Page 31 of My Unscripted Life

Cigarette smoke.

Someone on the other side of this tree has just lit a cigarette, and it’s totally ruining my lunch. I don’t know whyanyonesmokes nowadays. I mean, it makes you smell like an ashtray and, you know,kills you.The hardest thing about being on set is the sheer number of cast and crew who are completely addicted. Smoke breaks seem to be just as important as lunch breaks around here. When I asked Carly about it, she muttered something about how smoking was a thing actors could do that kept them from attacking craft services.

I fan my hand in front of my face to try to send the smell away, but it doesn’t help. I try the exaggerated coughing in hopes that whoever has just lit up will take the hint and wander away, but the smoke remains. Finally I lean around the side of the tree to see who it is. From my perch on the ground, the first thing I notice is a pair of black spike-heeled booties, then skinny jeans and legs for miles. My eyes make their way up to the dark-red mermaid hair of Lydia Kane, a cigarette between her fingers. Why she’s not in her wardrobe anymore I have no idea, but her new outfit scares the hell out of me.

I’m not about to say boo to Lydia Kane about her smoking, so instead I try to quietly stand and skulk away to a smoke-free lunch spot. But I barely get two steps away before my foot catches on another tree root. I start to fall, but fling an arm out toward the tree trunk to catch myself. I manage to keep myself upright but my plate does not follow me, and my attempts to catch it before it hits the ground send it flying into my left thigh, barbecue sauce soaking into my shorts.

“Are youkidding me?” I mutter. Behind me I hear a snort.

“You really need to get that whole walking-while-holding-things situation under control,” Lydia says, her voice somehow venomous and bored at the same time.

“Uh, yeah,” I reply, clutching my plate to myself to keep more food from spilling. I tilt it and scrape the rest of the contents from my clothes back onto the plate. “I was just leaving.”

“I know who you are,” she says, taking a long, sultry drag on her cigarette. The smoke escapes out the side of her ruby-red lips.

I gulp and actually think for a moment,Who am I?“Oh?” is what I finally settle on for a reply.

She gives me a soap opera–worthy stare, one eyebrow arched so sharply it looks like it could cut into her forehead. “You don’t look like someone who’s into the cameras and the gossip and all that. It seems all fun and games, but trust me, it’s brutal. You’ll never survive it.”

She drops her cigarette into the dirt and stubs it out with the toe of one of her leather heels. Then she tosses her hair over her shoulder and saunters back across the street toward craft services, leaving me to do nothing but stare, mouth agape, potato salad congealing on my shoe in the sun.

The heat and the cigarette smoke and the smell of hot mayonnaise makes me feel like I’m going to hurl behind this tree. I need a friend. Andfast.I consider calling Naz and confessing everything. Even one of her lectures would comfort me right now. But she’s probably in class or the library.

I hustle back to our temporary cafeteria and find Carly tossing her lunch into one of the giant trash cans.

“I need that big-sister pep talk or whatever,” I say. My voice sounds shockingly small, but at least I manage to keep the tears that are itching behind my eyes at bay.

Carly raises an eyebrow at me, then reaches down and switches off her walkie-talkie. “It was actually more of a lecture,” she says.

“Whatever, I need it.”

Carly takes a seat on one of the gnarled tree roots creeping out of the ground. I plop down in the dirt in front of her.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you two, and frankly I don’t want to know. I’m pretty sure I could guess anyway. One minute you’re a walking Valentine’s Day card, the next you look like a wilted funeral wreath.”

The description makes me laugh in spite of myself, and it comes out a little more sob-sounding than I meant.

Carly’s eyes soften, and she sighs. “Lydia is a dragon lady. No one likes her. I don’t think evenshelikes her. Anyone with half a brain and two eyes would pick you in a heartbeat. He’s screwed up right now, but I’m sure it’ll work itself out. Until it does, just focus on work. Okay?”

“That wasn’t much of a lecture,” I say through a sniffle, though there’s a half smile that I can’t contain. I never thought Carly, with her clipboard and her rapid pace and her exasperation, would be one for sentiment.

“Midshoot rewrite. The script called for something else,” she says. She rises from her perch on the tree root and offers me a hand. I take it, and she hauls me to my feet. She reaches down and flips her walkie-talkie back on, and in an instant she’s babbling away into her headset.

The show must go on.

CARLY

Falling in love with Milo Ritter is maybe the stupidest thing you could possibly do.

CASTING NOTICE

Party Guests

Seeking men and women ages 18–70, all ethnicities, for a cocktail party scene. Upscale look. Must have own cocktail attire. Work Wednesday, June 23. $80/8 hours, plus overtime.

HOW TO APPLY

Email 3 pictures (one above the shoulders, one above the waist, and one full-body) along with your height, weight, age, and phone number to [email protected]

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