That Wasn't in the Script, page 10
The background noise rattles again. How many metal stairs was Indio climbing? “What’s the endgame here?” He inquires. “I mean, I’m about it, but why the sudden change of heart? This is so un-Josie.”
Which version sounds less pathetic? Because my family is poor? Because my mom shouldn’t have to beg for money from her classist parents? Because I won’t be able to move to Cincinnati and go to college if I don’t raise several thousand dollars in the next few months? Because I’m secretly afraid I’ll be stuck here working at King Kone and existing in a three-block bubble till the day I die? They all sound pretty damn valid to me.
I snap my eyes shut and rest my elbows on the table, settling on a quick response. “The college money would be nice. Plus, we could split whatever we’re offered 50/50.”
“Uhh, yeah,” he agrees. “It’s my day off. I’m throwing it away to sink to scumbag paparazzi levels without any guarantees.”
“Where are you?” I finally ask, the banging noise becoming too much to handle.
“I was leaving my apartment to go to Rough Trade, but now I’m going back upstairs to get my camera and find wherever the hell you are.”
“Gaygels, remember? It’s called Mystic Dough.”
He pants into his receiver. “Just keep me posted on where you guys wind up, okay? If he ditches you at any point, try to follow him and don’t get caught.”
I nod. “Got it. Thank you, Indio. I really think this could pay off for both of us.”
“Try to find out what his motive is,” Indio suggests. “This story won’t be reputable if it looks like we’re a bunch of obsessed fans following him around. Dig up some dirt nobody knows about him.”
“And you claim you’re not a scumbag paparazzi.” I smirk.
“Fuck you. Text me!”
I end the call not knowing if I feel accomplished or internally vile. I lean towards the latter as Rowan walks out of the bagel shop carrying a tall brown bag full of multi-colored deliciousness.
“Hope you’re ready for a sugar coma!” He shoves his sunglasses into his pocket, lifting his eyebrows with glee.
Rowan opens the steaming bag and unveils two sandwiches. The first is a rainbow bagel covered in edible glitter and marshmallow cream cheese. The edges are dunked into glossy neon sprinkles. The second looks like candy corn in bagel form, smeared with a bright orange spread I can only assume is pumpkin spice flavored by the pungent scent of cinnamon and cloves. It smells like cremated unicorns and icing and happiness, and it makes my mouth water.
“I figured we could go half and half.” Rowan takes the seat across from me, his back strategically turned towards the street. It made me wonder if all celebrities had to learn tricks on how to exist in public spaces without being seen all the time.
I peel back the parchment paper on one of the halves of the pumpkin spice bagel and sink into a corner. It’s warm and crunchy. A blob of the spiced orange cream cheese splatters onto the brown bag underneath.
“This tastes like fall in my mouth,” I rudely state mid-chew.
He grabs the other half of the sandwich and demolishes it in five bites. “Gotta go hard on Halloween, right? By the way, was everything okay?”
It takes a moment for me to realize he’s referring to the phone call I’d been out here taking for the last several minutes.
“Yeah. It was just my mom making sure Pru is still alive.”
He starts to unwrap the unicorn sandwich, diving in with a soft groan. “This is everything five-year-old me ever wanted.”
I giggle, still munching on my first half. It was cruel to have my moral conflict clashing with my hunger so intensely.
“Your sister is kind of awesome,” Rowan mutters, swallowing a bite.
I pick at a fleck of cream cheese and lick it off my finger. “I hope she didn’t bother you too much this morning. Pru’s been all about making bracelets lately. She can be annoying about it.”
“I didn’t mind. Plus, I scored this for free.” He lifts the sleeve of his jacket to reveal a braided band with a bright pop of yellow string. Leave it to my little sister to give a friendship bracelet to Rowan Adler.
“You’re lucky. She won’t even give me a handout.”
Rowan grabs one of the napkins inside the bag and wipes a stray purple sprinkle off his chin, accidentally making eye contact with a nearby bystander and immediately putting his sunglasses back on. He rushes to make small talk.
“How long is your mom gone for?”
“Only a few days. She’s visiting my grandparents.” Hearing myself say it gave me goosebumps in the worst sense.
“Without you and your sister?” Rowan wonders.
I reach for the unicorn sandwich and allow the sweet, marshmallow fluffiness to melt over my tongue. “They’re not exactly our biggest fans.”
He lowers his glasses and narrows his eyes. “Did you kill their cat or something?”
“It was their dog,” I joke. His face turns pale. My eyes crinkle as I swallow another bite. “I’m totally kidding!”
“Not funny.” He sneers.
I give my hair a fluff and sink a hand into my cheek. “Let’s just say their daughter marrying our free-thinking father didn’t exactly match their yacht club aesthetic.”
“Ahhh,” he exclaims. “So, they’re the... conservative type?”
“That’s the nice way of putting it,” I scowl.
“Why is she seeing them then?”
I bite down on my lip, hesitating. “It’s complicated.”
Rowan doesn’t press the matter, pouting with an understanding nod.
People watching comes naturally to me. I can tell what somebody is thinking more by how they react than what they say. Subtle brow movements, quick shifting of the eyes, uneasy twitches. People don’t realize how obvious they can be when they don’t mean what they say. With Rowan, it’s near impossible to gauge anything. You can’t exactly study how he reacts when his face is perpetually covered up. I’m left to unravel his thoughts based on body language. So far, he hasn’t seemed uncomfortable with anything I’ve had to say. Whether or not it’s an act, it’s a nice feeling.
“Complicated,” he repeats my word with a scoff. “I get that.”
I slowly slide the rest of the unicorn sandwich towards Rowan like a burnt offering. “Does it have anything to do with not wanting to go back to your hotel?”
He grimaces. “Everything, actually. I didn’t exactly have permission to go out last night.”
I squint my eyes. “You need permission? How old are you?”
“I turn eighteen in thirty-eight days. Not that I’m counting or anything.”
“Imagine having to wait until May to claim your independence.” I attempt to lighten the mood. “I’ve always thought it was kind of weird how parents stress that you’re under their rules till the minute you turn eighteen, then you’re supposed to have the whole adult thing figured out on your own.”
Weird, yes, but I barely had any experience with this specific concept. If anything, Mom was constantly calling me too dependable and sorted out. The only act of rebellion I’d performed was staying out too late with Hannah once. It was only because we didn’t realize the PG movie we were going to see ran past my curfew.
“I’m not sure about that.” Rowan shrugs, my dad’s baggy jacket bunching around his stomach. “I mean, I guess it’s true, but I can’t remember the last time I got to make a decision for myself. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Just once, I’d like to do what I want.”
Indio’s voice comes back and haunts me. I didn’t need to try and dig up any dirt on Rowan Adler. He was handing me the shovel himself. It was surreal. I was sitting in front of one of the biggest stars on the planet, someone who could ask for anything and get it at a moment’s notice, and all he wanted was a break.
A city bus whooshes by with a hot burst of exhaust, a thought bubbling out of my head. “You have today. You should make the most of it.”
Rowan quickly eats the last bite of rainbow bagel and licks his lips clean. “Impromptu vacation?”
“Consider it doing what you want for once.” I rest my hands on the table. “If you could have twenty-four hours to do whatever you wanted, without anyone interfering—managers, parents, whoever—what would you do?”
Rowan leans back in his chair, thoughtfully contemplating my question. He snaps his head over his shoulder to look back in the direction we’d walked from. His hood nudges towards one of the more significant-looking buildings at the end of the street. It has dark tinted windows with an embossed gold pig pressed onto the outside.
“Would you believe me if I said that was one of them?”
I look in the direction he’s staring. My lower jaw nearly unhinges from my face. “You’re serious?”
Rowan stands to his feet and collects the trash into the discarded brown bag, my face unmoved from the golden swine. “I’m going to toss this and see if they have a bathroom,” he explains. “Are you up for it?”
I didn’t exactly have a choice anymore, did I? I’d already made a commitment to Indio—we were doing this.
“Sure. Why not?” I fake a smile.
Once Rowan is back inside the store, I reach for my phone and spot a new text from Indio.
Driving over now w/ my camera. Are you still at Mystic?
I nervously look around to make sure nobody is hovering around me, wiping a beaded sprinkle off my hand as I reply quickly.
In the neighborhood. Park near Pig Skin.
I think Rowan is getting a tattoo.
CHAPTER 11
ROWAN
Aunt Lexi recently asked how I wanted to spend my eighteenth birthday. She tossed around several ideas, one of them including a private blowout at our house with all of my closest friends. Considering I only had two, it wasn’t presumptuous of me to assume the rest of the guest list would be her associates and celebrities who didn’t have anything better to do. Lexi proposed we hire a DJ and possibly invite a photographer from Vogue to do a spread so press wouldn’t hound the event for photos.
I turned her down. “I don’t want a party. I want to get a tattoo.”
“No tattoos,” she’d react sharply. “Tattoos limit the types of jobs you’re offered. Hunter Cade doesn’t have tattoos.”
I hated it when she referred to me as ‘Hunter’ as if her nephew had somehow died and been possessed by the spirit of his television alter ego.
Even with her disapproval, that was before the fight at the premiere. Hell would freeze over before I got the okay to attend any Hollywood parties in the near future, let alone my own. That only left the one option on the table.
“You’re still seventeen, Rowan. Are you sure they’ll even let you do this?” Josie’s levelheadedness teeters between aggravating and endearing.
Pig Skin, the tattoo shop down the street, didn’t open for another fifteen minutes. Josie and I have camped out at the bus stop a few feet away, gawking as a variety of strange humans steadily trickled passed us.
“Do you think that guy was really a priest or was it just a costume?” I point to the Father with a bleached Mohawk hailing a cab. Living in New York must feel like a perpetual episode of What Would You Do?
Josie ignores the question, deciding to tip more towards aggravating. “You don’t even have your ID, do you?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I answer through gritted teeth. It’s not like I could call Alex and ask him to come run it down here for me. If this was going to work at all, I’d need to turn up the charm to eleven.
Josie frantically studies her surroundings, looking more paranoid about being caught than I am.
“Relax,” I urge. “What’s the worst that could happen? They give me a colossal no, and we leave. Big deal.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Josie huffs. Her eyes are locked onto a car parking down the road.
“Suppose,” I mock with a playful nudge. “Pru told me you wanted to be a screenwriter. Must be why you’re so well-spoken.”
“She did?” Josie acts surprised.
I quickly point out the Walter White walking down the street, complete with the yellow hazmat suit. “Do you write much?”
She shakes her head, clasping her thumbs together and flicking at a broken cuticle. “Not as much as I should for someone who wants to do it professionally. It used to be a fun thing for me.”
“Used to?”
“I mean, it still is,” she contradicts, “but these days, it’s more about trying to get into college so I can actually take it seriously.”
“You know fun and serious aren’t mutually exclusive,” I protest. “It shouldn’t stop being fun, especially if you want to spend your life doing it.”
Kinda like acting, my brain reverberates loudly—stupid brain.
Josie looks over with a soft smile. “I guess part of me just doesn’t want to suck at it.”
“Anything you like to write about in particular?”
She glances away and pinches her shoulders back. “Don’t laugh, but I’m a sucker for a good love story. I know it’s trite and cheesy.”
“Have you seen my line of work?” I laugh. “Who am I to judge?”
Josie tosses her head back. “What was it you said in that episode last night? When you confronted your English teacher—”
“Slash, future stepfather,” I interrupt with an eye roll.
“—about your mom?” Josie mimics Hunter’s hysteric angst. “You don’t know what it’s like to live off love! Love, and Minute Rice!”
I facepalm. “Can you believe one of the producers improvised that line on-set?”
“Darn, I thought you came up with it on your own.”
I wince. “Gonna need some Neosporin for that burn.”
“Really though.” She grips the edge of the bus bench. “Your show is sort of awful. No offense.”
How I felt about the show hinged less on offense and more on embarrassment. Deep down, I secretly feared Dawn Heights would be my legacy. I’d be stuck on the show till Webstream finally decided to ax it in favor of something newer and hotter. Then I’d forever be known as the talentless teen actor from that one show someone’s mom watched when they were in high school. Goodbye, reputation. Hello, Hallmark Channel Christmas movies.
I shrug my shoulders, yanking on the sleeves of the weathered jacket. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for the show. I wouldn’t be here without it, you know?”
She leans into my dithering. “But?”
I sigh. “I’m afraid of winding up like all those C-list celebrities you see on Dancing with the Stars. I don’t think I’m above the show, but I think I could be a better actor if I was given a chance to do other stuff. Does that make sense?”
She nods. “It does, and for the record, I think most people are naturally above it.”
Looking beyond Josie, I spot a tall woman in a pair of Doc Martins marching towards Pig Skin. She pulls open her messenger bag and unlocks the door with her giant carabiner full of clanging silver keys.
“Now or never?” I smirk.
The hesitation on Josie’s face slowly returns. “I’m getting the impression that ‘never’ is never on the table with you.”
We wait another few minutes to allow the woman to open up the shop before running in and ganging up on her. Josie anxiously looks down to respond to a text, bouncing her feet up and down on the concrete. Once the shop’s glowing red OPEN sign is flashing, we prepare to make our move.
“Here’s what I’m thinking.” I wave my hands. “If she asks to see my identification, you go along with the whole ‘he’s my cousin’ thing again.”
“Okay, then what?”
“I don’t know,” I recoil, “it’ll come to me.”
Josie’s face falls. “Fantastic.” She shoves past me and opens the door to the studio quickly to hear the rejection she expects.
I’m not sure what I was expecting the inside to look like, but it certainly wasn’t whatever we walked into. The walls are painted a similar shade of gold as the pig embossed on the window, shimmering under the dull light. Various sketches and pieces of artwork hang in neat rows along the walls. The weird part: every single one of them is a different style of pig. Caricature pigs, Warhol pigs, pin-up pigs, if you can picture any type of cartoon pig in your head, it was probably on Pig Skin’s wall.
The woman looks up from behind the counter, her bright blue eyes caked in thick, winged eyeliner. I can imagine she’s what Amy Winehouse would’ve looked like if she’d lived to be in her fifties.
“Hi!” I wave innocently like I’m not about to mercilessly lie about my age. “I’m wondering if I could maybe—”
“Shut. Up.” The woman’s bright red lips part slowly, revealing pearly white teeth. She rises to her feet, her boots adding another half foot to her already monstrous height. She cups her mouth with her hands and starts squealing. “YOU’RE ROWAN ADLER!”
CHAPTER 12
ROWAN
Josie stands behind me with her left leg in a diving position, ready to run back out the door and drag me with her if necessary.
“I’m sorry.” I reach for my hood, tucking my hand underneath and itching the top of my damp hair with a nervous chuckle. “I think you—”
“I would recognize you anywhere!” The woman cuts me off before I can finish.
She shuffles from behind the counter and bounds her way in front of us, lifting one side of her high-rise shorts and revealing more of her nether regions than I ever cared to see. The graphic display reveals an inner thigh tattoo that wraps all the way around to her butt. The scary part? The tattoo is of my face.
“One of the guys did this for me a couple of months back! My fifteen-year-old daughter and I LOVE Dawn Heights! We’ve already binged season three twice!”
The new season debuted on Webstream less than two days ago. There were twenty episodes, and each was almost an hour-long. How the hell had they managed to watch it twice already?
