CHAPTER 6
Kennedy
“You’re not my father?” Kennedy heard a woman say.
“You’re not my father?” another one said in a different inflection.
“You’re not my father,” a third woman whispered as she looked down at her sides.
Kennedy shook her head and looked up when someone finally said her name.
She was sitting in a room with ten other women, and they’d all been staring at her since she’d walked in.
This was not what Zane had promised her.
The women were all auditioning for other roles in the same film, which was about a doctor who had used his sperm to impregnate dozens of women until he had been found out, and over fifty men, women, and children had discovered that the dads they had thought to be theirs weren’t.
She would play one of the leads who had joined a court case, but not the main lead who had discovered what had happened.
The script was fine; a little cheesy at times, with characters telling other characters that they were siblings, blood, and that that meant something to them when they’d only just met, but she’d read worse.
What she was upset with was that she’d been told her audition would be handled privately, since she hadn’t needed to sit in a room like this for well over fifteen years.
Auditioning wasn’t beneath her. Kennedy understood the process and didn’t have a problem reading for a producer, director, or a casting director, but for years now, she had done that mostly remotely and on video first before being asked to come in for a chemistry read with someone if that had even been necessary.
Now, she was at a cattle call. She hated the term, but it applied.
She also recognized none of the women in this room, which meant that none of them had done anything big yet.
Kennedy was being treated like she was new, and that she did not appreciate.
“Hello, Miss. Gannon,” the casting director said when Kennedy entered the room.
“Kennedy, please,” she replied and set her purse on the chair at the front of the room. “Oh, hi, Francine,” she greeted a producer she knew.
“Hi, Kennedy,” Francine replied. “You can go whenever you’re ready.”
“Oh, okay. Sure. Who’s reading with me?”
“Me,” the casting director said.
Kennedy deflated; not because the casting director was reading with her, but because Francine being there should’ve gotten her at least a little small talk first or a comment about how Kennedy didn’t really need to do this.
“Sorry; the part is yours, obviously. This is only a formality,” Francine could have said but hadn’t, and no one else had, either.
Kennedy had memorized her lines, of course, because she was a pro, so she cleared her throat, signaling that she was ready to begin.
“How does it feel, finding out that your dad isn’t your dad?” the casting director, in character, asked.
“He’s still my dad. That asshole isn’t my dad.
He might be genetically my father, but that doesn’t make him a dad,” Kennedy said.
“And I want to press charges; join the case. I just need to convince my mother. She went into that clinic expecting my father’s sperm to be used and to have his child.
Now, she cries herself to sleep at night, and my dad stares at me all the time like he can’t quite process that I’m not biologically his. ”
“Can you even press charges? He didn’t do anything to you, technically,” the casting director said.
“I can’t, but I’m going to get her to do it.”
“Is that wise? What if she just wants to drop the whole thing and move on?”
“How do you move on from something like that? I have a brother. He’s, apparently, only my half-brother, but she got pregnant with him on her own two years after I was born, and we’ve been a happy family this whole time.
Finding this out, that I’m not really my dad’s blood, has devastated my whole family, and he should pay for that. ”
“Okay. Great. Thanks, Kennedy,” the casting director said.
“Oh. That’s all you need?” she asked.
“That’s all for now. We’ll call Zane and let him know what we want to do from here.”
“Okay. I can do anything on video, too, if you need it,” she said, feeling like she was begging for a job, which she had never done in her career.
“I’ll walk you out,” Francine replied as she stood.
Kennedy was a little in shock here. She’d been trying to tell herself that it was possible that she wouldn’t get it. That would have been one thing, but being treated like this, when she had been a bankable star her entire career, was something else entirely.
“Francine, what’s going on? You know I could play this part in my sleep,” she said when they were in the hallway.
“I know that. But the studio doesn’t want you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, the character is supposed to be about thirty. You’re… not that.”
“I’m only thirty-six.”
“And thirty-six-year-olds play forty and above; you know that. But Zane asked me to let you read, and I owe him one, so I did. I tried to get this done privately, but we’re behind, as usual, so we had to get you in today. I’m sorry, Kennedy.”
“So, I’m too old?”
“The lead is already decided on, and she’s younger than you, but she’s supposed to be older than what would’ve been your character, so it just wouldn’t work.”
“And that’s all it is?” she asked.
“No, it’s the other thing, too.”
“The fight?”
“You were seen screaming at your girlfriend at a party, Kennedy. Your hand was raised, from what I heard.”
“My hand was not raised.” She covered her mouth and then dropped her hand. “Is that what people are saying? That I raised my hand to my girlfriend?”
“That’s what I heard. I wasn’t there. The studio doesn’t want to deal with any of that, though.”
“I have never raised my hand to another person, let alone my girlfriend. Cameron didn’t throw a glass at a wall, either.
She accidentally knocked one over, and I might have pointed at her or the woman who’d been flirting with her while I was standing a few feet away, but I’ve never raised a hand to anyone. ”
“You know how this stuff happens. You just have to bide your time, do the interviews, and let it get out that you’re in therapy or something.”
“I’m not in therapy. I don’t need therapy. God, we had a stupid argument. It just happened to be in front of people. Now what, I’m supposed to just be back at square one?”
“Take some time off; you and Cameron both. I’m sure you could use it. Oh, go to the Bahamas. I just got back from there. Amazing.”
“We’ve been. We went there for one of our anniversaries. Thanks. And we’ve already talked about it: we don’t want to take time off. We just want to do our jobs.”
“Do you have to?”
“What?”
“Do you have to act? Maybe try your hand at writing or producing. Want to direct? I might be able to find you an episode of TV or something.”
“You’re tossing me a bone?”
“You know I’m in your corner. This is a studio movie based on a true story, though.
They want what they want, and they want awards.
Right now, they’re not convinced you can win them any, and the actress they have in the lead role might just. You know how this business is.
It’s all politics, money, and bullshit, but we’re all here anyway, aren’t we? ”
“I’d kill this role; you know that. I’d get a supporting nom for those awards they want.”
“Honey, this role isn’t as big as you think it is.”
“I’d make it big.”
“Maybe so, but you won’t get the chance.
I am sorry,” Francine told her and squeezed her forearm.
“If you want to direct, let me know. I’ve got a friend with a new drama he’s been working on for Showtime this summer.
I can get you a directing gig, probably.
You did a few episodes of your own show back in the day, right? ”
“Three, yes. Does your friend have any part for me?”
“Not that I know of. But I’ll ask, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” she replied, defeated.
She left Francine in the hallway and saw herself out and to her car, where her driver took them out of the lot. Kennedy couldn’t believe what had just happened.
“They think you were going to hit me?” Cameron asked when she arrived home.
“Apparently, that’s the new rumor. Or, maybe it’s been out, and Jessie and Zane missed it. I don’t know.” She kicked off her shoes and put them in their proper spot in her closet. “I just can’t believe it… God, Cam… I’d never.”
“Babe, I know,” Cameron said when Kennedy walked out.
She was sitting on the end of their bed, already dressed in her pajamas, which told Kennedy clearly that nothing was happening tonight because those were Cameron’s period pajamas.
She always wore her soft, thick flannel pants on the first and second day of her period, and even though they used to not have a problem having period sex, now it seemed like they didn’t want to have any at all.
Not that Kennedy was in the mood for anything right now anyway.
“Period start?” she asked.
“Yeah, this morning.”
Kennedy nodded and sat down next to her.
“Want some chocolate?”
“Yes, I do, but this is more important. She said people think you were about to hit me?”
“She said that she heard that I had my hand raised as if I might hit you. I remember pointing at you and her.”
“That’s all you did. Ken, I have never, ever thought for even a moment that you would do anything like that.”
“You really mean that? I need to hear it right now.” She sighed. “I can’t believe that someone would think I’d do that to you, but it would kill me if you thought it.”
“No. I thought you might yell some more, but that’s it. I’ve never worried about that.”
Kennedy nodded and said, “She told me that’s why the studio doesn’t want me. The real reason, anyway. There’s the age thing, too, but it’s more about this stupid fight that I can’t believe I started. She suggested we go to the Bahamas and get away for a while.”
“We’ve already been.”
“Yeah, I told her as much. I think she meant getting out of here, taking our faces off of billboards, social media, and everywhere else, and just disappearing for a while.”
“Kind of hard to do that when we just launched a campaign for charity.”
“Maybe after?” Kennedy asked softly.
“You want to go?”
“I don’t know, Cam. Maybe we should. I’m not getting parts anytime soon. I doubt you will, either. Maybe we do this charity double date thing, make it look really good, and leave town on a high note. We can take a few months off and just go somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“We talked about it. You said you wanted to work. And I want to work, too,” Cameron noted.
“Do you want to write, produce, or direct?”
“Huh? No, I want to act.”
“Francine said she could get me a directing gig this summer, but nothing else unless I want to produce or write. I’m not a writer,” Kennedy shared.
“You could produce something,” Cameron suggested. “We’ve never really talked about doing that, but we could.”
“I don’t want to produce. I mean, they gave me the producer credit on my show after season four, but I didn’t actually do anything.”
“I don’t want to produce, either. I went to drama school for a reason, you know?” Cameron said.
“Apparently, we both caused so much of that, we’re unemployable now.”
Cameron chuckled and replied, “I’m sorry. I wish I had told her to walk away and leave me alone, but I thought she might cause a scene. She was already talking really loudly, almost as if she wanted people to overhear her.”
“She wanted to be seen linked with you, Cam. She’s one of those: famous, but not well-known before that, and if she could be seen talking to you, maybe that could take her places. If that had been all she was going after, I probably wouldn’t have reacted how I did. I just–”
“You were really that jealous, huh?”
Kennedy wished she could say it had been jealousy over the fact that her girlfriend was being hit on in front of her, but it hadn’t really been that.
It had been a stupid territory thing. Cameron was hers, and that woman had no right to flirt with her right in front of Kennedy’s face.
It had also been an anger thing, and an alcohol thing, because Kennedy had had a few.
There was some jealousy there, yes, but it hadn’t been all about that or even mostly about it.
“Yeah,” she lied. “So, chocolate?”
“I can make you a cup, too,” Cameron offered.
“You’re the one cramping right now. I’ve got it.” Kennedy stood up after patting Cameron’s thigh. “Need the heating pad, too?”
“I’ll get it. Can you grab the Nutella too, though? Maybe with a sliced banana.”
“And strawberries?” she guessed.
“Yes,” Cameron said and smiled. “Thank you.”
Kennedy headed toward the kitchen. She didn’t mind taking care of Cameron, who never asked for much and preferred to do things for herself most of the time.
Cameron had always been a good patient when sick and just about as low-maintenance as they came, and Kennedy needed that in her life because she could be, well, a little high-maintenance herself.
She hated being forced to take medicine or eat when she didn’t want to.
Tonight, she would take care of her girlfriend, making sure she ate and took something for her cramps.
She’d put on Cameron’s favorite show to binge-watch, and she’d scroll on her phone, checking out possible travel destinations for them.
Maybe they could go to Italy. They had only been there for work once and hadn’t had any time to explore.
Kennedy had been there for a premiere, and Cameron had been her beautiful date.
They’d snuck out of the premiere early and, in their fancy outfits, sat outside at a restaurant, sharing bread they dipped in oil, having pizza with wine, and laughing a lot.
No one had recognized them or cared that they had been there, and they’d gone back to their hotel a little tipsy, made love, and had left the following morning.
“Yeah, we could do Italy. Rome or Florence, maybe. Florence would be better, I think,” she said to herself as she made hot chocolate for Cameron, not wanting any herself.
When finished, she carried everything back to their bedroom and found Cameron under the covers, already asleep.
Her period did this to her sometimes, just completely knocked her out with exhaustion.
Kennedy didn’t want the food to go to waste, though, so she sat in bed and ate it all before going to sleep herself.