This Is What Happy Looks Like(18)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

They’d already rehearsed earlier, and now the director greeted him with a few last-minute notes. They were shooting out of order, so today’s scene was actually one that would come near the end of the film, when his character finally broke out of his haze and realized what had been in front of him all along. Graham looked up as that very someone approached, dressed in an absurdly short jean skirt and a red bikini top.

“Hey,” Olivia said with a little smirk. Her long blond hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail that had probably taken the hair people hours to make so perfectly casual, and her makeup was applied in such a way as to make it look like she wore none at all. “I heard you’ve been enjoying the town.”

“Just checking out the local cuisine,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. Olivia was undeniably gorgeous, but something about her grated on Graham. She’d been in the Hollywood machine for years now—she’d started her career as a precocious kid on a popular medical drama—and the truth was, it showed. He first met her a couple of years ago at a party for one of her films, and when they’d been introduced, she’d barely looked at him, only tossed a haughty glance his way as she lit her cigarette before moving on to someone far more famous. That was before the first Top Hat movie had come out, and from the way she acted around him now, he guessed she probably didn’t remember that particular night. But then, from what he’d heard about Olivia, she didn’t remember a lot of nights.

The main street of town had been completely blocked off for filming. At the opposite end of the road, Graham could make out the ice-cream shop, and he wondered if Ellie was there now. Along the sides of the street, crowded behind metal gates, people leaned in with their cameras ready, taking photos and videos as a few big-shouldered security guards paced in front of them.

Graham wiggled his fingers and cleared his throat. He enjoyed shooting on location—studio lighting being no match for the sun—but he felt edgy today in front of an audience. When he first started acting, he’d been unsettled to discover that the filming so often happened out of order, and this was exactly why: it seemed impossible to work up to the big kiss when none of the preceding moments had been explored yet. It just wasn’t the way things worked in real life, and he felt like he could use a bit more of a drumroll.

Still, he knew most guys his age would give anything to kiss Olivia Brooks, and here he was being paid—and nicely—to do it. At the moment, she was discussing something with the assistant director on the other end of the set, and Graham hopped up and down a few times, trying to get his head in the right place as he waited. The wardrobe supervisor ran over and held out a hand, but it took him a second to realize she was waiting for him to take off his shirt. As he peeled it over his head, the crowd let out a high-pitched cheer, and Graham couldn’t help laughing, even as someone else trotted over with a comb to tease his hair back into place. He scanned the crowd once again, hoping that Ellie wasn’t there watching, though he suspected this would be the last place he’d find her.

When it was finally time to start, Graham took a long breath. He was supposed to go running down the street, hook Olivia around the waist, and then half pick her up as they kissed. It was, to be honest, a bit more acrobatic than Graham thought was realistic, and when they’d practiced it, it hadn’t gone particularly well. He wasn’t bad at scooping her up, but the momentum of the whole thing and the way that they spun often meant he missed her when he went for the kiss, and twice he’d gotten her neck instead.

“This isn’t Twilight,” she’d snapped.

Now he was poised to run, and the moment the director called “Action,” he was moving fast down the street. He’d been a center forward on his soccer team before he stopped going to school, and this part was fun for him, the sea air in his lungs, his muscles straining, his flip-flops slapping at the pavement. A blue car with a stunt driver inside pulled out from the curb and Graham did a little half hop to avoid it, but as he moved sideways, the strap of his flip-flop broke, and he ended up tripping over it.

The director yelled “Cut” and the cameramen poked their heads out from behind the huge black boxes. As the stunt man backed the car into the start spot again and Olivia sighed from down the street, an assistant from the costume department ran out with a spare sandal, which Graham tugged onto his foot. He wondered how many they had back there; it would be interesting to know what the flip-flop budget was for a movie like this.

On the second take, he made it all the way down to Olivia, and he even managed to execute the kiss perfectly, but when he looked up again, the director was frowning.

“That felt like… nothing,” he said. “At best, that’ll get a yawn out of the audience. Let’s aim a little higher, shall we?”

Graham glanced over at the crowd, wondering if he should be embarrassed at this affront to his kissing skills. On the next try, he thought he’d done better, but was met with similar criticism.

“Boring,” the director said. “Could we create a little more chemistry?”

Graham gritted his teeth. The guy might be brilliant, but he had an annoying habit of constantly saying “we” when he meant “you,” and Graham was pretty sure chemistry wasn’t something you could just create anyway; it was either there or it wasn’t, and with Olivia, it simply wasn’t. Yet somehow, even though there were two people involved in this kiss, Graham was the only one getting a lecture. Still, he nodded gamely, and set himself up to try again.

This time was apparently no better.

As he stood there listening to Mick talk to him about passion and beauty and the true meaning of love, his eyes wandered past the cameras and the crowds and the security guards, to where a girl with red hair was cutting across the town green.

“We have to make them believe it,” Mick was saying, and he reached out and thumped Graham on the chest. “We have to make them feel it here.”

“Uh, can you hold on just a minute?” Graham asked, taking a few steps backward. “I just need a short break…”

“Yes,” Mick said. “Good. Exactly. Let’s give this a bit of a think, and when you come back, I want you to be filled with passion. Got it?”

Graham nodded, his eyes still on Ellie. “Got it.”

He started out walking as casually as he could manage, but as soon as he was past the security barrier, he picked up a run. He was aware of the many pairs of eyes on his back as he jogged through the square of green grass at the center of town, but he couldn’t make himself care.