Page 9 of Lights, Camera, Love

Austin bounds up the rickety steps leading to my cabin’s verandah, his hair hanging in wet curls beneath his cowboy hat.

So much for taking advantage of this ‘where the hell are we’ farm and enjoying my morning coffee in silence for a change.

He thrusts his phone in my face; the screen is jammed with messages from Nadia.

‘How do you even have wi-fi?’ I grumble. ‘I have to drive into town to get any bars.’

I swat a fly off my neck—it’s one of the only insects I can’t stand—while Austin flops onto the wrought-iron chair beside me, watching my reaction as I read his troubled ex’s latest string of messages.

After scanning her usual ‘Stop ignoring me!!!!’ demands, my brows snap together at the words on the screen.

‘What the hell does Nadia want with Evie?’ Austin says, his brow contorting.

I swipe back up with my thumb, re-reading Nadia’s misspelled, frantically typed threats that she ‘knows all about the new movie’ and that she can dig up plenty of dirt on Austin’s ‘bitch co-star’.

‘She’s just jealous,’ I say, stating the obvious.

After taking screencaps of the rant, I pass the phone back to Austin.

‘She would have read all about the new movie online, particularly the beautiful woman you’re acting opposite.

’ Nadia clearly still hasn’t come to terms with how abruptly her marriage ended, and I can only imagine how insecure she must feel over Austin’s new leading lady.

She probably had a coronary when she saw Evie’s face.

‘You think Evie’s beautiful?’ Austin asks. The blush that sweeps up his neck confirms what I suspected at the read-through: he’s developing a thing for his co-star.

I clear my throat. ‘She’s objectively attractive, sure. But anyway, you knew that coming back to town after being away for almost two years would set Nadia off.’

When we found the short-term Bondi Beach rental we’re staying in, rule number one was that no one was to be given the address, outside of Austin’s family. Even when we shared a townhouse on Santa Monica Beach in LA, we kept our address under wraps.

I’m determined not to add to the list of places I’ve lived with Austin.

He’s my oldest and closest friend, but I need some fucking space.

Every time I quietly suggest that we part ways as housemates, though, he reacts as if I’ve shot him in the chest. I know he’s under intense pressure to prove he’s back on track, which is why he needs me like I once needed him.

But as soon as I’ve solved that little problem by helping him revive the career he almost lost, I’ll be going my own way. I’m just not sure where that is yet.

‘What about getting an AVO against Nadia?’ Austin proposes, crossing and uncrossing his legs as he stares out at the misty paddocks reaching towards the horizon. ‘Like a restraining order type thing.’

‘Has she tried to approach you recently, damaged any of your property or given you reason to fear for your physical safety?’ I ask, already knowing the answer.

‘I can say she has,’ he mutters, lifting my coffee mug and sniffing it. ‘I can tell the cops she rang me and threatened to smash up my car or pull a knife on me.’

I prise my mug out of his hand. ‘Ah, no. Let’s not add perjury to the mix. Just keep showing me all the messages. I need a record of everything she does.’

Austin nods with slightly alarmed eyes. If Nadia thinks she’ll ever win him back with this increasingly aggressive behaviour, she needs her head examined, but trying to get her prosecuted for harassment is a last resort for me.

Truthfully, I’ve been waiting for Nadia to get bored of her own resentment and move on, or at least get some counselling to help her do that.

But given this has been going on for a couple of years now, on and off, I’m starting to believe that she won’t stop until she gets what she wants—Austin’s head on a pike.

Side by side with mine, after the role I played in their downfall.

‘Come on, bro,’ he says, tugging me up by my arm and straightening his cowboy hat. ‘Let’s get this shoot over with so we can get the hell out of this pig farm.’

‘Must you wear that?’ I gripe at the hat. ‘We’re in Singleton, not Texas.’

Draping an arm around my shoulder, he sings a few off-key bars of ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ in my ear.

I jerk away from him and unhook my Ray-Bans from the neck of my grey Henley. When I slip them on, Austin exhales a whistle.

‘So swish ,’ he teases as we tread down the stairs and onto the mushy soil of the paddock.

I ignore his comment and grimace as my white trainers get progressively dirtier with each step away from the cabin.

Austin knows as well as I do that I’m not a poser—or a ‘glamour boy’, as some idiot once described me.

While I never asked for it, I just have a natural-born instinct for what clothes go well with what.

When I was old enough to realise that putting some thought into what I wore meant people looked at me as less of a victim of my rough past, I decided to lean into this unsought ability.

It’s a long walk to today’s shooting location at the horse stables, and Austin whines about no vehicle transport being provided to us as we dodge cow plop landmines, abandoned farming equipment with precariously sharp edges, and a flock of squawking chickens stampeding away from god knows what.

While the rustic charm of this two-thousand-acre farm will hopefully be what ends up on the screen, for us, the illusion is broken by the jumble of production vehicles, catering trucks, and lighting and camera equipment littered around the stables.

Crew members wearing headsets scurry around at a hectic pace as a set dresser frantically scrubs muck off one of the barn doors.

Finn, our runner—the lowest-ranking crew member on set—is swatting away flies with a thong tied to a stick, except the thong keeps flying off whenever he swings it.

Jakob is furiously penning notes into his awful script, sweating over the tattered pages.

Good lord, what drivel is he adding now?

I glance down at my own script, which is folded open to the beginning of today’s scene.

JAMIE

Your eyes are so beautiful.

CONSTANCE

Thank you.

JAMIE

What makes them especially beautiful is that they see me.

What the fuck does that even mean??

The moment Buzz catches sight of his star, he leaps off his canvas chair. His frizzy clown hair flops up and down on either side of his face like bunny ears as he marches over to us. ‘Shouldn’t you be in wardrobe?’ he asks, wide-eyed.

‘Yeah, I was going to head over there,’ Austin replies, ‘but then I found these clothes in my suitcase this morning. They’re a bit more “Jamie”, don’t you think?

’ He takes a casual step back so that Buzz can assess his faded jeans, red plaid shirt and American cowboy hat.

The outfit is nothing like the tan chinos, tailored white shirt and felt Akubra that Buzz picked out from my shortlist of suggestions for the affluent farmer.

I refrain from shaking my head; I know Austin probably just can’t be bothered walking over the hill to the wardrobe truck.

‘Um—’ Buzz starts, his brow knitted. It strikes me as comical that the man wearing a tiger-print shirt and canary-yellow beach pants even has a say in wardrobe.

‘We ready to start putting some tape down, chief?’ Austin cuts in impatiently.

Buzz rakes a hand through his hair and glances towards Cassie, the first assistant director, who is giving Evie instructions in the stable doorway. Shit, I didn’t even realise Evie was here . The way that thought momentarily disorientates me is even more surprising.

I notice she’s wearing the pair of Daisy Duke shorts from the wardrobe fitting, the ones that made her seem so uncomfortable. Her knotted plaid shirt sits high above her belly button, exposing a large slice of bare stomach, and her chestnut hair has been woven into two braids.

A band of sympathy twists around my diaphragm. Evie has been made to wear this clichéd sexy cowgirl outfit while Austin can turn up in whatever he wants and get away with it. The clothes don’t even make sense: Evie’s character, Constance, isn’t a country girl.

I also now get why Buzz wanted Austin in a plain shirt and chinos. The two characters in this scene are now both wearing plaid shirts and denim, and it’s going to look fucking stupid. But whatever. It’s not my movie.

The inside of my back pocket starts to chime, and I pull out my phone, check the caller ID, and pace away from the set to answer it. There must be a phone signal booster here.

‘Hey,’ I say to Mike.

‘Didn’t know if you’d pick up.’ Even through the phone, I can hear a smile edging his gruff voice. ‘Finally, we’re in the same city again, yet you missed our catch-up call yesterday. Am I being ghosted?’

‘ Shit, I’m so sorry. I’m on a farm in the middle of nowhere, on location with Austin. I was planning to head into town last night for better phone reception, but then Austin wanted me to run lines with him, and I … I just spaced. Sorry. There’s been a lot going on.’

‘All good, my friend. How does it feel being back on home soil?’

My gaze falls on a family of kangaroos lazing in the shade beneath a leafy tree.

‘America had its moments, but I didn’t realise until I got back how much I missed it here.

Austin’s already making plans to head back to LA after this shoot, but honestly, I’d rather stay put.

Sydney feels like just the right amount of busy after all that hustle.

But I think I can give farming life a miss. Too much cow shit.’