Chapter One
Dina
When I stepped off the bus in Devina, it felt very different to when I’d done the same over in Hollywood.
The air felt different on my skin, less heavy with traffic pollution and that bright, peppy feeling that came with a dozen people in the immediate vicinity who had come out to LA in the hopes of fulfilling their dreams and just knew that today was the day. I used to love that feeling, the optimism even in the face of the truth that most of us wouldn’t make it anyway, but it got exhausting after a while. Every friend I had seemed to need a bolstering at least twice a week, and, not being an actress myself, the world I moved in was so different that I often had trouble relating to their struggles.
It was why I got out, in the end. Because I couldn’t face the fakeness of Hollywood much longer. Yes, the job opportunities were numerous, especially for a make-up artist like me with a handful of big-name movies under my belt, but everything felt so…thin. As if it could have gone to pieces at any second. That wasn’t how I wanted to live my life, especially when there were so many fascinating projects kicking off across the country in Devina.
If Hollywood was home to the blockbuster, Devina was home to indie cinema. I’d found my break in independent movies, and something about returning to that felt like a homecoming. I was glad to be there, to be wandering around the streets, seeing directors whose movies I’d sought out at late-night showings and actresses I recognized from that thing that one time. The egos were smaller, and I liked that.
Well, the egos were smaller for the most part. Once in a while, a big star would come whirling through this town and leave a trail of chaos in their wake – and that was exactly what was happening the week I arrived.
I’d been invited to Devina to work on a new movie, a fascinating drama that had drawn me across the country on the sheer strength of its story. I’d been approached by one of the agencies I used to work for, right at the time when I was getting tired of all the artifice of Hollywood and was looking for something new. Any other day of the year, I’d have turned it down – but something about the project called out to me at once, and I couldn’t deny it. The only downside? The movie was going to be directed by Will Derry.
Yes, that Will Derry, practically the biggest movie star in the country, the guy who could guarantee a box-office hit by just sticking his name on a project and keeping his fingers crossed. He had started out as the heartthrob in a popular teen franchise, and had soon risen to new heights of fame the likes of which no-one had really seen before. And man, did he exploit it – he went through models and actresses like they were cigarettes, breaking hearts across the country as he worked his way through a demanding shooting schedule that perfectly balanced awards-bait with blockbuster money-makers. He was one of the biggest names in the acting game, and now he decided that he wanted to turn his hand to what happened behind the camera.
He was exactly the kind of man I had left Hollywood to avoid, and in any other life I would have seen taking the job on his movie as a lateral move more than a rejection of the artifice of Hollywood. But the project was just too good to pass up and besides, I knew that the movie would be a hit, and having my name attached to something that was guaranteed to gain that much attention could only be a good thing. Or at least, that was what I was telling myself.
He had seen my work in another movie, a sci-fi flick I’d done towards the start of my career, and contacted my ex-agency who’d managed to get hold of me and let me know that he was expressing an interest. Judging from the tone of my old agent’s voice when she called, I knew she thought I would have been stone-cold crazy to turn it down, and seemed gobsmacked when I said I needed some time to think about it. I knew she was right, though, and eventually called her back to take the job, packed up my stuff, and travelled across the country just in time to start the shoot.
I had been set up with a small apartment in the center of town, about a mile from where the movie was due to begin shooting the next day, and was taking some time out to get to know the place a little. For a town with such an indie reputation, it was buzzing with activity and life; there were posters plastered everywhere, and it seemed like every time I glanced over my shoulder I caught sight of some aspiring director framing shots with his cheap-ass camera and trying to make the next great indie classic.
I couldn’t help but smile as I watched everyone working around me. There was something so…comforting about being around people who appeared as if they had to muddle along to make things work. Back in Hollywood, everyone had been constantly pretending that they and they alone knew the key to getting movies made, finding real talent, and searching out the scripts that would turn into blockbusters.
No-one wanted to let the façade slip for a second, because if you did, someone would pounce up and take your spot before you had a second to make a crack about company loyalty. Here, I felt as though I could catch my breath without having to worry about some up-and-comer gouging the ground out from underneath me and trying to steal my spot.
Filming started the next day, and I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous skip in my chest when I thought of it. I mean, I’d worked with big stars before, but Will Derry? I had muttered the name to myself when I’d first gotten the job, trying to remind myself that this was real and that I was actually going to be working with one of the biggest stars in the world, but it all felt like some kind of strange dream.
Of course, only a few years before, I’d been crushing on him in the posters of the teen movie he’d starred in, his face plastered across the walls of my little sister and all her friends. And, when I’d come to Hollywood, he’d been that one star I’d nursed a little fantasy about – that we might run into each other on the street, and he’d be so taken with me he’d denounce his playboy ways and settle down.
Or, that other fantasy, which was just one night with him to see what all the hype was about…either would do. And now, I’d be working with him. Probably not closely, granted, but close enough that I would be able to put a face to all those heated teenage fantasies I had previously convinced myself I was way too grown-up for these days.
It wasn’t like I’d had much luck on the dating scene in Hollywood, anyway. The place was crowded with the kind of women who would have stopped traffic where I was from, and being pretty wasn’t really part of my job description so I never put in the amount of effort that those women did. As a matter of course, I found myself getting overlooked by the few dudes I’d found who I actually liked, and just resigned myself to the fact that working in the film industry as someone other than an actor basically meant that I was going to struggle to get the attentions of anyone for any length of time. I couldn’t imagine that Will Derry would be any different – but hey, a girl could dream, right?
I came to a halt outside a small coffee job, and ducked inside to grab something to eat. I wasn’t really hungry – too nervous about starting work the next day – but nonetheless, I wanted to get something in my system so I didn’t keel over on Main Street.
Inside, the place was packed with hipsters and students clutching books on classic films. I grinned. This was the kind of place I was used to. When I had been working on getting my qualifications, it had been in a small university town like this, the kind of place that seemed to hold so much promise and opportunity for the hipsters of the world. A couple of people glanced over at me, and I could see them looking me up and down, trying to figure out whether or not they knew me from anywhere and whether they should come up to me and try to get me on their team. Bad luck – I was a nobody, and, as a make-up artist, I probably always would be. But that was the way I liked it.
I picked up my coffee and started making my way back down the street and towards my apartment, tipping my head back briefly and letting the early-morning rays of the sun hit my face. I had some unpacking to do and plenty of paperwork to get through, but right then and there, nothing mattered more than the fact that I was finally out of Hollywood and about to start work on a movie that I actually liked the sound of. Vive le difference.