Page 76 of Score
“Uhhhh… okay.” I had glanced around the set, wondering if he was not just an asshole, but also… “eccentric.”
“You… you… the song.” He had gasped, unable to stop laughing long enough to get the words out. “You wrote this shit? Man, I’m embarrassedforyou.”
He’s lucky I already knew how bad that song was. The cost of living in New York was a rude awakening. With more bills than pride, I did some work that was not my finest and so did he. At twenty-one years old, he’d taken grand jury and directing prizes at Sundance forThe Magic Hour, a documentary about his mother’s fight with multiple sclerosis, but a year later, he was trying as hard as I was to make ends meet.
And look at us now, collaborating onDessi Blue, which may become a defining project in both of our careers.
We’re finally ready to start shooting, and I know Canon wants Verity involved in the day-to-day as much as possible, more than a screenwriter might typically experience. I haven’t seen her since the dinner at Canon’s house a few months ago. Commitments for two albums kept me in New York for the most part. A lot of my work forDessiwill occur in postproduction once it’s time to actually score the film. I want to be here for today’s table reading, though, so I can see how everything is coming together.
That means seeing Verity again.
Hopefully I’ll hide my emotions better than I did at Canon’s place. Even better than hiding them would be notfeelingthem. That’s never worked with this woman, but we agreed to a truce, and I’ll do my best to honor that for the sake of this project.
For Dessi’s sake.
When I arrive for the table reading, Verity is standing there, curls tamed into two thick braids that rest on her shoulders. She’s not wearing her contacts today, so those black frame glasses sit on her nose and make her look like some college TA with an OnlyFans page. Those glasses are practically pornographic.
I don’t care.
And her ass in those jeans… kind of criminal, yeah, but I’m not moved.
And her breasts are still—
Stop.
I’m here to do a job, and I’ll interact with Verity Hill as little as possible.
She laughs at something Jill says, the humor on her face fading when she catches me watching her.
Why do I keep watching her?
We don’t have to be friends. Not sure that will ever happen, but we’ve agreed to work together and this project means too much—not just to me, but to the culture—to let old hurts distract either of us from doing our best work.
The cast and key crew are seated around a U-shaped table on thebacklot that will be home for the next few months. The production team has achieved something really special, transforming a nondescript backlot into 1930s Harlem, with the apartment stoops, city blocks, clubs, hotels, the ballroom—re-creating that particular time and place so vividly, the tastes and smells and sights come alive, even though you know it’s all facades and fabrication.
Canon’s casting director found great actors to complement Neevah. Playing Cal Hampton is Trey Scott, a former child star whom Canon wasn’t sold on, but in working with him so far, he seems great to me. He can do it all—dance, sing, and act. I’m looking forward to working with him.
Olivia Ware, who plays Tilda Hargrove, Dessi’s best friend and roommate, is soft-spoken when she introduces herself, but Canon showed me her audition tape and she comes to life as soon as the camera does.
“The thing I love about your role, Livvie,” Canon says once we get started, “is that it barely existed in the first iteration of the script. Verity, before we start the table read, you want to talk a little about how Tilda’s role evolved?”
“Sure.” Verity clears her throat and pushes the glasses up her nose. “Really we owe it to Neevah.”
Neevah smiles and shakes her head, looking a little bashful.
“She’s the one who found these letters and diary entries hidden in the musical jewelry box at Dessi’s home in Alabama,” Verity goes on. “We learned so much new information from those. There was very little mention of Tilda Hargrove in the accounts I’ve read before. Just that Dessi moved to New York and stayed behind with her roommate when her parents returned to the South.”
A small smile touches her full lips. “Based on the things we discovered—and you’ve seen it now in the script Canon and I revised—theirs was a passionate affair. Tilda was just as much the love of Dessi’s life as Cal, so for her to have been reduced to a mere footnote in Dessi’s story would have been a travesty.”
Petra comes to mind, and for the first time since the breakup, I wantto lean over and whisper in Verity’s ear, to pass her a note, maybe tease her about how we met. To watch the woman who had a threesome with me and her girlfriend within twenty-four hours of meeting me, blush. I wouldn’t call Verity shy, but she’s not an extrovert, which made her behavior those last few weeks so puzzling. She wasn’t herself, and whenever I get past the pain of her betrayal long enough, I find myself askingWhy?andWhat happened?andWhat the fuck?The girl I met that first night, the one who blossomed so beautifully for Petra and me; the one who whispered verses of poetry when we made love, that girl would never have hurt me. That girllovedme.
And for the first time in a long time, I find that even when the hurt rushes back in, I can’t stop asking why.
“In their lives, in their time, they had to hide how they felt,” Verity says, tilting her chin with a bit of the defiant pride I glimpsed in her years ago. “As a bisexual woman myself, I’m really grateful to Dessi’s daughter, Kitty, for being willing to share the truth. Love like theirs deserves light, and I’m glad they’ll finally have it.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Dessi
