An Unexpected Affair by Elizabeth Lennox
Chapter 3
Evie stood in the back of the group, just as confused as everyone else. This was the first day of filming. Normally, the sound stage would be practically vibrating with energy as the cast and crew learned their roles and lines. There would be last minute hammering as the stage crew worked to fix small parts of the stage, prop managers would be running around, gathering up props or delivering them to the stage. People would be yelling, someone would trip over the wires that snaked across the floor. Lights, cameras and…well, none of that was happening.
Instead, everyone, cast and crew, were gathered together, waiting for an announcement.
“Thanks everyone!” Monty, the assistant director, called out as he appeared from the office to stand in front of the group. “Is everyone here?” he asked, looking around. He scanned the crowd, but stopped when he caught sight of Evie, leaning against the wall, her arms folded. She should be in makeup. Correction, she should have been out of makeup and heading towards wardrobe. Instead, the makeup and wardrobe crew were here, waiting on whatever Monty was about to say.
Because the assistant director’s gaze stopped on Evie, she was fairly sure that she understood that, out of everyone else in the room, the man wanted to ensure that she was here. The rest of the crew could be off doing…whatever. So this message was for her. A not so cleverly disguised group conference meeting.
“What’s going on, Monty?” One of the prop managers yelled. He was about five feet from where Evie was standing and looked impatient and irritated. They all were. Everyone here knew that any sort of delay in a filming day cost money. And yet, they were all standing here. Waiting.
“I’d like to remind everyone about the contract addendum that you signed. You all agreed to random drug testing.” There was a chorus of groans, hisses, and muttering curses. Monty ignored it all and waved his clipboard. “Every morning, I’ll have a randomly generated list of members that will be required to take a drug test before work. I’m warning everyone now – if you don’t submit to the drug test when your name comes up, then you won’t be paid for the hours, nor will you be allowed back on set until you’ve complied. Everyone should submit their urine sample,” he had to pause as several people snickered, “before eight o’clock each morning. I’ll be checking daily with the lab we’ve hired. If you haven’t taken the test, you’re gone.” He waved the clipboard again. “On this clipboard is a list of people the studio has on standby, ready to take your place. So, if you have anything hokey in your systems now, you’d better pray that your name doesn’t come up today. Brock is determined to make this a drug free set.”
He didn’t ask for comments or concerns. He just started calling out names. One by one, the people either sighed and walked towards the door where a lab technician waited with a box of drug test kits, or they turned and left the studio, knowing that they wouldn’t pass the test.
Evie wasn’t surprised when Monty looked directly at her and said, “Evie Munroe.” There was a communal gasp when Evie’s name was called out. She swallowed a snicker, wondering if they’d assumed that the acting staff was exempt.
Almost in unison, the remaining crew turned and looked at her, everyone wondering if she was going to throw a tantrum. It was what most actors would do.
Instead, Evie pushed away from the wall and, at that same moment, her eyes clashed with a pair of dark, furious eyes. Brock. He’d been watching from the shadows, lurking behind a camera. For a long moment, she held his gaze, daring him to say something. But his expression didn’t change in any way.
Evie walked over to the technician and accepted the container. Yes, she was going to have to pee in this tiny little cup. Yes, someone was going to be watching her. Yes, it was going to be embarrassing. But if it meant that she could do this movie instead of the humiliating, insubstantial roles that had been offered to her recently, she’d pee in a cup every single day. Her agent had called just last night, letting her know that a director had called with a script named “Bunnies at Ten”, a horror movie which Jerry said had a social statement mixed into the subtext. Right. Evie seriously doubted that anything with ‘Bunnies’ in the title could have a very strong social statement. He’d argued that it paid three times what she was earning here on “Dawn”, although the director wasn’t offering her a percentage of the royalties. In the long run, if Evie could pull off this role, she could be earning ten times the salary of “Bunnies”!
And Evie was determined to kill this role, no pun intended.
Five minutes later, she put the urine sample on the edge of the sink, smiled politely at the technician who seemed to be just as embarrassed as she was, then headed for makeup.
“That was pointless,” Brenda grumbled as she started working on Evie’s makeup while Josie, the hair stylist, went to work on Evie’s hair.
“Tell me about it,” Josie mumbled around several bobby pins in her mouth as she twisted Evie’s long, dark locks.
Evie didn’t say anything as the two women worked their magic. A half hour later, gone were the dark circles under Evie’s eyes. She hadn’t slept last night, too worried about the start of filming today as well as about seeing Brock again. About seeing the derision on his handsome face. He was an acting legend. He’d won several Oscars and had received several nominations for the films he’d directed and produced.
As she headed to wardrobe, Evie caught a glimpse of the man himself. He was conferring with Monty and Gerald, his assistant producer, about the day’s schedule. She found herself entranced by his hand as he pointed to the script. Nice hands, she thought. Long, lean fingers and short, tidy nails. Evie wondered what it would be like to be touched by hands like those. She’d bet they were strong, capable hands.
“Watch out!”
Evie froze and looked around, realizing that she’d been about to trip over several thick hoses. Glancing up, she smiled briefly at the man who had called out the warning. With a mental grimace, she stepped over the hoses and hurried to wardrobe.
Twenty minutes later, Evie stepped onto the set. The cameramen were in place, ready to film. Monty was still arguing with Brock, but of course, Brock won the argument. Evie had no idea what was being said because she’d retreated into herself, forcing herself to “become” Lucy.
“Okay, Evie,” Brock called out, walking towards her with the script tucked under his arm. “Remember, you’re the daughter of a long term senator and a prominent surgeon. You’ve spent your life in their shadows.”
Evie blinked up at him, startled by his comments. “I’m good,” she said, trying to reassure him that she understood her character. Unfortunately, Brock didn’t believe her and he was breaking her concentration by telling her things that she already knew. The background details of her character were in the script, for goodness sake! Why was he explaining this to her?
“Remember that you’re angry with your parents, but you’re all grown up. You’re one of the best lobbyists in the industry. But you’re also striving to be a femme fatale.”
Evie glared up at him, biting her tongue to keep from snapping at him to shut up. But this was the first day of filming. Everyone would take their cue from this first interaction. “Right. I’ve got it.”
He moved closer. “Do you know your lines? I’ve got them right here. Just call out when you are stumped.”
Evie wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or comforted by his words. On the one hand, she’d spent the last three weeks working with a lines coach. She’d continue working with that coach every night after filming for the next day’s scenes, just to make sure that she had everything down. She’d even filmed herself, worked out blocking and staging, even facial expressions, to make sure that she had her character down perfectly.
But Brock didn’t think she was a professional. He didn’t think she’d studied her lines or knew the character’s motivation! Damn him! He’d seen her audition! She’d gone through all of that just to prove that she was good at this acting thing and here he was, not just telling her that he didn’t believe in her, that he didn’t trust her. But making it clear to the rest of the crew that he didn’t trust or believe in her!
Fine, he didn’t believe in her. She’d show him exactly what she could do! But in the meantime, he deserved a bit of his own right back.
“What’s my first line?” she asked, widening her eyes ever so slightly and puffing out her lower lip. It was her vamp look and she did it extremely well. So well, she could almost hear Brock swallow a groan.
He stared at her for a long moment, then gritted his teeth as he whipped out the script. “Here,” he said, pointing to her line. She glanced over at the script, but didn’t bother to look at her line. In fact, she was more fascinated by the scribbles along the margins.
“Oh, right!” she replied, then added a small giggle, just for effect. “I’ve got it now.”
She walked away, up on her toes and pointing her fingers out at her sides, ensuring that even her walk came across as flighty.
“Okay!” she chirped, tiptoeing around and giggling again. “I’m ready!”
Brock stared at her and she suspected that he was debating with himself, calculating the cost of buying her out of her contract so that he could find someone else to play Lucy. But if he was going to do that, he should have done it weeks ago. Knowing that, he turned and walked over to the director’s chair, muttering under his breath.
Evie turned her back to him and closed her eyes, ignoring the heat of the lights and the murmurs all around her.
“Quiet on set!” Brock bellowed.
Monty took over. “Settle!” he called out. “Roll tape!” There was a pause and Evie knew that the cameras were now filming. “And action!”
Evie turned, her entire demeanor changing from vampish and flighty to controlled intelligence. Her giggling smiles were gone and she pulled her shoulders back, extending her hand to the older man with silver at his temples. “Senator! I’m delighted that you found time during your busy day to speak with me.” And so it went. The lunch scene with the senator where she spouted statistics that would bring this particular politician to her client’s side of the argument went perfectly with just one take. They went from that scene to another lunch scene with a different senator. Evie’s hair was changed, wardrobe exchanged, and she played out the whole scene again and again. Four different senators. Four different lunch scenes. Four different hair styles, lipstick shades, and business suits.
Between each scene, she watched as Brock walked over to her, ready to give her direction on the next scene. Every time, Evie played up the flighty vamp, asking stupid questions, relishing the vein that started throbbing on his forehead by late afternoon.
By that point, he’d stopped approaching her. “Let’s do scene fifty-four!” He called out, and turned to confer with the set designer and prop master, then the camera crew, checking each camera’s angle to make sure that he would get what he wanted. But he stayed far away from Evie.
Even the rest of the crew were chuckling at her antics as Evie went back to wardrobe, hiding her exhaustion and hunger. She couldn’t eat or drink anything because she’d mess up her lipstick, but she was…
“Here!” someone snapped at her, slapping a bottle of water into her hands. This wasn’t the normal plastic bottle though. Nope! Brock wasn’t just anti-drugs and alcohol. He was pro-environment and had forbidden single use plastic bottles on his set. The cafeteria staff had been directed to bring in large containers of ice water, but everyone needed to fill up a reusable water bottle. This one wasn’t Evie’s, but it was cold and wet. Glancing up, she realized that it had been Brock who had handed her the water.
“Don’t even start!” he snapped when she opened her mouth to thank him for the water.
But Evie understood. He’d didn’t want her to go into vamp mode again. The makeup artist chuckled behind her as soon as Brock walked away.
“Come on, Evie. You’ve broken the man,” Josie laughed. Brenda nodded, both of them smirking through their own exhaustion. It had been a hard day of filming and Evie wanted to head home and get some much needed rest. Unfortunately, even after Brock finally called a halt to the day, she still had to practice her lines for tomorrow.
“Okay, let’s call it a night!” Brock yelled.
Almost everyone sighed with relief and Evie’s shoulders drooped with exhaustion. “Thank goodness,” she muttered, then smiled to the makeup artist who immediately handed her a tissue to wipe off her makeup. “Bless you!”
She headed back to her dressing room where she slipped out of the wool suit and finished taking off her makeup. Dropping her hairpins into a small dish on the dressing room table, she scrubbed her face clean, pulled her dark hair into a messy bun, applied a touch of much needed chapstick, then pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt that had definitely seen better days.
Closing her eyes, she savored the beautiful sensation of her feet slipping down into the soft, cushioned insoles of her sneakers instead of Lucy’s ridiculously high heels. For a long moment, she leaned back in her chair and let the silence of the room wash over her. She’d forgotten how long the filming days were when she hadn’t slept the night before, the agony of finding the rhythm on the first few days of filming, as well as the awkwardness of a cast and crew as they tried to figure out each other’s personalities. It was as if everyone was on their first day of the job, everyone trying to be nice and considerate…everyone except the producer and director.
Evie stepped out of her dressing room and looked around, wanting to make sure she didn’t run into Brock again. She needed to…well, she really should stop by the screening room to see the dailies, but she couldn’t do it. Evie loved acting. It was in her blood and she felt more alive when she stepped into another person’s character. But she absolutely hated watching herself on film. She’d sit in the screening room critiquing her performance, her weight, her makeup, her posture. The following day, she’d second-guess herself, because she couldn’t block those images out of her mind.
So instead, she snuck out one of the side doors, waving to the other crew members that had also packed up and were heading out to their cars.
Brock stormed down the hallway, smacking the script against his thigh. He was livid and, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure how to handle it. Evie was playing him.
Granted, she was...okay, she was brilliant. In fact, every day this week, she’d grown more comfortable in the role and with the crew. Every day, she became “Lucy”. Her body language, the way she spoke during the various scenes, the tilt of her head, her hand movements…everything she did, every inflection of her voice was becoming more and more Lucy. And yet, when he spoke to her, she did that thing with her eyes or flipped her hair over her shoulder. Like some vacuous, teenage girl who needed directions to the beer pong table!
“Hey Brock!” Monty called out, waving a file folder as he shuffled down the hallway. “You said that you wanted these results as soon as they came in.”
Brock eyed the file. It was the results of the first few days of drug tests. So far, they’d tested more than fifty percent of the crew. Some had walked out that first day, obviously thinking that the contract had been a bluff. And yet, still others had thought that their urine wouldn’t really be tested. They’d been fired and immediately replaced with new drug free crewmembers. Brock had known that drugs were pretty rampant in the business. But he hadn’t anticipated this much turnover.
He flipped through the pages until he found the one he wanted to see. Negative. Why did that one word make his body surge with relief?
Because she was good! Evie was a damn good actor and he didn’t want to lose her. The script was outstanding. It was poignant and powerful, politically sarcastic and globally relevant. But it was Evie that brought the main character to life. It was Evie who was going to make this movie unforgettable!
“She clean?” Monty asked, standing back warily.
“Yeah,” Brock snapped, closing the file folder. “But there were several positive results in there. Get those people off the set and their replacements ready to go tomorrow.”
Monty sighed, rubbing his neck. “Do we really need to get rid of them? Couldn’t we just…look the other way?”
Brock shook his head. “Not a chance. They are a risk that I’m not willing to deal with. Plus, a clear headed crew works better than a team hindered by drugs.”
Monty nodded slowly. Brock could tell that his assistant director didn’t agree. “Fine. I’ll get them off set. Do you have a list of who you want tested tomorrow?”
Brock rubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion washing over him. Normally, the first few days of filming invigorated him. He couldn’t quite figure out why this time was different, other than the fact that a certain brunette with soft lips and flashing silver eyes had gotten under his skin.
Sure, she was beautiful. But he was around beautiful women all the time. What was so different about Evie? Why did she irritate him to the point where he wanted to yell at her one moment, then…okay, he admitted it! When she pulled that vacuous bimbo routine on him, he wanted to laugh. She was playing him. No two ways about it. She was acting exactly the way he treated her.
“Brock?” Monty prompted, interrupting his fantasy about pulling Evie over his knee and spanking her for…for doing exactly what he expected of her. Damn her! She was cute and sexy and…flippant and…!
Monty cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’ll just…”
Brock pulled his head out of his ass. “No. Right. Umm…” he shook his head, trying to clear it. “Why don’t you just put everyone’s names in a jar and then pull out five each night for the morning’s tests?”
“Seriously?” Monty scoffed. Lowering his voice, he growled, “I thought this whole thing was to ensure Evie was drug free. Why are you making the rest of the crew test too?”
Brock nodded towards the file folder with all of the drug tests. “Because, apparently, she’s the only one not doing drugs.” With that, he turned on his heel and headed towards the screening room. He’d been on the set since five am and it was nearing ten at night. If he didn’t get these screenings done and figure out the details of tomorrow’s schedule, then he wasn’t going to get much sleep.
