Chapter 2 #2
I knew that Michael didn’t want to hear from me what it was like on set, at least on set for Vindicators.
Considering the budget and the intricacy of the sets and special effects, I was in no way just allowed to walk myself from my trailer to the water cooler with my bottle.
Between the studio’s legal department and the various unions involved, that water had to be fetched for me.
The first time it had happened, I’d of course felt like an entitled bitch, but that had been over five years ago. Like anything, you got used to it.
Neil’s toast had wrapped up while I was getting educated on water, which meant there was no warning. Suddenly, Rebecca was speaking.
“—so honored to receive an introduction like that from Neil Bryant,” she said in that warm and comfortable tone.
Once upon a time I’d only heard it when we were alone together.
“I know this room must be full of fellow Neil fans, which is only one of the reasons I’m beyond thrilled to be here.
Stepping in to helm a production like this one is an honor, and I want to thank everyone at Downtown Theatre Association for placing your trust in me.
Cast and creative team, I know you aren’t a team I constructed myself, but I’m eager to dig in and build something together. ”
Everyone in the room had their focus set on Rebecca, so I decided that it was finally safe to do the same.
If I shifted in my seat just a little, I could watch as she addressed us.
Her thick shoulder-length brown hair was tucked practically, almost carelessly, behind her ears, and simple gold earrings glinted under the fluorescent lights.
Her pale green tortoiseshell square-framed glasses said both fashion and boss in one economical go.
Rebecca’s attention moved as the creative team began their presentations.
The rest of the cast oohed and aahed over the scale model of the set, but my gaze felt stuck and that was how I ended up staring hard at my ex-girlfriend with a few dozen people and members of the press in full view—people who likely knew that Professional Actress Tess Gardner had only publicly dated men.
I—someone who knew exactly what to do with her face to convey specific emotions—frantically racked my brain for the appropriate expression to show …
well, therein lay the problem! What emotion should I perform for Rebecca?
Was it too late for apology, too self-indulgent for guilt, too inappropriate for a private smile reminding her that once upon a time she’d loved me very much?
Rebecca, though, wasn’t really looking. She turned her focus again, her gaze skimming over me. Rebecca deemed me unworthy of her attention. And considering what I’d done, how could I blame her?
Once the costume designer had displayed her sketches and the lighting designer presented his designs, the presentational portion seemed to be over.
I glanced down at my script, simultaneously ready to begin this process and also wondering if I should text my team to get me out of this ASAP, but a man wearing a gray suit that looked far more New York than Los Angeles stood and walked to the front of the room.
“Hi, everyone. For the few of you who don’t know me, I’m Patrick Russell Miles, one of the producers.
I’ve been so psyched about this production ever since I got a look at Stephanie’s fantastic script.
What a thrill to be here with Neil and team.
Look, you may have heard, we were absolutely eyeing some potential dates for a Broadway transfer, but let’s not worry about that now.
Our goal is to make this production the best possible, considering all these recent changes. ”
He gestured to Stephanie, Neil, and Rebecca as if he was a game show host announcing the prize was a brand-new car. “Let me tell you, it feels great to be presenting this play by a female writer in a production directed by a female director at a theatre that truly honors diversity.”
I couldn’t believe he’d have the nerve to brag about the diversity a queer female director brought to the show when she was only here as a last-minute replacement for a straight white cis man now accused of sexual improprieties.
Actually, no, of course I could. Straight white cis men did things like that all the time.
“And look at this cast! Led by Princess Platinum herself!”
I was adept at keeping my expression more pleasant than any scenario called for, but if the rest of the cast didn’t think I belonged here—which felt fair to assume, given context clues—this was hardly helping matters.
Fortunately, Patrick Russell Miles’s speech wrapped up quickly, and much of the crowd headed out, leaving a smaller group behind for the table read.
I did my best to act casual about this, though most of me was internally screaming that I couldn’t just begin reading a script while Rebecca Frisch sat there.
And, incomprehensibly, a little part of me was internally screaming because I enjoyed table reads so much and the work was truly beginning.
I’d always loved this part, hearing everyone in their roles for the first time, slipping into a character and feeling out my new edges.
In film we so rarely got this opportunity; budgets and schedules didn’t often allow for rehearsals, much less table reads with the whole cast present.
I also missed the size of theatre, acting with your whole body, your whole voice, not the micro-expressions that made more sense onscreen. A table read like this was a gift.
Even if no one liked me, and my ex-girlfriend was sitting mere feet away. And my entire self was reduced to one big internal scream.
“I can’t believe they’re all right outside this door.
” As I read my short opening monologue, I felt that they were right outside my door too—like Casey, my character who’d called her family to her after years apart.
In this rehearsal space, I reminded myself that I wasn’t Princess Platinum.
I wasn’t the anti-hero who’d broken anyone’s heart. I wasn’t even myself right now.
Michael cleared his throat, delivered his line, stayed leaned back in his chair next to me like this was a low-key affair.
When Henry spoke, he matched Michael’s vibe, and even though Casey-slash-I didn’t speak again for another couple of script pages, somehow my performance grew worse and worse the more the other actors spoke and my overemotive lines hung there in the air between us.
Rebecca scribbled constantly onto her script, which may have been standard but also might portend terrible possibilities.
By my next line, I’d overthought it—and, of course, underhydrated—and rasped out a weak and dry reading, Rebecca scribbling the whole time.
By the time we reached the last page, I couldn’t say that I felt good but I was fairly certain I hadn’t made a complete fool of myself.
Still, it wasn’t the kind of performance that would have gotten me the role in the first place, and I knew it.
With the other actors, there was this ineffable spark from within.
Anyone could see how special they were, how carefully selected they’d been for those roles.
For myself, though, there was nothing.
“Thanks so much, everyone,” Rebecca said, after the requisite overenthusiastic applause. “I’m excited to dive back into it, but for now, let’s break for lunch. We’ll meet back in an hour to chat and go through it again.”
Retrospectively humiliatingly, I’d assumed the theatre would have craft services, so I watched as groups clumped off to grab food. Rebecca, Neil, and Stephanie breezed out of the room together without a look back in my direction.
A prickle of fear rumbled in my gut, that I didn’t deserve to be here, that I wasn’t a real actor anymore.
I’d forgotten how to do this—maybe I’d never known how to do this?
I’d gotten so used to walking onto a set and knowing how it would go.
Was it possible that Pantheon movies were the only thing I was good at now?
The younger me had loved the stage so much that I hadn’t stopped to consider the reality of this, hadn’t given it a moment’s thought to wonder if that person was even still me.
The Hometown opportunity arrived as an offer, not an audition, and there was no way I’d ever know if I would have gotten cast otherwise.
And all of that would still have been true even if Rebecca wasn’t here. But she was here, and considering both our past and my performance, I did wonder if an actor could get fired from a read-through. Maybe, despite the crushing humiliation, it would even be best?
“It’s lunchtime, if you didn’t hear.”
I looked up to see Verne frowning in my direction, two phones still deployed. Were they filming this? Tess Gardner: alone, dehydrated, hungry.
“I hadn’t planned a lunch,” I said with a wave of my hand. “You aren’t using this for content, are you?”
“This would be terrible content, Tess,” they said. “The stand in the courtyard is pretty mid, but I’ve made worse food decisions.”
“Thanks,” I said, instead of explaining I was wearing my Professional Actress Tess Gardner costume today, which made doing things like casually walking outside to a food stand potentially tricky.
It wasn’t a relatable problem and made me sound about a thousand percent more conceited than I wanted to.
Or was, of course, I hoped. God. One morning of awkwardness and I had no idea who I was anymore.
It wasn’t polite or privilege-acknowledging to complain that my life experience of prom queen coronations and People’s Choice Awards and playing Princess Platinum hadn’t prepared me for a morning such as this one, but, wow, it really had not.
Verne, I realized, was still regarding me as a project they had to solve, so I raised an eyebrow and tried to look as adorably relatable as possible.
“This is going to sound ridiculous, but if I go outside looking like myself and not a generic Eastside aging millennial hipster—that’s my off-the-clock vibe—it could turn into a whole thing.
I’ll be fine until dinner, don’t worry. Go manage your Instagram Reels or whatever more important duties you have. ”
“Manage my Instagram Reels?” Verne sighed like only a young person could in the path of a woman hurtling toward middle age. “I’m getting you a salad. It’s the best thing on the menu. Sound good?”
I nodded and placed my hands over my heart to show gratitude, which certainly wasn’t helping my case with a far younger and cooler person.
The cast trailed back in, along with Kevin the stage manager.
Conversation swirled around me, so I tried to look open and friendly and in no way like some entitled villainous bitch while also checking my texts as well as the recipes I’d bookmarked for dinner later.
Since no one seemed to want to include me, I focused on the instructions for searing salmon.
“Here you go.” Verne deposited a to-go container and a pamplemousse seltzer on the table in front of me. “You didn’t say what beverage you wanted but LaCroix seemed like a safe bet.”
“It’s perfect,” I said, feeling strangely seen. “Thank you so much.”
“Wait,” Michael said, turning away from Henry as I popped open the salad container and poured in the vinaigrette. “Did you ask the social media director to run an errand for you? Wow.”
“No, I—Verne offered and—”
I froze when Rebecca walked into the room.
Of course I’d pictured this moment where we made eye contact and really saw each other again.
I’d pictured it when I was new to Los Angeles, Rebecca flying in unexpectedly to find and surprise me.
I’d pictured it the next time I went to New York, running into her in Midtown.
I’d pictured her rolling a carry-on behind her, surprised to see we were seated next to each other on a long international flight.
Rebecca looked like the moments my brain had concocted, or at least the more recent ones.
There was a reason her style had been covered as if she was someone more famous than a theatre director.
The specifics weren’t the point, of course, but still, the specifics were good.
Today she was wearing a breathtakingly tailored berry-colored blazer over a vintage T-shirt on top of wide-leg black pants that at nearly six-foot she was tall enough to pull off.
My stylist forbade me from sneakers for anything but the occasional pap-walk photo, but Rebecca’s look was finished off with a pair of Nikes and there was no denying it was a perfect finishing touch.
Despite all that concocting, in absolutely none of my fantasies had Rebecca and I looked directly at one another while I was being shamed for salad solicitation with my mouth still wide open.
“Unbelievable,” Michael muttered, and even though I considered myself very well-behaved, I did briefly entertain the fantasy of how his hair would look doused in apple cider vinaigrette.
“Please, no one stop because I walked back in the room,” Rebecca said, and I could feel it was addressed to the whole group and not me specifically.
Still, I refocused on my meal and my plans for the evening and tried not to think about how I’d had a chance to get out of this as recently as this morning and maybe I should have taken it.