“Hey, he learned it from watching you,” I reply. Having finished with the front yard (which, I have to admit, looks pretty impressive), she’s started in on the backyard. Until recently it’s just been a big, fenced-in area of patchy grass (more dirt than anything else) that serves as Rubix’s play yard and doggie potty. When leaves would cover the ground each fall, Mom would simply tell us we were practicing “organic gardening” and letting everything compost. Dad would mutter something about how those words don’t exactly mean what she thinks they mean, but no one ever cared enough to correct her (or dig for the ancient rake in the back of the garage). But now, the existing grass patches have been mowed to a uniform height, and straw covers all the blank spots where Mom laid grass seed the other day. And as of yesterday, there are approximately ten giant holes that Mom dug along the fence line that are going to get filled with some kind of flowering bush she’s waiting on the local nursery to deliver.
“You’re looking happier this morning,” she says.
I pour myself a glass of orange juice and down it in two big gulps, then go for the refill. “Happier than?” I ask.
“I don’t know, than when the summer began?” When I don’t say anything, she tries again. “I’m guessing you had fun last night?” There’s a tone in her voice that tells me she’s asking more than she’s asking, but I’m not ready to give it up yet. This one I’ll keep for me a little longer.
“Yeah, I had a good time,” I reply, trying to keep my tone light while my smile stays coy.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she says, a dot dot dot clearly implied. When I don’t fill in details, she gives up and gets to the point. “To be honest, I sort of can’t believe I agreed to let you stay out that late with a boy I barely know. You were just so unhappy about the whole honors program thing, I was primed to agree to anything that might make you smile.”
Rubix wanders in through the open back door and plops down at our feet, waiting for someone to offer him a biscuit or a bite of whatever’s on the table.
“Does that mean I can get my nose pierced?”
“Not a chance,” she says, her tone more than serious. Damn, I knew I should have kept that one in my back pocket a little longer. “Speaking of smiles, you seem to be sporting a fairly large one today. Anything I should know about?”
“Just a nice night,” I say.
Mom pauses, looks like she’s considering something, and then sighs. “Were you safe?”
I recoil. “God, Mom! Gross!”
She holds her hands up in mock surrender. “You know the rules. I give you your freedom, you give me your honesty.”
“Well, that’s honestly awkward, and also not even up for discussion. We’ve barely been going out for a minute,” I tell her. “If you must know, we just kissed.”
Mom can’t hide her sigh of relief, even though she practically pulls a muscle trying to turn it into a regular old exhale. “I know the party line is that I’ll support you in whatever choices you make for yourself, but I’m not going to lie, I’m really glad to hear that.”
“Good. Can we be done with this conversation now?”
“Of course,” she says, seemingly as happy to move on as I am. “New topic?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Mom takes a deep breath, the kind that comes before some seriously huge parental news, and I can’t help it. My mind goes to the absolute worst scenario. Are they getting divorced? That would be pretty much the most shocking thing that’s ever happened to me in my life, and that includes the fact that I’m dating Milo Ritter.
She lets out the breath long and slow, then places a book on the table. The cover is all black, with a pale woman’s hand holding what appears to be some kind of whip. A Most Dangerous Game, the cover screams in bloodred letters. The words “lust” and “whimper” leap off a blurb from the front cover, but that’s not what catches my eye. I blink, but the letters don’t rearrange. No matter how long I stare, the name at the bottom still says “Marilyn Wilkie.”
I pick the book up off the table and turn it over in my hands. “A once-in-a-lifetime night of lust turns into a once-in-a-lifetime love…” reads the tag line in loopy red script. The blurb below goes on to talk about someone named Natalie and her experience with someone named Randolph, and I have to stop reading because the words are starting to blur and my stomach is starting to turn. Because this is not my mother’s usual romance novel. This is not duchesses and farm boys and ripped bodices and quivering members. This is…well, my mother has leveled up on her romance game, apparently. Or down, depending on your perspective.
I drop the book like it’s going to burn me.
“This is your new book?” I say when I can’t take the silence anymore. I can’t believe this is going to be in stores, where people I know can read it. “How could you not have warned me about this?”
Mom sighs. “You were so miserable; I didn’t want to add to it. And then you got so busy on the movie that I guess I let it get away from me,” she says. “Plus, telling your teenage daughter that you write erotica? It’s, well, a little unseemly.”
“Well, yeah! Ya think?” I say, my voice rising to a pitch that makes Rubix raise his head from his paws and cock his ears at us. “I can’t believe you wrote this.” The book is sitting on the table between us like a bikini-clad elephant.
“Are you embarrassed?” she asks.
I pause, thinking about it. I mean, I guess, knowing my mother was the one writing those things. It’s like walking in on your parents fooling around. I know they do that stuff, and that’s fine, but I do not need to see it.
Or read about it.
I find myself stuttering and sputtering, fighting away images that the cover and the jacket copy conjure up in my head. “I just…I mean…not really, but…why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, I wanted to try something new? Get out of my comfort zone?” She takes a sip of her tea and sits back in her chair, rolling her neck. “Being creative as a job can be exhausting. The only way to keep it fresh, to not let it drain you, is to change it up. Rock the boat.”
“Well, you certainly did that,” I say, and I can’t help it, I laugh. Because this situation is ridiculous. Insane. It’s like your mom giving you “the talk” on acid. I wonder if anyone has ever had to discuss her mother’s erotica with her. But the longer I laugh, the more her words sink in. About staying fresh and rocking the boat. About how draining creativity can be, and it occurs to me that that’s a little bit of what I’ve been going through. I’ve been blaming my artistic paralysis on my rejection from Governor’s School, but the truth is I was having a hard time before that. I was grinding away at the same old stuff, and I was bored. And what finally snapped me out of it was trying a different outlet for my creativity. Working on the movie, thinking about art in a more physical way, has really gotten me excited again. And while I’m not bolting for my sketchbook, I have found myself looking at the world around me and picturing the way it would look through the lens of a camera. I’ve imagined props I’d move or alter to make the scenes around me more dynamic. And the excitement I get from that feels remarkably similar to what I used to feel when propped up with my sketchbook on my knee.
“Is there anything I can do?” Mom asks.
I think for a moment, since yanking the book from stores isn’t an option. Besides, if it’s as popular as the other dirty books I’ve seen on the shelves, then this thing could more than pay for my college education.
“Just promise me I won’t ever have to go to a reading,” I say.
She laughs. “Deal.”
“Can I get a little more light over here?”
A woman in a tool belt with heavy gloves on adjusts the angle on the oversized light in the corner of the room, until the chair Rob is pointing to is bathed in a soft glow.
It’s the last day of filming. We’re shooting three scenes, and when we’re done we’ll hear Rob call That’s a wrap! And then everyone will pack up and go, back to LA or New York
, off to work on another movie or a TV show. There will be other jobs and other cities and towns. It feels sort of like what I imagine high school graduation will feel like, when everyone’s off to colleges all across the country. Only with the movie, there’s no promise of summer breaks and holidays back together. I’ll probably never see a lot of these people ever again.
I may never see any of them.
There’s an excitement on set as we barrel toward the finish line. Today the entire principal cast is on set, including Paul and Gillian, whom I’ve barely seen since that first day in the conference room. It’s still weird to me that stars as big as them can be in a movie and actually film for only a few days.
We’re in the studio today, filming in a high school classroom set that’s been set up in what was probably an old conference room. The set designer ripped out the flat, oddly patterned office carpet and replaced it with that ugly linoleum you see in high schools everywhere, sort of off-white with veins of brown going through it. There’s a whiteboard and a caged clock on the wall and one of those big bulky teacher’s desks at the front, while the rest of the room is filled with rows of classroom desks, the kind with the little table attached to one side that’s never actually big enough to hold your notebook, your pen, and your arm.
Gillian and Lydia are sitting in two of the student desks while hair and makeup attends to them. Paul is perched on top of the teacher’s desk in front of them, checking his teeth in a compact mirror for bits of his breakfast. The scene today is one where Kass and her mother are meeting with Mr. Greenfield, Jonas’s mentor and Gillian’s character’s old flame, to talk about how Kass is bombing her classes, which her mother blames on her relationship with Jonas.
Ruth has sent me into the room with a box of props for the scene. Just general classroom-type stuff: erasers, a pen cup, a stack of books with generic spines meant to look like big classic tomes. I busy myself placing them around the room, checking every once in a while to make sure they’re all in frame and not cluttering the shot. Ruth will be in to check my work and adjust things, but I want to get it right the first time.
I’m rearranging the stack of books on the desk so the colors of the spines will complement one another when Rob appears at my side.
“Dee, right?” he asks.
My heart starts to pound, and I instantly wonder what I’ve done wrong. I do a quick scan of the props to make sure there aren’t any obvious brand labels or something showing, but I don’t see anything. “Uh, yeah. Yes. That’s me,” I sputter.
Rob nods. “I just wanted to tell you that you’ve done a great job here. You seem to have a real eye for set design. Ruth’s mentioned your work is good, and from working with her you probably know she’s not overly effusive with praise,” he says. He tilts his cap up on his head and swipes at his forehead. “And I know asking you to do those paintings was really out of left field, but they turned out great. I really think you could have a future in set design. Or studio art.”
The whole time he’s talking, his face remains pretty stern, like he’s still really considering the words he’s saying, and it’s probably good. Because if he were smiling at me right now or showing even the tiniest bit of enthusiasm, I’d probably scream or cry or launch into a serious giggle fit. Partly because it’s such a supremely awesome compliment, and partly because it feels so much bigger than I imagine getting accepted to Governor’s School would have. I’ve wandered so far off the path I had imagined for my summer, and yet I wound up in almost the same—maybe even better—final destination.
“Oh, wow, thank you,” I reply. For some reason I’m whispering, like we’re in a church or a museum. I think it’s because I know that right now I have only two volume settings, quiet and holy wow, greatest day of my life!
Rob reaches up and adjusts his Yankees cap. “Listen, if you decide you want to pursue this, I’m more than happy to be a reference for you.”
Yup. Definitely better than Governor’s School.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice leaping to the upper registers. Rob winces and nods at me, and I decide to shut my mouth before I annoy him enough that he rescinds the offer.
“Okay, people, let’s get going. Rehearsal?” he says. Everyone takes their places, Gillian, Lydia, and Paul on their marks, camera and lighting crew behind their equipment. Rob adjusts his headphones so he can hear the dialogue from the hall, where he’ll be watching on the monitor.
“Rolling!” Rob calls, and the echoes of rolling rolling! bounce off the linoleum. “Action!”
The scene begins, with Paul talking in this gentle teacher voice, and Gillian answering back in a snappy, angry tone. Lydia is slumped down in her seat. After a few beats of silence, Rob calls cut.
“Lydia, your line,” he says, and she jumps slightly in the desk chair.
“Oh, uh, right,” she says. Kathleen hustles in with the binder to show it to Lydia, who looks annoyed and embarrassed.
“We good?” Rob asks. Lydia nods, and Kathleen disappears back into the hall. “Okay, from the top. Action.”
The scene begins again. Paul, then Gillian.
The silence.
“Lydia!” Rob snaps, and she starts her line, but it’s too late. “Still rolling, from the top.”
And the scene begins again. This time Lydia says her line, only she stutters over a few words. I can hear the sigh from my perch in the back corner of the room behind the camera. And so it goes, with Lydia flubbing her line or forgetting her line for the next four takes. At one point Gillian leans over to offer her a squeeze on her shoulder, a comforting gesture, but Lydia leans away from it. Her face is a mask of anger and irritation, but it’s nothing compared to Rob.
“Okay, cut!” Rob stomps into the room. He marches over to Lydia, his hands on the desk as he leans down toward her ear. But even though his voice is hushed, the room is completely silent, and also small. Everyone can hear his every word when he tells Lydia, “I don’t know if it’s jitters or exhaustion or what, but take five, get yourself some coffee, and get your shit together. Got it?”
Lydia nods, then rises and bolts from the room. Rob turns to the rest of us. “Take five. Don’t go far.”
A few of the crew members take the mini break as an opportunity for a smoke, and hustle out the door and down the hall. I figure this is as good a time as any for a bathroom break, since the pipes run over the ceiling of the classroom set and we’ve been given strict instructions not to flush during shooting.
I make my way down the hall to the bathroom. I push open the door and start to scurry into the stall when a flash of red catches my eye. It’s Lydia. She’s sitting on the counter right next to the sink, her knees pulled up to her chin. She’s either doing some deep cleansing breaths or hyperventilating. I grimace and glance at the door, wondering if I can creep out. Maybe she hasn’t noticed me.
“I just keep screwing everything up,” Lydia groans into her hands.
Nope, no time to leave. She’s noticed me, all right. And apparently she wants to talk. Awesome.
But I don’t want to talk to her. I’m in a good place right now. Ruth thinks I’m good at my job and Rob just offered me a reference. And though I still don’t know what happens after we wrap, for now, things are good with Milo. I don’t need any more of her wry threats or sarcastic one-liners. And while I’m not one to kick a girl while she’s down, I really don’t feel like playing her game right now.
“Are you seriously expecting me to have sympathy for you right now?” I ask.
Lydia’s head shoots up, her eyebrows rising nearly into her hairline. She did not see that coming, that’s for sure. “I’m not expecting anything, but now I’m wondering what the hell your problem is.”
I cross my arms, totally forgetting that five minutes ago I had to pee. “Uh, maybe that you’ve been trying to sabotage my relationship with Milo since you showed up here.”
Lydia looks at me like my hair is on fire. “I absolutely have not.”
“You threatened me!”
“What are you talking about?” Now she’s looking at me like I should be checked into the nearest mental hospital at the earliest convenience.
I stand up, throw a hand on one hip, and kick out the other, tossing my hair back as if it were cascading waves of crimson mermaid locks. “ ‘The cameras are brutal. You’ll never last.’ ” Add a foot and a half to my height, and it’s a damn good Lydia Kane impression.
She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t threatening you. I was warning you, so you wouldn’t go through what I went through. The paparazzi absolutely destroyed my relationship with Milo,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, when it absolutely is not.
“No, I think making out with that director is what destroyed your relationship with Milo,” I shoot back.
She pauses, then nods. “Okay, fair enough. But look, I still care about Milo—”
I open my mouth to tell her that’s exactly what I’m talking about, but she holds up a finger to stop me.
“—and I want him to be happy,” she finishes. “And he seems really happy with you. But if you aren’t going to be able to deal with the whole press aspect, you need to get out now before you break his heart.” She sighs. “Like I did.”
I couldn’t be more shocked than if Lydia had stacked all the fruit from craft services on top of her head and danced a cancan through the studio.
“And I know I sound all Ghost of Christmas Past or whatever, but I don’t have any regrets. I mean, other than being a total bitch to Milo with that whole cheating thing. But the truth is we needed to end it. I just took the coward’s way out and blew us up.” When she notices I still look skeptical, she adds, “Besides, I’m seeing someone new anyway.”
The old gossipmonger in me is dying to ask her who, but even though we’ve made out with the same guy and we’re having a serious heart-to-heart right now, I still don’t think I know her like that. Besides, I now know what it’s like to have strangers pry into your relationship. It’s not cool. When she doesn’t offer up a name, I figure it’s not my place to ask.
My Unscripted Life Page 18
