Chapter 3
“This might have been the greatest idea I’ve ever had.”
“Was it yours, Sam? I thought a big team of marketing and public relationships had come up with this.” Tina was sitting in her usual chair at the executive producer’s office, with Bette by her side and a screen full of numbers and graphics in front of them.
“Well, yeah” the man admitted. “But whatever. Look at the numbers! Since the photos came out two days ago, we became the most searched show on Google and gained five thousand followers across all social media platforms. That’s nuts!”. He sounded so excited it was almost obscene.
“Happy to help.” Bette said, her voice sharp. “Can we get out of here? You already convinced us to do this a week ago.”
Tina side-eyed her. They hadn’t spoken a word since Saturday night, but she wasn’t necessarily surprised by the tone her co-star was using. She was not comfortable in that room either.
“Yeah, yeah, go back to whatever you gotta do. Just remember we need another date this week!”
They both got up and bolted through the door.
“Fucking idiot” Bette murmured under her breath. “If it was for him, he would stream us having sex and monetize it.”
“It is what it is” Tina responded, dryly.
“Oh, you like it, then? Of course you do. I’d date myself too.” The brunette said, with an arrogant smile on her face.
“Fuck you, Porter. You were the one eagerly wanting this to happen.” She took a pause to relocate her voice to impersonate her. “Oh, please, Tina! Help me in my career! Pretend you love me, so I can get a big ass check!”
Bette turned around so quickly it gave her whiplash. She stopped abruptly in her tracks, both coming face to face with mere inches in between.
“Listen to me, and I mean this deeply. If you don’t back down, I won’t back down. We could stay in our lane for the next months, or we can bite each other’s ankles for the same amount of time, I can do both.” The brunette’s words were laced with a kind of anger that was not violent, but spiteful.
“Who the hell do you think I am?” Tina responded, with no apparent intentions of backing down. “I’m sorry if every girl ever does what you tell them to do, but I happen to not give a flying fuck about what you have to say. So you back down if you want, I’m all good here.”
“I’m not-“ Bette started, her tone already rising, but they were quickly interrupted by another voice.
“Hey, guys!” Alice said, cheerfully. As soon as she saw them, she rolled her eyes. “C’mon, you’re back at this shit again? I thought you had made some progress.” She approached them both, putting a calming hand on Bette’s arm. “C’mon Bette, go back to your trailer. And calm down, for God’s sake.”
The brunette didn’t say a word before turning around and leaving, her jawline still tense.
“Really, Tina? Nothing at all? She told me the date was good!” Alice exclaimed, walking alongside her friend through the corridor.
“Of course it was good, I disassociated for most of it” Tina answered.
“That kiss you shared seemed pretty… present.”
“It’s called acting, Alice. You do it for a living too”, the blonde sounded annoyed.
“Well, yeah, but how you treat each other here, compared to how you act as a couple on and off screen? That’s not even method acting, T. I believe you’re both sociopaths.” Alice was joking, as usual, but like every one of their mutual friends, she sounded a bit worried too.
“I’m not. At least I’m not diagnosed” Tina half-joked back. “Listen, she started today. I was about to just walk away in silence.”
“Oh, c’mon! I didn’t realize we’re back at kindergarten with my nieces!”
“You don’t have a niece.” Tina pointed out, laughing a little bit at the ridiculous statement.
“No but if I did, she would be more mature than you two. Anyway, what’s next for you today?” she asked, going into the make-up room side by side.
Tina let out a long sigh.
“In an hour I got to film three interior scenes with Bette.” She sounded tired already.
“I get it now” Alice said, clapping her hands as if she discovered something. “That was just foreplay.”
Her comment earned her a shove in the arm from her friend.
-
It turned out that acting all day – even when you were not supposed to be acting – was an exhausting thing to do. Although her friends knew and were part of the deal, the rest of the crew was unaware, so they had to smile at each other during the filming of their shared scenes, sit together at lunch break and walk side by side when they were in the same place. Their friends were thrilled (“finally I don’t have to choose between you two!” Dana had exclaimed) but Tina felt an irreparable tiredness creeping inside of her. It was like her battery was constantly low charged, and she felt on the edge all the time.
She was locked inside the safety of her trailer and reaching for a much needed glass of cold water when a voice startled her from behind.
“Could you pour one for me, too?”
Jump scare. The bottle of water almost crashed against the floor.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST BETTE!” Tina screamed out of horror. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
“Shh, lower your voice. You’re supposed to love me, not to curse me.” The other woman was casually sat on her couch, but something about her didn’t seem quite comfortable. As if she knew she was not welcomed. “Shane told me that if she had her girl on set, they would spend time together at her trailer, and she’s sadly right. She never speaks much but when she does…”
“Yeah, you must listen. I know. I still don’t want you in my trailer. I’m tired of you everywhere else.” Her tone was bitter, every word using what felt like the last bit of energy she had.
“But we don’t have to act here. I’m tired of that, too.”
“You bet I’m tired. I mean it. Get out of my trailer.” Tina’s finger pointed at the door, accentuating every word.
“I won’t.”
“Get out.”
“I won’t! We’re walking a very thin line here, and nothing will destroy it as much as an inside source talking shit about this. And God knows they like to talk.”
Tina sighed, exhausted. She had little fight left in herself.
“Fine, whatever. Take that couch, and I’ll use this one” she agreed, pointing to her left. “I’ll take a nap so please shut up for half an hour.”
Surprisingly, Bette didn’t have anything to say back, so she just laid down on the pillows and closed her eyes. There was a throb in her head threatening to become a headache, and she wanted nothing more than to make it get away. She focused on her breathing: in and out, in and out, in and out until it became steady. Then she focused on her own body, a technique that her therapist had taught her for whenever she felt overwhelmed: feel your toes, then feel your legs, then feel your back, then feel your arms. “Being present”, her therapist would call her. “Calming the fuck down”, she had re-named it.
At some point she must have fallen into a deep slumber, because when the buzzing of her phone woke her up, Bette was nowhere to be seen. On the other side of the line, Alice was hurrying her up to get to the set they were supposed to be filming.
“I just fell asleep Al, I’m sorry. I’ll get there in five” she promised, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
She was picking up her stuff when she noticed a piece of paper tucked under one of her books. She reached out to check it, knowing very well that it wasn’t there before.
“I see you’re drained, and I feel the same. I’ll back down. It doesn't have to be this hard.”
She couldn’t recognize the handwriting, but she was sure whom it came from. She released a breath she had no idea she was holding. I wasn’t clear what was more of a relief to her: to be able to not walk on her tiptoes all the time, or the fact that she wasn’t the one proposing it.
She was still weighing those thoughts when a message from Sam lit up her screen.
“Second date, tomorrow at 9 a.m. Breakfast before filming at Pain au miel. Gotta arrive together.”