The rain feels good, like it’s dissipating the hot air all around me. For a moment all I can hear are rumbles of thunder amid the pouring rain. We run to the truck, Milo’s long legs letting him beat me there. He gets to the passenger-side door a few steps before I do and fumbles in his pocket for the keys. I’m breathing hard and so is Milo, so I watch his chest rise and fall in front of my eyes. I’m reminded of the Diner just the other day, when I couldn’t believe I was so close to him. Now, it feels like I shouldn’t be anywhere else. Without even thinking, I lean into him and feel sparks shoot through my chest at the contact.
Milo looks down at me. “Cold?” he asks, but instead of waiting for an answer, he wraps his arms around me. He doesn’t pull me closer, though. Instead he pushes me back just a bit. At first I worry that I’ve invaded too much of his space. That I’ve been too forward. He may be single, but it’s not like he’s available. And even if he was, I’m no Lydia Kane. I’ve definitely violated the just-friends portion of our unspoken agreement, and my mind immediately starts spinning an excuse that will put things back the way they were. I want him, but above all else I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to go back to cold, distant, hate-the-world Milo.
But when he dips down, I know why he needed the space.
All I see are eyelashes as he leans in to kiss me, and instead of shrinking back or being shocked, I rise up on my toes to meet him. We crash together with a force that’s almost as shocking as the bolts of lightning happening all around us. I look down and watch Milo’s hands grasp my hips, then one travels up my side in a way that would be ticklish and probably make me yelp were I not distracted by the action up north. His palm comes to rest on my cheek, and I lean into it. I feel his guitar-player calluses brush just behind my ear, and I let a sigh escape my lips. We kiss, and suddenly everything melts away with the rain. He’s not sad or lonely. I’m not lost or uninspired. We’re not worried about art or music or exes or cameras. We’re not worried about hiding from anything or anyone. He’s just Milo, and I’m just Dee. Together.
When we part for air, our chests are heaving in time with the rain, which seems to be tapping out a perfect rhythm on the roof of the truck. I tilt my head back into the window, look up, and laugh. Milo pulls me back in, and I lean my cheek into his chest like I could crawl in for warmth.
Milo pulls back a little. The rain is still coming down, but neither one of us are paying a bit of attention. At this point we’re already soaked, so why bother? “Was that okay?” he asks.
I laugh as raindrops run down my nose and cling to my eyelashes. “Okay? Seriously? That was so much more than—”
Before I can finish, Milo leans in and kisses me again. And this time it’s even better.
MOM (voice off camera)
We’re home! You still up?
MOM comes into DEE’S room, where she’s curled up in bed.
MOM
Did you do anything fun while we were gone?
Or did you just marathon some intense paranormal romance?
DEE
Uh…something like that.
The wait for Monday morning, when I’ll see Milo back on set, feels like an eternity. I spend all day Sunday on the porch swing, closing my eyes and imagining I’m back at Lowell’s, Milo’s arms wrapped around me, his lips on mine. The only thing that pulls me out of my daydream is a text from Naz. It’s a picture of her toes, painted the coral color I bought her as a going-away gift, buried in the sand. The blue waves of the Atlantic lap at the shore in the background, and next to her left foot is a physics textbook beneath a biography of Marie Curie.
I text back.
The beach makes even science seem relaxing,
:) Everything ok on the home front? she replies.
My thumbs hover over the tiny keyboard on my screen, pausing for a moment before I reply. I want to tell her everything, but I don’t know if I could even convey it all in a text. But that’s not even the real problem. The problem is that I don’t want to tell her the truth, because part of me is worried she’s right. Maybe my heat-seeking missiles are set on self-destruct. Because even though I kissed Milo, and he kissed me back…even though we stood on my front porch, just out of reach of the porch light, kissing until I was sure my parents were going to drive up and catch us, even though my stomach is full of a fleet of butterflies…there’s still the press. And the Internet. And Lydia.
So instead, I type back:
Snooze. Miss you!
I feel instantly guilty about the lie, but I know what Naz would say if I told her. First of all, she’d totally freak out. Then, when she stopped being shocked, she’d lecture me and bring up paparazzi and distractions and all the things that are there, but that Milo’s kiss seems to make disappear. And it would all be true, but I don’t want anything dialing back my bliss right now. Practical thoughts, the kind Naz specializes in, will only dull the magical memory. And I’m basically living in that memory until I can get back to work.
Finally, finally my alarm goes off on Monday morning, and I leap out of bed like I’ve been ejected from it. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up more ready for a day in my life. Every part of me feels electrified. I don’t even freak out about what I’m going to wear. I pick a pair of jeans and one of my favorite broken-in T-shirts from my closet, but I think I’d feel great in a potato sack.
When I arrive at the studio, Milo’s truck is in the parking spot where his Audi used to be, and just the sight of it has me biting my bottom lip to suppress the lunatic grin that’s threatening to take over my face. It feels like there’s an entire army of helicopters buzzing around inside me, and the excited jitters mean it takes me three tries to get my bike locked before I practically skip through the front door. I’m just glad I manage to open it instead of bursting through it like a cartoon.
As soon as I walk in, I can tell that I’m not the only one carrying a load of excitement with me. In the office, phones are ringing off the hook, people are rushing in and out of the room murmuring into their headsets, and the copy machine is spitting out so many sheets of paper I think I just heard it sigh. And in the back, through a window into a small office, I see Rob and Leigh, the executive producer, who I’ve barely seen since the first day, bent over a binder intently marking pages with pencils. Something is definitely up.
“Ruth needs you. Emergency,” Carly says by way of drive-by instructions. She’s gone before I can even respond, her zip-up hoodie flapping behind her.
Ruth, it turns out, is having an emergency of the floral persuasion. When I walk into the prop room, I’m greeted with a giant corkboard half full of photos of flowers in every shade and shape, and the work table has been overtaken by an army of vases lined up in neat rows and columns.
“All the flower arrangements for scene eleven need to be reworked. They clash,” she says, though she doesn’t say with what. She thrusts a stack of photos into my hands. “Get these up on the board so Rob can approve. Toss all the reds. They won’t work anymore.”
The calm that came over her when we started shooting seems to have temporarily disappeared, and she’s back to charging around the prop room, alternately muttering to herself and whoever is on the other end of her walkie-talkie.
When I’m done with the corkboard, Ruth arrives with a bucket of flowers and another stack of photos, telling me to recreate them as best I can with the vases on the table. Flower arrangement has never been a career I’ve considered, but once I get started it feels fairly familiar. It’s all about color and composition, making sure the heights of the various flowers are visually pleasing, that nothing is pulling focus, that there aren’t any dead spaces (both literally and figuratively, I realize as I toss a half-brown lavender rose into the trash can).
When Ruth calls lunch, my fingers feel raw from where I kept getting the thorns on the long-stemmed roses, and my nose is itchy and runny from the pollen. Turns out floral arrangement is a bit of a contact sport. But Ruth seems happy with my work, or at least I think that’s
what it means when she nods, her mouth set in a firm line, so I don’t complain.
Besides, lunch means I’m finally going to see Milo. Just the thought has my poor, pricked fingers lingering on my lips as once again I let myself relive the kiss in the rain.
When I get to crafty (as I’ve noticed the rest of the crew calling it), I hop in the buffet line and allow myself a surreptitious glance around. My eyes go to him immediately, like a compass being pulled toward north. He’s hunched over a plate, his back to me, already in wardrobe for his next scene. His character’s tattoos have been applied to his left bicep and forearm, thick and black against his lightly tanned skin.
“You gonna go?”
While I’ve been standing here swooning over Milo Ritter’s fake tattoos, the buffet line has moved, making it clear to everyone behind me that my brain is somewhere else.
I apologize, then pack my plate full from today’s selection of pastas. Everything from marinara to alfredo to puttanesca to some kind of roasted vegetable situation is steaming from the chafing dishes, and I decide to take a tour of Italy and sample them all.
After adding a lump of crispy, buttery garlic bread to my plate, it’s time. Because I’m so jittery, I pause to steady myself so I don’t have an unfortunate marinara incident on the way over, then I head toward him. I force my pace to be slow and casual, so that when I finally reach him it might actually look like I was heading for the door and stopped to have lunch with him as an afterthought. Set is a closed world, and everyone’s discreet. They’re contractually obligated to be. But gossip still spreads like a turn-of-the-century epidemic within these four walls, and I don’t know what the rules are when it comes to dating the star.
I put my plate down on the table and climb over the bench. Milo looks from the plate to me, a smile breaking across his face, though he quickly dials it back. Clearly he’s of the same mind as me, and I’m glad I exercised control instead of beelining straight for him like my legs wanted me to.
“Hey there,” he says, and it’s a good thing I’m already sitting down, or my legs would give out beneath me.
“Nice lunch,” I say. I eye the obscenely healthy collection of vegetables decorating his plate, including a scoop of what is probably lean, fat-free tuna salad in the middle. I make a big show out of swirling a heaping helping of creamy fettuccini alfredo onto my fork, then taking a bite with a loud “Mmmmmm.”
“You’re evil,” Milo says. He stabs at a piece of raw cauliflower and sticks it right in his mouth, no ranch dressing or onion dip or anything. I have to suppress a gag. “Saturday was my cheat day, which I’m allowed since I spend the other six days eating like an Olympic gymnast and bench-pressing my body weight under the watchful eye of a trainer who I think studied at the Fascist Dictator School of Motivation.”
He barely gets a forkful of tuna in his mouth before Carly appears behind him.
“Milo, Rob is calling for you in the office,” she says, and picks up his plate. “Want me to box this up for you?”
Milo flashes me a smile. “Gotta go. Sorry for the short lunch,” he says, nodding at Carly, who disappears in search of a box. I nod and shrug to mask my supreme disappointment that our lunch lasted all of three minutes, partially for his benefit, and partially for Carly, who is back with a white to-go box in hand. But apparently I’m not as good an actor as Milo.
“Making friends, I see?” Carly’s left eyebrow rises just enough to let me know that she knows, and that she wants me to know that she knows. “When you need a big-sisterly lecture, just say the word. In the meantime, take this to him, ’kay?”
I make my way back into the office part of the building and down the beige-carpeted hallway toward the conference room. Outside the door, I stop and check my shirt again for any stray pasta sauce, then breathe into my cupped hand to be sure I don’t have the kind of garlic breath that would clear a room.
Rob is sitting at the head of the conference table in the white, windowless room. To his right is Leigh. Between the two of them, there are four cell phones, a pager, two tablets, and two walkie-talkies resting on the table, along with a clipboard and a stack of papers.
Also at the table are Paul and Gillian, along with a younger blond guy I recognize from that TV show about Chicago police, who I think plays Milo’s best friend in the movie but who hasn’t been on set yet for any scenes.
When I step into the room, all six heads snap in my direction. Rob and Leigh take one look at me and go back to the array of devices in front of them. When everyone else realizes I’m not who Rob and Leigh were expecting, they go back to chatting or flipping through papers. Only Milo smiles at me.
I hold up the box by way of explanation, and he waves me over. I squeeze around the edge of the room, sucking in until Gillian Forsyth realizes what I’m doing and scoots her chair in.
“Thank you,” I whisper. She smiles at me and tosses her long red hair, the freckles on her cheeks squinching together. It always seemed like she was a nice person when I’d see her on awards shows or in interviews, and I’m glad to see I wasn’t wrong.
When I get to Milo, I place the box on the table in front of him and pull the silverware out of my back pocket. “Carly asked me to bring this to you,” I say, working hard to keep my voice low.
“Thanks,” he replies. He takes the silverware and puts it on top of the box. He glances over at Rob, who’s deep in hushed conversation with Leigh. Then he turns back to me. “Looks like we’ve got our new Kass. She’s on her way.”
“Who is it?” I ask, then realize too late that this is probably not the time and also probably not my job to ask.
“Dunno,” he says. “They haven’t said yet.”
“ ’Scuse me, is there tuna in that box?” Paul looks up from the script he’s been reading.
“Yeah, man,” Milo says. He flips the box open to reveal the scoop of tuna salad on a bed of spinach. Paul recoils.
“I’m sorry, tuna makes me, well, I had a bad experience, so, um…” He leans back in his seat and covers his nose with his hand. I can see the color start to drain from his face. Any second he’ll be the same color as the wall behind him. Milo notices and quickly closes the box, shoving it into my hands.
“Yeah, totally, no problem,” Milo replies, giving me a yikes look. I take the box and turn, squeezing past Gillian again. I get to the door and shove it open, noticing that it swings a lot easier than it did when I came in. That’s weird.
And then all of a sudden the box bursts open, sending tuna salad, spinach, and the serving of pickled beets that were also in there cascading down the front of the tall, thin body that I’m now smashing into.
“OhmyGod!” I shout. I step back, the box falling to the floor between our feet.
“Holy shit!” the girl screeches, shaking her hands hard to release the spinach that’s clinging to her fingers. She looks down at the blossoming red stain that’s growing on her gauzy white tank top, then looks up at me. She gives her impossibly long red hair a shake to keep it from mingling with the tuna that’s clinging to her chest.
“Holy shit,” I mutter.
“Holy shit,” I hear Milo say behind me.
“I’m going to be sick,” says Paul, rushing past us and the whole mess while the blond guy doubles over with laughter. (Aiden! Aiden Lloyd. That’s his name. Of course it occurrs to me at this moment.)
“Could you get some paper towels?” Rob snaps from his position at the head of the table. He rises from his chair and gestures to an empty one next to Leigh. “We can’t have our star covered in someone’s lunch. Everybody, I assume you know Lydia Kane.”
I don’t know what Rob means by You know Lydia Kane. I mean, I know Lydia Kane is famous. I know she’s got one of those naturally husky voices that makes her sound like she’s been carrying on a conversation at a Metallica concert for the past six months. I know she’s the kind of person who’s frequently photographed in the front row of fashion shows or exiting shiny black cars, sometimes sans underpants.
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And I know that her ex-boyfriend is perhaps the best kisser this side of the Mason-Dixon line.
But Lydia Kane and I have never, you know, been introduced.
“You, with the food. Get paper towels,” Rob says, waving a finger in my direction and then shooing me toward the door. I bend down and retrieve the crumpled, dripping box from the floor.
“And wardrobe, please,” Lydia groans, just barely masking the bite in her tone. “I smell like a fish counter.”
And then, in front of me and her director and her fellow costars, Lydia Kane peels off her white (and now also red) top to reveal a tanned and taut abdomen and one of those lacy white bras with just enough fabric so as not to be completely see-through. She tosses the tank at me, and it lands in a gauzy heap on top of the crumpled box of dripping food, one of the straps hooked around the plastic ID card attached to my lanyard.
I want to look at Milo to see what his reaction is to this. His ex-girlfriend? Onto whom I just dumped his lunch? Who is now standing in front of him and me and everyone else with no shirt on? Of course I want to know. But I also don’t, because what if his eyes are on that lacy bra? Or the bit of black scrollwork coming out the top of her very-low-rise jeans? I’m pretty sure that, despite my best intentions, I’d burst into tears. Or maybe flames. Either way, it would not be good for him or me or the current state of my employment.
Instead I mutter a few words that I think come out sounding like “I’ll go right now,” and then dart for the door without a single glance over my shoulder.
I hear the door click shut behind me as I’m dumping the mangled box of food into a trash can at the end of the hall. I toss Lydia’s shirt over my shoulder like a hand towel and stop myself from using it as one, opting instead to fling the excess tuna off my fingers into the garbage can and then give my hands a good rubdown on the thighs of my jeans. I guess I’ll smell like a fish counter all day now.
My Unscripted Life Page 11
