“What does it say?” Nadine asks in a panic. “Kates? What does it say?” Nadine dives to the floor and scrambles to put the pages back in the right order.
I grab the empty Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf bag from this morning’s latte off the table and breathe slowly into it, but it makes me cough. The bag smells too much like Colombian roast.
“Oh my God,” Nadine whispers as she finishes reading. It’s official. I wasn’t hallucinating. The writers are cutting Sam and Sara out of the family and adding Colby into the fold. After all I’ve given this show, this is how Tom treats me? He can’t even tell me to my face? They’re keeping Alexis and not renewing Sky and me? How can this be?
I grab the script back from Nadine and bolt from the room before she can block me. “Kaitlin, wait!” she yells. “We’ve got to get Laney and your mom on the phone. Don’t do anything rash till I call Tom!” she says.
“Do you hear me? KATES!”
“TOM!” I yell.
“TOOMM!”
“TOOOOMMMMMMM!” I screech again as I run down the hallway. “I need to find Tom!” I grab a scrawny P.A. by his Dane Cook comedy tour T-shirt. “WHERE IS TOM?” I bellow. His blue eyes grow wide in alarm, but I don’t care. “I need to see him immediately.”
“I don’t think he’s here,” the young guy squeaks. “He’s barricaded himself in the postproduction office to finish next week’s show since we’ve had so many delays. He isn’t taking calls.” I grab his shirt tighter. “But I could be wrong.”
I let go of his shirt and run in a new direction. I know how I can find out if Tom is here. I can have the receptionist page him over the intercom. I run toward the FA studio’s main entrance. I can barely see where I’m going because my eyes are glazed over with hot tears. I’m in the middle of screaming “TOM!” again when . . .
Smack!
Boom!
Groan . . .
I’m lying flat out on the floor looking up at the fluorescent overhead lights. I cradle my aching head and try to sit up and look around. The receptionist desk is empty. WHOA. I feel dizzy. I look over to see what I crashed into.
But it’s not a what, it’s a who. Sky.
Sky sits up and I see mascara is running down her cheeks. She looks like a ghoul on the way to a Halloween party.
A lump starts to form in my throat. This is real.
“You read the new script, didn’t you?” I ask Sky tearfully, unable to hold back my emotions.
Sky nods and gets choked up too. “They can’t be real,” she sniffs, not caring for once that the person she’s crying to is, well, me. “They can’t be choosing not to renew our contracts. They just can’t! They can’t be writing us off the show. Why would they pick Alexis over us?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Melli would never let them get rid of us, would she? She has our back.”
“Does she?” Sky asks as she stands up. She dusts off her stockings and clingy black mini using her lace fingerless gloves. I decide to face the music too. My black trousers have Swiffered the floor, but my satin Belle Gray cami made it out of our crash unharmed. I collect my missing Bally black pump and put it back on my foot.
“Of course she does.” I hope I don’t sound as unsure as I feel.
“K, she’s not speaking to us,” Sky points out, not that she has to. Her dark, puffy eyes say it all: We’re doomed. “Tom is barely talking to anyone. The writers’ room is agitated. Almost everyone here, including your brother, is still under Alexis’s spell. The press is having a field day with the drama and all they can write about is someone getting axed over what happened in Vegas. Even Vanity Fair is doing an exposé.”
I knew the tabloid drama had hit rock bottom when Laney showed me Hollywood Nation’s latest issue. I thought last week’s In the Know piece was the worst, but this week they ran a four-page article on the Vegas melee and included a one-page article called “She Said, She Said — The Scene of the Crime.” It was an artistic reenactment of how the Tao fight went down, using eyewitness accounts. Nation drew a picture of the Tao balcony and placed Sky’s, Alexis’s, and my heads on stick figures to show where we stepped, what we supposedly said, and who hit who first. They also polled readers on whether or not they were turned off by FA after what happened. Seventy-six percent said they were. Gulp. Then they asked whether someone on FA should be fired for causing all this drama. Eighty-six percent said yes. Double gulp. I was thankful they didn’t ask them who should be axed. I guess now it doesn’t even matter.
“So that’s it then,” I say, absentmindedly pulling my long, curly hair off my neck. “After all these years, they’re getting rid of us both.”
“Don’t wallow, K,” Sky snaps. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going down without a fight. Especially when kicking us off doesn’t make sense. Even if Alexis keeps blaming us for feeling alienated, the ratings are up despite all the hoopla, which would make them want to keep all of us bickering babies around.”
“Do you think the script might be fake?” I ask hopefully.
“Wake up, blondie.” Sky rolls her eyes. “Even Alexis couldn’t pull off a move this big. This thing comes from above her.”
Before I can even imagine which coworker besides Alexis would be scheming against us, the intercom crackles to life. “FA cast members in the Buchanan Manor foyer scene report to set immediately for taping,” the voice tells us.
“Oh God, the new scene.” I freak and start to hyperventilate again. Where is a paper bag? I need a bag!
Sky’s icy hand grabs mine. “Relax. It’s probably just a rehearsal,” she says. “They wouldn’t tape the scene without a rehearsal first.”
“We’ve got to find Tom and bring him to his senses before the cameras roll,” I say.
We’ve only taken ten steps before encountering a setback. Sky shrieks. When I look up, I notice that what was once a blank, slightly dirty white wall next to the FA cast portraits is now home to a new picture of Alexis. Her red hair is windblown and her face has barely a stitch of makeup, allowing you to connect the dots with her faint freckles. Her eyes and smug smile seem to gloat, “Good luck getting rid of me now.”
“I think I feel faint,” Sky says.
I glare at Alexis’s face and feel a newfound determination. “Come on,” I grunt, pulling Sky’s arm. We teeter down the long hallway, our heels clicking and clacking on the slippery floor, slowing down before we reach the large soundstage. Please, please let that P.A. be wrong about Tom. He’s got to be here.
But he’s not. Alexis is standing in the foyer set and Matty is reading her lines. Since he isn’t in today’s scene, Matty’s dressed casually in ripped jeans and a navy thermal T-shirt. Alexis, on the other hand, is in super-tight black leggings with a long bright purple V-neck sweater gathered at the waist with a fat black belt. As if she can sense the rays of hate, she looks up, sees Sky and me, and snickers.
After what happened in Vegas, Matty told me he was forcing himself to stop liking her. So what’s he doing with her now?
“I’m going to kill her,” Sky declares, moving swiftly to the stage. I try to pull her back, but it’s no use. She may be bony, but she’s got strong upper body muscles.
“Our bigger problem is finding Tom, remember?” I hiss as Sky pushes aside a P.A., a grip, and two cameramen to reach her target. Alexis folds her arms across her chest and waits defiantly as Matty stares at my approaching frame in horror.
“Kaitlin, I . . .” Matty starts to say nervously. I look away and he stops talking.
“What do you two want?” Alexis snaps. “Are you here to pull another five-hundred-dollar extension out of my hair?”
“You mean ninety. Fake strands like yours could only come from the Jessica Simpson hair collection,” Sky retorts, smoothing her black hair, which is back to its natural fullness thanks to a very good weave.
Alexis stares at us. “Shouldn’t you two be off cleaning out your dressing rooms?”
“What is she talking about?” Matty asks.
“Your sister and Sky have been fired,” Alexis says giddily. “The network has decided to get rid of the problem.”
“Nice try,” I reply bitterly, “but guess what? No one has canned us. Sorry, but your dreams of FA being a one-woman show will have to stay in fantasyland.”
Alexis smiles. “It may not be a one-woman show yet, but it’s a one-daughter show, that’s for sure.”
“What?” Matt whispers. Sky thrusts her new script pages at him.
“You love causing drama, don’t you?” I ask Alexis, not expecting an answer. Something about her coy expression makes me more furious. “It just goes to show how inexperienced you are. Let me give you some advice: I don’t care how great the ratings are, no one puts up with a manipulative amateur like you for too long.” Take that! “And you can forget about Sky and me cleaning out our dressing rooms.
We’re not filming these new pages till we talk to Tom.” I fold my arms across my chest to keep from shaking.
“Then you really will be fired,” Alexis purrs. “I’m sure the press would love to get an anonymous tip about how you two held up production yet again.”
“Oh, you’re good,” Sky comments. “But I’m better. Don’t mess with the master of deception. I’ve been ruining K’s set life for years.”
“Yeah,” I back her up. Oh wait . . .
“And if you go so far as take your cell out of your bag, I’ll text Brian Bennett and tell him all about your little trip to Palm Springs for lipo.”
“How do you know about that?” Alexis stutters.
“I have my ways,” Sky says smugly.
Wow, Sky’s good. It’s kind of fun to watch her in action when I’m not on the receiving end.
“This says Sam and Sara aren’t Paige’s daughters!” Matty exclaims to no one in particular, having finished reading. “These pages can’t be real.”
“Oh, they’re real all right, Marty,” Alexis says, not taking her eyes off Sky and me.
“It’s Matty,” he corrects her.
“Your sister is a goner,” Alexis continues unphased. “The studio has finally decided that they’re tired of her and Sky’s behavior on set. These pages prove they’ve finally decided to get rid of them. And they’re keeping me fulltime instead.”
Alexis steps closer to Sky so that the two of them are face-to-face. I move closer too. I try to slide in between them. “Try something,” I dare. Matty grabs my arm. I smack it away. “Two against one are great odds.”
“You wouldn’t make a move, cupcake,” Alexis taunts. “Not in front of all these people. You wouldn’t want to ruin your pathetic good-girl image.”
“Watch it,” warns Sky.
“Ladies, is there a problem here?” Phil Marker, this week’s guest director, asks. He’s shot several shows for FA over the years.
I turn around. “Yes, we have a big problem with the new pages and we’re not filming a word of them till we see Tom.”
Phil nods. “I know. I was just talking to Becky about them, and the whole daughter switcheroo seems to come out of left field.”
Phil understands! Thank God. I always knew he was a reasonable guy. “So then you agree we have to talk to Tom before even proceeding with rehearsals,” I say.
Phil frowns. “Well, Becky said she wasn’t in any writing meetings where they talked about switching gears on the Colby storyline, but that’s why we think maybe it came from the top. The bottom line is, Tom wouldn’t have distributed the changes if it wasn’t what he wanted, and he told me not to call him unless the set is on fire, we’ve been canceled, or there is a sudden flu epidemic.”
“I think this qualifies as an emergency, Phil,” I point out.
My mind is racing. Think, Kaitlin! “What if these pages weren’t approved by Tom? You admit they’re totally out of character. Can’t we shoot another scene until Tom emerges?”
Phil shakes his head. “I wish we could, Kaitlin, but this is the scene we’re set up for and we’re already so behind and over budget because of the delays that we don’t have time to change things. I have no choice.”
“It’s okay, Philly,” Alexis coos. “We know you’re just doing your job.”
“Maybe we can start shooting another scene in the foyer and shoot this one tomorrow after we talk to Tom,” Sky says desperately. “Something just seems fishy here, Phil. I’d hate to waste the network’s money on a scene that isn’t written that well.”
“Are you saying our writers are shoddy?” Alexis tsks. “I’d hate for them to hear you say that. They work so hard.”
Sky glares at her.
“You sound just like Melli, Sky,” Phil says. “I just spent an hour in her dressing room trying to coax her out here and fifteen minutes in Spencer’s. She was unbelievably upset when she got the pages and she and Spencer begged me to track down Tom. They’re on their way down here now to talk to you two.”
I look at Sky. Maybe we can all band together and stage a mutiny!
“I told them the same thing I’m telling you: Tom is the head honcho,” Phil is saying. “I’m surprised he didn’t warn me about this new direction with the show, but I don’t think I can argue. We have to assume he wouldn’t have printed these pages unless he wanted to end the episode this way.”
“Oh my God.” I am hyperventilating. “This is really happening.” I can’t breathe.
“Kaitlin, you’ve got to calm down,” Phil says, grabbing my arm with concern.
“Sky? Kaitlin? Are you okay?” Melli and Spencer have just busted through the double doors and are running toward us with looks of deep concern. Melli’s still wearing her between-scenes bathrobe and Spencer is in gym shorts and a basketball tee. Neither of them looks ready to film. Melli pulls us into a hug, much like our real moms would.
“Don’t get upset,” Spencer says in his deep voice. “We’re going to get to the bottom of what’s going on. You two aren’t going anywhere.”
Phil looks at his watch. “Now that everyone’s here, we should really start filming. If you wouldn’t mind getting into wardrobe —”
“Phil!” Melli reprimands, cutting him off. “How can you ask us to shoot right now when the girls are so upset?”
“I’m sorry! We’re really behind and I have to get this to postproduction today!” Phil is starting to sound agitated. “Tom will kill me if we don’t shoot this. Please, just do this and I promise you can talk to Tom later.”
Sky shakes her head no. I do too and stand next to Sky in solidarity. I can hear my heart. The beat is faster than a freight train.
Phil shakes his head. “Ladies, please. If you don’t shoot, I’m going to have to dock your pay and call the network, who will probably say you’re in breach of your contracts.”
“I don’t want that to happen.” Melli glances back and forth between the two of us, her voice soft yet stern. “You don’t need more problems right now. Let’s do what Phil says and then afterward Spencer and I will both go with you to find Tom.”
I look at Spencer and he nods. “We promise.”
Sky’s eyes are welling with tears again just like my own. I know I can’t go through with this. I can’t film this scene. Not like this. Not now.
“Make the call, Phil.” I’m shaking. I’ve never defied Melli or Spencer before. “Sky and I are not filming anything until Tom calls us and tells us to do it. He’s the only person we trust.”
“I agree,” Sky says solemnly. “We’re not filming a word of this crap. You know Kaitlin and me. You’ve shot scenes with us since we were little kids! Tom wouldn’t do something so drastic without telling us first.” Sky sounds strong and her voice echoes in the cavernous room. I notice some of the cameramen stop what they’re doing and stare.
“Please,” Melli tries again. “Think of your future.”
“Kates, be reasonable,” Matt begs. “We’ll get ahold of Tom. Just film the scene, okay? Can you imagine what Mom will say when she hears you refused to film?”
“I’m sorry, everyone,” I say
hoarsely. “Sky’s right. You don’t make important, life-changing decisions like this without telling your actors first. This isn’t Lost. You can’t just practically kill us off without warning. We’re a big part of FA and we both deserve some respect. We’ve been on this show our whole lives!”
Phil has his head in his hands. “ENOUGH,” he says. “You have ten minutes to hit your marks. After that, I’m calling the network.” He walks off to get ready and Melli and Spencer trail after him, badgering him not to do this.
“Wow, girls, thanks,” Alexis says gleefully. “I thought I had to kick you guys off to get more airtime. Who knew you would go so willingly?”
“Alexis,” Matty says, looking beyond hurt. “My sister’s right about you. You have it out for her. What did she ever do to you?”
“Truthfully, nothing. But she’s standing in the way of me getting what I want, and I can’t let that happen,” Alexis admits with a sick smile. “She’s hogged the spotlight for years. Now it’s my turn. Don’t look so wounded, Marty,” Alexis adds. “It makes you look pathetic.”
“I’ll tell you what’s pathetic,” Sky declares. “Filming this crap. You want a solo show, Alexis? Shoot this one alone. Kaitlin and I are out of here.”
Sky grabs my arm. I hesitate for a moment, looking from Phil yelling into his cell phone, to Matty, to the group of grips and workers who have slowly gathered to watch the latest altercation. I can’t believe it, but for the first time ever, I’m about to walk off set in the middle of a workday.
“K, let’s go,” Sky says through clenched teeth. I see her mascara has started to run again. “Kaitlin, don’t do this,” Matty begs. “I’m sorry, Matty, but what’s right is right,” I say over my shoulder, and with that, Sky and I exit stage left.
FRIDAY 11/1