Tall Dark & Handsome

by Wilde, Amelia

Lord, have mercy on my soul.

  I should have Cassandra read with him. She’s done it enough times over the past week. We have miles of audition footage with her disembodied voice, reading the lines so the actors have something to respond to. But the way he’s looking at me right now is a challenge, plain as day.

  Once, when I was in the ninth grade and Tessa was in the seventh, we had a knock-down, drag-out fight about the fact that I could never just let it go and stop being, in her words, “such a competitive bitch.”

  Honestly? Not much has changed.

  So I don’t glance at Cassandra.

  I open the script to page thirty-five.

  I let none of it show on my face. None of the heat, none of the nerves, none of the sickening realization that Cannon Hunt, my least favorite actor on the planet, has me hot and bothered in a non-sickening way.

  “Whenever you’re ready.” I lean back in my seat as if this is not a big deal in the slightest. That feels wrong. I sit back up, hoping he didn’t notice all that unnecessary fidgeting.

  He takes the center of the room like it belongs to him, clears his throat, and looks up again.

  “You know I can’t stay, Sunny.”

  The words I’m supposed to say stick in my throat, but I persevere. “I know what you signed up to do. That doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

  “It has everything to do with us.” Cannon’s tone is a little off—it’s not quite edgy enough, not quite damaged enough—but his face is a masterpiece. The little half-step he takes toward me makes me feel like I’m fucking Julia Roberts. “I can’t promise to protect you and then leave you halfway around the world. What kind of man would that make me?”

  I can’t do it.

  I can’t say the next line, but I have no other choice.

  “My man.” It comes out flat and harsh.

  “Sunny—”

  “Mine,” I insist, slightly more forceful. “It would make you my man, and we’d always be together, Day.”

  His expression cracks, and suddenly he is right there, so close I can hardly breathe. Too close, honestly. He must be barely inside the frame for the audition camera. “We wouldn’t, and you have to know that. That’s the reality. As much as I wish—”

  “I wish I was yours.” That’s the line. I know it inside and out. I don’t have to glance down at the paper script, because I’ve insisted on rewrite after rewrite, getting this thing exactly right. “Can you at least give me that?”

  He breathes in, a heartbeat of a space, and to my abject horror, the heat in his eyes is like a match to the most reluctant tinder somewhere in the region of my lady parts. That can’t be happening, because we swore a blood oath never to succumb to the arguable attractiveness of Cannon Hunt.

  Yet here we are.

  And some unruly part of me wants the script—the script I’ve fought for and wrestled into submission with my own two hands—to change. I want the script to call for Cannon Hunt to lean over the table—no—and kiss me. It would be the kind of scene we filmed in the rain, or in fake rain, his cheekbones highlighted by the water droplets.

  But he doesn’t.

  Because the script doesn’t call for that.

  Because I made it that way.

  I don’t even want him here.

  I really, really don’t.

  “You know I’d give you anything.”

  The scene between the Sunny and Day characters goes on, but the blush between my legs is going to push me over the edge. And I don’t let anything push me. Not like this.

  I put down my pen with a slap and look Cannon Hunt right in the eye. And then—as if he’s nobody, as if he couldn’t matter any less—I deliver the kiss of death.

  “Thanks.” I hear Cassandra’s sharp inhale, probably at the abrupt nature of this statement. “We’ll be in touch.”

  4

  Juno

  “He’s not the right match, Milton.” I keep my voice under control, but it’s a near thing, a very near fucking thing. When we were younger, Tessa used to make fun of how my voice shook when she managed to get under my skin, usually by breaking the protocol of our games or, you know, not following orders, but now my voice doesn’t shake at all. I’ve outgrown that shit. I haven’t, apparently, outgrown other people screwing up my grand plans.

  I plant my feet on the carpet beneath the meeting table. It’s the final casting meeting—what should be the final casting meeting—and here’s good old Milton, throwing me a curveball I should’ve seen coming from a mile away. Instead, I let it hit me squarely in the gut.

  He blinks at me from behind his glasses. “Lisa agrees with me. I think we’re all in agreement.”

  I give Lisa a tight-lipped smile. She ran callbacks yesterday, callbacks that Milton insisted on including both Cannon and Elijah in, and I saw her face when she left the meeting room to talk to Milton. I saw the way she fanned her face. And I’ll never admit to anyone the twisted curl of jealousy that wrapped itself around the pit of my gut. She got to be in the room with Cannon Hunt, and I had to pretend to refill my coffee six separate times so I could know the moment it was over. Life is never fair.

  “Cassandra and I saw something different in Elijah Dalavan.” Cassandra is seated to my left. On her left is Lisa, then a producer named Mark, Milton, and a couple of Lisa’s assistants. “We’re in agreement that he could bring a totally unique element to this production, and honestly, he’s still on the upswing of his career.” I press my fingertips delicately into the tabletop. “The studio could do a lot with his loyalty.”

  Milton raises his eyebrows. “The studio could do a lot with the loyalty of Cannon Hunt. Surely you can see that.”

  My mouth twists into a scowl and I press my lips together, tamping that shit down. “Cannon Hunt already has an established brand. And it’s not right for my… for the film.” I spread my hands wide in front of me to give the illusion that I’m making a major concession. “I’ll admit, there is a strong romantic element, but the story isn’t focused on—”

  “This is a great opportunity for all parties involved.” Lisa is upbeat to a fault, and I know from the way she looked yesterday that she has a mad crush on Cannon. “He can show the world he’s got the range to pull this off, and we can show the world—”

  I can’t help myself. “That we’re desperate for a popular face, even on our most serious films?”

  Lisa cocks her head to the side. “I wouldn’t call it desperate. I would call it—”

  “Intelligent marketing.” There’s a finality in Milton’s tone that shakes me to the core, but fuck it, I’m not going down without a fight. “Ms. Anderson, we’re betting on you. You know that. But there’s only so much risk the studio is prepared to take.”

  “Risk?” My voice squeaks a little, and I’ve never hated anything more. I lean forward, trying to take up as much of the space as possible. “I’d argue there’s more of a risk in casting a well-known actor. This film could be a touchstone for—”

  “Ms. Anderson.” Milton stares at me over the top of his glasses. “I hear your concerns. But the first priority of this studio is to produce films that draw an audience. With material like this, it’s essential that we put a recognizable name at the top of the ticket.”

  “We could make Elijah Dalavan recognizable.”

  “Honestly...” I wheel around in my seat. Cassandra isn’t looking at me. She’s staring straight ahead at Milton, her face flushing even as I watch. “As a consumer, I’d love to see Hunt in a different kind of role. He strikes me as a…” She fidgets with her pen, flicking her eyes away from me. Lisa gives her an encouraging smile. Backstabbers, all of them. “…multitalented actor.”

  “Pull the knife out of my back, would you?”

  Shit. Did I say that out loud?

  Cassandra bites her lip. “Juno....”

  “What was that?” Milton says from the other end of the table.

  So, I’ve lost the battle. That doesn’t mean I have to concede the war in this mom
ent.

  I take a deep breath. Lisa braces herself.

  “Okay. What I’m hearing is”—that you’re all wrong, and you’re so besotted with Cannon Hunt that you can’t see the brilliance of Elijah Dalavan—“that Cannon Hunt is our man.” It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to say the words, but I say them nonetheless. “What are your thoughts on”—giving him a seventy-two-hour trial and then replacing him when he utterly misses the point?—“a sort of trial period? We can see how he fits in with the rest of the cast. I can work.... closely with him. To make sure we’re getting the best possible performance.”

  Milton narrows his eyes. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Why not? It would make for excellent interviews on the press junket. The both of us sitting in chairs, laughing about how I had to hold his hand for every aspect of production.”

  Everyone shifts uncomfortably in their seats.

  “Not literally.” I laugh out loud. “Listen, I give in.” I raise my hands in faux surrender. “Cast Hunt as Dayton. That’s fine by me, if there’s a general consensus. But I want to make the best possible film I can.” That fire at the pit of my gut roars to life. It’s that fire that got me here in the first place, and I’ll be damned if I make a shitty movie just so everyone in the industry will talk about how great I am. I just won’t do it. I won’t. “No matter who’s cast in the lead.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Ms. Anderson.” Milton stacks his papers together with a flick of his wrist. “Lisa, make the calls. Everybody else, shooting starts in a week. We have a lot to do.”

  We all stand at the same time, saying all the bullshit things that go along with leaving any meeting, and Cassandra hangs back a step on the way back to my office. I wait until we’re out of earshot before I stop dead in the hallway.

  She steels herself. “Juno—”

  “That was shitty in there. You know that. I know that.”

  Her cheeks turn red. “Yeah.”

  I want to take her to task. Cassandra is my assistant; she’s supposed to have my back all the time, but especially at meetings. I’m still smarting from the betrayal, and as much as I want to let loose, the control I’ve cultivated since my very first backstage job at college is wound too tight to pull that kind of shit.

  That doesn’t make it easy.

  “However, I admire your commitment to your experience.” Cassandra’s shoulders sag with relief. “So I’m not going to fire you.”

  “I kind of thought you would.”

  “You’re too good at your job. Except, you know, when you undercut me in the middle of big meetings.”

  “That probably wasn’t the best time.”

  “No.” I keep moving toward my office. “It wasn’t.”

  “On the other hand—”

  “There’s no on the other hand, Cassie. It wasn’t a good time.”

  We turn the corner, the final hallway to my office. For whatever reason, this makes Cassandra feel bold all over again. “On the other hand, there has to be some small part of you that’s excited to have Cannon Hunt attached to this project.” She nudges me with her elbow. “Maybe... the part that recognizes, even through your Juno Anderson laser-focus... that he’s completely dreamy.”

  “Dreamy?” I make a disgusted noise low in my throat. “Did we travel back in time to the 1960s? Should we go to a sock hop?”

  Cassandra laughs at me. God. She gets the better of me in one meeting, and suddenly it’s fine to laugh at my inner anguish. “Sock hops were in the fifties. And I can see you, you know.”

  “I hope so. You’ve been running auditions with me this whole time. I’m relying on your eyesight.”

  “I can see that you’re blushing.”

  I take the last turn into my office at a higher rate of speed than I originally planned. “I’m not blushing.”

  “You totally are.”

  “It’s…” I sit down as regally as possible behind my desk, which is positioned directly under the air conditioning vent, which is, as always, blowing frigid air down into my space. “It’s hot in here.”

  “Or...” Cassandra flops down behind her own desk and clicks at her mouse. “Or it’s just been revealed that Juno Anderson is a human woman capable of responding to the world’s most attractive man.”

  “I changed my mind.” I flip open my paper planner with a sharp fppt. “I’m firing you after all.”

  5

  Cannon

  The week before we start shooting is so busy that I keep opening beers and never drinking them.

  My intentions are always pure. All I mean to do is get a cold one from the fridge, pop the tab, and drink it. Ninety percent of the time, it doesn’t happen. I waste eleven beers out of a twelve-pack this way. The cast and crew have converged on a backwater town in Georgia to film a motley collection of scenes, with rehearsals and last-minute physical training shoved into every spare moment. Every time I get back to my hotel room, somebody knocks on the door, needing one thing or another.

  Not this time.

  This is my lucky break.

  It’s midnight, for one thing, which should be too late for anyone to bother me.

  I take the beer out of the mini fridge.

  It makes no sense that I’m here at all, honestly. Juno was ice-cold. That clipped “we’ll be in touch” gave me flashbacks to the cattle calls at Central Casting. I shudder to think of it. It was Scott who helped me claw my way out of that oblivion, but a man doesn’t forget. So when the call came that the part was mine, I took it. I locked up my apartment and got on a plane.

  And yet.

  And yet.

  My phone rings before I can open the beer.

  I tell everybody I turn it off at six to stay grounded, but that’s bullshit. Those same nightmare audition flashbacks are reason enough to stay available at all times. Naturally, I have to do it while maintaining a certain... aura. Exclusivity. All that.

  Which is why I let it ring three times before I pick it up, Scott’s name in a pop-up on the screen.

  “My man. How’s it going?”

  “Hot. Busy. You know. It’s that pre-production grind.” It’s a strange feeling this time around. I’m not afraid of Juno Anderson. That’s not the way to describe it at all. But the way she dismissed me so fucking handily, shooting star that I am, makes me nervous and excited as hell to see her again. I’ll charm her if it’s the last thing I do.

  “Everything going okay?”

  “This one’s going to be a piece of cake.” Fine, the Army-style workout the studio puts on for us every morning to get us in tip-top shape made my abs burn for the rest of the day.

  “For an actor, you’re a terrible liar.”

  I go to the window and set the beer on the sill, pushing aside the heavy, cheap curtain blocking an incredible view of the front parking lot. “I don’t know, man. It might not be a great fit.”

  “You’re not going to know that until you’re on set. And anyway, you signed a contract. This is a step in the right direction.”

  “It will be if I don’t crash and burn. And that’s always a possibility. You know that audition wasn’t a home run. That callback was bizarre. It was like they were overruling her.”

  I can’t get it out of my head, and I’m not stupid enough to say this to Scott, but now this director has become a mild obsession of mine. I don’t know how I’m going to act with that face behind the camera. They replaced her at the callback with the real casting director, which tells me there was some behind-the-scenes jockeying that Scott wouldn’t have been privy to.

  “Great attitude, buddy.”

  “It’s too far outside my niche.”

  “You’re the first client ever to tell me he loves being typecast.”

  “I don’t love it, but it’s—”

  “It’s easy. I get it.” Scott’s using his trying-to-appease-me voice, and honestly, it fucking works every time. “But you’ve got to take steps out of your comfort zone. Look, if I was more of
an asshole, I’d be putting your name in for every rom-com available until the moment you aged out, and then I’d throw my hands up when you wanted other roles.”

  “I am so lucky to have you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m glad you—” There’s a knock on the door, bold and confident, and a frisson of irritation twines itself around a little adrenaline rush and zings down my spine. “I gotta go. Somebody’s at the door.”

  Scott, old buddy, old pal, hangs up without another word. I toss the phone onto the bed, cast a longing gaze at my beer, and head for the door. Constant availability. You never know when you’ll lose your shot.

  I see her through the peephole, distorted, her nose freakishly huge. Even then, my heart beats faster.

  Juno fucking Anderson is at the door of my hotel room.

  I pull the door open. She stands with her feet firmly planted on the recently installed carpet outside, arms crossed over her chest, one hip jutted to the side. She’s got a black baseball cap tugged tight over her sandy hair, but she has to look up at me, green eyes glittering in the shade from the cap.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” She’s brisk, all business, staring up at me with her mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’m making the rounds before shooting starts tomorrow, and I wanted to tell you—”

  “Why don’t you come in?” I take a step back, opening space for her to come into my room, smiling pleasantly.

  It throws her for a loop.

  “What? I…” Juno peers into the hotel room as if it’s a dark cavern at the end of an even darker cave. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I just came to say—”

  “Are you fighting with everybody outside their rooms tonight? Or is it just me?” Her face goes a delightful shade of pink and it makes me laugh. “Come on. Step inside. I know you didn’t take Chloe to task like some Amazon warrior stalking the doorway.” Chloe is an up-and-coming actress who’s about to get her big break.

  Juno throws a look over her shoulder, checking the hall, and narrows her eyes at me. “I definitely stood outside the door.”