Page 4 of Falling Like Stars

Courtney, my publicist, once warned me that Eva was poison. That hurt to hear, but I’m beginning to believe she was right. Poisoned memories rise up…

“What happened to you?” Eva scoffs with an acidic smile. “You used to be fun and not such a fucking pussy. Jesus, you’re sooo sensitive. Man up, Zach, and take a fucking joke.”

“It’s not funny, Eva,” I say in a low voice, trying to stay calm. To keep the situation from boiling over. Again. “There’s no joke. There’s you out with Kenneth Black last night and who the fuck knows the night before—”

“Because you never want to go anywhere!” she explodes. “Is it a crime for me to want to go out when you don’t? Am I not allowed? I am not responsible for your happiness, Zach.”

“Actually, Eva, you kind of are. We’re supposed to take care of each other. We’re supposed to respect and love—”

“Respect?” she screeches, incredulous, and suddenly her eyes are filled with tears. “No one in this fucking town respects me, including you. I have to do what I can to survive while you work constantly and get nominated for fucking breathing.” She’s crying now. “What about me, Zach? What about me?”

Her pain stabs me in the chest. I go to her, hold her, try to stroke her hair, but she shoves me away and slaps me across the face. The sting is hot and sharp. Fiery needles that burn in my heart more than my cheek because now it has to be over. It should be over…

The falling light outside the window grows gold and amber. My call time is six p.m. and it’s nearly that now. I inhale deep and close my eyes, blocking out the sounds of the crew moving and shouting, the trucks, an airplane droning overhead. This limited TV series is sucking my soul dry, but that’s what I want. I want to feel everything. I want to know every human emotion, absorb them into my cells, and then release them through scripted words as if they were my own.

Covet is about a man obsessed with the “perfect” life of his colleague. My character—Boyd—wants what his boss—Hugo, a professor—has: tenure at the university, respect, prestige, a loving wife, two beautiful kids.

This is the other half of my Hollywood dream. Marriage. A family. An oasis of normalcy in a world of Hollywood make-believe.

I want that. I want that. I want that.

I think it like a mantra, letting the feeling well up. The life Eva and I were supposed to have until it all went to shit. I feel it coil in my muscles, a poison that draws my hands into fists and makes my heart pound in my chest like a drum. A steady rhythm of need. My character is unhinged, so I add that in. My anger at Eva flows and morphs into nasty thoughts, self-pitying whines… I am owed the life I want. I am entitled to it.

A knock at the door. “Mr. Butler? They’re ready for you.”

Outside the trailer, a production assistant is waiting. The PA’s a small woman—a good eight inches shorter than my six-two—dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt. Her face is composed of delicate features framed by shoulder-length blonde hair and bangs cut in a razor-straight line. Her blue eyes are luminous and sharp as they meet mine; she doesn’t seem intimidated or impressed by me in the slightest. I’m supposed to be sinking deeper into character, but something about her is drawing me back out.

Focus, Butler.

Wordlessly, the PA offers me a bottle of water.

I smile down at her. “No, thanks.”

She nods—all business—as we walk in silence up the quiet residential street to the set. We’re filming at the edge of the Angeles National Forest at a private residence. It serves as the professor’s home on the outskirts of the fictional New England university. Crew members smile or nod at me in greeting as we pass but don’t talk to me. They all know it’s a big scene tonight and I’m not going to be myself. My hands are stiff, clenching the ugly emotions in my fists like punches I’m about to throw.

The first assistant director meets us on the front walk. “Thanks, Rowan,” she says, dismissing the PA with the beautiful eyes, then turns to me. “Everyone’s ready. We’re going to do a quick blocking run, then dive right in, okay?”

I nod. The interior of the house that isn’t filled with film equipment is lushly furnished with overstuffed couches, tasteful paintings, and crystal vases that capture the falling light. The art department didn’t change too much but added mahogany bookcases crammed with professorial titles. The room is tidy but lived in. Hugo is an institution at the university, tenured and solid, while Boyd is a newly hired adjunct with no ties. Nothing tethering him to anything. Boyd is a Swiss cheese man, broken and full of holes.

I want all of this, I think as I step into the room.

Javier Paez, who plays Hugo, is standing with our director. He's fresh off a hugely successful sci-fi epic, though you’d never know it. Javier's one of the nicest guys on the planet. I hear “nice” a lot too; Eva threw it at me like a spitball.

The director, Sam Jenkins, greets me with a handshake and then we take our places—Javier-as-Hugo to the suede easy chair while I pace the space in front, calling up the want for the life that should’ve been mine.

Eva…

The house settles. Jill from Makeup mists Javier’s face with a water bottle. I watch him transform from a handsome, older leading man—forty-five years old to my twenty-eight—to a harried, tortured, scared-shitless Hugo who’s being held captive in his own house by a maniac.

Sound guys move into place. No one speaks or moves but me, pacing around Hugo’s chair. The prop master slips a rubber crowbar into my hand. I grip it, make it an extension of my arm. The stunts have been rehearsed meticulously but where the dialogue takes me is a mystery I’m curious about myself. The director sits behind the monitors while his first AD readies the scene.

“Check the gate,” she calls, then looks to the camera. “Speed.”

“Speed,” Hank replies.

The second assistant camera steps into the living room—my fucking living room—with the slate. “Scene twenty-seven, take one.”

The board claps and I flinch, which makes Hugo flinch. His eyes are nowhere but on me. He doesn’t know if his wife and kids are still alive or if Boyd’s hunger has already swallowed them up.

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