Page 50 of Anyone But the Superstar

Anne and I share a look. One filled with memories of our bar conversation and the hotel after. Memories I’d rather my mother not know about, even if it means another lie of omission.

There are some things a mother really shouldn’t know.

Clearing her throat, Anne turns back to the camera. ‘Actually, it wasn’t until your son showed up and screamed high and loud enough to break glass that I realized I was getting a roommate.’

Mãelaughs. Really laughs.

It’s a great moment. A weird moment. Me sitting in an oversized armchair, Anne standing in just a towel with a hairless demon in her arms, both of us smiling at each other while my mother, watching avidly from hundreds of miles away, laughs.

And, unsurprisingly, Mike Hunt goes and ruins it.

No doubt uncomfortable with his awkward hold, Mike curls his back legs forward, the momentum loosening Anne’s grip. Gravity takes hold, swinging his hairless body like a pendulum until he and his claws entangle in Anne’s damp towel.

There’s a collective chorus – Anne’s exclaimed obscenity, Mike’s hiss, and my inadvertent gasp – as the towel is torn from Anne’s body, leaving her naked and wet while Mike lands a perfect dismount on the arm of my chair.

It’s only a second. Maybe even shorter, before Anne dives to the floor, but it’s enough for the dick Anne thinks of as impotent to stand strong and proud under my exercise shorts.

Thankfully, with Anne ducking out of the camera’s view and my phone’s raised position, my body’s reaction remains hidden.

Re-covered in her towel, Anne stays hunched on the floor, opting to crawl toward the hallway rather than stand again. ‘I’m so sorry!’

I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or my mother but neither of us say anything as my mother stares at me staring at Anne’s half-visible backside peeking out from her towel as she slinks out of the room on all fours.

My mother breaks the silence. ‘I like her.’

‘Yeah.’ As if in a daze, I drag my eyes away from where Anne just disappeared and stare into my mother’s all-too-knowing smile. ‘Me too.’

It isn’t until I look back at the small square of myself on the phone screen that I realize I’m not only smiling back, but I’m also scratching Mike behind his ears.

14

LIZ

‘Places, everyone.’ Ron, the director, claps his hands, the sound echoing in the massive building, as he sits behind the camera focused on Felix, who looks handsome as ever in a plaid button-down, jeans and boots.

Felix’s character, Holden, is a cowboy who falls in love with an astronaut. And while I’ve seen him dressed as a cowboy to go produce shopping, something about the way the wardrobe team has cut the line of his shirt and molded the denim to the curve of his ass has me appreciating Texas in a way I never did before.

If Thomas were here, he’d poach the wardrobe team for Moore’s tailoring department.

‘Where’s Amanda?’ David asks, looking around for Felix’s co-star.

With the pre-approved time to film at NASA so tight, Ron’s been leaning on my professor to help with more of the pre-production work than just storyboarding.

One of the crew members points to a side door. ‘I saw her go that way.’

Ron’s expression flattens. There’s only so much time beforeNASA kicks the Hollywood interlopers out. There’s no time for retakes, let alone running over the film’s schedule.

Today’s scene, filmed poolside in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, where NASA trains its astronauts in what is as close to micro-gravity as you can get on Earth – water.

And a lot of it.

The NBL has one of the world’s largest indoor pools that contains full-scale mock-ups of the International Space Station and visiting vehicles like SpaceX Dragon and the European Space Agency ATV.

And with that comes the heavy scent of chlorine saturating the humid air.

Mike’s already wrinkled face contorts with multiple sneezes. On the fourth, he bats at his own face with his paw as if attempting to expel the heavy, chorine-saturated air out of his nose.

Today is my last day as a storyboarder and the film’s quickest turnaround time on any given NASA location. Usually, after I hand in a storyboard, there’s a day or two where Ron can review the locations via my artwork before arriving on set to film. Time to plan lighting, camera angles and actor marks. But with the added insurance needed to film near such a large amount of water and the astronauts’ tight training schedule, there’s only one day to get it all done.

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