(For His Pleasure 14) With His Belief (3 page)

She asked a few people if they knew where Bryson was, and no one could tell her.

One woman even looked at her with confusion when Scarlett uttered his name.

“Who?” the lady asked.

“Bryson,” Scarlett told her. “Bryson Taylor.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“He’s the director.”

“Oh, right. I don’t have any idea. I’m just a lowly production assistant. Sorry.”

She laughed and walked off before Scarlett could say anything else.

After wandering around for another few minutes, she spotted Bryson, surrounded by a crowd of people, over by a merry-go-round. There was a large amount of equipment being set up nearby; lights, scaffolding, cameras, monitors, sound equipment. Technical people were arguing and yelling.

Bryson was at the center of it all, studying some binder that he was holding while people appeared to just scream questions at him. Sometimes he would respond, other times he seemed to just ignore everyone.

Scarlett squeezed her way through the crowd of people. As she got closer to Bryson, the throng tightened, making it more difficult to move. “Excuse me, I need to speak to the director,” she muttered, elbowing her way through the very last line of defense.

Bryson turned at the last second and saw her. His expression brightened. “Hey, you made it.”

“And I brought you something hot and warm.” She held up the coffee.

“Oh, right. Thanks.” He nodded to a small table nearby. “You can set it right there next to the others. Apparently they have some PA do a coffee run every morning.

Sorry, I didn’t realize.” He went back to looking at his binder.

“Oh. Okay.” She went and put the coffee down. It was identical to the one that was already there on the table.

Nothing could have made her feel more useless than she did at that very moment.

“Bryson, we’re set up for the shot,” a heavyset balding man said. “We’ve got to get this started in the next ten or fifteen minutes if we want to stay on track.”

“I know,” Bryson told him. “Has anyone seen Eliza or Dale?”

“Eliza’s barricaded in her trailer,” a mousy woman said. “She says she needs time.”

Bryson looked up from his binder with a tense expression. “What’s the problem?”

The mousy woman shrugged. “She didn’t say. I didn’t ask.”

“We really need to get started,” the heavyset man said again.

“Gary, we heard you the first time,” the mousy woman shot back.

“Someone has to try and keep us on schedule, Ellen.”

“There’s nothing any of us can do about it.”

Gary smirked. “There is something we can do about it. We can start shooting.”

Bryson looked at Ellen. “What do you suggest?”

“Eliza’s notorious for this kind of thing. I think your best bet is to give her twenty minutes to cool off. She’ll come around on her own. She’s a professional.”

Gary rolled his eyes. “Okay, so we’re all going to be professional. I’m going to start setting up for the next shot so we can make up for the delay.” He stalked off.

Bryson sighed. “Here we go,” he muttered.

“How can I help?” Scarlett said.

He glanced up at her. “You can help by not asking me a million questions.”

His words were a slap in her face. “Okay, sure,” she said. “Sorry for caring.”

He looked at her again and softened. “I didn’t mean it that way, Scarlett. It’s just—I never realized how many questions I would be asked. It’s non-stop. I can’t think, I can hardly have a two-minute conversation without—”

“Bryson!” someone yelled, as if on cue.

He looked over, annoyed. “Yeah?”

“Did you want the blue gels or the green gels for this scene?”

He closed his eyes briefly before answering. “Blue.”

“But aren’t we using blue more for the breakup scenes?”

“You’re right. Let’s use the green gels,” Bryson yelled back.

“I’ll stay out of the way,” Scarlett said, turning on her heel to walk away.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward him. “You couldn’t be in my way if you tried.”

But just the same, with so much commotion around him, Scarlett decided to move out of the fray.

She walked around the amusement park, most of which was empty and almost desolate. The ferris wheel sat still and tall, like an ancient dinosaur skeleton—towering into the air above her, unmoving. The signs leading to other rides and games were almost eerie in the early morning gloom.

The Hall of Mirrors, Shooting Range, Arcade, all of the structures quiet and empty of children or parents. But Scarlett could imagine them in the past, running here and there, squealing with delight, eating cotton candy and drinking soda.

She wandered for perhaps forty minutes before circling back towards the merry-go-rounds. The scene was much as it had been when she first got there, so Scarlett walked out to the parking lot and the trailers that were sitting just outside the park. One of the trailers was probably Dale Nolan’s, and she suspected the other was Eliza Johnston’s.

There were smaller circles of people wandering about the area.

One woman wearing a headset stood outside the nearest trailer. She looked weary and harassed. When she saw Scarlett, her eyes widened. “Please tell me they sent you to talk to her.”

Scarlett paused. “To talk to Eliza?”

“Yeah. Someone needs to, and it seems like they’re all too afraid. Every minute she sits in that trailer is costing this production thousands of dollars.”

“I don’t know if I should be the one to try,” Scarlett said. She could just imagine what a disaster that would be. Her, trying to talk to Eliza Johnston? It wasn’t her place.

“Who are you? What do you do here?” the woman demanded.

“Um, I work with Bryson. I’m his assistant.”

“You’re Bryson Taylor’s assistant? Perfect. Go on, go try and talk to her.”

Scarlett tried to protest, but the woman was pushing her toward the door of the trailer. If she made things worse, Bryson would be furious. At the same time, it seemed she could hardly make things worse than they already were.

“Okay, I’ll give it a shot,” she said, gearing herself up for what was to come.

“Good luck,” the woman said, in a tone that implied Scarlett would need it. “Just remember, she’s in a very fragile state.”

Fragile state? Great.

The woman stepped out of her way as Scarlett walked up the steps to the trailer door. She felt like a lamb walking into a slaughter. How stupid was this?

Still, at least she was trying to actually “do” something. She didn’t want to spend the entire day standing around, feeling like she was an annoyance.

She took a deep breath and knocked three times.

“Come in,” a soft voice called from inside the trailer.

When she opened the door and walked in, Scarlett was surprised to find that it wasn’t all the glamorous for a famous movie star’s trailer. It was small, with a tiny couch, a few chairs, a little kitchenette that only a small teenager could maneuver within comfortably.

Eliza was sitting on one of the chairs, reading a magazine. She looked up and saw Scarlett. “I know you,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You were at the club with Bryson when he punched Dale.”

“I’m Scarlett Evers.” She smiled.

“I can imagine why you’re here.” Eliza stood up and walked to the counter, where she unscrewed the cap from a bottle of Evian water.

“I just thought I’d come by and see how you’re doing. Is everything all right?”

Eliza sipped from her bottled water. “Honestly? I’m not doing that well, Scarlett.

Not that well at all.”

Scarlett wasn’t sure what to say next. She debated asking more questions, but decided not to push her luck. So she just stayed quiet. In the end, that seemed to work.

Eliza turned and looked at her with a steady gaze. “Do you have something in your past that you wish you just could forget about forever?”

Scarlett wanted to laugh. This woman had no idea who she was talking to, did she? “Yes, I think I might have one or two things.”

“Well, so do I.” Eliza looked into the distance. “So do I.”

“So I wake up today and my asshole PR person forwards me this story some dumb-fuck journalist wrote about me. And that thing I wish would just go away, it’s right there staring at me. And nobody cares. Nobody gives a shit that it’s eating me up inside. It’s just—go to work, Eliza. Act, even though you want to run about a million miles away and just bury your head in the sand.”

“That’s horrible,” Scarlett said, even though she wasn’t quite sure what the woman was talking about.

“The fucking tabloids are bad enough, but then it’s also the thousands of comments underneath the articles. Do these fucking people not realize that I sometimes read their shitty, nasty comments? It’s inhuman, the way they treat people.”

Scarlett was getting lost, but she thought it best to just appear to be empathetic to the situation. “I can’t imagine how you deal with the scrutiny.”

Eliza nodded. “On top of all of that, they didn’t get Mary Louise the way they promised me they would.”

“Who’s Mary Louise?” Scarlett asked, even more confused now.

“She’s done my hair and makeup on the last two films I’ve done and she’s like my therapist or something. I needed her today. I needed her and all I got was some random guy who talks nonstop about Cher and Jane Fonda. That’s not the kind of person I need right now, you know?”

“That sounds hard,” Scarlett said, trying not to roll her eyes at what seemed like a particularly petty complaint from the superstar actress.

“It is hard. I’m practically losing my mind here.”

“The pressure must get to you after awhile,” Scarlett said, just to say something.

Eliza raised her eyebrows. “The pressure? No, it doesn’t get to me. I love pressure.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “How do you think I got where I am?”

For a moment, it was as though she had become larger than life in that tiny trailer.

There was an intensity to her gaze and her stance that was so dramatic that Scarlett felt absolutely small in comparison. She’d never been in the presence of someone who could so quickly alter their appearance and demeanor, as if Eliza were some kind of real life witch.

It was almost creepy how electric and magnetic this woman was, Scarlett thought.

“I suppose you got where you are because you work hard,” she offered.

Eliza broke into hearty laughter. “That’s good, Scarlett. That’s very good. I like you. I really do.”

Scarlett wasn’t sure that the sentiment was very genuine. Actually, she wasn’t sure that anything about Eliza Johnston was genuine. It was hard to tell what was performance and what was reality.

Just then, there was a knock on the trailer door.

Eliza turned. “Who is it?”

“It’s Bryson,” came the muffled voice.

Scarlett froze. She didn’t imagine he’d be too pleased when he saw her there.

“We’ve been honored by a visit from the man himself,” Eliza whispered conspiratorially to Scarlett. “He must really be worried.” She winked.

“Well, we are running a bit late,” Scarlett murmured.

Eliza didn’t seem to hear her. “Come on in!” she yelled, turning and walking back to the kitchenette. She was dressed in a long robe, cinched closed and her hair was flowing and gorgeous. She looked like a movie star. She smelled like a movie star.

Everything about her was sensual and provocative.

The trailer door opened and Bryson slowly came inside, looking like he thought he might be shot as he came through the door.

When he saw Scarlett, his eyes hardened. “Hey,” he said, obviously surprised to see her there.

She knew she had some explaining to do. “I just came inside because—”

“Scarlett was kind enough to stop in and check on me when nobody else gave a shit,” Eliza told him loudly. Her tone was slightly accusing, as if she’d expected the director himself to come and coax her out of her trailer. Maybe that’s what she’d been hoping for, what she’d been waiting for. Maybe that was how things were supposed to work.

“Oh?” Bryson folded his arms. “Well, that was nice of her.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Eliza looked at him. “It was nice. I’ve been having a really rough time.” Her face transformed from the beguiling movie star into a young, confused girl. “The Post wrote an article about how I was a bully in high school. I’m at my wits end.”

Bryson looked concerned. “Did they make stuff up?”

“What if they did?”

“I’d put in a call to Max Weisman. Something tells me he could wrangle us up a high-powered attorney if we need one.”

Eliza smiled, as if to herself. She looked down, demure now. “No, I don’t need a lawyer. That’s sweet of you, Bryson.”

Bryson sat down beside Scarlett but didn’t look at her. Instead, he focused all of his attention on Eliza. “What can I do to help? I want to do whatever you need to make things easier today.”

“You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it. You’re talking to an A-List director, here. Haven’t you heard? I can move mountains.”

Eliza giggled. “It’s fun being A-List, isn’t it? Didn’t I tell you it would be, that first day we met?”

Bryson grinned. “You certainly did.”

Scarlett’s stomach tightened. She felt as though she’d slowly faded out of existence as the two of them began talking. Neither of them were so much as glancing in Scarlett’s direction. Their eyes were glued to each other, and there was a definite feeling of chemistry between the two of them that made her skin crawl. It was like she was in a movie, and Eliza and Bryson were in full Technicolor, while Scarlett was fading to black and white.

Eliza reveled in the attention—that much was clear.

The beautiful actress sat down in a folding chair and her knees were probably three inches from Bryson’s as they continued talking.

For Scarlett, the world had gone quiet. She heard ringing in her ears, and it occurred to her that she was having some kind of PTSD thing. It was her childhood all over again.

That sense of being ignored, of being there but somehow not there all at once—it made her feel insane. She was starting to sweat and her heart was racing.