Not in the Script (22 page)

Vicky tells us she works directly for the network and will be launching a major
Coyote Hills
campaign next week. “With the curiosity that has followed recent events, we need to strike while the iron is hot,” she says, sending a cheerful glance my way, on one end of the row of chairs, and a smile to Brett on the opposite end. We obviously aren't a real couple, but Vicky couldn't care less. I know that look:
Keep stirring up that gossip, kids. Stir, stir away
.

“The hits on the network website have tripled over the past few weeks, and we've received thousands of e-mails asking about the series,” Vicky continues. “So we've decided to launch the official
Coyote Hills
website a bit earlier than anticipated, and we need your immediate help.” She has a folder for each of us. “A copy of everything here has been sent to your managers, but I'd like to personally explain our plan.”

I open the folder and flip through the contents. Brett seems as surprised as I am by the top page—a question and answer form. “I'll be happy to tell you my favorite foods,” he says. “But what I do in my spare time is hardly a secret.”

Vicky nods. “That may be true, Mr. Crawford, but we only know what the press tells us, don't we? We want these cast spotlights to be in your own words. Your fans should feel as though they're having a personal conversation with you.” She turns to McGregor, who is beaming proudly. “The network executives all agree that
Coyote Hills
has the potential to be our highest-rated show, and we're planning some special events to give it a gentle shove in that direction.”

Brett laughs. “There's no such thing as gentle promotion. You just shove.”

“Quite right,” McGregor says, then raises his hands as if parting the Red Sea. “Our premiere at The Sonoran Events Center will be spectacular! As you know, we'll be inviting Hollywood to
us
—giving them a taste of the authentic environment in which
Coyote Hills
takes place. And the weekend prior, rather than holding a typical press junket, we'll be having a day of food and fun with the media. They'll get to know each one of you as a best friend, at my ranch!” He waits for applause.

“Yeeee-haaaw!” Brett says, twirling an invisible lasso above his head.

Kimmi's sour expression doesn't change. “Let me guess: we'll be posing on horses.”

“Forget horses,” Jake says. “I want to ride one of your bulls.”

He looks entirely serious, which makes me smile. Big time.
Stop it, Emma
.

McGregor's brows pinch together. “Sorry, lad. I can't risk your handsome face.” His arms fly back into the air. “But! We'll have all sorts of glorious entertainment—the screening of the pilot being the main event, of course. And by the time the press leaves the junket, they'll be so enamored with the series and its actors, they'll spread your praise from here to Moscow. Now, please, get these packets to the production office by Monday. Busy, busy weekend for us all—which reminds me …” McGregor turns to Brett. “Did you pull something together for the Dodgers game?”

“Oh yeah! Watch for us on the jumbo screen.”

“Excellent! Look cheery for the cameras, will you?” McGregor's eyes shift to me. “It doesn't matter if the two of you aren't the lovebirds they make you out to be—quite relieved that you're not, honestly—but you're attracting some wonderful attention for the
show. And you as well, Kimmi. I must say, Payton Wilson was a fine pick. Buzz, buzz, buzz!”

“Jake won't be there,” Brett says, throwing a wad of paper at him. “Again.”

“Mr. Elliott does enough promotion by donning cowboy chaps—and little else, mind you—in ads throughout the world.” McGregor grins at Jake, who then hurls Brett's paper cannonball at him.

McGregor clutches his chest, mortally wounded. After a quick recovering breath, he says, “All right, have a great time in L.A. this weekend, but I'm begging you, please behave.”

I've never been put into the
please behave
category before.

Los Angeles won't be half as scary now that Troy isn't an issue. Both his manager and attorney called me at the studio a few days after the Club 99 fight to apologize
on behalf of
Troy. It's a major relief to know he's taken me seriously, and more so to know that he feels desperate enough to involve his management team. They'll have a bigger influence on him keeping his cool—at least for the sake of his career—than I ever could.

“Can I just double-clarify something?” I ask McGregor. Then I turn my head in the direction of the crew members standing behind us because a few of them have admitted to getting calls from tabloids. “Brett and I aren't even close to really dating, so if anyone contacts you for some sort of inside scoop, please share
that
with them.”

“In other words, Emma is in love,” Brett quips, and I shoot him a look that implies the opposite. “So just say ‘no comment' and they'll get the picture.”

“But the
wrong
one, I'm afraid, because I don't even
like
Brett at the moment.”

Everyone laughs. I'm sort of faking it.

“Oh, you two are just so cute.” Vicky literally giggles. “Which brings us to our next item of business. Our research shows that the target audience for
Coyote Hills
is more involved on Twitter than any other social network, so we'd like to ask that every cast member becomes involved there. A tweet or two a day would be just fine, perhaps a little teaser about your character, or a humorous anecdote that took place on set. And we'd
certainly
like to see our cast interacting with one another. Some witty banter would go a long way in providing a glimpse of the genuine chemistry that exists among this cast.”

“Here, here!” McGregor says. “Now one of you, I've noticed, is not yet on Twitter.”

Jake, who's been slowly sliding deeper into his chair, says, “Ugh.”

I throw a hand over my mouth to stop a burst of laughter. Jake
hates
social media.

McGregor tips his head as if he's considering something. “You know, Mr. Elliott, your delivery of that line just convinced me that you'd play a
fine
caveman if I ever have a need for one. Meanwhile, I expect to see you on Twitter.”

Jake's chin is still dropped, but he turns toward me just enough to furrow his brows and whisper, “Maybe modeling isn't so bad.”

I can't stop laughing.

Vicky then lays out the promotion schedule between now and the premiere, and we're finally dismissed. I stand, but Jake stays in his chair next to me, so I plop back down. When everyone else has scattered, he tells me, “I'll be back from New York Sunday night. Want to … teach me how to tweet?”

We've gone running a few times now, so getting together
outside of work isn't such a surprising request, but it's usually more of an impromptu thing.

“Sure,” I reply. “I need to talk to you about something, anyway. An idea that I'd like your opinion on.”

“Hmm.” He waits a moment before adding, “Then maybe you should make dinner for me too. I think better on a full stomach.”

Miraculously, I keep a straight face. “Can't you just eat before you come over?”

“Why would I do that if you're gonna cook for me?”

Sheesh. I'm in trouble. “The only thing I'm good at is spaghetti. Which is pretty dull.”

“Not if you top it off with … let's say, peach cobbler? I'll bring the ice cream.”

“Oh! So now it's dinner
and
dessert?”

“And I'm sure I can think of something else,” Jake says, and walks off.

I'm left in my chair staring straight ahead.
Something else?

There are ten of us at the Dodgers game the next day—a few who are friends I haven't seen in forever—and I get the chance to casually ask about everyone's managers. When it comes time to make the change, I'll have to do it fast. I can't be calling around Hollywood saying, “Hey, I'm ditching my mom. But don't tell anyone, 'kay?” The news would make it back to her in less than an hour.

Best-case scenario, I'll have a chance to discuss this with my mother civilly before I officially hire someone else. Worst case? She'll never talk to me again.

Even Kimmi and I get along pretty well on game day. Payton pays
plenty
of attention to her this time, so she's in a great mood. And Brett sits next to me during the game, but he's flirting up a storm with my friend on the other side of him. At one point, he turns to ask me, “She's kinda hot, right?”

I have to laugh. “Yes, Brett, she's actually
beautiful
. And she's also a very
good
girl. So if you ask her out, behave yourself.”

“Yeah, she's definitely giving me those ‘behave yourself' vibes,” he says. “But … I kinda like that sometimes. What's her name?”

“You're joking, right?” I don't know how Brett keeps shocking me this way, but his density is astounding. “Look, I could either
tell
you who she is, or there's a thing called
con-ver-sa-tion
, which is what normal people do when they want to get to know someone. So turn back around, formally introduce yourself—yes, even though your cute little face is hard to mistake—and ask who she is and where she's from. It's a great starting place.”

Brett smiles. “And
then
I can hook up with her?”

I want to pull out a chunk of his hair. “Your Prince Charming lessons are over. I quit.”

Paparazzi follow us everywhere once we leave the game. They throw out comments like, “C'mon, Brett and Emma, just one kiss!” But Brett handles it perfectly. He only laughs and says, “You'll have to watch
Coyote Hills
if you want to see that kind of action.”

I just smile and wave.

The idiots still get everything wrong. Not only did they miss Brett's flirting marathon with
someone else
at the game, but he bounced between calling me “Taylor” and “Dude” the entire day, not “Emmalicious” and “Babe,” which is what one online gossip site reports on Sunday afternoon—a site that Rachel reads constantly.

On a phone call that evening, I try to explain things to her as
they really are, but she thinks the tabloid version of my life is more exciting. “I'm telling you, Emma,” she says, “you guys would make the perfect Hollywood power couple. Just go for it.”

“Um, no. How about we never discuss that again?”

“Fine,” she says. “But speaking of men …” She giggles, and I tense up because I'm currently making dinner for the boy who's about to be the focus of this conversation. “Jake is on Twitter now! Brett started following him, and I totally freaked out when I saw who this new only-here-for-the-food guy was. But why did he choose
that
handle? What does it mean?”

I'm a little confused because I thought I was supposed to help Jake set up his account tonight. “Give me a sec,” I say, and open my app. Yep, it's Jake all right: @onlyhre4thefood. I laugh because his profile photo just shows the back of his head. “Well, he was kind of forced into the whole Twitter thing, so I think he's saying, ‘I'm only here because I have to be.' ”

“Oh. Well, I want to direct message him, but he isn't following me yet,” Rachel says. “So do you think it would be, like,
really
forward for me to text or even call him, or just
kinda
forward?” During my three seconds of silence, Rachel groans. “Okay, I won't. I just thought he might want to talk about what we should do on our date.”

“He's not really the plan-it-out type,” I reply. “So maybe I could send you some links to cool stuff out here, and you can decide what we should do. I haven't seen much either.”

“All right. Thanks,” Rachel says. “But while we're on the subject of what type he is, I went to your parents' house like you told me to and tried on a few of your dresses for the premiere. And none of them really … well, I want to look
gorgeous
when he meets me. So when you work with a designer this time, could you
maybe say you can't decide between two dresses and borrow both? I would love something in gold.” I drop my spoon into a bubbling pot of spaghetti sauce and splatter it all over myself. “They won't get too mad, will they?” she goes on. “If I wear one and you wear the other? Because that would be twice the red carpet advertising.”

She can't be serious. The dresses usually cost at least twenty thousand dollars apiece, which Rachel knows as well as I do. I'm lucky to be offered just
one
.

“I'm really sorry,” I say, “but I can't do that. And I thought you wanted to wear my dress from the New Year's gala.”

“Well, I tried it on and my butt looks flat,” Rachel replies. “And my chest does too. So how would you like
your
dream guy to see you and be like, ‘Whoa, is she ten years old?' Because that's exactly what he's going to think, and he's The Bod. He's perfect, so I've gotta look perfect too. Like a model. With a nice round butt.”

I'm already at a loss for words when The Bod himself knocks on my back door. We've been meeting there at night because the running path goes behind both of our communities, and the fewer people who see us together, the better. At least the majority of my neighbors are nice retired couples who don't seem to have a clue who I am, which suits me just fine.

I race to the door so Jake won't knock again, but only part the curtain and motion for him to wait a minute. “I understand that, Rachel, I do,” I tell her. “But I can't do any more about the dress issue. I have some good news for you though! You ready?”

“Yes! Always! What is it?” She's probably already guessed.

“While I was at the game yesterday, I talked to a friend, who has a friend who's on the crew for
Stars in Their Eyes
.” Rachel
screams, and I feel slightly less guilty for smiling at the faces Jake is now making through my kitchen window. “Anyway, this friend of mine is going to make some calls, and hopefully we can get you a foot in the door at the auditions. And you'll be amazing! I totally know you'll make it on the show.”