by Amy Finnegan
The girl straightens in a hurry, and I catch a glimpse of her badge—her name is Mandy. “Um, hi … Miss Taylor,” she says with a wobble in her voice.
“Call me Emma,” I reply, using an overly cheery tone. As Kimmi just proved in our table read, film crews put up with as much crap as zookeepers, so it’s easy to understand why Mandy feels the need to be cautious. The majority of people in this industry are actually pretty cool, though; it’s just that those who are the most obnoxious usually get the most attention. “I stopped by to give you my new cell number. And can I also have another call sheet?”
“Sure!” Mandy says, more at ease. There must be a method to the madness on her desk because just a few moments later, she pulls out a folder labeled CAST INFO. “Let’s start with your number.” She flips over the first set of papers, Kimmi’s stuff. Jake’s info is next, then mine. She writes down my new number and puts everything back into the folder. “Okay, a call sheet. Where, where, where …” After a minute or so of looking, she says, “Sorry, I’ll be right back.”
The second Mandy leaves, I snatch up the contact info.
Cast files contain private information like addresses and phone numbers, so they’re completely off limits to all but a few crew members. But bios are part of each actor’s set of papers, and I now know exactly how to tell Rachel about Jake.
She’ll love me forever.
My heart races as I dig through my bag for my cell. Then I find just the main page of Jake’s bio—I’m not stupid enough to give Rachel his address—and snap a picture of it with my phone. It turns out blurry. And so does the next shot. And the next.
What’s the point if Rachel can’t actually see the small photo of Jake in the corner of the bio, and read the details below it—his name, birthday, height, weight, eye and hair color, work history? Crap! I’m too set on the idea to give up, so I take a calming breath, hold really, really still, and try one last picture. It’s perfect!
“Um … is that my bio?”
I whirl around to find Jake standing only inches from me. “Uh … no,” I reply, blindly stuffing his bio back into its folder. “It’s mine. I was curious about what my agent sent over.”
He’s giving me one of those smiles that suggests he’s flattered by my interest. “That’s weird,” he says. “Because I was just walking by the door here and saw you holding a sheet of paper with my name and face on it.”
How immature would it be to kick him in the shin and then run?
Okay, Emma Taylor, are you an actress or what? Start acting!
“All right, you caught me,” I say with a shrug. “I took pictures of everyone’s cast bios so I can check them out when I get home. But now I feel totally stupid about it.”
“Don’t. That’s actually a good idea,” Jake replies, reaching for the folder that I’ve hidden behind my back. But I twist around so he can’t get it. I have to return the folder to its pile before Mandy sees me with it. “What’s wrong? Did your agent send a bad photo of you or something?”
“No! It’s just that … you know, I’m a girl.” Jake is still reaching and I’m still twisting—one side then the other—and I’m now on the verge of giggling, which has already happened way too many times today. “So I don’t want you to see how much I weigh. Duh.”
This causes him to step back, and I take the opportunity to slip the folder into a stack of identical files. “Seriously?” he says. “You’re about the same size as Tinker Bell.”
That would have made me smile, but now I’m worried he’ll think I really am self-conscious about my weight, and he might tell other people. Then I’ll end up on a cover with a STARVING HERSELF! banner over my head.
Again.
I have very little time to clear this up. “Okay, I don’t actually care about my weight,” I admit. “And I really did take a photo of just your bio. But it isn’t for me. It’s for a friend.”
Jake nods. “The classic ‘it’s for a friend’ story.”
Before I realize it, I’ve backhanded his chest—a totally flirty thing to do, which negates everything I’m trying to tell him. So now I have to explain even more.
“Get over yourself,” I say. “Her name is Rachel, and she’s been collecting your ads for at least a year. But she hasn’t known who you are, which is why I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw you this morning. It’s just a funny coincidence that we’ve ended up working together.” This is all said so quickly that I doubt Jake understands much. “That’s the truth. I promise.”
“So … this is the ‘mutual friend’ you said we have?”
“Exactly! You just haven’t met her yet. She’s amazing.”
Jake leans back on the desk, his biceps tensing against the sleeves of his T-shirt, which is about the same color as his dark hair. He looks like a Hershey’s chocolate bar, waiting to be grabbed off the shelf. And once again I notice that his lips are freaking unbelievable.
Holy crap, I’m totally checking him out again. For Rachel. Only for Rachel.
“Where does she keep the ads?” Jake asks. “In some kind of scrapbook?”
“No, nothing that formal.” I can’t tell if Jake truly wants to know, or if he’s a little creeped out. But I hadn’t meant to make Rachel look stupid. “They’re just taped to her wall. Like, you know, posters.”
Jake stays quiet, his eyes locked on me. “Darn,” he finally says. “If a full collection of my work could be found in a single book, I’d love to get my hands on it. And burn it.”
An embarrassing blast of noise escapes my mouth. It’s my genuine laugh, the one I can’t help when I’m caught off guard by something I find truly funny. Directors ask me for it all the time, but I can’t imitate it on film, no matter how hard I try. Some things can’t be faked.
“Didn’t we just discuss your character, Justin, wanting to burn stuff?” I ask.
He nods. “Especially the cowboy ads. I’d torch every one of them.”
“No, not those!” I beg. “Your boots were so cool.”
Jake is laughing now too. “The boots weren’t the problem.”
“Was it the hat?” He knows where I’m going with this—low-rider leather chaps, hello!—and he’s shaking his head, looking a little desperate.
“That’s a great place to stop,” he says. “Right there.”
Mandy walks through the door and jolts. Her expression suggests that she’s afraid she’s interrupted … well, flirting, or something. “Oh! Do you need a call sheet too?” she asks Jake.
“No thanks, I’ve got one,” he says, totally composed. Didn’t he see how Mandy looked at us? “Emma’s just saying how much she liked my photo shoot in cowboy chaps.”
I hit him again. Get a grip, Emma. Gossip spreads so fast in studios.
“What do you think, Mandy?” I ask her. “Is Jake’s big head gonna fit back through your doorway?”
Jake looks confused. “It’s my biceps I’m worried about.”
The same biceps I’ve been admiring.
I need to get out of here, right now. For several reasons. “Sorry, guys, I’ve gotta go. I have so much homework.”
Mandy gives me a new call sheet, and I thank her. I’m about to say good-bye to Jake when he tells Mandy, “See ya tomorrow,” and follows me out. “I’ve wanted to ask you about sch—” Jake starts to say, but I speak at the same time.
“Maybe you could sign a few of your ads, or whatever, for Rachel? That is, if you have some extra magazines sitting around.”
“Nooo. Not a single one,” he replies, walking a step behind me. “But I do have a whole box of headshots in my car. I guess I could sign some of those.”
This gets me laughing again. “You keep a box full of headshots in your car?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Wait, he could be serious. New actors are notorious for carrying around their headshots, especially in L.A. and New York, just in case they meet someone who’s influential in the business. But Jake doesn’t seem like the type to do that.
&nb
sp; I glance over my shoulder, wondering if I’ve misread him—it wouldn’t be the first time—and come just shy of smacking into the metal door that leads to the parking lot.
Jake reaches around me and pushes the door open just in time. “It’s not what you think,” he says, and I’m pretty sure he noticed that he saved me from a broken nose.
“Miss Taylor!” someone shouts. Jake and I both pause in the doorway and turn back. The transportation guys who picked me up this morning are walking toward us.
“Hey!” I reply with an awkward wave. “I’ll be ready in just a sec, okay?”
Jake practically has his arm around me, propping the door open, and I feel the heat of the Arizona sun on my back. “I can run you home,” he says, loud enough for the transpo guys to hear. They stop a few feet away from us. “I have to give you those photos anyway.”
“Right …,” I begin, but I need a moment to think.
I don’t get time, though, because one of the transpo guys immediately says, “Whatever, that’s cool.” And the other adds, “We’ll see you tomorrow!” Then they stroll back down the hall.
Jake opens the door a little wider, and I step through.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I ask as I follow him out to his car. It’s a black BMW convertible—nice, but not usually the car of an egomaniac. I’ve taken rides in enough of those to know. I prefer to go totally casual in my red-and-white MINI Cooper. “I live in Sabino Canyon.”
“No problem. I’ve heard it’s nice up there.” Jake pops his trunk and glances back at the studio. “One of those drivers looked pretty ticked off that I stole you. He might have a crush.”
“Nah,” I reply. “I’m sure they’re both perfectly happy that you’ve cut an hour out of their workday. Besides, it’s a bad idea to date crew members.”
“Yeah?” Jake says. “What about cast members?”
The way he looks at me, with just a hint of a smile, makes my insides flip over. What? I’m hopeless.
“Twice as stupid,” I reply, showing zero signs of interest. None.
Jake shrugs and reaches for a box in his trunk. “Just curious.”
Jake
Emma has worked her way under my skin in one day flat, but I can’t blame her for steering clear of guys she works with. It doesn’t take being in celebrity circles to know how that’s turned out for her in the past.
The sun is behind her, making her glow like some sort of offering from heaven, but I decide not to point that out. “So … which photos do you want?” I ask, flipping through a stack of my headshots. There are eight different shots—total overkill, but that’s what the studio asked for—and I’m channeling an arrogant prick in most of them. “For your friend, I mean.”
She smiles up at me, almost a full foot above her. “Maybe I could just give her the whole box. Or at least half. You seem to have plenty.”
“Yeah, but as I said, it’s not what you think.” I better explain. “You see, the studio asked my agent to send a freakish amount of these things for fan mail purposes—like I’m gonna get any of that—and since I’m such a nice guy and happened to be in New York a week ago, I offered to deliver the first box myself because my agent was going sorta nuts with a new client named Trixie, or Pebbles, or some other variation on a breakfast cereal that I can’t remember.” I need to take a breath. “Anyway, I’m just doing my agent a favor.”
Emma tips her head. “Is she hot?”
“My agent?” Liz is the female version of RoboCop—part human, part machine.
“No, Trixie or Pebbles,” Emma replies. “And is that who taught you how to talk in such long sentences? It had to be a girl.”
I laugh. “I have a bossy older sister who talks nonstop.”
“Enough said.” Emma holds out a hand, and I give her the stack of photos. She won’t last out here much longer, on a blacktop in the middle of an Arizona summer. I grew up in the blazing heat, spent my entire childhood with red dirt in my hair, but it isn’t easy on beginners.
Emma takes one of each photo and returns the rest of the stack.
We talk about our day for the first fifteen minutes of the drive, then compare Arizona—she’s surprised when I tell her I’m actually from here—and Arkansas. “I’m still trying to get used to the idea that our household pests are cockroaches,” she says, “and yours are scorpions.”
Why are girls so easy to torment?
“I hate to tell you this,” I say, “but we have a lot worse than scorpions here. Over a dozen species of rattlesnakes, for example. And Gila monsters are also rather deadly. Massive tarantulas. Bears. Mountain lions.” The pink in Emma’s cheeks is slowly fading. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that the only scary thing we don’t have in Arizona is great white sharks.”
Emma shivers but keeps her focus straight on the road ahead, giving me a perfect profile to look at. No wonder I’ve been in a daze all day.
I should probably pay closer attention to the road myself.
“But,” she says, her smile returning, “Tucson also has the prettiest birds I’ve ever seen. Hummingbirds seem as common as houseflies, and a cactus almost always has a woodpecker tapping on it. I’ve even seen a pelican.” Emma turns with an expression of disbelief. “A pelican, in Arizona. So overall, I can’t help but love it here.”
“Me too,” I reply. From a distance the towering mountains give Tucson a different look than Phoenix, but the dry, hot air and desert landscape still make it feel like home. “My favorites are the bright-red cardinals.”
“They’re amazing, right? Like flutters of fire, shooting through the sky.”
I can’t believe we’re talking about birds and I’m not bored out of my head. “You’re kinda different than I thought you’d be,” I admit. “In a good way.”
She seems surprised by the comment and glances away. “People rarely think I’m anything like I really am.” Her tone makes me wonder if I’ve hit a sensitive topic. I want to know more, but when she turns back, she says, “I suppose I judge strangers too. For instance, I told Rachel that you were most likely stupid, definitely a jerk, and worst of all, airbrushed.”
“Good guess,” I say. “But I’m only a jerk on Tuesdays. Stupid, occasionally. And airbrushed … well … there’s no escaping that dark magic.”
Emma laughs. “So true. Sometimes they even put a twinkle in my eye.”
We’re in Sabino Canyon now, at the base of the Catalina Mountains. There are a couple of golf courses in the distance and gated communities all along the road. The thing that really catches my attention, though, is the river—definitely a rare sight in the desert. And there are more leafy trees in Sabino Canyon than I’ve seen in all of Arizona put together.
Emma’s phone beeps, and she ignores it. A few seconds later, I hear my own text message tone. My phone is on the armrest between us; we both glance down to find a message from Brett: Dinner for the principal cast at 8. El Loro Feliz. Tanque Verde Rd.
“Dang,” Emma says. “I really need to work on a paper.”
Dinner means I’ll see her later on, but now is a better chance to ask about school. “McGregor told me you’re already a couple of years into college,” I say. “Shouldn’t you have just graduated from high school?”
She nods. “I marched with my original class in May, but I actually finished about a year and a half ago. My last on-set tutor put me on an acceleration plan, so yeah, I’m almost a junior.”
“But how do you go to school with such a busy schedule?”
“My classes are all taught online. You’ll see me studying at work. Tons.”
I graduated from high school early too, and have considered online courses, but it doesn’t seem like they’d be the same. “Will you eventually have to take campus classes?” I ask.
“I need to choose a major before I’ll know. It’s taking me forever to decide because I want to learn about everything.”
Emma motions to the entrance of Paraiso del Rio, just ahead.
I pull up to the fro
nt gates, and a security guard peers through my open window. “Good evening, Miss Taylor,” he says. “Is this a guest we should expect on a regular basis?”
Emma gives me a scrutinizing look, but she doesn’t get the opportunity to make a wisecrack. “Hi, I’m Jake Elliott, her best friend with benefits,” I tell the guard. “So, yeah, I’ll be here a lot.”
He laughs and waves us on.
I punch the gas pedal, and Emma smacks my arm. “Now I’ll definitely tell them to watch out for you. There’s a reason I moved here; it’s like Fort Knox.”
She’s right. Even after we make it past the guard, we’re met by an additional gate leading into the next section of the community. I stop at the keypad and turn to her for instructions. Emma hesitates, then says, “Excuse me for a moment, but I’m gonna have to get a little up close and personal.”
She releases her seat belt, plants one of her knees on my armrest, and leans all the way across me so she can enter the code. She isn’t exactly indecent, but I can’t help but notice the obvious. “Versace, huh?”
It takes Emma a few tries to get the code right. When the gate finally opens, she comes back through the window and pauses when our faces are even. “I don’t recall giving you permission to look at my butt.”
“Uh … sorry?” I reply. “I’ll get my people to call your people the next time your butt is the only view I have.” She sits back down, and I drive forward. “And I only noticed the label because I did some work for them a while back.”
Why do I feel like I have to try to impress her?
“Cool,” she says. “Did they give you freebies?”
“Of course—I always work free clothes into a deal. And I really like their ties.”
She seems intrigued. “How often do you wear a tie?”
I shrug. “If I’m home on the weekends, I go to church with my mom.”
Emma smiles. “My parents would freak if I wore Versace to church. We go to this tiny country chapel outside of Fayetteville. The fanciest thing I’m allowed to wear is a feathered hat.”
I picture her as a true Southern belle, not in a movie but in her actual life, and I have to resist an impulse to touch her. I try to keep a straight face when I say, “Only my ties are Versace. My suits are by Armani.”
