About That Kiss

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Ida

Does anyone notice how I’m dying on the inside? How I’m regretting taking this part? How my dubious ulterior motive is already catching up with me big time?

Faye Fleming sits beside me in all her girl-next-door glory, although she’s hardly a girl anymore. Still, as she has aged, she’s managed to maintain the image of the all-American, wholesome, funny-but-serious-when-needed girl/woman. I guess of all the people gathered here, she and I might become the closest. How long will it take her to figure out my secret?

“Ida,” Tamara says, “would you like to give us your thoughts on your character? Or do you want to launch straight into the read?”

Ah, my character. An out-and-proud lesbian. If only I could express my true feelings about Veronica to the room.

“Sure.” I’ve prepared for this. I know exactly what to say so as not to cast any suspicion on myself. “I see Veronica as a successful but, ultimately, lonely woman who is starved of love.” At times, while I was reading the script, I wondered if the writers had been able to glimpse right into the center of my own lonesome heart. “Her brother’s fourth wedding sparks this unbridled rage in her, as though all the love in her family, and the world even, is reserved for him, just because he’s straight.” I pause. “She’s so consumed by anger and jealousy that she doesn’t even notice that her own chance at love is staring her right in the face. She needs to get over that, and some other things, of course. Crack a few jokes along the way.” I insert a chuckle. My inadequate synopsis does not do justice to the script, which is, apart from being a lesbian romantic comedy, also a sharply funny critique on the institution of marriage.

“Charlie? Liz?” Tamara says. “Does that sound about right to you?”

“Perfect,” a blond woman with huge round eyes says. The one sitting next to her, who was all over the news five years ago when she started an affair with Ava Castaneda, nods and sends me a nervous smile. I should be the one smiling timidly at her. For all my money, she has something I’ve never been able to afford.

“Great,” Tamara says. “We’ll come back to this later, if needed. Faye, shall we move on to your character?”

“My character doesn’t have a clue,” Faye says, eliciting her first and surely not her last round of easy laughs. Why Faye is playing the more uptight character in this movie, I have no idea. That’s why it’s called acting, I suppose.

The read-through of the first act is easy enough. Faye and I play off each other with a comfort I’ve rarely experienced this quickly, as if we’ve starred together countless times before.

During the break before we run through the second act, Tamara walks up to me.

“The chemistry between you and Faye is off the charts already,” she says, “and we haven’t even gotten to the good bits yet.”

There’s a moment in the second act that I’ve been dreading. My character, Veronica, needs to look Faye’s character in the eye and realize something significant that alters the course of events. It’s not something I would usually have an issue with conveying, nor is it required that I display all of that complex emotion at a table read, but still. It all hits a little too close to home. Today, I’ll be able to muddle through, but I don’t know how I’m going to approach it at rehearsals. But that’s exactly what rehearsals are for, I comfort myself. To figure out that kind of stuff.

“Thanks.” I take the opportunity to get a good look at Tamara. No doubt she’s one of the hottest directors I’ve worked with, what with ninety percent of the ones I’ve previously collaborated with having been male. But it’s not because the bar is low that Tamara isn’t, objectively speaking, highly attractive. On top of that, just like my character, she’s out and proud like nobody’s business. These days, that can get you a top job behind the camera in Hollywood. How things have changed.

Someone calls for her and as she walks away, I make a mental note to ask Mark whether Tamara’s love life is happier than my character’s—or mine.

When I sit next to Faye again, with her long dark hair and pale complexion, her eyes as blue as the midday sky outside, I try to center myself and remember the reasons why I said yes to this project.

There are many and I list them in my head. This movie is being touted as next summer’s big blockbuster and I haven’t been part of one of those in a long time. My name next to Faye Fleming’s should add up to more than the sum of its parts. Maybe, by playing an out character, I can finally force myself out of the closet. Maybe I won’t even have to. Maybe the buzz surrounding the movie will create some sort of magic momentum that will naturally propel me out and make it so that it has always just been plain obvious.

Fat chance of that.

I make quick work of having to look Faye in the eye—just a swift glance will have to do. Today isn’t about looks and gestures and emotions. It’s about making sure the words sound right as they come out of our mouths.

I already know Faye is an accomplished actor, but even more than that, she’s a calming presence by my side. She comes across as self-confident and easy-going and I have no way of knowing whether she’s acting or not, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. The overall vibe is that she will be easy to work with. No diva allures whatsoever. It must be the girl-next-door thing. Maybe she’s made it part of her real-life persona as well as her image. Imagine if Faye Fleming had to bust out of the closet. The thought appears to be too much for my brain.

“Sparks are flying,” Tamara says after we’ve finished. “Can’t wait for the actual shoot.”

“How was it?” Derek, my best friend and ex-husband asks when I call him on the way home.

“Good.” I sink into the leather car seat. “Although I forgot how utterly exhausting table reads are.”

“You go through the emotions of the entire movie in one day,” he says. “It’s to be expected.”

I asked Derek to read the script before I said yes to the movie.

“How was Faye Fleming?” he asks.

“Lovely, also as to be expected.” So far, I can’t say a bad word about my co-star. She was gracious and wonderful to be around all day long, even during the final exhausting hours. “I’ll have her over for dinner soon, so we can get to know each other better before we start rehearsals.”

“Before you kiss her, you mean,” my ex-husband says.

Derek is one of the only people on this planet who knows my secret. As I was once the only person who knew his.

“Very funny.”

“I’m just teasing, although you could have worse prospects.” He’s not one to let things go easily.

“The director’s quite hot, actually.” Derek’s the only person I can talk to about these things.

“Tell me more.” Although Derek and I were never in love, we have a deep fondness for one another and I know that what he wants for me more than anything else is to find true love the way he has with his boyfriend, Ben.

“I haven’t done my research yet and, well, you know…”

“I know this movie has the potential to change your life. What’s this director’s name again? I’ll do a quick search for you.”

“Tamara Williams, but no need. I’m perfectly capable of googling the details of her personal life myself.”

“But it’s more fun when I do it.” There’s a short pause, before Derek speaks again. “It says here she’s married. Sorry, sweetie.”

“Oh well, perhaps it’s for the best.”

“I see that differently, but we all need the time we need…”

We say our goodbyes and as my car glides up Mulholland, I vividly remember the statement I put out after Derek came out of the closet.

I wish Derek all the luck and love in the world. We had a wonderful marriage and we remain the best of friends. I know this new path he has chosen in life will make him very happy.

I got a lot of flak at the time for using the phrase ‘the new path he has chosen in life’, as though I meant to say that him being gay was a choice. If only it were—then I wouldn’t have had to hide in the corner of a stifling closet for the better part of my life.

What I meant was that he had chosen to end our marriage and no longer pretend he was straight. And no longer care about the repercussions on his career. The hoops I had to jump through to explain that. Yes, my choice of words was poor, and no, I did not mean all the things that the wave of social media outrage claimed I did.

Perhaps I should have taken the opportunity to come out there and then, but I didn’t. Because, unlike Derek, I do care about the effect it would have on my career—at least I used to. Seeing Derek blossom into the proud and confident man he is today with Ben by his side has made me aware of the possible error of my ways. How could it not while I’m the one who remains single in my golden cage of a Hollywood Hills mansion?

When this car drops me off, no one will be waiting for me. Mark has gone home for the day. In my absence, my house will have been scrubbed clean and my lawn will have been cut and my pool will have been cleaned, and for what?

That’s why I’ve chosen to do this movie. That’s why I’ve chosen to play an out character, hoping that it will become one of those cases of life imitating art.

This is Hollywood and far stranger things have happened.