eleiker-writes

[eleiker-writes]

“Press Tour” Chpt. 1, Pt. 1

Word count: 2,670

1 — Studio City, Ca.

Will is late, as usual.

I quickly grew accustomed to waiting anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes post call time for him on set, a production assistant having to run between his trailer, the hair and makeup trailer, or to whatever dive bar was closest the day we were filming to track him down.

The habit less annoyed me than it did put me on edge. He has the reputation and power to be looser, more carefree. I do not.

I wiggle the edge of my finger tip under the tab on my can of soda, careful not to use the nails I just had manicured a subtle pink as a holdover until the press tour starts. The top pops open with a fizz and I lift the can to my lips, taking a swig I know my mother would call unladylike.

Across the table from me, Kendall, Will’s newest manager, taps her pen anxiously against the open page of her planner, her eyes flitting to the watch on her opposite wrist.

Marissa, my own manager, hadn’t told me specifics of why we’d been called in to meet with the Warner Brothers marketing department three weeks before our limited tour was slated to begin, but she’d stressed the importance of me being there as if she thought I wouldn’t.

To be clear, I’d never not shown up somewhere Marissa told me to be.

The Warner Brothers CEO of marketing, the marketing team lead for the movie and a couple assistants sit down the table from us.

All four are still tapping away at their laptops. I take another sip of my drink.

When one of the assistants, a redhead who is likely my own age, or maybe a year younger, looks up, I shoot her a smile. She begins to smile back when a phone cuts the silence in the room.

It’s 12 minutes past 1 p.m.

“We’re just waiting on Will, sir,” the CEO of marketing says into the phone pressed against her ear. She’s probably in her mid-50s, and her long, dark, wavy hair contrasts her sharp features, now pinched as she listened to whoever is on the other end of the line.

“Kendall, do you know how long he’s going to —“

I notice Kendall is looking past me over my shoulder the same time everyone else in the room does.

Just outside the glass conference room, Will is strutting down the hallway, popping his head into doors, a wide grin plastered on his face. I’m not surprised that he either knows everyone here or is just cocky enough to know they’ll all want to say hi to him anyway.

Will Carter is going on his 12th straight year of being Hollywood’s hottest womanizer.

He’d broken out at just 21, playing Romeo Capulet under the direction of Luca Guadagnino just as Shakespeare started to take off again. Many said Will’s portrayal was better than Leo’s, that he balanced Romeo’s inherent shyness with his elating love for Juliet more aptly, but the styles of the films themselves were too different for me to feel there was a fair comparison.

Since then, he’d played every type of role an actor could want: brooding secret agent, sardonic superhero, love-lorn soldier, dumb jock.

He’d had every type of woman, too.

“He’s about to come in,” I hear the marketing CEO saying, though my eyes are still locked on Will through the glass. “Yes, we’ll get you phoned in to the entire room.”

I turn back toward the table just as Will reaches the door to the conference room and push my can to the side, the condensation spreading on the table in its wake.

“Hey, folks, how we all doing today?”

You can hear the charm in Will’s voice. Any amount of frustration percolating in the room in the now 13 minutes since our meeting was supposed to start begins dripping away.

“Jo, good to see you,” Will nods at me, his graham cracker eyes locking with mine.

I nod back, but he’s already moved on to Kendall, who he apologizes to profusely and then down to shake the hands of the Warner Brothers bunch.

“We appreciate you coming in, Mr. Carter. I know this isn’t typical to have talent sit in on marketing affairs, but we have a big idea that we’re going to need both of your cooperation on. Well, actually, Mr. Switzer, our company president has a big idea.” One of the assistants clicks a button on the telecom device in the center of the table. “Tom, you’re on the line.”

My brows pull together, a habit the new facialist my agent set me up with has been threatening to permanently fix with botox.

“Mr. Carter, Ms. Jasper, how are you both?” Tom’s voice booms out of the speaker.

“I’m well, thank you.”

“Doing great, Tom. How are the kids?” Will inquires as he sits down in the chair across from mine, next to Kendall.

He takes the hat he’d been wearing backwards off and sets it on the table in front of him, sweeping a hand through his amber hair. He has a crisp, plain white T-shirt on and a pair of vintage Levi’s, the outfit I saw him most in on set whenever we weren’t in costumes.

“They’re spectacular, Will. Thanks for asking. You know, this is a great segue – and I love a good segue – because I gave Sophia the poster for your guys’ movie. The one with the two of ya sitting on the park bench. She put it up on her wall immediately, and you know what she asked me?”

I glance over at Marissa, who notices my attempt at eye contact but doesn’t meet it. My stomach gurgles. I need to burp.

Tom barrels on without anyone hazarding a guess at his question.

“She asked me, ‘Dad, are Will and Johanna dating in real life? Like Josh McGuire and Charlie Patterson?’ Well that caught my ear. She’s only 12, not quite the target audience for the movie itself, but I said, ‘Would it make a difference if they were?’ It was like I took a wrecking ball to the Hoover Dam. She talked my ear off for about 20 minutes. ‘Of course it would make a difference, dad!’”

Tom laughs. My need to burp has turned into a need to be sick.

I look over at Will. His smile hasn’t faded entirely – I’m not sure it ever does – but he’s scratching at the 5 o’clock shadow that’s grown in on his chin.

“Sorry, Tom, I’m not really sure I know what you’re getting at,” Will says. “Jo and I, we aren’t –“

“We want you to fake date on the press tour,” the marketing lead for the movie cuts in.

Well, Will’s smile is gone now.

“That’s the term!” Tom interjects. “Thank you, Ebony, I knew you had told me it before but I couldn’t remember. Fake dating. Guess it’s pretty straight forward, huh?”

If Tom’s expecting any sort of response, he doesn’t get one. Will is frowning, and the Warner Brothers people are avoiding eye contact with anyone in the room but each other. I turn the ring on my index finger incessantly, trying to figure out a way to shut this down.

“I’m going to let you folks all work out the finer details. I just wanted to give you the backstory. I know you actors love a good backstory. I’ll see you both at the LA premiere. Bye for now.”

Tom’s line drops to static, and one of the assistants clicks it off again.

“I don’t know that this is the best idea,” I say.

I’m surprised the words leave my mouth, and Will clearly is, too, though he backs me up immediately: “I’m with Jo. No one’s even going to buy it anyway.”

“They might not buy it at first,” Ebony counters, “but your on-screen chemistry was one of the parts of the movie that rated highest in test screenings. You can make it happen again.”

“We were playing parts, it’s not the same when we’re just ourselves,” I argue. “I can’t pretend to date someone.”

All of a sudden, the urge to be sick overwhelms me and I stand, running to exit the conference room and enter the bathroom I saw right around the corner when I came in. I push the handle all the way up on the sink and hold my wrists under the cold water.

Marissa is quick on my heels.

“Jo? Are you okay?”

I try not to sound angry as I interrogate her. “Did you know? Why didn’t you tell me? Why do we not get a say?”

Marissa pulls a handful of brown paper towels out of the dispenser and places them next to the sink for me like a peace offering.

“I only found out yesterday when Kevin gave me the meeting to add to your agenda. I did try to push back but he said that wasn’t an option since it was coming directly from Switzer himself.”

Kevin is my agent, a younger guy but working at an established firm in Hollywood and whose father was one of the industry’s best before he died of a heart attack three years ago.

“I made Kevin promise you were going to be given some say in the specifics, and he said he’d already made sure they weren’t going to ask you for anything that would make you too uncomfortable when they sent over the first proposal,” Marissa continues. “No sex tapes or anything like that.”

Marissa must see the blood dropping out of my face because she hastily adds, “That was a joke!”

I finally turn off the tap and begin to pat my hands and wrists dry. In the mirror, I see that water has splashed on to the front of my ivory-colored linen dress. I sigh.

“I really don’t know if I can do it.”

“Because of Brian?”

I dip my chin, just a little, and nod.

Marissa takes both my hands in hers. “We’ll figure it out as we go. Make it as painless as possible for everyone. And Kevin and I and Will’s team worked out some things with the studio, extra perks, let’s say.”

After another moment, Marissa backs away and opens the door for me. I lead the way out and back into the conference room, smoothing my dress as I do and hoping the warmth of my hands somehow magically dries the water marks.

“Sorry about that, everyone,” I say softly when I re-enter the room.

I might be imagining it, but when Will glances over at me across the table, his look seems to ask if I’m okay. I offer a faint smile, and he looks back toward a packet of papers he’s now holding in his hand.

Marissa slides an identical one in front of me.

“No worries, Ms. Carter. We know this is a big ask of both of you,” Ebony says. “Jenn’s going to go over a few of the bigger details and then we can answer any questions.”

Ebony and the marketing CEO walk us through the multi-page plan.

The biggest thing is they’re adding five cities to the tour. Originally we were only going to have stops in London, New York City and here in LA, with the first and last each having its own premiere. Now we’re starting in Mexico City, hitting Paris while we’re in Europe, going to Toronto between our U.S. dates and then flying to Tokyo and Sydney.

The additions mean we’re leaving 10 days earlier than planned, which is a week from now. And because they want the rumors to start swirling before we actually get on tour, they’re asking us to spend a night out together here. No need to tip off papparazzi, Ebony said, they all follow Will anyway.

They don’t want us to come out and say we’re dating, as that would apparently take away the fun for the fans. I guess I can understand, though I enjoyed plenty knowing Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were dating during their Spider-Man run.

There should be lots of Will’s hands on my back, my hip, my knee – wherever I’m comfortable. Helping fix my hair at photo calls and on carpets. I’m supposed to make sure I laugh at anything he says that could be remotely funny. When reporters undoubtedly ask our relationship status, we’re supposed to share “knowing glances” – that was literally the phrase written on the paper — and deny, deny, deny. But playfully. And not too vehemently.

I feel like I should have been taking notes, but I’ve been using my now-empty soda can like a stress ball instead.

Just as Ebony starts to explain how in one of the later cities, probably New York or Toronto, we’re supposed to make it look like one of us has spent the night in the hotel room of the other, my fingers tighten around the can a bit too much, and instead of the persistent but quiet popping it’d been doing under my grip, it folds with a loud crunch.

Ebony stops mid-sentence. I’m about to apologize when Will cuts me off.

“So what’s in it for us?” he asks. “Not to speak for both of us, Jo, but this is a big ask. We have personal lives. This isn’t just going to stop when the movie leaves theaters. It could follow us forever.”

God, I hadn’t even thought that far ahead.

“You’re right, Mr. Carter,” Ebony says. “And we do have a plan for how to rollout an amicable breakup a month to two after the initial reaction to the movie wears off.

“As for what’s in it for you, it’s two-fold. First, we think it will be reputationally beneficial. This is set to be Johanna’s biggest release of her career so far. It’s a way to open up the audience on the movie, get more eyes on both the movie and her. And for you, Will, your team told us you’re looking to drop the playboy image. If we all play the cards right here, this should help with that.”

I bring my hand to my face both to wipe the sweat off my upper lip and to make sure my mouth isn’t hanging open in shock. Will trying to drop his playboy act is news to me.

“Second, Mr. Switzer has agreed we’ll pay each of you an 8% share of the movie’s box office profits. You both should thank your agents; they talked Mr. Switzer into the extra 3%. We hope that satisfies you both.”

A profit share is near unheard of for anyone who hasn’t been in the industry for at least 30 years or hasn’t been a part of several billion-dollar box offices. We were already payed well for this, too, and Will likely more than me.

Will looks at me from across the table. “What do you think, Jo?”

I glance over at Marissa, who offers me a smile and a small nod.

I’m still not entirely sold. I have doubts about how easy it will be to convince people, and whether it will actually be as much of a boost to either of our reputations when we end up “breaking up” two months after the tour anyway. I’m worried about Will keeping up the act as we travel the world with women of all ages ogling him at every stop, and how much of a fool I’ll look like if he can’t.

I know it will undoubtedly raze any chance of getting back with Brian, who will see this as his worst fear come true and won’t be able to believe me when I tell him it’s fake, even if he wants to.

But while I’ve grown more comfortable speaking up for and protecting myself in my career, in part thanks to this project, saying no to this could damage my relationship with the studio.

“I’m in if you are, Will.”

[eleiker-writes]

“Press Tour” Chpt. 1, Pt. 1

Word count: 2,670

1 — Studio City, Ca.

Will is late, as usual.

I quickly grew accustomed to waiting anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes post call time for him on set, a production assistant having to run between his trailer, the hair and makeup trailer, or to whatever dive bar was closest the day we were filming to track him down.

The habit less annoyed me than it did put me on edge. He has the reputation and power to be looser, more carefree. I do not.

I wiggle the edge of my finger tip under the tab on my can of soda, careful not to use the nails I just had manicured a subtle pink as a holdover until the press tour starts. The top pops open with a fizz and I lift the can to my lips, taking a swig I know my mother would call unladylike.

Across the table from me, Kendall, Will’s newest manager, taps her pen anxiously against the open page of her planner, her eyes flitting to the watch on her opposite wrist.

Marissa, my own manager, hadn’t told me specifics of why we’d been called in to meet with the Warner Brothers marketing department three weeks before our limited tour was slated to begin, but she’d stressed the importance of me being there as if she thought I wouldn’t.

To be clear, I’d never not shown up somewhere Marissa told me to be.

The Warner Brothers CEO of marketing, the marketing team lead for the movie and a couple assistants sit down the table from us.

All four are still tapping away at their laptops. I take another sip of my drink.

When one of the assistants, a redhead who is likely my own age, or maybe a year younger, looks up, I shoot her a smile. She begins to smile back when a phone cuts the silence in the room.

It’s 12 minutes past 1 p.m.

“We’re just waiting on Will, sir,” the CEO of marketing says into the phone pressed against her ear. She’s probably in her mid-50s, and her long, dark, wavy hair contrasts her sharp features, now pinched as she listened to whoever is on the other end of the line.

“Kendall, do you know how long he’s going to —“

I notice Kendall is looking past me over my shoulder the same time everyone else in the room does.

Just outside the glass conference room, Will is strutting down the hallway, popping his head into doors, a wide grin plastered on his face. I’m not surprised that he either knows everyone here or is just cocky enough to know they’ll all want to say hi to him anyway.

Will Carter is going on his 12th straight year of being Hollywood’s hottest womanizer.

He’d broken out at just 21, playing Romeo Capulet under the direction of Luca Guadagnino just as Shakespeare started to take off again. Many said Will’s portrayal was better than Leo’s, that he balanced Romeo’s inherent shyness with his elating love for Juliet more aptly, but the styles of the films themselves were too different for me to feel there was a fair comparison.

Since then, he’d played every type of role an actor could want: brooding secret agent, sardonic superhero, love-lorn soldier, dumb jock.

He’d had every type of woman, too.

“He’s about to come in,” I hear the marketing CEO saying, though my eyes are still locked on Will through the glass. “Yes, we’ll get you phoned in to the entire room.”

I turn back toward the table just as Will reaches the door to the conference room and push my can to the side, the condensation spreading on the table in its wake.

“Hey, folks, how we all doing today?”

You can hear the charm in Will’s voice. Any amount of frustration percolating in the room in the now 13 minutes since our meeting was supposed to start begins dripping away.

“Jo, good to see you,” Will nods at me, his graham cracker eyes locking with mine.

I nod back, but he’s already moved on to Kendall, who he apologizes to profusely and then down to shake the hands of the Warner Brothers bunch.

“We appreciate you coming in, Mr. Carter. I know this isn’t typical to have talent sit in on marketing affairs, but we have a big idea that we’re going to need both of your cooperation on. Well, actually, Mr. Switzer, our company president has a big idea.” One of the assistants clicks a button on the telecom device in the center of the table. “Tom, you’re on the line.”

My brows pull together, a habit the new facialist my agent set me up with has been threatening to permanently fix with botox.

“Mr. Carter, Ms. Jasper, how are you both?” Tom’s voice booms out of the speaker.

“I’m well, thank you.”

“Doing great, Tom. How are the kids?” Will inquires as he sits down in the chair across from mine, next to Kendall.

He takes the hat he’d been wearing backwards off and sets it on the table in front of him, sweeping a hand through his amber hair. He has a crisp, plain white T-shirt on and a pair of vintage Levi’s, the outfit I saw him most in on set whenever we weren’t in costumes.

“They’re spectacular, Will. Thanks for asking. You know, this is a great segue – and I love a good segue – because I gave Sophia the poster for your guys’ movie. The one with the two of ya sitting on the park bench. She put it up on her wall immediately, and you know what she asked me?”

I glance over at Marissa, who notices my attempt at eye contact but doesn’t meet it. My stomach gurgles. I need to burp.

Tom barrels on without anyone hazarding a guess at his question.

“She asked me, ‘Dad, are Will and Johanna dating in real life? Like Josh McGuire and Charlie Patterson?’ Well that caught my ear. She’s only 12, not quite the target audience for the movie itself, but I said, ‘Would it make a difference if they were?’ It was like I took a wrecking ball to the Hoover Dam. She talked my ear off for about 20 minutes. ‘Of course it would make a difference, dad!’”

Tom laughs. My need to burp has turned into a need to be sick.

I look over at Will. His smile hasn’t faded entirely – I’m not sure it ever does – but he’s scratching at the 5 o’clock shadow that’s grown in on his chin.

“Sorry, Tom, I’m not really sure I know what you’re getting at,” Will says. “Jo and I, we aren’t –“

“We want you to fake date on the press tour,” the marketing lead for the movie cuts in.

Well, Will’s smile is gone now.

“That’s the term!” Tom interjects. “Thank you, Ebony, I knew you had told me it before but I couldn’t remember. Fake dating. Guess it’s pretty straight forward, huh?”

If Tom’s expecting any sort of response, he doesn’t get one. Will is frowning, and the Warner Brothers people are avoiding eye contact with anyone in the room but each other. I turn the ring on my index finger incessantly, trying to figure out a way to shut this down.

“I’m going to let you folks all work out the finer details. I just wanted to give you the backstory. I know you actors love a good backstory. I’ll see you both at the LA premiere. Bye for now.”

Tom’s line drops to static, and one of the assistants clicks it off again.

“I don’t know that this is the best idea,” I say.

I’m surprised the words leave my mouth, and Will clearly is, too, though he backs me up immediately: “I’m with Jo. No one’s even going to buy it anyway.”

“They might not buy it at first,” Ebony counters, “but your on-screen chemistry was one of the parts of the movie that rated highest in test screenings. You can make it happen again.”

“We were playing parts, it’s not the same when we’re just ourselves,” I argue. “I can’t pretend to date someone.”

All of a sudden, the urge to be sick overwhelms me and I stand, running to exit the conference room and enter the bathroom I saw right around the corner when I came in. I push the handle all the way up on the sink and hold my wrists under the cold water.

Marissa is quick on my heels.

“Jo? Are you okay?”

I try not to sound angry as I interrogate her. “Did you know? Why didn’t you tell me? Why do we not get a say?”

Marissa pulls a handful of brown paper towels out of the dispenser and places them next to the sink for me like a peace offering.

“I only found out yesterday when Kevin gave me the meeting to add to your agenda. I did try to push back but he said that wasn’t an option since it was coming directly from Switzer himself.”

Kevin is my agent, a younger guy but working at an established firm in Hollywood and whose father was one of the industry’s best before he died of a heart attack three years ago.

“I made Kevin promise you were going to be given some say in the specifics, and he said he’d already made sure they weren’t going to ask you for anything that would make you too uncomfortable when they sent over the first proposal,” Marissa continues. “No sex tapes or anything like that.”

Marissa must see the blood dropping out of my face because she hastily adds, “That was a joke!”

I finally turn off the tap and begin to pat my hands and wrists dry. In the mirror, I see that water has splashed on to the front of my ivory-colored linen dress. I sigh.

“I really don’t know if I can do it.”

“Because of Brian?”

I dip my chin, just a little, and nod.

Marissa takes both my hands in hers. “We’ll figure it out as we go. Make it as painless as possible for everyone. And Kevin and I and Will’s team worked out some things with the studio, extra perks, let’s say.”

After another moment, Marissa backs away and opens the door for me. I lead the way out and back into the conference room, smoothing my dress as I do and hoping the warmth of my hands somehow magically dries the water marks.

“Sorry about that, everyone,” I say softly when I re-enter the room.

I might be imagining it, but when Will glances over at me across the table, his look seems to ask if I’m okay. I offer a faint smile, and he looks back toward a packet of papers he’s now holding in his hand.

Marissa slides an identical one in front of me.

“No worries, Ms. Carter. We know this is a big ask of both of you,” Ebony says. “Jenn’s going to go over a few of the bigger details and then we can answer any questions.”

Ebony and the marketing CEO walk us through the multi-page plan.

The biggest thing is they’re adding five cities to the tour. Originally we were only going to have stops in London, New York City and here in LA, with the first and last each having its own premiere. Now we’re starting in Mexico City, hitting Paris while we’re in Europe, going to Toronto between our U.S. dates and then flying to Tokyo and Sydney.

The additions mean we’re leaving 10 days earlier than planned, which is a week from now. And because they want the rumors to start swirling before we actually get on tour, they’re asking us to spend a night out together here. No need to tip off papparazzi, Ebony said, they all follow Will anyway.

They don’t want us to come out and say we’re dating, as that would apparently take away the fun for the fans. I guess I can understand, though I enjoyed plenty knowing Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were dating during their Spider-Man run.

There should be lots of Will’s hands on my back, my hip, my knee – wherever I’m comfortable. Helping fix my hair at photo calls and on carpets. I’m supposed to make sure I laugh at anything he says that could be remotely funny. When reporters undoubtedly ask our relationship status, we’re supposed to share “knowing glances” – that was literally the phrase written on the paper — and deny, deny, deny. But playfully. And not too vehemently.

I feel like I should have been taking notes, but I’ve been using my now-empty soda can like a stress ball instead.

Just as Ebony starts to explain how in one of the later cities, probably New York or Toronto, we’re supposed to make it look like one of us has spent the night in the hotel room of the other, my fingers tighten around the can a bit too much, and instead of the persistent but quiet popping it’d been doing under my grip, it folds with a loud crunch.

Ebony stops mid-sentence. I’m about to apologize when Will cuts me off.

“So what’s in it for us?” he asks. “Not to speak for both of us, Jo, but this is a big ask. We have personal lives. This isn’t just going to stop when the movie leaves theaters. It could follow us forever.”

God, I hadn’t even thought that far ahead.

“You’re right, Mr. Carter,” Ebony says. “And we do have a plan for how to rollout an amicable breakup a month to two after the initial reaction to the movie wears off.

“As for what’s in it for you, it’s two-fold. First, we think it will be reputationally beneficial. This is set to be Johanna’s biggest release of her career so far. It’s a way to open up the audience on the movie, get more eyes on both the movie and her. And for you, Will, your team told us you’re looking to drop the playboy image. If we all play the cards right here, this should help with that.”

I bring my hand to my face both to wipe the sweat off my upper lip and to make sure my mouth isn’t hanging open in shock. Will trying to drop his playboy act is news to me.

“Second, Mr. Switzer has agreed we’ll pay each of you an 8% share of the movie’s box office profits. You both should thank your agents; they talked Mr. Switzer into the extra 3%. We hope that satisfies you both.”

A profit share is near unheard of for anyone who hasn’t been in the industry for at least 30 years or hasn’t been a part of several billion-dollar box offices. We were already payed well for this, too, and Will likely more than me.

Will looks at me from across the table. “What do you think, Jo?”

I glance over at Marissa, who offers me a smile and a small nod.

I’m still not entirely sold. I have doubts about how easy it will be to convince people, and whether it will actually be as much of a boost to either of our reputations when we end up “breaking up” two months after the tour anyway. I’m worried about Will keeping up the act as we travel the world with women of all ages ogling him at every stop, and how much of a fool I’ll look like if he can’t.

I know it will undoubtedly raze any chance of getting back with Brian, who will see this as his worst fear come true and won’t be able to believe me when I tell him it’s fake, even if he wants to.

But while I’ve grown more comfortable speaking up for and protecting myself in my career, in part thanks to this project, saying no to this could damage my relationship with the studio.

“I’m in if you are, Will.”