He was right. Mine was hardly an example.
I’d made the same suggestion to Jackson the following day, even going so far as to volunteer to put the script in the hands of the few producers who would still take my phone calls, but was met with grim determination. “It’ll come together,” he’d insisted, rubbing his perpetually bloodshot eyes.
I felt bad for him. I guessed he wanted a relationship with his father and had thought the film would be a way for them to connect, but he was sorely mistaken. Today, though, Jackson’s army-green eyes were clear. “Glad we’re finally about to roll on this beast.” He smiled.
“I was nervous about not being down here to oversee preproduction,” I admitted, “but everything looks great.”
“Yeah.”
Nervous was an understatement. So far though, I was nothing but impressed with Jackson and his team and grateful for all they’d taken off my plate. The locations they’d found were perfect, the equipment had all made it through customs without a hitch, the permits were in order, and the craft services table was miraculously better stocked than on most higher-budget films I’d worked on.
Felicity emerged from the shadows onto the set wearing Stella’s wardrobe for the scene: a gauzy silver dress that was nearly sheer beneath the lights. I noticed the crew guys trying not to heed her impossibly Barbie-like proportions as Price guided her toward the couch, where she curled into the corner and tucked her feet beneath her. One of the wardrobe girls covered her with a robe, but Felicity shrugged it off. “It’s hot,” she said. “I’m fine.”
The monitors fuzzed, then popped to picture one after the other. “Monitors are up,” I yelled to Brian. He gave me a thumbs-up.
The image on the monitors blurred, and when it refocused, Felicity’s face filled the screen. It just wasn’t fair. Somehow she was even more beautiful on camera than she was in person: her skin smooth and unblemished as a baby’s, the light glancing off her cheekbones and the angle of her ever-so-slightly upturned nose, her dark eyes dancing when they found the lens. All of which only conspired to make me more suspicious of her.
“Jesus,” Jackson muttered, transfixed.
She had undeniable star quality. Stella possessed that quality years ago, when she first began. But she’d been diminished by years of misfortune, made vulnerable and wary, and her light had dimmed. Her reduced state could work though, in this role. If she could pull it off without giving in to vanity.
“Find yourself a muse?” I teased.
He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “Girls that pretty rarely have any talent.”
I raised my eyebrows, taken aback. In the months I’d worked with him, I’d never heard him utter anything quite so spiteful. Regardless of how much I sometimes wished talent could be singular and evenly handed out at birth, I knew it not to be true. I’d seen far too many models become actresses who obtain degrees from Ivy League schools, then marry into royalty and raise more money for charity than any of their royal predecessors. Okay, maybe that was just the one—an unfortunately lovely woman who deserved it all—but there were plenty of other examples of successful multihyphenates, not all quite so lovely. I tried not to think about it too much; I found my own life tedious by comparison.
Truth be told, it was a little dispiriting working with the gods and goddesses of our time, no matter how nice they were—though of course it was always worse when they were awful. I’d read about the dangers of evaluating ourselves against the impossible ideals represented by magazines and social media feeds, but I liked to think that if I weren’t shoulder to shoulder with celebrities all the time, I wouldn’t be as vulnerable to comparison. Without Felicity lounging in all her glory out in the bay, I might’ve been excited to flaunt the fruits of my CrossFit classes. Without the signs of Cole’s fortune all around me, I could’ve felt proud that my salary was above average for someone in her early thirties.
But Jackson had far less reason than I to bitch; he was in fact one of the gods, a prince of Hollywood. No other kid from his graduating film school class was directing a feature starring an A-list movie star. And on top of it, he was pretty good-looking too, with his father’s square jaw and Roman nose and his mother’s olive skin and deep-set eyes.
So while I myself was not thrilled that Felicity had hitched herself to our payroll without my noticing and I still wasn’t sold on her motives, I felt compelled to say something.
“Killed by a model in a past life?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Raised by one. My mother had no soul until she developed wrinkles. Cole still doesn’t, if you haven’t noticed.”
I stared at him, trying to think of a kosher response. “Sorry.” He shook his head. “You’re right. That was uncalled for. Don’t listen to me. This is the closest I’ve been to my dad in a long time—or, ever—and it’s…an adjustment.”
I could relate. “If it makes you feel any better, I had a similar experience working with my dad,” I confessed. “But let’s not take it out on this poor girl.” I gestured to Felicity. “Don’t want to judge a book by its cover and all that. We don’t know anything about her.”
He nodded, and we turned back to the monitor, watching as Felicity’s face broke into laughter over something a gaffer said. “There’s something familiar about her,” Jackson mused. “But I can’t place it.”
“Hmmm,” I said. “Madison thought she was someone else too. An actress she’d been in class with.”
“Well, she doesn’t recognize me, so…” He shrugged.
Cole stepped onto the set swathed in the
