Page 45 of Love Scenes

I bust out laughing.

“At least I’m trying!” he protests.

“Fair, fair. You can bravely protect me from the bustling streets of Brentwood.”

We make it to my Prius without any rogue cars obliterating us. “This is me.”

He stands there, expectant.

“What?” I ask.

No response.

“Okay.Fine. Today was kind of shit. It was good to see my sixth-best friend.”

“Aha. I knew it.” He takes a step toward me, grinning. “I mean what I said earlier, about you being my only real friend out here. Everyone else is either a business partner or a shithead. You are neither.”

I step back, my heart suddenly racing. “Easy, Joe. You have to remember what happens to people on set. We hardly know each other.”

His eyes light up, blue and wide, like two open doors to oceans of possibility. “You called me Joe.”

My breath catches. “I... sorry. Joseph.”

“Don’t apologize. I liked it.It’s what my friends call me.”

“Everyone calls me Sloane.”

“That’s not true. Your mom calls you Sloaney when she wants something from you. I believe I heard your father call you Sloanius. Every once in a while, your sister calls you something strange. Bub?” He’s leaning against the side of my car now, his elbows resting on the front hood.

There’s an unexpected ease that’s wiggled into our dynamic. And a deep knowing. It’s still set life, I tell myself. This is what always happens. This is why I told him Daisy Montoya is my friend. Because you’re strangers with your costars until suddenly you know their every tic. Fourteen-hour days will do that. You know what they like to eat and how they chew it. The way theyact when they’re tired, cold, cranky. What makes them cry. Who they’re dating. Who they’re avoiding. What their vices are and how they use them. And they know the same about you. Then the project ends, and so does the connection, and you realize it was all a larger act anyways.

It’s still a job. Everyone is playing a role.

“I should get going. Another day of this tomorrow.” I reach for my door handle, and Joseph wraps a hand around my forearm.

Our eyes lock. We’re not Sloane and Joseph. Or Elise and Calvin. Suddenly we’ve become two people I don’t know at all. Two people who care about each other. He holds on to me. Five seconds pass. Ten. It’s a lifetime here, with his hand on my arm, his eyes boring into mine, but I don’t want it to end.

“I’m glad it’s you,” he says, opening the door for me. Closing it behind me, then patting the top of my car.

I drive all the way home without any memory of being on the road at all. Only Joseph’s hand on my arm and the way I felt when I was looking at him. Like I was alive. Like I was in danger. Like I was safe.

How in the hell am I going to do this movie?

11

My alarm goes off at the same time as always. But today I’m already awake and dressed, staring at the painting above my couch. Tyler made it for my thirtieth birthday. She said it’s her and me standing at the edge of the world. Personally, I see two black smudges on a cliff of some sort, with pink and yellow flowers exploding out of the middle of each smudge. And maybe some stars overhead?

Okay fine, it looks like a mist of blood to me. The kindThe Seekercrew would spritz onto the wall with a squirt bottle full of sticky red liquid. Tyler’s painting uses blues and greens, but the effect is the same. Maybe someday I’ll stop imagining the world as a place for a fake forensic analyst to solve crimes by dinnertime.

I should start trying to see it as Elise would. She’s a writer. She’d instantly pick up on the black smudges being people. She’d see them as her and her mom, facing war and illness and poverty together. The stars would be memories to her. Pieces of her life scattered all around her, lighting all the dark crevices of the world. She’d see Calvin in there. He’d be the deeper blue specks. The ones that are colored like a rural sky settling into eveninglight. The ones that seem too far to reach without the chance of falling off the cliff where she stands.

Good god. I need to get out of my house.

I opted out of having a driver pick me up and take me to set, liking the peace of being completely alone on my way to work.

My first day is supposed to be an intense one. We’re shooting a scene with my mom, Joseph, and me where Calvin gets a glimpse of what’s changed since he’s been away. This is the first time on-screen we see how Vera’s Parkinson’s tremors affect her daily life. Guy’s own mother had Parkinson’s, and a lot of this depiction is very personal to him, which is why I know it won’t be easy. Mom has to carry the bulk of the scene, but it’s important that Joseph and I show up for her.

That’s what I’d tell Joseph at any other rehearsal. I’d encourage him to breathe out every expectation he has for himself and instead look his scene partners in the eyes. Let his choices come from what he’s seeing, not what he thinks he needs to do to make the moment “good.”