Grantley
It was almost eleven-thirty when Barney and I left Beth’s house, and we’d had a great evening. Yeah, it had mostly been at Phoebe’s expense over the whole Peepee affair, but props to her-she’d taken it like a man.
“Shit,” I muttered as Barney drove us through the quiet streets, back toward Manchester. “I’ve got a voicemail from Marcia.”
Barney grimaced as I put my cell to my ear.
“She’s probably heard you bailed on dinner.”
“Probably.”
I was supposed to have gone to dinner with a British director who thought I’d be ‘just perfect’ for his upcoming World War 2 comedy. I mean come on, firstly, how the fuck do you joke about a damn war, and secondly, me-do comedy – nope, not a chance. I barely cracked a smile on a daily basis, never mind a fucking joke. Although, it had to be said, I’d laughed and smiled plenty around Beth’s dinner table.
I hit the button to listen to my messages and heard the ladylike words of my agent.
“Grantley, you little fucker,” she snapped, in her thirty smokes a day growl. “I set that fucking dinner up for you and you get Barnabus to tell the guy you’re ill with the fucking craps. What the fuck is going on? You no more have the craps than I have an intact hymen. Ring me as soon as you get this, you lying little cunt.”
And that, ladies & gentleman, was my mild-mannered agent. People often asked why I put up with her, the answer – she loves me and treated me more like a son than my own mother ever had. Yes, she was foul-mouthed and pissed with me most of the time, but she cared.
“Ooh, she’s mad,” Barney said, having heard every word.
“Yep, but isn’t she always.” I pressed the delete button and turned off my phone. “She knows I don’t want to do the movie, so I have no idea why she set the meeting up in the first place.”
“Her own commission, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah well, she’s going to have to rethink that one. I’ve told her if I’m going to do anything in between this and the next Addison Yates movie, it has to be something with depth.”
I was planning for my future and Marcia knew that, but God loved a trier, and she tried more than most to get her own way. While I enjoyed playing Addison and it payed damn well and had given me a level of fame that most actors dreamed about, it was pretty easy to do. I didn’t have to put much characterization into Mr. Yates – he was basically me with a gun and fast cars. I’d signed on for four movies in total, so besides the one we were currently filming, I had two more to go. After that I was saying adios to Mr. Yates, so I needed to make sure people in the industry knew I was actually a good actor, not just someone who looked great fighting bad guys while wearing a dress suit.
“Was tonight worth it?” Barney asked. “Pissing Marcia off and maybe losing out on a role, I mean.”
I shot my gaze to him. “Yep. Most definitely. Don’t tell me you didn’t have fun.”
“Oh yeah,” he chuckled. “I sure did, but I’m not the one who was supposed to be meeting an important director.”
“He’s not important,” I snapped. “Not to me anyway. He’s important to Marcia.”
Barney glanced at me, momentarily taking his eyes off the road. “So, you got a thing for her then?”
“Who, Marcia?”
I knew what he meant - fucker.
“Yes, fucking sixty-year-old Marcia, who eats more than I do, has the manners of a caveman, and has bigger balls than both of our nut-sacks put together. Fucking Phoebe, and you know it.”
I inhaled deeply and felt my heart miss a couple of beats. It had fucking snuck up on me, so damn stealthily even I’d been surprised. Yeah, I’d thought she was hot and pretty, but I also thought she was fucking annoying as hell. It wasn’t until I’d seen the prick with the beard ogling her that I’d realised I felt something in my gut. Not jealousy because, and it may make me sound like a douchebag, that guy was no threat to me if I wanted Phoebe. No, what I felt was something akin to how I’d felt as a kid, when Bobby Turner from down the street rode my skateboard – a skateboard I’d bought with all my tips I’d saved from the job I had delivering newspapers. Now, when I tell you folks only tip the newsboy at Christmas or Thanksgiving that shows how long I’d damn well saved for. So, when Bobby did a perfect Railside on my coveted board, I felt sick with the need to claim her back – she was my board, not his, and he had no rights putting his fucking dirty, grubby Chuck on her, never mind get her to do a trick that I still hadn’t quite mastered. That’s how I felt when Declan, the prick, ogled Phoebe’s tits.
“You gonna answer me?” Barney asked with more than a hint of damn laughter in his voice. “Do you have a thing for Phoebe? Or maybe it’s her sister, you were kind of looking at Beth as though she’d just saved the planet.”
“Fuck off,” I snapped. “I think she’s a great mom, is all. It couldn’t have been easy bringing up twins alone, but those kids are amazing and that’s all down to her. My fucking mother barely managed to drag me up, so I have the uttermost respect for Beth, and that’s it.”
“Ah, so that’s what the fuzzy little smile was all about?”
I let out a laugh. “I don’t have a fucking fuzzy little smile. I barely smile, period.”
“You do around those two sisters. A fuzzy little one for Beth and a ‘shit I really wanna kiss you’ one for Phoebe.”
He wasn’t wrong there. I think I really did want to kiss her – fuck it, I knew I did.
“She’s a cool girl, I’ll give you that.”
I looked out at the side window, watching the scenery as we joined the freeway – or whatever they called them in the UK.
“Just admit it man,” Barney chuckled. “You’ve got a boner for the girl.”
I swung my head around. “Hey, watch your damn mouth.”
“I’m sorry, but that kind of proves what I’m saying.” Barney grinned at me and slapped the steering wheel. “Well, I’ll be.”
“Ah shut up and drive.” I growled but couldn’t help the smile that was spread across my face.
The next morning, it took me forever to get out of bed. I hardly drank, so the three glasses of wine I’d had at Beth’s had left me feeling a little heavy headed. Plus, as usual, I’d slept like shit. I didn’t drink because I’d seen first-hand what a destructive thing alcohol was. I also didn’t drink because above everything, I was a professional who wanted to get to the top of his career – I’d seen too many actors waste their potential and talent by drinking or doing drugs. I’d worked too fucking hard to throw it all away on a bottle of Jack.
I’d known from an early age that I wanted to act. I’d never dreamed I’d be a movie star, but I hoped that I could make a decent living from it. I think my love for acting first started after my dad left. Life was so shit, I’d play act in my room, pretending that I lived a different life. I was Grantley Miller - the doctor, or Grantley Miller- the cop, or spy – anyone but Grantley Miller- the thin, short, neglected kid of Sue-Ann Miller and abandoned son of Trent Miller. I started to read aloud to myself, using different voices for the characters and eventually borrowed copies of plays from the library and performed them to no one but myself and the various bears and toys dotted around my room.
Then, when I was sixteen and I’d grown tall and filled out, I finally plucked up the courage to join the drama club at school. I’d always shied away from it before, choosing to play baseball instead. Don’t judge me, I was a teenager desperate to get laid and a high school sport was a more reliable means to an end. I only really joined drama club because Stacie Kimble did. She was blonde haired, blue-eyed, and had the best tits in school and every guy wanted her. The next play being performed by the club was to be a modern version of Romeo & Juliet and I figured Stacie would be a shoe in for Juliet. This meant that if I joined I’d get to be Romeo and maybe get to kiss her. I admit I was an over confident prick who didn’t rate any of those already in the club, but it turned out I was right to be so. We got the leads and I got my onstage kiss with Stacie, which led to me fucking her backstage at the last night party – that was also the night I got my first blowjob. In hindsight, it wasn’t a great BJ, but when you’re sixteen just the sight of a girl’s lips around your dick is enough to cause an explosion at the yogurt factory.
Aside from the sexual experience, joining the drama club was the best thing I ever did. My teacher saw something in me. He saw my talent and pushed me to go for an audition for the part of Sebastian in a stage version of Cruel Intentions. If I got it, it’d be a huge step for me – it was being performed in a proper theatre, the Paramount in Cedar Rapids, sixteen miles or so South East of Shellsburg where I lived. Mr. James coached and helped me and I would be forever grateful, because I got the part. Yep, I used his name when I registered with SAG; why not, he believed in me, unlike my shit of a father whose name I unfortunately inherited. I got that first break when I was just eighteen and after the run finished, I packed my bags and moved to LA. Within a year, I’d managed to get Marcia to take me on as a client and after a couple of years of bit parts in theatre, some TV ads, and a minor role in a daytime soap for a three-week stint, she got me a supporting role in a movie. According to the critics, I outshone the lead actor in the fast cars and loose women movie about a guy trying to escape a Mexican drug cartel – I played the part of student doing some travelling who got caught up in the drama. After that, I got the lead in a buddy movie about a guy trying to decide whether he should propose to his girl or not. The role was nothing like Addison Yates, but the studio must have seen something, because I was the second person they called to take over from Ryan. Okay, so it smarts a little that I was only second, but I figured Jake Gyllenhaal probably deserved the call first. Thank fuck he didn’t think it was for him, because at twenty-six I was living the dream and would do whatever I could to keep it that way.
“You okay?” Barney asked, shoving a mug of coffee at me.
“Yep, just know it’s going to be a long fucking day.”
“You’ve got some time before we need to leave.” Barney looked at his watch. “Your call isn’t for another hour and thirty.”
“I’ll drink this and then take a shower.”
Barney nodded and left me to drink my coffee, eat my toast, and read through the day’s script. I was just about coming around, when my cell shrilled out with the ring tone of a nuclear war siren – my fucking mother.
I looked at the screen for a few seconds, wondering how many times she’d call back if I dropped the call, but before I could decide what to do, Barney’s huge hand appeared, picked it up, and answered it.
“Sue-Ann,” he said, looking at me with a huge-ass grin. “Yep, he’s here.”
“You fucker,” I muttered and snatched my cell from him. “Sue-Ann, what do you want?”
“I’m your damn mother, Grantley, so why do you insist on calling me by my name?”
“Because you’d kind of need to deserve to be called mom, Sue-Ann, and in no sense of the word are you deserving of that moniker.”
She sighed on the other end. “I did everything I could to be a good mother to you. You have no idea how hard it was bringing you up alone.”
“I have an idea, seeing as I kind of brought myself up.” I drummed my fingers on the table, my impatience almost bubbling over. “What do you want, as if I have to ask?”
“I don’t always want money, Grantley,” she replied sulkily.
“Oh okay, you just called to see how I was? Or, to wish me good luck with the movie? Or did you call to tell me you’re moving to Africa to work as a humanitarian envoy?”
“There’s no need to be so sarcastic or rude, I’m still your mother.”
“Un-fucking-fortunately,” I hissed under my breath. “So, I’ll ask again, what do you want? No actually, Sue-Ann, I’ll rephrase that, how much do you want?”
“Nothing, I don’t want any money. So, what do you have to say about that Mr. Smartypants?”
“Well, I’m shocked to say the least,” I said, and I was, but I was also wondering when the other shoe would drop. “If not money, what?”
Bang - my size twelve, Italian leather, tan colored brogue fell to the fucking floor.
“I want to come visit. In fact, I’ve already bought my ticket.”