Yazoo Alert: Lucas Walker and his girlfriend Laura Lee have decided to call it quits, stating the break was amicable and they remain friends.
The gravity of the alert’s timing keeps me staring at the screen in shock. Surely it had nothing to do with me. Still high from our exchange, nervous laughter bursts out of me as his first text comes through.
Unknown: Are you free tomorrow?
Lucas
FOUR MONTHS AGO
I pull into the Beverly Hills Hotel and toss my keys to the valet with a quick thanks before making my way toward Bar Nineteen. I’m early for my meeting with Wes, and I just want to have a cocktail to take the edge off before we go through the details. I take a seat in a wicker chair on the patio that overlooks a little greenery, the pool, and the parking lot. The ancient hotel is still a stomping ground for the elite, and while I’ve only had one other meeting here, I detect the echo of Maddie’s presence every time I walk through the doors.
“Again.”
“I’m tired.” I know I’m whining, which Maddie says isn’t a desired trait of a good actor, but we’ve been doing it for hours.
“Doesn’t matter. Your feelings don’t matter. It’s the feelings of your character you need to focus on,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You need more stamina. You’ll be on set day and night. You want stamina, don’t you?” She looks down at me with wide eyes, the mole she colors above her eyebrow smeared due to the heat in her tin trailer. I’m burning up and feel like I’m going to fall asleep.
“Do you have any more of those burritos?” I ask, hopeful as she stares down at me with the look my mom gives when she says she’s had enough of my shit. Maddie’s been watching me after school so Mom can work her shift at the gas station. She’s been keeping me fed ever since I saw her first movie and agreed to run lines with her. I can’t believe the same lady on the screen is the same woman who babysits me. But I can tell if I look really hard.
I told Maddie I never had a grandma before, and she told me I never will. She said she had no children for a reason and that reason is because she never wants the word grandma associated with her. I don’t know what that means, but she didn’t think it was funny when I joked and called her my grandma. She says someone from the studio is going to call her in someday, and she wants to stay sharp and focused, and that’s where I come in. She says I’m her godsend. I sure wish she would feed her godsend. My stomach has been rumbling since I got home from school and I know I’ll be lucky if there’s some bread ends to stuff my face with when I get back. I always eat the ends, so Mom doesn’t get mad. But Maddie usually heats up a frozen burrito in the microwave before we rehearse. Today she didn’t, and my stomach feels like it’s eating me from the inside out. All I can think about is that burrito.
“I’m out of burritos,” she barks. “Again, Lucas.”
“Sure you don’t have one?” I ask. I hate begging, but I’m hungry all the time. Mom feeds me breakfast sometimes, and dinner, but I can’t get enough to eat lately.
Maddie smiles as if she’s not mad anymore and walks over to her fridge before taking out a container of bright orange juice and setting it on the counter. She pulls a glass from the sink with faded yellow flowers painted on it and fills it up.
I wrinkle my nose at the glass as she thrusts it in my face. “What is this?”
“The essence of life, boy, carrot juice. It will keep you trim if you’re going to land the lead. It keeps you young too.”
I can’t help but think it’s not working well for her as I down the juice while trying not to throw up at the taste. She tosses a pack of peanut butter crackers on the counter and I dig in, inhaling them with a mumbled, “thank you.” Maddie said I have charisma and that’s something you’re born with. She says stars aren’t born, they’re shaped, and that’s what she’s going to do for me. I’m going to be a big star. Sometimes I still can’t believe she was in four movies before she married ‘that bastard Reginald’ and he ruined her life.
“Don’t ever compromise your dreams for anyone or anything, Lucas. Life won’t cooperate with you if you do.”
“Lucas,” I hear Wes call as he approaches the table. I lift the carrot juice to my mouth and take a drink knowing damn well my wandering thoughts screwed me out of my cocktail. I must have ordered while I was somewhere in the past. It’s a curse and a gift how I get so easily involved in my thoughts.
“Wes,” I greet, offering my hand. We shake as he takes the seat in front of me.
“This is supposed to be a real drink,” I say, tilting my empty glass before nodding toward the waitress. “Is this good or do you want somewhere more private?”
He glances around the sparsely-filled bar. “This is good. How have you been?”
I shrug. “Shit week.”
Wes is a hundred years old. I don’t think anyone but Wikipedia knows how old he is at this point. They seem to be the only ones who pay attention, but he doesn’t look a day over sixty. Directors with budgets and an extensive list of hits like Wes don’t ever age out of Hollywood. It’s a supreme edge. Not to mention his wife dresses him in a wardrobe that keeps him looking sharp. I like his wife better than I like him, but we have a mutual respect for each other after our last film together. Two more hits to add to his long ass reel, pun intended.
“I was sorry to hear about Blake.”
I nod because words don’t mean shit. Wes’s certainly don’t. My silence intimates the subject isn’t up for discussion and it’s dropped.
He orders us both a beer and turns back to me with the twelve million-dollar question. “What did you think of the sc
ript?”
I lean forward. “I fucking loved it.”
He gives me a sincere smile. “You up for it?”