Rouse Me

by Crystal Kaswell

  A year ago, this would have been a cakewalk. I knew Cindy Bleachers backwards and forwards and I knew exactly how I needed to play my lines—I had to be a sexy, horny, confident, fucked up mess. And it was natural for me, because, before I started dating Ryan, I was as much of a slut as Cindy Bleachers.

  But this is a new character, a more complicated character, and I am not used to doing much of anything all day.

  Still, I manage to fake enough confidence to make it to lunch.

  The crew does their magic—moving props, rearranging lights, turning a clean living room into a trashed mess. I practice my next scene in my dressing room, obsessing over my lines until I am sure I have it. I stumble, still, but I try to fake confidence. Marie Jane is confident. I need to be confident, too. This scene is longer, bigger. It comes later in the episode, after Marie Jane throws a big bash. I try to stay loose and keep things fun, but I can tell I am the reason why we need to redo takes.

  By the end of the day, I am exhausted. I want some easy comfort, but there's no way I can see Luke today, and Ryan wouldn't cut it, even if I hadn't promised Luke I'd keep it in my pants. I try to stay up texting Luke, but my body won't allow me to remain conscious for long.

  ***

  The days blur together. I wake up at 6, arrive on set by 7. Hair and makeup. We start shooting at 8. Lunch at 2. We wrap by 8. I drive home, eat dinner with Ryan, and lock myself in the spare room. Ryan asks me to join him in our room. I pretend I don't want to drag him to bed early. My alarm is so loud. I don't want to wake him up.

  I spend most of my time on set, waiting for my turn to read my lines. When I am not in a scene, I get a few hours in my dressing room. The waiting used to bother me, but, now, I spend every spare second practicing my lines. Every day, I gain a little confidence. I remember my old tricks. I remember why I love doing this.

  By Friday, I have it. I can tell. The other actors treat me differently, like I'm finally not a liability. A few invite me out for drinks but I decline. I need to get home, to my bedroom, where I can finally breathe.

  But I can't bring myself to leave. I linger in my dressing room. I could call Ryan. We used to go to dinner on Friday nights. To celebrate the end of his week. The end of my five days of solitude. And, even though it was no big deal, it was special. We dressed up, we got out, we stared into each other’s eyes, going over the details of our week. And, even though Ryan didn't always have the most interesting details, I liked listening to him. I liked being the person he talked to, the person who relaxed him and relieved his stress.

  What happened to that? What happened to us hanging out on the weekends? We used to take walks. We used to go to the beach together. We used to visit museums and explore new parts of Los Angeles. We used to do things together besides stare at screens.

  I hear a knock on my door. I open it, expecting my makeup artist to once again warn me I need to wipe off the war paint. But it's Laurie, with a big smile on her face.

  “Come on,” she says. “Let's have a drink.”

  Chapter 24

  Laurie's office is a hipster paradise. Notebooks with little animals. A shiny, silver MacBook Air adorned with pastel stickers. A mustache pen holder. She catches me looking around her office and shrugs.

  “I don't buy this shit. It's my parents. They know I spend all my time here.”

  She pulls a bottle of scotch from her desk drawer and pours two glasses. Straight up. “I'm not keeping you from some place you'd rather be, am I?” she asks.

  “No,” I say. This is where I should be. Far away from all this bullshit with Ryan and Luke.

  Laurie sips her drink and makes a disgusted face. “Ugh, this stuff is awful. I think I have some melon liquor. What do you say—do you like sickeningly sweet things?”

  “I like tequila.”

  “No, no, no. I am not giving anyone tequila. I've gotten in trouble for that before. Unless…I know liqueurs have a lot of calories, and I'm sure you have some kind of special diet.”

  Because, like any other actress, I need to maintain my weight, or because, Laurie, like everyone else with an internet connection, knows I spent three months in an eating disorder clinic?

  We wander through the production office, pilfering the kitchen for snacks. Mostly, she offers me the healthy stuff—fruit, nuts, Greek yogurt.

  But, when Laurie finds her bottle of liqueur hiding in the back of the soda cabinet, she loses all interest in good entirely. We fill plastic cups with ice and pour the green drink until our cups are full.

  “Aren't you going to drive home?” I ask.

  “Fuck that. The network will pay if I call a service. You too. You're the star. You'll be able to make all sorts of obnoxious demands if you're a hit with the fans.”

  “I won't.”

  “I want that in writing,” she giggles. “You want to order a pizza? Jesus, sorry, I should know better. You had to leave that other show because…”

  “It's okay,” I say. “Part of being a C-lister means everyone knows you're bulimic.”

  “You're still…”

  “No, I'm not 'still…' but I have to be ever so vigilant about recovery.”

  “That sounds fucking awful,” she says.

  “That's life.”

  “Sorry, I'll stop. I'm being nosy and annoying.”

  “It's fine,” I say. “I don't like pizza anyway.”

  “Who the fuck doesn't like pizza?”

  “I don't like cheese.”

  “Yeah, totally, pizza and cheese are awful. Food is totally overrated. It's the worst.”

  “You don't have to do that,” I say. “I'm perfectly aware that food is delicious. But I really don't like cheese.”

  “Okay, what delicious and totally appropriate food should we order? A salad? Salads are healthy right, and grilled fish or something?”

  “Anything but grilled fish or something,” I say. “It's the only thing my fiancé knows how to make.”

  “Okay, how about, hmm, how about steak?”

  I hesitate. Steak is not on the recovery diet menu.

  “God,” she says. “I need to stop before I start offering you cocaine. Tell me what you want and we'll order it.”

  “No,” I reply. “Steak is good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I'm sure.”

  We settle into her office, drinking until an assistant arrives with our food. Poor kid is the only one still here.

  “Don't worry about her,” Laurie says. “She's getting a $100 dinner from this little errand.”

  Laurie closes the office door behind her. She digs into takeout containers, stabbing her food with flimsy plastic silverware.

  “You're doing great,” she says. “I can tell you're putting in a lot of work. I'm glad we went with you.”

  “Were you doubtful?” I ask.

  “Of course not.”

  “You're lying,” I say. “You're not a good liar.”

  “Okay, okay,” she says. “I had heard the rumors, and I was worried. I am worried. I can't have my lead actress pulling out for any reason, even her health.”

  “I understand,” I say. “It won't be a problem.”

  “But that's all stern showrunner Laurie. Friend Laurie wants to know how you're feeling about your first week back in the saddle.”

  “You sure that isn't showrunner Laurie also?” I ask.

  “Let's say 50/50.”

  “It was exhausting,” I say. “But amazing.”

  “Have you managed to have any semblance of a life?”

  “A little.”

  “Hobbies are the first thing to go during production. Then it's friends, then working out, sleep, calling your parents. Eventually your boyfriend leaves you and you're a zombie all weekend, unable to focus on anything but the TV.”

  I smile. She's worse than I am.

  “Ugh, what is that smile? Am I that pathetic?”

  “No, it's cute.”

  She finishes her glass and tops us off. “I don't want to hit this
point again, but…Well, you don't need to lose weight. Absolutely don't. But the network wouldn't even consider making Marie Jane a former plus-size model, so…”

  “You don't have to tip-toe around it,” I say. “I get it. Stay hot.”

  “Basically.”

  “My agent tries to call me a 'luscious blonde.'”

  “Oh, luscious, I like it,” she says. “But I'm going to stop now. Be healthy. Be sane enough to make it through the next three months.”

  “Is that working for you?”

  “I'm rambling to—are we friends or colleagues or what?”

  “Friends,” I say.

  “I'm rambling to my friend and I've only drank…” she looks into her empty cup. “Okay, I've drunk a lot of melon liquor. Jesus, you must think I'm crazy.”

  I shake my head. “I don't exactly have a lot of friends,” I say.

  “Yeah, but you've got the rich boyfriend.”

  “He's not rich, and he's a lawyer. Busier than I am.”

  “Do tell.”

  “You're going to have to do better than melon liquor if you want me to get into that.”

  “Tease,” Laurie says. “Come on, I don't date. I don't sleep with anyone. I barely see my friends. I need to hear someone's drama.”

  She's tipsy already. Completely silly. Completely unable to handle her liquor or stop at her limits. But, still, I get a good feeling about Laurie. She seems honest. She seems bullshit free. She seems like someone who would understand why I'm cheating on my fiancé. She seems like someone who would understand why I'm staying with a man I don't love instead of leaving him for the guy I do care about.

  “It's complicated,” I say.

  “Okay, let's trade. You tell me one little thing about, what was it, Ryan, and I'll tell you five more embarrassing things.”

  “I'm pretty sure you'll tell me anyway.”

  “Perhaps,” she smiles and tops off our glasses. “But you could still tell me, because we're friends and all.”

  “You first,” I say.

  “Please, please, please,” Laurie says. “How about some dirt on the rich boyfriend?”

  “Ryan is…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Pretty mediocre in bed.”

  She squeals. “Now, we're talking.”

  “I shouldn't go into details.”

  “Come on, I thrive on details.”

  “Okay, one detail. He uses way too much tongue when he kisses me.”

  “No, no, no, I mean a sex detail. Not a kissing detail.”

  “And he's a little…selfish,” I say.

  “Do you ever fight about it?”

  “No. If we fought, it would be over someone else.” Shit. I said someone, not something. Did Laurie catch it or has she slipped from tipsy to drunk?

  “Freudian slip, huh?”

  “What are you talking about?” I try to play it cool. Laurie is the closest thing I've had to a friend in a long time, and I'm not about to ruin her impression of me with the truth.

  “Okay, okay, don't tell me. But if you do, I've got your back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I won't sell you out, but you might want to stay tight lipped. Everyone here is a horrible gossip.”

  “Including you?”

  “Yeah, but not about my friends,” she says. “So, who is the other guy?”

  “What other guy?”

  “No self-respecting woman would put up with her boyfriend screwing around on her.”

  “How do you know I don't look the other way? Maybe I'm okay with his affair as long as he brings home the bacon?”

  “Oh, like you eat bacon.”

  But maybe Laurie would understand. Maybe it would feel good to talk about this with someone outside the situation. I usually go to Ryan with these kinds of things. I can't exactly tell him I'm all torn up because I don't know if I should leave him for Luke.

  “It's not another woman,” I say.

  “Now, we're getting somewhere.”

  “I should tell him I'm going to be late.”

  She stabs her food again. I dig through my purse until I find my phone. When it finally boots, I am met with a flurry of messages.

  Ryan has a lot to say, it seems, and none of it is good. Did Luke say something? Did I leave some evidence somewhere? How did Ryan figure out what's going on?

  Oh God, does he still have that GPS app on my phone? Does he still track me? If he tracks me, he might know I was at a hotel. But he can't know I was with Luke, can he?

  My breath speeds as I read his messages:

  “Where are you?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Are you out with some new boyfriend?”

  I have a few messages from Luke, warnings that Ryan is mouthing off, in a bad mood.

  “Fuck, I have to go,” I say.

  “Is it the boyfriend or the other guy?”

  “It's not his fault. He's getting suspicious about the someone. I would tell him, but…”

  “You aren't sure which of them you want?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I'll call you a car,” she says, reaching for her phone. “If it ever becomes a big deal, you can crash at my place. Okay?”

  “It's not like that,” I insist.

  She scribbles her cell on her business card and slides it into my purse.

  “It's never like that. Until it is.”

  Chapter 25

  I look at a text from Luke. “If you don't come to the office, your fiancé might kill someone. I wouldn't be worried, but I'm the only one here.”

  My phone dings with another reply. “No, fuck that, don't come here. I'll leave him in his drunken stupor. What does it matter if he puts the pieces together?”

  I reply—“what pieces”—as I give the driver the address to Ryan's office.

  “We were at a work dinner, and I said something stupid. He's drunk and suspicious, but he's only suspicious.”

  “I can handle it.” I reply.

  “Jesus, Alyssa, I'm so sorry. I really didn't want you to have to deal with this. I really wanted you to have time to figure it out and leave his sorry ass.”

  “I can handle Ryan.”

  Ding. “Are you sure?”

  Ryan has rescued me 100 times. I owe him one.

  I drop my phone back in my purse and ignore a flurry of text message alerts. It's almost 10. Traffic is dead, and the car breezes through the city streets 10 MPH above the speed limit. I rest my head on the window and watch as the yellow lights of storefronts and streetlamps blur into the blue sky. There is so much light here. It's hard to see the stars, but the moon is a silver crescent in cloudless sea.

  Sometimes, it seems like it would be easier someplace smaller and quieter, someplace darker, where the lights turn off at nine, and the stars shine until dawn. My hometown is like that. Suburban Massachusetts. Peaceful, quiet, boring. And the weather is awful, too.

  But hasn't that been my life the last year? I spend so much time in Ryan's penthouse—let's face it, it's his, not ours—that I barely even notice the blue skies and sunshine. Was the last year really any easier to handle, any healthier, than the last week? Or was it just a different kind of difficult? A different kind of painful?

  I check my makeup in a compact mirror. Fuck. I never took it off after we finished shooting. It won't matter. It's dark. Ryan is drunk. He won't notice these obnoxious false eyelashes or the three pounds of concealer.

  Oh, like you're worried about what Ryan thinks.

  I climb the stairs to their suite on the third floor. There's arguing in one of the offices. It's not loud enough or angry enough to be fighting yet. Hopefully, they haven't thrown any punches yet.

  I clear my throat and they both move into the waiting room. Ryan reaches out to me. “About time, sweetheart.” His arms tighten around my waist. He kisses me and shoves his tongue into my mouth and, already, I can smell the alcohol on his breath. Jesus, I've never seen him like this.

  I push Ryan away. “Keep it
together,” I say.

  “Where were you?” he asks.

  “Laurie and I were talking.”

  “You've been avoiding me all week.”

  “No, I've been busy. I have lines to memorize and rehearse. I don't have time—”

  “Don't lie.”

  “I'm not,” I say.

  Ryan looks at Luke with disdain. “You sure you want your boyfriend to hear this?”

  “I don't have a boyfriend.”

  “You can't lie to me, sweetheart. I know something is different. I know you're getting it from someone else.”

  “Is that a question or an accusation?”

  “Why should I ask you anything? All you do is lie.”

  “Leave her alone,” Luke says.

  “I thought things had changed. I thought you loved me and you agreed to do things my way, but you don't, do you?” Ryan asks.

  “That's not true.”

  “Then why are you still a fucking whore?”

  “I'm not a whore.”

  “Did I get something wrong, or are you fucking this asshole?”

  “I'm not a whore,” I say.

  “No? Am I mistaken? Because, if you are fucking this asshole when you're engaged to me, what does that make you?”

  I say nothing. Ryan turns to Luke, grabbing him by the collar. “Maybe you want to talk, Romeo. Are you fucking my fiancée?”

  “Ryan…”

  “Is it even anything about him?” Ryan asks. “Or were you just desperate for the self-esteem boost?”

  “Come on, Alyssa,” Luke says. “We should go.”

  “Why don't you go? Why don't you get the fuck away from her?” Ryan asks. “Or do you want to drive another woman to suicide?”

  “Mind your own fucking business,” Luke says.

  And I see the hate and anger build in both their eyes. I am sure one of them is going to throw a punch, but they just stare.

  “Ryan, don't,” I say. “He's not worth it.”

  “You're not special, you know,” Ryan says to Luke. “She'll fuck anyone who gives her attention.”

  “Explains why she ever fucked you,” Luke says.

  “Stop it,” I say. “Both of you. I'm not a prize, and I'm not going to listen to either of you insult my judgment.”

  “Come on, Alyssa,” Luke says. “I'll drive you home.” He grabs my wrist, firm enough I know he means business, and pulls me towards the hallway.