Chapter 3
Saturday
Brian lies motionless on the floor, his eyes rolled back.
Somehow, the remnants of his skull and brain matter have scattered across the tables behind us. Above us, a piece dangles from one of the chandeliers.
You did this to me.
You did this.
Samuel’s voice permeates my brain. My mind starts playing tricks on me—Brian’s face disappears and is replaced by Samuel’s.
Does the guilt ever subside? Would Samuel’s family want revenge if they found out I was in the car with him when he was flung to his death? That I was responsible? Would they do to me what I just did to Brian?
“And cut,” Alfonso shouts through the megaphone.
“Great job!” Brian says as he rises from his position. He picks congealed fake blood and silicone brain matter off his shoulder, which looks way more realistic than I was expecting. My stomach does backflips at the sight. The warm sensation of vomit slowly rises up my oesophagus.
“It’s fake. It’s fake. It’s fake,” I mumble under my breath.
I feel rude looking away, but if I don’t try and calm my stomach, I’ll spew my guts everywhere. There’s a reason I never watched Grey’s Anatomy or any of those medical procedurals.
“What’s fake?” Brian asks as he stands up and rests a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m squeamish.” I lock my gaze on the crew moving around the set.
Another wave of nausea rises to the back of my mouth, reminding me that I’m skating close to the edge with this, and I’ve still got three more murder scenes to go with this film.
You’d think that with the amount of time I spent in hospital growing up—a sprained this, a torn that, and a fractured something or other—that I’d be accustomed to the graphic sights of the body. But no. My eyes detest what they see. My mind even more so.
“That’s a wrap on Brian,” Alfonso says, making his way in between the two of us, like a hot dog sliding effortlessly into a bun. He pulls each of us in tightly. My assistant, Lucy, comes in behind him, passing me my phone and a blueberry slushie.
The crew bursts out into a round of applause.
The first assistant director lets out a whooping sound, while Laura, Brian’s on-screen sister and off-screen lover, makes her way over from the director’s chair toward us.
Twirling her long blond locks, which fall halfway down her white crop top, she goes up on her toes to hug Brian.
“You were amazing, bubs.”
I don’t know what makes me want to puke more. The sight of the blood and brains still clinging to Brian’s shirt or the fakeness emanating from Laura’s words. Her Valley girl accent feels like nails down a chalk board.
“The makeup team has done such a good job of hiding the bruising from the other night too.” Laura cuts me a sideward glance before lifting Brian’s chin to study the mark underneath.
I’m not going to lie. Of all the people my character seeks revenge on in this film, Laura’s character Cassidy will be the easiest. Laura’s behavior is eerily similar to Rita’s, though after I rebuffed her advances during the roundtable read through back in LA, she immediately went from overly flirtatious and nice to ice cold.
Connie and Paul had berated me for not playing along and leading her on. They said it would help with publicity to have rumors of a romance on set and it would quench any remaining embers of speculation about the leaked video of Christopher and me.
But I won’t get caught up with some fame-hungry C-list actress who’s trying to use me to get ahead in her career. Especially not one as erratic as Laura.
“Sorry again about that,” I say, catching Brian’s gaze.
“All good, brother. These things happen. And hey, it’s not everyday my name makes headline news.”
All of a sudden, the energy shifts in Laura. I can almost smell the desperation wafting from her. Her ice-cold demeanor toward me thaws as she seems to sense an opportunity.
“We’re planning on hitting up the Thirsty Eye Brewing Company, just down the road from the hotel, to celebrate Brian wrapping on the film, if you wanted to join us?” Her arm squeezes Brian tightly and her hip nudges the top part of his upper leg.
“Yeah, you should join us, bro.” He places a hand on my shoulder, revealing another piece of brain matter dangling behind his ear. My stomach immediately starts to churn again and I take a sip of my slushie to push the sickness down.
I get a sense where this is all heading. Laura missed an opportunity to get papped coming out the hospital with Brian. If she can convince me to go out with them tonight, and then calls up some local paparazzi, it will do wonders for her profile.
In some ways, I admire her tenacity. But in others, she’s just another person to add to the long list of people who have used me over the last decade to further their career.
“Do they do karaoke there?” Alfonso asks, pulling himself away from Brian and me.
“Not that I’m aware of.” Laura’s eyes are still locked on me.
“Scrap Thirsty Eye, we should hit up Punky’s Place. They’ve got karaoke and bowling. Ivanna, can you call up Punky’s Place, get them to reserve us a table?” he asks.
Alfonso’s ever-faithful assistant director nods from afar and heads off to make the call, as Alfonso squeezes Brian’s shoulder.
“We’ve gotta give you a proper send-off Bri-Bri,” Alfonso says. Brian’s face scrunches up at the nickname Alfonso bestowed upon him.
“What do you say, bro? You in?” Brian reaches for my shoulder to shake it.
I catch another glimpse of the brain fragment dangling precariously behind his ear, swaying back and forth with every successive shake of my shoulder.
The vomit churns again in my stomach.
“We can take it in turns to do karaoke, do duets.” Laura’s eyes light up.
I take another sip to avoid acknowledging Laura’s ridiculous idea. She sounds like a strangled cat whenever she sings on set between takes. I’d rather not be tortured even more than I already have to be.
“Maybe you should stick to acting,” Brian says, his hand rubbing her back.
Alfonso stifles a laugh, but I have no such luck. The blueberry slushie leaves my mouth and splashes all across Laura’s white crop top.
Her face is a mix of disgust and sheer terror as she lets out an almighty scream.
I’d hoped to make it an early night, heading back to my hotel room to watch an old episode of Game of Thrones since filming wrapped up surprisingly early. But after spitting my drink all over Laura, the guilt changed my mind.
Thankfully, I needed to jump on a call with Paul to go over my schedule, giving me an excuse to tell them to go ahead without me, and there was just enough coke left in my trailer to snap me out of my mind before joining them.
“We’re here,” the driver says as we pull into a parking lot.
The nondescript red-walled building doesn’t exactly scream karaoke bar to me. But then I notice two guys standing up against the wall, cigarettes in hand, long lens cameras round their necks, and I immediately know we’re at the right place. My suspicions about Laura are all but confirmed.
“Thanks, Sharon,” I say to the shuttle van driver. The lovely retired war veteran has patiently chauffeured us between the hotel and our filming locations ever since we began shooting four weeks ago.
Rob exits the front seat next to her and comes round to my side, sliding the door open and guiding me inside the bar as the two paparazzi guys stub out their cigarettes and snap away.
I hear Alfonso’s voice belting out Guns N’ Roses’s Sweet Child O’ Mine on karaoke before I even make it through the door.
It turns out directing and producing is only Alfonso’s third favorite thing to do.
His second is karaoke. His first is being a raucous Tasmanian devil and whipping everyone up into a fun-fueled frenzy any chance he gets.
I’ve always hated karaoke, given that my job since fourteen has been singing, and nobody wants someone who can actually sing up there hogging the mic.
But there’s something cool about the way Alfonso flings his leather jacket off his shoulder with a no-fucks-given attitude as he leans the mic stand backward and attempts unsuccessfully to hit the high note.
It's almost as if he gives you permission to be bad, and that makes it quite enjoyable. If it weren’t for cell phones, I’d be inclined to get up and let loose myself, but I know that anything less than a note-perfect rendition of someone else’s song will result in headlines like A Morgan Massacre.
“Over here, bud!” Brian waves at me from a round table, pushing out one of the stools.
He’s almost unrecognizable from two hours ago.
His red flannel shirt and white vest combo complement his designer blond stubble and blond hair, which are now devoid of any brain or skull fragments.
His arm is draped over Laura’s shoulder, who’s wearing an almost see-through sheer top and sips what looks like an espresso martini.
I turn to Rob and pull out my wallet, retrieving my credit card.
“Get what you want, and I’ll grab a soda lime,” I say before leaving him at the bar and walking past a couple of the crew, nodding at them. Alfonso recreates Slash’s guitar solo with an inflatable guitar as I sit down on the bar stool.
“Feeling better now?” Laura asks me through gritted teeth.
I’d apologized wholeheartedly right after the accident, claiming I’d choked on my drink rather than laughed at Brian’s comment, even though I quite enjoyed the sight of my slushie covering her. Many of the crew even came up to high-five me as I made my way back to the trailer.
“Much. Thank you. Sorry again. I hope it was easy to get my slushie out of your hair?” I temper my tone to try and show her some sincerity.
“Brian helped me.”
Laura leans into him and gives him a puppy dog look, which reminds me that I do indeed have a gag reflex. There’s something about her that reminds me of Regina George from Mean Girls. Possessive. Nasty. But under the guise of being popular, I can sense Laura’s insecurity.