Brooklyn has a role on a blockbuster teen TV series, but she's the overlooked sidekick who never gets the good lines. Cade is the brooding star all the girls swoon for, and of course it's just when he starts to notice Brooklyn that democracy in Amer...
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"Cut. Phenomenal work, Brooklyn!" Gloria comes around the camera with a big grin on her face. "In the moment where you realized Violet was going to be executed, I could really feel your horror."
I give our showrunner a weak smile, trying to read in her expression if Leila's character is the one who'll be killed off at the end of the season. This scene would make it all too easy to drop her.
Ethan and I are being set up as a couple, and Lucien is off on his own suicide mission to track down his real father, who will turn out to be the one who framed Violet. No one expects them to kill off the star or the bad boy. The nice guy or the sidekick are the obvious choices. Also, if they give us a romance first, the graveside weeping will be all the more poignant.
I shake off the thought as Gloria reaches my side. I'm probably just paranoid from getting mugged and nearly trampled in a riot. Today is not the best day to worry about the threat to my career.
The showrunner hands me a bottle of water, which I take gratefully, letting the cold soothe the rope burns on my palms.
She drops her voice. "You holding up okay, honey?"
I nod and strengthen the muscles in my face to make it look like the truth. She offered me the day off after Rae and the security guys rescued me, but the police were too busy to take my statement at that point, and I was terribly shaken when I got back to set. It was a perfect match for Jessie's feelings after they failed to rescue Violet, and there's no reason to waste emotions that dark. In my own life, they're worthless. In Jessie's, they might just win us an Emmy.
No one writes Emmy-winning actresses off the show.
"Thank you for organizing the rescue, Gloria, seriously. Rae said Cade didn't even get through to 911 until the security team was already halfway across the bridge to my car."
"Don't even mention it. The studio can't afford for anything to happen to you." She lowers her voice, the lines at the edges of her eyes deepening. "And you know good and well that even if they'd refused, I'd have paid for the guards myself."
She pulls me into a hug, and when I would have let go, she holds me for an extra moment. She smells like the set, like that indefinable mixture of burnt coffee and camera cables and magic. I wish I could pour it into scented candles for every room in my house. But even so, a tiny part of me wonders if she's being extra nice out of guilt, because she knows it's my last season. Gloria may love me like a daughter, but there's no person here today—including herself—that she wouldn't sacrifice if she thought it would make the show stronger.
She finally lets me go, smoothing my hair back. "Can you hang in there for another hour, honey? I really need to have a cast meeting."
I raise my eyebrows at her like have you met me and she laughs.
"Well, if there was going to be a first time for you asking to go home early, today would have to be the one." She raises her voice to address everyone. "Main cast meets in the production office in ten minutes."
