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Chapter8

“Call him back!”I screamed into my phone.Ted had finally given it back to me because Lonnie was calling with news about themovie.

“Darling, we don’t audition,”Lonniesaid.

“Like hellwedon’t.If they want me to audition, I’ll audition.”And Lonnie was getting his ass fired as soon as I could surgically remove him.Asshat.

I finally made progress with Holt Pictures and he told them to fuck off because “Lily Lawrence doesn’t do auditions.”As if I were too good for them.Sure it was kind of a jab that they wouldn’t even talk until I read for them, but hell.This was a huge part with a very specific casting call.If they wanted me to read, I wasreading!

And how dare he brush them off without even speakingtome?

“All right, all right.I’ll call them back and set it up.Ifyou’resure.”

“I’m sure.”I tried really hard notscream.

“I’ll have you a day and time when you landinLA.”

“Thank you Lonnie.”I hung up and spun around tofindTed.

He waited with his hands out and eyebrowsraised.“Well?”

“I’ve got anaudition.”

He clapped twice, then rubbed his hands together.“You’re going to nail it.Then they’re going to beg tosignyou.”

“And you and I will get to spend six months shootingtogether.”

He closed one eye and shook his opposite hand.“Well, sort of.I’ll be there on and off.Right now we’re negotiating with a ranch in Montana to shoot the movie and I can’t manage the company and be on-set for the entire shoot if we’re that far from LA.I justcan’t.”

Because of Charley.I’d learned on the way to the airport that she was the head of marketing for a firm for a studio in LA.Meaning she and Ted not only lived in the same city, they also worked in the sameindustry.

Meaning his head-over-heels status had only gottenworse.

That deflated my bubble a little.But only a little.“That’s okay.I’ll be busy and at least we’ll get some time together.When is shooting scheduled tostart?”

“Right now we’re slated for an early Aprilstart.”

Four and half months from now.It was perfect.It would give me enough time to clean up what I could at home, visit my sister, and finish the screenplay I’d started brainstorming, all before shooting started.It was like this was meanttobe.

“You’re really not going to even talk to him?”Ted asked, his expression carefullyblank.

I thought about the email address he’d left me.What constituted an emergency?“No.Neither of us is ready for anything more than what we had.I don’t want to playwithfire.”

“Flirting over email doesn’t have tobefire.”

Except with us, I think any contact was the equivalent of fire.“It’s betterthisway.”

“You meaneasier.”

Why was he being such a nosy prick?“Look, I gave him a fake name and if I show up in a year to explain...that makes sense.But if we have this other relationship and I don’t tell him who I am, then it makes this a thousand timesworse.”

“Sotellhim.”

He made it sound so simple.“I want to do it in person.This isn’t the kind of thing you can do overemail.”

“Princess.It’s just a fake name.One littlewhitelie.”

“No...it was so much more than that.”I held up my hand, ticking off each little lie with my fingers.“My name, my occupation, where I live, the color of my hair, who my family is, the fact that I’m up to my eyeballs in legal issues, and, you’re really going to love this one, I even told him Iwasfine.”