Get More Page 4

  “Oh, Robert! You know you want it just as much as I do!” Jake had stared at her with either lust or disgust or both, shoved her onto the bed and stalked out of the room. Bree thought he had shoved her a little harder than necessary. Working with him would be a nightmare—why hadn’t her agent mentioned that Jake had been cast as Robert? Fiona was his agent too! But it didn’t matter. Bree was still dying for the role, even if she had to pretend to be in love with Jake Richards.

  The one good thing about the disastrous screen test was that she was no longer worried about her date. At the very least it would take her mind off the screen test, and at the worst—well, she’d had bad dates before. She would survive.

  “Are you all right?” Sean asked her when she reached the theater. “You look like you’ve had a rough day.”

  “It’s been interesting,” she shrugged. “Full of surprises.”

  Sean surprised her then by giving her a hug. Not a sneaky, groping hug, either, but the kind of hug Kylian would give her at the end of a long day. Both of his hands stayed well clear of her rear, but it was a lingering embrace. Bree had plenty of time to appreciate his warm, spicy cologne and the more subtle smell of his skin.

  “You’ve probably seen Do the Right Thing a hundred times, right?”

  “Maybe a thousand.” Bree loved early Spike Lee movies. They were so intimate, it was like watching a play, but also very cinematic. She’d actually seen it twice at this very theater with her dad, and Spike Lee had been there to give a talk before the last screening.

  “Maybe we should just grab some coffee and talk. That’ll be a little more relaxing.”

  “Works for me,” Bree said. She knew she didn’t sound terribly enthusiastic, but she hoped that was a good thing. Sutton had told her to turn off the charm and let guys get to know the real Bree. Unfortunately, the real Bree was very often unenthusiastic after a bad audition.

  But once she and Sean had settled into a couple of armchairs at a nearby coffee shop and she had finished her first nonfat, sugar-free caramel latte, she had to fight the urge to blast Sean with all the charisma she had. When she told him about her screen test debacle, he was so sweet, distracting her with funny stories about working at Ikea and about his film studies courses at NYU. Like so many people Bree knew, Sean wanted to direct, but meanwhile he was trying his hand at screen writing.

  “I shot my first short film last semester,” he told her, shyly examining the wales on his grey cords. “It’s about a couple trying to put together a sofa.”

  “Tragedy or comedy?” Bree asked.

  “Both. The couple has a fight, but they manage to get the thing built, and it doesn’t look right, but they’re happy, and that’s what matters.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Bree said thoughtfully. “I’d like to work on a project like that.”

  Sean stared at her over his coffee cup and said, “That’s a very realistic possibility.” He placed one of his smooth dark hands on Bree’s much smaller one and looked deep into her eyes. “Ikea sofas start at two hundred forty-nine dollars, and many of them require assembly.”

  Bree laughed, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “I meant the movie. I like roles where the character is revealed through conversations. Of course, if you screen test first, I’ll just screw it up.”

  “I bet you got the part,” he insisted. “There’s a reason why they make you do the scene three times. The greatest actress in the universe could mess up once or twice and she’d still be the best actress in the universe.”

  “And who is the best actress in the universe?” Bree asked, curious about his taste.

  “Thandie Newton,” he replied with no pause for consideration whatsoever.

  “She was pretty amazing in Crash,” Bree agreed. She almost mentioned sharing a scene with her in Tomorroworld, a tiny independent film that almost no one had seen, but she worried that Sean might be intimidated. She was having too much fun to risk that. She had never gone out with someone as down-to-earth as Sean. She loved being able to talk movies with someone who loved them as much as she did, someone who actually listened.

  “She’s amazing in everything,” Sean said firmly. “Another latte?”

  “Sure. But I may need that one to go. I get up pretty early in the morning,” she said regretfully. She wished she never had to leave this cozy café or end such a great conversation.

  “One nonfat, sugar-free caramel latte to go,” Sean confirmed, squeezing her hand. “Coming right up.”

  “Thanks!” Bree smiled up at him as he left, but once his back was turned, her face fell. What if he offered to take her home? He was the gentlemanly sort, the kind of guy who wouldn’t let a girl ride the subways alone at night. Bree was sure of it. She was equally sure that she didn’t want him to know that she lived at the Edwardian. It was nice pretending to be a perfectly normal person who went to a perfectly normal school and had a perfectly normal life. Not that she had lied, exactly, but when Sean had asked her where she went to school, she answered “a tiny Catholic school.” There were a hundred in New York, though none on the same level as Rittenhouse, which was still technically Catholic, though the board had gotten rid of the nuns, chapel and uniforms in the early sixties. And when he had asked about her family, she said that her mother worked for a nonprofit and that her father didn’t do much of anything. All of which was true in its own way. Her father might be a hotshot producer, but he seemed to spend all of his time jogging on the beach, talking on the phone, or drinking mineral water on the rocks, with artists, agents and directors.

  “Do you live far away?” he asked when he came back with her coffee.

  “Clear across Manhattan.”

  “Let me take you home. It’s safer than taking the subway alone.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that. It’s too far out of your way. One of my mom’s friends has a driving service. I’ll just call them.”

  “If you’re sure . . .”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right. But it’s freezing out, and this place is about to close. Why don’t you wait in my apartment? It’s just around the corner.” He paused, then added, “I can show you my movie.”

  “Um, sure,” Bree said after a long and thoughtful pause. Sean didn’t seem like a serial killer, and if he planned on killing her, he wouldn’t let her give his name and address to her driving service. So she walked arm in arm with him to his tiny studio apartment three floors up from a used bookshop. A few snowflakes fell, making the short walk a little more romantic than it already was. After the run of luck she’d been having, Bree was surprised to find she was looking forward to an extended goodnight kiss.

  “It’s nowhere near work or school, but it’s rent controlled, so it’s worth it,” Sean explained, letting her in the front door and up three flights of stairs. Inside the small studio, there was a battered white sofa like one she had seen in a showroom earlier that day, a surprisingly large TV, and an enormous movie collection—and not much else, though she suspected that the tall wooden lattice screen in one corner hid a bed from view. It was covered with black and white photos of jazz musicians. Bree recognized Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald, but she couldn’t name any of the others.

  “Mind if I use your restroom?” Bree asked. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt their conversation earlier, since it was going so well in the coffee shop—and she also liked to snoop in bathrooms whenever she could. Selah and Melikka had taught her that you can learn a lot about someone from what they had in their medicine cabinets. In LA that mostly meant what prescription drugs they used or abused. A man might have a nice house and fully stocked wet bar, but if he also had a lot of bad habits, or one bad disease, then Selah and Melikka stayed away. Bree didn’t expect to find evidence of a meth habit or the AIDS drug cocktail behind Sean’s bathroom mirror, but as her mother liked to say, “People will surprise you.”

  And her mother was right. Bree had not expected to find a Tomorroworld poster taking up most of the wall opposite the shower. T
handie Newton’s queenly profile stood against a backdrop of a post-apocalyptic New York with a skyline full of burning skyscrapers. The major studios thought America wasn’t ready yet to see any more burning skyscrapers in New York, so the movie was in very limited release, despite winning awards at Sundance and Cannes. So Bree was amazed to see the poster in Sean’s bathroom. Amazed, but not exactly pleased. What if he figured out that she was in the movie? This could be bad. But Bree had to find out what he knew.

  “So, big Tomorroworld fan, huh?” Bree asked, returning from the bathroom and settling onto the couch.

  “It’s not Thandie’s best,” he said casually, fiddling with his DVD player. “But I love that poster. Doesn’t she look amazing?”

  “Yeah. She’s beautiful.”

  He sighed happily and joined Bree on the couch. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. He whispered in her ear, “I maintain the most complete Thandie Newton site on the Internet, and I monitor her IMDb site every day.”

  “Um, that’s very interesting,” Bree said, wondering when he was going to stop talking about Thandie Newton and kiss her.

  “I hear Joseph Lasser was really mean to her when he was directing Tomorroworld. God, what I wouldn’t do to work with her, and he treated her like crap!”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Someone posted it on IMDb.”

  Bree’s face fell. She hated the Internet Movie Database. When she first found out that her picture and film credits were listed there, Bree was so excited she called both her parents and all of her friends. But in the months that followed, she watched people debating on the message board whether she had slept with Joseph Lasser to get her role, whether she and Beyoncé were distantly related, even a very spooky comment about her birthmarks. She had two, and they weren’t anyplace visible in her bikini, but someone knew exactly where they were. Kylian and Sutton swore that they hadn’t divulged the information, and Bree still wondered who had. Gossip had to be much scarier for big stars like Thandie Newton, especially when it included outright lies. Joe Lasser didn’t spend a lot of time on small talk, but he wasn’t mean to anyone—big stars or extras like Bree.

  “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet,” she said, wriggling out of his embrace. “Especially message boards.”

  “I think I know a little more about Thandie’s experience on set than you do, Bree,” he said loftily.

  “Actually, you’re wrong,” Bree said. “I was on the set for two days. I’m in a scene with Her Thandiness herself.” She was so offended, she no longer felt the need to be discrete.

  “You weren’t!” he whispered.

  “‘Girl by pond’ in the credits. That’s me.”

  She smiled at his shocked expression.

  “So you’ve met her?” His eyes were a little too intense. Bree scrambled off the sofa and toward the door.

  “Well, yeah, I’ve met her, but I don’t have her home number or anything,” she said quickly.

  “You’ve really met Thandie Newton?” he said with even more awe, still sitting on the couch, his face slack with shock.

  Before Bree could think of a graceful exit line, her cell phone rang.

  “That’ll be my driver. See you later,” she said, plunging for the door. Once she was on the other side, she fished the phone out of her favorite Louis Vuitton purse. Her new phone was so small she could barely keep track of it among the jumble of keys, tissues, and rolled-up programs that filled her bag. Pretty soon cell phones would be as thin as credit cards, and then she would never find it.

  “Briona Black,” she answered when she finally fished it out.

  “Bree, it’s Fee,” said her agent, Fiona. When she was ten, Bree had picked Fiona because their names rhymed. Now that she was older Bree knew that was quite possibly the stupidest reason anyone had ever chosen an agent. Luckily, Fiona had turned out to be an excellent agent, and she represented a lot of the up-and-coming New York talent. The only thing Bree didn’t like about her was the way she always tried to cushion bad news. Bree would much rather hear it straight. So when Fee started talking about the dangers of taking a recurring TV role, how that could make it harder to get decent roles in film, Bree interrupted her to say, “Okay, I understand. I didn’t get A World Apart. It’s totally my fault, too. I actually forgot my lines in the first run.”

  Bree wasn’t all that upset. An actress who flaked out over every failed audition was an actress who wasn’t going to make it. Still, it stung that Jake was cast for the show and she wasn’t. Not that she had any interest in working with him.

  “That’s not why they passed you over, Bree,” Fiona said. “What’s that sound? Is someone else trying to call you?”

  “Yeah, my driver’s downstairs,” Bree said, slowly heading in that direction. She had been in a rush to escape from Sean, but now she felt drained. Any energy she had left had seeped out through her toes when she realized that she was not going to get that role.

  “Oh. Fine, then,” said Fiona, all business. “Molly said she thought you were unconvincing. I told her that was ridiculous, that you were the best actress I represent in your age group. In five years, you’re going to be famous. But Molly said you read like someone who has never been in love before. What happened today, Bree?”

  “I just had a bad day. A really bad day.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. But next time, I expect to hear that you sound like one seventeen-year-old who knows exactly what love is all about.”

  “All right, Fee. I’ll see what I can do.” Bree said goodbye and gratefully climbed into the back of a black Mercedes sedan. After chatting with Sam she called Kylian to vent.

  “Wow. That does sound pretty bad. You’d have been better off coming to school,” he said when she finished her story.

  “I’ve learned my lesson. Straight to school and back home afterwards,” she promised. “At least until Sutton comes up with another brilliant plan.”

  “Why don’t you listen to my brilliant plan?” Kylian asked.

  “What? Internet dating? I don’t think so,” Bree laughed. “Mr. Internet is not my friend. He tells lots of lies about people.”

  “You’ve only seen the dark side of Mr. Internet. But Mr. Internet’s power can be used for good, not just evil.”

  “I don’t know, Kylian. Honestly, I kind of hope I never have to go on another date again.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll look around on this social networking site I know. You don’t have to e-mail anybody. We’ll just browse.”

  “But all my dates turn out to be complete disasters! Look at what happened tonight!”

  “Think about it this way: you’ve never once had a relationship that turned out okay. Your batting average couldn’t be any worse—so it can only get better.”

  “Thanks, Kylian. I feel a lot better. Really.”

  He laughed, long and hard. “Your acting really does suck today. That was totally unconvincing.”

  “Well, that helped.”

  He laughed again. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll find the guy for you. Sooner or later even Sutton will figure out that no matter what you’re shopping for, you’ll always find better deals on the Internet.”

  “Even boy shopping?”

  “Even boy shopping. I’ll tell you about my latest adventures tomorrow morning. I had a very interesting weekend. But now I have got to get some sleep. Ciao, baby.”

  “Ciao.”

  Amazingly enough, Bree did feel a little better after they hung up. Maybe she could go on one more date before giving up completely. After all, how could she act convincingly like a woman in love if she never fell in love? She had to keep trying, for her career’s sake.

  Sam was on Kylian’s side. “They say you can find anything on the Internet if you look long enough,” he said when they arrived at the Edwardian. “No matter how rare it is.”

  “Even true love?”

  “Even true love,” he insisted as he helped Bree out of the car.
“But there is one catch, though.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, though of course she knew what he was going to say.

  “You have to pay for what you get.”

  Bree forgot all about Sam’s final warning until she actually sat down with Kylian at the computer lab during lunch and started filling out the HelloHi.com questionnaire.

  “What difference does it make if my favorite color is baby blue?” she asked, more than a little frustrated. “How is that going to help me find Mr. Right?”

  “You don’t have to answer all the questions,” Kylian said. “You can leave as many blank as you want. But the more answers you have, the more accurate the compatibility ratings will be.”

  “So this is how you met Mr. Right Now?” Bree asked pointedly. Kylian had spent most of the weekend with a guy named Lucas, loitering in the Strand bookshop, watching OK Go play a club in TriBeCa, and probably a lot of other things that Kylian was not going to talk about at school.

  “Exactly. And it’s almost spooky how much we have in common. He’s a junior at Gardner, likes history, hates math, loves English. We even have the same taste in books—and you know how rare that is.”

  Bree was entirely familiar with Kylian’s strange taste in books, and was glad he found someone else to wander in used bookstores with him on Saturday afternoons, looking for out-of-print Dr. Who novels and vintage Stephen King.

  “Well, you know me better than I know myself. Go to town.”.

  “What are you doing?” Sutton whined, wandering into the lab. “I thought we were going out to lunch today.”

  “We’re trying to find true love for Bree. Be supportive,” Kylian ordered.

  “Oh! Well, in that case, scoot over.” Sutton assisted Kylian with the endless questionnaire while Bree pretended to ignore them.

  “Okay, done,” Kylian announced. “And now, the final touch—a picture! I’ve got some nice ones of you on my phone.”

  “No, use this one,” Sutton said, clicking through the photos on her phone.

  “Is that Bree? She looks like . . . a normal person.” Kylian sounded shocked. “What did you do? Put on Halloween makeup?”