Between takes, p.22
Between Takes, page 22
“You don’t need my advice. You’re having a perfectly wonderful conversation with yourself.”
“No. I really do need you to tell me what to do.”
“You’ve already made your decision. You need to let Jess know.”
Evie paused to consider that remark, took a sip of coffee, then looked over at Shane, who was still in pyjamas.
“Hey. Why aren’t you at work?”
Shane threw his hands at his cheeks and opened his mouth as if to silently scream. “I quit.” He squealed a little. “I did it. I finally quit my job.”
That remark physically threw Evie back a bit. Shane had been talking about quitting his job since he was hired there four years ago.
“Did you get another one?”
He shook his head, his hands still on his cheeks. Finally, he let his hands fall. “I’m going to try to make a go of my catering business. I have bookings for the next few weeks, and that always seems to lead to more bookings. I’ve been killing myself for months now trying to keep up with it all and do my own job.”
Evie was silent. She was happy for Shane, because she knew how much it killed him to work the hours he did. And she didn’t want to be the one to burst his dream bubble, but did it pay the bills?
Shane took her hand. “I know you want to ask without you even having to say anything. Of course I’ll still be able to afford rent.”
“Well, at least one of us will. If this all goes south, I’ll probably be out of job soon too.”
“Great. You can come work for me. I’ll need good servers.” He squeezed her hand and let go. “You know I’m just kidding, right? Your face is on half the billboards in the city. You have your choice of projects. You don’t have anything to worry about. It’s not like you’re the one who’s trading sex for parts. Tell Jess what you know, and you won’t be complicit.”
Chapter Twenty-five
For once, Evie wasn’t early to the table read. She was becoming late, in fact. She had decided to take Shane’s advice, which, as he pointed out, was really her own advice, to tell Jess what she knew. And she should definitely do this. However, in the abstract, the idea of someone on the show trading parts for sex didn’t mean much. The reality of it scared the shit out of her.
Jess hadn’t mentioned what she planned to do once she found the person. What if she went to the press and all this disappeared? Evie hadn’t slept much last night thinking about it. She could bitch and moan about the perils of suddenly being thrust into the limelight all she wanted. But truthfully, she’d worked her ass off for years to get here. She didn’t want someone else taking that away from her.
Everything was spiralling out of control, and she wasn’t sure how to stop it. So here she was searching out Jess instead of showing up early to the table read.
When Evie finally made it, everyone was already there, and it put the spotlight on her late arrival. The only other person not there yet was Cameron, which was good, because she didn’t know if she could look him in the face.
She took a seat next to Ian and flipped open her script to the first page. He pushed a coffee over to her, and smiled, then leaned over and whispered, “Did you get distracted by a certain intimacy coordinator?”
Evie smiled to herself and took a sip of the coffee. She hadn’t seen Simone yet, and almost as if thinking about her summoned her, Simone walked into the room with her purse slung over her shoulder and a notepad under her arm.
“Sorry I’m late.” She took a seat on the opposite wall. Her lip curled at the edge when she spotted Evie.
Evie’s breasts began to ache at the sight of Simone. Her clit throbbed in response, and she crossed her legs and pulled her bottom lip in, biting hard to find her equilibrium. If this was the response she got from one look? She was in deeper shit than she’d thought.
Michael, who sat at the head of the table, pulled his script out and flopped it onto the table. “All right. Let’s get started. We have some new storylines to go over today. You all know Jake, our newest cast member.”
Jake waved from his seat at the table. He’d been introduced in the last episode as a single father who’d moved in next door. It was obvious they were setting him up to be the love interest for next year. It didn’t mean that Ian would be going anywhere necessarily, just that Abby Bruce’s life was about to get a lot more complicated.
Evie frowned as she reached the beginning of the second act. She’d read the script the night before, but for some reason it hadn’t really sunk in how much Abby was willing to take on.
“Is something wrong, Ms. Harper?”
Evie looked up at Michael. “It’s just, there’s a hell of a lot of flirting for a woman who technically has a husband and a boyfriend.” She shook her head because she knew that was the character. Abby Bruce was not incredibly likeable on most days. But as Entertainment Weekly had put it, Evie’s portrayal brought vulnerability to the role and made you want to root for her, even if you didn’t always like her. “I guess I’m just shaking my head at her lady-sized balls.”
The room laughed.
“That’s what makes for good television,” said Michael. He flipped to the next page, moving the process along.
Evie actually enjoyed playing Abby because the two of them were so different. It gave her insight into the girls she went to high school with. Everyone always seemed so put together, so brazen, so feminine. And Evie had never felt any of those things. She identified as a woman, and she definitely fit the bill of feminine, but that was all surface. On the inside she was still a tomboy role-playing to fit in.
And none of those girls had figured it out. Everyone was just role-playing as well. It was hard, though, to change years of feeling inadequate. Not until she’d gotten to university and met Shane had she really started to feel like being herself was okay.
Acting for her was always a way to pretend she was normal, but she was good at it, and she didn’t want to ruin this situation. She loved her job. Who wouldn’t?
They continued through the script. Jake was turning out to be funny. She could see why they’d added him. Ian’s character was very sombre and a little dark. He played into that tall, dark, and handsome fantasy. For Jake’s character, Evan supplied some much-needed levity. Evie also liked the energy he brought to the table read. The cast had gotten into the habit of going all in when reading, even playing up the scene a bit, making it a lot more fun. Occasionally they’d have someone come in to read who brought the whole thing down by just delivering their lines as if they were in casting.
Near the end, Cameron came into the room and stood to the side. He seemed distracted, looking at his phone every few minutes.
Even now, Evie found it hard to believe that he was taking advantage of women the way he was. He played up the doting father and loving husband well and appeared to be happily married. Then again, maybe he was. Some people were able to turn that part of themselves off when they came to work. Maybe he and his wife had an arrangement. It really wasn’t Evie’s business. But using his power to take advantage of women disgusted her.
She’d had her fair share of encounters over the years and had been lucky enough to sidestep them and walk away from a role if she felt uncomfortable. But she also recognized her privilege. Many people weren’t able to say no for whatever reason. And that’s why it was so wrong.
Last night when they’d talked at the party, Leah, the actress who’d gotten the role by sleeping with Cameron, hadn’t seemed like this was any different than other gigs she’d done. She probably even thought this was normal in some bizarre way. Or she didn’t care. Maybe she felt like she was getting something out of it. But for every Leah, hundreds of others didn’t think such behaviour was okay and went along with it because they didn’t feel they had any other choice.
As much as she loved this show, she couldn’t let Cameron get away with this. She had to speak up and say something.
As the table read came to an end, Cameron stepped forward. “Before you all leave, I wanted to announce that we have a slight change in who will be directing the last episode of the season. Originally Scott was, but he has a conflict with an upcoming project.” He stepped forward and grinned as if this were one of the most exciting things he got to share with his people. “I’m happy to say that after much campaigning, Evie Harper is going to be the director of the last episode. She’s done some amazing work over the hiatus that’s getting a lot of recognition at the festivals, and we’re happy to have her.” He walked over to a stunned Evie and shook her hand. Leaning forward, he whispered, “Congrats. You deserve this.”
* * *
After the table read, Evie didn’t seek out Jess to tell her. Instead, she climbed the stairs to Simone’s office, unsure whether to confide in her either. She needed to get her bearings. When she reached the top, she stopped and looked down through the middle of the winding steps all the way to the bottom. It was a long way to fall. Her career seemed to have hit this high, and one wrong move could send her down the stairway, where she’d inevitably land on her ass.
Whatever her plan, it had to be good. It had to be solid and well thought out. Clearly Cameron knew she knew about Leah. She wasn’t sure how that conversation had occurred, but she could find no other explanation for why he was letting her direct the season finale.
Morally she knew what she had to do. She had to turn him down. She had to say no. Tell Jess what she knew and watch where the shit landed.
Evie knocked and entered.
Simone stood up from her desk, clearly excited. “Congratulations. This is what you’ve been working for.” Evie smiled, but she didn’t feel happy. “You’re not thrilled? I thought you wanted this.”
“I do.” She thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t happy because she didn’t feel like she’d earned this. It was a bribe to keep her quiet. But she had another reason. “Part of me is worried that I want it for the wrong reason.”
“You said you love directing.”
Evie wanted to be seen as more than just a pretty face, especially when it didn’t feel like that image reflected who she truly was.
“Why can’t you have both?” asked Simone. “Why do you have to choose just one thing you love? The world isn’t made up of people who are just one thing.”
“I know I can do both. It’s just I feel like people have put me in this bubble.”
Simone took her hands. “It’s you who has put yourself in a bubble. Who cares what other people think? You have to decide your own way and fuck everyone else. If you want to quit acting, you can. If you want to take a break and focus on directing, who says you can’t. You have this idea of what people want from you, but what do you want from yourself?”
Evie took a step back and sat in one of the chairs in front of Simone’s desk. She’d never thought of it that way before. She’d worked hard on her acting career because she believed she had to act while she still looked young and beautiful, but who said that was the kind of acting she loved? Abby Bruce’s ugliness, the messiness, had drawn her to this character. If she stuck with pretty-woman parts, she’d spend the next five or ten years doing work she probably didn’t like.
But she didn’t have to do that.
This was like a revelation. She could choose not to act for a while and focus on something else she loved. She’d been so worried that the parts she wanted wouldn’t be there when she wanted to come back. But that wasn’t necessarily true. She’d weathered more than a decade of working crappy jobs in order to make it in this industry. Why did she suddenly think she couldn’t handle tough?
“You’re right,” she told Simone. “I just need to get over my shit.”
“That’s good advice for everyone, really.”
Evie slipped out of Simone’s office shortly after. As she stood outside Simone’s door, she realized she had another solution. Why did she have to turn Cameron down? It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. She could still accept the job and tell Jess what she knew. It was up to Jess to do what she wanted with that information.
Women were always taking this high road, which ended up hurting them in the end. Nothing bad ever really happened to the men in these stories. For all she knew, Cameron would go on to create another show, and in two years no one would give a shit that he had the morals of a baked potato.
* * *
The warmth had left the city. November barrelled in like an unwanted guest planning to overstay their welcome. Simone stared at her phone. Her opinionated and overbearing mother had officially stopped speaking to her. This fact hurt more than she’d thought it would. She kept expecting a sense of relief to wash over her, but it never came. Instead, she felt sad, angry, and guilty.
At least her mother was also not speaking to Gabriel. She’d just gotten off the phone with him, and things had gotten worse after Marissa had taken him back. They were united in their defiance. Simone had taken Gabriel’s side and moved to a different province, so naturally she was enemy number one. Gabriel was in love with someone their mother didn’t approve of, which turned out to be slightly less of a crime than living in another province.
She dropped her phone onto the couch and went into the bathroom to run a bath. As hot water filled the tub, she poured herself a glass of wine from an open bottle in the kitchen. Her only desire, now that winter had arrived, was to hibernate.
Evie had been away for the last two days on a location shoot, one that didn’t need an intimacy coordinator. It surprised Simone how much she missed Evie, a new feeling for her. No one had stayed around long enough for Simone to ever miss anyone before. It felt nice, because it came with the bonus of anticipation for Evie’s return.
Just as she stepped into the bath, her phone beeped, and Simone’s heart skipped a beat, thinking it might be Evie. Instead, it was Shane.
He’d texted: What are you up to, RN?
Simone hated texting. She pressed the call icon instead of returning his text. When he answered, she said, “What do you need?”
He laughed. “You Frenchies are all the same. Straight to the point. You got me. Do you have time to help me out with some prep for a bar mitzvah I’m catering? I can pay you in wine and gossip.”
Simone gazed down at the bath she’d run. It looked much more inviting than chopping vegetables for hours on end. Then again, chopping vegetables with Shane might take away some of her loneliness.
“Okay, but you also owe me a favour, and it better be good gossip.”
“Deal.”
* * *
“Don’t you have people to help you with stuff like this? Like employees?”
Shane put down his knife and sighed. “It looks bad, doesn’t it? That I’m asking my roommate’s girlfriend for help.” He scrunched up his face. “Did I make the wrong decision? Should I have stayed working for a lunatic in a place that charges twenty dollars for something that is essentially skinny fries with salt?”
“Well, that sounds like he’s ripping people off, so no. You definitely shouldn’t have stayed there.”
“A lot of places are like that. The high-end ones have horrible hours and usually shady assholes running the place. You stay for the cooks. Your friends. Because misery loves company.”
Shane had transformed his kitchen into an assembly line, with stations for several different dish preps. Right now, Simone sliced red peppers. She wasn’t sure what the final plan for them was, only that they had to be little centimetre cubes.
“To actually answer your question, I did have someone lined up for tonight, but he had to work an extra shift. So I was left high and dry. I don’t have enough work to offer someone full-time yet, so all I can do is get part-time people. It means I’m not a priority. You were the only person I could think of—”
“Who wouldn’t be doing anything on a Friday night?”
“Exactly.” He smiled his big goofy grin, which she could tell had gotten him out of a lot of trouble over the years.
“Don’t you ever feel like you’re missing out on a social life? Evie tells me you don’t even really date or go out anymore. You work. And then you quit your job so you could…” She pointed her knife at the spread before them. “Work some more.”
“This is different though. I’m finally working for myself. It’s all worth it when it’s for yourself.”
Simone raised an eyebrow. “Still looks like work to me. Are you getting paid more than you were before?”
“Not yet.”
“You should take a break and just relax a little. When was the last time you actually went on a vacation?”
“A what? A vacation? What’s that? It sounds like it might be fun. And expensive.” He laughed and peeled the skin off a cod fillet. “In all seriousness, it’s a lot of work, but this is my dream job. I’ve wanted to be my own boss when it came to cheffing for—for fucking ever. And here I am,” he waved his knife—which looked like it cost more than several of Simone’s more expensive handbags combined—around. “It’s funny how Evie and I are getting our shots at the same time.”
“Your shots?” Simone’s English was flawless, but she noticed a few phrases, usually when she was around Shane, she didn’t understand.
“Evie getting to direct. She’s going to knock their socks off.”
“Is she feeling better about it? She seemed conflicted earlier.”
Shane set the knife aside and turned to Simone. “What an asshole, huh? I’m glad she went for it anyway. Fuck Cameron and his stupid fucking bribes.”
“Bribes?”
“You know, with the whole Leah thing. About how she met the girl he gave a part to in the last episode at Ian’s party, and now, all of a sudden, Cameron is letting her direct?”
Simone turned back to what she was doing and nodded. Evie hadn’t said anything about any of this. Understandably. This was, she wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t sound good. Why hadn’t Evie told her she’d found proof that Cameron had traded roles for sex? Because she’d gotten what she wanted from it. In Simone’s eyes, that made her complicit. No, it made her worse than Cameron because she knew how wrong this was, and she was willing to just set aside her morals to go for what she wanted.
