Chapter 3
Chapter Three
P iper held the last note of the opening song until she’d emptied all the air in her lungs, but she noticed Rachel Morris managed to make it a beat longer.
“Thank you!” Piper waved to the room full of professional actors and flashed what she hoped was a grateful-looking smile at her pretend sister.
Rachel wasn’t just talented, she was skilled in a way few other mortals could match. She’d honed her voice and her attitude to razor-sharp edges that left everyone around her walking barefoot on broken shards of glass.
“You were fantastic, Rachel.”
Rachel the Diva offered a self-deprecating dip of her head, then swept back to her seat.
Piper had spent a lifetime dealing with divas. If it were an Olympic sport, she would have twenty gold medals and counting. As long as Rachel felt important, rehearsals would run smoothly, but the second she suspected she wasn’t the center of attention, the claws and teeth and snotty comments came out .
Della was used to being the center of attention too, but Rachel demanded it where Della simply received it.
Piper had a brief vision of Rachel and Della singing together on stage. They’d probably vocally duel each other until someone’s head exploded.
After Rachel sailed past the cast without so much as a nod of acknowledgment, Piper stopped to squeeze hands and give her personal thanks to the group of lingering singers. They’d just made magic, and they’d done it together. It wouldn’t have sounded half as good without their backup and support, and they needed to know that their efforts were appreciated.
Everyone deserved to be acknowledged.
“Excellent!” Tamar shouted through cupped hands. “Do it exactly like that in the studio. Now let’s move on to the second scene.”
Piper drifted back to her seat with her heart thumping in her chest a lot harder than it should have been. She was high on the adrenaline of performing for so many big names in such a small setting. The connection to her audience had been intensely personal and a lot more immediate than she usually felt on stage. It was exhilarating and more than a little nerve-wracking.
She shouldn’t be this nervous. It was a simple five-minute song. She routinely did sets that lasted for hours, in front of thousands of people. Today, though, her audience included legends of the entertainment industry and Blake Freaking Ryan.
She still couldn’t believe she was sitting next to Hollywood’s Hottest Man. She swore the gravity in the room shifted every time he smiled. He was heads-turning, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and he sat in the chair next to her like it was a normal, everyday thing.
Blake was the prom king and the football star, magnified a thousand times. People shouldn’t be allowed to walk around in public looking like that. And how was she supposed to focus when he smelled so good? That heady mix of woody musk and citrus made her want to bury her nose in his neck. It was distracting and completely unfair.
Piper found herself surreptitiously checking what he thought the entire time she was singing. They’d revoke her confident woman card, but she didn’t care. She really wanted to impress him, but for the first half of the song he just sat there looking stunned. She had no idea what to make of that. Maybe he hadn’t expected them to have a full show rehearsed?
He watched her walk back to her seat with his lips twisted into a disbelieving smile that implied he was impressed or maybe relieved by what he’d just heard.
Some of her performance high curdled in her stomach.
Blake golf clapped as she sat down. “Great job. You really held your own.”
She grew up in the Deep South. He might as well have added a bless-your-heart at the end of that sentence. What a condescending jerk!
Some of his prom king glow faded away.
What had he expected, that she’d fall flat on her face? Did he think because Della was always front and center that it meant she couldn’t sing? Annoyance prickled up the back of her neck.
Two could play the Southern insult game. “Thanks. Your opinion means the world to me.”
Blake blinked, then turned his attention to the script pages in front of him.
Tamar rang a loud bell several times. “Scene two, Douglas, please read.”
Douglas, a young man with a booming baritone and thick beard, read the stage directions as if they were a movie trailer. “Princess Jewel hears a loud bang, then a scream. She races to the door just in time to see the evil sorcerer Malignon scoop Elaine up into a flying machine. Elaine struggles, but he has a glowing dagger at her throat so she can’t get away. Princess Jewel rushes outside, afraid for her sister and angry at Malignon. It’s raining. The castle guards ready their weapons, but they don’t dare attack. It’s a standoff.”
Blake tapped the script in front of Piper. “You’re up, Princess.”
Piper flushed and turned her attention to the page she was supposed to be reading.
Right, her sister was being held captive by the evil sorcerer.
“Let my sister go!” She read the line with a lot more force than she’d intended.
The evil sorcerer, Jeremy, responded from across the room in a sultry, seductive tone. “Give me the map and I will return her safe and sound, Princess. The map, for your sister’s life. That’s the deal.”
“The map won’t work for you!” Piper stood up, hyped up with song adrenaline and irritated by Blake’s inexplicable reaction to her performance. “It’s bonded to me. If you try to read it all you’ll see is a blank page. Now give her back!”
She shouted the last line to show her character’s anger and frustration. A couple of the kids along the wall giggled, and Rachel watched her with judgmental eyes that told Piper exactly how little talent Rachel thought she had.
Blake actually cringed.
Maybe she’d gone a little overboard.
She’d been on stage most of her life, but she’d never felt as intimidated as she did in that moment. Now she understood why Jeremy Graham was a Hollywood legend. He’d transformed himself from the nice older man who’d offered to give her a ride to the studio in his helicopter so she could avoid rush-hour traffic into an evil sorcerer who’d taken her sister. She had no idea how he’d crossed that line without any visible effort, but she wished she had that skill. Could he teach her how to do that? Or would he laugh in her face if she asked ?
She kept her voice a lot more subdued after that. Scene two featured another song, only this time, she was lead since Rachel’s character had been carted off. She nailed the determination and fear and ended on a low note that brought instant applause.
When she took her seat, she found Blake watching her with his brows furrowed in confusion.
“Did I miss a note or something?” she asked him.
“No.” Blake sounded a little distant. “You were pitch-perfect on the song.”
The way he said it made her think it was his polite way of saying something was wrong, but before she could ask for more feedback, Tamar called for the next scene.
The point of view switched to introduce Blake’s character, Jesse, which meant she could relax for a little while.
Blake started speaking, and it was as if a whole new person sat next to her. He barely looked at the script, which meant he’d memorized the lines even though he’d only signed on a couple of weeks ago.
“I promise I will find that stone,” Blake said as he stood up. “I’ll do whatever it takes. You can count on me. After all…”
Blake launched into his song with bravado. “I’ve defended our ports from the pirates, I’ve beaten bandits and monsters and more.”
He climbed up onto the table and planted his feet wide, with his hands on his hips. “Slaying a dragon? No problem. I’ll come through.”
He glanced down at Piper and put his hand to his mouth as if whispering. “I have to. That’s what I’m here for.”
Blake strode up and down the table, hamming it up for his audience as he tried to convince everyone that he was the right man for the job, including himself.
Piper listened to him sing, a little confused. Blake was a tenor with a natural edge that lent character and style to the vocals, but every now and then, he missed a note, spoke rather than sang, or over-exaggerated the line.
She hadn’t expected that. His father was Eddie Ryan, the crooner known for a mellow baritone that melted hearts. She’d been a huge fan herself when she was younger. She’d expected Blake to sound a lot like his dad, but he didn’t. He sounded a little rough around the edges.
He’d only had two weeks to get familiar with the material, which might explain it. It was impressive that he not only knew all the songs but the dialogue as well. He had talent, no question, and she could see why they’d cast him as Jesse.
Blake sang with enthusiasm. His performance was magnetic, if not technically correct, but with a father like that, she was sure he knew what he was doing. So why was he holding back?
He finished the song with a swish of an imaginary sword lifted toward the ceiling in triumph while the backup singers all swooned.
Piper laughed and joined in the applause with everyone else. She hadn’t imagined Jesse’s solo sounding anything like what it just had, but now she couldn’t imagine it any other way. Blake added swagger, which made it entertaining and fun. They could focus on the vocals in the studio when he wasn’t trying to impress a room full of people.
Blake plopped down into his chair, a little out of breath.
“That was fun.” She smiled encouragingly at him just like she would any new musician.
He grinned proudly at her. “Thanks. Glad you liked it.”
“Can’t wait to work it out in the studio,” she said.
His grin slipped. “Work what out?”
“Fantastic job everyone,” Tamar shouted. “Now it’s time for our young heroes to meet. Ms. Bellamy, if you would be so kind as to take us into the third scene.”
Piper launched into her lines, focused on being the determined princess in the forest trying to follow a magic map that wasn’t cooperating.
Blake stiffened next to her as if he found the way she read physically painful.
She was berating her magic map when she heard Blake whisper, “Relax.”
She stumbled over the next word and had to repeat it, twice, before she got it right. “Sorry. Throat’s dry.”
“That’s all right,” Tamar said in a kind voice. “This is just a read-through. No need to be perfect.”
“No chance of that,” Rachel said under her breath loud enough for Piper to hear, but not loud enough to catch Tamar’s attention.
“Just let yourself sink into the character,” Tamar said. “Have fun with it.”
“There’s no pressure,” Jeremy said in his soothing baritone. “Not today, at any rate.”
“No, pressure happens when you face the dragon.” Gina rolled the r in dragon.
“Nah,” Paul said. The pink flamingos on his shirt glowed under the studio lights. “Pressure’s when we put the voice with the art and realize they don’t mesh and I have to tell you all to come back in to do it over and over and over. That’s pressure.”
Several people groaned their agreement.
“The point is, there is no pressure here today,” Tamar said firmly.
“That’s right. We’re all dedicated to this project,” Rachel said in a voice that would have easily carried to the back row in a theater. She smiled and turned to Piper. “I’m sure we are all giving it our best effort.”
Everyone turned their attention back to Piper. The air thickened with anticipation, or maybe that was just her own insecurity making her chest feel tight .
“No pressure. Right.” Piper opened a bottle of water and took several long gulps.
She could tell something was wrong with the way she was approaching her part, but she had no idea what. When she read the lines straight, Blake stiffened and several people around the room looked bored.
When she put feeling into the words, she saw Rachel roll her eyes.
Getting ready for a concert in front of hundreds of thousands of people had never been this exasperating.
Three sentences later, when she was pleading with her map to stop giving her bad directions, she felt Blake actually flinch.
She stopped and stared at him.
He might as well be holding a sign that said, “Stop torturing me.”
“What?” she whispered. “Did I miss a line or something?”
“Or something,” he muttered.
Rachel cleared her throat. “Will we break for lunch soon?”
Tamar gave her a patient smile. “After we finish this scene. Please continue, Ms. Bellamy.”
Piper read the next lines faster.
By the time Blake’s character showed up on the page, she’d resorted to a short, clipped, irritated approach to the read. Princess Jewel was, after all, supposed to be frustrated by the time Jesse offered to help.
Tamar clapped her hands twice. “Okay, okay, time for lunch. Bathroom’s down the hall to the left, food is to the right. Out the front door to the picnic tables to smoke.”
Tamar already had a cigarette in her hand.
Everyone sprang from their chairs as if suddenly liberated from a boring lecture.
She thought she heard Blake mutter “Thank God” under his breath as he walked away, but maybe she’d imagined it .
Piper studied the rest of the scene. She and Blake had a short duet coming up, but she didn’t think they were going to actually perform it since they hadn’t rehearsed together yet. Then there were the chase scenes, which heavily featured her and her leading man, as did the rest of the story.
The day had started out frustrating and had morphed into complete and utter torture. Everything she tried was wrong, and they were barely into the third scene.
Maybe she shouldn’t read at all. She knew the lines. She’d been practicing them for months, and from the looks of things, they hadn’t changed since she was first given the script.
Blake never even glanced at the script. He just said the words.
No reason she couldn’t do that.
“Is everything okay, Piper?” Gina Paige leaned against the table next to her. “You seem tense.”
“She has opening-day jitters,” Jeremy said. “I’ve seen this time and again.”
“It’s an animated movie. There’s no opening day to be jittery about,” Gina said. “Right, Piper?”
Piper grabbed her bottle of water and stood up. “I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting all this. I thought read-through meant, well, actually reading. But you’re all so good, we should be in the studio.”
“Oh, you’re not wrong,” Gina said. “Most table reads are a lot more subdued. In fact, the read-through for my last project took place at a bar over mussels and a pitcher of beer. Come to think of it, I’m not sure we actually finished the read.”
Jeremy nodded his agreement. “Animated features tend to be a lot more involved early on because of the back-end work. Did you notice the department heads taking notes as we went along?”
Piper glanced at the gaggle of people heading out the door. She’d met the department heads and some of the animators because she liked to stop by from time to time and see how the artwork was coming along. She was fascinated with the entire process, but so far, she hadn’t been able to see much of her main character. “They said they’d be in the studio so they could base character movements on what we did in there. I didn’t realize they were going to watch here too.”
“There’s always eyes watching here,” Gina said in an exaggeratedly ominous voice. “They record these sessions so the animators can use them later. That’s why everybody’s on their best behavior.”
She pointed to the far wall, where a camera hung from one of the tracks in the ceiling.
“Oh.” Piper stared at the traitorous device and realized that her entire morning’s worth of cringe-worthy acting had been captured for posterity and playback. It might even show up as bonus material after the movie release so that people worldwide could witness her humiliation.
A flush crept up her cheeks and burned her ears.
She wanted to hide her face or maybe take up smoking so she could go outside, away from the camera and the judgmental glances, but that wasn’t going to fix what had already happened.
Instead, she offered a half-hearted wave to the camera and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
Jeremy and Gina exchanged a look.
“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” Jeremy said in a soothing tone that made her feel worse. “We’ve all given bad performances.”
“At least yours probably won’t make the final cut,” Gina said. “Since this is animated, there’s a good chance no one will actually see it.”
Piper winced. “I overdid it, didn’t I.”
“I wouldn’t say that exactly,” Jeremy said.
Gina stared at her with frank directness. “You overdid it, then you underdid it, then you did a sort of sideways twist I’ve never seen before. It was impressively awful.”
“Gina,” Jeremy admonished.
“What? It’s the truth. If we don’t tell her now, she might do it again.” Gina softened her tone. “What happened to you this morning? I know you’re better than this. Our song rehearsals have all been spectacular.”
“My sister showed up and was her usual self,” Piper said. She was more frustrated with her own reaction than with anything Della had actually done. “She’s good at pushing buttons.”
“Ah, family,” Jeremy said with an understanding nod. “Can’t live with them, and it’s illegal to have them kidnapped, although I do know a guy.”
Piper couldn’t tell if he was serious or just kidding around. One thing she’d noticed about actors, it was next to impossible to tell if they were being themselves or if they were playing the part they thought you wanted to see.
“I’m not sure this was your sister’s fault,” Gina said. “Your singing was spot-on. It was the dialogue that threw you. Could it be something or some one else distracted you?”
Gina cast a significant glance to where Rachel had cornered Blake Ryan.
Judging by the gestures Rachel made and the furtive glances Blake shot in her direction, they were probably talking about her.
Hell, everyone was probably talking about her by now.
“This is so not how I wanted today to go.” Piper closed her eyes and tried not to think about how she’d just made a fool of herself in front of the entire cast. “Maybe I can talk Tamar into turning the whole thing into a musical.”
“Now, no need to wallow.” Gina patted her shoulder. “You know what to do, you just aren’t letting it out. Take what you do on stage while singing and apply it to the spoken words. You’ve performed in front of audiences all over the world, so this tiny room filled with highly respected professionals should be no trouble at all.”
Jeremy patted her other shoulder. “Everyone’s nervous and a bit stiff on the first day. By the end of the week, you’ll be too tired to worry about it.”
“We won’t get through the whole thing today?” Piper asked, astounded.
The movie couldn’t be more than two hours long. Even with the songs, they should have been able to read all the lines in a day.
Gina laughed. “Of course not. Today is a straight run, then we’ll do it again with notes. Although this is animated, so maybe some of the notes happen in studio?”
Gina looked questioningly at Jeremy.
“Since it’s Tamar, I would imagine both.” Jeremy gestured to the room at large. “Today is all about chemistry. Getting to know each other, getting to know our characters, getting to know what the director is looking for. Tomorrow, we’ll really dive into it and you’ll forget all about today.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget today.” Piper played with the cap on her bottle and wondered if there was any way this day could get any worse.
Under the cursed camera, Rachel the Diva touched Blake’s arm in an intimate, possessive gesture that shouted, “Mine.” Blake didn’t exactly flinch, and his expression was friendly, but Piper had the feeling he didn’t like being cornered by Rachel.
“Do Blake and Rachel know each other well?” Piper asked her cohorts.
“Oh, I think they had a fling way, way back,” Jeremy said. “They were a hot item on the set of What If . You know, teenage hormones and all that. Rumor had it she had plans for their future, but then the set wrapped and he left the country as fast as a private jet could carry him.”
“You’re a complete gossip whore, Jeremy.” Gina shook her head. “You’d drag yourself through the gutter naked if it meant you could share something juicy.”
“So are you. Don’t pretend you aren’t.” Jeremy waved her accusation away. “In this town, it’s not who you know, it’s what you know about who you know. Information is king, sweetheart, and I do so love a crown.”