Not in the Script (13 page)

Did I hear him right? “How can you
accidentally
do that?”

“It just sorta happened, you know?” Brett replies. “I'm always saying and doing the wrong things, even when I don't mean to. I hate it. Anyway, I was thinking I could try to smooth things over with Kimmi. Payton Wilson is going to the motocross too, and I bet Kimmi wouldn't mind meeting ‘Hollywood's Hottest Young Bachelor.' You'll come if she does, right?”

I laugh. “No! Adding her would just make it look like a
double
date.”

Madelyn keeps passing between our chairs, getting another tray ready—probably for Kimmi, who should be arriving any minute. Jake won't be too far behind her.

“Then let's make it an unofficial publicity trip for
Coyote Hills
,” Brett says. “I'll invite Jake too. McGregor will love it if we're all seen together. Early buzz—his favorite words. Well, besides ‘Emmy winner,' and ‘sizzling-hot ratings.' ”

Kimmi's reflection pops into the mirror. “Where are we going?”

“L.A.,” Brett says, all smiles. “We're gonna hang out with Payton Wilson. You in?”

Every part of Kimmi that can perk up does so, but her holier-than-thou expression returns in a hurry. “Whatever,” she says, as if she's doing Brett, and even Payton, a favor. “Are you going, Emma?”

“Oh yeah, she's going,” Brett answers for me. “She only gets to ditch us once a year, and she used up that pass last night.”

“You're ready, doll,” Donna says as she finishes the last dose of whatever ozone-killing fog she's spraying on me. “See you later on.”

I stand, and Brett scans me—like
totally
scans me. “I wouldn't worry so much about your costumes. Every guy in the world's gonna have plenty of nice things to say about them.”

“Great. What a relief.” I tug my skirt as low as I can and wish there was just one more button on my way-too-tight white shirt. “This is one role that will definitely challenge me.”

“How can
you
complain?” Kimmi asks as she examines the seat I just vacated. What does she think I left behind, an egg? “Look what costumes did to
me
.”

She's in baggy capri pants, a bright-purple square-neck top, and sneakers.

“Well, like we talked about yesterday,” I say, “Kassidy has a style all her own.”

Kimmi rolls her eyes. “Who cares about her character sketch? I'll be wearing designer labels by next week.”

A blast of laughter comes from Brett. “Good luck, sweetheart! The only choice
you'll
be making around here is what color of underwear you put on.”

Wrong. I was handed a flesh-colored pair of Spanx this morning, due to my ultrashort skirt. “Not even that is a sure thing. Today, for instance,” I say, and Brett scans me again, so I hit him. “Knock it off! Do you think girls don't notice that?”

“He
knows
they do,” Kimmi says. “And speaking of behaving badly, I'll be surprised if Jake staggers in anytime before noon.”

Jeez. Did he get wasted? The thought makes me feel kind of … disappointed or something.

“That dude is one serious pickup artist,” Brett tells me, as if
he's impressed. “He hardly said a word to this waitress last night, but he still ended up leaving with her.”

Oh.

Not only is Jake exactly like every other guy in this industry, but Brett just gave him a slap on the back for it. My taste in men
totally sucks
.

“It's crazy what you can learn about someone in so short a time,” I say with an amused little smile. I'm good at those. Ask any film critic.

Despite the mixed results of the first week on set, the second week is fantastic. There's been too much drama in my head for way too long, so I'm thrilled that McGregor runs the production like a conductor of a symphony and keeps me focused. Shooting scenes seems to go twice as fast as usual, and I love it. Somehow, I even feel comfortable as my character.

With everything, really.

Our crew is amazing. McGregor has pulled several people from other projects to create his dream team, and I give him kudos for that during a lighting setup.

“Thank you, lass,” he replies, sitting next to me after raiding the craft service table. Crafty, as everyone calls the heavenly department that feeds us, keeps the whole set happy. Today, we even have freshly squeezed lemonade. And a catering company is still on its way with lunch. “And if you haven't noticed, I've also gathered a spectacular group of performers.”

I glance over to the cast chairs, where Kimmi is flirting with Jake. She does that a lot, I've noticed, and Jake is either playing it cool or his mind is still on the waitress he met a couple of weeks
ago. Brett runs past them, kicking a plastic cup like a soccer ball, and Jake jumps up to follow him.

“Talent, beauty, and a brilliant crew—my recipe for success,” McGregor says. Then he narrows his eyes at me. “What do you think of Kimmi?”

To lie, or not to lie? “She's a great actress. As in,
really
good. But she's not very excited about her baggy pants.”

I sip my lemonade, a delicious mix of sweet and sour.

“Ah, yes.” McGregor sticks a carrot in his mouth, but that doesn't stop him from talking. “She'll adapt. I have some interesting things planned for her.”

Actors are usually kept in the dark about future plots, but I want to see how much I can get out of him. “I'm sure the writers are working on cool storylines for
all
of us,” I say. “Eden won't always be a self-absorbed gossip columnist, will she?”

McGregor thinks a bit before he answers. “This series is planned to progress well beyond the high school years,” he finally says, “so the characters need to begin a fair distance away from where I'd like them to end up.”

A typical brush-off. “I suppose there wouldn't be much of a story to tell if our characters were already perfect,” I say.

“Precisely.” McGregor looks to where Jake and Brett are now in a heated battle for the plastic cup/soccer ball. “Not that either of our male leads feel a need for improvement.”

“So true,” I reply. Jake is still a mystery to me. Ever since I heard about the waitress, I've been watching for signs that prove he's like Brett made him sound—because, of course, I want to warn Rachel if Jake is a player—but I just don't see any. Brett's continued lack of manners isn't so bad, though. My crush is buried for good. “Yet, surprisingly, I've known bigger egos.”

McGregor nods. “You've dated some high-and-mighty fellows, haven't you?”

I stop smiling. “Yeah. A few too many.”

“And not one of them deserved you. Many in this business are arrogant jerks only because they're allowed to be, so let's hope you taught those twits a lesson.”

I doubt it. With Troy, pretty much all I've done is run away and cry.

A plastic cup hits my leg, and Jake runs over to get it. “Sorry! I missed!” he says, motioning to the two chairs set up as a goal. They're at least twenty feet from me.

“By a country mile!” Oh my. I never use that phrase outside of Arkansas.

Jake shrugs. “Someone must've moved the chairs.”

It's hard not to laugh as Jake runs off, kicking the mangled plastic cup again. When I turn back to McGregor, his eyes are steady, as if he's already been watching me. “Don't think
that
possibility hasn't kept me up at night,” he says.

“What possibility?” I ask, then my face gets hot—jalapeño hot. McGregor dropped a hint in contract talks that on-set romances make him bristle. “Oh, heck no! I've kissed enough frogs to know none of them turn out to be princes.”

“Then perhaps you should spend less time in swamps.”

“Well, sadly, I don't have a lot of variety in my dating pool,” I reply. “But who knows? Maybe I'll one day meet a decent guy who walks into the studio by mistake.”

McGregor's gaze has shifted to Jake. “Or might just
think
he doesn't belong.”

Most days at work, I catch Emma looking at me at least once, but the last time we had anything close to a flirtatious conversation was when I gave her a ride home that first day in the studio. Since then, she's only been available enough to not seem snobby.

What do I have to do to get her attention? Some sort of freaky, Hollywood mating dance?

Emma is being just “friendly” with Brett too, though, so I've decided she doesn't like him after all. And with every word he speaks, Brett adds another point in my favor.

“Eww, you sicko!” she tells him now, backing right into a camera to get away. “I didn't want to know
that
!”

“You asked me if I knew Bethany Parke,” Brett says. “And I do. Really, really well!”

“At least you remember her name,” I mutter.

He slugs me.

Tyler, the first assistant director, bellows, “First team, back to one!” so I have to focus again. In the scene we're shooting now, I'm stretched out on an old sofa in our newspaper office set—my feet kicked up and my head on a backpack—and I'm supposed to
look
relaxed, while also being constantly aware of where my arms and legs are and every expression I make. And I also have to pay attention to what everyone else is doing and saying. Otherwise, I'll miss my cues.

In modeling, a photographer only has to tell me “smug,” and just thinking of kicking Devin's butt in basketball will get me through fifty successive shots. But McGregor's instructions for me earlier today were slightly more complicated.

“Justin, you rolled out of bed ten minutes before you had to leave for school,” he began. “You took three of those minutes to shower, and the only item of clothing you didn't grab off your floor was fresh boxers. Got that?” I nodded. I've been there. “The next five minutes were spent brushing your teeth, using the toilet, and making your hair look casually perfect, pretty much at the same time. This was also when you remembered to get your backpack. You then took one minute to toast some bread and another full minute to butter it, because this is important to you. Understand?” I nodded again. “And then you grabbed a half gallon of milk and raced out the door. You drank a quarter gallon straight from the jug, and the remaining milk is now spoiling in your Jeep. All of this happens off screen,
before
this scene begins.”

I would argue that none of it actually happened at all, but after two weeks of McGregor downloading this stuff into my head, I'm starting to get why these types of details help me better understand my character.

“Your only concern now, however, is getting Mario from the red planet to the green planet,” he went on, pointing out the broken Nintendo 3DS I'm holding in this scene. “So when Kassidy drops her donation box in the hallway, and Eden and Bryce hear the thud and look toward the door, you do
nothing
. Nothing but keep pushing
ABXXA
, or whatever buttons you have to push to make Mario jump. And all you
hear
is
zing-zing, bling! Boing-boing, pop!
Is that clear?”

Nod, nod, nod.

McGregor says he'll only be using his “incessant direction” technique on me during the first few episodes. After that, I'm expected to
be
Justin and know exactly what he would think, how he'd move, and every expression he'd make in any given situation. Kimmi is getting the same instruction, which she hates.

Brett and Emma rarely get anything more than applause from him.

Scenes are shot out of order, which I've just learned is typical for most movies and TV shows, so even though we're now only filming scene five, we're almost finished with the first episode. In the script, this scene looked like the easiest so far—I have just two lines. But we're on hour
four
of shooting it. Lighting issues, a glitchy camera, and Kimmi—just being Kimmi—have all caused delays.