CHAPTER 2
REID
“Your father says he’ll be home tonight. Please, Reid?”
Shit. “Yeah, sure, Mom.”
Dinner with Mark and Lucy—always entertaining. I avoid it when possible, but Mom’s got me cornered before I leave for my meeting with Larry, my PR guy. She’s so persistently anxious that it’s hard for me to say no to her. Dad doesn’t seem to have the same struggle. She’s got this idealistic vision of the three of us as a happy little family: if we sit down together at the dinner table, domestic bliss will magically occur. Why this doesn’t strike her as wishful thinking given the fact that it’s never worked before, I don’t know. I’ll be gone soon anyway. I refuse to contemplate how far she’ll sink then.
I haven’t decided when I’ll actually move out. My room has a separate entrance and is more like an apartment attached to my parents’ house than a room within it. My grandmother lived with us until she died a few years ago, and this was her suite. Not long after she was gone, I talked Mom into letting me switch rooms. Dad was pissed because I was like fifteen and could then come and go without their knowledge, but it was a done deal by the time he noticed, and I just entrenched and ignored him until he quit blustering.
“Congrats on getting School Pride, man.” Larry’s toadying, as usual. We’re at a sushi place on Ventura, and he’s annoying the crap out of me. He can’t even use chopsticks correctly—it’s like his hands are retarded. That may sound like a pretentious prick thing to say, but he chose the place. Plus, my gut says he’s bitter about what I make compared to him. There’s a lot of envy in this business. The more successful you are, the larger the target.
“Thanks.” I pop a piece of salmon sashimi into my mouth.
He clears his throat. “Okay, so, well…” Shit, man, spit it out already. “We’re thinking that you should, uh, align yourself with some charitable efforts, now that you’re an adult.” He has this look like I’m going to have a problem with that, which makes me wonder if I should have a problem with it.
I eye him, still chewing. “Like what?”
I swear to God he squirms in his seat like a kid on the verge of peeing his pants. “Well, lots of options. Telethons, or, uh, a day or two of something like Habitat for Humanity, or you could endorse adult literacy or childhood vaccinations with a television spot.”
I forgot about Larry’s tendency to well and uh when nervous. It makes me want to shovel sushi into his mouth until he can’t speak at all.
“I’m not doing some telethon, or manual labor. And childhood vaccinations?” I quirk an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t that be left to people with kids?”
He mops his face with his napkin. “Well…”
This is going to take all damned day. “Anything else?”
He pokes at his tuna slices. “You could visit schools, participate in drug and alcohol awareness presentations—”
“Um, no.” The irony would be too hilarious, but I’m not doing it. It would be like those teen celebs who pretend virginity, wearing chastity rings and preaching abstinence to other teens, only to get caught with their pants down at some point. Literally. I get enough close scrutiny from the press without daring them to catch me plastered or high.
“Well… uh, you could just donate cash—”
“Let’s go with that. Check with my dad, he’ll handle it.”
“Do you have a cause in mind?”
I look at him blankly. The only cause I believe in is my own. Chicks like animals, right? “Something with animals.” Stipulation: the cuter the better. “But no crazy activist groups. And domesticated animals—not some endangered salamander or shit like that.”
“Oh-okay, well... domesticated animals—like the SPCA?”
“Sure.” SPCA. Something-something-something-animals.
*** *** ***
Emma
I’m removing my dinner of reheated leftovers from the microwave when my cell plays Emily’s ringtone. She doesn’t wait for hello. “Turn on channel ten!”
“Okay, just a minute—”
“No! Now!”
I head obediently for the television. “Keep your shorts on, I’m going. What’s on?”
“Who’s on, you mean.”
I key in the channel on the remote and the screen erupts in flashing images and the familiar theme music of Entertainment Tonight. “…and he’s here tonight to talk to us about a new project in the works,” the host says as the 52-inch screen catches up with the surround sound system.
The camera cuts to Reid Alexander, the hottest guy on film. “Yeah, I’m really psyched about it.” He swings his dark blond hair out of his eyes and smiles that trademark smile: a little shy, sorta humble, totally hot.
“Oh. My. God,” Emily breathes.
Reid Alexander is flat out eye candy: dark blue eyes and facial features bordering on pretty—long, dark eyelashes, almost pouty mouth—but the lines of his face are all male. His hair is perpetually disheveled, but it’s a flawless sort of mess. He doesn’t seem real; he’s like an artist’s interpretation of an eighteen-year old sex god.
“We hear the film is going to be an adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel, Pride and Prejudice?” The host holds the microphone under his chin.
“Um, yeah. It’s set in an American high school, so it’ll be different. Fresh, you know? I’ll be working with Adam Richter, which I’m really excited about.”
“Emma!” I feel Emily’s elation through the phone. “This is your movie, right? I saw the blurb and I thought holy shit that’s Emma’s movie!”
“Uh-huh.” I can’t reply coherently yet. Reid Alexander is playing Will Darcy in a film adaptation I wasn’t all that jazzed about auditioning for twenty-four hours ago.
“The question everyone wants answered: who is your leading lady going to be?”
“We’re running auditions in a couple of weeks, so hopefully I’ll know the answer to that real soon.” Another killer smile.
The host turns to the camera. “You heard it here, folks. Reid Alexander to play Will Darcy opposite a lucky as-yet-unnamed costar as Lizbeth Bennet. Who will it be? We’ll keep you posted! Filming should start late summer.”
I click the TV off and slump onto the sofa.
“Emma, this is destiny. It’s going to be you. Reid Alexander is Darcy and you’re going to be Elizabeth Bennet.”
“It’s Lizbeth,” I say. “They changed the names.”
“Whatever.” Emily is full of her usual confidence on my behalf. “You’re going to be her.”
***
I’m exhausted from poring over audition sides until 2 a.m. Coffee aroma drifts up from the kitchen, and I shuffle towards it single-mindedly, a zombie who craves caffeine instead of brains, until I hear Chloe, my stepmother, talking to my father in the kitchen. Reluctant to encounter either of them this early, especially if they’re feeling slighted over my lukewarm reaction to the audition news, I hesitate at the top of the staircase.
“She’ll come around. She always does. What’s she going to do? Manage her own career?” I stiffen at Chloe’s sarcastic tone.
My father is less mocking, more exasperated. “This could be her ticket out of bit parts and commercials. They’ve already cast Reid Alexander for the lead. Dan says that kid hardly has to audition. If he wants a particular role, he’s almost guaranteed to get it.”
“Plus he’s yummy hot.” How can Chloe say things like this when Reid Alexander is disgustingly close to the age of the geography students she teaches? You’d think she’d draw a personal line. Gross.
“I have no idea what she wants,” he says. If I rent a billboard or hire a freaking skywriter, might he comprehend what I say I want?
“She’ll come around,” Chloe says. “When she’s rich and famous, she’ll get decent work instead of chasing down whatever crappy roles she can get. Though it would be a stretch to call what she does working.” I grip the banister, waiting for him to say something in my defense.
“Humph,” he says, marching out the door to work. Chloe parks it in front of Good Morning America, because unfortunately spring break applies to teachers, too. Usually, I couldn’t care less about her opinion, as annoying as it is to listen to it at early-o’clock in the morning. Not even coffee can induce me to go down there now.
My father was there when I did my first commercial—nineteen takes to get the precise sip of juice that wouldn’t inhibit my two lines about how delicious and wholesome it was. I still can’t look at grape juice without gagging. He was there when the maniacal director of a low-budget made-for-tv movie screamed in my face because I dropped a prop phone. He watched as I sweltered through Arizona desert heat with a parka zipped to my chin, portraying the daughter of an intergalactic explorer who’d been exiled to a dry, frozen planet.
I thought he was clear on how hard I work, at least.
Don’t misunderstand—I love what I do. And I’m good at it. Some people assume acting is just putting on someone else’s clothes or accent, but that’s not enough. You have to unzip the character’s skin, step into her completely, allow yourself to meld with her. You have to become the character. Even if the character is a kid who really likes juice.
I should be grateful, I should feel lucky, and I am, I do. But even if you have what everyone else wants—if it isn’t what you want, it isn’t what you want. A high school film version of one of the greatest novels of all time? Really? Unless Jane Austen is a Reid Alexander fan, she’s probably spinning in her grave.