write a fight scene into the next episode to cover it,” Karen adds with that amused, bitter, angry edge, punishing me for my stupidity.

  Amanda’s gaze shoots to me. “Real bruises,” she murmurs.

  I focus on staring at my right shoulder in the mirror, avoiding Amanda’s eyes.

  “Or how about the time you all took Eric’s dad’s jet to Cabo and left Marcus behind to find his way back?” Karen asks. “Fun times, right, Chase?” The sneer in her voice is cutting, and it’s hard not to try to defend myself even though there’s nothing to defend. She’s right.

  “I apologized to Marcus,” I say quietly. “And to Calista, too,” I add before she can bring that up. Though no amount of apologizing will
make up for what I did in that case.

  Karen raises her eyebrows. “They let you in to Safe Haven to visit? Perks of preferred-customer status?”

  “I wrote her,” I say, fidgeting with a loose flap of faux leather on the chair arm.

  That startles her into silence. She stares at me for a long moment as if trying to decide whether or not to believe me.

  Then she shakes her head and moves to consult the script and her notes on the counter.

  “You’ll have your sleeves down in this scene, so we can hold off on the track marks for today.” She pauses. “Unless you’ve already got your own.” She looks pointedly down at my arms at my sides.

  Amanda makes a sharp, surprised sound.

  I close my eyes. “No.”

  A solid and commanding knock sounds at the door.

  I open my eyes in time to see Karen step back from my chair, almost as if she’s been expecting the interruption.

  Max pops his head in. His dark curly hair is rumpled from where he’s been running his hands through it—a classic frustrated-Max move. I watched him do it so often on the couple of Starlight episodes he directed, it’s surprising he’s not bald. And his glasses, those thick, J. J. Abrams–inspired frames, are slightly crooked on his face, the lenses cloudy with visible smudges.

  Max is not having a good day. I can tell that before he even opens his mouth.

  “I need to talk to you,” he says abruptly, his gaze drilling into me. He doesn’t seem to notice Karen or Amanda or he doesn’t care.

  If his lack of pleasantries and greeting didn’t give it away, the bluntness of his tone tells me all I need to know. I’m in trouble. Whatever shit is raining down on Max’s day, he’s already narrowed the source down to me.

  My fists clench, the muscles in my arms going tight and my heartbeat accelerating for a fight. A dozen arguments leap to mind, each one louder and angrier than the next.

  I haven’t done anything wrong.

  I’m here, I’m ready to work. That’s what you wanted, right?

  You said you wanted to give me another chance. You call this a chance?

  Fighting, with fists or words, is my automatic response to any kind of authority. A counselor during my second rehab attempt said once that anger is fear turned outward. That I was afraid of people leaving or taking away what meant the most to me so I sabotaged myself instead. Doing the damage myself provided the illusion I was still in control.

  Even knowing that, it takes serious effort to keep my ass planted in the seat and my mouth shut.

  If I start arguing with Max, I’m screwed. It won’t change his mind about whatever it is. And even worse, he’ll just see my reaction as proof that he’s right to blame me, that I haven’t changed at all, no matter what I say.

  Besides, it’s entirely possible he’s right to blame me this time. The scheme Elise cooked up is already spiraling beyond control, and if someone from the hotel called Max …

  I let out a breath and force my hands to relax.

  “Sure,” I say, and it sounds almost normal.

  Before the word is completely out of my mouth, Max turns and leaves, letting the door slam behind him.

  “I guess I’m supposed to meet him outside,” I say to Amanda, trying a forced smile.

  Her forehead furrowed, she nods with that watchful wariness.

  My stomach is tight with dread. He might fire me. I might be getting fired.

  The idea is a rock in the back of my throat, making it impossible to swallow.

  I’ve never been fired. Not even from Starlight, when I certainly deserved to be.

  But the truth is, if it’s going to happen, now would be the time. Recasting would be a hassle, but we haven’t shot anything yet. If Max is at all concerned about my ability to pull this off, he’s probably already got someone in mind to replace me.

  Panic flaps in my chest. What am I going to do if he fires me? There goes the audition for the Besson movie. And anything else that might come along. My tarnished reputation will be completely blackened. I’ll be done, for good.

  Suddenly, the familiar smells in here—the foundation, hair spray, the various pungent removers and glues that linger in the air long after use—give me a nostalgic, homesick feeling. I felt the same way backstage just before the last performance of Twelve Angry Men my senior year in high school. Like I was losing something I wouldn’t be able to get back—not just a door shutting but an escape tunnel to another life being blown up in front of me.

  I want to be here. I want this life. I need it. This is what I’m meant to do.

  It’s the only thing I’ve ever done well or right. I need to be here, to be Smitty.

  With determination burning in my veins, I get up and snag Smitty’s hoodie. If I need one last chance to convince Max that I’m right for this role and that he’s right to trust me, then I need every advantage I can summon, and looking the part can only help.

  A glance in the mirror shows me Karen watching, her expression a mix of pity and hardened resolve.

  I face Amanda.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say in an attempt at reassurance, for both our sakes.

  Then I silently curse myself for saying the one thing that, in a horror movie, at least, guarantees the exact opposite.

  13

  Amanda

  The trailer door bangs shut after Chase, and I lean forward in my chair to track his movements through the window in the door.

  He looked so grim, the lines of his face tight and screaming misery.

  But the window is frosted glass, so all I see is two shadowy figures, one shorter and gesticulating wildly, the other standing stiff and unmoving.

  I can’t be sure, since no one used his name, but I’m betting the shorter shadow is Max, the director.

  The dread on Chase’s face told me that this guy Max, or whoever he is, is in a position to hurt him in some way.

  “… any idea of the trouble this has caused?” A strident voice comes through, slightly muffled.

  The Chase-shaped shadow ducks his head and mumbles something I can’t hear.

  “… call from the hotel … I had to pay for extra security, more barricades, not to mention the last-minute overtime … killing the budget, for Christ’s sake!” The shorter figure pulls at his hair, making it stand out in a wilder halo.

  Extra security. Crap. Is this because of the photographers? Is this because of me? The plan wasn’t mine, but I went along with it, encouraged it, even, because I didn’t want to feel bad about getting something without giving in return.

  “This is not Starlight, okay? This isn’t television. We can’t afford to fuck around, Chase. I only have so much money. Nobody is paying—”

  “You know he’s using you, right?” Karen says.

  I glance over to find her watching me in cool evaluation, taking my measure against some standard in her mind.

  Irritation flashes through me. I’m not sure whether she’s holding me up against what she knows about Amanda Grace, the Miracle Girl, media darling, innocent victim, or if she’s comparing me to other girls she’s met in Chase’s company.

  I suspect it’s the former and despise the idea of the latter, but either way, she doesn’t know me. I didn’t ask for her opinion, and her unsolicited, condescending “let me give you some good advice, sweetie” attitude, one I encounter frequently these days, is pissing me off.

  Ignoring her, I turn my attention back to the door and the conversation happening outside.

  “—cleared a guest, but she never said it was that Amanda Grace.” The man whom I suspect to be the director throws his hands in the air. “Jesus Christ, Chase, are you trying to mess this up?”

  I wince.

  “I’m not sure who’s pulling his strings these days, so it’s impossible to know exactly what he’s up to. Maybe he’s looking for a publicity boost by having you around,” Karen says. “Or maybe he wants to make himself look better. Soothing his guilty conscience or trying to give the haters something
else to talk about.” I register her careless shrug out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t know, but he’s working an angle. You need to know that.”

  Annoyed, I turn in my chair to face her. She’s not wrong, exactly, but the motives she’s ascribing to Chase are the least generous interpretation.

  “What makes you say that?” I ask finally. I’m not going to deny it because then she’ll just waste time trying to convince me. But I am curious about why she’d say it.

  “Because Chase doesn’t do anything that doesn’t benefit Chase,” she says, gathering up her brushes and sponges and putting them away.

  That doesn’t match with my understanding of him at all. Maybe he was that way once, but now, in my experience, he’s been considerate, maybe even overly so, of my feelings.

  So he’s a changed man, one who’s learned from his mistakes. Or maybe she never had the right measure of him in the first place.

  But something in Karen’s air speaks of bitter experience.

  Experience she’s obviously determined to share with me.

  With a last, reluctant glance toward the door and the conversation going on just outside, I swivel my chair toward hers.

  “Okay,” I say. “If that’s true—”

  She frowns. “Of course it’s true.”

  “Then why does it matter so much to you?” Because there’s a strong undercurrent of anger in the air in here. It tastes like betrayal, distrust, disappointment. Almost like … an ex-girlfriend?

  No, that’s not quite right. The vibe is different. But then again, my real-world experience with ex-girlfriends is limited to what I’ve seen on The Vampire Diaries and old episodes of One Tree Hill, so what do I know?

  Karen hears my unvoiced thought and laughs. “I didn’t sleep with him. You don’t get to write me off that easily.” She shakes her head. “Crazy ex-girlfriends never get the benefit of the doubt of being right,” she says with a wry twist of her mouth.

  “I didn’t say that’s who you were,” I point out.

  Karen sighs. “It’s more complicated than that.” She flips her braided pigtails behind her shoulders, where they don’t stay, and steps around her chair to sit down.