This Is What Happy Looks Like
This Is What Happy Looks Like(17)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
And suddenly, she was really glad too.
From: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, June 9, 2013 9:28 PM
Subject: Re: what happy looks like
Meeting new people.
From: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, June 9, 2013 9:43 PM
Subject: Re: what happy looks like
You already said that one.
Chapter 6
Graham was only half listening as his manager strutted around the trailer like some sort of demented rooster, flapping the morning’s newspaper with one ink-smudged hand.
“Is this why you wanted to come early?” asked Harry, tossing the paper onto the table beside where Graham sat slouched in a folding chair. The trailer was small, with little more than a miniature dining area and a tiny changing room with a costume rack that had been set up by a wardrobe assistant. For the past two years, Graham had worn things like top hats and capes and dark robes with velvet lining. But this film was a contemporary love story, and the clothes hanging nearby weren’t a whole lot different from his own: board shorts and solid-colored T-shirts and flip-flops. He wondered if he’d be able to keep some of them at the end. There were few things he hated more than shopping.
He peered over at the picture in Page Six of the New York Post, which was taken from a distance, but clearly showed him at the Lobster Pot with Quinn. She was turned to the side, so that all you could see was a curtain of shiny hair, but there was Graham across from her, leaning over intently. If he had to guess, it was probably the moment he learned she wasn’t Ellie. There was only a small caption beside the photo, which read “Larkin’s New Love?” and a one-paragraph article that Graham didn’t bother to read.
“No,” he said truthfully, and Harry fell into the other chair with a sigh.
When Graham first signed with him, Fenton Management had been up and running for only a few years. Before that, Harry had been an entertainment lawyer who had grown tired of contracts and fine print and thought he might have a knack for managing the careers of actors instead. His first client was a round-faced, bespectacled kid from a popular sitcom, and after that, he’d somehow scraped together a decent roster of young actors with dubious levels of talent.
Before Graham had signed the contract for the trilogy, back when the casting was still under wraps and nobody could have known how quickly his star would rise, Harry had been the only one willing to take a meeting with him. Graham would always be grateful for that, for his faith in him, a completely untested high school kid whose only credit was a middling performance in Guys and Dolls. Now he was by far Harry’s biggest client, and in addition to the usual amount of time and attention this position merited, it also seemed to have earned him an often grumpy, middle-aged shadow while on location.
“This is bad,” Harry was saying, running his hand through what was left of his hair in a worried manner. “You can’t just waltz into a town like this, ask out the first girl you see, and then leave her high and dry.”
Graham looked over. “Is that what the story said?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. “But word’s out.”
“I didn’t leave her high and dry,” Graham explained. “It’s just that there was a mix-up…”
“That’s not the point,” Harry said, scraping his chair around so they were facing each other. “The point is that you’re supposed to be with Olivia.”
Graham glared at him. “Am I?”
“In a town like this, with no other girls around for the next few weeks, everyone figured you two would just—”
He raised an eyebrow. “Just what?”
“You have to admit, it would be great publicity for the film—and for you,” Harry continued, oblivious to the look on Graham’s face. “You’re at a crossroads here, career-wise. Your next project, your next girlfriend—these are all important considerations. And don’t look at me like that. This is why you pay me the big bucks—to tell you these kinds of things. To take you to the next level, we need to step carefully, okay?” He paused and threw up his hands. “Plus, she’s Olivia Brooks, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like I’m suggesting that you sleep with a troll.”
“You don’t get to tell me to sleep with anybody,” Graham said, rising from his chair.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—well, you can at least try, can’t you?”
Graham walked over to the tiny window at the back of the trailer, which looked out over the set. The cameras were already positioned, and the director—a young guy named Mick, who was coming off an indie darling that had surprised everyone by garnering an Oscar nomination—was pacing with a gaggle of production assistants at his back. Soon, Graham would be called out there to run down the street after Olivia, sweep her up, and kiss her passionately. And not just once, but probably more like eighteen to twenty times.
“There are others girls around, you know,” he said without turning around. “Just because this isn’t New York or L.A. doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting people.”
“Right,” Harry said. “I’m sure she was lovely.”
Graham smiled, remembering the look on Ellie’s face when she first saw him under the lights of the porch, but then he realized Harry was talking about Quinn. Before he could say anything, there was a knock on the door, and they both turned.
“Five minutes, Mr. Larkin,” someone called, and Graham took a deep breath. No matter how many times he did this, no matter how prepared he felt, this was the moment when his stomach always dipped. There was an art to being himself now, and it didn’t come without effort. In some ways, it took more acting for him to carry himself a certain way on set than it did to lose himself in his character, a teenage boy whose father had just died in a tragic boating accident, and who had complicated feelings for the girl who had witnessed it.
Without another word, Graham brushed past Harry and out the door of the trailer, breathing in the heavy air before hurrying down the steps, where a PA with a headset and a clipboard was waiting to escort him the twelve feet it took to walk to his mark, as if he might get lost along the way. Graham was used to this by now; sometimes you were treated like a god, and other times, like a four-year-old.