Hollywood Lights

by Lana Xavier

  A quick plug of her name into the search engine revealed all I needed to know. After I made it past all the articles referencing her from last night and this morning, there was something from a local newspaper in Vancouver about her being spotted at a restaurant for lunch yesterday.

  I clicked on the link and clenched my jaw when the pictures were revealed. They were focused entirely on her, of course, but there was no mistaking who the presence lurking in the background was.

  Annabelle.

  Without giving it a second thought, I lifted my phone and shot out a quick text to Nathan. I was still staring hard at the pictures when he finally responded and I smiled grimly down at the phone when it revealed the information I asked for.

  Marlena was doing a radio interview today in Vancouver at a nearby station and there was no doubt in my mind that Annabelle would be there with her, pulling the strings from behind the curtain.

  All I needed to do was be there at the right time and I’d have my chance at retribution.

  I asked Nathan to have a car ready for me and quickly threw on some clothes, prepared to do whatever I had to do to put an end to this. By the time I was finished getting dressed, Nathan had informed me that Hector was waiting in the lot. I ignored all the questioning texts—both from Nathan and my sister—and marched towards the waiting car.

  Even being on the outskirts of this world had changed me. The movie industry was a tough one to break into and it was just as tough once you were actually in. If you didn’t have thick skin, you were destined for failure. No matter what field you were involved in.

  I had somehow managed to come out ahead. It only took a few short weeks to put Pushover Sabrina in the ground for good. I was a changed woman and more than that—I was determined as hell to fix this mess.

  Something had to give and it was going to give. Today.

  * * *

  Even though I spent over half an hour in the car in total silence, I still hadn’t figured out exactly what I was planning to say when I finally got face to face with Annabelle. I was never a violent or confrontational person before coming here, but I couldn’t deny that my primary thoughts all involved smacking her in the face.

  I’d also be willing to extend one to Marlena, if she happened to be available.

  I shook my head and grumbled, pissed off that I couldn’t make up my freaking mind. What good was it going to do if I managed to get in front of Annabelle only to choke? It would do nothing but reinforce the fact that I didn’t belong in this world.

  And the whole point of this was to drive home the fact that I did belong here. Or, to be more precise, I belonged with Caleb. Nothing she or Marlena could do would destroy that.

  Only it already did, now didn’t it?

  I pushed away the negative thought, firmly clutching onto the hope that Caleb and I could be repaired. At least in my eyes, the damage hadn’t been bad enough to just write us off. Even though part of me was pained to think that Caleb wanted space, the larger part knew him enough to look past it. I’d already forgiven him.

  Now, I was going to defend him.

  “We’re here, Sabrina,” Hector announced as he pulled into a parking lot.

  I gulped at the site of a few people loitering outside the building with cameras, waiting to get shots of Marlena as she exited the building. As I stepped out of the car and made my way over, I wondered if they were here only because someone had called them.

  I snorted, knowing that was probably the case. As I approached the entrance to the building, a few of the people waiting turned towards me with disinterest before returning to their conversations.

  Unfortunately, one of the men allowed their gaze to linger on me just long enough to recognize where he knew me from.

  Before I could even make it to the doors, his camera was raised and flashing as he shouted, “You’re the homewrecker of Hollywood! Sabrina, turn this way!”

  I could feel the color in my cheeks as I rushed to the side, bypassing them completely and looping around the small crowd towards the double doors. Everyone raised their cameras and took photos as I stepped inside the building, shouting questions at me that I did my best to tone out.

  Once the doors closed behind me and drowned out their voices, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. One that was abruptly cut off when a gruff voice spoke behind me.

  “No press in the building.”

  I turned to face the security guard and raised my hands, displaying my lack of camera.

  “I’m not press.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, but—”

  “Please exit the building, miss.”

  I definitely didn’t think this plan through.

  “Please, sir. I’m just waiting for someone to come out. Please don’t throw me back out there. I’ll stand right here, quiet as a mouse.”

  He eyed me warily before he curiously asked, “Who are you waiting for?”

  I knew better than to say Marlena. All that would get me was tossed out of the building on my ass and labeled as a stalker fan.

  “Annabelle Maxwell.”

  There was doubt in his eyes and I began to brace myself to get thrown out, but he simply lifted the radio from his belt and barked out, “Is the Hardin interview almost over?”

  There was a crackle of static before a muffled response came through.

  “Yeah, two minutes.”

  He clipped the radio back on his belt, his eyes darting from me to the people outside as they attempted to photograph me through the glass doors.

  He let out a sigh and said, “Fine. Wait right here.”

  I raised my hands again and nodded. “I won’t move, I promise.”

  After five minutes of awkwardly shifting my weight from foot to foot in the exact spot I promised not to move from, I heard doors opening and closing followed by the distinct sounds of heels clicking on the floor. The security guard was still watching me from his perch and he stood up as the women entered the lobby.

  Marlena and Annabelle were talking quietly as they strolled into the room, but their voices stopped when they both turned and their eyes landed on me. Both pairs narrowed instantly and if looks could kill, I’d be dead on the floor.

  “You! What the hell are you doing here?” Marlena demanded.

  Good question. What was I doing here? Because I still wasn’t entirely sure.

  Instead of admitting that out loud and looking like some sort of crazy person, I swallowed the lump in my throat and said, “I’m here to set the record straight.”

  A thought popped into my head as I heard the rowdy voices of the group of photographers outside. It was probably a bad idea—maybe one of the worst I’ve ever had—but I still swallowed down any fear and doubts I had and followed my instincts.

  I moved quickly to the doors and pushed them open, ignoring Annabelle when she ordered me to stop. The two women and the security personnel followed close behind me and I shouted to demand the attention of the reporters.

  “In case you don’t know—I’m Sabrina Murphy. The girl who was accused of having the affair with Caleb Bradshaw that split up him and Marlena,” I announced, noting that a few of the people obviously didn’t know who I was, because they were jotting down notes on small pads of paper.

  “Shut your mouth,” Annabelle hissed as she reached forward to grab my shoulder and yank me back into the building.

  I shook her off and stepped away, my face hardening as I faced the group. “But it wasn’t true.”

  Someone raised their hand and shouted, “But what about the photographs? There was proof!”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s true that Caleb and I are—were—together, but it wasn’t an affair because he and Marlena weren’t even dating! It was all a lie orchestrated by that woman,” I said firmly as I pointed to Annabelle. “Annabelle Maxwell. It was in their contracts to act like a couple to hopefully bring in a bigger box office on the release of the film they did together. I didn’t break up anything.”

/>   Another raised their hand and shouted, “There were direct quotes from Marlena about it!”

  “Yes, because she was holding up her end of the contract. Caleb broke his and fired Annabelle to be with me, then she released all the stuff about Caleb to try to kill his career.”

  “Please ignore this woman,” Annabelle called out, stepping in to attempt to undo the damage. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s obviously just trying to clear her own name.”

  “No, I’m not,” I argued, clenching my teeth. “This isn’t about me—it never was. It’s about Caleb and you throwing him under the bus just because he found someone worth having a real relationship with.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, quickly followed by the photographers shouting questions at Annabelle and Marlena, wondering about the extent of their involvement with the cheating scandal and also with the latest reveal of Caleb’s past behavior both on and off set.

  As the two them gaped and tried to dodge the questions, I figured now was as good a time as ever to walk away and leave them to clean up the mess I’d made.

  There was a ghost of a smile on my face as I slid into the car and told Hector to take me back to set.

  I recalled Nathan telling me not to speak to the press, but I was still happy with how I’d followed my instincts and not only stood up for myself, but for my relationship with Caleb.

  Not to just one person, but to the entire world.

  * * *

  It had been four days since my confrontation with Marlena and Annabelle at the radio station and I had yet to see or hear anything about it. It made me sad to think that they had managed to buy off the photographs and kill the story, but I still held the victory in my heart that I actually went through with it.

  That was something the old Sabrina would have never done.

  Sadly, I also had yet to speak to Caleb since our mini-implosion and I couldn’t figure out a good way to go about it. He was incredibly busy—Nathan told me most of the crew and actors were working sixteen hour days now to wrap it up in time—which meant I didn’t have many opportunities to confront him.

  I also was afraid of adding to his stress with more drama about our relationship. If he really wanted to hear it, I was sure he would have contacted me by now. I begrudgingly accepted the fact that he was probably through with me and tried to ignore the way my heart felt like it had been ripped into a million tiny pieces.

  * * *

  On the last day of shooting, a mere two days away from the date on my return flight ticket home, Anne summoned me to her trailer. This time, it was Nathan who fetched me and I felt a lot less nervous when I saw his easy-going smile at my door.

  I expected to hear a summary about how filming had went, or maybe that she looked forward to working with me again, or anything relating to the fact that we were about to part ways.

  What I did not expect was to sit down at the small table in her trailer and have a newspaper plopped in front of me as she brazenly asked, “Care to explain yourself?”

  I glanced from her cocked eyebrow down to the headline and felt my heart momentarily stop.

  So Annabelle hadn’t managed to kill the story after all. At least not entirely.

  ‘The Twisted Games of Hollywood’s Elite’ was the title of the article, followed by a photograph of me as I angrily glared at a slack-jawed Marlena and Annabelle. This photo was obviously snapped right before I left, right before they tried to stop what I had set in motion.

  “You can take that paper with you,” Anne said and I broke my gaze away from the article to look up at her. “I can get another copy. It’s essentially a slam piece about Annabelle and her practices. I’d ask if you had something to do with it, but it’s pretty clear that you did.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Contribute to the article? I know. Your name wasn’t mentioned in any of the quotes. But the writer obviously did some digging and found plenty of people willing to talk about Annabelle’s games and treatment of her employees. Not to mention a number of people who were very happy to contribute to Marlena’s demise.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, glancing back to the paper and for the first time thinking about the very real damage I had done to these two women’s careers.

  My mind balked at the notion and my jaw clenched. No, I wasn’t sorry about what I had done. Yes, they probably didn’t deserve to have their careers impaled, but neither did Caleb or myself.

  What goes around, comes around.

  I stood up and turned to face Anne head on. “Actually, no. I’m not sorry. They both deserved this and I’m happy—ecstatic, even—that I played even the smallest part in bringing this on.”

  Anne stared at me blankly for a moment before she smirked. Her eyes cut to Nathan for a moment and she nodded. “You see? This is why I like her.”

  “What?” I asked, needing her to repeat herself. Did she seriously just say—

  “I like you. Underneath that mousy shell, there’s some fire in you. I like people—women, especially—who don’t tolerate crap. I respect them,” she said as she reached out her hand for me to shake. “I very much hope that when you write another script, you’ll send it to me first. I’ll give you my personal e-mail address.”

  I shook her hand until she released her hold, then she strolled over to grab a business card and jot down her personal information on the back. I was still in a shocked dazed as she placed the card in my fingers and I slid it into my back pocket, half expecting her to demand it back and tell me she was joking.

  Instead, she just kept on surprising me.

  “The wrap party is tonight. You’re coming, right?”

  “I- I wasn’t planning to. I thought it was for cast and crew.”

  “You are crew, Sabrina,” Nathan reminded me with a chuckle. “You wrote the damn thing.”

  “I know, but—”

  “No buts,” Anne said with a wave of her hand through the air. “Tonight at seven. I’ll see you there.”

  I opened my mouth to decline the offer, but Nathan grabbed my arm and began to drag me away. I sensed the finality in Anne’s tone as well, but I had been ready to argue that I probably shouldn’t go to the party with everything that had been going on recently.

  “Don’t argue,” Nathan whispered as he opened the door for me. “I’ll see you at seven.”

  He shut the door before I could say anything in response, leaving me standing on the stairs of Anne’s trailer with a confused frown. It stayed on my face all the way back to my own trailer and continued as I stared at my suitcase and tried to figure out how I was supposed to dress for a wrap party.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  Worrying about what to wear for the party turned out to be pointless. No one had even remotely dressed up for it, instead choosing their normal day-to-day clothing. The general vibe in the room was a mixture of excitement and exhaustion, everyone tired from the long hours they had put in during the last week.

  But the excitement was still overpowering the tiredness. People were glad that it was over and looking forward to the finished product. A couple of people congratulated me on having my first movie go so well and expressed an interest in working with me again if I wrote another.

  Granted, very few people actually stopped me to talk and I knew from the looks I was being given that almost everyone had read the article from this morning. I could understand that a lot of people now considered me to be untrustworthy, but I was willing to take that over the whole ‘whore of Hollywood’ crap that I had been dealing with.

  Anne, Nathan, and Eric all pulled me into a small group and began talking about what was going to happen next, but my mind wandered off the moment I spotted Caleb across the room.

  He noticed me at the exact same time and our gazes collided, bringing my heart to a grinding halt in my chest. It wasn’t until he finally looked away that I remembered to breathe again and I tried my best to refocus on what Nathan was rambling on abo
ut.

  After a few minutes of listening to a swirl of talk about post-production, award’s season, and the possibility of another project while at the same time trying to ignore Caleb in my peripheral vision, I was starting to feel tired myself.

  I was searching for a polite way to back out of the conversation and go to my trailer when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  I spun around to face Caleb, surprised that he had managed to sneak up on me during the short amount of time I had taken my eyes away from him. He tugged me backwards without a word, the gap I left in the group immediately filled in by the director.

  No one noticed as Caleb silently drug me outside into the cool night air. I followed him wordlessly, mentally going over all the things I wanted to say to him before we wound up parting ways.

  I was a little surprised when he took me to his own trailer considering I had never been inside it before. It was nicer than my trailer, but it was still pretty small. He gestured for me to sit down on his couch as he began to pace back and forth through his living room.

  It was then that I realized that this was a far better trailer than the one I was given. The couch I was sitting on was actually a couch and there was a small hallway that lead to a real bedroom. I couldn’t imagine that the room itself was huge, but it reminded me of how much I loathed sleeping on the pull-out couch bed.

  Why did he always come to my trailer when his was so much nicer?

  “I saw that article in the paper this morning.”

  My attention snapped over to Caleb, latching onto his voice as he spoke to me for the first time in nearly a week. I swallowed the lump in my throat that had formed just from the sound of his voice and nodded slowly.

  “After what I said to you... You still went to defend me—us—to Annabelle?”

  “One of us had to.”

  The crestfallen look on his face was filled with regret and I watched as his beautiful eyes slowly closed and he took a deep breath. I immediately felt bad for implying that he hadn’t stood up for us and I stood up to apologize.