CHAPTER TWO
Artichoke
There was laughter coming from the video room next door and I identified the source immediately. Nick was telling stories and joking around with the crew. No one was trying to keep their voice down, so I could hear every word. Either they didn’t know I was there or they didn’t care. They were telling him about a game they sometimes played to pass the time during long press days. They’d give an actor a word and then the actor would have to naturally work it into an answer during the interview. Nick said he wanted to play. They gave him the word “artichoke."
When he finally entered the room he wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore. All traces of the easygoing guy I’d overheard were gone. He cleared his throat and took his seat in the tall director’s chair across from me. I climbed into mine too, but managed the task much less gracefully. His expression remained serious and fixed.
I held out my hand and introduced myself. “Kate Ferris,” I said, managing through sheer will to keep my voice steady.
“Nick Archer,” he replied, as if that were necessary.
His skin was smooth, his handshake firm. As soon as we touched I felt an electric pulse pass through the connection, spreading through me like a circuit completed. Before I was ready our hands fell apart and the sensation faded, but didn’t go away entirely.
“Katelyn Ferris? Hollywood Beat?“ He frowned. Clearly he recognized my name, but there was no sign he remembered me from the lobby. I nodded and he leaned so far back in his chair I thought it might tip over. He seemed comfortable being off balance.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask. “So you’re not going to say anything about before? No apology? Nothing?”
“Before what?” A look of concern crossed his face. I took some satisfaction in putting it there.
“Downstairs earlier. The elevator?”
His eyes widened, just a little. “That was you?”
I tilted my head and gave him a look that I hoped said, “Of course it was me, dumbass.”
“Sorry. I just don’t like . . . elevators.”
That was all the explanation I got. Before I could press the issue, a crew member stepped in and gave us the go-ahead to start the interview. Camera rolling, we fell into our predetermined roles as interviewer and subject. I asked him about his character and his co-stars, how he prepared for the role, and the influence of other spy movies on this one. He hit all of his talking points with practiced finesse. He even managed to work in "artichoke" when I asked him about filming on location in Europe. He said it was lovely except for the week he got sick and "turned the color of a ripe artichoke." Out of the corner of my eye I could see the video crew high-fiving each other in the other room.
Four minutes passed, then six. Nobody gave us the signal to stop the interview. I wasn’t going to be the one to end it, but I was done playing by the rules. I had plenty of footage for the site, so I asked him a real question, something I actually wanted to know.
“Were you aware movie was going to be this bad before you signed on?”
The corner of his mouth crooked up into a smirk. It was the closest thing to a smile he’d given me so far. And damn, it was sexy as hell. “Are you really asking me that?”
You weren’t supposed to be negative about a film at the junket. It was an unspoken rule, the biggest rule. You were supposed to be polite and agreeable and interested while you were there, then pick it to pieces weeks later when the studio lifted the embargo.
“Why not?” I said, emboldened by my frustration with him, the entire day, and Hollywood in general.
“Then you don’t know much about this business.”
I snorted. “I don’t know it at all.”
“Me either, I suppose. What’s that William Goldman quote about Hollywood?”
“‘Nobody knows anything,’” I supplied. He looked impressed and I silently thanked the professor of the one critical studies class I took in my freshman year of college, when I’d briefly considered minoring in film. “But let’s get back to the question. I’m curious.”
“And persistent,” he said. His answer was both diplomatic and honest: “I mean, you don’t sign on to a movie knowing it’s going to be bad, but it’s always a possibility.”
“Then why do you do it? I’ve seen your movies. You’re a good actor, but sometimes you’re the only good thing in them.”
He looked at me sideways, trying to decide if it was a compliment. “Thank you? I guess?”
“What I’m really asking is — and maybe this question is too big for the scope of this discussion — why do you make these terrible movies?”
A wrinkle marred his perfect brow. “People seem to like them,” he said. His defensiveness was so endearing I was tempted to let him off the hook. But I didn’t.
“Sure, they make money. But that doesn’t mean they’re good.”
“Fair enough,” he conceded. He readjusted his position in the chair, coming forward to sit on the edge. “They say when you set out to make a movie you’re actually making three. There’s the movie you’re going to make, the movie you’re making, and the movie you’ve made. Things change in the process, not always for the better. Maybe you sign on to something that’s not perfect, but it’s a departure from what you’ve done before and your agent is pushing it. Maybe they back up a truck full of money to your house. Maybe it’s filming on location and you’ve always wanted to see Spain. Lots of different reasons.”
“So which one was it for this movie?” I asked.
“You know, you’d make a pretty good reporter,” he said.
“Ha ha,” I replied.
Talking to Nick was easier than I’d expected. Harder too, in some ways. When we first sat down he was an abstract concept, this famous actor who’d selfishly inconvenienced me. Now he was a flesh-and-blood person, sitting right in front of me and smiling in a way that made my soft parts hard and my hard parts soft. At some point during the interview my anger had fizzled out like a submerged fuse. I wanted the connection I felt between us to be real, though I knew it was only a simulation of intimacy, brought on by manufactured circumstances. How many people exactly like me had he talked to today? Dozens, probably. And that was just today.
Before I knew what was happening, he turned the tables on me. “So how do you think it’s going so far?”
The question caught me off guard. “Uh . . . good? I mean ‘well.’ It’s going well. Was there anything you wanted to add?”
He leaned back again, not as far as before. “Yeah. How did you become an entertainment reporter?”
“We’re supposed to be talking about you,“ I reminded him.
“Oh, they stopped filming ten minutes ago." He laughed at my shocked face. “Relax. You had the last spot of the day. There’s no one after you. So, tell me, do you enjoy what you do?”
Everyone in the room had stopped paying attention to us. They were comparing notes on clipboards, gathering their things, checking cell phones. The crew was already winding cables and breaking down the backdrop. I’d been so wrapped up in talking to Nick I’d missed the signal.
“The truth?” I said.
“No, lie to me.” His eyes twinkled, but it might have been an illusion caused by the lights moving around us.
“It’s fine, I guess. I sometimes wish . . .” I trailed off, taking time to choose my words carefully. I didn’t want to sound as though I thought covering movies was beneath me.
“You wish what?” he pressed.
“Um. I went to journalism school to become an investigative reporter?” It came out as a question, like even I wasn’t sure. “And I wish I could put those skills to use. But I picked the wrong decade to get into the newspaper business. So here I am. The funny thing is, this idealized notion I had of what journalists do probably came from Hollywood in the first place.”
“Let me guess, All the President’s Men?”
He guessed right. When I was growing up my mom and I used to have weekly movie nights and she loved Robert Redford. I enjoyed all of his movies, but All the President’s Men stuck with me. Most kids would be bored watching Woodward and Bernstein unravel the strands of the Watergate scandal, but I found it fascinating. It was probably a good thing I saw it before Sneakers or The Sting; I might have wanted to become a hacker or a con artist instead.
“That’s the main one,” I said. “And His Girl Friday.”
“Ah. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. So great together. How about Good Night, and Good Luck? Broadcast News?”
“Both excellent, but technically about TV news. I was more into newspapers.”
He tapped his finger on his chin. “Then you must have loved Spotlight.”
“Definitely. And, um, The Paper.”
“Yes! An underrated ‘90s gem.”
“Also State of Play, though the British miniseries was way better.“
He let out an appreciative whistle. “You really know your movies, Katelyn.”
I couldn’t process the compliment, so I ignored it. “You can call me Kate. That’s what my friends call me. Not that we’re . . . Or, you know, Katie. But I'm kind of trying to phase that out. Go with something a little more grown up. Some people think it’s short for Katherine, but it’s not. Which, obviously, you know. So I don’t need to . . . um . . . yeah. Call me Kate.“
He seemed to get a kick out of my babbling. I, however, was mortified. I tried to climb down from the chair, but getting out of it was even more awkward than getting in. I nearly toppled over, but then I felt a strong hand on my arm, steadying me. Inside, I was the opposite of steady.
"Whoa. Careful. These chairs can be treacherous."
So could the smile he gave me.
"Thank you, Mr. Archer," I said, trying to salvage some of my professional dignity.
“Nick,” he corrected. Then he added, “I really am sorry about the elevator thing. Not my proudest moment. Hope you won’t hold it against me.”
I didn’t know what to say so I just shrugged. Now that we were both standing close I noticed he was shorter than I expected. He was still taller than me, but I was below average. I wouldn’t have to stand on tiptoes to kiss him, just lean my chin up a little and . . . I had to stop that train of thought before it went off the rails.
As I was turning to go, he called out to me, “Hey, do you have a business card or something?”
“Why?” I asked, bewildered.
“So I can call you,” he answered. His voice betrayed no emotion, but his eyes appraised me from head to toe. I dug through my bag for my wallet and fumbled to get it open. “If that’s okay,” he added.
“Um. Sure.” I handed him my card and he put it in the pocket of his cardigan. I couldn’t handle the way he was looking at me, so I grabbed my bag and left without turning back.
Some time later Madison found me standing outside the room where they were transferring the video footage to digital cards. She’d been working the roundtables one floor down all day and hadn’t had time to come up until now. She gave me a hug and asked how the interviews went. I told her they went fine, leaving out the part where a hot movie star might have been flirting with me. It didn’t matter, though, because word had gotten around.
“Just fine, huh?” she said in a suggestive tone. Her tongue stud bobbed up and down in her mouth when she spoke. She usually wore a nose ring too, but took it out for work events.
“What are you talking about?” I said, hoping she didn’t mean what I thought she meant.
"I heard you really hit it off with Nick.” She batted her eyelashes.
Of course people were already gossiping. I was in a hotel full of celebrity journalists. I had to get control of this story before it spread. I took her elbow and dragged her into an empty room across the hall. “What did you hear?” I whisper-yelled.
“That you two were being really flirty after the interview,“ she said in a normal voice.
“I assure you, there was no flirting. I actually think he’s kind of an ass.” All I needed was for this story to morph into me throwing myself at a movie star and it was goodbye Pulitzer, hello murmurs and side eyes. “We just talked. I blathered on like an idiot at the end, but that was it. Don’t make it into something it’s not. I’m embarrassed enough.”
“Do you realize how many women would kill to be your position? I mean, not me obviously, but lots of other women.”
“I’m not in any position. Stop smirking, that wasn't a sexy double entendre. Besides, he’s an actor and you know my number one dating rule.”
“Ah-ha! So you do think he’s interested in you.”
I shook my head. “That's not what I’m saying.”
“Really? So he didn’t ask for your number?”
“He asked for my business card. It was nothing. And if anyone asks please repeat those exact words: It. Was. Nothing. There’s no story here, TMZ." I pointed at her to emphasize my seriousness and strode back out to the hallway.
She shouted after me, “If he calls I want details!”
The technician was waiting outside the video room holding a small white plastic bag with my completed video cards. I took it and thanked him. “I’m all done here so I’m going to head out,” I told Madison. “Can we stop talking about this forever?”
“Okay, okay.” She walked with me to the elevator. I smashed the button with my thumb repeatedly, as if it would make it arrive faster. “We’re still on for drinks next week, right?”
I barely registered her question. My mind was wandering, back to the room, back to Nick. Despite my vehement denials, I had felt something. I allowed myself to imagine, for a brief, reckless moment, he felt it too. Then I dismissed the idea for the foolish fantasy it was.
“Hello? Earth to Ferris!” Madison snapped her fingers in front of me and I came back down to Earth.
“Sure,” I said, hoping it was an appropriate response. “Sounds good.”
“Oh, man,” she said, staccato laughter punctuating each word. “You are so screwed.”