Page 36 of Love At First Fright
“That’s all my agent’s doing. He only agreed to let me go for this role if we put that in the contract, since it’s something he pushed for in all my action franchise contracts.”
“Why would you have someone like that as your agent?”
He sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Alright, Ellis, we need you back,” came a voice from thehallway, and Ellis flashed her a smile as he headed back to work. Rosemary had to get out of this room before she collapsed into a puddle of desire.
—
The afternoon softened into evening,and before Rosemary knew it, she was being ushered into a taxi by Lyn. Someone had booked a big table at the Thimble & Friar in the village of Oakmere for the cast and some of the senior crew, and it was only a short drive away through twisting green country roads. The sun had dipped below the horizon when the car Rosemary was in turned onto the one and only high street of Oakmere, with a sign that bade any visitors to know that it had been voted Village of the Year three times.
Rosemary could see why. The road was lined with adorable little chocolate-box houses, some with thatched roofs. The shops were all called things like Mrs. Opal’s Haberdashery and Crookley’s Books, and each curved shop window was accompanied by potted flowers. One window contained a basket with a snoozing white cat. The car drove past the row of higgledy-piggledy houses and pulled up at the village green.
A small white wooden bandstand stood in the centre and even though evening had come, the green was busy with people walking their dogs. Although they were thousands of miles apart, Rosemary couldn’t help but think how similar Oakmere felt to where she grew up in Blossom Ridge; the kind of place where everyone was in everyone else’s business, but you could also breathe away from the city air and hear yourself think a little better.
The Thimble & Friar was a creaky Tudor pub, the typical white stucco crisscrossed with black wood, and older thananything else in this village. It was probably older than anything in North America, Rosemary realised. The building was almost hunched over to the side, looking like it had had a few too many beers itself. Fairy lights twinkled above the pub’s doorway and around its windowsills, and as she stepped onto the pavement, Rosemary could hear the hum of laughter and sloshing drinks from inside.
“The back table has been booked out for the main cast and execs,” Lyn said, tugging Rosemary along like the ogling American tourist that she was.
“Alright. Shall we find a table then? That one looks cosy.” Rosemary nodded at a small round table by the window.
“Rosemary.” Lyn pulled her away from the main bar area to where it was quieter. “Do I have your permission to say something rude?”
“To me? Sure.”
“Okay.” Lyn inhaled. “You need to stop being so shitty to yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” Rosemary said.
“You keep doing this thing where you make yourself unimportant. I literally told you that a table was booked for the main cast and execs and you immediately assumed you didn’t belong there, didn’t you?”
“I…well. I know I’m an exec, but it feels like more of a technicality than a reality.”
“Respectfully, so what? So what if you’re only down as an exec producer because you wrote the script and the original material, you’re here. And also,you wrote the script and the book,babes, that’s no small thing. You’re literally the reason we’re all here.” Lyn reached out and placed their hands on Rosemary’s shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze.
“Do all PAs give their bosses pep talks like this?” Rosemary laughed.
They grinned in response. “Only the best ones.”
“You’re right, I know you’re right.” Rosemary sighed, leaning against an old wood-panelled wall. “When it comes to book stuff I’m honestly not like this. I know my worth. But this”—she gestured around them—“this is all very new. Small fish, big pond and all that.”
“Well, you have me, and I know this industry inside out, so I’ll give you pointers. My parents met on set actually, back in the eighties,” Lyn said.
“Oh yeah? Doing what?”
“Making movies.” Lyn wagged their eyebrows suggestively.
Rosemary allowed Lyn to lead her back to the bar to order a drink; some Dutch courage wouldn’t be a bad idea if she had to sit at a table with Ellis tonight and remain calm.
They ordered at the bar, two local ciders, and chatted on for a minute about the types of movies Lyn’s parents had made back in the eighties and nineties. Turns out that you could meet the love of your life filming a movie titledWhen Harry Ate Sally.
“Alright, you’ve got your drink, so now you can stop procrastinating with me and go and sit at the big boys’ table.” Lyn said, sipping the tart but sweet cider they’d ordered.
“I’ve got this.”
“You’ve got this. And if you don’t have it, I’m sure Ellis Finch will be more than happy to find it for you.”
Rosemary rolled her eyes and felt her heart begin to beat faster in her chest as she laid eyes on Ellis in a corner of the pub. He was back in his modern clothes, a relaxed cream shirt that he’d rolled up his forearms (sinfully attractive) and appeared tobe having a rather stern, intense conversation with Lance and Arthur opposite him (she liked that serious, scorching-hot look on him) as he took a small sip from his drink, which looked like an old-fashioned. She’d decided, back in her room, as she got ready for the pub, that there was no harm in letting herself have a little crush. Nothing would come of it.
