Chapter Five

Amelia

“Cut,” the director sighed, taking of his violet-tinted glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Amelia, why don’t you take a break? Everyone else, let’s pick up from scene twenty-five, Damon’s offer.”

Humiliation: if anyone deserved to copyright that shit, it was me.

I knew it was bad when even Ollie didn’t have words as I walked back to my chair. He handed me my phone, a bottle of water, and shades, because apparently I was so goddamn bad today that he was going to have to make up some excuse.

“Is she hungover or something?” someone whispered much more loudly than they needed to. But I kept my head down and scrolled through Tumblr, because I didn’t have the heart to get on Twitter. We were in the Art Institute of Chicago. Only a section of it had been closed, but I was willing to bet that some fans had managed to capture my shitty display to provide yet another reason that I didn’t deserve to be here.

“Action!” the director called again, and I looked up to see a woman dressed in a tight red dress and black heels standing beside Noah¸ who was dressed in a fitted gray suit, vest, and blue tie. He was probably uncomfortable as hell, but if he was, he didn’t show it. With ease, that smug smile of his spread across his face as he leaned closer to her.

“How much do you think this painting is worth?” he questioned.

Brushing her fingertips over the tops of the pearls around her neck, the woman pretended to think.

“Probably a few million?” she offered.

“Wrong,” he replied.

“The same price as that suit?”

“Still wrong, but cute,” he said with a wink, and I wondered how “Blair” would feel about them flirting out in the open like this.

“Well then, Mr. Shaw, tell me. What is the painting worth?”

Raising his hand, he pointed to the corner of the frame. “It’s a trick question, because the painting is worthless.”

“Worthless? That’s impossible.”

“Why? Because it’s in a museum?” he questioned, turning to face the piece. “The truth is, museums don’t buy art. They buy names. Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse. Whether it makes sense or not, whether it’s beautiful or tragic—as long as there is a name that matters in one of those four little corners, it is as good as gold.”

“Why are you telling me this?” the woman asked.

“Because you’re going to help me steal a name. I’ll be in touch, Ms. Beaulieu.” He pulled out his phone, as his character was supposed to be talking, and causally walked off scene.

“Cut. Brilliant. I liked the wink, Noah,” the director yelled, rising from his chair as the makeup artist went to the woman in red.

“Don’t you think she’d make an amazing Blair?” the same bitch, not evening bothering to whisper this time, said beside me.

I saw Ollie move to talk to her, but I shook my head. The last thing I needed was to be a talentless actress and a diva. Handing him the water, I stood up and walked away myself.

“Don’t let anyone notice you,” Ollie called out, but I was too focused on my own thoughts to care. Anyone watching today would have thought I was the one who had a fight with my father in the hall and spent the morning shaking on my bedroom floor. It was like it never happened for him, none of it.

In all of my other scenes, I was fine. But in the ones with Noah, I just couldn’t focus, and if I couldn’t separate my personal and private life, what kind of actress was I to begin with? I’d always thought of myself as a professional. Yeah, a professional idiot.

Taking out my phone, I dialed the one of four people I had on my contact list.

“Well if it isn’t Blair Hawthorne,” Mayko laughed on the other side of the phone.

“Oh, not you, too!” I groaned.

“Everyone is a sinner,” she recited the tagline of the book and now movie.

“Shouldn’t you be building a rocket ship for NASA or something and not reading smut?” Her dream was to become a rocket scientist, go to space, and build a colony on Mars.

“Why can’t I do both?”

Giggling, I shook my head. “How are you?”

“Well, I was great until my older sister called me at seven in the morning.”

“Shit, the time difference. I’m so sorry, Mayko.”

“It’s okay—”

“It’s not okay,” a male voice muttered on the other side of the phone.

“Who was that?” I asked, puzzled.

“The reason I don’t have to read smut,” she giggled, followed by a few other noises that I did not feel comfortable identifying. “Sis, I’ll call you back, okay? Antigone was up all last night, so I’ll let her know you called when she is alive…Kevin…oh my god…haha!”

The line dropped right after that, and I was too stunned say anything.

“Wow, you really have no shame.”

When I spun around, there, in torn blue jeans, flip flops, and a black shirt, was a man glaring so intensely you would have thought I had insulted his mother, his father, and all of his ancestors. His hair was pulled back into a bun, and he had a five o’clock shadow that looked like it had reached its twelfth hour.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry, was I interrupting your phone call? Here I was just trying to appreciate the piece of art you are standing in front of…still.”

Following his gaze, I saw the blue painting he was so passionate about and took a step to the right.

“Better, your majesty?” The sarcasm dripped from my lips as I practically bowed.

“Well, now that you’ve moved—”

“You really are an ass,” I said before laughing for some reason. I could not catch a break today.

He laughed and shrugged. “It’s all about perspective. Here I was, silently trying to enjoy Picasso, when some strange woman in shoes she can barely walk in starts mouthing off about smut. And to top it all, she’s wearing sunglasses inside a museum.”

“I can walk fine, thank you very much!” I said, taking off my shades.

Again, he chuckled at me. “That’s the only thing you have a problem with? Not the rudely interrupting my view or talking about smut or the glasses?”

I nodded, proudly crossing my arms. “Yes, because I can fix the other things, but if I still haven’t mastered how to walk in heels at twenty-five, there is no hope.”

As I spoke, couldn’t help but laugh, brushing my hair behind my ears. “Okay, I apologize for being—”

“An ass,” he finished for me.

My mouth dropped open, and he waited.

“Fine. I’m sorry for being an ass.”

“Apology accepted. I’m Léo.” He extended his hand, and I tried to remember the last time I had to introduce myself.

“Amelia.” I shook his hand. His palm was hard, and I noticed his hands had paint and graphite on them. Not too far from the windows was a sketchpad. “Are you an artist, Léo?”

“What gave me away? What are you doing in an art gallery if you don’t like art, Amelia?” he questioned, moving to get his bag and supplies.

“What makes you think I don’t like art?”

To that, his eyebrow rose.

“It’s not that I don’t like art,” I said. “I’ve just never really understood it. I’m more of a words person.”

“You don’t think there are words in that paint?” He frowned, rising again. He stepped right in front of me, placing his hands on my shoulders.

“What are you—”

He turned me to face the painting. “What do you see?”

“A man holding a guitar,” I replied.

“Okay, but what do you feel when you see it?”

“I—”

“Shh!” he cut me off.

“Did you just—”

“Shh,” he shushed me a second time with a laugh. “Just stare at it. Imagine it’s someone you love, and you walked in to them like this. They didn’t say a single word. They just stayed frozen like this.”

Tilting my head to the side, I did what he asked and tried to see someone in the image, but the person I saw bothered me too much to keep staring.

“What would you ask?” he asked softly.

“Why are you so blue?” I joked.