Page 25 of My Unscripted Life

Before I can finish, Milo leans in and kisses me again. And this time it’s even better.

MOM(voice off camera)

We’re home! You still up?

MOM comes into DEE’S room, where she’s curled up in bed.

MOM

Did you do anything fun while we were gone?

Or did you just marathon some intense paranormal romance?

DEE

Uh…something like that.

The wait for Monday morning, when I’ll see Milo back on set, feels like aneternity.I spend all day Sunday on the porch swing, closing my eyes and imagining I’m back at Lowell’s, Milo’s arms wrapped around me, his lips on mine. The only thing that pulls me out of my daydream is a text from Naz. It’s a picture of her toes, painted the coral color I bought her as a going-away gift, buried in the sand. The blue waves of the Atlantic lap at the shore in the background, and next to her left foot is a physics textbook beneath a biography of Marie Curie.

I text back.

The beach makes even science seem relaxing,

:)Everything ok on the home front?she replies.

My thumbs hover over the tiny keyboard on my screen, pausing for a moment before I reply. I want to tell her everything, but I don’t know if I could even convey it all in a text. But that’s not even the real problem. The problem is that I don’t want to tell her the truth, because part of me is worried she’s right. Maybe my heat-seeking missiles are set on self-destruct. Because even though I kissed Milo, and he kissed me back…even though we stood on my front porch, just out of reach of the porch light, kissing until I was sure my parents were going to drive up and catch us, even though my stomach is full of a fleet of butterflies…there’s still the press. And the Internet. And Lydia.

So instead, I type back:

Snooze. Miss you!

I feel instantly guilty about the lie, but I know what Naz would say if I told her. First of all, she’d totally freak out. Then, when she stopped being shocked, she’d lecture me and bring up paparazzi and distractions and all the things that are there, but that Milo’s kiss seems to make disappear. And it would all be true, but I don’t want anything dialing back my bliss right now. Practical thoughts, the kind Naz specializes in, will only dull the magical memory. And I’m basically living in that memory until I can get back to work.

Finally,finallymy alarm goes off on Monday morning, and I leap out of bed like I’ve been ejected from it. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up more ready for a day in my life. Every part of me feels electrified. I don’t even freak out about what I’m going to wear. I pick a pair of jeans and one of my favorite broken-in T-shirts from my closet, but I think I’d feel great in a potato sack.

When I arrive at the studio, Milo’s truck is in the parking spot where his Audi used to be, and just the sight of it has me biting my bottom lip to suppress the lunatic grin that’s threatening to take over my face. It feels like there’s an entire army of helicopters buzzing around inside me, and the excited jitters mean it takes me three tries to get my bike locked before I practically skip through the front door. I’m just glad I manage to open it instead of bursting through it like a cartoon.

As soon as I walk in, I can tell that I’m not the only one carrying a load of excitement with me. In the office, phones are ringing off the hook, people are rushing in and out of the room murmuring into their headsets, and the copy machine is spitting out so many sheets of paper I think I just heard it sigh. And in the back, through a window into a small office, I see Rob and Leigh, the executive producer, who I’ve barely seen since the first day, bent over a binder intently marking pages with pencils. Something is definitely up.

“Ruth needs you. Emergency,” Carly says by way of drive-by instructions. She’s gone before I can even respond, her zip-up hoodie flapping behind her.

Ruth, it turns out, is having an emergency of the floral persuasion. When I walk into the prop room, I’m greeted with a giant corkboard half full of photos of flowers in every shade and shape, and the work table has been overtaken by an army of vases lined up in neat rows and columns.

“All the flower arrangements for scene eleven need to be reworked. They clash,” she says, though she doesn’t say with what. She thrusts a stack of photos into my hands. “Get these up on the board so Rob can approve. Toss all the reds. They won’t work anymore.”

The calm that came over her when we started shooting seems to have temporarily disappeared, and she’s back to charging around the prop room, alternately muttering to herself and whoever is on the other end of her walkie-talkie.

When I’m done with the corkboard, Ruth arrives with a bucket of flowers and another stack of photos, telling me to recreate them as best I can with the vases on the table. Flower arrangement has never been a career I’ve considered, but once I get started it feels fairly familiar. It’s all about color and composition, making sure the heights of the various flowers are visually pleasing, that nothing is pulling focus, that there aren’t any dead spaces (both literallyandfiguratively, I realize as I toss a half-brown lavender rose into the trash can).

When Ruth calls lunch, my fingers feel raw from where I kept getting the thorns on the long-stemmed roses, and my nose is itchy and runny from the pollen. Turns out floral arrangement is a bit of a contact sport. But Ruth seems happy with my work, or at least I think that’s what it means when she nods, her mouth set in a firm line, so I don’t complain.

Besides, lunch means I’m finally going to see Milo. Just the thought has my poor, pricked fingers lingering on my lips as once again I let myself relive the kiss in the rain.

When I get to crafty (as I’ve noticed the rest of the crew calling it), I hop in the buffet line and allow myself a surreptitious glance around. My eyes go to him immediately, like a compass being pulled toward north. He’s hunched over a plate, his back to me, already in wardrobe for his next scene. His character’s tattoos have been applied to his left bicep and forearm, thick and black against his lightly tanned skin.

“You gonna go?”

While I’ve been standing here swooning over Milo Ritter’s fake tattoos, the buffet line has moved, making it clear to everyone behind me that my brain is somewhere else.

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