by Jayne Denker
“You think I haven’t been talking you up? You hide out for a while, I respect your choice. I’m still working for you in the meantime.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, well, don’t appreciate it just yet. You’re locked out, kid. Randy may not have filed criminal charges on you, but he’s getting his revenge all the same. He’s said, unequivocally, you’re not welcome at EWW anymore—not now, not later, not ever. I tried calling him, repeatedly—no dice. So then I started phoning all the networks, all the studios, all the piddly production companies—get you a new gig, make Randy regret his decision. But I can’t get you hired as a maggot wrangler on a forensics procedural. Right now, you’re untouchable, and not in an MC Hammer kind of way.”
Well, that almost made me laugh. “That’ll change, right? Eventually?”
“Sure, yeah.”
“Oh, that sounded confident.”
Susan sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you. Right now, everybody’s too scared of Randy to give you a shot. Oh, they know you do great work,” she added quickly. “They tell me so. But Randy . . .”
“I get it.”
She paused again. Which, again, was freaky. “Does your mom know?”
“No!” At least, I desperately hoped not. Good God, that was the last thing I needed. “Why?”
Susan shrugged. “Maybe she could—”
“Absolutely not,” I snapped. “I have never asked her for help with my career, and I’m not about to ask now.” Not even if my mother, Mona Urquhart, legendary movie producer and director, had the ear of every last big wheel in this town.
“Okay, okay. I was just wondering how bad you want back in.”
“Not that bad. I’ll do this myself.”
My agent studied me for a moment, and I knew she was thinking I was all full of self-destructive pride. She could see it that way, but I didn’t. I considered it adherence to my long-standing vow of independence. I never rode my mother’s coattails. Ever.
“You know what, kid? Take a vacation. Relax for a while. You want me to tell everybody you’re in rehab?”
“No, Suze.”
“Just thought I’d ask.”
“I do want to work. If it can’t be on Modern Women . . .” I swallowed hard. What a thought. “Then . . . something. Anything. I’m getting itchy.”
“I know. I’ll find you something.”
“Not on a shopping channel, though.”
“Right. No . . . shopping . . . channel,” she muttered, pretending to write it down.
I smiled again. “Love you, Suze.”
“Don’t love me till I find you something. Then you can buy me two dozen gourmet cake pops and one of those nasty rat-dogs that fits in a purse.” She paused. “Are you sure you can live without me?”
Oh. I was so wrapped up in my own drama, I’d forgotten her plans. “How can you possibly leave for four months? Doesn’t that violate the unwritten agent code or something?”
Susan was easing up on her workload—she was nearing retirement and divesting herself of most of her clients. I was one of a handful she still represented, most likely just as a favor—but to take that long a vacation and leave the few of us she still repped twisting in the wind? Unheard of for an agent.
“Four and a half. Candy and I decided that if we were going to do an old-fashioned tour of Europe, we were going to do it right. I thought I had everything settled with my clients and I could travel in peace. But now . . . I’m worried about you, kid.”
I really, really wanted Susan around, but she and her wife had been planning this trip for more than a year. Who was I to ask her to cancel? I couldn’t be a baby about it. “Go, Suze. I’ll be fine. Just . . . one more thing.” Suddenly I found the sculpture on a table by the window completely fascinating. I couldn’t look at her when I said this. “Have you heard what Alex McNulty’s up to these days?”
“Wow,” Susan breathed. “Blast from the past.”
“I know. So . . . heard anything?” I risked a glance at her, but she wasn’t looking at me; she was staring at the ceiling, obviously flipping through her mental Rolodex.
“Nnnooo. Haven’t heard much lately. He was more on the radar just after you axed him last year.”
“It was a mutual parting of ways,” I insisted automatically.
Good grief, I thought I was done defending this ancient decision to, um, separate Alex from the show. Yes, he’d been a huge hit, and his character, David, was a fan favorite—the fan favorite by far, if I was going to be honest about it—but things . . . happened. Although initially there was a huge backlash from his fan base, eventually the furor died down, we all adapted and moved on without him, and the show did just fine. Now, however, I felt like I was back in the midst of that insanity all over again.
“I know, I know.” Susan placated me, just like back then, when she’d talked me off the ledge. Even though she never did know the whole story. Nobody did, and I intended to keep it that way.
“I just asked because Jaya . . . asked.”
“You talked to Jaya?”
I filled Susan in on this afternoon’s events, but I left out the last bit about getting Alex back on the show. Susan just nodded, silent, taking it all in, until I sputtered to a halt with, “Well, if you hear anything about what he’s up to, let me know, okay?”
“Sure thing, kid.”
“And, er, keep it on the down low, all right?”
“As always. Hey, I’m closing up. Let me buy you dinner.”
“You know, I will take you up on that.”
* * *
I woke up in a sweat, and it wasn’t the aftereffect of the chicken and waffles Susan and I had scarfed at Roscoe’s. I stared at the shadowy ceiling. A good night’s sleep was pretty hard to come by these days, what with my stress levels . . . and my recent twice-daily nap habit. I wrestled with my pillow, pushed my quilt off, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to will myself to go back to sleep . . . waited . . .
My eyes flew open again as I remembered: I had been dreaming about Alex.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. Was one mention of him today going to completely unravel me? He was just a guy. Guys never wrecked me—never. Then again, Alex wasn’t just anybody. He was one of those guys—the kind you met once or twice in your life if you were lucky. The kind who could incite very, very incorrect feelings when he turned on the charm, gazing at you with his amazing gray-blue eyes and making you feel like you were the only person in the room—heck, in the whole universe.
And I fell for it.
Alex turned up in an open casting call for Modern Women, and he sure stood out from the horde of lookalikes auditioning for the role ofDavid. To be honest, I didn’t really notice him at that first audition; Alex was just one of a hundred guys with “slight build, dark hair, light eyes, hint of rebellion,” ready to play the misunderstood bad boy. But I do remember his callback. He turned on the charm, and I discovered an invisible string that led from the corner of his mouth to my navel. Okay, a little lower. Because when his mouth curled up in his dead-sexy smile, certain parts of me sat up and went “woof.”
Despite, not because of, my personal feelings, he was the frontrunner to play David; everyone who was involved in the casting process voted for him, and we had our bad boy.
It wasn’t too far into production that I started acting like an idiot; it may have been a cliché, but Alex made me feel like a teenager. Giddy when he was on the call sheet for the day, inexplicably down in the dumps when he wasn’t, I had a huge crush on him. I looked forward to directing his scenes, thrilled at the times he pulled me aside to consult with me about his character, loved it when I made him laugh.
But, the rational part of my brain insisted, I couldn’t go down that road. I was the exec producer, the leader, the mama duck. While other people in my position had no qualms about nailing their actors or crew members, the idea never sat well with me. I knew I’d never be able to keep from wondering if the object of my affection really liked me, o
r if he was just humoring me to keep his job. So I decided it was easier to just avoid the whole thing altogether.
And for the first time, I realized it really was “lonely at the top.” I had a mostly young, all good-looking cast, and that meant all sorts of relationships, from random hookups to serious romances, were budding, blooming, and dying all over the place, all the time. There was more drama behind the camera than in front of it. But not for me. I couldn’t let myself get distracted by something as crass as a personal relationship when I had a show to shepherd to the top of the ratings.
Trouble was, although I buried my feelings, they were still there, fighting to get out. If I caught Alex flirting with a cast or crew member, maybe whispering in a pretty woman’s ear, that lazy smile on his face, or—God forbid—whenever I heard about his latest hookup (and they were legion), I’d get a little flare of jealousy in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t proud of it, but I couldn’t help it—I wondered if he’d ever see me that way. And then one day . . . well.
We were in the middle of filming a pivotal episode where David was going to reveal his vulnerability, because he was head over heels about another character, Sabrina, his boss’s daughter. Cheesy? Not the way I set it up. But it was clear during the table read that the scene wasn’t working; Alex and Kimmie (Sabrina) were stumbling over their words. It was my fault if the script sucked, so I scrambled to fix it.
And then there was the problem with the budget. I had planned on having David set up this huge thingto woo Sabrina, complete with a night scene on the beach with tiki torches, candles, and fairy lights. I was even toying with the idea of setting off fireworks over the ocean. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen—not with the pittance doled out to us by EWW. I tried to figure out a way to get it covered, but Randy B. wasn’t having any of it. Plus he tried to tell me how to write the episode (which I ignored). He did that a lot over the past three years—meddling where he shouldn’t have. I should have shut him down decisively right from the get-go, but it was our first season, and we only had a thirteen-episode order. I had to choose my battles carefully, even when I got the feeling Randy B. was playing me. If I had done the episode his way, would he have slipped me a little extra cash for the beach scene? I’d never know, because while I could sacrifice the fireworks if I had to, I would never compromise the entire episode.
So the beach scene had to go. I had an assistant director take care of shooting other scenes while I tried to buy some more time to do my rewrites. But it wasn’t working, we were running out of time, and I was restless, feeling isolated in my “office,” a tiny space cut off from the rest of the soundstage by flimsy walls and no ceiling. I was usually happy in my little corner; the noise of my crew going about its business usually helped me focus. But not this time. I went outside to get some air.
Alex’s trailer was parked nearby, the door propped open. I got closer, saw him in a mirror’s reflection, pacing, on his cell. When I knocked, his face lit up. Wow, what an aphrodisiac, his brilliant, broad smile directed solely at me. Oh, forget the smile—it was that intense stare that turned my knees to quivering blobs of jelly. He was so good at that. On the show, it was killer (I loved getting it in close-ups, just to drive the fangurls crazy); in person, it was even more powerful. His eyes still locked on me, he said into the phone, “Let me call you back later,” and hung up. He braced his hand on the door frame and leaned toward me. “Hey, Faith. Come on in.”
I barely managed to make it up the stairs, let alone squeeze past him in the narrow doorway. I dropped onto his sofa, because if I didn’t, I think I would have collapsed. I was bowled over by—and not at all proud of—the sheer lust I felt in his presence. I couldn’t help staring at the way his shirt strained against his shoulders and gapped open at the front to give me a nice view of his collarbone. Was he too “pretty”? I didn’t think so. I thought he was just right . . . and then some.
He sat down too, one leg stretched out toward me, and propped his elbow on the back of the couch. I ruffled the script I had clenched in my tense hands. “Working on the rewrite.” He nodded and waited. I wasn’t sure why I was there—what did I want from him? Some kind of inspiration? Or just a diversion, so I didn’t have to actually work for a few moments? Then I choked out, “Can you help?”
Again with the lazy smile. “Sure,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
I bit back what I really wanted to answer and said instead, “Well, would you mind if we talked through David’s backstory for the big scene? I think I’ve lost the thread, staring at these pages for so long.”
He hesitated, rubbing his angular jaw. “Yeah, but . . . Faith, you’re so good at this stuff. Brilliant. You know David better than I do. Especially because you know what’s coming next, and I don’t.” I never shared future plot points with my actors. It helped keep them on their toes. He hated it and was always bugging me to tell him what I had planned, but I never did.
“This is no exception—I’m not telling you what’s happening later with David and Sabrina. I want to stay in the moment here—his feelings and how he’s going to express them. Plus,” I muttered with an irritated sigh, “I have no idea what to do instead of the beach scene.”
Alex rested his temple on the heel of his hand. “You know, maybe it’s good that we can’t do the beach scene.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well . . .” He ran his tongue over his full lower lip, and I was so mesmerized I almost didn’t hear what he was saying. “I mean, I don’t want to tell you your business or anything, but David doesn’t seem like he’d put on that kind of a show for Sabrina—or anybody, really.”
“But he wants to make a grand gesture, to show Sabrina he really cares about her,” I protested. “He’s finally revealing the love he’s felt for her for so long—what she wanted but didn’t believe he felt. And it turns out he felt it the whole time.”
“Look,” he went on, still carefully and thoughtfully, “this is David we’re talking about. I just . . . I don’t know . . . I just can’t see him going to all that trouble, even for Sabrina. I think he’d just tell her how he feels without making a big deal out of it. Actually, I think making a big deal out of anything, even this, would just embarrass him. He’s not that kind of guy.”
I stopped fidgeting, stunned. Alex was right. David would never make a big, romantic gesture like that. Maybe Alex did know David better than I did. But . . . I had been so sure of the beach scene. I could see it vividly, with Alex in a linen shirt that fluttered in the breeze off the ocean, the candles flickering . . . and probably going out in a gust of wind, and the crew cursing like sailors as they tried to position some shields the right way to keep them lit for the shot . . . Yeah, maybe the beach scene wasn’t ideal, but I loved it so much I hated to see it go.
Honestly, I couldn’t rewrite the scene because I didn’t want to. I kept clinging to it, playing it over and over in my head, because I loved it so much. If I were Sabrina, I would have swooned at a declaration of love with all those trappings . . .
Oh my God. I wasn’t writing David and Sabrina. I was writing some stupid fantasy about me and Alex. I had no love life, so I was creating one vicariously in my show. Crap crap crap. I shook my head, amazed at my own stupidity.
“No?” Alex ventured.
“What?” I said dazedly, my thoughts all over the place—the scene, my messed-up head, Alex, David, everything.
“You’re shaking your head. So . . . I’m wrong?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean . . . you’re absolutely right.” I dropped the mangled script into my lap, put my elbows on my knees, and covered my face with my hands, sure I was blushing as my own private humiliation crept through me. “I’m so fucked.”
“No you’re not. You’re brilliant, Faith. I told you.”
Then I felt him move closer to me. I looked up. What was going on? And there he was, his face inches from mine. “You know what you need?”
Oh, I most certainly did. Yes indeed. I held my breat
h. Alex reached out his hand, and my fast-forwarding brain pictured him pulling me toward him . . .
Alex did get even closer . . . and then he reached past me, forcing me to lean away from him, toward the back of the sofa, as he grabbed something on the table behind me. A glass bowl. “You need some chocolate.”
I stared at the mound of foil-wrapped Hershey’s Kisses, speechless. Finally I managed to stammer, “Wh–what?”
“Chocolate,” he repeated, waving the bowl in front of my face. “Have one. Go on.” I scrambled to recover from prepping for a kiss but ending up with a faceful of chocolate kisses instead. I sighed and took one out of the bowl, even though I didn’t want it. “There you go,” he said, satisfied. “A little jolt of sugar will get those ideas flowing.”
I turned the piece of candy over in my fingers. A little sugar, huh? Not the kind I had in mind. But then the light dawned. Suddenly I knew how the pivotal scene was going to go, and it was going to cost next to nothing—just the price of a couple of bags of Hershey’s Kisses.
“Alex, I’ve gotta go,” I said in a rush. I had to get this idea down before it got away from me. I nearly jumped down the steps, but I caught myself at the last moment and turned back to him. He had stood up. He wasn’t very tall; in fact, in my boss-lady business heels, I was about the same height as he was. He probably wore a smaller jeans size than I did. I tried not to think about that. “Thank you.”
He fixed me with that hypnotic gaze again. “You’re welcome,” he murmured. And then he kissed me.
Trouble was, it was just on the cheek.
Or maybe that was a good thing. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been more. I forced myself not to put my hand to my face like some delicate flower of a fictional female. Then I tore my gaze away from his and got out of his trailer before I did something stupid.
So it was Alex who inadvertently inspired the famous Hershey’s Kisses scene, the one that captured the imagination of the show’s fans. David left a trail of candy, silver foil glinting in candlelight, for Sabrina to follow, to find him waiting to declare his love. I heard sales of the candy went up noticeably in the weeks after the episode aired. It did work beautifully, I had to admit. And what was even better—when we ran through the scene before we filmed it, Alex glanced over while he was running his lines, and gave me this intimate . . . look, the likes of which I’d never gotten from him before. And suddenly the teenager in me started to think that maybe, just maybe, I had a chance with him.
