Page 7 of Act Like You Don't Care
Forty-five minutes later I was pulling through the gate of the studio. We were filming interiors that day, and a few green screens. Less physically taxing in a running-for-miles way, more mentally taxing in that I was going to have a lot tighter blocking and a lot more dialog. I parked in my usual spot and started inside to check in before heading out to make-up.
"Oh, hey, Tam, hang on!" The familiar voice of Will, my assistant, rang out from between two trailers.
"What's up?" I asked, pushing my sunglasses up onto the top of my head and then regretting it as the sun streaked around the building and stabbed me in the eyeballs.
"You can't go in yet. Pete says you're to go straight to make-up and he'll catch up with you on set."
That made me raise my eyebrows. "Has the schedule changed?"
Will glanced away, the briefest of gestures, but it made me unaccountably nervous. "A little. But there was an accident and they're still cleaning up your trailer. I've got your copy of the script here and we can go over lines while you're in make-up."
"What happened to my trailer?" I ignored him trying to herd me toward make-up and strode off in the direction of the small trailer that had been put aside for my use when we were shooting at the studio.
"Tam, you shouldn't go there—"
We rounded the corner and I came to a full stop. Will ran into me and we wobbled together for a moment while my heart raced and fear bloomed in my chest. I hoped it wasn't serious, just someone going a little overboard. But the police tape making an unsettling box around the entirety of my trailer made my mouth go dry with anxiety. "What happened?" I asked Will.
He made a noise that wasn't quite a groan and slapped his clipboard against his thigh. "Someone broke into your trailer and made a mess. We're going to get it cleaned up for you and you'll never know anything happened. But come get your makeup done, please? Anything you need, we can get for you—you don't need to go to the trailer."
I ignored him again and started walking toward the blue-black police uniforms buzzing around my trailer door. Behind me, Will muttered, "Fuck," and then he caught up with me, "Pete's going to kill me," he muttered. "Or worse, fire me."
"He wouldn't dare," I told him firmly. "I like you and I'll make the life of any new assistant hell. And I'll tell him that. Besides, he doesn’t pay you. I do." I tried hard not to be a diva, no matter how much the gossip rags tried to prove I was one, but if I was going to have to wear the label anyway, I might as well get some use out of it.
"He won't like that either," Will told me as we came to a stop outside the crime scene tape. It looked just like in the movies and I wondered briefly, nonsensically, if they ordered it from the same place the police department did.
One of the officers came to stand in front of us. "You can move along, the trailer's off-limits until we're done."
"It's my trailer," I told him and smiled my public smile, the one I used when flirting with interviewers or fans. Cheerful, warm, even a little inviting, but with just enough distance to keep most people from making a move. I found it worked pretty well most of the time. It should have—I’d been refining it for years.
It wasn't a hundred percent successful now, but at least he didn't call anyone to take us away. "You're Tam Laydon?"
I nodded and smiled a little harder. "Was anything damaged?"
"We'll need an inventory of whatever was in there. Are you going to be around today?"
Will leaned into the conversation. "We're filming in Studio Six today. It's around the corner, at the far end."
The officer nodded and wrote the information down on his notepad. "All day?"
I looked at Will, who knew what my day's schedule was like better than I did.
"Until midnight, if not later. He's free between one-thirty and four, but then we're moving to Studio Two for green screen and after that we’ll be doing some of the night shots. Those will be in the parking lot outside Two."
Someone had changed up the schedule. I made a mental note to find out who and yell at them—it would mean a scramble to make sure I knew my lines for whatever scenes I’d now be filming. It sounded now like we’d be doing green screen this morning, then set shots in the afternoon and evening. I wondered what the Second Team was busy doing today? Probably screwing up Grady’s day with the sudden schedule change too.
I still hadn’t managed to get a look inside my trailer.
"Just call down whenever you want me and I'll come right up," I promised and leaned a little sideways as if I was flirting, though the point was to try to get a better angle on the door when it opened the next time. And it didn’t matter what I said about when I would be available. The director would keep me there until he was done the shot, and if all the police wanted to do was ask questions, I was pretty sure he’d make them wait. Hollywood was a strange, strange place, but I was learning to work with the weirdness.
"We should go," Will whispered and took my arm. I let him tug on it, but refused to move. I kept one eye on the door and one on the officer as I quizzed him about any precautions I should take and whether I could have my favorite sweater back by afternoon if they weren't ready for me. Studio Two was a fucking freezer most days, and I'd be blue if I couldn't wrap myself up in something warm in between shoots.
The door to the trailer swung open and this time, it wasn't immediately closed again by whoever came out of it. Instead, I saw someone in the same blue paper coveralls I'd seen so often on TV, only this wasn't a police procedural. This was real, and he was backing out the door of my trailer holding one end of a large, dark object that I also recognized from my years of watching television and dreaming of Hollywood lights and cameras.
It was a body bag.
Whatever was in it wasn't full-sized though, and I had a momentary vision of dismembered body parts, the torso probably from the size, and my brain dredged up images from old thrillers and TV shows of blood-spattered walls and pools of blood on the floor accompanied by the loud buzzing of flies. That, combined with the remnants this morning's hangover, made my face grow warm and my body grow cold.
"Tam, you okay?" I heard Will ask as if from far, far away. The flies were getting louder.
