Loved In Pieces (17 page)

I heard a knock on the door to my tr
ailer while I was in the shower
but ignored it. I
could
hear everything outside of the trailer so I kn
e
w people c
ould
hear every noise inside the trailer, too. The joke
on set
was that
Byron’s
trailer was very
noisy
.

I turned off the water and heard the knock on the door again. “Marie? I heard the water stop. Marie, I need to talk to you.”

I knew the voice. It was
Byron
. I put on my robe and towel dried my hair. I was in no hurry to get the door.

“Marie!”
Byron
persisted. “Please let me talk to you. This is our last night
here
, and I have to talk to you.”

I didn’t even raise my voice. “
Byron
, I have nothing to say. Go away.”

He begged, “Please, Marie.”

I opened the door, not caring that I was in my bathrobe. Everyone c
ould
hear him pleading outside. They w
ould
make much more of this than there
wa
s. I gestured to him to come inside. He came in and hugged me.

“Get off me,” I reacted.

He backed off from me immediately, frustrated and confused. “Marie, I’m so sorry about being an ass.
We need to be friends.
What the
hell
is going on?”

I admitted
,
“Working with you is frustrating. You forget your lines. You mouth the words
to
my lines. You don’t focus. You’re late for work. We have to do so many takes. You drink and smoke too much. You
have sex with
everyone. You mo
ve too fast. I just can’t
deal with it.
”

My words flung out faster than I could self-edit. The words stung. I scrunched up my face.
I continued, “I don’t want to have a relationship with my co-star. I want it to be professional.”

“Well I didn’t ask for any of this life and can’t handle it.
I need your help. You ground me,
Marie
. Y
ou get me, right?”

“I don’t know. When I’m around you
I
forget that you’re a playboy.”

“But that’s not who I really am
. It’s just this place. I’m talented as a singer but I suck as
an actor
. I was so happy when I won the show for
my
songs
. I did an album that’
s now selling well back home, but I’m in this contract that ships me off here to be some loser pop star dancer/vocalist. Then I sign something to be an actor. I don’t have any idea about what I’m supposed to do. I got this part after auditioning for a few months during the time that they’re working me non-stop. I haven’t really slept for about a year
—
when the craziness started.  I can memorize a song, sing anything, but I can’t do scripts. I get so flustered. It’s unnatural, fake! Honestly, I wish I never tried out for that damn show. I don’t think I’m set up for this business but I’ve got these contracts so I might as well live it up, right?”

I decided to explain myself to him.
“Byron, I’m sorry I’ve confused you and you had to be part of this nasty in
dustry without knowing what you we
re getting into. You’re gorgeous. You should know that you don’t suck as an actor. You’re remarkable at getting into your character. But you need to stay in character and learn those lines. Remember our night. You learned them great. And about our night, I appreciate that you stopped right away, but I don’t like that you pressured me so much. I botched how I handled everything with you and am embarrassed, and sorry.”

“Shit, Marie. I’m sorry, too. I just want you so much, need you to keep me sane. I would
have done so much more for you if you had let me.”

“Byron, it bugs me every moment I see you that I didn’t speak up. I know that I could have. When you said you loved me, I believed you for
a half-second
and felt I should go for it when you got naked. But I just froze. I didn’t want to b
e a tease.
Then I had to see you every day. These last weeks have been really awkward, painful.”

“
I didn’t lie to get you to sle
ep with me. You’re amazing.”
Byron
looked at me soulfully. “Marie, I need to know something. Please tell me the truth. I promise I won’t tell. Were you raped?”

I learned that I could not tell anyone who promised not to tell my secrets because they always told. He
studied
my expressions carefully.
“Byron, my sexual past has not been great.
I wasn’t raped but could have been.
But I don’t want to talk about that. You ignored the twenty times I asked you to back off. You annoyed me when we had to do so many takes. I was annoyed with myself that I kept kissing you.  That was the tension I felt.”

My words were clearly a blow to his ego. But they were true. That was how I felt.

“Where does that leave us for the events, the premiere? You know we’ll have to kiss and hug for the cameras. It will hurt me if that is all acting, knowing that you hate me the whole time.”

I sat down on the couch next to him. “I don’t hate you. I like you. I just don’t want to have a relationship with you. I also mix up the emotions from on screen and off. It’s hard for me to keep it straight in my head. I’m sorry I acted so mental.”

Byron put his arm around me again. I let him. “Please tell me what you feel right away when we work together, do the events.
T
here’s something about you. I don’t know: your soft skin, the way you move, your child-like sexy face, your unbelievable lips and eyes. You turn me
on like no other girl.” He shook the thoughts away. “You’re the most amazing actress I have met and the best person I’ve met in Hollywood. I want you to be in my life. We’ll work through this weirdness together. Friends? Please?”

“Yes, friends.” I was uncomfortable with how he described me. I did not see myself that way. I looked like a
kid,
not some sexy woman.

We both got up from the couch.
I
walked
to the door but stopped when he didn’t follow. My body shivered when I looked into his smiling eyes.
In an instant, Byron
walked to me an
d
pulled at my robe
. I
wobbled
as he slowly
hugged me
and then kissed my lips
. I put my arms around him under his shirt and
returned the kiss
. He
put his hands under my robe,
stopped the kiss, smiled at me, and covered my body.
I
huffed
, bewildered.
He kissed my forehead as he re-tied my robe.

“See, we’re just friends. I have self-control. Please call me when you change your mind
about your boyfriend
.”
He winked as he
left my trailer.

Shocked that I kissed him and sure I would have done much more,
I finished getting dressed
.
I’m a whore, I thought as I
did my makeup and hair.
Shame and disbelief
gutted
me.

I filled my Marcia Sherrill backpack with the picture
s
of Manuel from my nightstand, running clothes
and
shoes
, my wallet
, iPhone
and keys
.
Before I stepped out, I looked around my trailer one last time. Goodbye home, I thought. See you in a few months on some other location for Muse III.
I
hoped I
w
ould be stronger then.

I was home.
I made myself a smoothie after I
returned
from my training session that morning with
Elise
and
was
outside ever since. We did the Santa Monica stairs down to the canyon and back up
ten
times with intervals, planks, sit-ups and push-ups in between. Those stairs required complete concentration because they were steep and insanely crowded.

I soaked up the sun
while I ate lunch outside
, breathed in the ocean breeze, and
absorbed
the colors
from the trees and flowers
.  When I
work
ed
on a project, I avoid
ed the sun at all cost so I didn
’t redden or darken my pigment.
Franz
use
d
a yellow shellac under the foundation to hide my natural redness as it
wa
s. More redness would mean more shellac and many more unnerving itchy feelings that I’d have to control. Today I was free to be out in the sun. I watched a flock of bright green wild parrots fly from tree to tree below my terrace and a group of black crows relentlessly chase a hawk. 

Most children of celebrities went to private schools but there were several of us that either went to the public Roosevelt or Franklin Elementary since both schools were fed by the homes
n
orth of Montana Avenue as well as those
s
outh of Montana, the socio-economic divide between the rich and well-off in Santa Monica.  I lived in the posh part of Santa Monica,
n
orth of Montana Avenue, where people lived in detached single family homes with front and back yards. Only a few homes like mine, located
n
orth of Montana Ave
nue
and
n
orth of San Vicente
Boulevard
had the luxury of a canyon view and ocean view. The area
s
outh of Montana Avenue was packed with retail spaces that lined each street and apartments or condos for twenty some blocks by fifteen blocks. It was very congested.

Parking was difficult
s
outh of Montana Ave
nue
. All parking was permit parking, metered parking, or valet. Parking was free at the grocery and drug stores with most lots monitored by attendants. Validation was required at the monitored lots. On days
Dad
didn’t
bike
with me to school and back, he often found parking tickets on his windshield if he parked on Montana Ave
nue
. He used to get entirely pissed off when he
was
a few minutes over the meter time limit when
he picked
me up from school. He liked asking the teachers about my day and letting me play with friends in the playground after school. He thought it was healthy. He’d think he was getting back to the car in time. But then there’d be a parking ticket on his car and he’d cuss all the way home, saying that it was completely unacceptable that there was not enough free parking to allow a parent to get out of his car to meet his child at the end of her school day.

Dad
wanted to raise me in
Montana
, but settled with the hand he had been dealt. Although it would have been socially easier for me to go to a private school, he was adamant that I
go
to public school. If he couldn’t drive me or pick me up, he hired a driver. I was not allowed to walk or ride my bike to school alone. I went on to one of the public middle schools in Santa Monica, too. By then, my driver, Sashi, always took me and picked me up. I drove
my junior year
. 

I actually have a “
General
Equivalency Diploma” f
rom the state of California
so that I could work
longer
hours on the set. Getting a GED was the way around the Child Labor Laws so I didn’t have to go to school and was not limited to working a maximum eight hours on the set. During the filming of
Constantine’s Muse
this past fall and spring, we found that it
worked out great
because we often had to go over-time with
Byron’s
sloppy work.

Even with the GED,
Dad
begged the school to let me finish my senior year: go to class when I was in town, do the work, and take the tests for the classes. He insisted that it would help
me feel normal and actually learn something. I liked school
, having friends, and seeing Manuel
so alright, whatever.

“Hey
,
Attila. Thanks for lunch.” I smiled coming in from the back patio. I got a glass of water and took my refill of Excedrin. I t
ook
two extra-strength pills when I w
o
ke up in the morning, two at lunch and two before bed to manage my
joint and head pain. I had
endured
bad migraines for at least a year, maybe longer. My doctor gave me a bottle of Vic
o
den that I c
ould
take if they
became
unbearable, but I ha
d
only taken one pill since January
—
that time the headache was so bad that I couldn’t see
and couldn’t think. Otherwise, I ha
d
n’t found them to be unbearable. Given my crazy schedule, eating too little and exercising too much, headaches
we
re inevitable
but
manageable.