Chapter 2 #2
“I knew it!” Bex said, pointing at Sam. “See? I figured it out, because I know this town. Ramona is breaking streaming records with her comeback on The Howling, reminding her old fans and a whole new generation that she can act her actual pants off anytime she wants to. Naturally, Hollywood is going to ask, ‘What cheap trick could we do to get even more viewers? Wait, no, this is perfect! Let’s make her act in front of the whole world with the two men she was with on the night their friend died.’” She smiled at Sam in triumph, and then her face fell.
“That came out wrong. I didn’t mean to make light of a tragedy.
I only mean that is what I would expect. From Hollywood.”
“You two don’t know everything.” Vic sounded put out at the theft of her thunder.
“Then tell us what we don’t know,” Sam countered.
Vic exhaled, as long and beleaguered as a person could without passing out. “I’m not sure I want to anymore. I’m feeling very silenced.”
“Vic!” Sam and Bex barked this at the same time.
“Now I am feeling empowered again.” Vic leaned back.
“I wonder, is what I might know interesting to you? Is it interesting to hear that Piper didn’t like working with Chad and Sloan—she said they were ick—and Ramona liked working with them even less?
Piper told me that by the end of the week, Ramona was pulling out diva behavior.
It got messy. But the episode’s in the can now, as of Friday.
Everyone takes the weekend to grab a breath.
Only then, Ramona’s MIA on set this morning, and we all know what that means. The studio’s freaking out.”
Vic smiled like a little gremlin and nibbled her wing.
“‘We all know what that means,’ meaning what?” Bex reached across the table and took Vic’s wing from her fingers. “Don’t forget I could cut you off.”
Vic rolled her eyes with the confidence of a well-loved child.
“Meaning they’re assuming Ramona’s going to turn up in an arroyo in forty-eight hours bombed out of her mind, wearing nothing but a silk scarf.
You know, I heard she stole a director’s Bentley, parked it at the edge of a canyon, and then put a rock on the gas, sending it into oblivion, all because he hired a body double for her who had bigger boobs.
” She tapped her chin. “I don’t know where I heard that, but that’s what I heard. ”
Bex wrinkled her nose. “I’ve heard things, too.
Like Ramona taking off for months or years to live in the desert after a hospital stay for exhaustion.
I feel like there was a luscious profile once with pictures of her living in an adobe hut wearing flowing linen layers.
She always comes back, of course, usually with a new religion or exercise practice that purportedly saved her life.
” She sighed. “The woman is talented with a capital iconic, but doesn’t she need this comeback?
Surely she only has so many comebacks in her at this point in her career. You can’t come back from a comeback.”
Sam was rooting for Ramona to stay the course, if only because her IMDb profile looked a lot like the one Sam had thought she herself would have, once upon a time: a mix of independent films and big-studio projects.
Roles that made her stretch and learn things.
No-money work she took because she believed in the message.
That was what Sam had assumed she’d be doing when she moved to Los Angeles, twenty-two years old and fresh out of Yale School of Drama.
Instead, she was cast on Utopia nearly instantly.
After a few years, she made the lateral move to Craven’s Daughter.
She imagined telling her current team that she admired Ramona’s career.
Their collective horror was not difficult to picture.
Ramona Watts was unreliable and ungovernable.
If she were a man, her unpredictable behavior would only enhance her industry-wide reputation.
But while a difficult man was a genius, a difficult woman was a liability.
This went double or triple for queer people like Sam. Black women. The list went on.
In the arts, it was always better to be unknown, with no history or projects to speak of.
Then you could break out like a thoroughbred in the home stretch—far preferable to being a consistently talented actor with a reputation for even a single whisper of struggle.
It meant that career longevity for non-men almost required a series of comebacks where you could fake to the world that you were shiny, brand-new, and unsullied by experience.
Sam wondered when she would be forced to reinvent herself. She supposed that would be determined by Theomina’s box-office returns. Or what Bradley Wilhite decided about her fate.
The thought was so preoccupying that Sam missed the next thing Vic said. She had to mentally rewind to catch up.
“It’s worse than that,” Vic had just told her sister.
“Piper says Ramona’s been on thin ice, anyway, because of her past behavior.
With the way she acted last week, the director is fed up.
She said in front of the whole cast and crew this morning that they can get by shooting without Ramona for a few days, but if she’s not in the studio ready to go on Friday morning, she’s going to be written off the show. ”
Bex held up a finger and then bounced over to a credenza in the dining room. She opened a drawer and pulled out a notebook, then returned to the table, where she reclaimed her seat. When she clicked open her pen, Sam’s heart skipped a beat.
Bex didn’t whip out her famous notebooks to doodle in. One of those notebooks had kept their investigation into the murder they’d solved six months ago from going off the rails.
“So what do we think happened?” Bex asked. “What do we know?”
“Wait.” Vic peered at her sister. “You got out the notebook.”
“I need to keep my thoughts in order.”
“Why?”
“Because we just established that Ramona didn’t show up for work today despite a clear ultimatum from the studio that she be on her best behavior.
What the director said in front of everyone probably wasn’t just her blowing off steam.
It’s likely a condition of Ramona’s employment, inked in her contract.
StudioHonor is the streaming arm of Howell Motion Pictures, and they aren’t known to mess around.
That’s concerning. Did your friend Piper or anyone else on set or with the studio call the police? File a report?”
Vic blinked. Her blue eyes were huge and, for a few long seconds, blank. Then her mind seemed to come back online all at once, and she bounced in her chair with barely suppressed excitement. “I don’t know! But I will definitely find out.”
If Bex loved to be right, Vic loved drama of any kind. Particularly the kind she had initiated and was taken seriously by her older sister.
Sam had a sinking feeling about this development. If she and Bex were only going to have a week together, she didn’t want to lose it to diving headfirst into the shallow end of somebody else’s business.
“If I’m remembering right,” Bex said, “Ramona won an Emmy, a SAG award, and a Golden Globe for her work on The Howling in its first season.” She jotted notes down rapidly, tracking her pen back to underline words as she spoke.
“I find it hard to believe she did all that while being unstable on set, regardless of what might be going on in her personal life.” Bex put down her pen.
“I don’t like it. I don’t want to give in to bystander effect and assume someone else has reported this and is looking for Ramona.
What if it isn’t the kind of thing where time is on your side? ”
Sam knew better than to throw down the tire spikes right this second.
Bex and Vic would only protest. Loudly. Sam would give it one more page in the notebook and then steer the ship back to Vic and Bex’s own lives until Vic got sleepy from the sugar in her tamarind soda and wandered off.
Then Sam would have an opportunity to see what kind of effect her outfit was having on Bex.
Bex’s phone chimed. She picked it up and swiped to look. “It’s the security system.”
She tapped her screen, and Vic leaned close, peering at it. “What is it? Is it a bad guy or a bear? Remember how I had to call you in the middle of the night last month because there was a bear?”
Bex held up her finger, then put her phone to her ear. “Hello?”
There was the sound of someone talking. Sam looked at Vic, who whispered, “I couldn’t tell who it was. They’re wearing a hoodie.”
Bex stood and started walking toward the foyer. “Hold on,” she said. “I’m coming.” She motioned to Sam to follow her. Something about her energy made the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stand up.
“Are you okay?” Vic asked her sister.
“It’s fine,” Bex said. “I’m just surprised. There’s a visitor for Sam.”
In the foyer, Bex turned on the lights and opened one of the huge doors. Standing on the wide, curved steps, wearing a black knitted hoodie and raw denim jeans, was none other than Macie Finn.
Of the Ice Crew.
Of Chad, Sloan, Ramona, and the late Juliette Draper.
What was happening?