Page 114 of The Hollywood Switch-up

The note was waiting on the kitchenette counter:

Good girl. You show up when I tell you to. Now you’re learning.—M

She crumpled it in her fist and stood at the counter and watched the sun finish rising through the window, and her coffee went cold while she held Martin's note in her hand and wondered how many more mornings she had left in her.

After lunch she was in the makeup chair, and that’s when they handed her the revised pages for Scene 48.

The old version had Luna crying alone in her hotel room—contained, private, a single close-up. The new version put her under a cold shower, stripped bare, breaking for the camera. Martin had scrawled in the margin: Luna is stripped bare emotionally and physically. I want to see everything.

She read it twice. Folded the pages. Put them in her bag. She survived the day. Hit her marks. Avoided Stefan’s eyes.

The next morning brought another false call and another note. By the time she reached the set, she’d gone permanently numb. And she understood what Martin wanted—not just her obedience but her submission—the slow erasure of the person inside the performance.

They were blocking Scene 52 when Martin caught her attention and tilted his head toward the beach, and she followed because following was what she did now.

He walked her past the equipment trucks, past the PAs, until the crew noise faded and it was just the two of them and the ocean. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to.

“You were extraordinary yesterday.” He said it like he meant it—warm, almost gentle, the mentor voice he’d spent thirty years building. “Take six. The way your hands were shaking—that wasn’t Luna, that was something real. Something you’ve been carrying.” He glanced at her. “I see it, you know. The weight. I don’t think anyone else on this set understands what you’re doing, but I do.”

She said nothing. The ocean went on behind him, indifferent.

“You remind me of another actress I worked with years ago.” He said it casually, like a man thinking aloud. “Same instinct. Same refusal to protect yourself on camera. She gave me the best performance of her career—take eleven. She was furious with me by then.” A quiet laugh. “They always are. And then they watch the dailies and they understand.”

He let the silence sit. Then, lighter: “How are you sleeping?”

“Fine.”

“You’re not.” Said with concern. “I can see it in your face at call time. The exhaustion reads on camera. Which I can use, honestly. Luna should look exhausted. But I need you to take care of yourself.” He paused. “Are you eating?”

She looked past him at the horizon and went cold. He was right. She wasn’t sleeping, she wasn’t eating. He knew it like he knew everything, because he was the reason. And he was standing here asking about it.

“I’ve asked Lena to adjust your schedule. Lighter days when you need them. I want you to feel supported.” His hand came up—she braced—but he only gestured at the set behind them. “This should feel collaborative, not adversarial. We’re making something extraordinary here, Anneliese. I need you to trust the process.”

Trust the process. She stood on that beach and listened to the man who sent her false call times and rewrote her scenes to strip her naked tell her to trust the process, and the worst part wasn’t the rage or the fear—it was the flicker, the half-second where his voice sounded so reasonable that she almost believed him. This was how it worked. One reasonable conversation at a time until you couldn’t remember which parts were real and which parts he’d built around you.

“Get some rest tonight.” He checked his watch. “Early start tomorrow.”

At some point, her legs folded. She was sitting behind a generator, sand in her shoes, arms wrapped around her knees. She didn’t remember walking here. The sun had moved. The shadows were longer and bluer now.

“Erika.”

Lily’s face, close. Hands on her shoulders.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting here. The sand had gone cold underneath her and her arms ached from holding her knees, and Lily was crouching in front of her with an expression Erika had never seen on her before—not concern, not anger, something past both.

“What did he do?”

“Nothing.” The word came out flat and she meant it and she didn’t. “He told me I was extraordinary. He asked if I was sleeping. He offered to adjust my schedule. He rewrote my scene into a shower scene and then walked me down to the beach and told me he wanted me to feel supported.”

Lily’s grip tightened on her shoulders.

“He didn’t threaten me. He didn’t touch me. He just stood there being—” She couldn’t find the word. “And I know how that sounds. I know I’m sitting behind a generator because a man asked me how I was sleeping and that sounds⁠—”

“Chica.” Lily’s voice was low, steady, furious. “You’re shaking. That’s not nothing.”

“You’re not hearing me.” Erika’s voice cracked. “If I try to tell anyone—he was being nice, Lily. He was a good director. And I can’t—I don’t know how to explain why it feels like—” She stopped. She didn’t have the end of the sentence. That was the whole problem.

“I’m not looking at you like you’re crazy.” Lily glanced over her shoulder, then back. “Can you stand?”