Muscle

by Lexi Whitlow

  “You know the part you read for a couple months back, right after your screen test with Hearthfires? The serial killer series I put you in for?”

  “Yeah?” I say, resting my script on my knee.

  It was an interesting role.

  “They want you back for a second reading with Grace Flynn, the lead,” she says. “And this time you’re not reading for the police detective role. You’re reading for Peter, the male lead.”

  I sit up in my chair. “What?” I ask. “Are you serious?”

  That character is complicated. He’s dark and conflicted, and probably the best thing that’s been written for the small screen in… in forever.

  “The director loved you in your first read,” she says. “They haven’t found the right guy for the serial killer. He said he saw something in your eyes that made him think you were his guy.”

  I don’t know whether that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever received, or the worst thing anyone has ever said about me, but I’ll take it.

  “When?” I ask.

  “Wednesday,” Sam says. “I already cleared it with Hearthfires production. Your shooting is done by noon. You need to be on a soundstage at Studio City by three. I’ll send you the details and see you there.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll be there.”

  “Great,” Sam says. “And remember, channel your deepest, darkest, angriest angst into the read. The director told me they chose a particularly difficult scene. I’ll send it to you, so you can practice. Nail it, and Bill Addison is a distant, bad memory.”

  That’s motivation enough to conjure up an Oscar worthy performance.

  I lay the phone down.

  “A new role?” Winter asks. “Sounds interesting.”

  I tell her all about it.

  “My father would have a coronary if he knew his project was reading for a serial killer. He’d shut it down.”

  “He can’t shut it down,” I say, grinning. “It’s Netflix. Outside his control. All the financiers are in the UK and Canada. The production team is based in London.”

  I lick my lips. “I even heard a rumor that they’re thinking of filming on location in the mid-Atlantic somewhere, to keep costs down and the scenes more realistic.”

  Winter is impressed.

  “It’s three seasons,” I tell her. “Guaranteed.” I smile down at her. “That’s a lot of diapers.”

  Chapter 17

  Winter

  We were scheduled to start at noon, which is about three hours later than when I’m used to beginning a day shoot, but so far only the band’s manager is here. He’s on the phone, trying to gather his group.

  I’m all set up, sipping decaf, biding my time patiently as they straggle in, looking worse for wear.

  This job for Richard Kern is so far removed from Branson, Missouri, and The Osmond’s, it hurts my head to even think about it.

  Spiked hair and tattoos, nose rings and brands; these guys look like something cut from RE/Search magazine’s ‘Modern Primitives’ edition, circa 1989. They’re a throwback to a simpler time when alienation wasn’t a brand you could purchase at Urban Outfitters, so much as an anti-social way of life.

  The lead singer sneers at me. “Who are you, anyway? A little girl with a FitBit and a Nikon? You think you can take my picture? Fuck your pictures.”

  I snap a close-up of his scowl. “I’m the pretty little girl who might put you on the cover of the Rolling Stone, if you can manage to chew gun and walk without falling down,” I reply, moving in tighter.

  He’s got bad skin like Johnny Rotten had in his day, and I suspect a similar problem with substance abuse. Their CD blares at volume on the sound system overhead. I hear overtones of The Cramps and The Ramones, with a little Styx and Journey tossed in for good measure. Someone likes Steve Perry’s crooning. Whatever the kids are into these days.

  I tease them, taunting, daring, and even insulting them, to bring them out of their postured, insecure shells. Two hours into the shoot, we’re outside the warehouse, with the boys bouncing off the walls, misbehaving, doing whatever they can do to help me define them inside a 35mm frame.

  We end the day under the cold, blue glow of LCD street lamps, rendering their already pale skin, vampiric and thin. By the time we say goodbye, closing in on midnight, we’re friends. They each hug me individually, then together. They tell me I have to come see them play at Eon’s on the Strip next week. I don’t make any promises, but tell them I’ll try, even though I know it’s not going to happen.

  Driving back to Gates’ condo, I run through the day in my head. It was great. I not only held my own in the face of some truly tough subjects, I mastered them. I put them at ease and made them shine. I know the work is not only good, but great. When you get a guy who has more piercings and tattoos than he has birthdays and accumulated track marks to smile and play on the monkey bars, hanging upside down like a little kid, you know you’ve accomplished something.

  Annie Leibowitz can kiss my ass. All she did was get John Lennon to take off his pants and kiss Yoko in bed. I got five guys who hate everyone to stop picking at their scabs, and grin into the camera while they did calisthenics.

  “I was really starting to worry about you!” Gates says, meeting me at the front door. “You’re late.”

  He’s right. It is late. And I know he’s got an early day tomorrow.

  “How did it go?” he asks.

  “It was wonderful,” I say, dropping into the soft cushions on the couch. “It was better than wonderful. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. Today is what I was made for.”

  Today is also the day Gates read for the role of Peter, the serial killer.

  “How did your read go?” I ask sitting up, coming to full attention.

  “I think it went okay,” Gates says. “I think I did well. Grace Flynn and I hit it off—kinda literally. She’s incredible. She liked me. They said they’d let us know in a few days.”

  Good news all around.

  It almost feels as if Gates and I are a genuine Hollywood couple. Almost.

  One thing stands in the way of that dream becoming a reality. My father has called me three times so far, this week, leaving increasingly angry messages. He wants to know where I am and why I’m not at home.

  I’m going to have to talk to him, and when I do, I know it’s not going to go well.

  “Sam said I should keep this read under wraps until we know what happens,” Gates says. “She said Addison won’t be happy about it.”

  That’s an epic understatement.

  Gates sidles up beside me on the couch, facing me. “You feel okay today?” he asks, taking my hand in his.

  “Not a bit ill all day,” I’m happy to report. “But hungry a lot.”

  I think I ate four meals today, and I’m still starving.

  “That’s good,” he says. “You need to eat.”

  We talk about our day in detail. He shares his worries about the role he read for, and how dark the character is. I share with him my own concerns that this job I did today will be a one and done affair. I also tell him about my father’s increasingly angry calls.

  “I’m going to have to talk to him tomorrow,” I say. “I think I’m going to tell him I’m getting a place of my own, like I did before when I first got out of school. He won’t like it. He won’t pay for it, but he really can’t stop me.”

  “A place of your own?” Gates asks, his brow furrowing.

  I smile. “Well, you did ask me to marry you, so I thought we might ease into it by shacking up together first.”

  He grins wide, happy. It’s the first time I’ve seen that beautiful smile in a while. He pulls me close, hugging me tight, sighing into my hair. “You make me happy, Winter.”

  “You make me happy too, Muscle.”

  He laughs at me. “Gates.”

  We both laugh.

  We make each other happy. It’s a shame that so many other factors conspire to get in the way of that.

  Cha
pter 18

  Gates

  “Your girl did good,” Richard Kern growls into the phone. “She’s solid, and the band liked her. That’s saying something, ‘cause the lot of them are a bunch of fucking idiots.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I tell him. “Keep her in mind. She loved the shoot. Had fun with it. It’s right up her ally.”

  “I think I can keep her busy,” Richard says. “I’m working with two record labels out there and three fashion designers. I fly to LA once a month, on average. It sucks. I hate LA. Plus, I know some people who would love to spit in Bill Addison’s eye just on principal. I’ll hook her up with them.”

  There’s the guarantee of more work for Winter I hoped for. My plan is starting to come together.

  “You know, I hear things about people. Addison’s one of them. He’s one of those guys who’s got secrets.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Just what I say. Secrets. Dirty little secrets. Look up a girl named Misty Kelley who was in one of his pictures a few years back. She might enlighten you.”

  “Okay,” I say, making a mental note of the name. “Nothing you want to share?”

  “It’s all hearsay,” Richard replies. “You start peeking under rocks though, you’ll probably find some slime.”

  Richard knows his slime. I write down the name Misty Kelley to give to Ransom when I talk to him next. Before that though, there’s more social media manufactured drama to deal with.

  This morning there were more pix of me and Keira posted online. Bill Addison is stalking around the set, threatening everyone within an inch of their life if one more shot from the film gets leaked to the press or posted to social media. I saw him talking to Keira earlier, his finger in her face like he was about to hit her. She just glared at him; she wasn’t cowering or backing down.

  A lot of people around here don’t like Keira, and I’ve got my doubts about her motivations, but I must admit she’s tough and in control of her own career in a way I envy. She worked her way here through sheer determination and ambition, whereas I just stumbled into it through blind luck.

  As soon as we break, and I can get her alone, I corner her with the question I’ve wanted to ask all day.

  “Did you post those pics of you and me?”

  She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “Because Thursday and Friday you were acting weird, and then the pix come out. You and Dylan don’t really get along, but I didn’t peg you for trying to hurt anyone.”

  She rolls her eyes at me, diva-like in every way. “Gates, you know as well as I do, those pictures aren’t bothering Dylan one bit. Everybody here knows you and Dylan are a set-up for PR purposes. It’s bullshit.” She fixes her eyes on me. “And it’s not making you look bad either. You’re getting a ton more press than you would otherwise.”

  “But why?” I ask. “Why would you do it?”

  She presses her lips into a tight smile. “Because it pisses Bill Addison off to lose control of his PR plan. I enjoy pissing him off and making his contrived little alliances fall apart under the scrutiny of attention. It makes him look ridiculous.”

  This is interesting.

  “What have you got against Addison?” I ask. “I thought you two got on famously. He made you a star.”

  “Yeah, and he’s made it abundantly clear to me that if I want to keep my star, I need to give him something in return.” She narrows her eyes at me. “He’s a raging hypocrite, a predator, and a creep.”

  So much for family values. The set of Hearthfires is starting to feel more like Kill Bill.

  “Would you be willing to go on the record with that?”

  Keira laughs out loud. “Me and who else?” she demands. “I can’t go up against one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood on my own. He’d probably have me killed.”

  “What if you’re not alone? What if there are more like you? What if there’s a lot more ugly lurking under Bill Addison than either of us know?”

  Keira levels me. “Talk to me when you have more.”

  With that she turns and walks away.

  I’ll have more. Plenty more.

  After the day wraps and I get home, I find Winter curled up on the couch in the dark, all alone. It’s obvious she’s been crying. She said she was going to talk to her father today, and I guess this is the outcome of that conversation.

  I don’t say anything. I just sit down with her, pull her into my arms, and hold her.

  I want to know what he said to upset her like this, but I’m not going to make her go over it all again. It outrages me that anyone would make their child feel like this. It makes me want to do violence when I think of anyone hurting Winter.

  “I love you,” I say, smoothing her hair under my hand. “More than anything.”

  And I’m going to get you free of that bastard, Bill Addison, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

  Much later, after Winter has gone to sleep, I find I’ve received several messages from Ransom throughout the day. He’s found something on the escort service. Its owned by a woman named Miriam Chester, who also owns a couple of private men’s clubs around the city. She’s old Beverly Hills money, with roots in the entertainment industry going back decades. She also owns an interest in a couple catering companies and service firms that seem to work exclusively for Addison Productions. Ransom thinks the connections look like money laundering operations, but he’s still digging.

  I send him the name Misty Kelley, with the thin details Richard Kern provided, asking him to see if he can find anything. I also tell him what Keira revealed to me this morning.

  So far, Ransom has a lot to work with. I just hope we can come up with something tangible to bring the son-of-a-bitch down, and get his hooks out of Winter—permanently.

  Chapter 19

  Winter

  I went to my father’s office today to have the conversation I’ve been avoiding for a week. I lied to him at first, telling him I was staying at Margot’s. But after a few days of repeating it, that lie started wearing thin. After that, I just stopped answering his calls. When he threatened to hire a private investigator to find me and follow me, I realized I couldn’t put him off anymore.

  I told him the truth about most things. I told him I met someone, and we were thinking of moving in together. His response was just as I expected it to be. He forbade it, and then he demanded to know who I was seeing.

  I told him that I couldn’t tell him, because I knew what he would do.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “He works in the business,” I said. “He’s an actor.”

  My father very nearly lost his mind. He went into a rage, stalking around his office, shouting, and then he said I was to come back home, or he’d cut me off completely.

  When I told him I understood that, and was prepared for it, he lost it. He said I was just like my mother—nothing but a slut—falling for some idiot, flash in the pan, who he would crush like a bug as soon as he found out who he was.

  “I guarantee you, you’re done with whoever he is!” my father shouted at me. “I’ll pay him to go away or destroy him. I know which he’ll choose. If he’s got an ounce of sense, he’ll take the money and leave you well enough alone.”

  I walked out of my father’s office feeling sick and frightened. He’s going to find out Gates and I are together, and he’s going to offer Gates a lot of money to leave me. Gates will face a life-changing decision, and as much as I want to believe he’ll choose me, I also know that my father can be extremely persuasive.

  I don’t tell Gates any of this. He’ll find out the essentials soon enough. Tonight, I just want him with me, before everything blows up.

  He pulls me onto his lap, smoothing my hair, saying nothing. He knows I’m upset. He just comforts me, making me feel better, making me feel safe in his arms.

  “I love you,” he whispers into my hair, his tone soothing. “More than anything.”

  He’s
said it so many times, but I’ve been so scared to say it back. I’m so frightened of failing at this, like I’ve failed at everything else. But if I don’t even try, I’m guaranteed to fail.

  “I love you,” I say, my voice hoarse from crying. “So much. And I’m scared of it, and scared of losing you, of messing this up.”

  He hugs me tighter, pressing lips to my neck. “You can’t mess this up. And there’s nothing to be scared of. I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me, better or worse.”