Page 29 of My Unscripted Life

Lydia is here. Okay. Milo has done nothing to indicate that he’s happy about that. The only reason I don’t know for sure is that I bolted before he could reassure me. I’m sure if I had glanced across the conference room, I would have seen the same look of horror and misery that I probably had (and maybe still have). And then he would have pried his eyes away from Lydia and her stupid bra to give me anOh my God/Can you believe this/I don’t want her here/I only want youlook. Which is totally a thing. I mean, if anyone is capable of sayingall thatwithout saying anything at all, surely it’s Milo.

Right?

The attic set once again looks like a human beehive. Milo is filming in Jonas’s apartment, and everyone is bustling around preparing for the first shot of the day. The space is lit both from within and outside, so it looks like sunlight is streaming in through the windows. Rob is standing in the corner near a window, staring at a light meter with one of the lighting guys whose name I don’t know. I don’t see Milo or the chair with his name on the back anywhere. “Ruth wants to know if any of these work,” I say when Rob finally looks up at me.

“Yeah, drop them over on that bureau,” he says. He waves a finger toward a hulking antique dresser beneath a window. “I’ll pick one and send the rest back later.”

I make my way through the cramped space, carefully stepping over the extension cords that are crisscrossing the floor. I gently place the vases on the dresser top, and am turning to leave when a familiar voice catches my attention.

“What are youdoinghere, Lydia?”

I peek out the tiny fake window built into the wall and catch a glimpse of Milo, who’s sitting in one of those tall director’s chairs, a script on his lap. There’s a touch of bitterness in his voice, the anger that he carried around for the first week finally finding its intended target. I don’t see Lydia, but she’s nearby, because I hear her answer as clear as if she were standing right next to me.

“My job,” she says, but she doesn’t sound bitchy. In fact, there’s a bit of pleading in her voice.

Milo sighs.

“I know you’re hurt,” Lydia continues. “And mad. And you have every right to be. But you can be those things and still be in love with me.”

The words hit me like a ten-ton train right to my chest. I inhale sharply, then flatten myself against the wall of the set so Milo and Lydia won’t see me through the prop window. Rob is still engrossed in his light meter and hasn’t noticed that I’m skulking around his set, listening in on his actors having some kind of serious emotional conversation.

“Lydia, you didn’t forget my birthday or wreck my car. Youcheated on me.You’re acting like it’s no big deal,” Milo says, his voice razor sharp, like he’s talking through clenched teeth. Angry Milo is back with avengeance.I find myself nodding along with him.Yeah, Lydia. You cheated.

“It’s a huge deal, and the biggest mistake of my life,” Lydia replies. Now her voice is soft and impossibly sad. If I didn’t know better, I’d feel sorry for her. “I’m going to spend forever trying to make it up to you, because I still love you. And I know you still love me. I can see it all over your face. That’s not nothing.”

I feel a sour, acidy taste in the back of my throat, and my cheeks burn. In front of me, Rob turns, and I know if he spots me he’s going to ask what I’m still doing here. And if I can hear Milo and Lydia, then they can definitely hear me. I feel like I’m going to cry, and I don’t want to do that in front of Lydia. Or Milo. Or more than twenty members of the crew, plus an Oscar-winning director. Sure, the crew have perfected the art of keeping their faces impassive, but they’re still absorbing every single thing going on around them. If I cry now, I’ll be the topic du jour at lunch today and every day. The pathetic PA who fell in love with the star and then cried about it in the middle of set.

I can’t be that girl, no matter how much she feels like me right now.

So before I can get outed as a spy, I tiptoe back through the attic set and out the opening at the far end, wishing I could leave what I just heard behind. But it follows me all the way out, nipping at my heels and pinging in my gut.

Every time I closed my eyes last night I saw Lydia Kane standing shirtless in the conference room. “You still love me,” dream Lydia murmured over and over. When my alarm goes off at seven a.m., I have no idea how much I actually slept, but it feels like not at all. Which is not good, considering today is our first location shoot.

I pull myself out of the seat of the white van that’s ferrying crew members from the studio to Wilder’s town square, where we’re filming for the morning.

Carly pauses for a moment, glancing through the notes on her ever-present clipboard. “Check with Ruth, and if she doesn’t have anything for you, I’ll have you with me. There’s always lots of random running to be done.” She gives me an up-and-down. “And you look pretty spry.”

Working on no sleep and an emotional state that has me feeling like I was thrown from a moving car, I feel anything but spry. But I vow not to let any of it show. Not that it appears to be working.

Carly gives me another look and opens her mouth like she’s about to lecture me, then snaps it closed again. She sighs.

“I’m here if you need me,” she says, then waves me off to find Ruth. It takes a few minutes of wandering between camera rigs and peeking into the backs of the various trucks production has rented to haul in props and wardrobe and equipment. But I eventually find her loading a rolling cart with props for the small group of street-scene extras we have on set today. As soon as I walk up, she hands me a stack of newspapers, all fake unless we’ve inaugurated a President Jones and I missed it.

“Here, separate these and make them look read, okay?”

Having never actually read a physical newspaper, just the online variety, I’m not sure what that’s supposed to look like, but I set about dividing up the sections and giving them a few extra folds and crinkles.

“You guys ready for background?” Benny skips up in what I’m coming to realize is his own personal uniform, this time with yellow knee socks, yellow bandanna, and banana-yellow T-shirt. He looks like a foreman at a banana factory.

“Yep, send ’em over,” Ruth replies, and a few minutes later a small group of people hired to be living scenery file past the cart. Ruth gives each of them a quick glance, then shoves props into their hands. “Please remember what you’ve got, and please make sure you return it to the cart between takes,” she barks as she hands a coffee cup and a briefcase to a guy in a suit who’s already sweating buckets. As the last of the extras receives a prop, Benny reappears to direct them toward theset.

“Hey, I gotta ask,” I say to him. “What’s with the outfit?”

Benny cocks his head at me, a blank look on his face. “What do you mean?”

“Seriously?” He’s got to be messing with me, but he’s actually a really good actor so it’s hard to tell.

He laughs. “Okay. Well, it’s dumb, but I’m trying to make this crew-color-war thing happen. You get points for your team for dressing up, so see, I’ve got the PAs three points already.”

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