Page 59 of Marisol Acts the Part
“Bad shit,” I mumble, scanning the article to confirm there aren’t any more pictures. Luckily, it’s only the one.
Even luckier, Jamila isn’t visible.
My mind goes straight to her. All you can make out from the photo is the back of her head, her curls tied up in a messy bun instead of down her back like usual. She’s not so public a persona that people can immediately identify her—not yet, at least. But it wouldn’t be hard to connect the dots. Our head shots side by side in the cast announcement. Her thick dark brown curls woven through my fingers. It’s only a matter of time before someone figures it out, if they haven’t already….
What also strikes me as odd is the angle. The photo is blurry, thanks to it being taken through a pane of glass, but there’s no denying that it was taken from inside the building where wewere shooting. Most likely from the doorway a few inches away from where we were standing.
Which means someone fromThe Limittook this. Someone who had a way to get access to our phones.
“I can try to get this taken down, but no guarantees,” Delia says with a sigh. “Stars Weeklywould rather eat their own asses than retract an article.”
She reassures me that this isn’t the end of the world, making a promise to call me back if she can get the article taken down. As soon as we hang up, I immediately text Jamila.
We need to talk
In retrospect, I definitely could’ve worded that text better.
“I thought you were breaking up with me,” she hisses once we find each other on set later that morning.
“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter, doing my best to keep my voice to a whisper despite the panic coursing through me. I’d made sure to follow up my text with a link to the article, but apparently, I didn’t do it fast enough.
Jamila leads me to a darkened corner on the opposite end of the room, behind a stack of ten-foot-high plywood, shielding us from view. We don’t have enough time to make it back to our trailer before she’s needed for her first scene of the day, but we can’t wait around to talk about this. The PAs haven’t come around to collect our phones yet, so I pull up the article where it’s already open in my search tab and hand it to Jamila. She sighs and toys with her curls as she scans the headline.
“At least they can’t tell it’s you,” I offer, but my voice doesn’t sound very convincing. “My agent’s working to get it taken down,” I add, leaving off the part about her not making any promises.
Jamila remains quiet, eyes glued to the blown-up photo of an unfamiliar hand cradling my jaw, running their thumb across my lip.
“Someone from the crew must’ve taken this,” she says, noting the same thing I did when I first saw the photo.
“Or the cast,” I add. I’d like to think our castmates would understand the value of privacy, but we can’t rule anyone out. “But I have no idea who.”
Jamila bites her lips, glancing past my shoulder where everyone is buzzing to set up for the first scene of the day. The thought that someone here—anyone—could’ve set us up for disaster sets me on edge. I already struggled to feel comfortable here. Now there’s no shot of that.
“I think—”
“Marisol! Jamila!” Rune cuts Jamila off.
Despite being hidden, we jump apart and keep our hands to ourselves. We exchange a worried look, and I wish I could loop our fingers together again, give hers a reassuring squeeze the way she did for me, as we step out from our hiding spot.
Rune is in the center of the room, holding a stack of papers in his clenched fist. A circle clears around him, the crew backing out of his warpath as he scans the room for his targets—forus.When he finally spots us in the crowd, my body tenses, freezes as he starts storming toward us like a heat-seeking missile.
“Care to explainthis?” he spits, throwing down the stack of papers onto a table to our left. It’s a printed-out copy of the article—the paper so crumpled you can hardly make out the headline.
“We—”
Rune doesn’t let me finish, snatching the papers back off the table before Jamila can even begin. Apparently, the question was rhetorical.
“We assembled this cast the way we did for a reason,” Rune announces to the room like he’s delivering a speech. “Chemistry. Dynamics.This”—he points to the grainy photo—“interrupts those dynamics.Nodating between castmates, between crewmates, betweenanyoneon this set. Do you understand?!” he shouts, spit flying from his mouth and onto a nearby camera.
The room is so silent you can hear a pin drop. My mind races, unsure what this means. Is he demanding Jamila and I break up? Is he even allowed to do that? Rules on set are one thing, but dictating what we do with our personal lives doesn’t seem fair, even for Hollywood.
A throat clears tentatively, and the entire room turns in the direction of the sound, every eye suddenly on Miles. He fumbles under the rapid influx of attention, his cheeks flushing when Rune fixes his gaze on him next.
“Actually,” he says diplomatically, clearing his throat again and speaking louder this time, his voice echoing through the room. “Marisol and I dated before we were cast on the show, and our relationship hasn’t ever caused any issue with the ‘dynamics’ of the cast. Now or then.”
God bless Miles for being the voice of reason. I’d bear-hug him if I wasn’t too terrified to move.
“Why do you think I cast her?” Rune replies, brushing him off with a wave of his hand. “She’s the primary antagonist of the series. What better way to bring that to life than with two people withrealtension?” he says as if that’s a totally normal way to cast a show—to use our personal lives as fuel for our on-screen relationship.
