Chapter 6
Oh, my God. Do I say anything? Claire stared at him, gobsmacked. She didn’t recall seeing the name Carter anywhere on the production company’s roster!
Maybe she was seeing things. She had thrown up, after all. Maybe it hadn’t been nerves. The flu? Why not have a hallucination right before her audition?
“Uh, hi…” Claire ignored Jake and focused her attention on Scott. They nodded to one another before Claire gave the shakiest wave she could manage. “Thank you so much for calling me back for the second round. I’m looking forward to showing you what I can do.”
“Pleasure to have you, Claire.” Scott briefly introduced the other people at the table, including Jake, who desperately avoided eye contact with his future stepmother. He must have known I was auditioning… why is he here? Did he really write the lines I’ve been memorizing for the past month? Unlikely. It may have been his story, or he might have typed down the final words in the script, but most major motion pictures went through at least three or five different hands before the final draft was produced. Okay, so this isn’t major, and he’s known for writing indie films, but… really?
A man tapped her on the shoulder. She realized that she had been spacing through the introductions and totally missed the male lead ready to begin the chemistry test with her.
“Oh!” Claire placed her purse and sweater down on a chair and shook the actor’s hand. Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? She recognized Wes from a few other movies that had come out over the years. He was the kind of hot, semi-talented actor who was casted for his growing star power more than his ability to win awards for his acting skills. I mean, he is hot. Look at him. Chiseled chest in a V-neck, cleanly shaven face, and a coif of jet-black hair that made him look more rugged than he would ever be. Don’t know about you, Wes, but I think we have some chemistry here.
Claire glanced at Jake, who had his nose deep in his script.
“Claire Finn.” She offered him a genial grin. “Looking forward to it, Wes.”
“Are you Ronald Finn’s kid?”
“His granddaughter.”
“Damn. This is Hollywood royalty here, Scott!”
Scott smiled. “Let’s start with the meet-cute outside of the mechanic’s. I know it’s hard to pretend when he looks like this right now, Claire, but pretend Wes is covered in car grease and wearing baggy overalls that haven’t been washed in a month.”
“Remember,” the director jumped in, “you’re a spoiled heiress who would never give Wes a second look on the street. He’s repulsive.”
“Thanks,” Wes said, garnering a few chuckles in the room.
They got into position as soon as a casting assistant pointed to a chair meant to be Claire’s car. She pretended to drive it while Wes tossed a plastic wrench into the air and looked as aloof as possible.
“Go,” the director said.
Claire spent ten seconds pretending to be fed up with her tampered car. The script said that a female rival of Claire’s had fucked with her car so she would be late to a soiree. Like I don’t know how to act like a pissed off heiress! Claire merely had to tap into her own childhood experiences going to private school in Beverly Hills and dealing with the other children of Hollywood royalty. Gag! If nothing else, she would nail the character.
Could she nail the male lead?
Since she wasn’t in an actual car, Claire had to pantomime getting out and slamming the nonexistent door shut. That stuff’s added by Foley later, anyway! She played up her foot-stomping, shawl-tossing, and tantrum-throwing while whipping off her sunglasses and marching up to Wes and his plastic wrench.
“Are you the mechanic?”
He stopped playing with the wrench, looked past her, and eyeballed Claire’s chair. “Are you the one with a broken-down car?”
“There’s something wrong with it. There’s something wrong with everything!” Boy, wasn’t that the truth? Claire could already feel the second wave of nausea ready to ruin her day. “Can you fix it? I don’t care how much it costs, I…”
Wes shoved her out of his way. “Is that a 1973 Corvette?”
“I guess. I don’t know. Who cares? Can you fix it?”
“Who… cares? Lady!” Wes’s soap opera bit parts came out in full force when he looked like he had been personally offended by Claire’s betrayal. “This is a delicate machine that must be taken good care of. Doncha get it? You’re up here driving it like it’s your common car!”
“Can you fix it?” she demanded through gritted teeth.
“You’ll need to fix your attitude before I can do anything for you.”
They had a small face-off, Claire’s nauseated countenance going up against Wes’s furrowed brows.
“Cut!” the director called. “That was good. Now let’s see the first kiss scene.”
That was the news that finally got Jake sitting up at his end of the table. “Is that really necessary?” he asked the director. “We can figure out their chemistry from the first two scenes.”
“Are you kidding? That was the deciding factor for the last…”
“It’s not necessary,” Jake reiterated.
“Hey, Jake,” Scott piped up, “just because she’s your dad’s fiancée doesn’t mean she gets out of kissing in a movie that calls for it.”
Wes held up his hands. “Whoa, wait? You’re Arthur Carter’s woman?”
“I’m not anyone’s woman, thank you very much.” Claire crossed her arms. “I’m perfectly capable of handling a kissing scene. I think Arthur would understand that this is a part of the job. I mean, we all know he’s wining and dining starlets at all hours of the day, don’t we? You dare to tell me I can’t kiss for my job?”
The room fell silent. The one woman on the panel looked around as if she hadn’t believed what came out of Claire’s mouth.
“No, I suppose not,” Jake said. “I wrote the kiss, after all. If my father has a problem with it, he can take it up for me.”
We need to talk, Jake. Claire wished she could say that. Yet when she slyly asked to see a copy of the script to check who wrote it, she encountered the name “J. Dominguez.” Wasn’t Dominguez his mother’s maiden name? Damnit. A pen name! Foiled again by the various names men and women in the industry used.
“I’m ready,” Claire informed the panel. She turned to Wes and said, “Don’t worry. Nobody’s gonna kick your ass because you kissed me in front of these nice people.”
“Let’s take it from the top of the scene,” the director said.
Wes blew air into his cheeks; Claire prepped herself for a kiss scene. Glad I popped that mint. Not so glad that she still felt like shit. She had hoped that the nerves would have abated now that she had a read of the room, but… no such luck. It must have been Jake’s presence that made her feel so shitty.
The director counted down to begin the scene.
“Look here, Andy!” Claire threw herself right into it, jamming her finger into Wes’s chest. “I’m not playing your games any longer. Do you like me or not? Because I’m not spending every night of the rest of my life wondering if we have something going on here. Do you hear me? Because I refuse… I refuse!” The fake waterworks began. Think of your dead cat from childhood, Claire. That usually did the trick. Tears fell down Claire’s cheeks as she sobbed in frustration. “I’m willing to give up everything for you! I don’t care about the money or my family’s connections, if it means I can be with you for the rest of my life! Well? What do you have to say about that? Are you going to say anything at all?”
Wes hesitated. This isn’t in the script… The character Andy was supposed kiss Claire right away.
“For the love of God, do it…” she murmured. Then, louder, “Are you going to say anything at all, Andy?”
“I ain’t got anything to say,” Wes finally said. “Not when you never listen to my words.”
Claire was pulled into Wes’s arms and kissed with such ferocity that she almost forgot where she was, what she was doing, and how the hell she ended up kissing one of the biggest up and coming stars in Hollywood. He didn’t go for the tongue, but the intent was there. It didn’t help that half a dozen people studied them and took notes. This was the kind of kiss that could make or break her career.
So, she kissed him back. For the sake of her career – and because she knew Arthur wouldn’t give a shit.
What she didn’t intend, however, was for Jake to give a shit.
“We got it, thanks,” he said. “You can stop now.”
Claire clasped her hands on Wes’s cheeks. Not because she was so enthralled with this man’s kiss, but because she was afraid to move.
She was on the verge of vomiting again.
It was Wes’s damned aftershave. Something about it was so unappealing, so unnatural that it dragged up the nausea and threatened to spew.
“Cut!” the director called.
Wes tried to pull away. Claire clung to him, attempting to muffle a harried cry that said it was dangerous for him to move.
She lost the battle. As soon as Wes got his way and turned around, Claire unleashed the small bit of vomit that had burst up her esophagus and demanded attention.
At least it didn’t get on Wes? The floor was much easier to clean up, even if she had lost every bit of shame she had in front of the casting panel.
“Wow.” Scott turned around, attempting not to laugh. “You do realize this is a romance, right, Claire? Not a teen horror film?”
She stared at the puddle of vomit in front of her and wiped her mouth, mortified.