Finding June (18 page)

As confusing as it was, we then moved on to
shoot the scene right before I was brought into the interrogation
room. In this scene I was supposed to be sitting down on a bench,
waiting for Charles and Cutter to come collect me after filling out
some paper work. Before they would show up, however, Ryan and
Benjamin (AKA Rich and John) would come up to rattle me a bit and
say a few clever lines as per usual. This was a scene I was nervous
about. I wasn't worried because I had just been given the lines
that morning; it really wasn’t a particularly difficult scene,
seeing as how I only had one line. I was mostly nervous that Ryan
and Benjamin would follow through on their unspoken threat and do
something to mess up my performance. By the time everyone was in
place and we were ready to begin shooting, I was a nervous wreck.
Bates, the director, was quite impressed by my condition, mistaking
it for a good bit of acting.

“Just keep that tension up June. You’re doing
great,” he shouted from behind the glaring lights.

“Okay,” I responded meekly, not sure what I
was doing that he wanted me to keep up.

“And, action!”

I sat on the bench, looking around at the
precinct with wide, worried eyes, half acting as Imogen Gentry, and
half being genuinely scared for the inevitable "oncoming storm"
that was Ryan and Benjamin.

The two boys sauntered up to where I sat,
looking suspicious and mildly amused at the same time. I definitely
didn’t like the looks of this. They both wore dark slacks and
white, button-up, collared shirts with their badges hanging around
their necks. Benjamin looked me up and down, and then spoke.

“Well, if it isn’t the femme fatale herself,”
he remarked coolly.

“I guess it’s true—vaudeville is dead, isn’t
it?” Ryan added, matching Benjamin’s tone. I watched them warily
for a moment, trying not to notice how much like their characters
they really were. They sat down on either side of me on the bench,
much like they had the first day I met them at the table read.

“So, why’d you kill him?” Benjamin asked,
leaning in close and making me feel very uncomfortable.

“Wasn’t enough ‘quiet on the set’ for you?”
Ryan put in, leaning in just as close as Benjamin. The only way I
could avoid looking at either of them was to stiffen my back and
look straight ahead, and even then they were dominating my
peripheral vision.

“I didn’t kill him,” I answered quietly,
letting my voice quaver a bit as if I might cry. I furrowed my brow
and bit my bottom lip, still keeping my gaze trained firmly
straight ahead.

“I’m sure you didn’t mean to kill him. Maybe
you just got tired of being sawed in half every night,” Benjamin
suggested.

“Tired of being dropped in the water tank or
put in the disappearing box,” Ryan provided.

“So you filled the disappearing box with gas
to make
him
disappear . . . permanently,” Benjamin said in a
low, threatening voice.

“Guess he should have asked for a volunteer
from the audience,” Ryan remarked darkly as he rested his chin on
his hand. Both of their faces were only inches away now. I had
never thought of myself as a claustrophobic person, but being
crammed between those two while already being a huge ball of nerves
was definitely steering me in that direction.

“Now they have to call in the Vaudeville
Vice,” Ryan concluded, just inches from me. Had I not been so
paranoid about what they might do to mess my scene up, I might have
actually enjoyed the hilarity of the whole thing. Ryan and Benjamin
were masters of comedy. The way they said these ridiculous lines in
such a straight way made them infinitely funnier, but I could
hardly concentrate on that when I was keeping watch for any sign of
trouble from them.

“Knock it off, you two,” Will Trofeos said in
his thick accent as he and Lukas walked into the scene, their
presence seeming to fill the room with authority. Ryan and Benjamin
automatically pulled away from me and stood up from the bench. “We
need to bring her in for questioning,” he added, nodding to me as
an indication that I should stand up and follow him. I did, glad
that I was able to get out of the scene without Ryan and Benjamin
doing something horrible.

By the time we had left the "room," the
director had called cut and the entire set was full of people and
noise. I walked over to Ryan and Benjamin, looking at them
skeptically.

“All right, what are you guys playing at?” I
asked. They exchanged innocent glances back and forth. “You know
what I’m talking about.”

“New Girl, we wouldn’t actually try to ruin
your take. We were just joking,” Benjamin said seriously.

“He speaks the truth,” Ryan agreed.

“Yeah, I still don’t believe you,” I informed
them, shooting the pair a piercing look to let them know I was on
to their games as we reset to shoot the scene again.

As fate would have it, we shot that same
scene a handful of times and not once did Ryan or Benjamin do
anything to throw me off. This, of course, threw me off even more.
By the end of the scene I was a nervous wreck, which I let Candice
know so that she could make sure they were properly punished. Of
course, I knew that Candice’s idea of punishing them would be to
simply ignore all of their funny comments, which she did
anyway.

The rest of the day was spent shooting all of
the other scenes I had in the precinct, including the very last
shot of the episode. In that scene Lukas and I had a long,
heartfelt conversation about how nice it was to work together and
what a pity it would be to not see each other again. This, of
course, would lead into the next week’s episode where they’d have
another odd theatre case that they’d ask me to consult on.

The last scene didn’t take very long to shoot
(unfortunately) so by the time I was back home and ready to go to
bed, I had obsessively looked at my phone every minute to see if
Lukas had texted me. Joseph hadn’t been too happy about that fact
while we watched the recorded episode of
Forensic Faculty
from that night, but I’d make it up to him later. There was just no
way I was going to miss a text from Lukas Leighton if it came.

Just as I was falling asleep with my phone
placed on vibrate right by my ear, I felt it buzz. Opening it up, I
read my one new message from a number I didn’t recognize.

You left quite an impression on me today.
Want to grab a drink after work tomorrow?

In the moments before I fell asleep with a
blissful smile on my face I somehow managed to reply to him with a
simple:

Yes.

CHAPTER 15

I hadn’t told Joseph or Gran about the fact
that Lukas Leighton had asked for my number on set. The only person
I could really think of who would be excited for me would be Xani,
but she and I weren’t exactly friends. We were more like
acquaintances who shared a mutual interest . . . that interest
being Joseph, of course.

And so, sitting in the makeup trailer on
Friday morning it was no surprise that I couldn’t stop smiling or
checking my phone for any possible new texts. Candice watched me
closely as she flat ironed my hair into big, loose curls, her
intelligent eyes scanning my face every few seconds. I was almost
positive she could see through me, but knowing Candice, the last
thing in the world she’d want to do was talk about boys, so she
didn’t ask me a thing.

“Yesterday was fun,” Benjamin began
carefully, as soon as he and Ryan showed up in the trailer. Even
without looking at him, I could tell that his eyes were trained on
me to gauge my reaction. “Wasn’t yesterday fun Ryan?” he
prodded.

“Very fun, Benjamin. I quite enjoyed myself,”
Ryan responded, looking over at my reflection in the mirror with a
wicked grin. I pointedly ignored them, taking my lead from Candice,
who always did just that.

“I particularly enjoyed watching New Girl
wait for us to drop the axe,” Benjamin said in a fond voice, as if
he were remembering a beloved memory.

“The way her eyes get big when she’s nervous
is just adorable, wouldn’t you say, Candice?” Ryan asked.

“Don’t talk to me. I’m not awake yet,”
Candice answered. Her tone suggested that she had thought of a way
to kill them using every makeup tool she possessed.

“My favorite bit is seeing the way she’s
still afraid of us,” Ryan went on, undeterred.

“Too true, Ryan,” Benjamin agreed
supportively.

“You guys are
so
funny,” I cut in,
worried that this little exchange would go on forever if I didn’t
stop it.

“Well, thank you, New Girl. We do try,”
Benjamin said, still using his overly cautious voice.

“You guys made me feel like a crazy person
yesterday! I swear that I almost asked anyone else if they could
tell what you were up to . . . but then I realized that would
solidify my appearance of craziness,” I confessed.

“That was the whole point,” Ryan pointed out.
“We didn’t even have to do anything. You made most of it up in your
head.” He grinned cheekily, making me shake my head at him in
disapproval.

“Thank you for that,” I answered
sarcastically.

“Anything for you, June,” he replied.

“Hey, I get to put some ash on you today,”
Candice suddenly said from behind me, showing more enthusiasm than
was normal for her this early in the morning. She held her black
binder, looking over the page excitedly. “There’s going to be an
explosion!” She set the binder down and clapped her hands like a
child who had just been told they could have cookies for
breakfast.

“I forgot about that,” I said, suddenly a
little nervous for my first "stunt." I actually had two stunts in
this episode. I figured they would normally hire someone to perform
these, but since they were relatively small and I was, in fact, a
nobody, I’d probably just be doing them myself.

“It’s about time I get to do some decent
makeup. It feels like I’ve been doing nothing but glamour and
corrective for weeks,” she complained, turning her attention to
spraying my hair into submission. The big glossy curls that now
framed my face were actually quite flattering and I secretly wished
I could do my hair that well on my own. It was definitely a change
from the springy ringlets I normally sported.

“Will you do anything special on Edward once
he’s dead?” I asked, not able to remember the name of the actor
playing Edward at the moment. In my defense, I hadn’t met the guy
yet, so it wasn’t like I was just turning into one of those people
who don’t bother to learn names.

“I’ll make his face a little redder and put
some blisters on his mouth . . . nothing too exciting,” she said
dryly, obviously mourning the bloody special effects makeup she
normally got to do. She smoothed foundation over my skin as if it
were the most tedious task she could ever be assigned to do.

“Maybe I’ll convince them to axe Ryan’s
character,” she thought aloud, causing Ryan to make an indignant
noise from the couch.

“You’d go crazy without me here,” he said
matter-of-factly.

“Whatever you say,” was her charming reply.
“All right June, go do your other boring scenes and then come
straight back to me so I can get working on something worth my
time.”

“Will do, chief,” I answered with a mock
salute. I waved to Ryan and Benjamin, who sat on the couch lazily
typing away on their phones. It made me wonder if they had brought
the sofa into the trailer themselves just to have a better reason
to hang around there all of the time.

Each of my scenes for the day would be filmed
in Edward’s apartment. Will Trofeos and Lukas had already been on
that set for a while, filming a scene with the two of them snooping
around for clues. Once they finished their scene, Will left the
set, leaving Lukas and me as the only actors there. We were going
to be doing a scene where I, as Imogen Gentry, take it upon myself
to look around Edward’s apartment for clues when Cutter, frustrated
by the case, returns to the apartment to see if he and Charles
missed something in their previous inspection.

“June Laurie,” Lukas said with a smile as he
walked over to me. “It’s about time you got here. I was wondering
when I’d get to see you again.”

I could understand the words that were coming
out of Lukas’s mouth, but for some reason, none of them made any
sense. Why would Lukas Leighton be happy to see
me
?
Especially when he was constantly surrounded by famous actresses
and supermodels? It just didn’t make any sense.

“Here I am,” I replied, resting one hand on
my stomach to keep myself from throwing up due to pure,
unadulterated joy.

“So, are we still on for drinks after work
tonight?” he asked, actually looking hopeful, as if I would ever
turn him down. Of course, there was his phrasing that I’d have to
clear up, because in my mind, when someone says "drinks," they
usually aren’t talking about orange soda. There had to be a smooth
way of stating that I didn’t drink—I just couldn’t think of it in
the face of such beauty.

“Definitely,” I replied with a grin. “I may
need a ride home though, if that’s okay with you?” For a moment I
was worried that he’d see how lame I actually was. He would forget
that I had just gotten a part on a huge TV show and realize that I
was a 16-year-old girl who didn’t have her own car and needed her
grandma to drive her everywhere.

“Well, I brought my motorcycle, so as long as
you’re okay with holding on tight for a while, I’d be happy to take
you home,” he answered in a sincere, concerned way.

“Thank you Lukas, I really appreciate that,”
I said warmly, hoping that my tone conveyed just how grateful I was
that he was willing to be seen in public with me. I had to admit
though, that if Lukas really was talking about the kind of "drinks"
I thought he was, I’d have to Google how to drive a motorcycle. I
wasn’t quite sure how I felt about being the designated motorcycle
driver.