AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, you’ll need to decide fast,” Dean pointed to my bag, where I’d tucked the ticket for safe-keeping. “Because that flight leaves on Sunday.”
My throat tightened. I’d looked at the date, but I’d been so overwhelmed by how fast the weeks had flown and the offer itself, that it hadn’t properly sunk in.
February 12th. Yep, that was in two days.
“Why so soon?”
“We’ve got other projects lined up,” Dean said. “I was supposed to have a week off before my next movie, but that mess with Brooke pushed us past our original deadline, so they’re back-to-back now.”
That made sense, but it didn’t make me feel better. I wasn’t the kind of person who made impulsive decisions — while everyone else my age was moving away to attend university, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do as a career, so I worked at the cafe instead. And now I wasn’t potentially moving to another town — I was possibly moving to anothercountry, and leaving everything I knew behind.
I didn’t want to lose these guys, but I didn’t want to lose myself, either.
“Excuse me.”
I needed some time alone, away from the music, the conversations, and the distractions to think. But when I’d almost reached the doors to the balcony, Preston tapped a microphone and said, “Attention, everyone!”
Dammit.
I turned back and returned to where the guys were selecting tiny quiches from a waiter’s plate. Wyatt passed one to me and I held it in my palm, feeling too sick to eat it. Preston had sampled plenty of champagne and staggered around on-stage as he made his speech.
“Thank you to everyone who was involved in this movie. The talent…” he gestured to the four of us and a spotlight on the ceiling swung around to illuminate our faces. “The crew…” The light moved again, to a group of men who were sitting around the bar, “and every single one of you who made this movie what it is. To show my appreciation, I’ve put together a few clips from the past few weeks that you might enjoy.”
He stepped into the crowd as a black curtain slid sideways across the wall to reveal a large screen television.
The words “PUSHING DAISY” appeared across the screen in white text, followed by “blooper reel” beneath it a second later.
“Oh no,” Wyatt groaned.
“Oh, yes.” I grinned. Suddenly, I didn’t want to get away so badly. The first blooper was a scene featuring Dean and Isaac, where they were inspecting the engine in our broken-down car. They were arguing and Dean was supposed to kick the front of the bumper, but he did it harder than he was meant to and the bonnet slammed down, narrowly missing his hand.
“Fuck!” he shouted and both he and Isaac broke down laughing.
The next blooper was our cafe scene, where Brooke kept forgetting her lines. She did it once… twice… three times… until the next scene featured me delivering her lines perfectly. Tears dampened my eyes — I hadn’t realized until now how professional I looked on the big screen.
Isaac wrapped his arm around me and gave my shoulder a squeeze.
I didn’t have long to feel great about my acting abilities though, because the next blooper was one of mine. It was one of my earlier scenes, where I hadn’t gotten used to being on set yet, and kept making dumb mistakes. I spoke over the top of Wyatt, dropped a coffee cup and ducked after it while muttering, “oh shit”, walked into a table, and looked directly at the camera for a full second before someone hissed at me not to.
Everyone laughed and I couldn’t help joining in. At the time, every mistake had been so stressful but now, knowing that the movie was finished and none of these mistakes mattered anymore, I felt like all that pressure had released, and I could simply enjoy the scenes.
And then there was my scene next to the pool, my prosthetic leg on display and Preston’s voice shouting, “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a fake leg, you asshole,” someone shouted from the back of the room, and even Preston laughed at himself.
The bloopers played on, showing Wyatt falling… and falling again… and grabbing Isaac around the waist and both of them tumbling into the pool.
“You’re good at that,” Dean said, as he clapped his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. “Have you ever thought about doing it as a career?”
Wyatt slapped him away as the reel focused on the extras. A tall brunette woman tried — and failed — to stifle her laughter as Dean delivered his line. Another extra fell over as they were walking along the street. And there was April’s ponytail falling into her coffee cup every time she pretended to drink from it.
I found her face in the crowd and gave her a thumbs up. She looked amazing on the big screen — with her high cheekbones and contagious smile, she looked even more like a movie star than I did, and it reminded me of how badly she’d wanted to be discovered by an agent when we were first hired.
When the blooper reel ended, the waiters seemingly emerged from nowhere with more drinks and canapes. I made my way through the crowd until I reached April, where she was talking with Jamie and Jerome.
“Can I talk to you?” I asked.
“Sure.” She swallowed her drink, placed the glass on the bar, and followed me to the balcony. “What’s going on?”
