Behind the Scenes Read online

  Behind the Scenes

  Dahlia Adler

  SPENCER HILL CONTEMPORARY

  Copyright © 2014 by Dahlia Adler

  Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.

  Spencer Hill Contemporary / Spencer Hill Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Contact: Spencer Hill Press, PO Box 247, Contoocook, NH 03229, USA

  Please visit our website at www.spencerhillpress.com

  First Edition: June 24, 2014

  Dahlia Adler

  Behind the Scenes: a novel / by Dahlia Adler – 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: A girl takes a job as her best friend’s assistant on a hit teen TV show and begins a relationship with one of the actors that sends her deeper into the world of Hollywood than she ever wanted.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this fiction: Arnold Palmer, Barbie, The Beatles, Ben & Jerry’s, Bikram Yoga, Cherry Garcia, Chloé, Coke, Dior, Disney, Gap, Google, In-N-Out Burger, JELL-O, Louboutin, Marc Jacobs, Nissan, Nordstrom, Range Rover, Red Stripe, The Real World, Thermos, Toyota, Wikipedia

  Cover design by Christa Holland (Paper & Sage Design)

  Interior layout by Jenny Perinovic

  ISBN 978-1-939392-97-8 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-939392-98-5 (e-book)

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my family,

  for always assuming the writing I wouldn’t share

  were the greatest stories never told

  1

  IF MY PHONE BUZZED ONE MORE TIME, I was going to pull it out of my backpack and hurl it at the linoleum.

  Dammit, Van. It was definitely her calling, even though she knew I was in school. She’d had an audition that morning for a teen dramedy show, and I swear she seemed more desperate to land the role of Ditz #3 on Daylight Falls than she’d been to play Brad-freakin’-Pitt’s stepdaughter three years ago.

  I couldn’t turn my phone off—not with my dad in the hospital—so when it finally shut up, I said a silent prayer that she wouldn’t try again. I hated when Vanessa interrupted me during class. Little-known fact: Girls who pick up the phone during French do not get to keep their shiny new acceptance letters to Columbia.

  Just when I was finally sure Van had gotten the message, my bag began vibrating for a third time.

  “Hey, Duncan, I think your bag is buzzing.”

  “I know,” I whispered back to Nate Donovan without turning around, “but what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Have you considered, I dunno, answering it? Man, and to think I actually needed you to tutor me a few months ago.”

  “Funny, Donovan. Anyway, it’s just Vanessa. She can wait. Le subjunctif cannot.”

  “Vanessa, you say.” Even in a whisper, he sounded obviously intrigued. I rolled my eyes. Nate always got a hard-on at the mere mention of her name. As far as I knew, he’d never had trouble landing a girlfriend, but the only girl he’d ever expressed interest in to me was my utterly unattainable BFF. “I could get that for you if you like.”

  “Monsieur Donovan et Mademoiselle Duncan, estce qu’il-y-a quelque chose que vous voulez partager avec la classe?”

  No, I definitely didn’t have anything I wanted to share with the class. I was not there to share. I was there to learn, to get an A (or A+, I really wasn’t picky), and to make myself fluent enough that—combined with two and a half years of French at Columbia—I’d be able to get around the country when I studied abroad in Paris for spring semester of my junior year.

  “Non, Madame Boulanger,” I replied for both me and Nate. “Excusez-nous.”

  She nodded and turned around, and I resumed my forceful focus on the board…for about thirty seconds, until my phone buzzed yet again.

  “Un-freaking-believable,” I muttered, refusing to take my eyes off Madame Boulanger.

  “Just take it,” Nate whispered. “I’ll get the notes. I promise.”

  Clearly, I didn’t have a choice; she wasn’t going to let up any time soon. I snatched the phone from my bag, slipped out of the classroom, and dashed around the hallway corner to the ladies’ room.

  “I could kill you,” I whispered fiercely the second I picked up. “You know not to call me during class—”

  “I know, I know,” she interrupted, “but I promise, Ally, my news is totally worth it.”

  “Does this mean you got the part?”

  “I have so much to tell you, but I can’t talk now. Can you meet me at the Lunchbox after school?”

  I rolled my eyes. This was so typical. Still, she’d piqued my curiosity, and I didn’t have anything else after school today. “Fine, but my BLT’s on you, and don’t even think about refusing to split fries with me.”

  “Deal. Gotta go. See you later!”

  She hung up without waiting for me to say goodbye, which was also typical, but it’s hard to blame Van for her flightiness when she’s in a profession that forces her to be fake on a daily basis. I don’t know how she does it, but acting’s been her dream for as long as either of us can remember. Definitely not something we have in common.

  I palmed my phone and headed back to class with what my father would call “a spring in my step.” Despite my annoyance at the poor timing of her insistent phone calls, I was happy for Van, who’d obviously gotten the part. Plus, free BLT. Everybody wins. It was shaping up to be a great day, and I hadn’t had one of those in a while.

  * * * * *

  Vanessa beat me to the diner, but it took me a minute to realize it because she was decked out in full hidden-star mode: sunglasses, dark hair tucked under a baseball cap, and an unassuming outfit of Gap jeans and a striped tee.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t toss on your old Raggedy Ann wig just to really throw off the paparazzi.” I slid into the seat across from her in our usual booth and smiled when I saw that she’d already ordered me an Arnold Palmer.

  “Oh, A, mock if you must.” Vanessa sighed dramatically. “But when one is the star of Hollywood’s hottest new teen drama, one must take special precautions.” She leaned over and took a sip of the raspberry iced tea in front of her, her enormous aviators blocking the coffee-brown eyes I knew must’ve been twinkling behind them.

  “You got it!” I jumped up from my seat and squeezed Van around her shoulders, knocking her cap to the ground. “Congrats, Van. I know this was a big one for you.”

  “Oh, but I haven’t yet told you just how big.” She reached down and grabbed her hat, set it on the table next to her tea, and glanced around quickly as I sat back down before taking off her sunglasses as well. “I mean it when I say I’m the star. You’re looking at Bailey Summers, baby!”

  Van’s squeal was so high-pitched I was sure I’d heard her wrong. “What are you talking about, V? I thought you were auditioning for a character named Grace.”

  “I was,” said Van, pausing for a sip of her drink, “but they loved me so much that they asked me to try out for the lead instead. And I got it!”

  “I thought they wanted some tall, blonde babe to be the lead,” I said, still confused. I could swear I’d been listening closely to Van when she’d described the show to me, but maybe I’d been in a bigger studying haze than I’d thought. “Didn’t you say—and I quote—‘that bitch Zoe Knight totes has it in the bag’? I distinctly remember wanting to vomit that you used t
he word ‘totes’ in real life.”

  “That was the original plan, but I guess the acting talents of Miss Vanessa Park were enough to convince the powers that be that Bailey Summers—love interest of the super-hot Tristan Monroe, played by none other than the super-hot Liam Holloway—was meant to be a petite Korean chick.” Van’s smile was so bright it practically lit up the entire interior of the Lunchbox, and I couldn’t help mirroring it. “They’ve already cast my parents, so they’re just going to capitalize on how hot foreign adoption is right now.” She airquoted that last bit and rolled her eyes, but it barely detracted from her gleeful expression.

  “That’s so, so awesome, Van. You deserve it, and I’m glad they were smart enough to see it! Now where is our freaking waiter already so we can order you something celebratory? I skipped lunch to work on my article about the talent show, and I am starving.”

  “Already ordered,” Van said proudly as a waiter emerged with two plates, one holding the promised BLT and the other containing Van’s signature salad. (Literally. The Lunchbox named it after her because she got it so often and she’s by far their highest-profile customer, though she and I were such regulars that no one even blinked at the sight of her anymore.)

  “I’ll be right back with your fries,” he said, nodding slightly before disappearing back into the kitchen.

  “Vanny, you are not only a TV star, you are totally the star of my heart.” I lifted my Arnold Palmer. “Can we toast to your success now or what?”

  She must’ve been excited because she absolutely hated when I called her Vanny, but she didn’t so much as stick out her tongue. “Definitely!” She lifted her iced tea, and I clinked my glass against hers.

  “To Vanessa Park, the hottest teen actress Daylight Falls—and Hollywood—has ever seen.”

  “Hear, hear!” Vanessa flashed another megawatt smile and then tossed back a long swallow of tea.

  “I can’t wait to tell my parents,” I mused, after taking a sip of my own drink. “They’re gonna be so ridiculously proud.”

  “Oh, crap, I am such an asshole,” said Vanessa, all traces of her smile disappearing from her face. “How’s your dad? I’m so high on myself today I completely forgot to ask.”

  I immediately felt awful for raining on her parade, even though it hadn’t remotely been my intention. “Please, Van, you are definitely within your rights to be self-obsessed today! Besides, this is exactly the kind of thing that will make my dad’s day. As he’s constantly pointing out, it helps to keep fighting when you have major things to live for.”

  “How’s the treatment going? And what’s it called again? It’s not chemo, right?”

  I shook my head. Chemo had been my assumption, too, when he told me he’d been diagnosed, but apparently it had even crappier odds with stage IV melanoma than the relatively new treatment my dad was getting.

  “It’s called immunotherapy,” I managed around the lump that magically appeared in my throat whenever I recalled that conversation. “Bolsters the immune system instead of killing cells like chemo does.” The waiter returned with our fries, and I immediately snatched one up and popped it into my mouth, as if the grease would make that lump slide right out. “It’s still too early to tell if it’s working, but I’m going to visit him in the hospital straight from here. The official Duncan family party line is that we’re cautiously optimistic, so I’m trying to roll with that.”

  “Do you want me to come with you? I’d love to say hi, and I can totally reschedule my meeting with John.”

  This was exactly why I loved Van. No matter what was going on in her life or how swelled her head should be, she was always grounded enough to be there for me. When I got into Columbia early, she took me out for an awesome celebratory evening, even though she was presenting at some award show the next day, and when I called to tell her about my dad, she’d left the audition she’d been at and raced right over.

  “Thank you for offering, but trust me, it’s better for both of us if you meet with your agent ASAP. Besides, he’ll probably fall asleep after ten minutes while I just sit there researching melanoma on the Internet.”

  Vanessa groaned. “A, what’d I tell you about doing that? It’ll only make you crazy.”

  “I think it’s a good thing to be informed,” I countered, prodding at the sandwich I was starting to lose my appetite for. “I just wish websites would stop informing me that only something like six percent of people with his cancer live longer than six months.”

  “And I wish you would have a little more faith and a little more self-control,” said Van, chewing thoughtfully on a fry. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “Vanessa Park, you are about to become an even bigger star, and you need to focus on—”

  “Excuse me, did you just say Vanessa Park? Oh my gosh, are you Vanessa Park??”

  I stopped mid-sentence, and Van and I both looked up to see a timid tween with huge, blue eyes looking down at Van in awe. As Van smiled and graciously agreed to an autograph and a picture, I couldn’t help but wonder just how big a star she was about to become. She was gonna be in for some serious coverage and publicity as soon as the news broke that the main character of Daylight Falls had been rewritten to accommodate her. I was thrilled for Van, but selfishly, I couldn’t help but wish she’d be around more, now of all times.

  “I love having young fans,” said Van as soon as the girl was out of earshot. “Do you think I’ll have a lot more now that I’m actually on a teen show instead of playing ‘the daughter’ or ‘the medical student prodigy’ in movies for adults?” (Believe it or not, Van’s played “the med student prodigy” on multiple occasions. As hard as it is for Asian-Americans to get cast in Hollywood, she never seems to have any problem landing roles like those.)

  “I’ll tell you what I think.” I nabbed a piece of avocado from her plate. “I think you’re about to become America’s newest teen idol.”

  She laughed. “I think those are usually guys. Liam Holloway’s got that job in the bag.”

  “Well then, whatever it is girls are, I think you’re about to become that.” And as I said it, I knew in my gut it was true; Van was about to become huge, and I could only hope that didn’t change things between us, especially now when I needed her most. Despite the goofy smile that spread over her face, I couldn’t help the tinge of anxiety that danced like a butterfly down my spine.

  2

  “HI, I’M HERE TO SEE A PATIENT—Ezra Duncan. He’s in room 1028.” I signed in with my left hand and held up my school ID in my right like the seasoned pro I’d become after a couple of months.

  “Right down the hall and make a left, sweetheart.”

  “Thanks.” I hitched my backpack higher on my shoulder and swung around the reception desk, heading down the hall until I found the correct room. I was surprised to see that the door was wide open, even though my dad was in bed, a pajama-sporting bump on a log covered by one of those thin white blankets that couldn’t keep a fire warm.

  “Hey, Dad,” I greeted him warily, trying to keep my voice down as I took a cautious step into the room. “How are you feeling?”

  “AlGal!” He waved me in with an IV-filled arm. “Come in! Sit!”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Even in a hospital bed with a bunch of tubes sticking out of him and a bag full of rust-colored pee hanging down the side, my dad was cheerful. His straw-colored hair—so much like my little sister Lucy’s and so unlike the auburn mane I’d inherited from my mom—was graying a bit, but otherwise, he looked…like himself. I exhaled with relief as I plopped down on the chair next to his bed. I guess I hadn’t realized how much I’d expected cancer to change him.

  Then again, it had only been a few weeks.

  “So how’s it going?”

  “Actually,” I said, drawing out the word, “I have some very exciting news, though it’s not exactly mine. And speaking of which, Van wanted to come visit, but she has a meeting with her agent.”

/>   “Aw, that’s nice, honey. Please tell her thank you for me. So I take it she’s the one with the news?”

  “As usual.” I smiled, relaxing back in the chair and dropping my backpack to the ground. “Get this. Van’s going to be the star—like, the actual lead role—in TV’s newest teen dramedy, Daylight Falls!”

  Dad laughed, and I couldn’t help joining in. It was so nice to be able to make him happy in his current state, and I knew that, despite his laughter, he was every bit as proud of Van as I was. She and I had been friends since sand was our idea of haute cuisine, and she was nearly as much of a daughter to him as Lucy and I were. The fact that Van couldn’t stand her own parents only strengthened her bond with mine.

  “That’s fantastic,” he said, shaking his head and laughing again. “Have you told Lucy yet?”

  “No, but I know she’ll flip when I do. Don’t worry—I won’t let her anywhere near the set.”

  “Good girl.” He smiled and reached for the cup of water on the small table next to him, then took a tiny sip. “And how are you feeling about Vanessa’s potentially impending superstardom?”

  I shrugged. “I’m happy for her. I’m always happy for her. I just hope she doesn’t disappear.”

  “She won’t,” he said confidently. “The two of you have been friends for so long, it’s incredible. When she first started getting real jobs, your mother and I were afraid things between the two of you would fall apart, but that crazy sci-fi movie was, what, eight years ago? And the two of you seem just as strong as ever.”

  I curled my legs underneath me and eyed the untouched Jell-O on his tray. Despite having just consumed my weight in beef and bacon, the jiggly red cup was calling my name. “Wanna know the secret?”

  He smiled knowingly. “Is the secret that you want my Jell-O?”

  “I’m not taking your food,” I said defensively.

  “Don’t worry, I can always get more if I want. I’m just having a hard time stomaching anything right now. Go ahead, have at it.”