Page 95 of Act Like You Don't Care
I started to laugh, stopped to retch again, then sat back and chuckled tiredly. “Poor Jim.”
“No poor Jim. He deserves it all. Well, maybe not Odette.”
“No, that sucked balls.” I sighed. “Help me up?” When I was on my feet and I’d determined that my stomach was done torturing me, we headed toward the door. I debated inviting him over to watch movies or play a video game, but in the end I chickened out. He drove me back to my condo, we said good-bye and that was it.
Until the next day.
Tam
Iwas back, bright and early the next day. Make-up did a fantastic job of covering up the stitches and, thankfully, this morning was a lot of walking around rooms and emoting intensely, so by the time the more physical scenes came up in the afternoon, I was warmed up and hardly noticed them.
Margaret dropped by the studio at the end of the day. I was slumped in a chair off to one side of the set while they decided if we could fit in one more small scene before we sent everyone home. Despite being exhausted, sweat-soaked and filthy from sliding around under furniture and through the gaps of slowly closing bunker doors, I summoned up a cheerful smile for her and bounced to my feet when she turned in my direction. “Hi! Didn’t expect to see you here today,” I chirped.
“Sit down, I can tell you’re tired.” She waved off my protests. “It’s okay to be tired, it’s been a long day. How’s the head feeling?”
“Fine. A little achy, but nothing I haven’t worked through before. I’m getting plenty of sleep and Will makes sure I rest when I’m not actually working.” I really wanted to impress on her that I was taking this seriously. Other producers, I would have made sure that they knew I was toughing my way through it because that’s what they wanted to hear. Margaret wasn’t that kind of producer.
She looked around and grabbed a recently vacated chair, pulling it over beside mine. “Have the doctor take another look at you, just in case. We don’t want any permanent damage.”
“No, you’re right. I can do that.” Though when I’d fit it into my schedule…
She smiled at me like she knew what I was thinking. “You’re wondering if you’re going to need to clone yourself to make it there, aren’t you?”
I laughed, because she was right. “I’m pretty slammed. But you know that,” I admitted.
“Well,” she said, her eyes scanning the set. “Let me see what I can do. You just had your checkup with Dr. Ronin on Thursday, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d like you to have another exam before Monday. I have a friend at the hospital, I’ll see if I can get them to pull some strings. With the accident and this news getting out—” she gestured discreetly at my belly, “—we might have to start doing a few interviews here and there. A little damage control mixed in with some early press coverage. On the bright side, we’re right on schedule, or as close to it as I’ve ever been.” She nodded approvingly and stood up. “Keep it up.” She made a bee-line for the director and the script supervisor, pulling out her phone and showing them something on the screen.
Will came by with a sheaf of pages for me. “They’re going to squeeze in that scene near the end, where you nearly die saving Jasmine. That’s if you’re okay to keep going.”
“Yeah. No problem.” I raised my head to catch the director’s eye and nodded.
Will sat down in Margaret’s chair and I pulled myself together long enough to drill the lines before the director called me for a quick rehearsal.
After we’d filmed and the director said we could go, I was wiped. Like, could barely walk a straight line wiped. I smiled vaguely in Will’s direction as he ran through the schedule for tomorrow, but nothing was sticking. “Can you email it to me? I’ll look it over on the way in tomorrow.” Sleep. I needed sleep.
“You feeling okay?” he asked with a frown and I saw his hand twitch toward his phone.
“I’m fine. Just more tired than I expected.” I closed my eyes and rolled my head from shoulder to shoulder, hoping to wake myself up. “Am I good to go home?”
“Yeah,” he said with obvious sympathy. “I’ll look after everything here.”
“Damn, Will, what did I ever do to deserve you?” I muttered. It was a good thing I hadn’t driven to work today—I was starting to fall asleep in the chair. “Okay, I’m leaving.” Except my body didn’t obey when I told it to stand up.
“You can’t sleep here,” Will observed. He was watching me with an odd expression on his face. “Want me to call Miles?”
“What? No, of course not! It’s not his responsibility to get me back and forth to work.” Bad enough I’d saddled him with an unexpected kid, even if he did seem okay with the idea. But he didn’t deserve me going all invalid on him. “I’ll grab an Uber or something.”
“Uh-huh.” Will pulled his phone out and before I knew it, he said, “Hi, Miles, it’s Will. Could you do us a favor?”
“Hang up. Hang up!” I whisper shouted at him while I tried to grab the phone. He danced away from me with more grace than I’d realized he had.
“Tam needs a ride home. He’s beat and he’s still recovering from that fall. Would you mind… No, he’s trying to kill me dead with just his eyes right now, but he knows I’m right. I took public transit today, I can’t take him home.”
“I’ll get an Uber,” I gritted out between clenched teeth, but I heard Miles’s voice from Will’s phone. “Tell him I’m leaving right now. You’ll fix it at the gate?” Even through the phone, his voice calmed me, made me feel more relaxed. Ridiculous, but just those few words made me sit back in my chair and let them organize me.
