Chapter 31
A wedding
Logan, who’s checking emails on his phone, gasps.
“What is it? Not bad news?” I ask.
We’re perched on our usual canvas chairs in soundstage two, waiting. This is how I spend half my life these days. Light, sound and photography techies bustle about, and the set dressers add final touches for the next scene — when Chase Falconer weds Fern Lightly.
Logan is costumed in a deep charcoal tailcoat with matching trousers, a silver embossed satin waistcoat, and a loosely-knotted cravat the precise blue of his eyes. Wardrobe has styled him down to the last detail — silver cufflinks in the shape of a shark. His floppy hair is swept back smoothly, and Ed has threatened him with death if it gets mussed.
Twenty minutes past the call time, we’re still waiting for Britney. A pair of photographers are set up in prime positions to take stills of the wedding ceremony. The actor playing the priest paces up and down the faux flagstones at the front of the ‘chapel.’ Extras squirm restlessly in the pews — custom built and ‘distressed’ to look old and worn — on either side of an aisle fitted with dolly tracks for the camera.
“What is it?” I ask Logan again, trying to read over his shoulder.
“I got the part.” He sounds stunned.
“What part?”
“Alan Strang,” he says softly.
“Equus? In New York?”
He just nods, apparently dumbstruck. I glance around, see that Cilla is safely on set, shaking the priest’s hand, and no one is within earshot. Still, when I speak, it’s in hushed tones.
“That’s so awesome!” I desperately want to jump up and hug him. Never has the need to keep us secret chafed as much as it does at this moment, when I have to settle for a whispered, “Congratulations!”
I’m as relieved as I am excited for Logan. This role will be a wonderful opportunity for him to stretch his talent and break out of the Chase Falconer mould. Logan, however, doesn’t seem as over-the-moon as I am.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do it. The timing — it conflicts with the next Beast shoot.”
“You’ve signed for that?” I ask, dismayed.
An image of Logan in a spacesuit, doing battle with giant lizards, momentarily sears my eyeballs. Even he won’t be able to pull that off and make it look like anything but franchise-milking junk.
“Not yet,” he says, but before I can breathe a sigh of relief, he continues, “but I will. Probably.”
“Why in the name of all that’s holy would you do that? You told me how much you wanted to play Alan Strang, how hard you fought for this role!” I whisper fiercely. “You said it would give you a chance to practice your craft, to grow yourself as an actor. You could do this” — I sweep a dismissive hand at the current set — “in your sleep.”
“The series probably won’t go ahead if I’m not in it. I’m not being arrogant, or anything, it’s just that the producers and backers want a bankable name — my name.” Logan fidgets with a shark cufflink, turning it around and around.
“Just because they want you in the next movie, doesn’t mean you have to do it. Why would you even be tempted? It sounds like a chunk of junk.”
He says nothing, merely stares ahead at the bustling set. There’s a bleakness to the set of his face, and a tightness around his mouth that worries me.
“You don’t need the money,” I say. “And it’s not like you need more fame — you’ve already got more than you can handle. Why do you need to keep going with the Beast movies?”
“Maybe I’m not good enough for anything else, have you thought of that possibility?” he says, finally turning to look at me.
“No. Because that’s rubbish, and you must know it. You could do so much more with better roles and better material.”
“No one thinks I can.”
“I do.”
“Thanks, but you’re not the one that matters. No, wait,” he says when I wince. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean the people with the power to cast me in a different kind of movie don’t — can’t, maybe — think of me as a serious actor.”
“Then kick down the doors and show them. You’re Logan Rush, for goodness sake! Write your own screenplay. Make your own movie. Show them what you can do. Let someone else take the Beast to Mars. And take Britney with him,” I add bitterly.
“I can’t. Britney still wants, and needs, these roles. And I owe her.”
“Owe her for what?”
He sighs and looks down at his hands.
“Back when I auditioned for the role of Chase Falconer, Britney had already been cast as the female lead. She was already famous. Without her signing on, the film wouldn’t even have been made — it was a risky venture, and they needed a big name as a drawcard. I was a complete unknown, with no acting track record, and she chose me. Cilla and the casting director narrowed it down to five actors. Any one of them could have played this role at least as well as me, and three of them were power names in the industry. But Britney chose me. She insisted that Cilla cast me in the role, said she could feel the chemistry only with me.”
“I’ll just bet she did,” I mutter.
I can imagine the scene — Britney looking forward to a rosy future in which she could sink her claws into Logan and keep him close to her. Britney knowing the massive appeal Logan would have for the female half of the population, and knowing that if she hitched herself to his star she would rise and rise.
Speak of the devil and she shall appear — at that moment, Britney glides regally onto the set, staggeringly beautiful and resplendent in a long-trained gown of raw silk the colour of the palest iceberg blue. A collar of realistic-looking diamonds circles her throat, and a tiara glitters in her upswept hair. Glowing with pleasure at the gasps and compliments coming from all sides, she’s every inch the princess to Logan’s prince.
“I owe her. Without her, I’d be nothing.” Logan’s eyes, like everyone else’s, are trained on the dazzling bride.
“That’s not true.” I’m not ready for him to accept defeat. “You just might not be Chase Falconer.”
“But being Chase Falconer is what has allowed me to rescue my mother from working as a waitress in a diner, having to bite her tongue and smile for her tips while she’s hassled by free-fingered perverts and sassed by smart-mouthed trashy teens, living day to day from hand to mouth. Being Chase Falconer is what has allowed me to send my sister to college, so she can be something one day. And anyway, Cilla’s insisting.”
“So what? Cilla this, Cilla that. It’s like she’s got some kind of hold over you.” I half-mutter the words under my breath, but Logan’s head snaps up.
“What do you mean?” he says sharply.
“Does she have a hold over you?”
He looks away from me and exhales a frustrated sigh. “Britney has asked me — begged me — to sign on for the next movie. She wants to do it, and they won’t do it without me. It’s time to pay back what I owe.”
“Send her a bunch of flowers and a thank-you card.”
“Places, please,” the assistant director calls.
Britney floats over to her mark at the front of the aisle and chats to the priest. The extras in the pews straighten their hats and smooth their hair. I put a restraining hand on Logan’s arm as he makes to stand up.
“Logan, you yourself told me that you don’t feel challenged anymore, that you’re not satisfied. Can’t you just try something new, something different?”
“Sounds like you’ve got plans for a new-and-improved Logan. Next thing, you’ll be asking me about my intentions, like your father did. Asking me what I plan to do with my life when I give up ‘play-acting and make-believe.’” He stands up, shoots his cuffs, and pulls his jacket down at the back. Up on the set, Britney beckons Logan with a finger and a smile which promises royal treatment.
“I just think you can do more, that’s all.”
“Let me guess, sharks? Spread awareness, raise money, change the world?”
“Is it so stupid to want to do something meaningful, to leave the world a better place?” There are tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. It feels as if he’s slipping away, like a handful of water in my fingers.
“No, it’s not stupid. You should do it.”
“I want you to do what will make you happy.” I speak passionately, but I’m not sure he hears me. He’s already walking towards the altar, towards Britney.