Unscripted (17 page)

“I thought these were college students.”

“They are.”

“Yeah, but I mean, you know, mature.”

“Most of them are still in their teens. Mentally, some of them haven’t left high school behind,” he added with a sigh.

“And here I thought I was in the clear because Kaylie isn’t in the class.”

Mason laughed outright at this. “That’d be a different kind of fun.”

“Is that what you call it?” I hesitated, bit my lip, then blurted out, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

He turned to me. “A crisis of confidence? You? I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Shows how much you know about me.”

He nodded and said, in a somber tone, “That’s true.”

Mason looked at me steadily, clear-eyed and calm, and I felt my heartbeat quicken.
No, wait,
the rational part of my brain insisted.
This is not the time to start the educational-institution version of Stockholm Syndrome.
And the rational part of my brain was quite correct. Trouble was, it was being overridden by the other parts of my body, which were suddenly on high alert and starting to purr. If I couldn’t get those parts under control, then it was best to drag my traitorous body out of the situation. Right away.

“Well—” I started, but didn’t have anything to finish with.

“Buy you lunch?”

SUPER bad idea.
“Oh! Uh, no. No, no, no thanks. I . . . don’t . . . eat lunch.”

“You don’t eat lunch?”

Weak excuse. That would be plausible if I disappeared when I turned sideways, like so many of the young women on my show. But I
so
didn’t. My shape made it quite clear I ate, and frequently. “Er, not this early, I mean.”

He nodded, and I got the feeling he saw right through my excuse. “See you back here Friday morning, then?”

“I understand there’s an advanced acting class this afternoon. Alex is probably in that one, right?”

“Ah.” He nodded again. “How could I forget? That’s why you’re here.”

Was it just my imagination, or did the glint in his eyes dim? Had to have been my imagination. Otherwise that would be silly. And dangerous. “Yep.”

“Yes, he is taking Advanced Acting. It meets every Monday and Wednesday afternoon, in the theater. But remember what I said—approach with caution. Don’t, you know, jump him.”

“Sounds like you’ve taken to believing what your students have been repeating.”

“Never without verification. Not even Internet gossip, even though it
must
be true, right?”

“Right.” Then a thought hit me. “Speaking of which, where can I find a Wi-Fi hotspot?”

“Wi-Fi? Lots of places. The library, the student center . . .”

“Student center—where’s that?”

“Center—”

“—of campus,” I finished for him. “Figures. Which white building should I be looking for?”

“The white one.” Before I could snipe back, he said, more helpfully, “Go out the front doors here and turn left. Follow the crowds. Look for a bunch of flagpoles.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” he said, stopping me as I turned to go, “if you need a computer, or some privacy, you’re welcome to use my office.”

“Oh, thanks, but . . . I’ve got my tablet.” I patted my bag. “And I’m fine at the student center. I . . . like the hustle and bustle.” Lordy—transparent lie.

Mason grinned and looked down at the desktop. “Alex doesn’t go to the student center much. He likes to keep a low profile.”

Dammit!
How was he able to read my mind like that? “I—I wasn’t—” I started to lie again, then gave up.

Glancing up at me, he nodded with another one of his all-knowing looks. “I’d better let you go, then. Guess I’ll see you later.”

Chapter 10

Once I was settled at a crumb-laden, coffee-ring-stained table in the middle of the student center, I fired up my tablet and started tapping furiously. Throwing “Faith Sinclair, Alex McNulty” into my search engine got me the usual plethora of links to entertainment news about the show, including feature stories about Alex, interviews with me, episode recaps, teasers—anything to do with
Modern Women,
really. Maybe that’s why I never saw any rumor about the two of us; the first bunch of links (of “about 3,360,000”) were all to legitimate news articles from professional Web sites. Then came the discussion forums, the fan sites—but they tended to focus on the show itself, not backstage stuff, except for maybe a blogger’s visit to the set (“squee!”)—and of course all the fanfic. Dear Lord, the fanfic. I’d need hip waders to get through all of it. What else could I possibly add to the search parameters in order to find one needle of gossip in the vast virtual haystack that was the Web? “Sex”? “Love”? “Hooking up”? They’d all be used in reference to the show’s plotlines. Hell, Sabrina even had a stalker story arc, so I couldn’t use that term (not that I’d want to—I was still pissed off at being accused of stalking Alex).“Obsessed”? As if.

In the end, I attacked it the old-fashioned way—by trolling through every last stinkin’ page of search results till I found it. And I found it, all right—after half an hour and twenty-eight pages of links. It was on a blog I’d never heard of—although, to be fair, I hadn’t heard of most of the blogs dedicated to news about
Modern Women,
since I was usually too busy to keep tabs on them—run by someone going by the name of “Mrs. McNulty.” Cute. Just like the pink-and-white color scheme and all the cartoon hearts practically obscuring the text. It was generic Alex-centric fan stuff—shirtless pics and the like. The piece I was looking for was on a pretty old page and it said, in its entirety, “David and Sabrina? Old news. How about David—or actually Alex—and Faith? As in Sinclair, as in the power behind the camera. Ew, right? I mean, Faith has a great show and all, but isn’t she way, WAY older than Alex? I mean, it’s like finding out a guy you have a crush on is going out with your MOM! Doesn’t matter, though, because I hear that even though they hooked up, Alex dumped her ass toot sweet.” (Yes, this member of the brain trust spelled it that way.) And it ended with this little tidbit: “Not enough alcohol in the world, amirite?”

Death to Mrs. McNulty.

The good thing was that the blog didn’t seem to get much traffic; this particular item had only a few responses, mainly of the “Ew yukkkk!” variety, along with the general “I love Alex!” squeals; it sounded like twelve-year-olds wrote all of the responses. I almost shrugged the whole thing off, but then I saw an addendum in the comments, also by “Mrs. McNulty,” that got me supremely irritated all over again: “Update! Word on the street is that Alex is out—yes, OUT. But not in a good way. (Sorry, Boyz Who Luv Alex!) I mean out of the show. For good and for realz. AND he’s been kicked off the show by none other than Faith herself, AND it’s because he wouldn’t be her boy toy. How’s THAT for news?”

So that’s what it felt like when your blood boiled.

Who
was
this twerp, and why was she spreading . . . okay, not exactly lies. Call it slander. Because I’d denied it at every turn, and I would continue to deny it, even with my dying breath. As far as anyone knew, there was no proof for any of this. That amounted to slander, right?

The only thing that calmed me down just a little bit was realizing how old all this stuff was. According to the dates of the comments, the thread fizzled right about the time that we carpet-bombed the entertainment outlets with the official story—that it was a mutual parting of ways, no hard feelings, blah blah blah—and nobody questioned it at the time. Plus it looked like this “Mrs. McNulty” didn’t have much influence in the blogosphere, because nobody repeated her news and, after that, her posts reverted to the usual fannish nonsense. Then, the longer Alex was absent from the public eye, the fewer and farther between the blog entries got, with the most recent entry from six months ago. It looked like this site was dead.

I still wanted the blogger to suffer the same fate, however.

I wondered if I could find out who it was, maybe get the blog taken down. But no. Making a fuss would only draw attention to it. Then, most likely, the blogger would waste no time trumpeting that Faith Sinclair herself was targeting her. I was going to have to pretend I hadn’t seen it and act like nothing had happened. Because, really, nothing had.

* * *

A few minutes before Alex’s acting class started, I slid into a seat in the middle of the house. Mason was teaching again, and it looked like Kaylie was being his Girl Friday, sticking by his side and making sure his papers were organized. Oh, Kaylie. So naïve. But I wasn’t going to be the one to enlighten her. Besides, what did I know? Maybe those two did have something going. Unethical, but none of my business. So instead of speculating, I sought out the back of Alex’s head.

I located it soon enough, as all the students were lined up in the first row of seats, waiting for Mason to start the class. My heartbeat picked up a little bit. Stupid, I know, but there it was, no denying it—I was nervous at the thought of seeing Alex after all this time. I wanted to talk to him, but then again, I didn’t.

But I’d handled worse in my life; I could do this. My plan was to approach him at a convenient time, say hi, find out what he’d been up to, then exit. Nice and cool. Lull him into a false sense of security, so I could hit him with my offer another time.

So I waited. Mason started the class, welcomed everyone back, passed around the attendance sheet, talked about the plans for the semester and his expectations. Because it was an advanced class, there weren’t too many preliminaries. Within minutes everyone jumped up onto the stage and started stretching, then doing vocal exercises.

I had to admit it was pretty interesting. On a TV show, we didn’t have an hour to spare for all the prep work—we just got right into the scene. It wasn’t just a cliché that time was money; it was a reality. So I could see why, as I watched the class do a bunch of “me ma moo my ma” noises to loosen up their mouth muscles, Alex would like this sort of thing: It focused on the actor, not the production. He could be as serious about it as he wanted without someone like me shouting at him to get a move on, hit his mark, and get the line right, then move on.

Alex turned to Kaylie, who stood next to him onstage, said something to her, and turned on his megawatt smile as he tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. She smiled back and blushed. Who could blame her? He still looked damned good. I didn’t know what I had been expecting—that he’d have become a pale, withered bookworm? I couldn’t believe I had let him go . . . from the
show,
from the
show
. I had to get him back. Had to.

I decided to talk to him about it right then and there, whether or not the class had started, and half stood to move out of the row and closer to the stage. Kaylie squinted into the house, spotted me, and sidled up to Mason, saying something to him while she kept her eye on me. I sat back down. I couldn’t hear her, but I just knew she was saying some variation of “What’s
she
doing here?” and likely adding “Want me to call security?” I was amused to see Mason hold up a placating hand and Kaylie giving him a miffed look.

Mason glanced over at me, saw me watching, and as Kaylie stalked off, grinned and winked at me. And so help me, my stomach turned over. What the hell? But there was just something so familiar, and intimate, about his gesture, that it sucker punched me right in the gut. What. The. Hell.

Honestly, I couldn’t grab Alex and get back to L.A., where I—where we both—belonged, fast enough. Before I lost my mind completely.

“Okay, everyone,” Mason called, clapping his hands once. “Let’s start by jumping in at the deep end, do a little improv.”

A couple of the students made excited noises, but others groaned and hung their heads. Even I knew it was a demanding exercise. I looked at Alex; he just appeared deep in thought, his arms crossed, one hand cradling his chin.

“Ah, come on, now!” Mason chided good-naturedly. “This is Advanced Acting! Time to show what you’re made of! Kaylie, Trina, you start. Do, um, mother and daughter—doesn’t matter who’s which. Start with ‘Mom, I have to tell you something,’ and end with ‘You don’t say!’ Keep it going till I say stop. Really build something.”

Immediately the two girls started frantically conferring with one another.

“No planning!” Mason shouted. “Do it on the fly! You ready? Go!”

The girls looked stricken but gamely took their places. Kaylie started with “Mom, I have to tell you something,” and they rambled for a fair amount of time.

Honestly, both of the girls were pretty awful, but I was impressed that they didn’t fold. They kept soldiering on, trying to make something of their exchange, pausing only when Mason edged over to the rest of the students and whispered something in one of the boys’ ears. When he caught the girls glancing over, he called, “Keep going!” and then nudged the third student into the mix.

This kid came in with the same line, “I have to tell you something,” and he was marginally better—maybe that was why Mason tossed him in there; he raised the energy of the exercise, forcing the girls to keep up.