Exposure

by Morgan

  David impulsively moved to Hollywood after his first co-starring role as a deaf veterinarian in Dog Eared. It’d been promoted as the next Free Willy, but had tanked worse than Jaws 3-D.

  He stayed in town, mostly because he couldn’t afford to move anywhere else, and found semi-steady work in commercials and underwear print ads. Eventually, even those opportunities faded away. He’d been nursing a dry spell that lasted eight months before he miraculously secured his next job.

  To put it simply, David Quinn felt cursed. Directors just weren’t casting no-name actors in leading roles, and they certainly weren’t going to cast someone in a supporting role when he looked better on camera than their leading man. It was a frustrating place for him to be. His rich blue eyes were complemented by coffee-brown hair, and he had tiny comma-shaped dimples in his olive-skinned smile. His arms and shoulders were effortlessly lean, and his small waist only made his muscular legs all the more appealing.

  The adult industry would have loved to nab him, but David knew there wasn’t enough Purell in the world for that.

  David’s new role was that of a doomed pilot in a sci-fi thriller called Sling Shot.

  According to the script, David’s character was supposed to take an elite team of astro-scientists on a routine sling shot around the sun, which would then zip them all off to Iapetus, one of Saturn’s moons. From a scientific standpoint, the moon was indeed interesting, but the government had a secret agenda which only the mission commander and the pilot knew about.

  Trouble would ensue when the spaceship was struck and disabled by a solar flare and caught in the sun’s gravitational pull. The crew would need to repair the ship quickly, or they wouldn’t be able to survive even long enough to feel impact. Over the course of the movie, the commander would become paranoid and then kill David’s character.

  Nathan McPherson, who made his start in slasher films, remembered David from the set of the Chicago-filmed zombie movie where McPherson had worked as an Assistant Director. The casting director offered David just a walk-on part, but when he was reunited with Nathan, he was immediately recast as the handsome pilot who would meet his heroic demise at the end of the fourth reel.

  David began to see it as good luck when he played a character that was killed on screen.

  Nathan scheduled the death scene right at the end of the shoot because he had a thing about killing characters off.

  “Once you’re dead, you’re dead…until it’s time for ADR,” he’d been known to say, referring to Automatic Dialog Replacement.

  In Sling Shot, the commander would try to make the death of David’s character appear to be an accident, but he would also be faced with the dilemma that his crew would then be deprived of their pilot. Fortunately, the ship’s doctor—who was also his wife—would prove to be a capable replacement, and since the mission would be scrubbed, she would have to try to get them all home safely.

  And she would, but not before she thought back to something David’s character had said to her just before blast off, as their backs began vibrating and before everything became so loud that the countdown from Mission Control could no longer be heard. It was a line written by Nathan himself.

  “We are all of this world, but brave the void to find another. Yet the whole time, we’ll only be thinking of home.”

  The movie would end with a memorable shot of the sun reflecting on a slow-moving tear on the heroine’s cheek just after the commander is confronted by armed men and arrested for the murder of David’s character. The commander’s undoing would come after the authorities received proof of the crime via an open transmission line—the murdered pilot’s premeditated act of revenge.

  The role was a significant upgrade, both in exposure and in pay, and David took it knowing he was only weeks away from quitting the business for good. Even if he couldn’t afford to leave Los Angeles, he knew he couldn’t continue on with acting. He had no idea what he would do with the rest of his life. All he knew was that the life of an unemployed actor was just too unstable for him.

  Whereas others would have taken the new job as a sign that their star was on the rise, David took the news that he’d won a minor role as a sign that it was time to close out his lackluster days as a Hollywood actor.

  There had been steady industry talk about Sling Shot for several months leading up to the shoot. David was going to celebrate the end of his career by playing a small role in what would hopefully become a summer blockbuster.

  It was good enough for him. He gave up his small but sunny apartment and sold his futon to a neighbor. He was honestly more excited about the fact that the job got him out of California without costing him a penny he couldn’t spare.

  Chapter Four

  DAVID WAS STANDING OUTSIDE the costume trailer and talking with Key Costumer Alix Crosland, who’d just fitted him with his ray gun belt. They were on location in Texas, and filming had begun a few days earlier.

  David could not believe his luck when he realized he would be acting opposite legitimate A-list movie stars. Kyle Petersen and Michelle Cooper were Hollywood royalty.

  David fondly remembered how Michelle arrived for rehearsals a week before her husband. Her hair was the color of a sunset just before the last bit of red was swallowed by darkness, and her eyes were green galaxies. She’d been wheeling her own bag and had beamed at everyone she’d seen, including him. She radiated beauty and confidence, and David’s admiration of her was instantly secured.

  On the other hand, Kyle had hit the set with a self-imposed fanfare, and when David attempted to introduce himself, he was answered with a glare of cool indifference. With that one look from Kyle, David Quinn suddenly felt like the butler’s dog.

  As he stood outside in the October sunshine with Alix, David watched as the script supervisor checked over the props and set dressings while the lighting techs looked for unwanted shadows or reflections.

  “Do you wear a jacket in this scene?” Alix asked. Her slender legs emerged attractively from underneath a short, stylish skirt, and her cropped suicide-blond hair was smashed down by a plaid fedora. “Gary is going to come over and ask you any second now.”

  “Nope,” he replied confidently.

  “How many more days do you have?”

  “I’m here for the duration. Nathan has my stuff pretty spread out because he doesn’t want to shoot my death scene until we get back to California. I wrap just a day before Mr. Petersen does and two days after Ms. Cooper.”

  “Have you noticed anything about Kyle and Michelle?” David had already learned that Alix was the set gossip.

  “No.” David kept his answer short.

  “When they’re not in a scene together, they don’t even look at each other. And I’m pretty sure they keep sending their publicist back and forth to communicate.”

  “Shaunna Noble.” David spoke her name softly.

  “You know her?” Alix looked surprised.

  “No, but I’ve heard of her.”

  “Would you like to meet her?”

  David swallowed. Since he’d first spotted Shaunna on the set a few days earlier, all he could think about was kissing her. Blessed with a figure that was a perfect combination of petite and shapely, in addition to a captivating, composed face, she was the kind of woman who made young, confused actors reconsider the reconsideration of their profession.

  “Sure.” David tried to sound casual and, adorably, believed he succeeded.

  Alix smiled. As if on cue, Kyle’s trailer door opened. Shaunna stepped out, carrying his costume for the scene they were setting up. It was media day, and flash bulbs started going off as Shaunna walked down the stairs. The photographers all stopped taking pictures when they realized it was just Kyle Petersen’s publicist. She hadn’t acknowledged the cameras either way.

  Shaunna strode toward the costume trailer, and David intently watched her approach. Her long dark hair billowed softly in the warm air as she walked purposefully in his direction.

  “Looks like you’
ll get your wish,” Alix mumbled to David from the side of her mouth.

  “Hi, Alix. Hi, David.” Shaunna was talking fast. She was in a hurry, her voice uncharacteristically strained. “Alix, could you hold on to this? I don’t want it getting damaged.”

  “Okay, but…” Alix began, but paused after Shaunna handed over the commander’s uniform and quickly turned and walked away. She went back inside the leading man’s trailer, slamming the door shut behind her.

  Alix turned to a stunned David. “She knows your name at least.”

  “I know.” David felt like he was in a dream. He’d never been formally introduced to Shaunna Noble, and he certainly wasn’t famous enough for her to know any of his work. His mind began to race, wondering what he could’ve possibly done to make her aware of his existence. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t anything negative.

  “We’ll catch up to her after the scene,” Alix assured him. “Kyle runs her ragged sometimes. I can’t believe she didn’t bring an assistant. Shaunna has more important things to do than carry his costume over to me.”

  David looked at the clothes in Alix’s hand, and his brow furrowed in confusion. “That’s the costume he’s supposed to be wearing for this scene. I wonder why she brought it to you.”

  Before they could speculate further, Kyle’s trailer door flew open again and Shaunna stepped out, carrying a pile of loose clothes in her arms. She dropped only one sock as she stalked past the uninterested photographers and began throwing the items over the security fence which kept devoted fans within their designated area.

  David recognized the pants Kyle wore to the set that day as they flew through the air. He also noticed Petersen’s watch as Shaunna tossed it to a blond girl, who dropped her poster and ran away with it like a dog with a bone.

  With the exception of the one sock lying twisted on the ground in front of his open door, Shaunna had just thrown every stitch of clothing Kyle stored in his trailer to the crowd.

  His fans did not question the offering. They simply scrambled over one another to claim their prizes. Some immediately made a mad dash from the set and likely went straight to their computers to sell the items on eBay, while others departed and probably framed their tokens in shadow boxes. A few truly dedicated fans, usually referred to collectively as The Kyle Nation, would take their treasures home and reverently place them underneath their pillows.

  The journalists and paparazzi assembled nearby went into a scramble of their own, recognizing the breakdown of a well-known and respected Hollywood publicist.

  Alix’s eyes grew wide in silent horror as she observed the destruction of some very fine designer clothing.

  David Quinn’s eyes were worriedly fixed on Shaunna Noble as she stormed away from the riot she’d started.

  And Kyle Petersen was inside his trailer, humming to himself in the shower, oblivious to it all.

  Chapter Five

  SHAUNNA HATED TEXAS from the moment she landed in Houston.

  It wasn’t the people. They were extremely nice and surprisingly bereft of the heavy southern accents her colleagues usually labeled as a liability. It wasn’t the countryside, either. She thought the landscape was exquisite. She felt relaxed in the arms of the evening breeze, despite bugs that were as big as drink coasters and as loud as the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

  The source of all her anxiety was Kyle. Since his arrival on the set, he’d been a complete prick to Michelle. It was impossible to ignore his cold interactions with her between takes. The two were cast as husband and wife in Sling Shot, and it should have been easy for them to act like a happily married couple. But when they filmed their first scene together, a sequence of their characters enjoying a fun picnic in a meadow, their chemistry appeared forced and lifeless.

  Nathan recognized the friction at once, as well as the source in the form of Kyle’s unwavering glibness, and adapted quickly. He began shooting close-ups of Michelle and long shots of the two actors sitting side by side on a blanket and drinking champagne. He even managed to capture a few good smiles from Kyle on film as he was telling the crew a story about his recent New York escapades.

  Nathan reminded Shaunna of her father, who’d made his fortune duct-taping cameras to bicycles and following slow speed car chases down Mulholland Drive. Shaunna knew Nathan chose his campy pictures because they were fun, but he birthed them with all the love and attention of Scorsese.

  For this reason alone, Shaunna felt compelled to help Nathan and made an effort to dissipate the growing animosity between his leading actors. Although it made her uncomfortable and was against her self-imposed rule of prying into her clients’ personal lives, Shaunna asked Kyle about the state of his marriage later that evening over drinks.

  She prepared herself for him to fly off the handle at her nosiness, but instead, he’d been ostensibly, uncharacteristically sweet. His response only compounded her concerns. He told her that his marriage was stronger than it had been in years. He then went on to discuss his favorite subject: himself.

  After their meeting, Kyle returned to the penthouse suite he was sharing with Michelle at the Four Seasons. Shaunna was staying at a Radisson, along with Nathan and the rest of the cast and crew. She saw David from time to time, but they’d never spoken.

  She’d first spotted him exercising one morning. She was about to wander into the hotel’s gym herself, but reconsidered when she saw that even at six a.m., she would not be alone. It wasn’t specifically David’s presence that changed her mind. She was simply uncomfortable working out in front of strangers.

  However, she was not uncomfortable about pausing to admire one. She was certain her ponytail would do nothing to hide her face should he happen to look up and make eye contact, so she went ahead and got herself a good eye full.

  David hadn’t seen her and was turned completely around. He was bending over to heft some free weights, and he was wearing shorts. Very short shorts. In any other context, they would have looked like something Olivia Newton John might have worn with roller skates, but on him, they were just a sexy, cruel barrier between her hands and his tight cheeks. These particular shorts were white with dark blue piping. Later on, it would be all too easy for her to accidentally remember them as underwear.

  As she intently studied David’s movements, Shaunna lost her sense of self and squeezed her water bottle hard enough to make it crackle. The noise was loud in the quiet hallway, and she quickly bolted down the corridor, suddenly determined to enjoy a bowl of Cheerios courtesy of the well-appointed continental breakfast.

  Over the next hour, Shaunna convinced herself that David would not show up in the breakfast lounge, but she also opted for a second bowl of cereal and a banana, something she normally never did. And then she found herself hanging around to read the morning paper, which she also never did. As soon as she admitted to herself that she was stalling her departure, Shaunna laughed at her reflection in the napkin holder and returned to her room.

  The cast and crew followed a hectic shooting schedule for several days because NASA gave the production more access to its complex on the weekends. There had been a night shoot on Friday, but Shaunna opted not to attend. As a publicist, she would never really be expected on any set and rarely ever ventured onto one. But this was the first movie shot with her two biggest clients, and the production was going to spend several weeks in a media heavy state.

  This is what Shaunna told herself, at least. In all truth, however, she knew Kyle didn’t want to be without his unofficial personal assistant for a month in weather that required at least twenty glasses of lemonade a day. Of course, lately, Kyle preferred a few fingers of vodka with all lemonades served any time after the noon hour.

  Shaunna did have other clients and chose to spend the evenings catching up with her small, yet efficient staff in LA. She trusted their ability to handle the day-to-day minutiae, but even they felt better getting her input on high-profile matters.

  For the following two days, Nathan had two units working simulta
neously in and around the NASA compound. He pushed his cast and crew hard, but he got some good footage, and he needed to stay ahead of the metaphorical Indiana Jones rolling boulder that chased all directors from the first shot until the last splice.

  As a result of the vigorous weekend, Monday was going to be light for everyone. It was the perfect time for Nathan to authorize a media day, where activity on-set would be minimal and set secrets were less likely to be leaked to the mainstream press. Michelle wasn’t even scheduled to appear, and Kyle was only needed to complete a few scenes.

  Shaunna received a text from Kyle announcing he needed to meet her on the set at ten thirty.

  “Took you long enough.” Kyle’s voice was gruff as he stepped up into his trailer, wiping the makeup off his face with a baby wipe.

  Shaunna had been two minutes early, but she held her tongue.

  “We need to talk about Michelle.” Kyle snarled his wife’s name, and his tone made Shaunna’s blood run cold.

  “What’s wrong, Kyle?”

  “Nothing. Not anymore. Not after today.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes.” Kyle pulled his shirt over his head. He often undressed in front of Shaunna, so she’d long since learned to ignore it. “You can shut up and let me finish.”

  That was over the line. Shaunna stood up, feeling angry, and prepared to defend herself. “Kyle, I don’t—”

  He interrupted her, and what he had to say made her immediately forget her train of thought.

  “I’m divorcing her.”

  Shaunna sat back down. Hard.

  “I had no idea.”

  Kyle growled in annoyance. “Of course you didn’t. Did you think I was going to let you tip her off?”

  Shaunna was stunned and insulted, although she also knew he was right. Michelle was her client too, and she definitely would’ve spoken with her about how to handle the situation. Kyle’s decision to end his marriage put Shaunna in an awkward position. She needed to understand both sides of the story in order to know how to handle the inevitable fallout with the tabloids.