Author: Emily M. Danforth
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/emily-m-danforth/page,7,568862-plain_bad_heroines.html
Gray shrugged and shook his head. “Yeah but they’re making changes there, too.”
“Cool,” Audrey said, taking that in for a moment before full-on unloading. “So, like what? Bo has no say in his movie anymore? Did they bring in somebody who doesn’t even know what they’re making?” She was working herself up now. “They did, right? One of the producers is on a power trip? Honestly, Harper Harper is why this would have even worked in the first place.”
“Oh, she’s not going anywhere,” Gray said. “Actually, she’s producing.”
Audrey rolled her eyes, accepting this additional BS as it came at her. “Oh right—of course,” she said. “Of course she is. I hate this town. Every day I’m here I hate it more.” She looked over at Noel, who was ordering. “Noel guessed that I got fired and I thought he was being a jerk.”
“He probably was,” Gray said. “I’ve found that being right all the time and being a jerk pair well.”
“Cool,” she said, feeling suddenly tired, like exhausted tired. She didn’t want him to try to make her feel better. She just wanted him to go. “Well, I guess thanks for coming all the way over here to tell me in person. I wouldn’t have expected that.”
“Oh c’mon, kiddo,” Gray said, revealing the start of the crocodile smile he’d been holding in. “You know I’m not that nice a guy.”
Audrey took in that smile, watched it spread wider across his face, and understood, she thought, that he had only been fucking with her.
She tried to feel relief, even though she didn’t. “I hate you,” she said, scooping up seed stuff and flinging it at him. “You’re such an asshole. What, it gives you a thrill to drive over here to fuck with me?” She had another thought. “Wait, did Noel know you were doing this?”
“Honey, don’t misunderstand: you’re out as Eleanor Faderman. That part’s no joke.” He slid the folder that he’d placed between them closer to her.
“What the hell, Gray?” She thought she might really lose it, even if there were people at all the tables around them.
He held up his hands. “Buuuuuut—you’re in as Clara Broward. Probably.” He nodded at the folder as if it would somehow be able to explain anything.
And that is when Noel returned with the lemonade and sat down beside Audrey. “So?”
“I have no idea,” Audrey said.
“Open the folder, Clara,” Gray said.
“Clara?” Noel said.
Audrey shook her head. “Don’t ask me,” she said. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Open the folder,” Gray said.
She didn’t.
“I’ll do it,” Noel said, tilting it in his direction.
Audrey grabbed the edge of the folder, pulled it back to her, and flicked it open. Her heart was clanging around, almost like it was knocking against her chest bones, and she was somehow embarrassed by this bodily reaction to news that couldn’t possibly be true and would only end up disappointing her.
But the top document was an offer—a new offer—and in this offer, she saw, reading quickly, that she was to play the role of Clara Broward. And that, dear Readers, was one of the leads. In fact, it was Harper Fucking Harper’s love interest. It was that lead.
She flipped the document over. Beneath it was a script, the Clara Broward part—and there was a lot of it—highlighted in pink.
She flipped that over. Beneath it, audition sides and another production document, this one even more confusing than the offer. She looked at Gray, who was swallowing a lot of lemonade.
“Yeah, so this part we need to talk about,” he said.
“I think we need to talk about all the parts,” Audrey said.
“We do, just not right this minute.” He again looked at his watch and then swiped its screen, read something, swiped it again. “Clearly you can sense that Bo’s decided to go in a bit of a different direction here.”
“Uh, you think?” Noel said.
To catch you up: Gray was talking about the director, Bo Dhillon. Audrey hadn’t actually worked with him before, but she did know him in that vague, industry way of knowing without really knowing. He had long expressed interest in writing and directing a different, as-yet-to-be-made movie. A movie that she and her mom would, were it ever to happen, both star in—their first together and Caroline’s first in years—the second coming of the mother-daughter Scream Queens. (First there was Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis, now Caroline and Audrey Wells.)
Audrey was still trying to understand. “They changed the script?” she asked, flipping back to it.
“Some, but that’s not it,” Gray said. “It’s a little confusing, I’ll be honest—but they seem to want there to be a kind of significant improvisational element to it now.”
“Improvisational meaning?”
He looked sheepish, which, on Gray, was particularly disconcerting. “I’m not a hundred percent on the details yet, kiddo,” he said. “There’s definitely still a script. I’m not even sure it’s much different than how you last saw it—for now. I think it’s more that they want you to develop some kind of bond with Harper.” He made a strange face, one Audrey didn’t know how to read. “And also with the girl who wrote the book.”
“What?” Audrey said, then she looked at Noel, who made a don’t look at me face in return.
“The writer,” Gray said as if that explained anything, “teenybopper Virginia Woolf. What is her name again? It’s old-fashioned like her book. You read it, didn’t you, as Eleanor prep?”
“Merritt Emmons,” Noel said.
They both looked at him.
“Calm down,” he said. “I was just on her Twitter like yesterday. She’s funny.”
“What about her?” Audrey asked.
“She’s involved, too,” Gray said. “They had her do some work on the script, I guess, or they’re going to, and she’ll be on set. And there tomorrow too, actually.”
“So that’s still on?”
“Oh yeah,” Gray said. “Absolutely it’s on. But . . .” He paused to find the words he wanted.
Audrey didn’t give him much time. “But what?”
“Well, I think they intend it to be more of a chemistry read than anything else,” he said, tossing up his hands like this was to be expected. “You know, just because this is so new—so they need to see how it feels, between the two of you, especially.”
“Between me and Harper Harper?” Audrey said, recognizing how unbelievable that sounded even as she said it. And daunting. It sounded very daunting to her.
“You’ve got the sides there,” Gray said, gesturing to the packet.
Audrey flipped through them as he spoke.
“Two scenes, good opportunities to shine in both.” He let her read a while before adding, “And Harper will read the Flo scene with you, so that’s the deal maker-breaker.”
Audrey skimmed its final page. “They kiss at the end,” she said. She looked up at him.
“I know,” Gray said. “So that’s on the table for you two to discuss tomorrow. I mean, if you want it to be—Bo said he’d give you time to run it on your own and decide. Or you can just say no now and I’ll give them a heads-up. They have no expectations either way, you can do one of those endless eye locks if you want.”
“There’s always the cheek brush,” Noel said.
Gray nodded. “Or that. But Harper’s people said she’s in for it if you are. It’s your call.”
“What if I don’t want it to be my call?” Audrey said. She felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. “I’m sorry, I can’t even process this. I thought tomorrow was supposed to be a table read with me as Eleanor Faderman. This is insane.”
“It’s not insane, kiddo,” Gray said. “It’s just sudden. I mean, listen, not everyone’s sold on this yet. You have some convincing left to do with the producers. But Bo is firmly in your corner, so he’s trying to make it a casual thing—low-key. That’s why it’s at his house.”
“I didn’t know it was,” Audrey said. “At hi
s house.”
“It is. Same time, new place.”
“That should be a trip,” Noel said. “I’m pretty sure he’s one of those real-deal horror collector dudes. Like his coffee table legs are stacks of human skulls.”
“And he uses the face mask from The Silence of the Lambs to strain his pasta?” Gray’s deadpan was solid.
“Yes,” Noel said.
“Hyperbole, Noel,” Gray said.
“Wait until tomorrow when he offers you a drink and then casually mentions that the glass it’s in once belonged to Charles Manson.”
“Stop,” Audrey said, touching Noel’s arm. “So what is the writer—”
“Merritt Emmons,” Noel interrupted.
“Yes, Merritt Emmons,” Audrey said. “Why is she gonna be there tomorrow? Is she producing, too?”
“Maybe?” Gray said. “Wouldn’t surprise me, but mostly I think Bo just wants tomorrow to be about seeing all the playing pieces together on the board. You know?”
“No, I do not know. What does that mean?”
Gray seemed embarrassed to say what he said next. “Bo seems to have this idea that if the three of you maybe have some casual time to bond it’ll be beneficial. You can mine each other for feminist insight or something. I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Jesus,” Noel said. “I think he’s trying to tell you that they want to plan your playdates.” He pushed at the folder. “Under contract.”
“Really they just want you to hang out a little,” Gray said. “It’s nothing nefarious. Audrey, the prize piece of news here is that they want you to play Clara. That’s the headline.”
“What happened to Lily Strichtfield?” Audrey asked. This was the actress previously cast in the role of Clara Broward.
“She’s out,” Gray said. “You know how it is. She gets it.”
“Maybe you can have her call me to explain it.”
Gray sighed. “Bo wants you to do this. He thinks you’re the right choice. Why did that fact mean something to you a minute ago when you were mad about Eleanor Faderman being taken away, but it doesn’t now that we’re talking Clara?”
“I think you know the difference between the parts of Eleanor and Clara in this film.”
“I do,” Gray said. “And when I find money on the street I smile and feel grateful and put it in my pocket. What I don’t do is hold it up to the sky and demand that it explain itself.”
“I don’t understand that analogy as it applies to this situation,” Noel said.
Gray ignored him and kept on, looking only at Audrey. “You know, when they called, I didn’t try to talk them out of it.” He offered her a face of amused incredulity. “Jesus, kiddo. How about a little excitement? They went on and on about how Harper Harper’s into you, too.”
Audrey laughed without humor. “Oh, I’m sure she is,” she said. “Has she been catching up on my run of tampon commercials?”
“Why does this have to be a thing?!” Noel said, quoting Audrey’s most memorable line from one of those commercials. The one that seemed to run forever.
“That job paid,” Gray said. “That job pays still. Why are you making this so hard?”
“You know, you started this by telling me in such a mean way,” Audrey said. “If you’d just said, ‘Congratulations, here’s my news,’ then that would have been that—but you had to pretend I’d gotten fired and draw it all out.”
“I didn’t pretend,” Gray said. “They did drop you from Eleanor.”
“So you did get fired,” Noel said. “I knew it.”
“You’re both awful people,” Audrey said, already scanning the script, which felt like a whole new script because it was, really, to now see it through Clara’s eyes.
It was absurd, this offer, unreasonable and enormous and heart-hopingly too much. She was terrified.
It was wonderful.
How to Import a Martian into Your Contacts
Merritt and Elaine were in first class on an airplane bound for LAX. Merritt had never flown first-class before, had never been to Los Angeles or even California. Elaine had done those things more times than she could remember. (But in this case, it was the studio flying them and so that was new to them both.)
Merritt had been asked to come to LA to consult on a range of things related to the production. She’d had, at that point, one pleasant enough conference call with its director, Bo Dhillon (a man Elaine had once referred to, admiringly, as Hitchcock’s progeny. Because, well, Elaine). But Merritt hadn’t yet formed much of an opinion on him. She thought his body of work stylish and smart, for horror movies, anyway. (Not really her genre.) And, like most everyone else, she loved that once-viral red carpet clip of him, early in his career, when he’d managed to simultaneously come out and rib a reporter for mistaking him for M. Night Shyamalan: “No, I know, can you even believe there’s two different Indian American dudes who make creepy movies? It’s crazy, right? Two of us! For future reference, I’m the gay one.”
But consult is a baggy and nebulous term people use to mean many, many things. Merritt still wasn’t at all sure what it meant when applied to what she was supposed to be doing for this movie.
What Elaine was doing for The Happenings at Brookhants was nominally more defined. She was, for the first time in her eighty years, the executive producer of a film. As far as Merritt could discern, thus far being an executive producer meant that Elaine wrote checks and got other people to write checks. And, of course, had opinions. And writing checks, getting other people to write checks, and having opinions were three things Merritt had always associated with Elaine, since long before her days in film production.
Almost as soon as their plane lifted from the runway in Boston, Elaine had opened the vent, lowered the window shade, and taken a green silk sleep mask from her handbag.
“Keeping to your schedule, travel be damned?” Merritt asked her. Recently she’d noticed that Elaine often disappeared to nap for several hours in the afternoon. Or at least Elaine did this when Merritt was at Elaine’s house in Rhode Island.
“There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest, than in all the alcohol ever distilled.” Elaine pulled the mask’s elastic strap behind her head.
“From whom did you steal that?” Merritt asked.
“Ovid.”
“Oh, that drunk?”
Elaine smiled as she pulled the mask down over her eyes and settled back against her headrest.
“Well you look the part, anyway,” Merritt said.
“I’m told that’s more than half the battle.”
Now Elaine had been asleep for an hour and Merritt had read the first half of Less Than Zero. She’d been working her way through a list of novels set in and around Los Angeles. She felt that there was something too obvious about this exercise, too deliberate, but she had to try something. She was hoping to be inspired, and somewhere over Illinois she thought maybe she was on the verge of that, so she left Ellis’s coked-up characters at yet another house party in the Hollywood Hills and pulled out her laptop and opened her book file.
She was met with the cursor blinking at the end of a note she’d left herself the last time she’d opened this file:
Answered Prayers Answered is a terrifically stupid title. So, so dumb.
You don’t know how to write this book. You don’t even know if you should write this book. Certainly no one else is here for it. It might be wise to accept these as things that meaningfully indicate how unwise this idea is.
Do better!
Love,
your pal Merritt
She highlighted the note and deleted it. Then she stared at her ghost reflection in her now-blank screen. She had to pee, but the light-up thing showed someone was in the bathroom and another person was already standing in the aisle outside it, too.
She closed the file and logged into the plane’s slow WiFi in order to google imposter syndrome. She read six articles, one leading into the next into the next. She
did not feel soothed or seen by these articles, not even the one titled: “Your Imposter Syndrome Is Real as Fuck. Now What Are You Going to Do About It?”
Especially not by that one.
Elaine made a kind of gulping noise in her sleep. It was loud and startled not only Merritt, but some of the passengers around them. Then she made another, this one a high gasp.
Worse than these noises was Elaine’s face when Merritt took in its measure: her nostrils flared and her mouth in a twitching grimace, her top lip drawing back to expose a few teeth, including a fang, before sliding down again to hide them. Her teeth were the color of old plaster and they sprouted from gums too red and wet. Had they always looked like this, Elaine’s teeth? The mask covering her eyes emphasized her mouth, made it seem like her whole face.
Elaine made another strangled noise.
Merritt thought she saw . . . What had Elaine been eating in the airport, trail mix? Or was it . . . Because she thought she saw—
Elaine’s mouth opened, her fang was revealed, a low growl blew out her twitching lips, and yes—Merritt looked closer, could feel Elaine’s sour breath on her face—she had something black stuck up on her red gums, some piece of nut or seed it must be, a black shard.
Had she been eating trail mix in the airport? Merritt couldn’t remember.
The people across the aisle were plainly staring now. A woman with so many large rings on her fingers stage-whispered to her seatmate: “She’s really having trouble.”
Merritt did not want to be the person in charge of this moment but who else would do it?
“Lainey?” She forced herself to touch Elaine’s shoulder, at first with only her fingertips and then with her whole hand, not gripping so much as applying pressure. “Elaine?” She pressed harder.
Elaine was wearing a thin sweater and her skin and bones beneath it felt soft, insubstantial. Merritt pulled Elaine’s shoulder back and forth a few times, worried that she’d do damage even with so slight a move. She’d never had a reason to touch Elaine like this. She’d had no idea Elaine was so frail. Elaine did not wake, but her face eased and her mouth stopped twitching. Her teeth and horrible red gums stayed hidden. As did the black shard stuck there.