Silver Screens, Silver Bells

"That's a solid one. I did the 'friends, Romans, countrymen...' speech as part of my theater school audition. Again, a bit of a cliché, but that's damned good writing."

"And stories about murder just never get old. Timeless."

She pointed to me.

"By the way: you have a piece of scone on your chin."

"Shoot. How long has it been there?"

"Since right after you clumsily asked me if I was lesbian."

"That wasminutes ago."

"Sorry. Was kind of waiting for the right moment."

"Right moment? For what?" I asked, reaching for a napkin.

"For this."

She reached out, brushed her thumb over my chin, and wiped away the crumb.

Fuck, I about melted into my seat. If she could do that with a simple little touch like that, I was almost terrified to think about what else she could do.

Smirking, she flicked the crumb onto her plate and checked her phone.

"Uh-oh. We need to get back. Last thing we need is Drew getting pissy with us."

God, I guess time really did fly when a gorgeous Australian woman was telling me about ridiculous fantasy adventures. Eve rose first, but I lingered in my seat for a few moments, staring across the bakery with a giddy, almost girlish smile on my face. I'd almost forgotten about the shoot entirely, and the bitter cold awaiting me outside.

I'd have to text Janice later to thank her. Getting paid ten grand to hang out in a sleepy little mountain town at Christmas, while flirting with a hottie like Eve? Best damned gig I'd ever had.

And if I played my cards right, it could get a hell of a lot better.

**

Minutes later I was seated back at the table in the courtroom, arms crossed, glaring at a tearful Eve while Chris asked her follow-up questions. He took a kinder, gentler tact than I had, which was exactly what the scene called for. This was to be the next big dramatic moment, when Garret's gentle questions and Emilia's responses helped to slowly get the town back on her side, and made Garret realize the folly of slaving away for a corporate machine.

I only had to shout just one 'objection,' and then sit there and glare the rest of the time. Of course, given that Garret was Valentina's co-counsel, me shouting out an 'objection' didn't seem right, but a movie like this wasn't exactly supposed to be an accurate, gritty courtroom drama.

Eve was having a hell of a time up there, though. She kept messing up her lines, missing her cues, and glancing over in my direction when the scene didn't call for it. Her accent slipped up a few times, too, and she kept having to repeat a line about Old Man Bailey's bakery before she finally got it right. Eventually Drew grumbled under his breath and called for a cut.

"Take five, everyone!" he shouted, before looking back to Eve, his nostrils flaring. "What the hell's going on? You were solid for the first takes today."

"Sorry, sorry," she said with a wave of her hand. "I think I got so lost in that first scene, burned through all my focus. I'll get it back, though." She turned a warm, apologetic smile to the rest of the cast and crew. "Sorry for mucking things up and keeping you around for longer. I'll make it up to you at the bar tonight."

Chris whooped and thumped his hand against the table.

"A few extra line reads for a round of drinks? Fine by me."

I chuckled and wandered up to the witness box.

"You good?" I asked. "This, uh, wasn't my fault, was it? Distracting you by getting you to ramble on about magical swords and dragon-slaying elves?"

Laughing, she patted my hand, igniting sparks that danced up and down my arm.

"No, no. Sometimes I can be inconsistent. If I fire on all cylinders for the first few takes I lose my flow a bit later."

"Wanna know my secret?".

"Sure."

"'For Brutus is an honorable man,'" I said, quoting Mark Antony's lines from Julius Caesar, the words dripping with lethal sarcasm and righteous anger. "The professors at my theater school audition loved the way I landed that line. So I think back to the triumph of it, you know? Cling to the gold, let the bullshit fade. Helps me focus if I'm losing a scene."

"Cling to the gold. I like that. As for me, I think my favorite was my last scene inBrisbane Files. My character was a cop who got shot and killed by a bank robber who turned out to be her brother. Was super melodramatic when she realized what happened as she bled out, but I nailed the scene. Think I'll stick to that one."

"Just don't get yourself too confused and start acting like you got shot," I said, grinning. "I think that might send Drew over the edge."

We shared another laugh and I moved back to my place at the table. When they reset for the big scene between Chris's character and Eve's, she botched the first line and had to redo it, but nailed the rest of it, aside for just a faint slip of her accent during an emotional confession of her love for the little town. Drew didn't seem to catch it, so he called 'cut' and clapped his hands.

"Okay, that does it for the courtroom for now. Chris and Eve: run on over to makeup to get freshened up, we still have enough daylight to get the courthouse steps scene." Drew clapped his hands again. "Go, go, go!"

Waving goodbye to Eve, I checked my schedule and spent the rest of the day on smaller little scenes: a tense conversation phone conversation with Valentina's corporate overlords, a scene where I wandered into a bakery and sneered at all the Christmas magic, and a particularly fun one where I got to laugh imperiously at a child's invitation to the local school's Christmas play.

God, playing the nasty bitch was actually pretty fun. If this gig resulted in me landing a string of nasty, acid-tongued guest roles on dramas and procedurals, I'd be pretty damned happy.

I wrapped up my last shoot a bit after dark, picked up dinner at the services table, and wandered back to my bed and breakfast. I'd thought about tracking Eve down or asking Jason for her number, but I didn't want to come off as desperate.

Of course, Iwas desperate, given how much fun she'd been and how long it had been since I'd had a kiss or a good fuck, but I didn't want that hunger to be too obvious. At least not yet.

Once back in my room I went over my lines for the next day, for a very fun and nasty confrontation with Eve's character in front of the town Christmas tree, where I'd berate her for her warm-hearted beliefs, and attack the foolishness of embracing the Christmas spirit.

Satisfied that I had a good enough handle on those lines, I opened my phone and searched for that fantasy series Eve had gushed about.

The 'Dawn-Chant Saga' was a trilogy of books by an Australian woman named Corrine Hildegard, written back in the eighties. The covers made them look like silly, pulpy trash, but the series had an intense online fandom, especially considering Hildegard only wrote three books before fading into early retirement. There were dozens of fan forums, hundreds of raunchy fanfic results, several tabletop RPG adaptations, a few video games from the early nineties, and two abortive screen adaptations.

Something rang a bell so I did another search, and came across an article about a big-budget series adapting the books, which had collapsed due to some dispute over the rights issue. Apparently they'd filmed most of the first season, but nothing had been released aside from a few trailers. I watched one of the clips, and it actually seemed pretty cool, with CGI effects that were better than expected for a TV fantasy adaptation. My eyes widened a bit at a few brief shots of Eve, dressed in a long, flowing blue robe, and wearing a crown made of bones. She looked pretty badass, and it was a stunning contrast to the flannel-clad character she was playing on our current shoot.

"Damn," I murmured.

That must have stung, to be so enamored by a series, to land a good role in it, only to have it never see the light of day. I'd had plenty of projects get canceled, but none that I'd been particularly passionate about. Those aborted shows and films had only really upset me because it meant I lost out on residuals.

Bored and a bit intrigued, I skimmed through some of the fan-wikis about the series, reading up on the character Eve was supposed to play. Most of it made little sense to me, but the more I skimmed, the more I understood her fervent fandom.

Smiling at the memories of her warm smile and the light in her dark eyes when she'd rambled on about those books, I settled into my Christmas-themed bedsheets, and drifted off.

**

Eve and I stood in front of the town Christmas tree, glaring at one another, waiting for Drew to give us our cue.

"And...action!"

"Look around, Emilia," I said with a dismissive sneer at the Christmas decorations. "Why waste your time, money, and energy preserving a place like this? Aren't you tree-hugger types opposed to needless consumption?" I laughed and flicked my fingers against a gaudy ornament. "I mean, do you really think all these silly ornaments are carbon-neutral?"

"Well, actually," Eve quipped, hands on her hips. "The ornaments on this tree are all handmade from recycled wood by the residents of the senior center here. They sell them to raise money for the county animal shelter."

I huffed and gave an overblown eye-roll that I worried was a bit too much, but Drew kept us rolling.

"These are good people, Miss Steel. And I can understand not really liking the holiday season or not empathizing with how deeply they embrace Christmas, but that doesn't give you the right to just swoop in and buy up that beautiful forest to pave the way for some big ugly factory."

For the last few words, her accent slipped, and she cursed as Drew called for a cut.

"Run it again. Back from 'Well, actually.'"

"Cling to the gold," I reminded her, winked, then resumed my steely persona.

We went through it three more times, with Eve botching a different line or word each time. Drew's exasperation increased with each mistake, and finally he rose from his chair and stomped over to us.

"Can we just move to the gift-giving scene with the kids?" Eve said. "That one's easy, and once I burn through that we can reset and I'll get this line down."

"You see this?" Drew grumbled, tapping one of the branches of the colossal Christmas tree. A bit of snow tumbled down. "It's still snowing. Which means the longer we wait, the more continuity errors we'll have."

"Drew," I said with a half-hearted grin. "A few extra sprinkles of snow aren't going to make a difference."

He affixed me with a glare as nasty as the ones I'd been delivering in-character, then jabbed a finger towards Eve.

"Get it right. Places, everyone!"

We reset, and when Eve went into it again, she hesitated on the word 'empathizing' on both the first and second takes, resulting in another groan from Drew.

"Shit," she murmured under her breath, shaking her head. She once more apologized to me and to the others, and I gently squeezed her wrist.

"Hey, it's cool. If there's anything I can do, an adjustment in my lines to lead into yours or-"

"No, no, it's just me." She tapped her temple.

Drew cleared his throat.

"I shouldn't be surprised, really," he said, shaking his head, his tone turning bitter and cutting. "I heard about what happened on the set of that Dawn-Chant show. Looks some things don't change."

Eve flinched as fiercely as if Drew had struck her, and I instinctively took a step forward, interposing myself between the two of them. I hadn't the slightest idea of what the hell Drew was hinting at, but I didn't like that venom in his eyes or the hurt on Eve's face.

"Get back on your mark, Valentina."

Gritting my teeth, I held my ground. The prick had been calling me 'Valentina' since the start of the shoot, even though he used everyone else's real names.

"Yeah," Eve said quietly. "Just get back on your mark."

"No," I said with a shake of my head, glaring at Drew. "She botched some lines. It happens. They'll probably make for good fodder for a mid-credit blooper reel. People love that shit for movies like this. It's notCitizen Kane, Drew. Just give us a few minutes, let her and I run through the lines with the cameras off, and we'll get it done."

"I'm sorry," Drew said with a clenching of his jaw. "Who the hell are you?"

The other extras and crew around us went silent, looking upon us with wide, nervous eyes. I didn't really care: the guy was being an asshole and was just going to get a worse performance out of us if he kept up this acerbic auteur act.

"I'm an actress who has messed up lines plenty of times, so I know how this can go. It's cool, Drew. We can take five and-"

He cleared his throat, pulled up his phone, and tapped on the screen a few times.

"Right. Ariane Wallace. Let's just jump over to your credits. Oh, look! Waitress. Waitress. Barista. Barista Number Two. Murder Victim. Murder Victim. Barista. Oh, you've got some range: I see you played a hotel receptionist! I can see why we brought you on."

I'd been belittled for my meager filmography before, and had learned to absorb it and move past it. But Drew had already put me on edge with that quip against Eve and his general attitude, so that last snide little comment just...broke something.

I took a step away from Eve. Drew flinched and stepped back, bumping into his chair.

"Yeah, I've had my fair share of stupid roles, but even on those sets, the directors had enough sense not to berate their leads for a handful of line errors that are easily remedied. You're not Fincher, you're not Kubrick. You're just a guy who's here to help us make a bit of Christmas magic. So give us five, let me go through it with the cameras off, and we'll get it done."

Drew tutted under his breath, and shook his head.

"No. No. Not gonna let 'Barista Number Two' berate me like that. Get the fuck off my set. You're done. Call your agent, get a flight home, maybe you'll get back in time for Christmas. How's that for some holiday magic?"

Shit. I should have known better. Gasps rose from the extras and the crew, and Eve mumbled something that I didn't quite make out. The distant sounds of Christmas music became a painful buzz in my ears.

God. What had I done?

Drew said something else but I couldn't hear him. Ears ringing and heart pounding, I turned and walked away, ignoring the aghast stars of the cast and crew. I managed to keep the tears at bay until I made it off of main street, then turned down an alley behind a bakery, braced my hands against the snow-spattered brick, and sobbed.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I'd let the flirting get to my head, and had imagined myself as some noble defender of Eve, sticking up for her when I should have just kept my mouth shut. I'd heard nastier things on set before and had always kept quiet, so why the hell had I spoken up then?

I sniffled and wiped the tears from my eyes.

A chance for ten grand, right down the drain. In a few days I'd be back in LA in my little studio apartment, desperately hunting for work, surrounded by broken dreams.

After a deep breath I turned around to see an old man in a thick coat, with a festive fur hat upon his head. He wore spectacles adorned with festive red-and-green glitter, and he had a thick, bushy moustache.

Old Man Bailey.

Ernest Beckwith to be more precise, a legend of classic Westerns who had found a second calling playing kind-hearted old men in productions like this. We hadn't had any lines together yet, but we'd been scheduled for a particularly nasty scene the next day where I insulted the way his granddaughter made coffee at his family bakery. He'd been in the courtroom for my confrontation with Eve, and there in the background for that debacle back at the Christmas tree, too.

"Hey," I said, sniffling. "Sorry for screwing things up back there."

"Who says you screwed up?" he asked, in a gravelly, raspy voice that certainly seemed more at home in a rough Western than a cozy holiday flick.

"They're going to do reshoots or rewrites now. Probably bring in another actress to replace me, or write in a new attorney who swoops into town to be the ice queen."

"Well, sure, you screwed up in the sense of the movie. But not in the sense of what was right." He sighed. "Truth be told, I probably should have told him off days ago. I've worked with some real nasty fellows in my day, but usually the nastiness shows up when you're on the ninth day of shooting in the desert, and everyone's sunburned and dehydrated and coughing up a lung from all the smoke from the gunfights."

"Doing what's right doesn't pay the bills, Ernest."

"Maybe not. But when you get old and gray like me, it's not the cash you look fondly back on." He offered me a warm smile. "Chin up, Miss Wallace. You'll be all right. You're not the first actor to get fired from a set for standing up like that. I got the boot on the first day of shootingSeven Guns from Sierra Nevada, you know."

Even though I was no fan of classic Westerns, even I'd heard of that one. It was one of my dad's favorites, in fact. Pretty sure my dad even had the movie's poster on the wall of the garage. The surprise distracted me from my own troubles for a fleeting moment.

"Wow, you were supposed to be in that?"

"Yep. The lead. Deputy Sheriff Ephraim Henderson. The director was being a real brute to some of the horses on set, and I stood up, told him off, got fired. All worked out in the end, though."

"Why?" I asked with a dry laugh. "Did the horses take up a collection to help pay your rent?"

"I wish. No, the confrontation inspired the horse-wrangler to tell his sister about me, though, and one thing led to another." He lifted his hand, tapped a gold wedding ring. "Been married fifty years now."

I laughed again, with a bit less bitterness that time.

"Well, all right. Glad that worked out for you."

I was still screwed, of course, but I at least wasn't openly weeping, and I would be able to make it back to my lodgings to start packing without having another breakdown.

"Thanks, Ernest. You'd better get on back to set before Drew takes things out on you, too."

"Oh, Drew is the one who should be worried. Not me." He gave me another warm smile, then shuffled back off towards main street.

After a deep breath and wiping away the last of my tears, I made my way back to the bed and breakfast. I broke down into tears when I saw the angry, confused texts from Janice, who had apparently already been informed of the debacle by Drew or the producers. I sobbed anew when I found that the next flight from to LA wasn't for another three days.

So I'd be stuck in Wagner's Grove, surrounded by the production I'd just been fired from, for three damned days. What a shitty way to spend the holidays.

**

I spent the rest of that afternoon and evening cooped up in my room. Sally, the owner of the bed and breakfast, brought up a delicious bowl of tomato soup and homemade bread for me, and I spent the time watchingLast Ride of the Comanche, a Spaghetti Western that Ernest Beckwith had starred in after getting fired from his first leading role. It was another of my dad's favorites, if I remembered correctly. One consolation from this mess was how fun it would be to tell my dad that I'd worked briefly with one of his favorite on-screen gunslingers.

The movie proved to be surprisingly decent, with some gorgeous vistas, thrilling shootouts, and a few hilarious scenes between a young Ernest and his cantankerous but lovable horse.

I was just about to pull up another of Ernest's Western classics when I checked my phone: four more texts from Janice which I ignored, deciding to save that ugly conversation for the next day. The latest message was from an international number that wasn't saved in my contacts. Frowning, I swiped it open.