The extra series 1, p.8
The Extra Series, #1, page 8
“Of course, I’m guessing Ms. Messler regrets having been so charitable with June,” the middle-aged woman says with a pointed look around the table. The others murmur in agreement, and the Hispanic man shakes his head, though it seems to be in sympathy. With Bridget?
I think of the smug looks and the glares I’ve caught passing between the two soap actresses, and it’s hard to picture the word “charitable” applying to their relationship.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
They all look over at me, and for a moment I feel like the new kid in school approaching a full lunch table, looking for a seat.
“Ms. Messler once took on a mentorship role for June Blair when June first joined the cast, fourteen years ago,” the middle-aged woman says. She takes a delicate bite of her muffin, then continues. “Lucy St. James was initially written as a small part, meant only for a storyline about Cedric and Sondra’s extortion by the mafia. But—”
“But Bridget worked with June and convinced the show heads that the character of Lucy St. James had lots of potential for other stories,” cuts in the younger woman, still in an almost whisper, though an excited one. The woman with the muffin narrows her eyes, though I’m not sure whether she’s more mad at being cut off or that the other woman dared call Bridget by her first name.
“And we all know how that turned out,” the porcelain-skinned woman says. Her eyebrows are tweezed into a bit of a high arch, and she looks permanently startled.
“We do?” I look at the others, hoping that at least one of them is as confused as I am.
None of them appears to be.
The woman with the muffin clears her throat, retaking the conversation. “There was a storyline where Cedric Hart and Lucy St. James started an on-screen affair. Wasn’t long before Frank and June took that off-screen as well. Ms. Messler divorced him soon after.”
“Poor Dame Sondra,” the younger woman whispers sadly.
“And then June just carried on with him, for years,” Muffin woman continues. “Blatantly throwing her betrayal in Ms. Messler’s face, up until the day Frank died. Downright disgraceful, her acting like that, and I’m not afraid to say it.”
I somehow doubt this woman would be so confident in her badmouthing if June Blair herself—or any of the show regulars—were actually standing at the table with us. But I can definitely see why there might be enough bad blood between Bridget and June for a whole Taylor Swift album.
Still. It kind of feels like Frank Shale should take the bulk of the betrayal blame, having been Bridget’s husband and all. But maybe being part of the legendary super-couple of Cedric and Sondra and, well, dead lets him off the hook with the soap fans.
I’m about to—possibly unwisely—bring this up when movement in my peripheral catches my attention and I see Will standing by Sarah, who is flipping through the pages of the day’s script. He is waving at me and grinning. I wave back, my mood lightening just by seeing him. I don’t want to think too hard about that.
Will makes a very deliberate chin-tipping gesture, like “Look behind you.” I do and see HD approaching the craft services table. Despite everything I’ve heard about HD making his way through female extras like they’re an escort delivery service the soap provides just for him, my heart rate accelerates at the mere sight of that perfectly chiseled jaw.
Damn biological imperatives.
I am not the only one affected by his oncoming presence. The three women all standing with me become visibly flustered. Even the lone man shrinks back under the glare of HD’s veritable glow of attractiveness.
“Please tell me you ladies are new series regulars,” HD says, without any preamble.
The nervous giggling that erupts at Trevor Everlake speaking is grating, more so because I have to fight from joining in. I stuff a Danish in my mouth to prevent any pathetic outbursts.
HD clearly loves the reaction. His blue-gray eyes, framed by long dark lashes, focus with laser-beam intensity on each of the three women now gathered around him. He doesn’t appear to notice me yet, but I am across the table and have a large pastry obscuring most of my face, so I don’t blame him.
“You seem like you’d have an excellent bedside manner,” HD says to the middle-aged muffin-eating woman, giving her a wink.
Barf. Seriously, if this guy was any less hot this woman would probably file a police report. And yet . . . damn if I don’t kind of wish he’d comment on my potential bedside manner.
I look back behind me at Will, who is, embarrassingly enough, still watching us. He raises the back of the script he’s holding, upon which he’s drawn a shark in red ink, its fin poking out over hastily scribbled waves.
Watch out, he mouths, his eyes wide in mock horror.
I grin behind my Danish, and he holds up his finger in a “wait” gesture, then scribbles some more on the picture. When he holds it up again, I almost choke on my pastry trying to hold in a laugh.
The shark now wears a top hat and a monocle.
I give him an approving nod, hoping the way my heart is doing little back flips in my chest isn’t super noticeable in my expression. Sarah looks up from the page she was reading and sees the picture. She glances over at the table and Will says something to her. She doesn’t look amused. She glares in my general direction and stalks off. Will runs a hand through his shaggy hair, watching her leave.
The backflips trail off uneasily. I hope I didn’t contribute to him getting in trouble. How much control over the writers does the director’s assistant have?
“I’ve seen you around here before, haven’t I? Stand-in for Katarina Gunn?”
For the briefest of seconds, I think HD’s caramel-smooth voice is talking to me, and I flush at the comparison to the gorgeous Dr. Gunn. Then I turn and realize he’s holding the hand of the young whispering woman who wanted to be Bridget Messler’s protégé. She looks like she might die of pure joy.
It is curious how well HD does this. He glides from adoring woman to adoring woman, blatantly flirting with them all, and yet somehow managing to make them each melt under his gaze like she is the only woman in his world.
The Hispanic man has wisely stepped away from the table. He stands no chance of making any inroads with the ladies while Trevor Everlake holds court. I lower the Danish, and move closer to the table. Might as well get this over with.
I brace myself to stifle my giggle reflex, as HD’s gorgeous face swivels to me. He stares at me rather blankly for a moment, then: “Are you with catering? If you guys can cut the carbs a bit, that would be great. Maybe some green smoothies, something with kale?”
“Kale?” I blink stupidly.
“You use organic, right? Make sure you do.”
“I’m not—” I start to say, but he’s already turned back to his admiring flock.
“Well, ladies, I’ve got to get to hair and makeup, make this mug presentable.” He somehow manages to wink at each one of them. The super pale-skinned woman flushes brighter red than the veggie platter’s cherry tomatoes.
HD saunters away, leaving me feeling strangely defeated. I re-check my outfit, seeing if anything I’m wearing screams “don’t flirt with me; I’m with food services.” Jeans, a plain lavender t-shirt, sneakers. I’m not ready to go on the runway, but I don’t think I look like I just emerged from a garbage heap, either.
It bothers me how very much this bothers me. Why should I care if HD didn’t flirt with me like he does with apparently every other breathing woman alive?
The other women are still giggling to each other like HD’s attentions have bonded them into a small sisterhood. I don’t think they realize that those very same attentions will eventually lead to hair-pulling fights and losing their jobs. I am embarrassed for my gender. I am even more embarrassed for myself.
“That was weird,” Will says, making me jump. The Danish drops onto the table with a sugary thump.
I spin around and see him right behind me. If he wants to stop startling me, he should really stop lurking there.
He winces. “I think the ten second rule can be expanded to at least twenty-three seconds if you just drop it on the table.”
I pick up the Danish and take a big bite, making a show of considering. I swallow and nod. “Yep, still good. I think it picked up the sugar from a dropped cookie or two.”
“Well, it appears you escaped being chum. For the time being, anyway.”
“For the time being? So you didn’t hear our enchanting exchange. He thought I was with craft services. He wants more organic kale, by the way.”
Will looks as if he can’t decide whether to laugh or look at me with pity. He does a strange mixture of the two.
“It’s more than okay,” I say, perhaps a little too hurriedly. “I actually prefer not to be hit on creepily by strange men. Crazy, I know.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“And he’s not exactly my type, anyway.” Why on earth am I saying this to Will, of all people? He certainly doesn’t need my awkward defense of my inability to attract male attention.
“Oh yeah? Handsome television stars don’t cut it for you?”
“Too common. Like finding a penny on the street out here. And not a lucky one.”
He nods, as if I’d said something deep. “So what kind of guy would be like finding, say, a quarter? Or even a Susan B. Anthony?”
“One who knows who Susan B. Anthony is, for starters,” I say, a little proud that this at least falls near the ballpark of flirting. Will raises an eyebrow and I panic a little and add, “Also, someone who wears flannel shirts unironically, because he’s really a mountain man who spends his time chopping trees and befriending wolves.”
This is total BS. Although book number five of the Sultry Sins series did feature a gorgeous lumberjack on the cover that I kept face-up on my nightstand well after I’d finished reading the book.
Will smiles. “Wow. LA does not seem like the best place to find this feminist-leaning mountain man.”
“Damn. I suppose I’ll have to settle for a life that doesn’t revolve around finding a man.” Saying this makes my inner feminist proud. I only wish it hadn’t come quite so soon on the heels of my inner idiot being disappointed that HD hadn’t hit on me.
He nods. “Good call. If writing for Passion Medical has taught me anything, it’s that romance usually leads to jail time for murdering your evil twin. You were a student at UCLA, right? Still there, or did you graduate?”
He picks up on the wince I try to conceal, a reflex every time I think of how much money and time I have wasted on college.
“Touchy subject, huh?” he says.
This time I’m the one being weird. Asking someone if they’re in college is nowhere outside the realm of normal social interaction. I just hate talking about it. Or thinking about it.
“Neither. I didn’t finish. I just . . . ”
Couldn’t figure out what to do with my life. Couldn’t figure out if I had a life to do anything with.
“ . . . ran out of money,” I say.
“Ah. The need for food and shelter outweighing your dreams. I understand that all too well.”
But he doesn’t, apparently, because he imagines I have dreams, passions I had to sacrifice for survival, like every other normal person. Something I shine at, other than making people look good in comparison.
Not that I want him knowing any of this. I like having him think I have secret dreams of opening an art studio or running my own Fortune 500 company. I don’t want him to know I spent yesterday afternoon at another trial community education class, “Beginning Metalsmithing.” And I definitely don’t want him to know about how I accidentally used the small soldering torch a bit too close to my class materials packet. Between that little incident and the microwave fire of years ago, Will might start to think I’m an arsonist.
Classes involving fire—clearly a pass from now on.
“So this novel of yours. What’s it about?” I ask, hoping that by steering the conversation towards him I can pretend to be the person he thinks I am for a little while longer.
He hesitates.
“If you don’t want to talk about it—,” I start.
“No, no, it’s good. I just haven’t told anyone about it in a long time. It’s my Great American Novel. Only, like, the science fiction detective noir version. You know, layers of my musings on social justice cleverly concealed by chapters full of whisky-swilling ex-cops and spaceship battles.”
I am legitimately impressed, not because his dream book sounds particularly good, but because I can tell he isn’t feeding me BS like I did about my perfect man. Will has an openness about him, a kind of uncynical sincerity, that is . . . nice. And all this talking to him is turning my insides all kinds of gooey. I’m starting to return to images of that tropical honeymoon with birds in top hats and monocles that I’d convinced myself long ago could never happen (and probably couldn’t because surely there are animal rights groups that don’t approve of clothing wild animals).
“I know, right?” he says, and for a split second I think I’ve said the honeymoon thoughts out loud. But no, he’s referring to his novel, and his lips curve into a smile that doesn’t reach his green eyes. “Sounds horrible. Thank god Sarah convinced me to use my powers for . . . well, not good, not by a long shot, but for something that actually pays the bills.”
“No,” I say hurriedly, hoping whatever expression was on my face didn’t contribute to the snuffing out of his dreams. “It doesn’t sound horrible, it . . .” I trail off, realizing what else he said. “Sarah?”
“Sarah, yeah.” He gestures over to where Sarah Paltrow is picking through the surgical equipment on a cart, her lips pursed like she’s deciding which instrument she could use to stab the person who set the cart up so haphazardly. “She’s my fiancée.”
My mouth goes dry, and those gooey-turning insides congeal into something rock-hard in my stomach. He’s engaged?
To her?
Will watches her with an expression I can’t quite read. When he turns back to me, he looks wary. “I know her reputation around here, the British Bitch thing and all, but she’s really not like that.”
I get the feeling he spends a lot of time defending her. Maybe even to himself.
I open my mouth to say something, ideally “maybe you shouldn’t be marrying someone you have to defend constantly against claims of bitchiness” or, more likely, “no, she seems really cool,” but the buzz of a voice on the intercom calling for “five minutes to scene one,” relieves me of having to lie or step way outside my comfort zone.
Will grins again, that dimpled, wide smile that makes me a little light-headed.
Jeez, Gabby, enough. The man’s practically married.
Oh, god. How obvious was my flirting? BB or not, Sarah is gorgeous and accomplished and probably amazing in bed. And he is all hers.
“Well,” he says, “I’d better get back to the writer’s dungeon. We’ve got to figure out how to cure Lucy St. James’s selective amnesia.”
“Lucy St. James gets selective amnesia?”
He makes the motion of locking up his lips and tossing away the key, and I can’t help but smile. Though as Will grabs a pastry and holds it up in farewell, I look down at my half-eaten Danish.
I toss it in the trash and head to find Clint to check in to work.
Nine
Today I am not a receptionist in the hospital. Today I am a regular citizen of Hartsburg, Oregon, taking a stroll through a sound-stage park filled with fake pine trees that smell like dust and plastic. I am reading a book as I walk, slowly crossing the stage once for each re-take of the scene. Despite my fear that I’ll trip over one of the mics or lighting cords only partially buried under fake grass, I manage to both walk and appear to be reading while doing so. I don’t draw attention to myself, and though the director, Bernard, is on the warpath today, yelling swear words in combinations I’ve never heard, he says nothing at all to me. I might as well not even exist.
Anna-Marie is right. I am good at this.
The scene taking place while I’m walking past in the background is between June Blair (Lucy St. James) and her on-screen son, an actor who plays Diego. Anna-Marie’s Helena slept with him her second day back from boarding school, I think. He is no HD in the looks department, but holds his own in the realm of soap opera attractiveness.
Today, instead of her gala gown, June is wearing a fashionably cut business suit and wide gold hoop earrings that keep catching the light, causing Bernard to put some poor girl from wardrobe in tears. Earring gaffe aside, they seem to be doing just fine to me, though Bernard makes them do five separate takes. June Blair stalks off after the final one, muttering to herself. Looks like Sarah isn’t the only one considering stabbing someone today.
Thinking about Sarah Paltrow—who stands beside the director, all slim and pretty and glaring as if she can earn herself protection from Bernard’s wrath by mirroring it herself—reminds me of the pit in my stomach that never quite left after my conversation with Will.
“Good work for today,” Clint says to me and the one other extra in the scene, a blond woman in a sports bra and yoga pants who jogged past just before I made my star-turn of walking while reading. Clint takes a swig of his cherry VitaminWater, which leaves droplets on his mustache. “You can go check out with Courtney.”
“That’s it? Just one scene?” I am torn between being happy I can go home and crawl back into bed and annoyed I got up so early just to walk across a set five times.
Clint chuckles. “Pays the same, sweetheart. Count yourself lucky. I wish I could go home this early—my boyfriend would sure as hell appreciate it.” He starts calling for the next group of extras.
Clint may have a boyfriend to spend an early day off with, but sadly, I do not. I pull out my phone to text Anna-Marie, whose scenes have gotten pushed back for another hour, and tell her to call me when she wants me to pick her up.
