Imposter (5 page)

“WHAT'S THAT?” SABRINA ASKS, POINTING AT
the newspaper on the table. She turns it toward her and sees the photo of Kris and me. “Oh.”

The photo is humiliating enough. Watching Sabrina take it in is even weirder, like it barely makes sense to her—something she has already consigned to the distant past.

Ryder hands out new sheets of paper. “Here's your schedule,” he says. “I'll be producing dailies in a couple weeks, so get practicing with the cameras. As soon as you're ready to begin shooting, go for it. You can see there are some promotional obligations too. We need to get the word out about this movie. Any questions?” He slides more pages to us. “Okay, then. Let's give this a try.”

It's an entirely new scene. There's even a new character, and it's pretty obvious that she's supposed to be my sister. Before I can laugh at the craziness of having Sabrina Layton for a sister, Annaleigh starts reading. Two pages later we're pledging our love to each other.

Everything is moving too quickly, in life and on the page. A few minutes ago, my character didn't have a sister. Meanwhile, Sabrina's ex-boyfriend has declared war against me. By now, Gant
will definitely know I'm front-page news, which means that Dad will probably be second-guessing himself for letting me do this film at all.

Fictional Andrew may not know what's in store, but real-life Seth feels blindsided by the present. It's a miracle I can recite my lines at all.

Ryder brings things to a close a couple hours later. As he and Brian leave I stay glued to my chair, pretending to sort the pages of our quickly evolving script.

Annaleigh stands. “So you're back,” she says to Sabrina.

Sabrina nods. “I want to be a part of this.”

“Me too,” I say. “But after today's performance, don't be surprised if Ryder finds a new Andrew Mayhew.”

“No one wins an Oscar in the rehearsal room,” says Annaleigh helpfully.

Sabrina waves her hand through the air like she's cutting between scenes. “Enough about the movie. Let's go someplace.”

“Thanks, but I'll pass.” Annaleigh pats her camera case. “I've got some new toys to play with.”

Once she's gone, it's just Sabrina and me. Last night, we were inches apart and I was nervous. Now we're several feet apart and I'm petrified.

“Just us, then,” she says.

“Yeah.”

She tilts her head so that her hair falls across one eye. She looks mysterious and alluring. “Good.”

I follow Sabrina outside. A couple minutes later, I'm sitting in her Prius and we're pulling into traffic, heading north. It's strange
to see her driving—it's something an ordinary person would do, and I can't place her in that role. I want to text Gant a play-by-play:
Sabrina signaled! Sabrina checked her rearview mirror! Sabrina CHANGED LANES!!!

“So I hear you make a kick-ass Romeo,” she says.

“Huh?” I'm still composing imaginary text messages. “Oh. Yeah, well, I guess I do better when Shakespeare writes my lines.”

“You must have some weird conversations, then. Seriously, though, it's impressive that you pulled off a convincing Romeo.”

As impressive as having made fifteen movies?

“Thanks. I was just playing myself really. Method acting, you know?”

“But Romeo's kind of a dork.”

“Exactly.” I don't know what the heck I'm saying, but I guess I'm hitting my lines, because Sabrina rewards me with a rich, throaty laugh. “So you're back in
Whirlwind,
huh?”

“Yeah,” she says. “And this time I'm all in.”

“What do you mean?”

“My agent didn't want me to do this movie the first time around. Didn't like the small budget and
really
didn't like the concept of actors filming each other. Said it would rob us of creative control. What he really meant was that he wouldn't be able to bully the director into using flattering camera angles if the director wasn't the one with the camera. But the way I see it, we'll have more control than ever.”

We stop at a red light. Cross-traffic shunts by, a never-ending stream of vehicles.

“What did your agent say to that?” I ask.

“He said I was making a career-changing mistake.”

“Ouch. What did you say?”

“I said it was an even bigger mistake to have an agent who doesn't get me. Then I fired him.”

“What?”

She smiles, like this is all a big game. “It's okay. There are other agents. Trust me, I get calls every day.”

The light turns green. Ahead of us, the road climbs steadily upward.

“Anyway,” she continues, “the new contract's pretty much the same as the last one, and my agent already looked over that. It's not like I need someone to tell me how to sign my name.”

I glance at Sabrina's slender fingers, and the wide silver bracelet perched halfway along her tanned arm, and the soft cotton of her tunic. The curve of her breasts. Her face is so famous, she'd be recognized on all seven continents.

In my mind, I text Gant an update:
In case you weren't sure, I can confirm that Sabrina Layton is HOT.

She looks at me. “What are you thinking?”

“Uh, that's it's kind of crazy I'm driving with you.”

“Why? It's just a car.”

“Sure. And you're just a girl.”

She frowns. “I
am
. And you're just a boy. We have more in common than you realize.”

“We do?”

“Sure. We're willing to risk everything for a chance to make a new kind of movie. Most actors wouldn't do it. But you and me,
we want to feel the rush of trying something different. I'm tired of sleepwalking through the same old roles.”

“I've never thought you were sleepwalking.”

“Yeah, you have. I saw it in your face when we were talking about
Swan Song
last night. I want to know what it's like to get nervous again, because that's being
honest,
you know? That's what this is all about—making the first really honest movie, where everyone is equal because anyone can film at any time. We can even shoot a scene without the director knowing. Just think about it, Seth—having that control, that . . . intimacy.”

She looks at me, and for a moment I think she might be talking about being intimate with
me
. Then I remember that she's cast as my sister, and start laughing instead.

“What?” she asks, smiling.

“I just had a funny thought.”

“Siblings making out is funny?”

I definitely need to text Gant.

Sabrina pulls over at a roadside cafe. “You hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.” She takes a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and hands it to me. “Can you get us sandwiches to go? There's someplace I want to take you.”

We get out of the car. I'm about to head inside when I realize that she's not following. “What kind do you want?” I shout.

Sabrina peers over her shoulder, hair fluttering across her face. The sun illuminates her left side, leaving her right in mysterious shadow, and for a moment I'm right back at the party, watching
her from afar, wondering if something so beautiful can possibly be real.

“I trust you, Seth,” she says. “I think you know what I want.”

Ten minutes later, we're back in the car. Sabrina leans over to click her seat belt and our heads almost bump. She breaks the silence with another round of laughter, her breaths laced with the odor of cigarette smoke.

It bothers me, that. Scuffs the sheen of perfection.

“Did you choose wisely?” she asks.

“I hope so, yeah. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere quiet, so I can tell you stuff that matters.”

“Like what?”

“Like how sorry I am that Kris was at the party last night. If I'd known you were going to be there . . .” She starts the engine. “Some things end naturally, I guess. Others, not so much. Guess it serves me right. I've never been good at keeping friends.”

We head west on Sunset Boulevard. I've driven the street before, several times, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine making the journey with a movie star. “What about Genevieve Barron? There are thousands of photos of you two.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Thousands?”

“Uh, that sounds kind of stalkerish, huh?”

“No. Knowing that Gen and I were friends doesn't qualify you for that. You'd need to know really detailed stuff. Like, how Seth Crane missed out on a Chevy commercial.”

A part of me feels embarrassed; another part feels flattered that she's been checking up on me as well. “So you're a stalker too.”

“No. I just like to research my costars.”

“All of them?”

She covers her mouth to hide the smile. “Well, half of them.”

I think we're back to flirting again.

She reaches across me and flips open the glove compartment. Removes a pair of shades and slides them on. I have to make do with squinting as we face the sun head-on.

“So you and Genevieve,” I say. “Did something happen?”

She grips the wheel a little tighter. “You paparazzi now?”

“No,” I say quickly. “Just finding it hard to believe anyone wouldn't want to be your friend.”

“Ah. Well, there's not much to say. We did three movies together, but she wanted out. She's in college now. Doesn't make it back much.” Her eyes linger on the rearview mirror. “I guess she's pretty into her studies. Or maybe she needed to get away from here.”

“Why?”

Sabrina tilts her head from left to right, like she's weighing up how much to tell me. “So she can find out what real life feels like.”

We continue to the end of Sunset, where the road follows the hills like switchbacks on a mountain trail. Sabrina turns right onto Pacific Coast Highway, attention split between the road and her mirror.

I turn around in my seat. “Is something back there?”

“Forest-green Mazda. It's been following us since we left the rehearsal.”

The car is about fifty yards back. I can't see the driver's face behind the sun visor.

“Why would someone follow us?”

“Are you serious?” She accelerates gradually, holding the outside lane. “Your Hollywood education's about to begin, Seth Crane. And it won't be pretty.”

We nudge over the speed limit. I glance at the side mirror. The car is still tailing us. “We should just pull over.”

It's like she doesn't hear me.

“Seriously, Sabrina. There's no point in—”

She jerks the steering wheel to the right. We knife across two lanes and skid to a halt just off the highway. Behind a cloud of dust, the Mazda passes right by. I get a split-second view of the driver's profile—a youngish male—but not his face.

“Are you all right?” I gasp.

Sabrina's eyes are fixed on the vehicles flashing past us. “I don't like being followed.”

I want to tell her it was a crazy thing to do and maybe he wasn't following us at all. But Sabrina's hands are shaking. Maybe I'd be paranoid too, if I were her.

She breathes in and out slowly. “Let's go eat.”

It's reassuring to feel solid ground again. I fill my lungs with brisk, salty air, and roll up the sleeves of my shirt. Sabrina locks arms with me like it's the most natural thing in the world, and leads me to a tunnel under the highway.

We emerge onto Topanga Beach. The sun is setting over the ocean, casting long shadows of a lone couple and their dog. To the left, the lights of Santa Monica pier blink on, and beyond that, Venice. If Sabrina had planned this trip to the minute, she couldn't have picked a more beautiful time to arrive.

We stop a few yards from the water's edge and sit on the cool, hard sand. “Keep your eyes peeled,” she says. “You might see dolphins.”

I'm not optimistic about that. It's already twilight, nothing but the glow of the December sun as it's swallowed by the ocean.

“Do you come here a lot?” I ask.

“Used to.” She coils her hair around her right hand and drapes it over her shoulder. “I don't go out much anymore.”

I hand her a sandwich and she pretends to weigh it in the palm of her hand. “Vegetarian special.”

“How do you know?”

“I don't. I just hoped, is all. It would mean you've read about me, and bothered to remember stuff. It would show you care.” Her features, twisted and tense, relax suddenly. “Do you think we're going to be friends?”

A few minutes ago, we were laughing and flirting. Now, as we unwrap our sandwiches and eat, things feel different.

“I think that anybody who buys me food and doesn't ask for the change is my kind of person,” I say.

She holds her hand out, palm open, and I give her the money. “Good. Because anyone who can be bought for twenty bucks is my kind of date.”

She raises her eyebrows and takes a bite of sandwich. Then she turns to the ocean, and for several silent minutes, it's like she's forgotten I'm even here.

When we're done, I fold the wrappers and slide them into my pants pocket.

“Why did you think that Mazda was following us?” I ask.

“Because every time I looked in the mirror, it was there,” she says.

“Could've been a coincidence.”

“That's why I drove off the road. It happened right in front of him, but he didn't even slow down. Could you ignore something like that?”

I shake my head.

“Exactly. They never stop watching, see.”

“What about now?”

“Even now.” She begins to open her purse, but stops herself. Tilts her head to the left instead. “There's a guy a hundred yards away. Has a camera. Long lens. I don't imagine he's shooting the gulls at twilight.”

I glance across the beach. “The camera isn't pointed at us.”