Jenna & Jonah's Fauxmance (13 page)

My reverie is broken only by laughter. Guffawing, laced with a snort that can only mean one thing: Fielding Withers has arrived. Aaron. I leave my bag unpacked and rush from my stuffy room outside to welcome him. Even if he’s not a friendly face, at least he’s a familiar one, and costume-free. The screen door squeaks and I’m already planning out my opening line: How’d we get ourselves into this? Can you believe the town—it’s like a film set of a small town, right? Did anyone follow you here? Miss me much? I don’t dare say things that suggest I don’t know if I can handle
Much Ado About Nothing
, or that I wish I were sure of what the future holds—no way could I possibly reveal any of that to Aaron.

His laughter continues right up until he sees me, at which point it becomes louder, tighter, at the top of his throat—his fake laugh. Only, it’s not just for my benefit. It’s for the person standing next to him. Of course it’s a female, in a formfitting dress that pushes her breasts up. I appear right as she’s saying, “But the corsets—you wouldn’t believe how tight they are.”

I’m hit with an image of Aaron undoing a corset, tugging at the laces and finding her flesh underneath, and I swallow hard. Maybe I just wish I were the one wearing a corset. And maybe I hate that I feel that way. But I can’t help it when I see him standing in that familiar way, one hand in his pocket, the other brushing his hair back.

“Looks like you found your way here no problem,” I say, interrupting their interlude. The costumed girl doesn’t know that what I mean is, same old, same old.

“I’ve never had a problem with navigation.” Aaron grins, his eyebrows raised. He leans in closer to—Juliet? Ophelia? “Juliet here helped.” He nudges her and she giggles, heading off toward the lodge.

I shake my head. “We’re due onstage at seven tomorrow,” I tell him even though he probably already knows it.

Memories of four seasons on the small screen, endless line reads, separate-bed sleepovers, forced lunches, and lip-locks flash through my mind as we stand surrounded by trees, natural moonlight, and the distant sounds of laughter from the lodge. I watch him sling a worn blue duffel over his shoulder and pause as though he’s unsure where to go next.

I thumb toward the cabin. “Welcome home,” I say, trying for a mix of friendly and ironic.

Aaron looks confused. “Home? You mean, we’re sharing a cabin?”

I can’t tell whether this is an exciting prospect or a revolting one, so I try to sound neutral, but I fumble over my words. “No, I mean, I have my own cabin. Of course. It’s not like we’re neighbors anymore, right?”

“No—the show’s over.” Now he looks more confused. “But … aren’t we still neighbors?”

“Sure,” I say and try to explain. “But, I mean, it’s not like we’re sharing a bedroom—”

He blushes—at least I think he does, but it’s hard to tell in the moonlight. “Wait—am I or am I not bunking with you?” He elbows to the cabin to the right. “That’s me … us?” It’s awkward and weird after our closeness in Carpinteria. I can feel the attraction and maybe he can, too, but neither of us will acknowledge it. At least I never would, because he’d probably choose that moment to lecture me about the finer points of acting or suddenly remember Episode 24 in Season 3 when I had a stomach bug and he held my hair back as I barfed in the tour bus.

“So … ,” we both say at the same time, trying not to feel weird.

“So I’ll see you in the morning,” he says. I feel disappointed but hope it doesn’t show. He studies my face. “Unless you meant—”

“No!” I say too loud and too fast, and he looks hurt now. “I mean, good night.”

“And call’s at six forty-five tomorrow. Everything’s always fifteen minutes early.”

We stand there looking at each other. Of course he isn’t sharing a cabin with me. Of course call is earlier than I’d thought. But about one thing Aaron was wrong. The show isn’t over. It’s just beginning.

14
I’M AN OUTSIDER

Aaron

I still don’t get me.

First there was the fact that I let Jo bully me into doing this at all. “It’s the perfect balance,” she said. “You’ll be working, really showing your chops, but at the same time you’ll be off the radar.”

“But,” I said, “I just want to go to college. I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.”

“Then this will be the perfect opportunity for you to get a feel for a very different side of the business. It’s not all the Family Network, you know? We can totally reposition you. And if you decide this is the last thing you want to do, well, you’ll be a fantastic Benedick, and the last notices you get will be along the lines of ‘Wow! He’s not just Jonah!’

“Also,” Jo continued, “you and Charlie—you’re kind of a package deal here. If you pull out, she’s done, and then you’ve made the decision for both of you.”

That was the argument that actually convinced me. I don’t want to be responsible for killing Charlie’s career. Any more than I already am, of course.

Which is how I found myself on a plane, in a rental car, and then in a great little cabin with a little fireplace in the mountains.

This should have been something I really liked, but I found out that Oregon, or at least this corner of it, is a very cold place.

I wandered into the lodge, just looking for a snack, and found a bunch of people standing around. The place fell silent as soon as I walked in.

I scanned the room, looking for friendly faces. I recognized one guy who’d played our bumbling science teacher in two episodes of Season 3. “Hey,” I said, waving.

“Look who thinks he can act,” he replied and left the room.

“So, I guess we won’t be reminiscing about our good times on the
Jenna & Jonah
set, then,” I said. A few people smiled, but not many.

I walked over to the table with the food on it and got a wide, silent berth. “So, what’s good?” I asked a crowd of younger actors nearby as I pointed at the food.

“When celebrities don’t bump people with talent from parts they’ve auditioned for and earned,” a young guy said.

Great. Jo had neglected to mention this, but of course these roles weren’t vacant. Somehow Jo and Martinka cooked this up and got other actors booted out of the parts—Charlie and I are probably actually paying the salaries of the people we replaced. I knew people here would resent us for making a living as TV actors, but now they resent us for getting other “real” actors fired, too.

“Well, yeah, but since that’s not on offer, I guess I’ll just have a sandwich. Thanks for your hospitality, folks! I’ll just be on my way.”

I grabbed a hummus and veggie wrap and went back to my cabin, where I spent the evening rereading
Much Ado About Nothing
.

Until I heard a timid knock on my door at ten o’clock. I opened the door and found myself face-to-face with a gorgeous girl with long, auburn hair. She was dressed in sweats and not wearing makeup, but she didn’t need makeup or a sexy outfit—especially since she was at my cabin in the woods alone at night.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m, um, Steph. I’m playing Juliet? Can I … can I come in?”

“Yeah,” I croaked out. All the saliva had drained out of my mouth, and though my heart was pounding, I felt kind of light-headed. This was probably because all the blood in my body appeared to be rushing somewhere other than my brain.

“I’d offer you something to eat or drink, but apparently every morsel I consume is going to cost me a fair amount of abuse, so …”

“That’s okay,” Steph said. “I’m not here for a snack.”

She went and sat on my couch and patted the cushion next to her. I sat down. “I just wanted to … I guess I have a favor to ask you.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d be doing
you
a favor,” I said. “Believe me, it’s been a really long time. I mean, not that I don’t know what I’m doing or anything— I mean, I can certainly— I mean, wow. Sorry. Locked in this Charlie thing for so long, it’s been difficult to—”

“Be who you really are?”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Well, I’m here to help you with that.”

“That,” I said, “is awesome.”

“Because,” Steph said, “I need your gaydar.”

“My—”

“You know. I’m playing Juliet, and Craig, who’s playing Romeo, is totally hot, and I just really don’t—I mean, this is stupid, right, but I don’t want to make an ass of myself hitting on a gay guy. So I was hoping since you’re here, you could …”

Steph will not be mine. Oh, well. She might at least be an ally in a pretty hostile situation if I play along. And though I’m not gay, I have worked in show business and palled around with closet cases for the last several years, so I do actually have halfway decent gaydar.

“Well, Steph, I might actually have to talk to him to figure that out, and if tonight was any indication, I’m gonna have a pretty difficult time getting anybody to talk to me here.”

“Don’t worry about that. By tomorrow afternoon, probably at least half the people who snubbed you tonight will be handing you spec scripts and asking for your agent’s contact info.”

“Uh, okay, then. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Sweet!” Steph chirped. She kissed me on the cheek, bounced off the couch, and disappeared into the Oregon night, leaving me, as on so many nights before, with just my right hand for company.

The next day, despite Steph’s prediction, turned out to be another day of me feeling, as my dad would say, “about as welcome as a turd in a punch bowl.” I couldn’t wait for Charlie to get here, to have someone to talk to who knows me, someone who doesn’t hate me just for being me. Well, actually, I suppose Charlie does kind of hate me just for being me, but I guess that’s it—everybody here hates me for being who they think I am, and only Charlie knows I’m loathsome for entirely different reasons.

So if I’m so comfortable with Charlie, why did I turn into a stammering bonehead when she arrived? What the hell was I thinking? I knew she had her own cabin, I just thought— Well, the blood-rushing-away-from-the-brain issue again, I guess.

Steph and I were joking about Craig—my gaydar having ruled him straight, we were joking about exactly what her approach was going to be, and I suggested just knocking on his cabin door at ten at night, especially wearing that, ha-ha, and then Charlie showed up.

And I probably made her incredibly uncomfortable. I’d kind of like to go knock on her door just to talk for a while, but now it would probably just be awkward.

I’m feeling pretty alone, so I call James on the off chance he actually answers his phone. He does.

“Oh my God,” I say. “You picked up!”

“Yeah,” James says. “Now that I don’t have to pretend to be out clubbing every night, I’ve got plenty of time to stay home with the cats and watch musicals.” He laughs. “Actually, I’ve gotten sucked into this Age of Magicke game.”

“Uh. Cool?”

“It’s totally not cool. But since I’ve moved from bad-boy leading man to hilarious best friend, I don’t have to be cool anymore.”

“Are you really playing hilarious best friends now?”

“Absolutely. Well, I’m actually going to be Sandra Bullock’s hilarious gay
son
in her new comedy. But, yeah, it’s pretty much cut from the hilarious-best-friend cloth.”

“That’s—that doesn’t seem much like you to me.”

“Of course it’s not me! That’s why they call it
acting
, genius! You’re a little slow for such a freaking brainiac.”

I laugh and pace the floor of my cabin. “Yeah, I guess I am. I’m just— Everybody hates us here for being famous, and they can’t wait to see us fall on our faces, and I’m afraid we’re gonna give them what they want.”

“Listen. I am now pausing my game because this is important. Do you think the play you’re in is better than
Jenna & Jonah
?”

“Only in the sense that Belgian chocolate is better than feces.”

“Okay. So you made a connection with the audience when you were working with crappy writing. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“So why wouldn’t you be able to do it with good writing?”

Because I’m good-looking and can sing and dance, but I’m afraid I’m not really much of an actor. I appreciate the sentiment, though.

I arrive at the rehearsal stage at six forty a.m. to find Charlie already there. She is doing her best “Chillaxin’ with My Girls” (her hit single from Season 3) look, but I’ve worked with her for too long not to recognize the terror in her eyes. As much as she always goes on about being “born into the industry,” I don’t think Charlie has ever done live theater before. I know she’s terrified about what happens when you don’t get another take.

“Hey,” I say. “I. You. That girl.” Well, that was articulate.

She smiles. “It’s fine,” she says. “Sorry I showed up and blocked your—”

“Chances at helping her figure out if her costar is gay so she can hit on him?”

“Ha! Wait, she’s not in
Othello
, is she?”

“No.”

“Good, because that guy is old enough to be her dad.”

“Anyway,” I say, “I don’t know if you’ve hung around enough to feel the full depth of everybody’s hatred, but you and I are not exactly prom king and queen around here.”

“I thought maybe you had just poisoned everyone against me before I got here.”

“Did you really think I would—? Well, I guess I can see that. But they hated us both long before I got here.”

“But,” Charlie says, brushing hair away from her face and shaking her head, “I have three Teen Choice Awards!”

I laugh. “Yeah. Don’t say that too loud or you’ll get several colorful suggestions about where you might store those.”

She smiles, and I’m relieved. She doesn’t seem to still be mad at me, so our relationship is now a hell of a lot warmer than what either of us has with anyone else around here.

The other cast members have been trickling in and giving us the stink eye, and at the stroke of six forty-five, the director walks in.

She looks to be about sixty, she’s got white hair down to her waist, and she’s a little person. I mean, a Little Person. I mean, she’s a little over three feet tall.

“Circle up, actors,” she barks, and the entire cast of fifteen obediently stands in a circle on the stage.

“My name is Flannery Patrick, and this is my twentieth year with the festival. Last summer I directed the Public’s production of
Midsummer
in Central Park. I could go on. The point is, I know what the hell I’m doing, and I’m good at it.

“You might also remember my performance as Villager Number Six in 1988’s
Willow.
Or my remarkable work in the title role of
Goblin 2: Bride of the Goblin
. I reprised that role in
Goblin 3: Son of Goblin
and
Goblin 4: Revenge of the Troll.
Pretty much any time you see an old crone little person in the movies, that’s me.

“Here’s my point. Working actors do all kinds of things to put food on the table. I can afford to work for scale at the festival every year because I make very good money getting latex prosthetics stuck to my face and overacting in two or three horror movies a year. I ask that none of you judge me by my work in the
Goblin
series, and I won’t judge any of you by the work you’ve done elsewhere. We all have the privilege to work together to bring one of Shakespeare’s finest creations to life. No one here is above this work, and no one here is below it. Am I clear?”

We all nod, and I can’t help smiling. At least the director is on our side. Sort of.

We go through the business of going around and introducing ourselves, and I learn a few things. One is that Kyanna, who’s playing Hero, is smokin’ hot and eighteen years old. Another is that Al, a rotund old white guy who’s playing Leonato, Hero’s father (the festival is proud of its race-blind casting, which is why an ugly old white guy can have a beautiful African-American daughter), used to be the fresh-faced rookie cop on some cop show in the seventies. A third is that Edgar, who’s playing Dogberry—the drunken idiot constable—is the biggest snob in the place. He goes on for about ten minutes about how he’s devoted his career to playing Shakespeare’s clowns and fools, and looks at me and Charlie as he says, “Of course, I’m too busy with my craft to watch …
television
.” He says the last word the way most people might say “diarrhea.”