Page 2 of Love Scenes

Off-screen, you hear me say, “Excuse me, it’s my first day here. I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go.”

Joseph stops lifting boxes, back to the audience. His right hand lingers for a beat. Then he turns toward the camera lens—slowly, methodically—daring us to look away from the chiseled angles of his upsettingly exceptional face.

The director set up the shot so we meet Joseph by gazing up at his six-foot-three frame. His blue eyes pop against the cream of his Aran sweater. A native of Ireland himself, Joseph complained the iconic look was too on the nose. Wardrobe didn’t budge. They wanted this moment. The stark contrast of Joseph’s boyish features and his brooding edges. His dark blond hair combed into a subtle swish. His ocean-swept eyes touched with hints of sadness. And the brogue. It was all about the brogue melting off those lips.

Good god.It’s no wonder I loathe him.

I make it a few more minutes into the movie before deciding there’s no way I can watch myself kiss that bastard tonight. Smug asshole. Most unprofessional man I have ever worked with in my entire career. And goddamn brilliant on-screen in spite of it.

His career has skyrocketed since we shot this. And I’m hours away from the start of a made-up producing job handed to me by my famous family to fill the void of my most recent bout of unemployment.

I close my eyes, trying to sleep, needing to wake up in fighting form.

But Joseph Donovan’s features are carved into my mind,etched against the backs of my eyelids like the sun at high noon, burning me.

My mother greetsmy late arrival with an unbroken stare, arms folded across her chest and aviator sunglasses tipped down past the bridge of her nose, leaned up against the wall of Stage 15. She’s wearing a baby-blue crewneck tucked into a pair of tight black jeans. Her long blond locks are in a ponytail pulled through a black ball cap, but she’s left the bang pieces out to frame her face, because she hates when she looks too severe.

From this distance, she could easily pass for a twenty-five-year-old. Even up close, actually. She has the skin of someone who has had a professional aesthetician for decades, and the unmistakable glow of a person who cherishes being important to strangers. It’s the hard-earned confidence that gives her age away. The no-bullshit facade of a fifty-eight-year-old woman who has seen it all and is no longer impressed by any of it. When the acting world turned on her, she picked herself up and transformed into a producer, intending to make a better life for other women in the business.

Right now she looks ready to turn on me just as effectively.

“Do you really not care about this?” she asks. Years of smoking have left an indelible mark on her voice, a sandpaper grittiness that’s as iconic as her beaming smile.

“Hi, Mom. Good to see you too. Yes. Everything is okay. Thank you for worrying.” It’s hard not to wheeze, having done my best power walking impression to get to her, not a drop of caffeine in my system to offset my lack of sleep.

“You look tired.” She pinches my skin, then gives me aperfunctory cheek kiss. “We’ve got a lot to cover in not a lot of time. I’m gonna be running around today, so I need you to keep eyes on everyone and make sure we’re running a tight ship. You know how crucial the first few days are in establishing a tone. It starts at the top of the chain, Sloane.”

“I’d hardly call myself the top of the chain here,” I quip. “You made my job up.”

The look she gives me makes actual goose bumps form along my arms.

“I’m sorry,” I correct. “I turned off my alarm instead of hitting snooze. It was an accident that will never happen again.”

“Oh, Sloaney, please don’t act like you’re new to this. Not now. Always set at least three backup alarms. I can’t have everyone on set thinking you can get away with whatever you want just because you’re my kid.” She says all of this without breaking pace, dragging me along like we’re doing our own Aaron Sorkin walk and talk. “At least you’re dressed well.”

The only helpful decision I made last night was to set this morning’s outfit out on my dresser, feeling that strange kind of restless dread that made me both overplan and underprepare. Naturally I’ve ended up in nearly the same look as Mom, only in a different color scheme, with my shirt a muted yellow, my jeans a vivid blue, and my unplanned ball cap a heather gray. The best thing about having a long bob is being able to plant a hat on my head and have my whole style look intentionally casual, when the truth is I barely had time to brush my teeth, much less my hair.

“Twins.” I gesture to our complementary ensembles, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Don’t be generous,” she scoffs. “I haven’t been allowed to play a thirty-year-old since I was twenty-five.”

This version of my mother—Kitty Porter:boss lady—is utterlyincorrigible. I never thought I’d say it, but I miss her usual wandering 6:00 a.m. phone calls to me, talking about her cats and her yoga mat and her favorite Brené Brown quotes.

She once spent twenty full minutes detailing the way the sunlight in her office was streaming onto a picture of Tyler; our younger brother, Powell; and me. It’s a black-and-white portrait shot by Annie Leibovitz, and we’re all piled onto one another like puppies. Tyler was eleven and had recently chopped off all her hair but hadn’t yet solved how to style it. It was a scrappy brunette mess, dangerously close to bowl cut territory. Powell was nine and cute as ever. As far as I’m concerned, he still looks the same. Like a soft butter roll just out of the oven, with his hair that same iconic blond as Mom’s. And then there was fourteen-year-old me rocking the classic braces-and-bangs combo, my hair a greasy brown and ironed straight as a pin. Even the bangs.

“I won’t screw up again.” The tremble in my voice surprises me. She hasn’t made me this nervous since I bravely admitted to her that despite her sage advice, I was going to study acting in college after all.

“Good.” She does the eagle-eyed hand gesture she picked up from Robert De Niro inMeet the Parents. “Keep eyes on everything. And make sure Tyler’s calm.”

“I’m on it.”

The problem is, I haven’t looked at the call sheet. I don’t know who the first AD or the second AD is. Or what we’re shooting today.

Knowing too much hurts too much. It amplifies the ugly voice in the back of my head that reminds me that once upon a time, the leading role in this production was supposed to be mine.

I do know that the movie has a working title ofHorizons. It’s a romantic World War II drama. My stepdad wrote it. My sister’sdirecting it alongside him. My mom’s going to be acting in it for the first time in almost twenty years. She’s playing a supporting role, a widow named Vera who battles an illness while also having a secret love affair with the Black woman who lives down the hall. That role will be played by my dad’s other ex-wife, Melanie Davidson, mother of my youngest sister, Sarai, who just turned eleven and surprisingly does not have a part in this project.Yet.

It’s a good old-fashioned nepotistic family circus over here.