“You ready for this?” Ben asked.
“I had some jitters last night, but I think I’m ready to go,” I said as I got onto the treadmill.
“I bet you were obsessing about the script changes,” Kent teased me.
“Yeah, I want to make a good impression.”
“Let me give you a tip. When you get there today, they’ll have made more changes. Craig used to worry about it when he first started. They’ll work with you to make sure you learn your lines. If you have anything too taxing, they may have you use a teleprompter. The writers know you’re new. They’re not going to have you do a five-minute speech that can’t be cut on your first day,” Kent assured me.
I felt better after I worked out. Kendal had waited for me when I got back, so I hurried up and showered so we’d get across the street on time. I had one of the more elaborate makeup jobs, and they wanted to tattoo me this morning. They planned to use a nonpermanent product which would last several weeks. They also needed to shave my head again. The good news was once I had my tattoos, I was good to go for the next two weeks unless they had to do touch-ups. Then it was just normal makeup.
The process wasn’t so bad. They had a paste-like product that stained my skin. The problem was it took what seemed like forever to do all my tattoos. When I was done, I was pretty scary looking. When I had to wait for wardrobe, I wandered around to see the setup, and people did double takes when I walked by.
When I was finally ready, they didn’t waste any time. They had me on set and doing my first scene. Jessup knew I’d be nervous, so he threw me into the fire, so to speak, to get me started. I was glad I did my lines just fine for the first take, but Craig, not so much. I soon learned that multiple takes was the norm. Catalog modeling, where you do the same poses repeatedly, turned out to be great training. The trick was to keep focused and your energy up. I found it was the same with acting. You had to have the same energy level on take one as you did on take thirty-one.
Jessup was happy with my first day.
“Good job. Just stay focused and you’ll do well. We had a short day today. Be ready for a regular day tomorrow,” he told me.
I grimaced. I’d arrived on the set at eight this morning. It was six now. I guess a ‘short day’ was ten hours.
I WAS STARVED. KENDAL had raided the buffet for me, but Jessup had me in back-to-back scenes all day. I was able to grab a bite between takes, so I did get something to eat. Kendal made arrangements with a lot of us for dinner. We picked a place not too far from the hotel so we could all walk.
Everyone was in high spirits. I was focused on getting some food, so I didn’t notice her at first. She put her hand on my chest to get my attention. When I looked down, my breath caught. There’s just something about certain women that get an instant reaction out of you. An example would be Lisa Felton: while not the best-looking girl in school, she caught every guy’s notice. She was sexy as hell.
When I looked down into incredibly green eyes, everything around me went away. Here I stood in the middle of a crowd of actors, many of whom were stunning, and this girl had me mesmerized. Her eyes looked familiar. She had incredibly long eyelashes, which were obviously not the result of makeup because she had none on. The next thing I noticed was her smile. She simply lit up the room when she smiled at me.
Her giggle was music to my ears. She grabbed my hand and led me to our table. As we walked to the table, I got a chance to check out her body. She was five-five, had long brown hair and was very fit. She had the legs and butt of an athlete. How I missed her breasts I have no idea. Those poor things were being held hostage by her evil blouse and they needed to be set free. They were at least a D cup. I had no idea as to who was sitting with us. It was just the two of us in a sea of conversation.
“Hi, I’m Halle, Trip’s sister,” this goddess told me.
Trip was part of Craig’s group. If he wasn’t gay, he was surely bisexual. I suspected he and Craig were more than just friends. I remembered when I first met him he made me nervous by how he’d looked at me.
“David; nice to meet you,” I finally got out. “Where have you been all my life?”
“Waiting for you, silly,” she said with a smile.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Why’s that?”
“If I’d known, I would never have been so rude as to make you wait.”
“Kent warned me about you,” she said.
“Why would you need to be warned?” I asked in confusion.
“He said if we ever met, we’d be drawn together like magnets. Even with your scary tats, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Then you ignored me,” she pouted.
“My best friend calls me a ‘stupid boy.’ Now I know you’re around, so be assured I will not be ignoring you.”
I found out later everyone was highly amused by the two of us because we totally ignored everyone else. To be honest, I’d never had a girl affect me the way Halle did. It was like Adrienne, but with Lisa’s something extra. There was just something about how she moved that captured my full attention. I normally am at complete ease around beautiful women. Halle was my kryptonite. Around her, I was a tongue-tied teenager who couldn’t stop blushing.
The sad part was Halle knew it. She could lead me around by my nose like I was a puppy. Thankfully, she didn’t take advantage of it. Somehow, we ended up in front of my hotel room, and she kissed my cheek goodnight. Kendal had waited for me with tomorrow’s packet.
“Did you see her?” I asked as I bounced up and down on my bed and almost knocked Kendal to the floor.
“Yes, everyone saw the two of you,” Kendal said with a pained expression. “You do realize she’s only thirteen?”
What?!?
“Are you bullshitting me?” I asked.
“Nope. She’s jailbait.”
“Are you sure? She has to be like, uh, eighteen!”
“No, Trip’s sister is only thirteen,” Kendal said to ruin my day. “She does have the hots for you, though.”
“A lot of good that does me!”
I think I need to fire Kendal. She had way too much fun with this. She handed me my homework and we prepared for tomorrow. I had a hard time concentrating because I’d just gone from imagining Halle in bed with me to figuring out how to fend her off.
Chapter 4 – Little Happy Dance
Sunday January 18
They didn’t need me until noon today, so I worked out and then went to church. When I got back to the hotel, Halle was in the lobby and had obviously waited for me.
“Hey, want to take me to lunch?”
“I think you might be too young to be hanging out with me,” I said, as I tried to put the brakes on our potential relationship.
“I think I might be your age or older,” she shot back.
I told her how old I was and she smirked and said she was the same age.
“Do you only date older women like Elizabeth and Bree?” she asked.
“I think my agent is going to die. She told me you were thirteen.”
She had a good laugh at me and shook her chest at me.
“Do you think a thirteen-year-old would have these?” she teased, then got serious. “Trip tells everyone I’m too young. I bet he told Kendal I was thirteen. He’s just being a big brother. Plus, I don’t need everyone hitting on me. I’m not that kind of girl.”
She smiled at me when my face dropped.
“You big dork, did you think I was going to jump into bed with you? Kent told me you were a lot of fun,” she said, then her expression changed. “Wait a minute; are you the guy they were talking about in LA? Are you the guy who went with them to Chubby Feldman’s party?”
I guess I gave it away.
“You are! No wonder Trip said I couldn’t hang out with you, and Kent said you were a lot of fun. I think you might be a bad influence on me.”