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Back with the Stunt Man
A Single Dad Romance
By: Amanda Horton
Chapter 1
Pat
“Stop acting like the character is mad,” the casting director shouted at me. I frowned. The character was clearly as mad as a hatter at a tea party.
“Sorry, but in this scene she attacks her husband with a frying pan and in the one before she called her son’s school to tell them that if he ever receives a C again, she’ll tear the school down and poison them all with rat poison.”
“Yes, yes,” the casting director was waving her hands irritably. “She’s having a meltdown. She’s not mad, just sad. Try it again and act sad.”
There was one rule in Hollywood as an actress: do as the director, or in this case — casting director — says.
I nodded. Then I begun my monologue once more.
“You bitch, you let my son eat candy at your place. Don’t you understand his teeth will rot. He can get sick because of you. And just think of the bills from the dentist…”
“Stop. This isn’t working. Thanks for coming and have a good day.”
The casting director waved me off. It was time for her to watch actress no. 102 if I were to believe my ticket — I was 101. And this was a no-budget student film. To translate that: you don’t get pay and there’s little chance the film will ever be seen by anyone but a select few friends of the crew and actors.
So why, dear readers, was I here? I, a woman approaching 40, who normally got at least $75 an hour ($150 for private classes) teaching kids how to act in a small town in California? I who had trained three child stars, which had given me such a great reputation people flew in with their kids to see me.
It was simple: I was tired of fame obsessed mothers (and fathers — though they were less frequent) and my soon to be ex husband. OK, so divorce would take another two years as the state of California doesn’t grant one until you’ve been separated for two years. But I was through with him and with playing small. So, four weeks ago I packed everything I could fit into my Beetle (the one thing I’d kept during all my years of marriage) and drove to L.A. To the one city I used to love and call home. However, in my hippie twenties when I, believe it or not, had been a model and actress, I’d had the fabulous idea that it was time to settle down and leave Hollywood. Models don’t last long and my acting career had consisted of small parts in TV shows and films. Nothing secure, nothing safe, nothing settled.
Truth be told, I’d been scared. I was in a dream position back then — a bit more hard work and I could have made it. But I’d been petrified that I never would make it. That I was getting too old to become a star. And I’d seen what desperate thirty-somethings did in Hollywood.
The thing with Hollywood is that there are two sides to it. One is the side where happy filmmakers and actors do what they love: make movies. The other consists of desperation; desperation to get a job so you no longer have to wipe tables in bars, desperation to become famous, desperation to become rich, desperation to get seen by the right people in the right places, desperation for another line of coke… Hollywood is brutal if you’re there for the wrong reasons.
So why had I returned, aged 45, to pursue a career in acting? Because I love movies. I love acting. And if there is one place in the world where you find more acting jobs than anywhere else it’s L.A. I’d never been part of the desperate side of L.A., I’d only ever been there to act. And I was never again to let my fear of failure stop me from doing what I wanted. Also, I had something to prove…
Four weeks earlier I’d caught my husband between the legs of a prostitute. Yeah, that’s about as graphic as it gets. I’d known for years he was cheating. I’d put up with it. The good wife. The one that loved having a home. Loved taking care of her husband. The understanding wife. The one that knew that almost all couples cheat at some point (read the statistics). The one that thought that the marriage itself was more important than the odd sexual encounter when away on business. And in open relationships, that’s probably true, but we’d never had an open relationship. And when you see your husband with a prostitute in your own bedroom…where does that put your marriage? He can’t even resist buying sex? Like your marriage is worth so little to him he actually gives in to buying sex?
As I walked out from the casting I shivered in the cold January air. L.A. doesn’t get cold the way it gets cold in most places, but wearing only a t-shirt, the winter air felt cool against my skin. It was below 50 degrees.
I also shivered as the memory of that horrible day came back to me.
It was the day after New Year’s and most people were taking the day off. I, on the other hand, had a private class with an eager client who had come up from L.A. with her child. I left my husband at home and headed to my studio, only to receive a message on my phone saying the client had to cancel as her child had come down with the flu.
So instead I turned my little Beetle around and drove to a local delicatessen to pick up some treats and wine for the evening. I envisioned a cozy night by the fireplace.
As I came home I walked straight through our house (a beautiful stone and wooden house with the perfect country feel) to our living room, where I’d left my husband. He was still there. On his knees in front of another woman, his head between her legs.
“Bill!” I shouted, in shock.
He didn’t even reply. He just looked at me; shock registering on his face too.
I walked straight out of there and drove to my friend, Jane. That I made it there in one piece is a miracle as tears were streaming down my cheeks; turning my vision blurry.
Jane opened the door as soon as I knocked, but her smile soon turned into a worried expression as she took me in.
“Pat, my God, what’s happened? Is it your parents? Did your mom get sick again?” Jane was the kind of wonderful, loving, woman everyone should know and she’d been my rock when my mom had faced illness two years prior.
“No, it’s Bill,” I managed to squeak out between sobs.
“Was there an accident? Pat, please, try to breathe. Come sit down. I’ll make you tea. You look like you’ve had a shock. Come here honey.” She led me to her couch where I finally told her what happened, sobbing as I went along. She didn’t say much, just held me as I let my tears out. Eventually she got up to make a cup of tea. Jane had always believed that a cup of tea was at the very least half the answer to any problem and normally I’d agree, but that morning I felt beyond consolation.
“It will be alright, pumpkin,” she comforted me as she handed me a cup of steaming tea; a spicy blend to give me strength, no doubt.
“How, can it be alright? I’m forty-five years old, childless and with a husband who has no respect for me. Maybe he loves me for what I give him, but he doesn’t respect me. Which means I must have no respect for myself, because I’ve stayed with him. And I’ve waited with kids. And waited. And waited. I’m not even happy with my work anymore. I want to act, not just teach others to act.”
“So, don’t wait. Go live your life as you want to live it. Find a real man — a man of integrity and honor. Act. Do what you love. Leave this loser behind.”
“You mean, go back
to L.A.?” I hiccuped in-between sobs.
“If that’s what you want? I thought you didn’t like it there, that’s why you came here.”
I shook my head.
“No, I loved it. I think I just bought into the idea that I didn’t have a future there. Bill helped. Told me women after a certain age are through in Hollywood. Apparently they’re through in marriage too. Bastard.”
“Nothing that says you can’t go back now. Screw Bill — women certainly aren’t through in their forties. Look at Meryl Streep for Christ’s sake! Now there’s a powerful woman.”
“But she was already famous when she was forty-five. I don’t have an agent. I don’t even have a showreel anymore. I am just this loser who has convinced herself that having a cheating husband is OK. Someone who kept thinking that I should be happy, even though I wasn’t. Because I had the dream home and a good job and a man who bought me roses and chocolate. Never missed an anniversary. Never stopped making love. It’s just I wasn’t enough…he always wanted more…” I started sobbing again.
“You’re plenty enough,” Jane said. “Haven’t you seen the way men in this town look at you? You have gorgeous red hair, eyes that could knock anyone out and curves to die for!”
Maybe she was right. About the curves at least. Once upon a time they’d prevented me from doing the catwalk. I was tall and curvy — perfect for some shoots, but not what the modeling industry wanted for the catwalk. Things had changed since, or so I’d heard.
“It’s one thing to be attractive, Jane. It’s totally different to be loved. And I’m not young anymore. The woman he was with today…she couldn’t have been more than twenty, maybe not even that.”
“He was seriously sleeping with someone who could still be in her teens?” Jane looked horrified. “How could anyone do that to a woman that age?”
“If you haven’t noticed: men do anything for sex. They don’t think. They’re animals that way.”
Jane gave me a soft, worried, smile.
“Not all men Pat, not all men.” She was happily married, so she should know.
“Well, screw them anyway.” A sudden rush of energy came over me — I’d wanted to change my life for years, I’d just been too much of a coward to do so. Now, as I felt I had nothing left of the life I’d clung to, as that life was Bill, I had nothing to lose. “I need to get away from Bill, Jane. I need to start a new life.”
And that’s exactly what I’d told Bill.
***
“This is insanity Pat and you know it,” Bill protested as I was moving the suitcases I'd packed out to my car. “At least take the SUV if you’re driving to L.A. and not your old Beetle!”
“I’m taking my car Bill, as I’m starting my life in L.A.”
“I’ve told you I’m sorry Pat. You know I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”
“No, what I know is that for I don’t know how many years, ten, maybe? You’ve been cheating. During all this time you’ve not been sorry. And now you’re paying some poor young girl… I thought I knew you Bill, but I didn’t. What’s more, I want a different life from you. I want a life in L.A. and you don’t.”
“We have everything here Pat, friends, work…skiing in winter, beautiful mountains and lakes in summer.”
“Yes, we have your life here. My life is the movies.”
“But getting back into the industry at your age…”
“…is perfectly possible if you know what you’re doing. I’ve worked in the industry all my adult life.”
“You’re a kids’ coach Pat, not an actress. Not anymore.”
“No Bill, I’m an actress who coaches kids. Only, for the past sixteen years the most exciting things I’ve acted in are community plays and commercials for local brands. I love coaching kids, but it’s not enough. It hasn’t been for years.”
“So why don’t you stay here and get a manager in L.A. and see what happens?”
“You know as well as I do that I need a showreel to get a manager and it will take hard work — I can’t be driving two hours each way for every audition! Now move out of my way so I can take this suitcase to the car.”
“This is insane! At your age you can’t just bounce back into Hollywood.”
“You mean at the ripe age of forty-five I should just sit back and retire? For God’s sake Bill, get out of my way.”
“You will regret this! I’m telling you this is insanity. Sit back and enjoy life instead of stepping back into one of the hardest industries on Earth. You make a great living just doing a couple of hours of work a week doing coaching, why this need to act in films? It’s insane Pat, especially as you could just sit back and enjoy life!”
“On the contrary, I think I’ve just woken up to sanity. And I’ll prove it to you -- I'll land a big role…oh I don’t know, within six months! A lead in an indie, or a significant role in some bigger production for film or TV.”
“You don’t need to prove anything Pat, I know you’re a great actress.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything to you, I’m doing this because it’s what I love.”
“But it will ruin you. Hollywood ruins people. You’ll never make it.”
“Six months Bill. I’m telling you, six months. Now get out of my way!”
***
As the chilly breeze continued to caress my bare arms, I was taken back to the moment and felt another kind of shiver run through me — one of hope. I was in L.A. and for the first time in years I had hope of actually creating a life I truly wanted to lead. It was my life now. My life and my future.
Chapter 2
Jeff
I swore loudly. I’d overslept…but the previous night had been worth it. Still, I had principles I never broke and being on set on time was one of them.
“Hey,” the curvy blonde thing next to me said. “Already awake?!”
“Morning, honey,” I said and gave her a kiss on the forehead as her hands started caressing my body under the covers. I felt myself harden. Damn! “Yes, already awake and already late. I have to get to set.”
“Oh, come on. They can wait a little while longer. It’s not like your director doesn’t have things under control.” As she spoke, she let her hands get more demanding…
Maybe I could allow myself to be late just this once? What Carol was doing to me felt beyond good. It felt fantastic. And I knew this was just a one-night-stand. Carol was only in town till the next day and she was truly something in bed! I swore.
“I’m sorry, but there’s a reason I made it in this town. If I start bending my own rules…who knows what I’ll do next?”
“There’s plenty we could do next…”
I swore again.
“I’m sorry babe, but no.”
In the end I was only forty-five minutes late, but the director had been there early and the delay had given her ample time to re-stage the scene and turn it into something that would take a lot longer to shoot. I was the stunt coordinator and producer and there was no way in hell I’d let her get away with this one.
“But come on Jeff, it’s just so much better this way.”
“You know and I know that it will take all day to rehearse and shoot.”
“We’ve got some room, surely. We’re ahead of schedule.”
And that’s just the way I intended to keep it. No other producer had his films finished ahead of schedule every time. I did. Because I worked side by side with the directors and set realistic schedules. This time I’d taken a gamble by hiring a new hot shot — the red headed Laila Longhorn. Her name was a mouthful and so was she. But she’d had some amazing ideas in her past projects and she was great with the actors. Like so many artistic people she had no sense of budgeting though and she’d ruin me if I set her free to do whatever she wanted in every scene.
“And we’re going to stay that way. Your idea is artistic and ambitious, but you need to work with what we can do. Go back to the original plan. We don’t have time to spend all day rehearsing a new stunt. Add whateve
r artistic flair you want to the original scene. You know I love your ideas. I just can’t let the financiers down.”
Laila shrugged her shoulders and trotted off. I knew she wasn’t happy with me, but it was part of the job. Too many producers let their films slip. I wasn’t one of them. I had started out as a stuntman, then worked my way up to a stunt coordinator and saved up for years to invest in the first feature I produced. It had turned into a goldmine and I’d been incredibly tight with my money ever since. I’d also diversified my investments; investing in stocks and other businesses. I knew what it was like praying for your next job. I never wanted to be in that position ever again. And I wouldn’t, but I knew if I wanted to keep my reputation in Hollywood I had to stay strict. Film was my passion — my other investments might be worth more, but film was where I spent my time and I intended to keep it that way. Most people lost money in Hollywood — I’d made mine.
Back with the Stuntman_A Single Dad Second Chance Romance) Page 1
