Between takes, p.1
Between Takes, page 1
Between Takes
Synopsis
Simone Lavoie would be the first to admit she’s running from her problems, literally. She’s convinced herself a new job as an intimacy coordinator in a new city will give her a fresh perspective. Instead, problems on set only add to her worries.
Evelyn Harper has spent her whole life thinking she knows exactly what she wants: to be an actress. But when the fame gets to be too much following her breakout role, she’s torn between the ideal and reality. Then Evelyn discovers that Simone suspects a friend of trading bit parts for sex, and she starts to second-guess her growing attraction.
As the integrity of the show comes crashing down, Evie must stand up for her conviction to go for what she really wants in life, while Simone struggles to let go of a hard held past and give love a chance. As their feelings grow, it becomes harder and harder to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s an act.
Between Takes
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By the Author
The Edge of Yesterday
Just One Taste
An Intimate Deception
Between Takes
New Horizons Series:
Unknown Horizons
Savage Horizons
False Horizons
Between Takes
© 2022 By CJ Birch. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63679-310-8
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: December 2022
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Shelley Thrasher
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design by CJ Birch
eBook Design by Toni Whitaker
Acknowledgments
A great big thanks to Bold Strokes for all their amazing support, especially Shelley Thrasher, my editor, for always steering me in the right direction.
The idea for writing a story about an intimacy coordinator popped into my head a couple of years ago after reading an article about the emerging field and how needed it is. If anything, the last few years have shown we have a long way to go in the industry. I want to thank everyone who spoke with me on the subject (too many to name). Any errors are my own.
I want to thank my wife, Maire, for being my test audience and always giving me honest feedback.
Again, writing about a city I’ve lived in for almost twenty years made things a lot easier. Sadly, there is no loft building with a rooftop hot tub overlooking High Park, but there should be.
Everything else in the story regarding buildings and landmarks exist. There really are beach bluffs in the east end of Toronto. There really is a restaurant at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Toronto with a swaying elevator. And there really is an amazing old observatory north of the city.
And as always, I want to thank my readers for sharing my make-believe worlds with me.
Dedication
For Maire
Chapter One
The crushing heat enveloped the currently minimal world of Evelyn Harper. Oppressive, feet-scorching, ice-cream-melting sultriness was exactly what she craved. She wanted to hold on to these last minutes of freedom.
It reminded her of those days as a child when she had to put a towel on the seat before getting into the car. The windows would roll down, and touching any metal surface came with a risk of getting burned. The grass had turned brown, the annoying bugs had—mostly—disappeared, and obligations loomed. Evie’s least favourite time of the year.
The end of summer.
Evie turned over on her back and adjusted the straps of her bikini top, so it didn’t fall off and flash her breasts at half the condos in her neighbourhood. Why couldn’t she be happy about starting work again? Maybe because she’d spent her entire summer doing exactly that. In Estonia, of all places. While lovely and charming, the temperature hadn’t gotten much above the twenty-degree mark. As a native of southern Ontario, she’d acclimatized to the scorching heat and humidity that accompanied summer. And Evie fucking loved every second of it.
She was desperate to milk the last of these hot summer days before the weather turned cold and blistery and dull. Tomorrow would also bring the beginning of a new season—the second on one of the hottest shows, currently sitting number one on several streaming sites. As the lead, she could expect eighty-plus-hour work weeks for the next several months. The schedule sounded gruelling, but over the last year she’d bonded with most of the crew and cast of the show. It felt more like a family. Gossiping with friends didn’t feel like work most of the time. Most of the time.
Evie’s sun disappeared as a shadow stretched overhead. She squinted up at the silhouette. “You’re in my sun.”
Shane presented a highball glass containing a light-green liquid. “I’m perfecting the mojito. Try this.”
Evie propped herself up on an elbow, careful to keep her top up with her other hand, a maneuver she’d perfected as a former heliophile, and reached out for the much-needed refreshment. “Aren’t they perfect already?”
“This one uses like two percent of the sugar. I know you’ll be heading into calorie hibernation for the next few months, so I thought I’d come up with a weekend unwinder for you.”
Evie grinned and took a sip. “How thoughtful. You know the easiest way to cut out calories is to stop drinking altogether.” She let the flavours run over her tongue before nodding her approval. “It’s good.” She took another sip. “Really good. How’d you make it sweet without so much sugar?”
Shane plopped down on the lounge chair next to her, pushing her to the side to make room. “You don’t want to know.” His tall, robust frame took up most of the lounger as he leaned back.
They sat in comfortable silence as they surveyed their domain. Shane and Evie had roomed together since they met second-year university. Since then, they’d both safely concluded that the best thing about being in their thirties and having good jobs for once in their lives was that the accommodations had improved.
Their dream apartment had replaced their former horror walk-ups featuring mice, skeevy landlords, and water shortages. The only thing missing in their current two-story loft with a rooftop patio in one of their favourite neighbourhoods on the west end was a pool. Did that sound a bit greedy? Sure. Evie could live without one if it meant they had twelve hundred square feet and manageable rent. At this point she could afford to live alone, although she couldn’t imagine not living with Shane. At some level she knew the time would come when they both met someone else and moved on. Until then, though, they had an unspoken agreement that they would live with each other.
Like a two-page spread out of a magazine, the whole top floor was theirs. And unlike a lot of lofts in the city, it wasn’t one large box with high ceilings. Designed with two rooms, one of which was on the second floor and overlooked High Park, both were private. It had doors that shut and locked, not always the case with some of the apartments they’d lived in. And the best part was Shane’s dream kitchen. A giant island ran the length and could seat up to four. A giant gas stove that rivalled anything Shane cooked on at work sat in the middle like a king on its throne. And it had enough cupboards to stash all his gadgets.
The spacious living room nestled against one whole wall of windows with a view of downtown. Converted from an old factory, long forgotten in this neighbourhood, it stood in the best location—huddled between trendy shops and restaurants, across from the park and a block from the subway. No Torontonian could ask for better.
An obscenely loud chime came from Evie’s phone tucked under the chaise. “Crap. That’ll be the hair and makeup people.”
Shane popped up. “Oh, good. More guinea pigs.” He stopped at the door to the stairs leading down into their loft and turned back. “Maybe don’t greet them in your floss.”
Evie adjusted her white, polka-dotted bikini top, or as Shane called it, her floss, shoved her sunglasses back into her hair, and scowled. “Please. Give me some credit.” She grabbed her thin cover-up made of turquoise linen and threaded her arms through it. “I’m not an exhibitionist.” She walked past him down the stairs, the fabric ending at her upper thighs and swishing as she strutted down the stairs, her bikini peeking out every other step.
“If you weren’t a lesbian…”
“And you weren’t male…”
“We’d have made a great couple.” Shane finished the much-said refrain.
Evie stopped at the bottom and patted his cheek. “We do make a great couple. It’s just not a romantic one.”
Shane smiled at her with the affection of an older brother. “You go get decent. I’ll grab the door.”
Two hours later Evie emerged from hair and makeup a flaming goddess. She watched as Bianca fussed with a few stray hairs, amazed at the transformation. She was still Evelyn Harper, b ut a hyper-unrealistic, unattainable version of Evelyn Harper. Later, after the photoshoot, she would receive touch-ups that would make her even less realistic.
When Entertainment Weekly, the reason behind this photoshoot, had approached her to shoot in her house, she’d thought they wanted a low-key, relaxed, “this is me” kind of style. However, EW was an entertainment magazine, which meant it was in the business of selling fantasy. They assumed people wanted escapism, to bask in the beauty that movies and television created. They didn’t want to know that until two years ago Evie used to steal toilet paper from work, or that for weeks she lived on only rice and oatmeal because she’d blown her food budget on a Metropass so she could get to work on one side of the city and auditions on the other. Being a server had barely paid the rent, and her most notable credit to date before starting this show was Kelpien #1 on Star Trek: Discovery.
Shane, always her champion, had said, “Imagine how Kelpien #2 felt. They didn’t even get a credit. And you almost got that gig on American Gods. How cool would that have been?” She’d smiled and laughed because any role was better than serving the pretentious fucks who frequented the restaurant she worked in.
She thought it strange how fast you forgot the fear and anxiety. The struggle to make rent, pay bills, buy food, and simply live had been sometimes overwhelming. Some nights she would get home from work, grab a beer from the fridge, and sit in her closet in total darkness. Her makeshift cocoon provided comfort: the smell of fresh laundry hanging above, four walls of safety, the hum of the city far distant, as if she could push life and all its scariness into the background as well.
And then she’d gotten a callback, and in almost an instant her life changed. She went from choosing between food and transportation to having her face on a billboard in Dundas Square. She hadn’t seen it; a friend had texted the find. She was too afraid to take a look. Why? Not because it might all disappear. What if seeing herself three metres high as Abby Bruce the Social Queen made it all too real, and she started believing the illusion? No one starts out famous. They aren’t divas from the beginning—maybe some are. Since that first day on set she’d been asking herself what the turning point was. When did the talent start believing the hype?
She stared at the sexed-up version of herself in the mirror. Gone were her freckles, any skin imperfections, and limp hair from lounging in the sun all day. All gone. Her green eyes were perfectly sculpted so that they appeared mysterious and sensual. Her lips were inviting, and her skin resembled that of porcelain dolls on creepy infomercials. The more she gazed at herself like this, the more she thought of herself as Abby, the mother of two, whom she played on a television show.
By the time she entered her living room, the photographer had shown up with two assistants and several duffel bags of equipment. Shane was entertaining Emma, the makeup artist, with what Evie lovingly called his stories from the trenches.
Shane was a sous chef at one of the more upscale restaurants on King St. West, which touring performers from the nearby shows frequented, some of whom were famous, and many of them demanding assholes. Evie preferred his stories about the actors who showed up and bought a round of drinks for the restaurant or the ones who left thousand-dollar tips. They weren’t his favourite because he usually pulled them out only for women he was trying to impress, and the nice stories weren’t funny.
Shane liked to be funny, especially when he had an audience. Emma—young, blond, pretty—was leaning on the island counter toward Shane, ready to buy anything he was selling.
When the photographer, Petra, approached her, she jumped off the couch. “Good. Excellent. If you’re ready, let’s get started.” After that Petra didn’t say much of anything. She let her assistants do most of the work. She moved around spots with her camera, taking shots and nodding to herself. Every now and then an assistant would run over and exchange cameras with her. Evie couldn’t tell how she was communicating with them to let them know she wanted a different one.
Her first photoshoot had been a disaster. She had no idea what she was doing or why they kept changing cameras so often or why one of his assistants kept running up to her with a tiny black box with what looked like a Ping Pong ball chopped in half. He kept holding it up to her head and calling out a number. Then he would run back out of the shot.
Evie’s favourite photographer had been an older gentleman who’d treated her like a friend he’d met for coffee. The entire time they talked about old movies. Evie had a soft spot for the classics. On her night off, she loved to make some popcorn and curl up and watch an old movie. Anything from the 30s, 40s, or 50s would do, but she preferred the B-movies, the ones that most actors tried to forget about when they became famous. She detected something desperate and unleashed about their performance. For every Rear Window was a Green Fire.
While talking, the older man had been snapping pictures, and the result was incredible. Evie came off as relaxed and approachable, whereas most of her photoshoots made her appear haughty and bored.
Occasionally one of Petra’s assistants would slide up to Evie and politely ask her to turn one way or the other. She worried Petra would fall into the latter category of photographers. She was still in a bikini, this one so tight she was afraid the girls would spill over the fabric of the bra. It probably cost more than she used to make in a month. A flimsy cover draped over her arms did a poor job of covering anything.
Petra handed the camera to one of her assistants and paused, contemplating Evie with her hands on her hips. “Okay. Now that we have the sexy stuff, let’s do something more fun.”
Evie raised her eyebrows. She could take that statement a lot of different ways.
“Let’s get you into something casual, something you could relax in.”
By the time the crew finally left, Evie was emotionally exhausted. She’d once spent a summer earning money posing for art classes, which was harder than it looked. Maintaining the same pose for twenty or thirty minutes was a skill. After a class she’d feel electrified, yet not because ten strangers had scrutinized her naked body for an hour and a half, but because she found something magical about watching people create and find inspiration from her form. The experience was the opposite of sexual. A photoshoot put her on the spot in a completely different way because the intent, whether the photographer intended it or not, was sexual. It was their purpose.
Shane handed her a drink. “You know what we need?”
Evie took a sip and laid her head back on the couch. “A bath and a good book?”
“The opposite of that. It’s the last night of summer vacation. And you know what that means.”
“Can’t we skip that this year? I just want to wash all this off and be done with it.”
Shane nodded. “Okay.” He propped his head on his bent arm and stared, eyes wide and round. “That’s no problem. If you want to bail on a decades’ old tradition, I will understand completely.”
“You’re such an asshole. You know that?”
He stood from the couch. “I’ll even go run your bath for you.” He checked his watch. “It’s only like seven, but we should totally order a pizza and maybe some wings.”
She banged her head on the soft cushion of the couch. “Ugh.” She knew exactly what he was doing, and she hated him for it.
Ever since university they’d had a tradition that had started during second-year exams. The night before Evie’s first exam, they went out to a club and got drunk and danced until the club kicked everyone out in the early hours. Evie had shown up the next morning—in all honesty—still a little drunk and aced her exam. They continued the tradition all through university and well after. Anytime something important was about to happen—the start of a new school year, or new job—they would go out and live it up the night before. The wildness had gone out of the event by the time they hit their thirties, but the tradition remained.
A few years ago, when Shane had started working his cushy corporate cheffing job, he’d had to take a bunch of health certifications and had begged off going because he’d gotten dumped and didn’t feel like it. Evie had guilt-tripped him so hard he’d finally relented.
