by Antony John
“So Sabrina Layton—A-list movie star—dragged you out to a private spot and spilled her guts.” He zips the bag closed. “Did anyone see you?”
“No. Well, except for that stalker guy. I emailed you his license plate.”
“So there’s a witness that you were with her. Very convenient. Makes you the prime suspect for selling her out.”
I want to tell him he’s out of line if he thinks Sabrina’s behind this, but truthfully, I just don’t know. There’s a long tradition of Hollywood stars going into rehab and emerging more popular than ever. At a time when she’s losing the spotlight, is it really such a stretch?
I slump into the desk chair as Gant slings his bag over his shoulder. As usual he has left my laptop open, and the dual images of Sabrina and me—at the beach and at the party—sit side by side on the screen.
“You still think someone was filming us on the beach?” I ask.
“I’m certain of it.”
“Then why did he only sell a grainy photo? Why not sell the whole thing?”
Gant mulls this over. “Maybe he couldn’t get audio. A movie’s only any good if people know what you’re saying, right?”
“Then why film us at all?”
He adjusts the bag. The strap stretches his pale blue T-shirt. “Maybe he wasn’t thinking . . . just saw an opportunity and took it.”
Is Gant talking about the mystery cameraman, or himself?
I close the computer. “I need to tell Ryder and Brian everything. Someone’s screwing with this movie. If they don’t do something about it soon, there won’t be a movie at all.”
“Really? Seems to me, even bad publicity is still publicity.”
We leave together and ride the elevator in silence. As the doors open, a voice carries clear across the lobby: “Tell me his room number!”
A familiar guy with shoulder-length hair is pounding on the reception desk, and the clerk looks scared. Security guards are closing in. Movie star or not, they won’t stand for this.
Kris peers over his shoulder and watches the guards contemptuously. Then he catches sight of me.
He walks toward me, slow at first, and then faster, all twisted features and gritted teeth. “Swear it wasn’t you, Seth. Swear it!”
32
KRIS LOOKS RABID, UNHINGED. I’M CERTAIN that he’s going to hit me.
“It wasn’t me,” I say. “I swear, I didn’t tell anyone.”
All around us people are watching and listening. They’ve caught a whiff of scandal, and the scent is irresistible.
“Let’s go upstairs, Kris.”
“No.” His voice is low and menacing. “My car. Now.”
Reluctantly, I follow. I have to convince Kris that I’m not to blame. Maybe then I’ll get some information from him and we’ll edge closer to the truth.
This is Gant’s chance to leave—I tried to banish him once already—but he falls in line too. Maybe he’s afraid that Kris’s loyal posse is going to drag me out to a deserted location and beat me up.
He’s not the only one.
Kris’s Porsche is double-parked outside the hotel. Gant squeezes onto the backseat, legs sprawled across the tan leather, and wrestles the seat belt across himself. In the event of an accident, he’ll be screwed. Unfortunately, our driver is probably the most distracted human being I’ve ever met.
Kris glances at the rearview mirror as he pulls away. “Who are you, anyway?” he asks Gant.
“That’s my brother,” I say.
“What’s he doing here?”
“He’s been staying with me.”
“Just the two of you?”
“My dad left a couple days ago.”
Kris grunts. “You’re like the Beverly freaking Hillbillies. One free hotel room, and you invite half the Valley.” He watches me from the corner of his eye. “I know you saw Sabrina yesterday. She told me you were going to meet. Said she wanted to talk to you about something.” Kris massages the wheel. “I should’ve done something for her a long time ago. I knew she had a problem.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Of course it is,” he snaps. “Yours too. You walk into our lives like you belong, and a couple days later you think you’ve got this karmic understanding of Sabrina Layton. You didn’t have a damn clue about her then, and you still don’t know her now.”
I won’t argue. He’s right, in a way. I liked her, and I wanted her to like me too, but that isn’t the same as knowing her.
“Remember the first night we met?” he continues. “You’d just gotten into town. And I was only at that party because Sabrina begged me to come.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She calls me up and says she’s lonely. By the time I get there, you two are talking, so I stay out of the way until you’re done.” He sighs. “I knew right away she’d taken something. She wouldn’t admit she called me. Maybe she actually forgot. I just wanted to give her a ride home, make sure she didn’t drive herself. But then you got involved—went all hero on us.”
I grip the armrest. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Why should I have to? You think I owe everyone in L.A. an explanation for why my ex-girlfriend is acting weird? Think none of them would sell the story?” He smacks the wheel so hard I’m sure he’s going to break it. “You’re lucky I can’t think of a single good reason why you would do this, ’cause all signs point to you.”
“I just swore, didn’t I?” I want to keep him talking. Want to keep the questions coming from my side, and the information from his. “What if she leaked the story herself?”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
“A cry for help.”
“That right there shows you don’t know the first thing about her. One, Sabrina doesn’t want help. Two, she’d be killing her career.”
“Going to rehab won’t kill her career.”
“I’m not talking about rehab. Sabrina’s about to flake out of Whirlwind for the second time in three months. She has a documented drug problem. Who’s going to insure her now?”
I hadn’t thought about that—how movies need insurance for stuff like weather delays or injuries to a cast member. An actor who can’t be insured is a difficult actor to cast.
I haven’t been paying attention to where we are, so it’s a surprise to see the coffee shop ahead of us. Kris checks his mirrors, slows down, and idles just outside. He peers through the driver’s-side window.
As I unbuckle my seat belt, he pulls away. “I guess today’s not a coffee day,” he mutters.
I’m confused. “What happened?”
“The barista and me, we’ve got a code. He knows I like my privacy, so he gives me a sign: Stay, or go. Today was go.” Kris turns on the stereo, and promptly turns it off again. “We’ve got to find out who leaked the drug story. Everything that’s been going down, it started when you arrived.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Then help me find out who it was. I’ve got friends asking questions too. It won’t be long before we know the truth.”
My heartbeat is racing. “These friends of yours, did they find out who leaked the story about you and Tamara?”
“No, because I didn’t ask them to. I know damn well it was Sabrina, and I don’t want anyone else to find out she can be that vindictive.” He waves the thought away. “Anyway, start asking Brian and Ryder who else is connected with this project. The way things are going, they’re going to want to find out who’s screwing everything up too.”
“They’re already on it,” I tell him. “They’ve got an investigator working for them.”
“What?” Gant’s voice drags me around. I’d forgotten he was in the car.
“That’s what Brian told me last night when he called about . . .” I stop myself in time. If Kris finds out that Gant sold a p
hotograph of Annaleigh and me, he’ll assume my brother has been up to other stuff too.
“Told you about what?” demands Kris.
When I don’t answer straightaway, he pulls to the side of the road and stops. Stares at me, waiting.
“They said those photographs of Sabrina and me aren’t photos at all,” I tell him, using Gant’s line. “They’re, like, movie stills, or something.”
“So what? If someone’s been filming you, they’re stupid. Paparazzi can sell photos, but no one can secretly film you and release it. Not if they want to make money off it. They’d need you to sign a waiver. Give them permission. And there’s no way you’d do that.”
Kris rejoins the traffic. I ought to be relieved, but the words waiver and permission take center stage in my mind. They conjure memories of my audition, and the job offer that followed, and an agreement to be filmed at all times.
At all times.
I’m sweating. My breaths are quick and shallow. “When Ryder offered you a role in the movie, you never got around to signing a contract, did you?”
“What, last week? No. I signed one four months ago, but we blew it up when I left the movie.”
“Was the new one going to be the same?”
“I don’t know. I pulled out before they sent it through.” Kris eyes me suspiciously. “Why are you asking?”
Like a key turning a lock, everything is clicking into place. Only Annaleigh and Sabrina and I signed contracts, and Sabrina fired her agent before he could check it. What if it was slightly different from the earlier version? What if all three of us have agreed to be filmed at all times?
I imagine a gigantic movie set—a beach, say, or Griffith Park. The camera catches the action from afar: Sabrina and me talking, arguing, touching. But like Gant said, a movie without audio is no use at all. If we were really being filmed, our voices would’ve needed to be recorded from close range on an external microphone. A boom mic, most likely.
But boom mics are obvious. No, it would need to be smaller. Portable. Wireless.
I inhale sharply.
“What?” Kris is watching me. “What?”
“The audio.” I look back at Gant. From his expression, I can tell he’s putting the pieces together too. “I think I know—”
My cell phone rings. The sound is like a punch to the gut, silencing me. I ease it from my pocket with shaking hands. Check the screen, even though I know who’s calling.
Brian’s voice is quiet but clear. “Time to stop talking, Seth. I’d sure hate for you to say something we can’t undo.”
33
KRIS DROPS US AT THE FAMILIAR building: small, anonymous, nondescript—the opposite of the large, very public headquarters of Machinus Media Enterprises. Sabrina thought the project was based out of here to ensure privacy. She’s probably right too. As long as we’re here, Curt Barrett and Machinus can pretend they have no idea what’s really going on.
“You should come in,” I tell Kris.
“Uh-uh. I’m not exactly welcome right now.”
He has no idea how true that is.
He accelerates away as I press the buzzer. Brian answers immediately, looking like someone trying on a smile for the first time. “Seth. Gant. What a pleasant surprise.”
I don’t know whether to cower or lash out. “You bugged me,” I say quietly. Then, propelled by some force deep inside me, I push past him and slam my cell phone on the nearby coffee table, rattling a plastic plant. “You bugged my cell phone!”
Brian glances at Tracie. “Not your cell phone. Ours.”
I was expecting him to deny it, and his answer throws me off. “This can’t be happening,” I mumble.
“Very melodramatic. Not exactly Whirlwind material, but it might get you some work on daytime soaps.” Brian rubs his chin. “Oh, but they don’t really exist much anymore, do they? Hmm. Maybe your next community play, then.”
Hearing the commotion, Ryder emerges from a room halfway down the corridor. When he sees me, he quickly pulls the door closed behind him, but not before I catch a glimpse of a large monitor in the darkened space.
“What are you doing here?” Ryder asks.
I study his face for signs of concern or remorse, but his expression is neutral. Today is just business as usual. But what kind of business?
“You all work for Machinus,” I say. “That’s how you got the footage from the party. You’ve been filming Sabrina and me the whole time.”
“Just like your contract stipulated,” agrees Tracie.
“But the movie hasn’t started shooting yet.”
“It started the moment you got here,” says Ryder.
I wait for shock to become anger, but I’m too afraid to be angry. How much of the past two weeks do they have on film?
“I’m going to tell Sabrina. How you lied to me. Bugged me.”
“You won’t get within half a mile of her,” says Tracie. “Anyway, she signed the same contract as you.”
“She didn’t know you’d do this to her.”
“Shouldn’t have fired her agent, then. He’d have sniffed it out in a heartbeat.”
“We’re talking about her life here. She’s a person, not some character in your movie.”
“Actually,” says Brian, “she’s both.”
His words make me think of Annaleigh. “Did you leak that stuff about Annaleigh’s father?”
“People were bound to find out eventually,” he says.
Ryder steps forward. “You’re looking at this all wrong, Seth. Yesterday, Sabrina was a drug addict; today she’s in rehab, recovering. Annaleigh’s dad’s been relying on a public defender with the worst track record in Arkansas; now she’ll be able to afford to get him proper counsel. You told us your family was cash-strapped; well, not after tomorrow, they won’t be. Two weeks ago, no one had a clue who you were; now you and Annaleigh are almost as big as Sabrina and Kris. See what I’m saying? There’s a silver lining here—”
“I thought this job was real.”
“It is real. The most real thing you’ve ever done.”
“But I’m an actor.”
Brian rolls his eyes. “So are porn stars. And they work a whole lot harder for a lot less money.”
He likes that last line, I can tell. I don’t think it’s spontaneous either. I think he has been waiting for this showdown ever since we met. Like an anti-hero explaining how he pulled off the heist of the century, he looks relaxed, arms folded, secure in the knowledge that his target can’t fight back. Or won’t.
Brian flicks his head toward the rehearsal room. “We’ve got things to discuss. Let’s at least sit down.”
Ryder leads the way. I want to see inside the mysterious room halfway along the corridor, so I let Brian go ahead of me too. As he passes the door, I open it and slip inside.
Three monitors are banked on desks against a wall. Still images of Annaleigh and Sabrina and me fill most of one screen, with a row of smaller images underneath. It looks like editing software, as if Ryder’s putting his movie together. Right here, in this tiny room.
I freeze as I take in the pictures of Annaleigh and me on the next screen. These aren’t outdoor shots. Instead we’re sitting on the bed in her hotel room. The quality is amazing, the images taken from above us as if there are cameras in the ceiling . . . or the light fixtures.
Brian grips my arm. “Rehearsal room’s farther along, Seth. I think you’re getting turned around.”
I shake him loose. “I know where it is.”
Gant and I head to one corner of the perfectly ordered room, while Brian, Ryder, and Tracie fan out to the others, conspicuously surrounding us. Like me, they don’t sit. If this is an attempt to freak us out, they should stop trying. I’m plenty freaked out already.
“You filmed Annaleigh’s hotel room,” I say.
I look at e
ach of them in turn, waiting for an apology or denial, but they don’t reply. Annaleigh and I opened up to each other in that room. We shared things we never would’ve said in public. We made love.
I try to block out the images spinning through my mind. I need to focus.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask Ryder. “You’ve written screenplays, produced and directed shorts. You worked runner on a couple studio films. I looked you up the day I auditioned. You’re a real filmmaker.”
“Yes, I am. Just like thousands of other real filmmakers, all of us fighting for a chance to make a movie. And when Sabrina and Kris signed on, I felt like I’d finally made it. Good budget, guaranteed distribution. Then they split, and for the next forty-eight hours, that was all anyone talked about.” He shakes his head. “They got more publicity for breaking up than we generated in months of pre-production. And that’s when I realized: People don’t care about art, beautiful writing, well-rounded characters. They want scandal. They want to build up stars, make their personal lives public, and then drag them down for the fun of it. So why not make art around that?”
“Like you are.”
“Not exactly.” Ryder is eerily calm. He’s not making excuses. On the contrary, he sounds like he’s trying to convert me to a cause. “I’ve never put words in your mouth, Seth. Or Annaleigh’s. The script may be fiction, but the scenario is real: Boy who’s struggling to do the right thing, girl who can’t escape from her father’s shadow. And you’ve done such a great job of filming—the pool, Rodeo Drive . . . the execution and dialogue has been all you, just like we wanted. Scripted reality, remember? You guys have controlled everything. Driven everything.”
“You never said you were secretly filming us.”
“I couldn’t, though, right? This was never about Andrew and Lana. It’s about Seth and Annaleigh, unfiltered. I want viewers to see who you really are. The way you talk to each other, look out for each other. Even the way you make love.” Ryder sighs. “Look, I know you’re confused right now, but you have to believe me, we’re making history here. No one forgets the trailblazers. People are talking about you now, and they’ll talk even more when the movie comes out.”
