Melinda nodded, agreeing to the terms for all of us. One of the girls near Christina raised her hand. “Who’s in the movie?”
“A good question,” Christina said. “The working title of the film is Head Over Heels, and it stars Samantha Evans, Kaitlin Prescott, and Jared Richards.” She paused. “That is to go no farther than this room – is that clear?”
My heart fluttered when I heard Jared’s name. Was it possible he actually had been in town the previous night after all? It wouldn’t be out of the question if he was preparing to shoot a film in Ridley. Maybe I hadn’t completely lost my mind…
The female stars were two of the hottest twentysomethings in the business. Between them and Jared, I could understand why they would want to keep a low profile on the filming – they didn’t need every fan within a thousand miles complicating their schedule.
Christina continued to talk, but all I could hear was my pulse thumping in my temples. I took several deep breaths and tried to force myself to focus on what she was saying, but to no avail. My thoughts raced back to Jared backstage, with that infectious, crooked grin and blue eyes so piercing they seemed to read my thoughts.
And now he was going to be on campus for the next three weeks, at least some of the time. Not only that, but I would be working the shoot, raising the chances that I would be in close proximity to him.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me, but I willed it away. I was going to be part of a fairly large catering group, delivering food and beverages…and then leaving. Maybe cleaning up once the cast and crew had eaten. Checking to make sure the coffee was hot. You got this.
“Are there any questions?” Christina asked, and I snapped back to the present. Christina was everything I wasn’t, and I knew it. Gorgeous, successful, powerful, composed…and close to Jared. I tried not to let jealousy overwhelm me, but it wasn’t easy. I eyed her thousand-dollar boots, and my gaze dropped to my Docs, now three years old, battered and scuffed, worn almost every day for lack of alternatives – a fitting metaphor for the differences between Christina and me.
She fielded a few logistical queries and then, with a glance at a slim gold watch dangling from her wrist, excused herself, leaving Trent to follow up on the details. Melinda conferred with him for a few minutes while the rest of us absorbed the bombshell, and then she snapped back into supervisor mode.
“Tonight’s shoot will be on the east side of the campus,” she said. “I’d like everyone back here by seven thirty.” She turned to Trent. “The kitchen will be working on entrees over the next two hours. Any special orders for the cast go through me, okay? We’ll do the best we can to accommodate any requests, but no guarantees.”
Trent nodded. “I’ll relay that so Christina knows. She deals with the cast directly – very hands-on. I’m sure we’ll get everything running smoothly.”
Melinda dismissed us, and I herded out with the rest of the students. When I got back to my dorm room, only Sarah was there, sitting cross-legged on her bed, bouncing her head to whatever was emanating from her headphones. She waved at me and returned to texting on her phone.
I spent twenty minutes agonizing over what to wear for my first night on the job. Don’t be an idiot. He’s not going to drop by on day one. Especially not to see what kind of sandwiches people are whipping up behind the scenes. Eventually I settled for my usual black jeans and combat boots, with a maroon long-sleeve rugby shirt. I inspected myself in the bathroom mirror and, after fluffing out my hair so that it easily covered my neck, set off for the cafeteria.
Melinda was waiting for us. She took a head count and then led us to the prep kitchen, where a crew was working furiously on foil-wrapping trays of lasagna. Outside, we loaded the catering group’s three service vans with containers of soda, water, and coffee, while four burly young men packed folding tables onto the back of a pickup truck.
The area where the film crew had erected a large tent was only a half mile from the cafeteria, in a clearing near the auditorium on the far side of the campus. We could see spotlights as we neared, and the area was already a beehive of activity, with at least twenty semi-rigs and tour buses parked in the clearing.
A pair of security guards in windbreakers stopped us as we approached, and after speaking into a radio, allowed us to continue. We arrived at where the vans had parked, and Melinda gave us our assignments. I wound up stationed by one of the tables dispensing drinks, and Melinda introduced me to Trent and then Alfred, the site manager.
“Alfred runs the show,” Melinda explained. “Consider him your boss while on the set – anything he wants, he gets.”
I quickly learned that making a movie mostly involved hours of boredom where nothing seemed to happen while the technicians set up whatever they needed to in order for the director – a frowning, unshaved man named Oscar – to direct the shooting of a scene. I scanned the area, but didn’t catch sight of Jared or any of the other actors until almost two hours after we arrived, and then only from a distance as he conferred with Oscar and Christina near the makeup trailer.
I watched
