“Free of fear, too. I want to be married to you again, but I want to do it just because I love you, not because I’m afraid of losing you.”
“And then the memory can be beautiful,” I say, “and not messy.”
Kim smiles. “Yes, exactly.”
I grin back at her. “I’m okay with that.”
“Yeah? Because if you’re not—”
I catch her chin with my hand and shift her mouth close to mine. “I am. I want that memory, too.”
Then our lips find each other, and our hands slip down to each other’s waists, and we’re pulling off our clothes like we did that first time in this trailer. I’m not sure who we’re keeping waiting, but I don’t care, because right now I need Kim in my arms. I need to feel how much she wants me, how committed we both are to each other.
We can do this. Wearedoing this.
I love Kim, and I’m going to keep on doing so for the rest of my life.
Twenty-six
Kim
The next day, we’re back to filming on the beach, which is a relief in some ways (if more physically demanding due to the sand).The street scenes in Miami made for some good shots, I’m sure—the bright signs and door frames, the red bougainvilleas climbing up the sides of the most mundane of law offices and hair salons. But the beach, though still hot and muggy, doesn’t make me feel as trapped, penned in on all sides by people and problems. I can look out over the jewel-blue water, and for a moment, I can forget the constant, watchful eye of the cameras and hundreds of crew members.
It helps, too, that I feel a bit better after my breakdown the other day. After hearing from Blake again (how many times will I need to hear this?) that he loves me and wants to be with me, no matter how messed up I am.That even if Ivy is upset, I can take my time to get to a place where I can talk with her—with her and Luke, ideally, though probably in different, well-planned, age-tailored conversations—about my OCD and its contribution to all that went wrong.
That even if I never get to that place, Blake will still love me.
I will, though. I’ll get there.The last couple therapy appointments have helped me feel even closer to that goal, especially with Blake by my side. I’ll be able to talk to my kids.To my parents. Maybe even one day to the press, drawing attention to the non-stereotypical symptoms of OCD, things that are so easy to overlook and brush aside and bury you deeper day after day. It could be helpful to people.
But it doesn’t have to be right now—though if I could, maybe Ivy would start talking to me again. Or maybe she’d be even more upset.
Right now there’s enough to stress about, I decide—like, for instance, this movie.
“The timing is still off,”Troy grouses. “Do we need another run-through with Ricky to get you all moving like you’re not in fucking quicksand?”
I grit my teeth. I doubt Ricky, our stunt coordinator, will be able to change anything. We’re all exhausted and emotionally drained and sick to death of shooting in this heat. My muscles are already burning from the half-dozen times we’ve run through this scene—especially my calves, protesting yet another take of sprinting through the sand in these insane high heels.
But this is what I get paid for, what keeps my ranch going. I trudge back to my starting mark, a block of wood painted with an X.
No buried treasure there, boys and girls. Just the place Kim Watterson may finally keel over and die, denied even the dignity of shorts that fully cover her ass.
“Dryden,”Troy barks. “This time hold off on your line for a two-count. Bertram, Kim, that’ll give you a little extra time to get in place, but if I don’t see both of you hauling ass like you’re trying to survive Pompeii, I swear to god.”
He doesn’t finish that threat—probably because there’s not much realistically he can do to us. But a director’s disappointment in my performance has always been a motivating factor for me.
Less so for Bertram, I think, who I can see scowling from his mark about forty feet away.
Troy’s not done chewing us out quite yet. “AndTanner, I need more from you than that idiot surprise face. You’re seeing your aunt as Hemlock for the first time, and she’s fighting to save you. Dig deeper.”
Tanner tosses his drink back to the waiting PA without even looking to see if she’s still standing there. “Dude, I don’t even have any lines in this scene. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to fuckingact. And stop checking out your aunt’s tits. Can you manage that, or should I callThe Disney Channel and get some other boy-band reject to fill this role?”
I cringe, though I’m feeling less sympathy forTanner after our conversation yesterday. From what I can tell, he’s not doing any worse than the rest of us, though he’s definitely off his game a little—not a surprise, given he probably didn’t sleep between Hustle and call time.
Troy’s just extra pissy today, and I have a good guess why. Supposedly there’s now a petition going around, started by “real comic book fans” to get people to declare that they won’t see this movie, on the grounds of it being “a pure money grab by the studios”—as if there is any blockbuster film that couldn’t be qualified this way—and “nothing more than a PR vehicle for Blake Pless and Kim Watterson, at the expense of real fans who care about the characters of Hemlock and Farpoint.”
When I got the call from Josh about that last night, I was pretty pissed myself. I might not be a comic book fan, and neither is Blake, but I don’t ever play a character I don’t care about—even if they’re nothing like me, even if they are a flat-out terrible person or, in this case, have a propensity for super uncomfortable fetish wear. I always find the human piece in them that I can connect to.The Sabrina Kane underneath the Hemlock façade.
