by Lisa Ferrari
One of the camera guys calls, “Gate is clean.”
Aaron calls, “Moving on!”
“Lunch!” Sheila calls.
“Lunch! One hour!” Diane calls out.
Heather rushes up to Kellan and me and hands us our robes while two of her assistants grab the white blankets I tossed onto the floor. They hold them up like a curtain so no one can see us as we slip into our robes.
Aaron beckons us over to the monitor, where we watch the scene. We’re definitely naked, but there’s not much to see. We’re lying on our sides, so you sorta see our butts, but our fronts are in shadow and my arm is covering my breasts. But we’re definitely naked. Audiences will definitely see that. To my delight, and, frankly, my utter shock, it looks great. We look great. Especially Kellan. Like, OMG, so yummy, can’t stand it, want to jump his bones right now. That’s how hot he looks. When this movie comes out, I’m going to be fighting off nearly every woman in America.
As for me, I look good, too. I’m surprised, initially, because the Claire in my memory looks nothing like the Claire I am watching on the monitor. The Claire on the monitor is lean and fit and beautiful and, egads, sexy! Everyone watching tells us how great we look and how much fun the scene is and how great we both are, especially me. I disagree and insist Kellan is the major draw. Everyone insists I’m gravely mistaken, and that I’ll see in time.
We dress and go to lunch.
When we get to catering, everyone claps for us.
PRODUCTION CONTINUES.
Each day is more of the same, and yet each day brings something entirely new. We are working our way through the script. Although each day we get new pages delivered either to our trailers or to our house, depending on where we’re actually living and sleeping. The new pages are always a different color, according to a system of organization I am far too busy to inquire about, let alone understand. Kellan has Sheila bring another trailer over and park it across from his and mine. Inside this third trailer is a small but complete gym. Kellan and I begin spending a lot of time in there training, lifting, doing cardio, stretching, and often sleeping. Twice I fall asleep on the recumbent bike and Kellan finds me there twenty minutes later with my head back and my mouth open, slobbering on myself. He has the decency not to squirt shaving cream in my mouth or take a pic of me on his phone and blast it to social media.
One day, I’m standing at the craft service table, trying my best not to eat any of the four-dozen Krispy Kreme donuts sitting there in their boxes, calling me, taunting me, daring me to eat every single one of them. Which I am confident I could do. The old Claire could eat an entire box. She’d feel like crap afterward, physically and psychospiritually, but she could do it. The new Claire, the present-day Claire, could probably eat one and a half or two before feeling as though she were about to lapse into a coma. I grab a handful of almonds instead of a box of donuts. I’ve got a bunch of ready-meals in the mini-fridge in my trailer but Aaron only gave us a ten-minute break while Kellan gets a wardrobe malfunction repair.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket.
It’s a text from Beth, reminding me that my grandmother’s first memorial service is tomorrow. At noon.
I had no idea. I forgot completely.
It reads:
Should I tell mom
you’ll be there?
I don’t know what to say. We’re in the middle of shooting. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars invested. We’re working eighteen-hour days. There’s at least a hundred people here working every day. And I’m going to simply leave? Not come to work? This is my job now. I’m not punching a time clock (thank God!) and it sure isn’t nine to five. But it’s my job.
But it’s my grandmother. I do miss her very much. I would like to attend her memorial service. I would prefer to be there.
As I’m enduring my own self-induced mental anguish, Kellan emerges from wardrobe and comes over to me. He kisses me.
“What’s up?”
I show him my phone, the message from Beth.
“Don’t worry,” Kellan says. “Let’s talk to Sheila.”
Kellan takes my hand and we find Sheila at her workstation, sitting in her producer’s chair. There is a plate of food on the table which she hasn’t touched. She is on the phone with two people and she literally has two phones in her hand, one on each ear. Sheila sees us and grins.
“I’ll call you back.” She puts down both phones. “Hi, guys. Ready to move on?”
“Claire’s family is having a memorial for her grandmother tomorrow. We want to talk to you about the schedule, to see if there’s any way we can attend.”
I’m touched by the fact that Kellan has already rallied to my side and joined my cause by stating that he will attend the service with me.
“When is it?” Sheila asks. She consults her production schedule on her tablet.
“Tomorrow at noon,” I say.
“You’ve got a six a.m. call time tomorrow,” Sheila says. “You both do.” Sheila puts down her schedule and looks directly at me. “You want to go?”
“Well, sure. But I also want to stay here and work.”
“Yeah,” Sheila says, “that’s the thing about things like this. We want to go but we don’t want to go. Uh… well, if we work all night and shoot tomorrow’s scenes today, you guys could fly tomorrow morning and then be back in the evening. Let me talk to Aaron and Rami and see if we can make it work, okay sweetie? Don’t worry.”
Sheila gets out of her canvas-backed chair and hugs me.
In the end, Rami and Aaron are totally cool about the situation. As are all the production people. Aaron says of course they’re happy with it because it means they’re going to get paid time-and-a-half. Aaron asks that we be back by six p.m. tomorrow to resume shooting so we can shoot all night and all day the next day, so that we can get back on schedule.
Kellan and I agree.
We shoot our scenes for the day and during lunch Kellan and I check flights. There are several out of LAX, but the likelihood of being able to make it is low, once we factor in the two-hour-early arrival time and security and all of that. So Kellan calls his friend Rob, who owns Olympus Air Charter, and arranges for us to take a charter flight from Van Nuys to Sacramento, attend the memorial, and then get back on the plane and fly back to Van Nuys and have a car drive us to the set. I don’t know when we’re going to sleep, but oh well.
WE WRAP FOR the day at seven a.m. the next morning. I’ve had four Five-Hour Energy drinks. So I should have 20 hours of energy.
A nice guy from the transportation department, named Bill, drives us to the airport in Van Nuys and we step out of the car and walk up the steps of the plane, whose engines are already running. The whine of the jets is deafening. But we’re in the air ten minutes later, and in Sacramento by 10:00 a.m.
Rob himself shows up in a black Escalade and drives us to the church. We stop at Starbucks for two Venti coffees so we’ll be alert when we say hello to everyone. I text Beth to tell her we’ve arrived. We’re early so we go into the church and sit quietly in the front pew. The church is very beautiful, with tall ceilings and an enormous stained-glass window behind the altar. The stained glass shows a lovely image of Jesus and a lamb in front of a rainbow. I haven’t been to church in years, not since Beth and I were little and our mom insisted we attend Sunday school and church afterward with her and my dad.
But somewhere along the line we all stopped attending. We would go to church on Christmas Eve or on Easter, followed by brunch. But at some point that turned into brunch by itself. And then we stopped doing even that. I’ve never understood why. Traditions are important; they remind us of who we are.
My parents are the first to arrive at the church.
My dad is okay and he hugs me and shakes hands with Kellan but my mom is cold toward Kellan and even more so toward me, which sucks but is not wholly unexpected. But to not get so much as a hug from my own mother is a new level of sad. My mother
is dressed entirely in pink. She reminds me of someone… She cut her hair, too. Last time I saw her, it was shoulder length and wavy, the way my dad likes it. But now it’s short. Really short, and kinda curly. She’s wearing a pearl necklace, which I always find provocative because of the sexual innuendo. But then I am, as my mother would surely say, a Cosmo-reading deviant.
The four of us chat quietly until the service begins. My mom says she’s having a luncheon after the service and that she and my father want to take Kellan and me to dinner that evening and perhaps we could all do brunch around eleven tomorrow morning.
I inform her that we aren’t staying the night. We have to be back on set at six p.m. that very evening, and we have a car outside waiting to drive us straight to the airport.
Kellan adds that we have to be wheels up by four o’clock, which means we need to be on our way to the airport by 3:30 at the latest. But we’d be happy to attend the luncheon.
My mom says, “There’s no way you can make it, Claire. You must allow at least two hours to get through security. You should know that. Think! The drugs have killed too many brain cells. They’re turning you into an imbecile. All that college money, down the drain…”
With a Herculean effort to control my temper, lest I give my mother further ammunition (to say nothing of the fact that I pretty much financed my entire degree through student loans), I calmly explain as though speaking to a drunk, “Actually, Kellan has a friend who owns a private jet charter service down at Sacramento Executive. We’ll make it.”
“Private jets,” my mother states as she turns to my dad. “Only drug dealers use private jets. It’s how they move their”—she makes air quotes—“product.”
My mom bristles. The conversation pretty much dies.
Beth and Chris are thrilled to see us and they ask us a zillion questions about the movie. By the time we’re at my parents’ house for the reception, standing around eating finger sandwiches and sipping lemonade that’s so sugary I swear I can feel the insulin rush in real time, we learn that Beth and Chris are engaged and have purchased a house, but they haven’t told my parents yet. Kellan and I agree to keep their confidence.
Beth asks about dinner tonight.
My mom answers for me, informing Beth, as well as every single person in the room, that we can’t stay because I have to fly back for my little acting job.
I’m about to unload on my mother and inform her that there is nothing “little” about the project Kellan and I have had the unbelievably blessed good fortune to be involved in. But Kellan squeezes my hand, stopping me.
“But you guys are welcome to visit us in L.A.,” Kellan interjects. “We’ll do dinner. Our treat.”
“I think we can pay for our own dinner,” my mother says. She sips her tea from an elegant white teacup with a gold rim. I recognize it at once as my grandmother’s.
My dad, to his credit, changes the subject. He says, “I heard something about the two of you spending a week in the wilderness with some Delta Force soldiers. Those guys are some seriously tough hombres.”
“They are indeed, sir,” says Kellan.
Beth asks, “Did you guys have to, like, eat bugs and drink your own pee, like Bear Grylls?”
My mother says, “Any self-respecting woman should be ashamed of herself for spending a week in the wilderness with a bunch of men.”
And then it hits me; I realize who my mother resembles in her pink ensemble and short, old-lady hair and pearls. “Dolores Umbridge! That’s who you remind me of!” The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts. She was so bad, even Professor Snape loathed her.
Beth looks my mom up and down and bursts out laughing. “Totally!” Beth high-fives me. My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a text from Denise.
If y’all are done slobbering over your dead
grandmother, I’m coming to get you. We’re
going out for a quick drink. That hunk a burnin
love fiancée of yours can CUM 2. ;)
Denise certainly has a way with words. A skill which has served her well in her legal career. I’m not certain about the slobbering part, but I’m definitely ready to get out of here.
K. Hurry.
That bad, huh? Be there in 5.
“Well, thank you, mother, father, for having us here today. It’s been wonderful seeing everyone, but Kellan and I must go now. We’re having a quick get-together with a friend and then it’s off to the airport and back to work.”
“Denise? The lawyer?” my mom asks.
I don’t answer. I hug my dad. “Thanks, dad. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Have fun down there.”
I turn to my mom.
She’s still holding her tea. Clearly she has no interest in hugging me. She says, “Don’t come crying to me when you’re forced to let Illuminati Satanists gangbang your rectum to advance your little acting career.”
My dad says, “Jesus, M.C.”
As if on cue, everyone in the room turns and looks through the big front-room window as a red Ferrari screeches to a halt in front of the house and revs its engine. Loudly. Denise stands up in the driver’s seat and holds out her arms, beckoning everyone to behold her new vehicle. She honks the horn several times and shouts, “Get your ass out here, Valentine!” She taps her watch and puts her hands on her hips, effecting quintessential impatience.
“Bye mom,” I say.
I grab Kellan by the hand and head for the front door. “Bye, everybody! Beth, you and Chris want to come have a drink with us?”
“Sure!” Beth says. She and Chris grab their stuff.
Chris says, “Thanks, Mister and Misses V. Sorry about your mom, Misses V. See ya!”
With that, mercifully, we’re out the door.
I RIDE TO the Glass Turtle with Denise in her new Ferrari 488, which she says she bought about a month ago solely to irritate Kellan. Kellan is riding behind us in the Escalade with Rob. Chris and Beth are driving behind them. I assure Denise that Kellan will be nothing but happy for her and will not be irritated in the slightest.
Our time at the Turtle is limited and our quick drink is in fact rather quick. Denise talks nonstop, asking endless questions about the movie and what it’s like being on a real set. I explain as best I can that at first it was scary and thrilling, especially my first day when I was so nervous I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking so our director, Aaron, decided to take me out running for four hours and I got so dehydrated I had to have the on-set medic give me an intravenous drip.
“Hope it had morphine in it!” Denise quips.
Chris knows everything there is to know about Aaron. He’s seen every one of his movies, including his student films and short films.
It’s wonderful catching up and sitting at the Turtle and not throwing up the way I did the last time we were all here.
Alas, 3:30 comes all too soon. Kellan and I hug everyone, say goodbye, and head to the airport. We thank Rob profusely as he deposits us on the red carpet mere feet from the waiting jet. I tell him that I very much want to see his kids Shane and Bella soon, and to meet his wife Audrey. Rob promises we’ll make it happen. Kellan and I are wheels-up by 4:00, as planned, and are back at Paramount and sitting on the sofa in my trailer when Annie comes to get us promptly at 5:55.
This time, she knocks.
Chapter 30
We work constantly.
Pretty much every day.
Once every couple of months, everyone takes a day off because Aaron and Sheila are screaming at one another more than they usually do and it’s time for us all to rest and sleep a bit more.
We travel, too.
A lot.
We shoot in Hawaii, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Wales, Spain, Israel, Egypt, Thailand, Australia, South Korea… I halfway expect to end up in Antarctica. I joke about it one day at the craft service table while Aaron and I are both getting a cup of coffee. He says maybe in the sequel. Then he walks away. Wow; I hadn’t even conside
red the possibility of there being a sequel.
But our travel begins in Hawaii.
Kellan and I are very excited because we got engaged in Hawaii. We haven’t had the opportunity to return, so we’re looking forward to seeing the islands again.
Everyone involved in the production is.
We’re not disappointed. Sheila and Aaron and Rami spend the first two days doing location scouting, being shown all around the island via helicopter and off-road vehicle as they search for just the right places to shoot.
Kellan and I are lying by the pool one day after an intense morning cardio and training session. We reminisce about the Christmas when we got engaged, how we were walking on the beach at sunset and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I said “Yes.”
This leads me to ponder when we should actually get married. Kellan has been, shall we say, excited to get married. To the point of me feeling pressured a bit. For which he has apologized and agreed not to press further. It’s not that I don’t want to marry him; I do. Of course I do! But with everything going on with the movie, I thought it would be best to wait until after the production wraps so we could plan our wedding and do it properly.
But lying by the pool, eating dried coconut and fresh pineapple and drinking some of the best tropical iced tea I’ve ever had and listening to Innocents (one of my favorite albums), I have an idea. I turn to Kellan, who I’m not even sure is awake. His hardback copy of The Deathly Hallows is beside him. I’m dying for him to hurry up and finish it but he’s stalling because he doesn’t want the story to end; I know exactly how he feels.
I press Stop on my phone and remove the earhooks from my ears.
“Hey, Kellan?”
“Mmm.”
“You awake?”
“Not really. What’s up?”
The golden, afternoon sun is shining on his abs. And his chest. His package is bulging inside his still-damp swim trunks. God he looks good. I tear myself away from the thought of sucking on his nipples so I can actually ask my question.
“You still want to get married, right?”
