On Screen & Off Again

Now Wilhelmina

Now WILHELMINA

TO THE STARS – OFFICIAL SCRIPT

INT. LILA’S BEDROOM – EVENING

LILA sits before a mirror, lit only by flickering candlelight, staring at her reflection. We see by the look in her eyes that she’s made a decision. In the background a door opens. NICK comes in.

NICK

(quietly, on edge)

I looked for you after dinner. Mom was worried.

LILA

(to her reflection)

I didn’t want to be rude.

(a beat)

But I couldn’t— didn’t want to overstay my welcome.

NICK

My parents didn’t mean that stuff. About you and me. About your father. Your family being who they are. They don’t understand, is all.

LILA

Maybe not.

(she turns from the mirror)

But they’re right about one thing: summer’s almost gone. We never talked about what comes next.

NICK

You and me, that’s what comes next.

(reacting to her wilting expression)

Right?

LILA

I’m leaving. Going to school. I got my letter last week.

NICK

You got in?

LILA

I was gonna tell you. I got the letter a couple days ago and...

NICK’s expression falls. This is the news he’s been dreading.

LILA

Don’t look at me like that, please.

NICK

Days ago? You should’ve told me.

LILA

I know.

NICK

So, you’re going to school. We can do long-distance. I’ll write you. You can come back on breaks, or I’ll visit you. I’ll save up for it. It’ll be just like it is now.

LILA

(angry)

Stop it. Stop it. No, it won’t. It won’t. I’ll be thousands of miles away and you’ll be here, hating me for leaving, hating me just like your family.

W e’re only cold reading—well, I am, at least. But the boiling feeling in my chest makes me want to close the script and tell Dax I can’t do it.

Because when I say these words, I’m seventeen. Right before I shattered and blew off with the breeze, forgotten, not just by Hollywood, but by myself.

But one look at Daxon and I know I can’t quit this.

He’s great . He’s emotional and present in a way I’ve never seen him act before, and we’re only sitting in my kitchen. No cameras. No director. I can see the years he’s worked at this radiating off his skin like a glow.

I glance back at the lines. Dax is Nick. He’s transformed.

Or, maybe—am I Nick?

“This sounds kinda familiar.” I try to add an airy laugh to this, but it dies on my tongue.

“Stay in it,” Dax urges me. There’s that technique, that dedication, rearing its gorgeous head. I pull myself closer to the script and wait for Dax’s next line.

NICK

Who’ll be hating you? Who, Lila? ’Cause it won’t be me. Couldn’t be.

LILA

(impatiently)

Yes, you. You will. I’ll go and it’ll start growing on you. Slow, at first. Then more and more and more until you can’t think of me anymore without wanting to scream out.

A beat. She’s emotional now, imagining it. What her life would be without Nick. Paying calls to other people’s wealthy families. Attending banquets and balls. Settling for a fixed-up marriage to some industrial tycoon’s promising son. No choices, no freedom. No happiness.

LILA

And you won’t remember us. Or this summer. Holding my hand. Rowing me out past the tall grass just as the sun’s going down. Daring me to jump in, and when I don’t, you do, so of course I do, too.

My throat gets tighter as I read through it aloud. It’s like we’re walking down a muddy road, stepping in our old footprints. I steal a glance at Dax and he’s looking at me. His dark eyes search my face and I can’t tell if he’s Nick or Daxon.

NICK

How the hell am I going to forget you? Huh? Tell me just how.

LILA

(crying)

I don’t know just how. All I know is you will. I’ll be gone, and you will. You’ll forget.

NICK

Can’t forget what’s carved on your goddamn soul, Lila. You think you’ll be easy to get rid of? You’ll take me eight hundred years just to stop thinking about, let alone forget. I will love you forever.

“Oopsie.”

It’s Margot. Standing in the kitchen doorway, shopping bags in her hands, a wide-eyed expression painting her face. She’s come in smack on Dax as Nick saying I will love you forever , which wins the award for Most Awkward Thing To Walk In On Ever. Especially given the fact that she was front and center for our catastrophic breakup.

“I’ll go,” she adds, turning.

“No, no, you’re fine,” I tell her. My voice comes out squeaky and high and I swallow, blood rising to my cheeks. “Dax just booked a big movie. I’m auditioning for it,” I say. And I wave my hand around in a big show of it’s no big deal . “We were just running lines. That’s all.” Why did I need to say that? I force my still wildly gesticulating hand under my knee and throw the island countertop a look, then fix my face.

Daxon raises a hand in greeting. “Hey, Margot.”

Margot’s eyes are still dinner plates. “Shut up, are you serious?” she asks.

“I mean, it’s just an audition,” I say, shaking my head. If I can downplay it low enough that it sinks through the floor and can’t bite me, my churning stomach might be happy.

“Still,” she argues. “That’s big. Yay!”

Dax looks between us.

“I’m gonna get going,” he says. “Wil, can you come in tomorrow?” He checks his phone. “Ten, if you can.”

“Ten’s fine,” I say. I reach for the script where it lies forgotten on the island and hand it to Dax. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Keep it,” he says, then smiles. “I’ll text you the address.”

“Lemme walk you out,” I offer. But he waves me down.

“I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

Once the front door has clicked gently closed and all that’s left of him is the spiced smell of comfort and home, I stand up. Margot’s setting her shopping bags on the counter and pretending to look through them. But I know she wants to start questioning me.

“What’d you get?” I say. If I cut her off before she starts, maybe I can avoid the truth.

“A new Louis. What’d you get?” Her eyes are dancing with double entendre.

“Nothing,” I tell her sharply. “Dinner. That’s all.”

“Mmhm,” says Margot. Her eyes are spewing disbelief like laser vision. “And what else?”

I laugh, because if I don’t, I’m going to vomit spectacularly across the kitchen tile. I wave my hand around again, feeling slightly like a lunatic. “It’s not like that.”

Margot’s head tilts. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m completely serious! It’s not... Dax and I... we... no, we didn’t, we wouldn’t , we...” I let myself peter out and lick my lip with a tongue dry as sand. “That was a hundred years ago. Ya know? It’s... it’s over. It’s not gonna... we...” But clearly, the words won’t come. And I can’t decide if it’s because I don’t know what to say or if I don’t believe them. “Lemme see the Louis,” I say, holding my hand out.

Margot laughs and hands it over. “What if you get this part?”

The air hisses slowly out of my lungs like they’re deflating balloons. A couple minutes ago, Daxon was right here in this kitchen. My kitchen. And he was looking at me and saying things that I have dreams about at night. Things we used to say to each other. When the sun was low in the sky and the birds were quieting and it was him and me and the back seat of his car, or out in the pool as the stars came out. Declarations of longing and forever and everything so perfect it can never last.

“I don’t know,” I say, because it’s the truth. “I really don’t know.”

Later, when I slip into bed, I reach for the script on my bedside table, and I read.

The curling edges of it tickle my thigh as I balance it in my lap, reading by lamplight. And I don’t just read, I devour . From page two, my eyes well with tears, and they stay there for two hundred more pages.

I read until soft pink light filters through the window beside my bed. I barely notice that I didn’t sleep by the time my trembling hands close the script and set it gently aside, like it’s made of porcelain.

In the semi-darkness, I wipe at my puffy, itching eyes. That was the absolute, single-most beautiful thing I have ever read in my life. In those pages are living, aching people. I know that hurt, I know what it’s like to feel that way.

And I know for sure that there’s no room for us to open up our rusted cage of tiny, precious memories.

There’s no way I can let us slip back into what we used to be if I’m going to put my soul into this audition, this role, this chance. If I don’t get this part, I will never forgive myself.