Under the Lights Page 6

  And if there’s another, it’s that sometimes, you’ll just have to kiss with an audience.

  “It’s been one week of filming, and already he’s a royal pain in my butt.” I put the phone on speaker so I can set it on my dresser while I trade the clothes I wore to the Daylight set for the sports bra, tank top, and cropped yoga pants I’ll need for my nighttime Bikram session. “I don’t understand how you dealt with him for a year.”

  Ally laughs. “He’s not so bad once you get to know him.”

  “I know him,” I remind her. “I still don’t like him.”

  “That’s what you thought about Brianna, and you seem pretty okay with her now.”

  Do I? I hadn’t realized I’d even been talking about her to Ally much. But things with her are definitely better. The e-mails that used to be short and kinda formal are way friendlier now. She’d even sent a few texts that week—things like, It’s only 3 eps!! and I haven’t seen a single news story on the murder of Josh Chester, so I hope that means it’s not so bad! It’s been nice having her support, especially with Ally gone.

  “Yeah, she’s cool.”

  “Well, given that she’s the spawn of Satan, that’s actually pretty impressive, isn’t it?”

  I laugh. It’s pretty amazing to think that she’s Jade’s daughter. Unlike her mother, she’s actually sweet, and thoughtful, and she smiles every now and again, dimples and all. “Very. And she’s a fan of Sherlock. Like, every possible incarnation of it.”

  “Aw, that’s cool, Vanny. You guys should hang out. Hey, hang on one sec.” There’s a crackling sound as her hand covers the receiver and then her muffled voice as she yells something to someone. Whoever it is responds, and as their conversation continues, I let my mind wander.

  Would it be weird to ask Bri to hang out? Would she even want to?

  I could ask her to come over for a Sherlock marathon, maybe. Or go shopping. Ally used to go with me, but now that she’s gone, I haven’t been in, like, forever. Or maybe to Pinkberry…Would that be sacrilege without Ally? Does Bri even like Pinkberry? Will she think that’s dumb?

  “Van? Yoohoo! Are you still there?”

  Whoops. “Hey, sorry. Didn’t realize you were back.”

  She laughs. “I gathered. Sorry—just trying to figure out what movie we’re seeing, but I’ve got another few minutes. Have you been looking at any apartments since I left?”

  “Not really,” I admit, feeling a little twinge at the knowledge it’s not the answer she wants. I don’t even know how to explain to myself, let alone to Ally, why I’m dragging my feet on moving out, now that I’m eighteen. It’s not like I have a cute little sister or family movie nights, like she did. But the fact is, I am so, so scared at the prospect of fully leaving my parents. Which I will never, ever admit to another living soul, not even my best friend.

  “Did you check out that place in Liam’s complex? It sounded good, and they’ve got such a nice pool.”

  “Not yet.” I pull my hair into a ponytail and determine to change the subject. “Speaking of which, how’s your new place? Boys walking around in towels everywhere?”

  She laughs. “Not quite. Anyway, kind of hard to get excited at the sight of shirtless men, given my boyfriend. I think he’s ruined me.”

  “Pretty sure that’s been his plan all along,” I tease. “How about the roomie? Is she your new bestie?”

  “As if. She doesn’t even like The Beatles,” she replies in a mock-whisper.

  “Sacrilege!”

  “Right? And she insists on going to this fro-yo place that’s not Pinkberry, just because it’s closer. Like, who cares about a couple miles when it’s Pinkberry?”

  I know she’s partly kidding to make me feel better, but it works. And at the same time, I sort of hate that she already has a new fro-yo buddy. When she was here, she barely hung out with anyone but me, Liam, and Josh. Now that she’s over there, she’s making friends a whole lot more quickly.

  Meanwhile, I’ve got Josh—an actual hemorrhoid in human form—and Liam, who spends every spare moment working out for his stupid new movie role and smells like a walking protein shake at all times. Jamal’s great, but when we’re not on set, he’s with his girlfriend, Theresa, like, a zillion percent of the time. I guess Carly Upton, who plays my best friend on the show, is okay, but she’s a little boring. And needy. And okay maybe I don’t like her that much.

  So maybe I should ask Bri if she wants to hang out. Worst that can happen is she says no, right?

  “How are classes going?” I ask, because I don’t want to talk about her roommate, or the fact that New York City has Pinkberry too, or Liam, or the apartment I’m not renting.

  Apparently that was the right question, because she launches into a whole thing about her core classes and how they will or won’t matter for her eventual law school applications. I do my best to listen while I put on my bare makeup minimum—essential in case of a paparazzi run-in on the way to yoga, but not enough to turn my face into a melting mess in the sweltering heat of the Bikram Yoga studio.

  We chat for a few more minutes and then hang up, promising to talk again this weekend. I still have fifteen minutes before I have to leave, so I quickly check my Instagram and “like” some of Zander’s recent pictures, leaving a mushy comment on a selfie of the two of us from a premiere we went to last week. Then I flip through Ally’s pictures and “like” a bunch of those, too, even though the sight of her sharing fries and doing makeovers with people who aren’t me is more than a little depressing.

  On a whim, I check to see if Bri has an account. There are about a zillion Brianna Harrises, though, and I don’t have time to look through all the little icons to see if any of them feature light-green eyes behind black-rimmed glasses, framed by red waves. I switch over to Twitter instead, respond to the few tweets from people I actually know, plus a couple from random fans, and then toss my phone into my purse.

  My mother’s in the kitchen, and I pass through on my way out to give her a peck on the cheek and accept an apple in return. I’ve told her a million times that I get queasy during yoga if I eat right beforehand, but she’s afraid I’ll pass out if I don’t. As usual, she won that argument, the same way she’s been winning every minor battle since she and my father allowed me to go on my first audition when I was a kid, on the condition I prove myself “responsible enough to handle it,” whatever that means. The major fight—to continue on this path or to go to college—is still a quiet, passive-aggressive push-and-pull…for now.

  But for all that my parents infuriate me sometimes, I know they love me and want to make sure I’m well taken care of. And if I move out on my own, who knows how long it’ll be before I find someone else who’ll feel that way about me?

  I show up to yoga a few minutes late for the eight o’clock class, my rolled-up mat stabbing me in the butt as I try to let myself into the chokingly hot room as quietly as possible. Raoul, the teacher, just twitches his nose when he spots me; he’s used to me showing up late, even if he’s not terribly Zen about it. I roll out my mat and move quickly through the two poses I missed before catching up to everyone else at the tail end of Awkward Pose.

  “Calm” isn’t exactly the word anyone would use to describe me, but the whole ninety minutes of chill-out time kinda works for me, even if the room is a bajillion degrees. I like having to clear my head of all the drama and obligations that fill it during the week. And as attached as I am to my phone, I’m even kinda glad Raoul would kick my ass if I so much as favorited a tweet under his watch.

  So it’s pretty unsettling to look up during Standing Bow and see a familiar pair of light-green eyes making contact with mine in the mirror.

  Unsettling enough that I break pose and nearly fall on my butt.

  In the mirror, I can see Brianna struggling not to laugh as I literally bend over backward to avoid crashing to the ground. I suck a curse back into my lungs, knowing that while Raoul will forgive lateness, he’ll throw a total fit if anyone dares dis
turb the quiet sanctity of the studio. We’re not even allowed to wipe off our sweat under his watch. He’s almost as psycho as Jade.

  Almost.

  I get narrowed eyes from Raoul, but he’ll never get truly pissed at me because I once snuck him an old sweatband of Liam’s. (Our little secret, of course.) I force myself back into position and close my eyes, shutting out the rest of the world, including Brianna Harris.

  But I swear, I can still feel her eyes on me.

  It’s easy enough to look away through the next four poses—they all involve looking in directions other than forward anyway—but when we shift into Tree Pose, our eyes meet again, just for an instant, and I can’t help wondering what she’s doing here. I’ve been coming to this class for a year, and I’ve never once seen her. If she’s spying on me again…

  I narrow my eyes at the mirror, and now she’s the one who startles a little in her pose. Good. It’s nice to see her be the one caught off guard for once. But the longer I hold my stare, the more I realize she’s doing just fine in the sweltering heat, and she knows not to mop up her sweat, and once she’s back in pose, she stays put. Actually, she looks a whole lot more graceful than I do. And is that an Om tattooed on the back of her neck, partially concealed by her ponytail?

  Maybe she’s not just here to spy on me.

  Forget about her, I order myself as we drop into toe stands. Clear your damn head, Vanessa Park. So I do. For the rest of the ninety-minute class, I forget about Brianna, and that Josh Chester is a pain in my ass, and that my best friend lives across the country, and that my parents want me to be someone I’m not, and that my career has an uncertain future, and that I need to get my own place. With the exception of the occasional superfast water break, I do nothing but pose, breathe, and sweat.

  When it’s over, I avoid all eye contact as I give myself a thorough wipe-down. I love the class, but afterward, I always feel gross. It’s liberating, sometimes, getting to look that disgusting without worrying about cameras or whatever, but now, of course, Brianna’s here, seeing me bathed in sweat, my face a freaking tomato.

  I kinda hope she’ll just walk out, but no such luck.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” she says as she walks over, taking a long sip from the bottle of water in her hand. “And no, before you ask, I’m not here spying for my mother.”

  My lips twitch. “I wasn’t thinking that,” I lie.

  “Oh, yes, you were. But I’m not. I used to go to the five o’clock, but I had to change it up now that I’ve started the internship with Jade.” A trickle of sweat slides down her forehead, and she swipes it away. “Well, that, and my ex-girlfriend still goes to the five o’clock,” she adds sheepishly.

  Ex-girlfriend? “I thought you had an ex-boyfriend,” I say, then realize how stalker-y that sounds. “I just mean, you mentioned him at the party. The Zombie Camp fan.”

  “That too,” she says with a grin, then takes another sip of water. “I’m an equal-opportunity leave-relationship-destruction-in-my-wake kind of girl.” She says it like she’s just informed me she has no preference between vanilla and chocolate fro-yo, but there’s a hint of a challenge in her eyes, like she’s waiting for me to judge her. Which just reminds me that she doesn’t know me any better than I know her.

  “I hope the girlfriend had better taste in movies.” I pat down my face and neck one more time with my towel, then take a long drink.

  Her lips quirk up in the corner, and I feel like I’ve passed some sort of test. “So, is this your usual class?”

  “Yup. Raoul and I are buds.”

  “I’ll bet. What do you usually do afterward?”

  “Um, shower?” I gesture down at where sweat has seeped through my…everything, basically.

  She laughs. “Probably a good plan.”

  It’s a good opening to ask if she wants to hang out, but before I can figure out how, she says, “Well, unless you’re showering all day tomorrow, too, are you up for a shopping trip after filming? Jade says you need something new for the exhibit opening Friday night, and I need to buy something that’s not business-casual. I swear, I’ve never worn so many pantsuits in my life.”

  “Jade has you wearing pantsuits?” It’s impossible to imagine punky, quirky Brianna in something so straitlaced, but then again…Jade.

  “Jade would have birthed me in a pantsuit if she could have.” Brianna rolls her eyes, which are actually kind of warm in their makeup-free, glasses-free state. “We’re talking about a woman who insists I call her by her first name at all times, so that I never slip out of being ‘professional.’”

  “Huh. So she really is like that twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Seven days a week,” she confirms. “So, are you up for it?”

  I think about my conversation with Ally. And I think about the fact that I’m still not sure how much I trust Brianna. And then I think about the fact that, if I say no, I’m gonna have a very long night of stressing ahead.

  And I say, “Sure, why not?”

  Chapter Seven

  Josh

  By the end of my first three weeks, we’ve got two episodes in the can and I can’t remember if I’ve ever worked this hard in my life. I’ve had to wake up at seven almost every day, and it’s killing me. I’ve barely gone out because I can’t stand the hangovers anymore, not to mention that my beer gut was getting a little out of control. I’ll be damned if Holloway maintains his rep as the show’s “body” while he’s basically on vacation in the Valley.

  I let myself into Holloway’s trailer—which he barely even uses these days—and let out a long, loud groan. I’m tired as balls, and all I want is a shower and a nap before I go out with the guys again tonight. I groan again as I drop onto his couch. Feels like it’s been fucking hours since I’ve gotten off my feet.

  A frantic knocking sounds at the door, and then I hear, “Liam, are you okay? It sounds like there’s an animal dying in there.”

  Pushing myself up off the couch, I realize K-drama’s on the other side of the door. I swing it open. “Just the party animal that once resided within me,” I say dramatically, leaning against the doorpost. “What’s up?”

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “I need a shower, and the guest stars get lousy digs,” I inform her, raking a hand through my hair. “They really don’t appreciate where the true talent lies.”

  She rolls her eyes. “How strange of them. But just as well I found you—your agent’s lurking around here. I assume she’s looking for you to tell you she’s had enough of you.”

  More likely she’s looking for me to nag me to pick a script for once this guest arc’s up. “Lemme just shower, and—”

  “Is that him?” I stifle a groan as Holly joins Vanessa. “There you are. Did you get that script I sent over? Wings of Phoenix?”

  “That’s filming in Philly, right?” asks Van. “Aren’t you banned from there after that whole incident at City Hall?”

  “I swear, people have no sense of humor. You’d think they’d be more immune to innocent actor shenanigans, given that Transformers filmed there. I’ll read it anyway—I’m sure they’re over it by now. Probably. I paid for the fire damage, anyway. Or maybe it was the water damage. Whatever it was, I threw money at it.”

  Holly exhales sharply. “Meanwhile, everyone seems to think I’m also your publicist and manager. Have you thought about getting an actual publicist?”

  “And suppress his natural charm?” Vanessa says sweetly, laughing when I give her the finger.

  “Whatever gets me fewer e-mails. Dylan Mackenzie wants to make sure you’re still in for the celebrity golf thing next Sunday.”

  “Tell him I wouldn’t miss it, and ask if his girlfriend will be back in that little argyle skirt.”

  “I’ll be sure to. Glory Thompson called to confirm your radio interview tomorrow—”

  “Reschedule for Thursday. I’m back on set tomorrow.”

  “And I confirmed your dentist appointment for Thursday as w
ell.”

  I shudder. “Can we reschedule that one for never?”

  “Joshua.” Vanessa fixes me with a look. “She’s not your assistant.”

  “Neither are you,” I remind her, “so unless you’re going to be helpful…”

  She rolls her eyes and leaves, and Holly walks in, closing the door behind her. I still need a shower pretty badly, so I’m hoping we can wrap this up soon. It’s hard to get whipped into a frenzy about picking up yet another job with early call times or…anything having to do with Philadelphia, really.

  “Any word from Val at Aspen on the fragrance shoot?” I ask.

  “I called her this afternoon. She says they’re still looking for a female model to pair you with. The one who did their last denim campaign has a fragrance non-compete.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. Your mother called. Twelve times. Which is why I’m here.”

  Shit. “My mother called you?”

  “Apparently at least one of you thought it was relevant to tell me that you’re signed on for a reality show.”

  “I’m not,” I assure her. Not until I get desperate.

  “Well, she seems to think that you are, as long as you’re living in their beach house. You are still living there, aren’t you?”

  I don’t say anything. She already knows the answer.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this, Josh? I’m your agent. Dealing with your work is my job.”

  “Because I’m not doing it, and this doesn’t count as work. She’s just desperate for attention now that her show’s been canceled, and this is the only way she can get it. They won’t give her the show unless I agree to be on it.”

  Holly raises an eyebrow. “Really.”

  Statement, not a question. Which means she definitely has a very bad idea brewing right now.

  “Don’t even think about it, Holly.”

  “You need to work, Joshua. If you can line something else up, fine, but until you start taking your auditions seriously, I don’t know what else to do with you. If you want to keep me on as your agent, you’re going to need something to show for your efforts. Even if it’s reality TV.”