Sunset Boulevard (25 page)

"Oh my God," Kady squealed, running at Jake and jumping into his arms. "You look so hot!"

Amelie rolled her eyes as Kady wrapped her thighs around Jake's waist, her green leggings

wrinkling his Hugo Boss suit. Jake glanced at Amelie, smiling in a semi-embarrassed yet

proud way, as if to say,
Sorry for our public displays of affection. But not really.
Then he

turned away, kissing Kady deeply as she twirled one of his curls around her finger. To Amelie,

the towering Jake and petite Kady resembled a giraffe with a garden gnome attached.

She pressed her lips closed and paged through her copy of
Elle
, the ink thoroughly smudged

from multiple trips through the magazine. It wasn't even that great an issue. But it gave her

somewhere else to look. The weekend had passed, and Kake was still going strong.

"Hey, so why weren't you at the Polaroid House thing this weekend?" Jake asked, sliding on

the new pair of aviators Kady had given him at the party Saturday. Amelie didn't get why Jake

was so eager to adapt to every trend Kady told him was cool. The glasses made him look like

the dime-a-dozen wannabe actors who worked as personal trainers and office assistants at

every cheap-rent locale from North Hollywood to Atwater Village. At least he was talking to

her, though.

"I was busy," Amelie said, careful to smile only at Jake and not at Kady. "Had an in-store at

Barnes & Noble in San Diego for the new Fairy Princess book."

"Oh, that sucks," Jake said. She couldn't tell if he was looking at her through his reflective

lenses. "Wish you'd been there."

Kady looked at Amelie like she was a puppy who had just peed the carpet. Almost cute, even

when she disappointed you. "Amelie's
always
working, Jake," Kady said. "She's a machine.

All work and no play. Maybe we should find you a boyfriend, Am," she said playfully. With

that, she snaked her arms tighter around Jake's chest and rested her tiny face on his arm.

Amelie wanted to roll up her magazine and swat Kady away like a fly. Why the need to make

Amelie sound like the lamest person on earth? "Well, that was just on Saturday," she said.

"Sunday, I hung out with some friends." She was lying, since the only friends she'd spent time

with Sunday were Ben and Jerry.

Kady raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Who?" Her dark eyes twinkled mischievously as if she

saw right through Amelie. Amelie ripped the page she'd been staring at. An article about why

workplace romances fail.
Because you chose the wrong costar
was not among the reasons.

"Just some people," she said breezily. Suddenly she felt irrationally angry at Hunter for making

her leave Jake and Kady alone together in the first place. "Nobody you know." With that, she

jumped out of her canvas chair and walked away. She didn't have any more scenes today

anyway. Kady and Jake had to film their last scene together--the two of them finally a couple at

a big school dance, after Class Angel cleared Lizzie's name, helped her get into art school, and

won her the Big Man on Campus. After their PG-rated kiss, the movie would cut to Amelie in

her heavenly wonderland, beaming with pride at receiving a promotion from apprentice angel to

associate.

Why had she let Jake slip through her fingers? She stomped toward her trailer as much as a

pair of Ugg boots allowed a person to stomp. She was supposed to be waiting for Gary to

return from a meeting with the producers. But they could call her.

She stopped at the craft service table for a macchiato, Kady and Jake still making out in the

corner of her eye. A few feet away, Grant sat on the edge of the auditorium stage, his legion of

followers now reduced to the three most devoted: Billie, Talia, and Fortune.

The three girls waved, but Amelie pretended not to notice. Much as she would have liked to get

the girls' perspective on her situation, they were clearly occupied with Grant. Besides, hanging

out with them seemed almost pointless now that she knew she wouldn't be attending BHH. She

was headed for a destiny as an abject, loveless loser, surrounded by cats who listened to tales

of her glory days as Fairy Princess. Why rub it in by spending time with girls who would

never really be her friends?

"Grant, we were thinking. It's unfair Lizzie ends up with someone," Fortune said, twirling a

strand of hair in a way that looked painful. "And you don't. What if they rewrote the last scene

so that you get asked to dance by a girl? Or even, like, three?"

Talia and Billie nodded vigorously behind Fortune. "It would be soooo perfect," Talia said,

leaning onto the stage in a way that afforded Grant a view of her La Perla bra.

"I took ballroom dance with Fred Astaire's grand-nephew," Billie bragged.

Grant looked past the trio, at Amelie, his eyes practically flashing,
Help!
Amelie smirked as if

to say,
What can I do?

Grant put on his most charming smile. "Ladies, ladies," he said, shrugging apologetically. "It's

probably too late for a rewrite."

As she made her way to the auditorium doors, a thought occurred to Amelie. In this business, it

was never too late for a rewrite.

Amelie knocked on the door to the production trailer, where Gary was having his meeting. She

was glad to be wearing jeans, a beige V-neck, and her Uggs rather than an angel costume that

made her look like a couture-clad dessert.

A young studio executive swung open the trailer door, his smile displaying a set of oftwhitened teeth. He wore the guy equivalent of Amelie's outfit: blue Pumas, worn-in True

Religion jeans, and a vintage Philadelphia Phillies tee. Amelie recognized him immediately as

Sanjay Bhatt, a VP for Transnational's teen entertainment division.

"Amelie, hello," he said easily, welcoming her in. He gestured for her to sit in a chair across

from Gary and Devin Phillips,
Class Angel
's executive producer.

Gary squinted at her oddly. "What's going on, Amelie?" He was dressed up, for Gary. No hat,

a button-down shirt that was ironed and tucked, and khakis.

"Sorry for interrupting, but I had this idea over the weekend and wanted to run it by you,"

Amelie said, pushing a wayward curl from her eyes as the men regarded her with interest. "It's

about the ending. Another direction on this movie might really set Transnational apart."

Sanjay looked enthused. He leaned forward, his chin on the steeple of his hands. "I'm

intrigued," he said, casting a glance at Gary and Devin. "Go on."

Amelie cleared her throat, projecting a businesslike voice that echoed her mother's. "It seemed

to me it would be interesting, and surprising, if--in the last scene--Class Angel reveals herself

to Tommy. She explains to him that she's been pulling the strings, that she's in love with him

and that she can stay on earth as a normal girl if he'd just kiss her. Tommy would be entranced

and they'd kiss. Then in flashback we see that all along Angel was really pushing Lizzie toward

Knox. And by giving Angel a reason to stay on earth, we have franchise potential: Angel,

recently turned human, tries to navigate high school." She shrugged nonchalantly, as if it was a

random thought and not the event on which her happiness hinged. If she could just kiss Jake,

just once, she knew he'd feel what she felt. She needed this kiss to show him being with Kady

was all wrong. Jake was a cuddle-on-the-couch-watching-movies kind of guy, not a find-adark-corner-in-a-nightclub kind of guy. And he definitely wasn't a couple-nickname kind of

boyfriend. Kake was ridiculous. Jake needed to see that, and not waste time on Kady the way

Amelie had on Hunter.

"It would involve just a quick rewrite of the final few pages, maybe an endcap of Lizzie getting

together with Knox, so the audience sees how perfect they are for each other. Right now, it just

seems a little... pat," Amelie invented, knowing that executives hated to hear the word
pat
about

their films, even when it was true.

Sanjay's eyebrows raised, and Devin and Gary exchanged a look.

Devin smoothed the lapels of his bespoke suit. He was the best dressed of the three, which in

this town meant he was the least confident about how he did his job. "And what prompted this

idea?"

Amelie instantly thought of a story she'd scanned in the
Hollywood Reporter
that morning.

"
Frothed Up
, the teen comedy set in the magical coffee shop? It only made seven million and

opened fifth this weekend, even though the producers thought Selena Gomez and Nick Jonas

would put it at least second with twenty million," she quoted almost verbatim from the article.

"Audiences said they could see the ending coming ten seconds into the trailer. I mean, of

course Selena and Nick wind up together. We've fought predictability with
Class Angel
, casting

Jake as Tommy Archer and bringing on Grant. Think of the buzz we'd get if we take the

audience somewhere they're not expecting."

Devin sighed, holding his graying head in his hands. "What are we doing here?" he finally

muttered.

Amelie's heart thudded in her chest. She suddenly realized what she was doing: She was a

sixteen-year-old best known for playing a girl who rode pink, winged ponies, and now she

was telling a group of male bigwigs how to do their jobs? She was playing dangerously close

to the edge with her first teen role. What if she not only lost Jake but also gambled away her

career?

Gary stared at her, almost like he knew why she was bringing this up. He offered her a

sympathetic, fatherly smile.

Devin finally spoke again, not looking at her. "Sanj, I don't know what to do with these kids."

Amelie felt like she'd just been caught shoplifting. After years of being voted Most

Professional and Most Likely to Succeed, she was about to be fired for the first time. She'd be

blacklisted and turn up twenty years from now as a celebrity judge on some reality show about

glamorous toddlers. Maybe she'd get to go to high school in the meantime. But if her mother

heard about this, it would definitely be military school.

"Is this a good idea?" Devin said. He was looking at Sanjay. Amelie knew Devin's type. When

he'd started in the business, he'd probably been an "idea man" like Sanjay, but now that he was

in his forties, he'd convinced himself he needed the insights of a young up-and-comer.

Sanjay rubbed the back of his neck coolly. He was enjoying this dramatic pause. His eyes

traveled from Gary to Devin to Amelie, drawing out the suspense, like one of them was about

to be awarded a top secret prize on a high-stakes game show.

"Personally, I think it's a fantastic idea," he finally said. "It could up our buzz with the twelveto-eighteen demo. It's so unexpected and so meta. We should just try it. If it doesn't work, we

cut it, and it's still a great bonus feature for the DVD. Great idea, Amelie."

Devin nodded, like this had been obvious to him the whole time. "Exactly," he said. "I'll have

the writers do a few more pages, and we'll messenger them over in a couple days. Okay,

Gary?"

Gary raised both eyebrows, a look indecipherable to Amelie. He could easily break this idea by

citing budget overruns, scheduling problems, or even saying that Jake and Kady's grand finale

kiss was perfect and shouldn't be messed with. Amelie caught his eye and knew she looked

desperate. "Of course, it won't take long to shoot," he said.

Amelie grinned. It would take just long enough.