And Playing the Role of Herself...

by K E Lane

  She stepped into the trailer and handed a stapled set of papers to me, then shuffled through a stack of papers she was carrying and pulled out another set, handing them to Robyn.

  "Josiah's dad was hospitalized this afternoon with chest pains, and he left as soon as he heard…Adam doesn't want to wait for him to get back, so he had the writers re-work some of the remaining scenes, using the people we had. These are your sides…Robyn, yours haven't changed much, you'll just be doing two of the scenes with Danny only, and the one you had with Josiah, you'll be doing with Caid."

  I took the papers automatically. "Uh…"

  "Great. We'll see you both in the breakroom set in," she glanced down at a minuscule watch on her wrist, "one hour." She looked at Robyn. "You'd better get to wardrobe, and you," she pointed at me, "get to makeup. Now I've gotta go find Danny…"

  The woman bustled out of the trailer, and I sighed, leafing through the sheets absently.

  The hammock was going to have to wait for another day.

  "Well, you heard the woman," Robyn rasped eventually. "We'd better get ourselves going."

  "Yeah," I said, sighing heavily as I stood up and stretched. "There go my big plans for the afternoon."

  Robyn followed me out of the trailer, and we continued to talk as we made our way across the parking lot and into the building. "You had something special planned?"

  I glanced at her. "Probably not what most people would call special…just a good book and the hammock in my yard, and maybe a nap."

  "Oh god," she said with a groan, "that sounds heavenly. Sign me up."

  I smiled, thinking I'd sign her up for whatever the heck she wanted, whenever and however she wanted it.

  We parted company at wardrobe, and I made my way on to hair and makeup. As I sat in the chair and let Jules reapply my non-makeup, Drew the hairdresser came by and tisked at my hair with pursed lips.

  "Hon, what did you do to yourself?"

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My hair looked the same as had for the past few months - short and dark with highlighted streaks sticking out wildly in every direction.

  I just smiled at him as he started teasing and spraying, he and Jules moving around me in a comfortable, silent synchrony that spoke of hundreds of hours working together.

  The first year on the show, I'd had slightly longer, wavy dark hair, but for this season, they'd asked for a change, wanting me 'edgier'. The porcupine on my head was the result of my acquiescence, and I was actually starting to like it quite a bit. I found it extremely easy to take care of, but Drew always fussed over it, working hard to make it look like it already looked when I rolled out of bed. I told him once that I could just save him the trouble by not showering in the morning before I came in, and the horrified look I received from him had made me laugh so hard that Jules nearly poked my eye out with the eyeliner pencil.

  I heard someone enter the room, and moments later Liz dropped herself heavily in the chair beside me.

  Drew and Jules both looked at her expectantly, until Liz waved a vague hand at them. "No, no, I'm just here to talk to Caid."

  "What are you still doing here?" I asked after the two went back to work on my hair and face. "I thought you'd be long gone."

  She snorted, a decidedly un-southern-belle like sound. "Fuck. That man won't leave me alone."

  I didn't have to ask who 'that man' was. Every time I had left the set that week, Kreizeck had been hovering all over her like a bad smell.

  "If you'd let Bitchy Liz show up, instead of Charming Liz, you wouldn't be having this problem," I pointed out reasonably.

  She frowned at my lack of sympathy. "There are certain people who respond better to charming, and Adam is definitely one of those." She sniffed. "You should work on charming. It's amazing what it can get you sometimes."

  I thought of my earlier conversation with Robyn, and smiled to myself.

  Liz was running a hand through her hair and stopped when she saw the smile.

  "What?" She demanded, narrowing her eyes.

  "What what?" I tried for innocence…I was an actor, goddamnit, I should be able to manage a little innocence.

  "What's that satisfied little smile for?" She leaned forward, peering at me intently. "Caidence Harris, what aren't you telling me?"

  I laughed lightly. "There are lots of things I don't tell you, Liz, because you can't keep a secret to save your life. This is just one more of those things."

  "Ohhhh, so it's a secret?"

  Shit. Walked right into that one.

  "It's nothing."

  "It's something."

  "No, it's not."

  "Yes, it is, and I'm going to find out what it is."

  I rolled my eyes and shrugged. "Suit yourself. There's nothing to find out."

  She smiled sweetly, and turned her attention onto Drew. "Drew?"

  He shrugged, not taking his attention from my hair. Liz frowned, and looked at Jules. "Jules?"

  The makeup artist paused in her task and shrugged. "I don't know…she seems the same to me."

  Liz pouted and I smiled at her smugly.

  "…although she was whistling when she came in," Jules finished.

  Traitor.

  I shot her a wounded look, while Liz's eyes lit up in glee.

  "Caid was whistling?" she cooed, and reached out to pinch me in the arm. "Our own little Grumpy Gus?"

  "Ow." I jerked my arm away. "I was not whistling. I do not whistle."

  Jules just raised her eyebrows in disbelief. I scowled.

  "Come on Caid, fess up. Who is it?" Liz turned her chair and propped her elbows on her knees, like she was getting ready for me to read her a bedtime story. "Is it that sexy little extra that played the barrista? Yum-yum! He had a great ass. Good choice, Caid. God knows you need to get laid."

  Shit. I nearly groaned out loud.

  If there were two people on the set who were bigger gossips than Liz, they were Jules and Drew. By tomorrow morning it would be all over the set that I'd been caught spanking some extra's ass in the prop room. There would probably be a monkey involved, and a steaming cup of cappuccino. Half-café, double-tall.

  Double shit.

  "Liz," I said sharply, and risked Jules' ire by turning my head and meeting Liz's blue gaze. "I told you it's nothing, okay? Now, did you come in here for a reason?"

  She pouted prettily, but dropped the subject with a nod, knowing from experience that I could be less than forthcoming when I was pissed off. "Actually, there was. You know that Q & A session I was supposed to do tomorrow at the Four Seasons?"

  I nodded.

  "Well, I was supposed to go with Josiah…I assume you heard Josiah's gone?"

  I nodded again and asked, "Has anyone heard how his father is?"

  She blinked, and frowned as though the question had never occurred to her, but she knew it should have.

  For Liz, one of the residual effects of being in the spotlight since the age of seven was that unless she forced herself to, she rarely thought of others. It wasn't selfishness, really, just a lack of ever having to hear about, or deal with, other people's problems. She really was a genuinely nice person; she just hadn't been trained to show it.

  "George said that Josiah called from the plane, but he hadn't heard anything else," Drew broke in, saving Liz any embarrassment.

  She smiled at him, and turned her attention back to me. "Yes, so anyway, they asked Danny to do it with me, but he has a pretty heavy schedule tomorrow, and so does Henry, and you know how Micah is…"

  I smiled slightly, picturing Micah - who hated the press and wasn't at all shy about saying so - at a Q & A session with a bunch of reporters firing questions at him.

  "So that leaves me." At her nod, I continued, "I've got an 8:30 call tomorrow…"

  "Already taken care of. They're rearranging the schedules, and we don't need to be in until late afternoon."

  Which meant a nice, long evening of work for me, after what promised to be a nerve-wracking morning with th
e press. Wonderful.

  "So basically," I said as Jules turned my face back to the front impatiently, "you're not here to ask me, you're here to tell me that I'm doing this."

  "Well, basically, yes. They thought you'd be nicer to me if I told you…you know, Charming Liz."

  I sighed, accepting my fate. "What time?"

  Liz smiled - the brilliant smile that had graced countless magazine covers and had made her famous. "Meet me here at eight; they'll have a car for us."

  I nodded and after a few more minutes of chatting, Liz left me to my primping. Two more fluffs of my hair and a critical look later, I was deemed presentable and made my way to set seven to find a quiet spot to look over the scene and my lines.

  No scenes were shooting when I got to the set, although there was a lot of activity. I found a semi-lit corner in the back and looked around for a seat, smiling when I spotted a neon green beanbag up against the wall. I kicked it under the light, dropped myself down, and settled in comfortably.

  I looked through the sheets once, then again. I didn't know whether to be elated or terrified. The scene was between my character, Rita, and Robyn's character, Judith Torrington; a slightly smarmy but hot-enough-to-get-away-with-it defense attorney from a prestigious law firm. In this episode, Judith was defending the pedophile son of a state senator accused of raping and murdering a young boy. My character, although gruff and cynical, had a big soft spot for kids, and the scene called for me to lose my temper and push Robyn/Judith physically up against a wall.

  The thought of pushing Robyn up against a wall sent shivers up my spine.

  A very, very good kind of shiver.

  I closed my eyes and steadied my suddenly ragged breathing.

  Whoa. That was new. Apparently in the last few hours I'd move from adolescent crush to full-on adult lust, complete with NC-17 rated video.

  "I don't know whether to feel sorry for whoever you're thinking about, or to be insanely jealous."

  I snapped my eyes open in panic at the low, raspy voice. Robyn stood in front of me, gazing down with a thoughtful look.

  The video played again, and I looked away. "What do you mean?" I mumbled.

  "You looked…" She paused for a long moment, and I risked a glance at her face. She was staring at me intently. "…hungry."

  I coughed. "Must have been because I missed lunch." I smiled sickly, and scrambled to my feet before my brain added the picture of her length towering above me to the new video collection.

  She looked at me for a second longer, and then glanced down at the beanbag. "Nice chair."

  "Pretty comfortable, actually." I gestured at the busy set. "I wanted to get away from the noise a little."

  "I've heard very nice things about that chair. In fact, I heard that Chad and Liz…"

  "Oh god," I groaned, and began wiping desperately at my pants. "Ew-ew-ew-gross-gross-gross…"

  Robyn's loud, delighted laugh stopped my movements, as well as the movements of every one else within hearing range.

  Robyn had a fantastic laugh.

  "Gotcha," she said, winking as she walked past me towards the set, a definite swagger to her step.

  Oh, honey. You have no idea.

  I smiled to myself, and followed her.

  ##

  "Cut!" Kreizeck yelled again, and I gritted my teeth, stepping back from Robyn and turning towards the director.

  I didn't know how much more of this I could take. This was the sixth take of the scene between Robyn and me. Six times of pushing her up against a wall, feeling her shoulders under my hands, looking into her eyes from a distance of less than a foot…I was going to explode. Explode or kiss her - both of which were probably career-ending moves.

  "Adam," Robyn began, but he cut her off with an imperious wave from the safety of his directing chair, where he had decided to stay after both Robyn and I had gotten into his space one too many times. Not on purpose, of course.

  "No, Miss Ward, you're doing fine. Although a little more smugness, perhaps. You're a slimy defense lawyer defending a rapist and murderer of children. The audience doesn't want to sympathize with you, no matter how good you look."

  I looked at her quickly, startled that Adam was once again right. From the look on her face, and the grudging nod, I could tell that she was, too.

  "But you, Miss Harris. I saw more emotion from you this morning when you were sneering at me than I've seen in all six takes. You're supposed to be angry! Seething! This is a slimy defense attorney defending a rapist and murderer of children! You are a female police detective; disgusted that anyone - especially another woman - could defend such a scumbag! Let's see some fury, some emotion, some chemistry! And stop being so timid. You're touching her like a china doll. You're angry, damnit, act like it!"

  Damn.

  I knew he was right. I'd been so conscious of being near Robyn that I'd forgotten what the scene was about; just saying my lines and praying it would be over soon.

  Shit.

  And if Adam didn't watch it, I might even come to the conclusion that he was a halfway-decent director. Still and asshole, but and asshole that could direct.

  "Let's take it from 'if you hadn't mishandled evidence,'" he yelled, and snapped several times. "Okay, people - places."

  I glanced at Robyn, who shrugged, and moved back to her mark. I did the same, closing my eyes for a moment, trying to come up with a way to act around what I was feeling.

  Then it dawned on me that I shouldn't. I shouldn't act around it, I should use it. And if all went well, I'd only have to do it once.

  "Action!"

  A look of smug conceit fell across Robyn's face as though someone had flipped a switch. She crossed her arms and sneered at me, the tone of her voice mocking, "If you hadn't mishandled evidence, detective, my client wouldn't be walking around free. I guess I should thank you."

  Ok…I took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

  I looked at Robyn, letting every lustful thought, every fantasy, every desperate wish come to the surface and then, hoping people would mistake lust for anger, I lunged at her. I used my entire body this time, not just my hands, and pinned her against the wall with my arm across her chest and my stomach pressed up against hers.

  "You defended a man who brutally raped and killed an eight year old boy, and now he's out walking around, looking for his next victim," I whispered harshly, ignoring the close-up camera that was moving in. "The evidence was clean - you brought up the doubt, and most likely destroyed a good detective's career in the process. That IS your fault."

  At this point in the scene, Robyn was supposed to struggle and break away, yelling that I had made my point.

  She didn't move.

  She stood there, staring at me with wide eyes, her breath coming in quick gasps, her body molded to mine. I could feel her breath on my lips, feel the hard muscles of her abdomen tense and stretch against me.

  After what seemed like an endless stretch of time, she finally whispered softly, barely audible. "Take your hands off me, detective. You've made your point."

  Going on instinct, I stayed where I was, not releasing her. More endless moments went by as we stood locked in that embrace, breathing in each other's air, staring unblinkingly at each other.

  Someone yell cut, goddamnit! I felt like screaming, Jesus, yell cut before I kiss her…

  "And…Cut! Nice job, ladies."

  The normal set noise was slow in starting, and mostly consisted of low whispers.

  Adam's annoyed voice cut across the murmur of conversation. "Let's go, people! That's a wrap. You can stand around and chat later, let's get set up for scene '7D…"

  Voices swelled around us, but Robyn and I still stood chest to chest. I blinked and stepped back.

  "Robyn, I'm sorry…" I started.

  "Shhh." She placed two thin, elegant fingers against my lips. "Caidence, it was great. You were great."

  I nodded dumbly, feeling drained and just wanting to go home, but enjoying the pressure of her fingers
.

  She smiled at me, not her amused, smirky smile, but a genuine, honest smile laced with respect. "Now I need to get to wardrobe before the next take. I'll see you later."

  She took her fingers from my lips, trailed them down my arm and squeezed my hand before turning and walking off the set.