A Star is Born Read online

  The remainder of our short time in Hawaii was much quieter and more relaxed than it had started. When we returned to Los Angeles later in the week, we were both more mellow and happy than we had been just a few days earlier.

  Chapter 6

  Premiere

  BILL and Derrick’s movie was finally ready for release at the start of the summer. This was the movie that had taken Bill away from me over the previous Christmas holiday. The same movie that had started the whole mess we faced in the first few months of the year.

  When Derrick told us that the movie was premiering in a week, neither Bill nor I were at all eager to even see the thing. Bill’s work in the film had finally produced a paycheck, six months after the hell he endured on location in the outback of Australia. The paycheck had allowed us to breathe a little bit easier financially.

  Nonetheless, neither of us was at all enthused about the news. We had no interest in seeing the movie, let alone in going to a premiere. But Derrick had insisted, telling us that a Hollywood premiere was an experience like none other.

  So, kicking and screaming, a week later we were dragged by the big man himself to the premiere of his newest movie. And I must say that we were both shocked by what we saw. For six months I’d been hearing about the dreadful trip to Australia and how the conditions were terrible and the shooting was unbelievably difficult. But what came through on the screen was spectacular—and I’m not just saying that because my boyfriend had a part in the movie. No! Really! This was a great movie.

  Bill did a superb job, and we all knew that Derrick could act like no other man alive. What got me was the energy that came through when the two of them were on screen together. How to describe it? It seemed like a natural give-and-take engagement between the two of them. It seemed like they were simply living, and that there were no cameras present. I don’t know. I’m not saying this very well, but it was one kick-ass movie. I loved it, and from the applause that erupted at the end of the film, it sounded like the audience did as well.

  In Hollywood it was never easy to tell whether someone was saying or doing something because they meant it or because it was what was expected of them. And I certainly was not skilled at distinguishing between the two. So all I could do was assume that, because I had loved it, the applause was genuine.

  We went from the theater to the obligatory post-screening cocktail party, where Derrick and his wife stuck close to us throughout the event. Everyone who was anyone—and some who even I knew were nobody—wanted to congratulate Derrick on his acting. Bill got a number of compliments as well. Personally, I think my compliment was the best. The man looked stunning in his traditional black tuxedo, which did wild and wonderful things to my libido. My comments to him were something along the lines of, “You make me so hot I want to rip that tux off you right where you stand and do you right here.” If anyone else had tried to offer him a compliment like mine, I would probably not have taken it too well.

  After the party, Derrick and his missus took Bill and me out to dinner at some swanky LA place that had a waiting list to get into the parking lot, let alone into the restaurant. I found it interesting that so many people wanted to go there—the food wasn’t all that great. There was nothing wrong with it, but it just wasn’t anything special, in my humble opinion.

  The congratulations and acknowledgements that Derrick and Bill got at the party continued throughout the dinner. Apparently, the restaurant was the place for the post-screening crowd to adjourn for dinner that night. Personally, I found the whole thing a bit tedious, but part of that may be because no one was complimenting me. Of course, I hadn’t done anything to earn their compliments.

  About a week later, I came home from school one day to find Derrick and Bill huddled around our dining room table, deep in conversation. They were talking so intently that I don’t think either of them noticed that I had come into the room. Now, I don’t need to make a grand entrance, but I at least like to be acknowledged when I come home after a long day. Okay, maybe I’d only been gone three hours, but still.

  I folded my arms and stood beside the table until one of them recognized that they were not alone.

  “Fine. Thank you. And yours?” I said, a little pissy.

  “Huh?” Derrick said.

  “I think that’s his hint to us that we should ask him how his day was,” Bill explained to Derrick. Turning his attention to me, he smiled and said, “Hello, dear. How was your day? Tough day at the office?”

  Simply from the looks on the faces of the two men at the moment, I could tell that something was up. There was something big coming, and I was not at all sure that I was going to like what they were discussing. Unable to take the suspense any longer, I said, “Talk!”

  They looked at each other quickly, communicating something in that brief glance. Bill spoke first, which was my preference. “We’ve received an offer—an invitation, really.”

  “To do what?” I asked, already suspicious.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” Bill suggested.

  “I’m happy where I am,” I said through grinding teeth and clenched jaw. “Talk,” I said softly but with great intensity. “An offer to do what?”

  “An invitation, really.”

  “I don’t care. To do what?”

  “A movie.”

  “What?” I shouted. “You are actually considering such a thing? You… you… you… you promised me that you would never do anything like that last one ever again. Need I remind you that you very nearly died?”

  Bill calmly held up one hand. “Yes, I know. I was there. And I remember our conversation. I said I wouldn’t do another movie unless it was filmed here or you could be there with me.”

  “So where is this one shooting? Zimbabwe? Zaire? Saskatchewan? Tibet? How long will you be gone this time? Two weeks? A month? Six months? I need to know since I have to double however long you tell me. I’m always the one sitting back here waiting and worrying—it’s never you. Sometime I really want you to have that same experience of being the one left behind, since you apparently don’t understand what it was like to be left completely in the dark. To not know if your boyfriend is alive or dead. To not know where he is. To not know if he’s ever coming back.” I was getting seriously agitated. The anxiety I was feeling was caused by something that happened many months ago, but it still felt as fresh as if it had happened just yesterday.

  Bill held up his hand in another vain attempt to get me to calm down. Only because I needed to breathe, I paused for a second. Bill took advantage of my brief pause to jump back into the discussion.

  “Mark. The movie will be filmed right here, for the most part. For any part that is filmed out of town, I’ll take you with me. I don’t ever want to go through the hell that you did. I would never put you through that ever again. Please believe me on that one.”

  Dropping into the chair they had offered me earlier, I said, more calmly, “So what is it about this one that makes you even remotely consider this idea. Remember the last one?”

  “Mark! Yes. I remember the last one. Believe me. It was no walk in the park for us either.”

  “At least you had one another. I was left here all alone with no one. Just me and worry. Worry and me. That’s it.”

  “You had Slatter,” Bill tried.

  “Only once in a while. And I didn’t want Slatter! I wanted you!” I said emphatically.

  Bill didn’t try to answer, but simply smiled at me and reached across the table and took my hand. “I love you,” he finally said, giving my hand a squeeze.

  “Good. Now tell me what’s so special about this one? How long will it take to deliver your five minutes of dialogue?”

  “Not five minutes,” Derrick said, finally joining the conversation. The man was smiling.

  I looked expectantly at him. “I’m sorry. Six minutes.”

  “Not five minutes. Not six minutes. Not ten minutes. Not twenty minutes. Not an hour. This is a costar opportunity, opposite me.”

  Both men simply sat and looked at me while my brain tried to process the information it was receiving. When I had walked into the room just a few minutes earlier, I had expected to find my boyfriend, snuggle a little bit, have something to eat, do some homework, maybe take a nap. Nothing glamorous. I didn’t have grand expectations. But I definitively had not planned to spend my afternoon hearing about Bill and Derrick doing another movie, regardless of the magnitude of the role. Any talk of a movie made my skin crawl at the memory of the last time they had filmed.

  “Why?” I said.

  “Why?” Derrick asked, confused. “Why what?”

  “Yes, why? You’re a megastar. Bill’s a….”

  “Careful,” Bill jokingly warned me.

  Still looking at Derrick, I tried again. “You’re a megastar. Bill’s a megastar to me, but not to the rest of the world. So why would anyone ever want to make a movie with the two of you?”

  “Ever since the last movie came out, it has been getting rave reviews from both the press and the public. People seem to especially like the part where the two of us were on screen together. Of all the scenes in the movie, that one seems to have captured everyone’s interest more than anything else.

  “The producers have done some serious focus group testing all across the country. Every single place they’ve gone they have found the same thing. People loved the part of the movie where it was just the two of us interacting. It was a short piece of the movie, but Bill wowed everyone. They could feel the energy he had. They saw the same raw passion that you saw and commented on after you saw the movie.

  “The producers want to capitalize on that idea. They’re loving what they’re hearing, and they know that if they want to do something with it they have to move fast. No, they have to move now.
And they have. They’ve sent us a script and an offer that is phenomenally good.”

  “They’re paying you more than they’re paying me,” Bill complained.

  “I’m the megastar, according to your boyfriend. It’s my job to get ’em in the door. Then you give ’em a little of your razzle-dazzle and wow them like you seem to be so able to do.”

  “When?” I said, reasserting my role in this little discussion we were having.

  “That’s the thing—” Bill started.

  “No!” I shouted, putting my hands over my ears.

  Bill stood, took my hands away, and said, “No, Mark, you misunderstood. Mark? Mark? Are you listening to me?”

  I nodded.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “Yes, spit out the bad news.”

  “That’s just it,” Bill said. “It’s not bad news. They want to fast track this project. Big time. So if we do this, we’d begin shooting almost immediately.”

  “How? Wouldn’t they need time to get the rest of the movie cast? Surely they wouldn’t shoot an entire movie with just the two of you.”

  “Yes, they would. That’s exactly what they want to do. The script looks great on a first quick skim. The parts are utterly believable. The characters are very likeable.”

  “Who wants to watch a movie with only two people in it?” I complained.

  “Tom Hanks in Cast Away—90 percent of the movie there’s just Tom Hanks on camera. Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon. This is not a new concept. It’s been tried before and has worked beautifully, just as it will again this time with this movie.”

  “You sound awfully confident for someone who has only just ‘skimmed’ the script, if I recall what you said earlier.”

  “You do listen carefully, don’t you?” Derrick said.

  “Yes. Answer the question.”

  “We’re both going to read the script this afternoon and evening, then run some of the lines tomorrow morning or later tonight to see how it sounds to us. We were sort of hoping that you and Moira could listen in after we’ve done one run through and tell us what you think. You think you might be interested in helping us out on that?”

  I scowled at Derrick, but said, “Fine. But remember this, Elmer—”

  “Please stop calling me that!” he practically begged. “Sometime you are going to slip and say that at the worst possible moment, and someone is going to be there to hear it, to question it, to investigate it, and everything that I’ve worked all these years to bury is going to be resurrected. And I like having that whole segment of my life buried and forgotten. I certainly do not want to live through that whole nightmare again. So, please, stop using that name.”

  “Fine, Mr. St. James….”

  “Not even ‘Derrick’?” he asked plaintively.

  “Not at the moment, no. Now, as I was saying, Mr. St. James, if anything like the last time ever happens again, and I learn that you played any role in the situation”—I stood from my seat and leaned over seriously into his personal space—”I will saw off your gonads with a rusty letter opener.”

  His hands involuntarily dropped to his crotch. “He didn’t mean it, guys!” he said, looking down.

  “Yes, I did,” I said, leaning over to speak into his crotch.

  Timing is everything. Just as I was delivering my line, Moira walked into the room. Instantly taking in the situation, she simply asked me, “Mark? Why are you talking to Elmer’s nuts?”

  “Moira!” Derrick started to beg.

  “Elmer!” she countered.

  “We were just lectured on how the famous star wants to be referred to by his proper name at all times,” I explained.

  “I said nothing of the kind,” he tried, but I cut him off.

  “Do we have to genuflect at the same time?” she asked.

  “Don’t give him any ideas,” I told her. Returning my attention to Derrick, I finished my earlier thought. “I will saw off your family jewels and shove them where the sun don’t shine. Do we understand one another? Do we have a meeting of the minds?”

  “Yes, we have a meeting of the minds that my gonads are very happy where they are at the moment, and they should stay right there.”

  “It is entirely in your control,” I pronounced as I sat back down. To drive my point home, I stepped out our front door for a moment to retrieve something I had found outside a week or so earlier. Coming back into the room, I placed the rusty teaspoon I had found on the hillside onto the table between us. At the time I had found it I should have just thrown it away. I had no idea why I hadn’t. Now, though, I was grateful that I had simply set it on the table outside.

  Derrick’s eyes went wide. “Is that a threat?” he asked.

  “That is a promise, Mr. St. James.”

  “Mr. St. James sounds so formal. Are you sure you couldn’t use my first name?” he asked.

  “In time, once I know I can trust your intentions with my man. Remember, I only have one man, and I intend to keep him. His warranty has expired, so you break him, you buy him.”

  “So, I take it that you’ve broken the news?” Moira said to Bill and Derrick.

  “Yes, the deed is done,” Bill said.

  “I’m assuming, from the talk of hacked-off gonads, that the news was not well received?”

  “Given their track record on this subject, no, it was not necessarily well received,” I explained.

  “Well, on this one I have to agree with the two actors. I’ve spent my morning going through the focus group data and reports and it’s true—they did test extraordinarily well with every audience across the board. It is quite rare to find something that all audiences seem to appreciate in the same way and with the same level of intensity. If this holds long enough for the movie to be made, edited, and distributed, we could be looking at a real winning combination.”

  Chapter 7

  Scripts, Lines, and Filming

  AND so it was that one of the biggest changes in our lives was underway. Bill and Derrick read the script, and then ran the lines to get comfortable with not just the words but the emotions required, the persona that was required for them to believably play the part. The next morning I found Derrick sound asleep on the sofa. Who knows how late they worked? Probably late for Derrick to sleep over. I didn’t know if I should try to wake them up or let them sleep. I decided on the latter, figuring they would both perform better if they had a bit of sleep.

  When they both dragged themselves out of bed, muttering something about burning daylight and losing valuable rehearsal time, I ignored them and simply made breakfast for both of them. They muttered, they ate, they talked about the script—it was as if I wasn’t even there. I could feel a pissy attitude coming on, and told myself right then to get it under control, at least until I heard them run their lines.

  They rehearsed outside by the pool for a while, trying to get the physical motions scoped out in addition to the words, the facial expressions, the body language—who knew acting was so involved? At about noon they called Moira and me outside—they were ready to run their lines for the first time. Probably not all of the lines, but at least some of them.

  So we dutifully sat and watched—and we were both blown away. The story they were telling through their acting was gripping. Their acting was absolutely first rate, even though it was just a reading. There were a couple of points where I had to remind myself that I wasn’t actually “in” the story, even though it felt that way with the actors live in front of us. Both Bill and Derrick vanished, and in their places were the two characters.

  It was rough. It was really rough. There were lots of places where they flubbed their lines or had to refer back to the script—really, who could learn an entire script in one night? Of course they were going to have to refer back to the script! They both berated themselves for not knowing all of the lines. At that point I told them they needed a break. I fixed lunch for all of us and insisted that they take a break to sit and eat.