Page 51 of All That Glitters

The security guards wave me through the front gate, and I toss a smile at both of them. Already known. Already expected. I park beside the door and shoulder my purse, heading inside the eerily quiet soundstage already equipped to look like the inside of Patterson’s mansion.

We took a brief tour yesterday, but seeing it come to life in the silence of only my own breath is startling. The furnishings are well done, tasteful, sumptuous, the sort a wealthy older gentleman would carefully curate.

I trail my hand along the edge of a velour loveseat the color of old blood.

Marcus is too busy ignoring me to even realize I left the house, which is fine by me. It’s not like I need him here for this anyway. It’s just a prep before we start shooting, and I’m not in the mood to play anymore games with him.

“There you are.” Parker strides forward with his arms held out to his sides in greeting. Even inside in the dim lighting, he’s got on a pair of aviator sunglasses with the mirrored lenses reflecting my pale face back to me. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“I made sure to get here earlier than expected.” I chew on my lower lip before I catch myself and purposely smooth out my face.

“Quite professional,” he replies indulgently. “We’re just happy to see you.”

My co-star Greg stands beside Parker in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt with images of Stitch hidden inside the print. Greg smiles at me, about as far from lecherous old man as one can get, but I watched him transform at the reading yesterday. He’s about the same age as Marcus and not nearly as handsome.

I can’t help noticing the lines around his eyes, the gray speckling his goatee and around his temples. The print of his shirt adds some levity to the situation, but I can’t bring myself to laugh.

It’s all a part of the gig.

I keep my smile in place and barely react when Greg goes in for a hug. “It’s all going to be fine,” he says beside my ear. “No reason for you to look worried!”

“Do I look worried?” I ask.

“Your shoulders are as tense as boulders, Empire. Relax! It’s just going to be you and me out there today,” he adds. “Parker is going to take good care of us.”

I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want to imagine having to kiss him or, even worse, his head between my legs the way Marcus had done the other day. I look at Greg, and I see a kind uncle, the same one who would sneak you candy after dinner when your parents said no.

The kind of uncle my mom always thought Marcus would be, except I never looked at him and thought it. I looked at him and thought of completely different things, things a grown woman should think rather than a teenage girl with lofty fantasies.

“Relax,” Greg repeats, kneading at the knot in my shoulder for a second before he releases me.

Entirely unprofessional, but when I look at him, there is nothing. That’s what acting is for.

It’s life, the path, the only way forward for me, whether I like it or not. At least for today.

“It’s just going to be the three of us today?” I want to know. “You weren’t kidding when you said it’s going to be a smaller crowd.” My stomach still flips, though. There might be a skeleton crew working, but there are still plenty of people around operating the cameras, the mics, the booms.

“Today we’re going to start out with the seduction scene, the first between our two title characters. I thought it would be the perfect one for you, Empire.” Parker slowly claps his hands together once, twice, three times as I struggle to get myself under control.

“Wait, what?” My eyes bulge at his comment. “I didn't know you wanted to start with such a racy scene.” That’s not dipping my toe in the water at all, not by a long shot.

“Why would I not?” Parker studies his watch.

“You…you said filming today would help me feel more comfortable with the process…” I trail off.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you understood we’d be starting to film one of the intimate scenes. This is for your benefit, as I stated yesterday.” He says it as though I hadn’t paid any attention to him. “I figured you would be more comfortable shooting if the rest of the cast and crew weren’t present.”

Well, shit. There’s no way out of it now. I should have put the pieces together, and I’d been too distracted to think about it.

I swallow over a lump in the back of my throat and try to come to terms with what I’d have to do. It didn’t work. “Ah, sure. Yeah. Thank you. I understand.”

“Great.” Parker’s smile is cold. “Then get into hair and makeup and we’ll get started. Make sure you refamiliarize yourself with the scene. You know the one I’m talking about.”

Sadly, I do.

“It’s going to be great,” Greg says in a soft voice, his usual tone, but his eyes are sympathetic. I wonder if it’s an act, or if he really does empathize with me right now. “I promise it’s all going to be okay. There’s no need to worry.”

He understands my situation, and I appreciate the lengths everyone went to for me, but—my head spins. The rest of me feels a little too cold for comfort. One of the assistants steps up and gestures for me to follow her, away from the soundstage toward a separate smaller room set up with a row of mirrors and hot lights overhead.

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