Page 35 of My Unscripted Life
“Yeah, but until then we’re the newstoday,and I don’t know how to deal with it,” I say, my words muffled by the thick fabric of his jacket. I still can’t smellhim,so I rear back. “Milo, I have six hundred and thirty-one unread emails! And not a single one is from the Gap! That’s seriously more emails than I’ve received in my entire lifecombined.I’m pretty sure my third-grade teacher emailed me—that’swhat my in-box looks like right now.”
Nevermind that you’re smiling at Lydia and squeezing her arm and the two of you are practically bursting with chemistry.But keep that one to myself. I can’t go there yet.
Milo looks pained. “I’m really sorry, Dee. Truly. I really hoped this wouldn’t happen. It’s what I was trying to avoid,” he says. “Listen, I’ve got to stay tonight for a few more shots, but are we okay?”
I’m not. I’m categoricallynot okay.And I know it, but Milo is so good at convincing me it’s allgoing to beokay that I find myself nodding, like maybe if I bob my head enough my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend won’t be trying to get him back, and he won’t maybe still be in love with her, and a rabid pack of fangirls (and more than a few fanboys) won’t be verbally destroying me on the Internet.
“Great,” he says. He leans in and plants a soft kiss on my lips. “Maybe we can hang out tomorrow after we wrap for the day? Grab a bite?”
For the first time, a kiss from Milo isn’t an instant, blissful fix. There’s more than a hint of doubt and defeat that I just can’t ignore. But I try, because it’s Milo.
“Absolutely,” I reply. “Can’t wait.”
Today is a new day. Today, someone else in Hollywood will get caught making out in a parking lot. Or maybe someone else will punch a paparazzo or start his or her morning with a gallon of tequila or simply take a trip to the grocery store, and Milo and I will be old news. Yesterday’s news.No news.At least, that’s the pep talk I gave myself over and over until I fell asleep last night.
But until that happens, I plan to do all I can to make today better than yesterday and brush off the misery of that website. I want to pretend everything’s okay. I want to havefun,like I would with Naz (if I hadn’t spent my summer lying to her). So when I head to my closet to get dressed for work, I pull out a pair of khaki cargo capris that I haven’t worn since middle school and top them with a red tank top. It takes some digging, but I’m able to find an old pair of red knee socks that have white stripes at the knee, left over from a Halloween costume the year Naz and I dressed as ketchup and mustard.
“Hey, Dad!” I call, half in my closet as I riffle through piles for my other shoe.
“You bellowed?” Dad pokes his head in my room, already dressed for his morning run.
“Yeah, you have a red bandanna, right?”
Dad takes a glance at my outfit. “Did you join some kind of gang?”
“Yes. Yes, I did,” I reply, gesturing to my knee socks and matching tank top. “I’ve joined up with some local street toughs. This is our uniform. This evening we plan to knock over the local soda fountain and then lean against some light posts while we comb our hair and whistle show tunes.”
“Smart mouth,” he says, shaking his head at me. “I taught you well.”
“Bandanna?”
“Top drawer of my dresser!” he calls as he heads down the hall, already bouncing on the balls of his feet. He’ll be halfway down the block before I even finish tying my shoes. I’ve tried to explain to him that he’s doing summer vacation exactly wrong. You don’t get up early and exercise. You binge-watch police procedurals and reality shows about rich women without jobs while seeing how many different varieties of potato chip you can consume in one sitting without throwing up. But he insists on the whole running thing, so I’ve given up.
I find the bandanna and tie it around my head after gathering my pouf of curls into twin pigtails. I take a glance in the full-length mirror mounted on the back of my parents’ bedroom door. I look a little like a 1970s gym coach. I hope Benny appreciates what a good friend I am. And I hope the outfit masks the doubt that’s practically rattling in my bones.
The sun is only just starting to peek over the trees, so the air outside is still slightly cool and very damp. The road has a haze across it as I scream down the back country roads to the gristmill.
Dad’s Honda bounces down the dirt-road entrance, kicking up a cloud of red Georgia clay behind it. I follow the yellow direction signs that I’ve come to know well to the grassy clearing markedCREW PARKING. I pull up and stop at the end of a row of cars, park, and climb out to catch the van the rest of the way to the Thorpe Creek Gristmill, the location for today’s shoot.
The mill is ancient, built in 1858, when Wilder was founded by a bunch of farmers who had failed to find gold during the north Georgia gold rush. I can practically recite the facts with the same bounce in my voice my sixth-grade history teacher used during our Georgia History unit. I swear, this movie is turning into a tour of historic field-trip sites.
A creek runs up the back side of the mill, a small wooden footbridge that’s still usable crossing from one side to the other. In the middle, you can see the view of the ancient, hulking waterwheel attached to the outer wall of the mill. Waterbury, two towns over, dammed up the river, which slowed the flow of water down here to a trickle. At its peak after a particularly heavy rainfall, the creek will still rise only a foot or so, not even coming close to licking the bottom of the wheel. I’m not surprised locations is using the place. With the wonder the lighting guys will work in the hazy, sunlit morning, I imagine the whole property is going to look like a fabulous fever dream.
The crew must have been working since long before sunrise, because when I arrive on set I find the lights and cameras and tents already set up for the first shot of the day. Milo and Lydia are perched on a pair of director’s chairs with their names printed on the back, both surrounded by hair and makeup people who are brushing and dabbing and swiping and combing and spraying. In front of the camera, Milo’s and Lydia’s stand-ins are on their marks while the lights and cameras get a final adjustment.
“Red team, go!” Benny bounds up next to me at such a speed that I worry he’s going to slip on the dew-damp grass and bowl me right over. He manages to stop in time, though, and raises his hands for a double high five, which turns into a low five and chest bump. “You remembered!”
“The outfit or the high five?” Tariq and Benny made it their signature move back when they were in middle school, and Naz and I, lowly elementary schoolers at the time, mimicked every move until it becameoursignature move as well.
“Okay, first of all,this”—he gestures up and down to his own red ensemble—“is auniform.You have just earned another point for Team PA while also saving me from having to run around the studio in my underwear.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Now,there’sa picture Naz would want to see.
Benny laughs. “I told Pete, the first AD, that you were dressing up today, and he didn’t believe me. He said if you didn’t, I had to run around the studio in my boxers, so thank you for not leaving me hanging on this one.”
“I do what I can, Benny,” I reply. Which reminds me that I never sent Naz the picture she asked for. Maybe it could help soften the blow of me shutting her out this summer.
“Hey, quick selfie? You know, for the scorecard or whatever?” I pull my phone out of my pocket and glance around to make sure it won’t look like we’re going to take any pictures that could get us sued.
