Set Piece

I Jack

I

Jack

On a small phone screen, I watch as a woman with almond-shaped eyes sticks her head out of the window of her posh Marylebone flat.

“Are you mad? Come out of the rain already,” she calls out.

Then, the camera switches perspective.

A man stands in the street below. His white button-down shirt is drenched, revealing the outline of his chest and arms.

“I told you—I’m not going in there. You’re coming out here,” he yells back, undeterred by the fat drops of rain falling from the sky.

One of my hands goes to my face while the other moves to cover the phone screen, as if driven by instinct for self-preservation.

“Hey!” my mate George cries out next to me, shoving my palm off his phone. “I’m watching that!”

I feel my cheeks redden. Drawing my hand away is like fighting a losing battle with myself.

“It’s my party, and I still haven’t seen it.” Tom reaches for the phone now, and George happily obliges.

“Alright, alright ,” I say, relenting and returning my hand to its rightful place—splayed across my eyes—so I won’t have to see the action unfold in front of me. Suddenly, this dimly lit dive bar doesn’t feel nearly dark enough.

The thing is, I don’t need to see the phone to know what’s about to happen between the woman and man on the screen because I am the man on the screen.

The woman, now giving into the man’s demands, bursts out of her pastel-pink Victorian town house and flings herself into his arms. They kiss in the middle of the abandoned street, engulfed in each other and enraptured by the other’s lips, teeth, and tongue. The man hoists the woman up by her hips and carries her, kissing still, across the threshold of her flat. He tosses her on the bed and stands over her.

He pulls her shirt over her head, then her skirt down her legs. Turning his attention to his own clothes, he feverishly unbuttons his shirt before tugging down his pants. Music soars in the background. He steps out of his trousers, then his boxers, revealing his giant, erect—

“OK,” I say, snatching the phone out of Tom’s grip. “That’s enough.”

Sitting there while my mates watch me act is bad enough, but being present for their reactions to the much-talked-about sex scene in the BBC show I costarred in and thought all of five people would see...

“Oh, come on. This is some of your finest work!” George laughs. “Jack Felgate’s biggest role to date.” He gives me a devilish grin.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, well, tonight is about Tom.”

Tom pushes his Clark Kent glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m perfectly fine with tonight being about you. Consider this your punishment for running off to settle the bill.”

“Please. What kind of friend would I be if I let you pay the tab for your own stag party?”

“And you know he can afford it now,” George quips. “Unlike the rest of us poor thespians.”

I blush again. It’s true, but I don’t want to admit it.

“Next location?” I suggest, pulling Tom to his feet.

He stumbles slightly as he stands, and I take his tipsiness as a win. I worried when he insisted on a quiet celebration near his home in Pasadena with only a small group—the trio of us actors who’d met in London, plus his brother, Jim, and his future brother-in-law, Teddy—that he was keeping it low-key for my benefit. As grateful as I am that he’s avoided the kind of weekend that could land me in the pages of the Daily Mail and give everyone another reason to talk, I want him to have a true night out.

“You good, mate?” I grip Tom’s elbow as we head to the door.

“I am absolutely peachy.” Tom taps my cheek. “I want you to know, Jack, that I am really, really proud of you.”

“Thank you, Tom.” He, George, and I met doing theater in uni, and over the last few years, they both felt that westward tug toward Los Angeles, leaving me by my lonesome in London. For a while, we were always up for the same roles, yet we somehow managed to keep a sense of humor if one of us nabbed it over the other.

“Don’t tell George,” he says in a stage whisper as we exit toward a hulking Uber, “but I always knew that you were going to be the famous one out of all of us. I read that script for Flames Flickie Flick Flicker ...”

“ Flames Flicker Eternal .”

“Yes. That one—and I knew that this one’s special.”

When I got the script for Flames Flicker Eternal —or Flames , as the fans now call it—I could sense there was something different about it. Production had already attached a British theater director known for her quiet, intimate plays with searing dialogue and an Oscar-nominated cinematographer with a flair for the romantic. But still, even the best BBC fare often flies under Americans’ radar. I never expected that Netflix would pick it up. Or that its streaming debut would coincide with a February snowstorm in the Northeast that kept everyone at home for five days. Suddenly, what started as buzz about this clandestine love story reached a full-on frenzy that could not be ignored. My inbox was bursting with media opportunities and interview requests, and so was my costar Ginny’s. Four months later, I’m getting offers without auditions, and for the first time in five years, my agent is paying me more good-news calls than she is sending “they went in another direction” emails.

As we make our way to our next location, our voices volley around the car, debating whether Man United can keep its edge over Liverpool. My phone buzzes from my jeans pocket, alerting me that I have too many emails to return and at least four missed calls from my team. It can wait. All of it.

“Ay, we’re here,” Teddy calls out from the front seat.

“What? Already?” I ask. We’ve been in the car for less than ten minutes. “Couldn’t we have just walked?”

Everyone laughs. The driver most loudly.

“Welcome to Los Angeles,” George says, swinging open the door.

My three previous trips had all been in service of bit parts, the kind of stuff I booked before Flames Flicker Eternal that barely justified the jet lag it brought on. I’d film all day and then retreat to whatever hotel I was being put up in near the set, my meals craft services or room service.

As I lead the charge and enter the redbrick building with the words Swan Dive hand-painted on the door, I take in the change of scenery: marble bar, art deco furnishings, and proper glassware in every hand. Despite the name, a dive this is not.

“Is that Jack Felgate?” a woman wearing a slip dress and holding a coupe whispers as we pass.

“ No way ,” another whispers back. “He lives on a shire in England. Or something.”

I look toward the bar, then back out at the group. How can I get out of this?

“Why don’t we skip this one and move on to the next?” Tom throws me a life raft. As always.

“No, no, no.” I shake my head. I can’t let my hang-ups get in the way of Tom’s good time.

Besides, I have a contingency plan. I knew I needed to prepare for the possibility I might be recognized. It’s started to happen since the show came out. My favorite pub tipped off a paparazzo that I was a regular at Thursday night trivia, and pictures of me leaving were splattered across the internet. By the next week, trivia was mobbed with fans asking for selfies, and when I ran out of the bar panicked, onlookers told news outlets that I was rude and “too big for my britches.” My first girlfriend shared with The Sun that she always knew I would make it. My year seven teacher gave an interview about what sort of student I was (“well-mannered” and “attentive”—in other words: unremarkable). Getting offers for roles with actors and directors I’ve dreamed of working with is thrilling. The rest of it is not.

I reach into my bag for a pair of fake glasses I’d grabbed at the pharmacy and a red beanie. It’s June, but that hardly matters in Los Angeles.

“What the fuck is that?” George sizes me up in confusion. “Jesus Christ, man. Is that a disguise ?”

Tom squints. “You look like Where’s Wally.”

“Worry about yourselves, yeah? Let’s just go into the bar.” I scan the crowd as we enter. Maybe those women were an aberration. Or everyone is just far too cool to care: This city is crawling with celebrities far bigger and more important than me. I clock an attractive bartender efficiently mixing drinks and fitting right in with the good-looking patrons.

My shoulders relax as we make our way to an empty table.

Until a woman steps in front of me, blocking my path. She’s holding her iPhone, boasting a picture of a dog as white and fluffy as a cloud, inches from my face.

I hear her asking, fuzzy and as if through water, “You’re Jack Felgate, aren’t you? Will you take a picture with me?”

I force my vision to zoom out. The phone is connected to a hand, which is connected to an arm, which belongs to the voice asking me to confirm my identity. This is one of the women from before. Her eyes are wide. Frozen in place, I nod slowly.

“Bitch! I told you it was him!” she calls out to her friends, who rush over to join her. Their phones come at me as quickly as their questions do.

“Why are you wearing glasses? Do you wear glasses?”

“What are you doing here ?”

“You changed my life in Flames . Did you know that?”

“Oh my God, you cannot be here. Do you come here all the time?”

“Will you please take a picture with us?”

I weigh my options and try to keep my expression placid. If I refuse to take photos, I will hurt their feelings, and I’ll be branded a bad sport. But if I agree to, well, when does it stop?

I stand there, immobile, unable to make up my mind. My tongue is thick and heavy, my mouth dry.

“Hey! The private room you requested is ready and waiting for you.” The bartender has left her post from behind the bar and is by my side. Her golden waves are stacked on top of her head, and she’s wearing a simple black T-shirt and a pair of vintage-looking jeans that hang from her hips.

“Oh, sorry we’re late. Ran into a bit of traffic,” I say, regaining sensation in my mouth and my limbs, like I’m coming down from an allergy attack.

“Well, come on.” She nods to me before turning to the throng. “We’re charging this man an exorbitant amount of money—I have to get him back there.” She is both conspiratorial and firm.

As the first woman who approached me opens her mouth to object, the bartender continues, adjusting her hair. “And, of course, a round of drinks on the house for you ladies for being so accommodating.”

The women exchange glances, and after about thirty seconds, it appears a consensus is reached. Their phones go back into purses, and I follow hot on my rescuer’s trail.

“Is there really a back room?” I ask, hurrying closer to her.

“Please.” She turns to look back at me. “I am a woman of my word.”

She flashes me a bright smile, and my fingertips prickle in excitement.

“You’re in luck,” she says, punching in a door code. “Leo and Toby canceled last minute.” She gestures for me to enter, and I know I’m supposed to take in the VIP grandeur of it, offer faint praise, at the very least. But I can’t stop my eyes from landing on her.

The swath of her tan collarbone just visible at the neck of her shirt. The tiny diamond studs in her ears, somehow both sophisticated and no-nonsense. Her defined arms, strong... I want to know what from. Everything about her seems purposeful and controlled, except for her hair. She radiates gravitas—and also a warmth that suggests her skin would be hot to the touch. When she smiles again, her soft brown eyes crinkle with amusement, as if there is more she’s holding back, and I want to know that too.

“Seriously? Leo and Toby?” I ask, remembering where I am.

“Well, no.” She laughs. “But we did have a last-minute cancellation. It’s all yours. I’ll round up your friends.”

“Let me give you my card.”

“We can settle up at the end of the night.” Her eyes search mine, and we both stand there a beat longer than is natural. Like she might be keen on me too.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

So she doesn’t recognize me.

“Jack Felgate. And you?”

“Cara.”

I hold out my hand, and she put hers in mine. I shake it slowly. I was right. Her skin sets mine on fire.