Page 1 of Just for December

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Evie

A movie set is an extraordinary place.

Lights! Camera! Action!

All right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.

The camera department mill about preparing their equipment, loading film and figuring out shots. Grip and electric crew yell as they set up the lighting, sound and video playback, run cables and prepare their carts. Hair and make-up are with the actors in dressing rooms or trailers, exchanging newsworthy gossip or listening to lines. And the sets! To walk through the lot is to walk through history. Who cares that Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul when over there on Stage 24 is where they filmedFriends, and right around the corner is where they didJurassic Park. Marvel as the director goes over the script, deciding what will be shot, and how,with the director of photography. The chatter of sound mixers and assistants, caterers and producers. How many people say they want to make TV or movies? How many people actually get to do it? Everyone there has made it against the odds, and they know it. It’s what breathes magic into the air.

Fame, I’m gonna live forever.

The promise of all this – the lights, and the camera, and the action – is probably what made Duke Carlisle become who he is, Evie thinks. She got an extended bio through from her agent once they knew Duke was involved in the screen adaptation of her book. It said that little boy in Sunderland, England, knew that if he couldn’t do this – act, in Hollywood, for the whole world to see – then there wasn’t much point to anything. Now he’s internationally applauded, recognised everywhere he goes, and no doubt has as much money as … well, perhaps not God, but definitely a senior royal. He’s a working-class northern boy come good, just trying to make his mama proud, apparently. A direct quote from that bio? ‘It doesn’t get much better than this.’

But …

Therealityof Hollywood is what makes Evie Bird want to avoid the movies for the rest of her life. She grew up on set, watching her dad give instructions to actors speaking the words he’d written – and she knows it’s not all as it seems. Abuse of power is real, and everyone works in the knowledge that one false move and they can be replacedlike that, because there are a million other actors and directors and screenwriters ready and willing to take their place, so the hours are long and the morals dubious.

There’s fighting, there’s backstabbing, there’s torrid affairs …it was par for the course that Evie’s father would spend her childhood demonstrating the hat-trick, then.

When your parents are famous in Hollywood, you either want to be just like them, or nothing like them at all.

Evie couldn’t stand to end up like her father, and so no. She wants nothing to do with it, not ever.

Storytelling is in her blood, but over her dead body will she work in the movies.

She doesn’t talk about her father, or her history. Nobody knows she is Donald Gilbert’s daughter and she’d like to keep it that way. She writes books with her mother’s maiden name, instead – far, far away from All That – and it’s a quiet life that she’s more than happy with.

It’s unfortunate, then, that she’s contractually obliged to fly out to Duke Carlisle’s set if she wants to cash the adaptation cheque that she so desperately needs. Unless you’re Dan Brown writingThe Da Vinci Code, book-writing seldom makes you rich, and although money can’t make you happy it sure as hell can cover the next ten years of your mother’s care home – so what choice does Evie have now it’s been offered? Even if the caveat is watching it all get done?

A movie set sounds like a dream come true for most people. But for Evie? Urgh. It’s a nightmare.

And she’s going anyway.

‘Nobody has a face like thatanda functioning personality,’ Evie declares, stood at the mirror in a flesh-coloured bra that’s too small and faded high-rise jeans. She has a wardrobe full of stuff and yet lives in a four-year-old pair of Levi’s, so well-worn they hold the shape of her even when they’re onthe hanger. ‘And Duke Carlisle?’ she continues, noticing a bit of kale in between her two front teeth, left over from lunch. She grimaces at the mirror and tries to rub it out with her finger. ‘That’s the lamest stage name ever. He sounds like a failed army general with a cocktail named after him.’

Magda, her best friend, shakes her head playfully, which is fair enough. Evie has essentially been performing the same bitter monologue since the summer, when she found out she was being summoned to set to help with ‘extra backstage content’. She locates her toothbrush in the bathroom adjoining the bedroom they’re packing in, finally getting half a salad out of her teeth. Great. Lunch had been, what, four hours ago? And nobody told her she looked like the Cookie Monster meets Austin Powers, via Whole Foods.

‘I’ll bet he’s a total jerk,’ Evie concludes, grabbing a grey roll-neck and holding it up to her body, considering it absent-mindedly, then switching to the ribbed cream one off the bed. Maybe she’ll pack both, she thinks, get some wear out of them. She bought them on sale six weeks ago, but they’ve still got their price tags on. She might even pack some trousers that aren’t her jeans. When was the last time she put them in the laundry, even?

She tosses the sweaters over to Magda, for the ‘to be packed’ pile. God she’s grateful for the help – if only to get all the complaining out of her system.

‘I know I’m being boring, going on and on about it,’ Evie continues. ‘But honestly. My whole childhood was watching celebrities on movie sets only being kind to the people who can be helpful to them. It’s so screwed up. Although I willadmit, up-and-coming actors aren’t like that. They’re nice to everyone, just in case.’

‘I’d hardly call Duke Carlisle up-and-coming though,’ notes Magda, helpfully folding the stuff Evie has chosen. ‘Even you knew who he was, and you don’t know anything about anybody. You basically defy the laws of pop culture. How can anybody be so removed fromeverythingfeatured in the world of fame?’

‘You’re saying it like it’s an insult,’ Evie shoots back, searching out a clip for her long blonde mane from the nightstand. ‘And yet I receive it as a compliment.’

‘How unlike you—’ Magda smirks, pursing her lips teasingly ‘—to edit the script as we go.’

‘Consistency is key, oh dear one.’

Evie turns back to the wardrobe now her hair is off her neck – it’s heavy work, packing for three weeks in Europe, and she’s getting clammy. She decides that she needs a couple of thin turtlenecks for layers. How cold can it be in Germany? She’s pretty sure winters on the continent aren’t anything like her Utah ones, but she should be prepared. There’s no such thing as bad weather – that’s what her mother always said – only unsuitable clothing. She runs a hand through the hangers, considering what else she might need, adding: ‘Give your readers what they want, with a few surprises. That’s plot, baby.’

‘The surprise in this story being that you’re actually taking the trip,’ says Magda, plainly. She shrugs as she says it, as though adding:God, I never thought I’d see the day.

Evie holds up a hand. ‘Don’t. I’m still in denial. I’d rather do a naked fan dance in an old people’s home than step footonto amovie set.Not that anyone understands that, of course. Well, except you.’ She gives Magda a smile of genuine thanks. ‘But, I have an action plan for getting through it. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail, after all – and I am wholly committed to engaging zero shenanigans, and returning with exactly one finished book for next year, otherwise my editor will kill me.’

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