4
“Should Kieran Alexander Have Been Cast as Saving September’s Theo Bennett When They Couldn’t Be More Different?”
THEY HADN’T SEEN the movie yet, and somehow, the internet was already forming opinions on it. I wasn’t surprised. They’d be horrified to find out I agreed.
“For the love of God, Kieran, do not tell anyone that,” my PR manager, Nari, warned me. She liked to say I was the cause of her grays. “Because you are! Now please just finish the article,” she pleaded.
“Reading,” I confirmed.
The article in front of me laid out a Venn diagram of myself and the character I was playing, which was hilarious because the point of a Venn diagram was to display both similarities and differences. And they only included one similarity: our sandy hair.
You had to be joking.
I had read Saving September before auditioning.
The character and I did have one similarity: our compassion for family.
I dropped everything any time my dad called with the most ridiculous of favors—Mom needed help finding a television channel, they couldn’t fix the remote to the air conditioner unit, the neighbor next door wanted the croquetas recipe I made for their kids (a recipe he taught me but didn’t have the energy to repeat to them).
Anything to be helpful, since he considered my career anything but.
While Theo and I loved our families, we sure had different perspectives on romantic love.
“Look, I know you,” Nari started. “Even though you think I don’t know you, I know you.
I know you disappear to Spain once filming wraps.
Vacation is over, and it’s time to return to work and do press.
I know you find press tours unnecessary, but if you don’t plaster a smile on your face bigger than a First Lady during a presidential race, then articles like this are going to ruin the movie before it even releases. ”
She stood her ground at the front of the table, one of many in this Manhattan office overlooking Central Park. The rest of PR and management weren’t going to arrive for another fifteen minutes. Something about another important meeting.
Acting was my job, the same way mending pipes in a bathroom was a plumber’s job, or listening to people’s trauma was a therapist’s job.
Not to say my job was similar in any capacity, because it wasn’t.
When I majored in acting, I hadn’t imagined cameras harassing me outside my apartment when I left to grab groceries, or magazine covers discussing my newest haircut like it was a political move or result of my latest relationship.
Nari didn’t like that I disagreed with this part of the job, but she knew I was good at the rest of it.
The collaborative part—working with the camera crew, the makeup artists, costume designers.
They granted me anecdotes from their families and past film sets, exchanging them for stories of my own like a barter, trading herbs for fabric.
I grew up in a kitchen, working shoulder to shoulder, even when it was most likely illegal for a child that young to use an oven.
Seeing as it was Dad’s restaurant, though, anything went.
Being eye-level with the oven racks wasn’t ideal.
But I was good. Part of a beehive. When the ingredients were prepped and boxed on a night my dad had enough cooks, I’d hang up the apron Abuela had sewed stars into, run back home, leave my shoes behind, and chase after the ocean before the moon consumed it.
Taking over El Mar was a comfortable Plan B if acting didn’t work out. But Plan A did.
The only downside? I was ordered around more than I had been with an apron around my waist.
PR meetings, online gossip, intrusive interview questions, press tours. I didn’t care to read articles from people who thought they knew me. Searching for celebrity gossip was at the bottom of my priority list.
My abuela thought otherwise. Every Friday morning at 6:13 A.M., she emailed me screenshots of magazine covers and articles with my face on them.
This week’s attachments were more excruciating than usual, which I hadn’t known was possible.
When I opened the first attachment yesterday, I dropped my coffee and watched it slide across the table right onto my rug.
“Kieran Alexander’s Most Provocative Confessions, Including the Details of His Sex Life.” The photo below the headline was taken last year at the Llafranc Beach in Spain, where I was kissing a girl from town.
My eighty-seven-year-old grandmother had read that and felt it was necessary to send it to me. She claimed it was the only way she would survive cancer.
She was currently in remission.
If she didn’t live across the Atlantic in Spain with the rest of my family, I would’ve expected her to come to my apartment with a copy.
She and Nari got along very well—sometimes she was even CCed on the emails. It was often the first thing she’d mention in these meetings.
“When was the last time I said no to a press tour?” I asked Nari from across the table.
“This one, when we were putting your contract together,” she said matter-of-factly. “As well as every other movie you’ve done.”
“All right, I get it, I’ll do the press tour.” I relaxed into my seat. Problem rectified.
“Oh, you think that’s what this conversation is about?
Oh, no.” She laughed, securing her arms in a triangular stance on the table.
“It’s about what’s going to be happening during the tour.
The production company thinks it would be beneficial to the movie if you displayed more of a… romantic appeal.”
“They want me to come off… romantic?”
“Actually, their exact words were”—she took a breath and began reading off a piece of paper—“‘Alexander better get his shit together and put that playboy ego of his away or else he’s going to screw over the entirety of this film before it’s even released.’”
“They mailed that to you?” I was slightly impressed; postage wasn’t cheap nowadays.
She rolled her eyes. “No. The executive producer typed it out and gave it to my assistant with a new contract to sign you into a PR relationship until the movie is released and out for at least a week.”
“The movie’s not out for another four months. I’ve done the stunt thing before, but four months? I have shit to do, Nari. I can’t be spending all my free time galivanting through New York for staged pictures.”
“You have no choice. This article”—she held up her phone—“is one of thousands that describe you as a playboy. This movie is about romance, so that’s not going to work.
I understand four months is longer than anticipated, but a one-month relationship isn’t going to fool anybody; it’ll only prove their point more. ”
“Okay, I get the point. Who is it, then?” Massaging the skin between my eyebrows, I waited.
“She’ll actually be here in—” She raised her wrist to read her watch, but was cut off by a knock on the door. “Right now!”
There was a bit of joy in the smile she held, which made me think this so-called meeting would be great for her, and torture for me.
But who would she…
No, she’d never. She wouldn’t.
It wouldn’t make any sense anyway because if production wanted romance, they wouldn’t get it with her. That woman didn’t do feelings—unless those feelings were about her appearance or winning. Grand slams and blown-out hair were the only things she cared about.
They’d never pick her.
Nari opened the door, and said with a smile, “It’s great to see you, Ms. Aldridge.”
My jaw came unhinged. “You’ve got to be—”
“Kieran.” She said my name the way others said well, look who it is. The who in question being the devil, because this whole scene was taking place in hell.
She wore gray belted dress pants, black heels, and a black top that didn’t hug her neck nearly enough. Maybe I could get in contact with her seamstress and request that they only supply her with clothes that didn’t allow airflow to pass.
Aldridge gave me a cold stare and sat at the farthest point at the table, pulling out her phone. Oh, now she wanted to be professional?
I turned to Nari. “This isn’t happening.”
Aldridge’s head snapped up. “He hasn’t agreed?”
With the famous Luna Aldridge looking slightly upset, now Nari started answering questions.
“Thought it would make for a fun meeting,” she said with a nervous grin.
People from management and PR entered the room, along with a slew of people I hadn’t seen before who sat around Aldridge. It was like we were preparing to negotiate a peace agreement after a war.
“Now let’s get started.” Nari clapped her hands.