Pretending to Be Us Read online

  “It is a shame. It really complicates having an artistic vision if no one else will commit to it.”

  “Exactly!” she said. Her dark eyes were almost vulnerable, for once. Did she actually believe this shit? I had a bad feeling that she did. Darcy was so wrapped up in her own fantasy that she was actually willing to believe it herself. “I knew you’d understand.”

  “I do. It’s so frustrating to watch people try to undermine artistic ability,” I said, hoping I wasn’t laying it on too thick. “It’s like watching someone vandalize a painting in a museum.”

  She nodded solemnly.

  God, she was really buying what I was selling. Although she was drifting closer and closer to me, and I knew that she was soon going to be looking for more than words from me, an idea struck me. A wonderful idea. An idea that would save the film. An idea that would get Lucy back.

  Maybe, just maybe, if I played my cards right, the next five minutes would fix everything.

  “If only there were a way to make sure you had real control over the production,” I mused, thinking quickly. “It seems like being a producer isn’t enough.”

  Darcy smiled. “If you have any suggestions, let me know.”

  What a perfect introduction.

  “Well,” I said, grabbing her hand and leading her over to the little couch, “I might have one.”

  She looked up at me hopefully. “Really?” She batted her eyes.

  “It seems to me that what you need is power. Power over the process from start to finish. And you know who usually has that power?”

  “The producer.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  She looked confused. “But--”

  I put a finger to her lips the exact way Lucy had done to me the night before. Darcy’s eyes widened and her words faltered. She was breathing heavily.

  “The real power,” I told her, “is in distribution. It’s the distributor that has the ability to make sure that a film actually sees the light of day. Right now, my dad is working to undermine the distribution of ‘Admit You Want Me.’ He’s going to make sure that if it ever gets released, it’ll only be in the shittiest, most obscure places. Rural places. It’ll never go to Cannes. It’ll never even be seen by an Academy member. It’ll be shuttled off to whatever Blockbusters are still renting movies and go die a slow death on daytime cable, if it’s lucky.”

  “He can’t do that,” she whispered.

  “He definitely can,” I promised her, and for once I was telling her the truth, albeit highly embellished. “He hates that you outwitted him. He has to spend so much money on it, sure, but he can spend that money badly and he will.”

  Darcy swallowed. She looked genuinely nervous. “I can’t let that happen.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m telling you this because I care about you,” I told her, knowing I’d need to wash my mouth out with soap later.

  She looked up at me hopefully. “Can you help me fix it?”

  I smiled at her. “I can do better than just help you fix it,” I told her. “I’m just like you. I’ve spent my whole career looking for someone who understands what it’s like to have an artistic vision and have no one understand. You don’t think I want to make cheesy action films, do you?”

  She blinked. “I’ve always thought you were too talented for that.”

  “I want to make real movies. Good movies. Like this one.” Mixing truth with fiction made it easier to swallow. “But for that, I need a partner who can help get me out of the trap that my dad has put me in.” I looked at Darcy with all the sincerity and hopefulness and lust I could. “What if I could make it so we both got what we needed?”

  “What do you mean?” she breathed. The fact that she was still buying this was astounding, but her body language betrayed her. She wanted me. It was enough to make her believe me.

  “I know my dad has a lot of distribution deals lined up. Deals you could benefit from. He wants out of this film. What if we made a trade? If you traded him Fantasy Productions for his distribution deals, you could make the films you want to make. And we could star in them, together. And they’d be everywhere!”

  She inhaled. “Do you really think that could work?”

  Not a chance in hell.

  “Yes. I believe that together we could conquer the world.” I brushed her hair away from her face tenderly. It hurt me to touch a woman who wasn’t Lucy like this. Especially Darcy. But I was doing this for Lucy. She’d forgive me. When the time came, I knew she’d forgive me, and she would never even need to know about this part.

  “I want that,” Darcy breathed.

  “Deal,” I told her, and I kissed her. I felt nothing. No spark. No joy. Nothing. It wasn’t revolting or horrible, but when I drew away to see Darcy’s joyful expression, I felt absolutely nothing. She moved to kiss me again. She was basically in my lap at this point.

  The door to the trailer slammed open. Lucy strode quickly across the room to grab something.

  “Don’t call security. I’m going. I just forgot my--” She picked up a discarded tape recorder, turned, and froze.

  Lucy took in Darcy and me on the couch and put the pieces together in an instant. Confusion, pain, and humiliation crossed over her face in quick succession.

  Oh God. My heart was pounding in my chest. Now she would think that me and Darcy... gross. But I had to get Darcy to sign the paperwork! My whole plan revolved around keeping her complacent that long. What was I supposed to do? I was too frozen to react.

  Darcy did it for me. She giggled. She settled in on my lap a bit more firmly and twined an arm around me to stare condescendingly at Lucy.

  It was clear she thought that she’d won.

  “Get out,” she told Lucy. She was smiling like the cat that ate the canary. “We’re busy, aren’t we, Peter?”

  I looked down at Darcy, not daring to look at Lucy. I tenderly touched the side of Darcy’s face and heard Lucy suck in her breath in horror. I didn’t want to look at Lucy. I didn’t want to watch her heart break. But I made myself do it. I looked over and smiled at Lucy, and if there was cruelty in it, it was only because of what I wanted to do to Darcy.

  “We’re very busy,” I said, drawing Darcy closer. I only had to keep this up for a few more minutes. Just long enough to get the damn paperwork and make Darcy sign it. I looked at Lucy disdainfully. “What are you staring at, Princess?”

  39

  Lucy

  “Um, are you okay, miss?” The bus driver was standing awkwardly over my shoulder. I peered up at him tearily and then around myself. The bus was empty. “This is the end of the line,” he told me.

  I swallowed. It certainly was, and in so many ways.

  Wordlessly, I gathered my stuff and shuffled off his bus. He was staring at me uncertainly, but I had nothing to say. My next transfer wasn’t due to arrive for thirty minutes. That would give me plenty of time to cry at the bus stop. In the dark. Alone.

  I guess I should’ve known. I ought to have seen it coming. I mean, what did I expect?

  Darcy outplayed me at every turn. Why shouldn’t I expect that she’d win Peter, too? Especially after the way I’d been rejecting him, day after day. Did I think he would just sit around and wait for me? Did I think that he should? I earned this outcome.

  I’d run out of the trailer and I was three bus transfers away by the time my heart finally stopped pounding. It was only then that I realized everybody was staring at me. But no matter what I did, no matter how many deep breaths I took or how much I thought about the ocean or calming forest like the meditation app on my phone always told me to, I couldn’t stop crying. It was like a dam had broken in my brain and all the fear and sadness I’d been keeping at bay with the shallow hope that I’d somehow record Darcy rushed out all at once. I found myself texting Daniel with shaking fingers.

  Lucy Bergen [5:00 p.m.]: Darcy figured it out and fired me. Also, I think Peter is sleeping with her.

  Daniel Muller [5:01 p.m.]: How?

  Lucy Ber
gen [5:01 p.m.]: How’d she figure it out? She saw your lucky tape recorder.

  Daniel Muller [5:02 p.m.]: We can fix this.

  Lucy Bergen [5:03 p.m.]: No, we can’t. This was all so stupid. Peter was right. It never would have worked. Darcy was too smart for us. I don’t even care anymore.

  There was nothing further from the truth, but I just didn’t have the heart to keep fighting. Besides, what could we possibly do? The production was in shambles. It barely had enough staff to keep shooting, and God knows what they were managing to shoot was trash. There was 99% of a great movie already shot and waiting to be edited. There was only one problem. It starred me.

  Daniel Muller [5:06 p.m.]: Vanessa won’t give up. You shouldn’t give up. I’m not giving up.

  Lucy Bergen [5:10 p.m.]: There’s no point, Daniel. It’s over. And Peter... I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming.

  I must just be really stupid. I thought Peter disliked Darcy. Maybe it was Peter that told Darcy what I was up to. Maybe it was never even the tape recorder. Maybe it was him...

  Daniel Muller [5:12 p.m.]: Why do you think Peter is sleeping with Darcy? That’s crazy, you know that.

  Lucy Bergen [5:16 p.m.]: I walked in on them making out on the couch.

  Daniel Muller [5:17 p.m.]: What? When?

  Lucy Bergen [5:18 p.m.]: It was a couple of minutes ago. It was right after Lucy fired me. I went back for your tape recorder because I’d forgotten it.

  Daniel Muller [5:20 p.m.]: Are you sure? They weren’t just, like, rehearsing?

  Lucy Bergen [5:23 p.m.]: They weren’t rehearsing. I wish I was wrong, but I’m not.

  I stared at the ‘typing’ icon and momentarily zoned out to cry some more. In a way, it was justice that Peter would betray me for Darcy. Not that he really could, I’d basically dumped him, but it felt that way. But the idea that I’d be hurt by him only seemed appropriate. I deserved it. Daniel’s next text shook me out of my stupor.

  Daniel Muller [5:30 p.m.]: He’s calling me.

  Lucy Bergen [5:31 p.m.]: Peter?

  Daniel Muller [5:31 p.m.]: Yeah. In the time we’ve been texting he’s called twice.

  Lucy Bergen [5:32 p.m.]: Don’t answer.

  Daniel Muller [5:33 p.m.]: If he’s cheating on you, there’s no way I ever will. Fuck him.

  Lucy Bergen [5:33 p.m.]: I don’t think it was cheating... but still.

  Daniel Muller [5:35 p.m.]: What do you mean it wasn’t cheating? He said he loved you. Did you block him?

  Lucy Bergen [5:35 p.m.]: Yeah, while we were in France.

  Daniel Muller [5:36 p.m.]: Now he’s texting me that he went to your mom’s house and it was empty.

  Lucy Bergen [5:37 p.m.]: He went to my house? Well, we don’t live there anymore.

  The eviction was inevitable. It wasn’t actually as horrible as I thought it would be. The Sheriff wasn’t a jerk about it or anything. He was just doing his job. It was humiliating, and it felt horrible, but after everything else I’d been through lately, it was just a drop in the bucket. We just packed up as much of our shit as we could and went to a fleabag hotel down the street.

  Daniel Muller [5:38 p.m.]: He’s texting that he has to find you.

  Lucy Bergen [5:39 p.m.]: Block him.

  Daniel Muller [5:40 p.m.]: Are you sure?

  I swallowed hard. Was there anything that Peter could say that would make me forget the way Darcy looked in his lap? No. If Daniel blocked Peter, he’d have no way of finding me. I thought about Peter’s green eyes. I thought about Avignon and the little room above the Texas Café. I thought about what I wanted and needed. But the image that kept sticking with me was the cruelty in Peter’s smile when he saw my heart breaking, so I made a choice.

  Lucy Bergen [5:41 p.m.]: Yeah. Block him.

  Daniel Muller [5:41 p.m.]: Done.

  Lucy Bergen [5:42 p.m.]: Thanks.

  Daniel Muller [5:43 p.m.]: Are you okay?

  Daniel Muller [5:44 p.m.]: Are you okay?

  Daniel Muller [5:45 p.m.]: Lucy?

  I couldn’t reply to him, I didn’t have the words. Besides, I was late for work. I’d taken a couple of shifts at a not very nice diner not far from my mom’s house that turned into a not very nice bar in the evening. I wondered if it was even worthwhile to show up to my shift. But I needed the money, so despite everything, I went in.

  “You look terrible,” The waitress I was relieving told me when I arrived. She clearly didn’t care. “You’re also fifteen minutes late. I just left table six sitting there because I’m off my shift. They’re your problem now. Good luck!”

  If the past few hours were any indication, I doubted I would have very good luck.

  40

  Peter

  “Sorry, Peter, but I’m not going to do it,” My dad told me.

  I stared at him openmouthed and speechless.

  No was not an option.

  “This will save ‘Admit You Want Me’,” I sputtered eventually. I’d just laid out the whole plan to him and he just shot me down like it was no big deal? Hell no. “This is the solution we’ve been looking for. We trade something we don’t really need for something we do.”

  “’Admit You Want Me’ is a write off at this point,” my dad told me.

  “I have to do this,” I told my dad. “You might see it as a write off, but I care about this movie.”

  “Why?”

  I took a deep breath and made myself sit next to him in one of the cushy club chairs in his den. “I just do, okay.”

  He didn’t buy my casual reply. “This is about that girl, isn’t it?”

  “Lucy?”

  He nodded warily.

  I nodded back.

  I had to fix things with Lucy. After what she’d seen... I could only wonder how she interpreted my motives, but the proof was right there in front of her. I was a liar. I’d told her that I cared about her and then, the moment she was gone, got cozy with her enemy. She probably thought I was in on everything with Darcy from the start, or something equally horrible. She probably hated me right now.

  “Listen to me,” my dad told me. “She lied to you. She is not the sort of girl you want to get mixed up with. I know you think she’s pretty, and I’m sure she’s fun to be around, but you barely know her.”

  “You were trying to get me to marry her when I barely knew her.”

  He frowned at me deeply and tossed his copy of Forbes magazine aside to better argue with me. “That was entirely different.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “I thought she was someone she wasn’t.”

  My dad stood up and started pacing in front of the fireplace. He was the only person I knew that used a fireplace in central Texas. It was hot outside. He claimed to like the ambiance. At the moment, he just looked satanic to me, passing back and forth before the flames.

  “Dad, I know you don’t want to do this, but think of it,” I argued, “this way Darcy won’t win. Isn’t that worth something?”

  He paused. “She would win though.”

  “How?”

  “She’d get my distribution deals on those films in Europe. And the only thing I would get is ‘Admit You Want Me’ and her crappy little production company. There is no way that’s a good deal for me.”

  I bit my tongue. I’d taken a closer look at those distribution deals. They were probably in the black, but they were a vanity project if there ever was one. They’d all had special clauses inserted that said that my dad, as the distributor, would be onsite during the filming. It was actually a contractual requirement. He’d basically just arranged eight long European vacations for himself.

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “You might be getting a close to zero profit deal here, the companies are equally positioned. But there are other considerations.”

  “Like what?”

  It was clear that my dad did not want to be parted from his European cultural project. Luckily, I knew his desire to win might only be tempered by his desire to see Darcy lose.

>   “It might be heaven for you to spend the next eighteen months in Europe shooting footage of alpine flowers, but it would be Darcy’s nightmare. She wants to be a Hollywood mogul. She wants power. This will not only take her out of circulation, but she’ll hate it and she’ll be humiliated.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “She’ll be absolutely miserable,” I told him. “You have no idea how long it took for me to get her totally convinced this was a brilliant plan.”

  I shuddered at the thought. The memories would be enough to give me PTSD. Aside from the kiss, I’d thankfully gone no further with Darcy. I’d told her in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want her to ever think that I was trying to influence her through sex, and somehow, she even bought that. The whole thing was utterly bizarre, but the point was that she now believed that signing over Fantasy Pictures in exchange for my dad’s eight film distribution deal was a great plan. Better than a great plan. She thought it was her own idea. I was banking that she wouldn’t read the fine print.

  “She wants to be a distributor, huh?” My dad mused, oblivious to my loathing.

  “She sees that you have the real power over ‘Admit You Want Me’,” I explained. “Even though she’s getting to make the movie she wants, there’s nothing she can do once the money runs out. She’ll be stuck knowing you’re going to do everything you can to make sure it gets buried.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” my dad replied. “I may not like that Lucy girl, but at least she could act.”