Page 18 of My Unscripted Life

I wonder…

I click on the little magnifying glass in the corner and type his name in. It comes up immediately, and I click without thinking. His feed appears, and right at the top, the very first image, is a familiar-looking pimiento cheese sandwich. The second image is from almost three months ago, and the one after that from two months prior. He almost never posts. But there, on the tiny screen of my phone, is our dinner from earlier, taken from above. The shot is mostly his plate, but in the top left corner you can see the tips of my fingers, the teal polish chipped, with a few stray marks from the black grease pencil I’d been using at work to mark dishes for Ruth. There’s the ring that Naz got me for my birthday last year, the brass bird that looks like it’s about to take flight from my hand. I wear it almost every day.

The only caption on the image is a simple hashtag: #yum. Nothing about the movie or me, but still, it’s a record of the fact that we were together. And it makes me feel giddy and slightly jumpy, and I do a little shimmy of my shoulders to try to let some of the excitement out. Suddenly, I’m not quite so tired. I click on Milo’s avatar to load his full feed. A stream of photos appears, though he’s hardly prolific. The most recent shot prior to today was from nine weeks ago, when Milo was standing onstage taking a crowd shot of a bunch of screaming fans—mostly girls about my age and their moms. Most of the other shots were taken inside a studio, from back when he was making his newest album last year. He appears in almost none of them. And because I can’t help myself, I notice there aren’t any of Lydia either. Not even her fingertips.

I click back to the #yum photo, my stomach instinctively growling even though I’m still stuffed. My eyes roll over every pixel of the image, as if there might be a hidden message or a clue in it, but there’s nothing there. Still, I can’t stop looking.

Until my eyes roam down past the photo to the comments below. In the five minutes I was looking at Milo’s feed, the photo has already amassed more than five hundred likes and climbing, and comments keep pinging onto the screen. Most of them have nothing to do with the actual image. About a third are in a language other than English, and several are even spam advertising fan pages and places to buy designer handbags (CHEAP! AUTHENTIC!). But just before I close the app, I notice a new comment full of exclamation points and emojis, the kind of hysterical missive that you can hardly imagine an actual person writing. But someone did. Just now.

OH MY GOD DO YOU THINK THAT’S LYDIA???? OR IS IT SOMEONE ELSE???? MILO NO NO NO DATE MEEEEE!!!!

I grimace, feeling secondhand embarrassed for JAZMEENA 29384. But then another comment pops up.

THAT’S TOTALLY NOT LYDIA. LYDIA WOULD NEVER HAVE SUCH UGLY-ASS NAILS.

It’s followed by several comments speculating as to my identity, none of them kind.

And just like that, my stomach drops. My cheeks feel hot, and I find myself shifting uncomfortably in bed. There’s a creepy-crawly sensation running up my arms and across the back of my neck, and before I can think anything of it, I’m climbing out of bed and pulling my shades shut, making sure they overlap so there’s no space for anyone to look in. Then I double-check my own SocialSquare page to make sure it’s still private. There’s no way any of those crazies could find me. It was just my fingernails. Not even all of them. I’m still anonymous. Right?

I know I should brush it off. I should close the app and go back to my own corner of the Internet. I should doanythingother than sit here staring at this photo. But even though everything in my head and the sick feeling in my stomach is telling me to put down my phone, I refresh the feed. The photo now has thousands of likes, and the comment thread is getting longer. Most of them are still of the fawning-fan variety, but there’s also a growing conversation of sorts happening between a few people on the thread. They’re trying to figure out who that manicure belongs to, and they’re not very happy about the prospect of its being someone other than Lydia.

DEE

Mom, do you have any nail-polish remover?

MOM

No, but I can pick some up if you want.

DEE

Please.

The set is a totally different world when I arrive on Tuesday. Today is scheduled to be the first day of filming, and everyone is walking around like they’re at the starting line of a marathon. The atmosphere is crackling with energy, just waiting to hear Rob call out, “Rolling!”

I check in with Ruth, who tells me I’ll be spending the day shadowing her. I follow her into the warehouse to the attic set, where we’ll be filming the first shot of the day. It’s Milo’s character’s tiny studio apartment. It’s a scene without any dialogue, just the camera capturing Milo puttering around the set. Ruth points to spot near a rolling cart filled with props for the room and tells me to stand there.

All around me, crew members are working busily like bees in a hive. Lights rise up on metal poles, fat electrical cords are hauled around, cameras are mounted on shoulders and dollies while one sits on a cart that rests on a little silver track. I spot Milo in a tall director’s chair. He’s got the day’s sides in his lap, and is going over the scene while a man adjusts his hair with a pick and two makeup women dab at his face. Behind him, a short woman is on her tiptoes adjusting the collar of his vintage button-down so it’s sticking up slightly, as if it happened by accident and not very particular design.

“Okay, people, here we go!” Rob calls. He pulls on a pair of headphones that will allow him to hear what the boom mike is picking up, then positions himself behind a set of three monitors to watch what the cameras see. Immediately, the set clears as everyone takes up residence out of view of the three cameras. Milo steps onto the set and takes his place on top of a tiny X of gaffer’s tape. He bobs up and down on the balls of his feet a few times, then rolls out his neck like he’s preparing for a prize fight.

“Rolling!” Rob yells.

“Rolling rolling,” the cameramen reply.

“Sound speed,” he says.

“Speeding,” the young guy hoisting the long boom mike replies.

“Action.”

The set is quiet except for the sound of Milo’s footsteps as he moves through the cramped attic set, and even those are dulled thanks to the layer of foam the sound guy stuck to his heels. Milo picks up a blank canvas that’s on the floor and places it on an easel—my easel, from the prop room—then picks up a pencil and sweeps it across the white space. I glance at the monitors in front of Rob, and suddenly the Milo in front of me becomes Jonas. The lights and the wires and the tape marks on the floor are all gone, and it looks like an artist in his crappy studio apartment. You can’t tell that the light streaming in through the windows is coming from an enormous lighting rig full of bulbs. You can’t tell that there are approximately thirty people in the room. You can’t tell that the apartment is missing its fourth wall, open for only those of us on the other side of the camera to see.

Now I know why they call it moviemagic.

When Rob calls cut, the set springs to life again. Cameras move, lights are adjusted, and the hair-and-makeup team climb over cords and weave around cameras to meet Milo at his mark, fluffing his hair and dabbing his forehead. And it’s now, while surrounded by a small army, that he spots me, still rooted to the floor by the props cart where Ruth left me. He lifts his chin and smiles as much as the makeup assistant will allow while she’s working on him, but it’s enough. I feel a warmth in my cheeks that has nothing to do with the hot lights all around. That’s real the Milo looking at me, even as he’s surrounded by people and dressed up as someone else.

“There’s a box on the work table filled with books,” Ruth says, and I have to break eye contact with Milo to turn to her. It’s harder than I want it to be. “Grab it and bring it here.”

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