Famous in Love (3 page)

Rainer reads from the trades, and I crane over him to try to reach for it. “Watch yourself, PG,” he says, and I snatch it out of his hands.

“Please,” I say. “Can’t we have five minutes in the morning without this stuff?”

Even though this is only our third week on set—and we’ll be here for a few months—it seems like we’ve clocked close to a thousand hours together. I pull my robe tighter around me and sip the coffee that has just been set down. There is a nice, cool breeze, and if you sit outside, like we are on the balcony of Rainer’s condo, you can see all the way down to the ocean.

We’re in Hawaii, by the way.

There were two more rounds of auditions in Portland, and then a trip to L.A. to meet and audition for the studio and about one hundred producers. There was the hiring of an agent and a lawyer and rounds and rounds of negotiations and more documents with my name on them than could fill a library. But I got the part. And the beautiful guy, Mr. Gene Kelly, and I landed in Maui to start filming
Locked
. The love story that has taken the world by storm. And I’m playing the lead. It still doesn’t feel real, despite the evidence all around me.

The book is set on an island in the Pacific Northwest, but Hawaii was offering tax breaks that would allow us to start shooting almost immediately, so here we are. Beaches, palm trees. We’ve even turned an old plantation house into a soundstage and built the one set we have, the little hut Noah and August share on the island. They’ve
rented nearly an entire hotel of condos for the cast and crew. It’s where we’re all staying and where a lot of the various offices and departments are—editorial, hair and makeup, props.…

Rainer clucks his tongue. “Should we move our tabloid time to lunch, then?” He looks at me, an eyebrow raised.

“Funny,” I say.

“Charming,”
he says, shrugging. “But close.”

Rainer and I are lovers. No, actually: Noah and August are lovers. Not us. We’re just friends. He was the first one cast and the guy I read with in Portland. He’s the producer’s son and has been acting his entire life. Not theater, like me, but real movies. Television and film. The big stuff. He was in a movie last year with that actress Taylor, where they played neighbors whose parents get killed in a car crash, but it turns out to not be an accident. I’m not ruining this because I think every person on the planet saw it twice, but the big twist was that Taylor’s character’s parents actually killed Rainer’s. They still ended up together, though. He saved her from her parents and then whisked her off to Europe with the inheritance his parents had left him. They changed their names and bought a villa.

The producers keep telling us to be prepared, that these roles are going to change our lives, but I’m not sure how his could get any bigger. He’s already known as
Hollywood’s golden guy, and I’ve made a promise to Cassandra that if he’s single, I will fly her out here to be his girlfriend. I don’t think he is, though. How could he be? He’s famous and gorgeous and has the cutest dimple on the right side of his face. He’s got shaggy blond locks and beautiful blue eyes, and his body looks like a superhero’s. Guys like that are never single. It’s, like, a fact of life. Or, you know, science.

There’s also the slight issue that he’s older. Twenty-two to Cassandra’s (and my) seventeen. Even though he’s playing a teenager, I hardly think he’d fall for one.

I look away from him. We’ve become good friends, it’s true, but I don’t share his nonchalance on set. I feel out of my element here, and not just because I’ve never done a movie before. This thing is on another level. The pressure to make August real, to make her loved, is something that stays with me from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. Rainer keeps telling me to relax, but I think that’s easy for him to say. He’s used to this.

Seriously, if you Google him, there are sixty-one million results, and that’s not even counting news, blogs, or image searches. Up until a month ago if you Googled me all you saw was one track race I qualified for, and the news clipping for the production of
The Sound of Music
I was in. If you clicked on the link, though, the page had expired.

Locked
—the first book, anyway—is mostly August and Noah on the island alone together. As they figure out why they’re there, and how to survive, they begin to fall in love. There are a few smaller roles that they’ve cast, and we’ll film those scenes near the end of shooting. They’re still looking to cast someone to play Ed, August’s boyfriend, who she thinks died in the plane crash. We won’t meet him for a few weeks, at the earliest. For now it’s just me and Rainer, alone in Hawaii. Well, us and the entire movie crew—which occasionally includes the author, Parker Witter. I’ve seen her around a bit, but from what I’ve heard, she’s a recluse. She hasn’t so much as spoken to us once since we’ve been here.

“How did you sleep?” Rainer asks me, rolling his neck out.

He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt that would look goofy on most people, totally corny on others, and maybe, at best, ironic on some, but on him it looks completely right. That’s the thing about Rainer—everything he does is totally right. He’s effortless on set. You can never see the work.

I lie, but it comes out a little sarcastic anyway. “Awesome.”

Rainer cocks his head to the side. “It’s that damn ocean, right? So noisy. I’ll get Jessica to do something about it.”

Jessica is the director’s assistant. She’s twenty-three and beautiful. The kind of girl you cross a room for just to be closer to her. Long blond hair and even longer legs. She doesn’t sweat, even in eighty-degree beach heat, or get bags under her eyes after an eight-hour night shoot. She also happens to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She bought me a visor when I first got to Hawaii with the date of the shoot and Locked written on it. Stenciled in the corner was the movie logo, a cowrie shell—the necklace that August wears.

“Where is the espresso around here?” Sandy, Rainer’s manager, appears at the screen door. As usual she is impeccably dressed and, despite the breeze, not a hair on her head is out of place.

When it really comes down to it, Sandy is the one who got me the part. She convinced my mom. It wasn’t easy, but Sandy assured her she’d be around and that she’d look out for me. My mom considered coming herself, but I knew, in the end, she’d never leave her job, or Annabelle.

Sandy came with us for the first few days here and has been in L.A. since. I haven’t seen her in over two weeks. I guess Sandy has kind of been acting as my manager. Everyone in L.A. has a manager.

Wyatt, our director, is on her heels, and I instantly freeze up. I’m still in my bathrobe, and Wyatt isn’t exactly the most comfortable person to be around.

“You have to call the front desk,” Wyatt answers. “The craft service stuff is poison.” He’s got on black jeans, a black T-shirt, and sneakers—a signature ensemble that seems to say being in Hawaii is a serious inconvenience for him, not a privilege. And it’s not just his style that resists the tropics. Even his hair, a self-proclaimed Jewfro, seems to be in retaliation against warm weather.

“We’re starting at ten,” Wyatt says. “I can’t believe it takes six goddamn hours to fix the lighting in a room.”

“You want a water?” Rainer asks. He’s still his normal, relaxed self, but he stands up when Wyatt appears. He holds out a bottle.

“No,” Wyatt says. He turns to me. “Shouldn’t you be in hair and makeup?” I feel my face get hot, and my palms start sweating.

I open my mouth to answer, but Rainer jumps in. “It’s my fault. I wouldn’t let her leave.” He glances at me sideways. “But yeah, kid, go fix your face.” I get a wink.

“Thanks,” I say. It’s sarcasm, but I mean it. Another lecture from Wyatt is not what I need this morning. Although it could be worse. It could be on set, in front of everyone, the way it normally is.

Despite the fact that it’s just Rainer and me acting, there are still eight million people on the set. Editors and production assistants and line producers. Lighting guys and stunt coordinators. There are so many people I’d
need ten spiral notebooks just to keep track. I’m learning, slowly. It’s a little like being tossed into college from kindergarten. Luckily I have Rainer to guide me through. The crew loves him, and he’s always pranking everyone. He’s put plastic wrap on the sound-stage toilet seats at least three times.

“C’mon, PG. I’ll walk with you,” Rainer says.

When they did the press release revealing who would be playing August, the media latched on to the fact that I was an unknown. Latched hard. They’ve been calling me PG because of my “squeaky-clean image.” I pointed out to Cassandra on the phone that I am not exactly squeaky. It’s just that I haven’t had the opportunity to get dirty yet, which sounded wrong. The point is Rainer now calls me PG, and I’d probably find it annoying if it weren’t for that right-sided dimple of his. It makes it hard to get legitimately mad.

Sandy flicks her wrist, her Rolex landing dead center. “Yeah,” she says. “Lillianna is already down there.”

“I’m ready,” Rainer says. He stands behind my chair, ready to pull it out for me.

I set my coffee cup down and wipe the back of my hand across my lips. I glance at Wyatt, but he’s not paying attention to us. He’s leaning over the railing, looking up at the clouds and down at the beach. Trying to get a read
on the weather today. I know he’s only in here because of Sandy, anyway.

She turns us both around by the shoulders and marches us through the suite, out the hallway, into the elevator, and down the two flights to hair and makeup.

“Sit, hon,” Lillianna instructs. Rainer and I take our seats, and Sandy turns to leave.

“I’ll see you guys on set,” she calls over her shoulder.

“What if we need you?” Rainer teases. “Where will you be?”

Sandy stops, hands on her hips. “Give me a break.”

“Where will you be?”

“You know where I’ll be,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Just tell me,” he says. He winks at me.

“Starbucks,” she says through gritted teeth.

Rainer pumps his fist. “Every time. Why don’t you just tell someone you hate the coffee here?”

Sandy glances at Lillianna, and then back at Rainer. “Just do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

She leaves, a whirlwind of cream-colored silk, and I sink down into my chair. It’s only eight
AM
.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us today, love,” Lillianna says, surveying my bed head.

Lillianna isn’t just the hair-and-makeup woman; she’s also our resident gossip. She’s from Hawaii, born and
raised, and she’s been working on movies that film here since she was a teenager, almost fifty years ago. My first day she told me about the time she took a moonlit walk on the beach with Cary Grant. “I was a kid,” she said. “I didn’t even realize he probably wanted to kiss me.” I didn’t mention that almost everyone thinks he was actually gay.

She’s pulling and attacking my hair, but the sound of her smooth voice and the comfort of the seat begin to lull me to sleep. I’m not getting much rest lately and sometimes, as embarrassing as it is to admit, the makeup session doubles as a nap.

What feels like a moment later, I’m nodding awake, wiping some obvious drool off the corner of my mouth. Rainer is gone, but Jessica is standing over me. She’s fresh and bright in a light-pink tank top and denim shorts. “How’s it going?” she asks. I can tell what she means is
why aren’t you finished yet?

“If your cute behind would stop interrupting, we’d be on schedule,” Lillianna says.

Jessica blushes, and I bite my lip at her as if to say sorry.

“Got it,” she says. She leaves the way she came, mumbling something into her headset.

I turn around to look at Lillianna. She’s armed with a can of hair spray and a tub of makeup mud. She smiles
and extends her supplies-laden arms. “Ready to get dirty, hon?”

I nod.

You know how at the dentist’s office, the hygienist always waits until she has your mouth open, tubes sticking in and out and a metal pick hassling your gums, before she starts asking you how school is? Lillianna is kind of the same way.

“Tell me about the boys.”

“What boys?” I mumble, my mouth half open as she paints my cheeks.

“The ones at home, the ones here.” She clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth a few times and moves her ample hips.

“There is only one here,” I point out.

“Oh hon, but he’s a good one.”

I laugh. Lillianna is more boy crazy at seventy than most of my friends at seventeen. Well, besides maybe Cassandra. All Lillianna does is talk about how if she were fifty years younger, she’d never let Rainer out of her chair.

“I’m sure he has a girlfriend,” I say. “You’ve seen him, right?”

Rainer acts single. I think. It’s hard to tell. I wouldn’t call him flirtatious, he’s just being friendly, but he’s never brought up his romantic status with me.

Lillianna waves me off. “That one, Britney? She’s got nothin’ on you.”

“Who’s Britney?”

Lillianna steps back and places a hand on her hip. “You ever pick up a proper magazine?”

“Not really.”

“Britney Drake. Pop star, that’s what they call her. Chin up.”

I pop my head back into place. “Britney, huh?” I’ve heard of her. I want to say she was a Disney kid, but I’m not sure.

“If he knew what was good for him, he’d run in the other direction. Word is she’s two-timing him with Jordan Wilder,” Lillianna says. She holds an eyebrow pencil over me. “Any boys at home?”

I think about Jake briefly. “No. Just friends.”