Authors: Sophia Kenzie
Beautiful PRICK (2 page)
The story
Three months earlier
“It’s five in the morning, Melissa. Why are you on the other
end of my phone?” I love my best friend with all my heart. I really do. But
she’s really testing that love by calling me before the sun even thinks about
coming up.
“Your call is at seven, Caroline. Seven. And L.A. traffic is
terrible.”
“Right, but I live twelve miles from the set. Even if I only
go ten miles an hour the entire way…” This is silly. It’s too early for car
math. What am I doing to myself? I’m just going to round to the nearest big
number. “It will take barely over an hour.”
“Yes, but you’re still in bed.” Melissa clears her throat,
knowing that she’s right, and that I’m unable to fight her.
“Fine, I’m up.”
“No, you’re not.”
I decide to bang my hand against the headboard. “I’m walking
down my stairs.”
“You’re not doing that either. You’re banging your hand
against your headboard.”
Ugh. That’s just the thing about best friends; you can’t get
away with anything when they’re around…or on the phone.
“Fine. Fine. Fine. You win. I’m getting up. Love you.” I
hang up on her and roll back over, but my phone starts screaming as soon as I do.
I lift it from my nightstand; slide it over to answer, and
simply yell into the phone. “Ahhh!”
But I get up. Hell, she went through all that trouble; the
least I can do is get out of bed.
I pop open my laptop and pull up the
New York Times.
I
know I live in Los Angeles, but I’m a New York girl at heart. The only reason I
even moved to L.A. was because no one seems to want to produce a sitcom in The
Big Apple. Even the shows that pretend to be in The Big Apple, spoiler alert, are
not shot in The Big Apple. I’m sure some are… I’m not ruling out all of them…
but for the most part, L.A. is where you need to be.
So I up and moved to L.A. It’s fine. I’m fine with it. I am.
I know I don’t sound like I am, but really… I’m fine.
Luckily, my best friend had already made the move three
years earlier, so I’m not alone.
Let’s talk about Melissa for a second. I love Melissa, as I
believe I have already mentioned. She’s great. I’ve known her practically my
entire life. We met when we were five. It’s a funny story actually. We were in
kindergarten and the teacher had us fill out these papers about ourselves. Well,
as we were in kindergarten, writing really wasn’t a thing, but the teacher was
walking around the room helping us.
I was sitting next to my very best friend in the whole wide
world: Annie. I have no idea what her last name was, but at the time, she was
my very best friend in the whole wide world. I thought that would last until
the end of eternity.
The next question on the paper in front of us asked for the
name of our best friend. I was so ready; I didn’t even need the teacher’s help.
A-N-N-I-E
Got it! I sat there, pencil down and hands folded in my lap.
The teacher made her way over to us, leaned over next to Annie, and quietly
asked, “Annie, who is your best friend?”
And Annie turned to the teacher and said, “Keri.”
That bitch.
Since my name is Caroline, and not Keri, I quickly erased
Annie’s name from my sheet. There was no way she was going to be my best friend
if I wasn’t her best friend.
The teacher helped Annie write “Keri”, even though it was
even easier to write than “Annie”, and then leaned over my shoulder. “Caroline,
who is your best friend?”
I panicked. I didn’t have a back up. Annie was all I knew. So
I did what any five year old would do in that situation: I quickly scanned the
room and came upon the first girl I saw. “Melissa.”
“Melissa?” She cocked her head at me.
“Yeah, Melissa.” I stated with confidence.
M-E-L-I-S-S-A
Much harder to spell than Annie, but worth it for the
satisfaction of knowing that I wasn’t the chump who put down Annie’s name
without reciprocation.
I found Melissa at recess later and told her we were now to
be best friends. The rest is history.
She knows that story. She’s not hurt by it. If anything, it
worked in both of our favors.
Fast-forward a few years, and you come upon two young adults
who had every intention of ruling New York City. We had a neighborhood picked
out, our local deli, our local sushi restaurant, our local coffee shop, our
spot in the park…
And then she went and fell in love. Again, I’m fine. I’m not
bitter at all. Though, I actually might be bitter if her husband wasn’t so absolutely
wonderful. He’s a line producer and Melissa is a costume designer. They met on
set one day, got married, had babies…well, one baby. His name is Austin. I
actually helped name him; long story, not important… but what is important is
that Melissa wanted a car and a yard and that meant they had to leave New York.
So my dreams were crushed.
Fast-forward again, three years this time, and now I’m in
L.A. I’m trying desperately to make it as a writer, which means I’m doing odd
jobs like catering and transcribing weird medical research conversations. It’s
thrilling, I swear.
But starting today, my wonderful best friend got me a job as
a production assistant on the movie she’s doing. It’s some action movie. I
think it has to do with mixed martial arts, so it’ll probably be a bunch of
people beating each other up. I could get into that. All she told me was that
I’d be getting people coffee, signing in the extras, and pretty much doing
whatever the higher ups ask of me. It’s more money than listening to medical
terms all day, so I said I’d be game.
Plus, I get to be on a movie set. That’s super fun, right?
It’s 5:30, the sun is beginning to rise, and I’m debating
whether it is more important to shower or eat breakfast.
Let’s be honest. I’m going to eat breakfast. I’ll just
splash on some body splash and call it a morning.
I like cereal. Does that make me a child? I mean, I don’t
eat chocolate cereal… for breakfast at least. But good, old-fashioned cereal
just makes me happy in the morning.
Yet, I’m thirty.
Am I too old to eat cereal?
Is
there a point when you
are too old for cereal? Should I be making eggs? Omelets? Frittatas?
Who makes frittatas? Could I be a person who makes
frittatas?
Well, not with twenty-eight minutes on the clock, I’m not. Cereal,
it is. I read my news, I eat my cereal, I wipe the splashed milk off my face,
and I drop my bowl off in the dishwasher.
My morning ritual is pretty simple. I dab on a few pumps of
moisturizer, because I’m thirty, and that’s what you do when you’re thirty. I
see how many pimples decided to pop up over night, because I’m thirty, and
that’s another thing you do when you’re thirty: your face just can’t seem to
make up its mind whether it wants to be young or old. I brush my teeth, I push
my contact on my finger, I add a drop of the solution to the contact, I bring
the contact up to my eye, I start freaking out, my hand begins to shake, I drop
the contact back into its case, and then I grab my glasses.
And since I’m wearing my glasses, I don’t need to worry
about eyeliner or mascara.
Done. Simple. Piece of cake.
And I’m in my car at 5:55 a.m. with my Pandora giving me the
best hits from the summer of 2000. I’m not judging myself at all.
I pull up to the gate of the studio at 6:20, meaning that I
could have slept for another thirty minutes.
Damn you, Melissa.
“You’re here! You’re here! You’re here!” Melissa runs up to
me to apparently let me know that I am, in fact,
here.
“Early. You mean that I’m here early, Melissa.” I make sure
she hears the disdain
in my voice.
“Well,” she shakes her head at me, “It’s better than being
late, Care Bear.”
That’s what Melissa calls me: Care Bear. It’s like Caroline…
well; it’s like the beginning of Caroline. I don’t know; she’s been doing it
forever. One time, when we were eight, I tried calling her
Missy,
and
she looked me square in the face and said, “My parents named me Melissa. I
would appreciate if you called me that.”
So, I call her Melissa. Sometimes I can get away with
Meliss, but only if I use the excuse that I’m too tired for three syllables.
Anyway, Melissa calls me Care Bear.
“You’re right. It is certainly better than being late,
Meliss.”
She raises her eyebrows at me.
I raise mine right back. “Hey, had you let me sleep in
another thirty minutes, your name would have had all three syllables. This was
your doing.”
She laughs and bats at me, to which I swat back at her. I
don’t know why we do that either. When you’ve known someone as long as we’ve
known each other, nothing makes sense anymore. And it’s also 6:30 in the
morning. Absolutely nothing makes sense at 6:30 in the morning.
“So what’s this movie?”
“Care Bear, seriously?” Melissa has giant eyes, and when I
“shock” her by doing something like ask her what movie we’re working on,
somehow, they get bigger. It’s really a phenomenon.
“It’s about fighting. I know that.” I smile at her.
We walk to the other side of the studio while she tells me
all about the movie. It sounds super cool. An All-American college wrestler is
gearing up for the Olympics when he finds out that his younger brother, a
marine, is being sent out on another tour. He decides to put his dreams on hold
and he joins the marines so he can keep an eye on his brother, who he’s afraid
isn’t handling war that well. While overseas, his base is attacked, and he ends
up paralyzed. His brother, feeling really guilty, gets mixed up in drugs and gangs
and other things that are really bad, all the while the wrestler is trying to
learn how to walk again. His brother then owes tons of money to some really bad
guy, and figures he’s going to make the money by fighting in an underground MMA
tournament. Well, something happens (Melissa wasn’t quite sure about that
twist) and he can’t fight anymore, but he still needs the money, so the All-American
wrestler has to get his legs back and do the fighting for him.
So either it’ll be really awesome or really corny. We’ll
see!
I introduce myself to the people in the tent, and they hand
me a walkie-talkie, an earpiece, a clipboard, and a bottle of water. I feel so
official even though I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I’m told that my
supervisor is running a little behind, but I can help myself to the craft
services if I’m hungry.
So maybe I should’ve showered instead of eaten breakfast. Hey,
you live and you learn, right?
Still, I go and check out craft services because they said
free food and who doesn’t jump at free food?
By the way, craft services has everything! There are all the
different kinds of bagels, muffins, croissants, yogurt, granola, and there’s
candy. Why is there candy? I quickly sneak a hand full of M&M’s from the
fun bubble gum dispenser. Then I immediately regret that, because I’m not five
years old and chocolate that early in the morning makes my tongue taste funny. But
it’s still awesome because I had M&M’s from craft services. I have no idea
how actors stay skinny. There is so much food just waiting to be eaten!
Melissa is across the way checking out some of the costumes,
so I run over to her. I don’t know why she has never told me about craft
services.
“Look at me! I have a walkie-talkie!”
“You look so official!” Melissa claps with me.
“That’s what I said! Well, I said it in my head, but I still
said it!” We continue to clap.
“Care Bear, did you have M&M’s from craft services?” Melissa
stops jumping up and down with me.
“What? No. Yes.” I drop my hands to my side. “How did you
know?”
“Your tongue is five different colors.”
“Oh dear Lord.” I pretend to look around for a mirror, but I
really don’t care enough to find one.
Melissa laughs, clearing in the know regarding my actions. “I
would give you my compact, but I know you don’t really care.”
See, best friends, can’t hide anything from them.
“Hey, Melissa, you’ve been holding out on me.” I stand up to
her, completely forgetting that my tongue is still five different colors.
“Hey Caroline, how so?”
“When were you planning on telling me about the amazingness
of craft services? They have everything.”
“Oh, yes.” She nods her head knowingly. “And you wondered
why I gained forty pounds with Austin.”
“Well, now I don’t!”
We laugh, we do our slap and bat thing, and then we laugh
some more. And then I stop laughing all together because my full attention is
drawn to the man standing next to the trailer.
I know him. I really can’t tell from where, but I do. And I
know him well. That just makes me feel like a terrible person. I mean, it
happens: sometimes you meet someone, you have a connection, you share an
exciting conversation, and then they just leave your mind. I often blame
alcohol for that, but mostly it’s that I meet a lot of people, and there are
just only so many people you can meet and then remember. Right?
But this guy… well, I definitely remember him. I just have
no idea from where. And then I feel drawn to him, as though I should go over to
him and tell him that I recognize him. But that’s weird, and honestly, it might
be a little rude.
Rude has never stopped me before though, so I start to walk.
“Caroline, where are you going?” Melissa calls out to me.
“I know that guy.” I point to him.
“Yes, yes you do.” She begins to walk next to me.
“You know him too?” I continue to rack my brain for a memory
of him.
“I know him too. Not personally, but I know him.”
“What’s his name?” I still cannot place him, and it is
driving me crazy.
Melissa starts to laugh. “It’s Johnny. His name is Johnny.”
“Yes! That’s it.” He looks like a Johnny. I completely
believe his name is Johnny.
Now, we’re close enough that Johnny catches my eye. I think
he remembers me too, because he plasters a quite pleasant smile across his face
as the steps between us diminish. Wow, Johnny is pretty. Like pretty, pretty.
And then it occurs to me that I might not actually know
Johnny.
My voice becomes dramatically deep. “He’s famous.” I see the
word
ABORT
flash through my mind in bright red letters.
Melissa bursts out in a fit of laughter. “He is.”
I quickly turn to her and give her my angriest face. “You
were going to let me go through with that!”
“I couldn’t help it; it was too funny. You were about to go
talk to Johnny Braylock.”
“I was!”
“Looking like this.” Melissa motions to the entirety of what
I have decided to dress myself with today.
“Hey!” I attempt to defend myself, although I have no right
to do so.
“No, no. You’re a mess. And I wouldn’t have told you that if
I didn’t love you.”
Melissa likes to say things like that a lot. As long as it’s
followed by
if I didn’t love you,
she can pretty much get away with
saying anything. It’s kind of like how southern people get away with calling
other people awful names just because they end each insult with
bless her
heart.
So I’m over her insult: I get it, I didn’t even look at what
I put on this morning, but what I’m not over is the fact that Johnny Braylock
is on set.
The
Johnny Braylock. I used to have the biggest crush on him.
It was an embarrassing crush. It was one of those crushes where I had a giant
poster of him in my bedroom, and I would talk to him as if he was there. I used
to kiss the television and pretend I was making out with him. I used to tell my
mother that one day I would marry him… and I was about sixteen when I did that.
As I said, it was embarrassing.
I haven’t seen him in anything for a while, which is why I’m
assuming I didn’t recognize him right away. He was big when I was a kid. He was
one of those teenagers who happened to not only be beautiful, but also have a
black belt in karate, so whenever a movie called for a beautiful teen that
could do martial arts, that movie called Johnny.
And I, like every other teenage girl, ate it up.
Now, I am standing fifty feet away from him, trying to
pretend I have anything important to do. Melissa is talking on the phone to her
mother-in-law who is babysitting Austin, I am still awkwardly staring at
Johnny, and Johnny Braylock, my childhood crush, is waving me over.
Oh God, he is waving me over.
I look around, certain he has to be waving at someone else,
but no one else is there. Where did everyone go? Did everyone else find craft
services? Did they start making frittatas?
Now
Johnny is
pointing
at me and waving me over. He
does it again, and
I’m still standing here like an idiot.
Oh dear Lord, what is wrong with me?
I have nothing else to do. I guess I better go talk to
Johnny.