“I’m . . . not sure if that’s terrible or maybe sort of healthy,” he says.
“It’s not, because you saw what happened. Millions of people have seen it. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“So, what happened?” he asks. But then quickly adds, “I mean, if you want to talk about it. We don’t have to.”
I rest my chin on the tops of my knees, watching the embers of the fire dancing in the sea breeze. I think talking about it might ruin this lovely night, and I definitely don’t want to ruin it. But also, I kind of do want to tell Briggs. Mostly because he’s not expecting anything, and I don’t think he’d judge me. Actually, I’m pretty sure of that. He’s seen the video, after all, and he was madder about the possibility that I was cheating on freaking Declan Stone than about my viral actions.
I haven’t fully said out loud what went down that day on set. I didn’t want to feel the shame of it, mostly. Maybe if I did, though, it would set it free. I could release all the feelings and emotions from that day that have been sitting deep inside me somewhere.
I sigh. “To give you the full picture, I’ll have to go back to the beginning of my career.”
“Okay,” he says, turning just slightly in his chair, demonstrating that I have his full attention.
Actually, that’s kind of a unique thing about Briggs. He listens—like genuinely listens. In my world, people are always half listening to you, their minds always on other things, or looking at their phones, trying to multitask. Ill-mannered Betty with her big-brimmed hat was right about no one looking up anymore. It’s a sad fact.
“So, I have a very . . . interesting relationship with my mom,” I start. “When I first got signed, she was very supportive of everything. She made sure every contract we signed was good, worked with my agent because I was too young to do it myself, and she hired any staff I needed. She had my back, for the most part. And then, I’m not sure when it shifted, or if it had always been that way and I just finally noticed, but my acting career had become basically her entire personality.”
It was more than that, really. Didi Shermerhorn sort of became obsessed with it all. My career was her career. My highs were her highs, and my lows . . . well, those were all mine. She was, and I guess still is, the quintessential stage mom.
“Anyway,” I continue. “I’ve been working pretty much nonstop since I was fourteen, hence why I may have never had a s’more—the jury’s still out on that—with only a few breaks here and there. Don’t get me wrong, that sounds like I hate it, but I really do enjoy my career. I love acting; it’s hard at times for sure, but it’s also a lot of fun.”
“Is that what you wanted to be when you were younger? An actress?”
I shake my head. “No, I wanted to be a heart surgeon, actually.”
“Really?” Briggs asks, a soft smile on his face.
“Right up until I did my first play in middle school, which was basically how I got started. But”—I hold up an index finger—“I did get to play a heart surgeon in a movie once. It was on a pirate spaceship, and I was a green alien doctor.”
“Galactic Heist?”
“That’s the one,” I say. “Getting into that makeup was not fun. It took three hours. But still, I loved it. I love acting. I don’t care about the other stuff—the fame or the money, although that is nice.”
“I’m glad you added that caveat,” he says.
“But it’s not why I do it.”
He nods, a quick dip of his chin showing me he understands, that he gets it. “So, back to your mom.”
“Right,” I say, giving him a single nod. “So, I’ve basically been working for fifteen years straight with hardly a break, not getting to go to regular school, and most of my time off was spent with my dad, because that’s all I’d have time for.”
“Are you close to him?”
I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “I guess. I mean, I love him—he’s my dad. But he’s kind of played a side character in my life rather than a main one.”
“That’s pretty sad,” Briggs says.
“Yeah, but we’re good,” I say. And we are. I love my dad, and he loves me. He may not have been a prominent figure in my life for the past while, but he’s always been there, in the background. Calling me occasionally, sending me supportive messages.
After everything went down on my last set, I sent him a text telling him I was going offline, and he wrote back right away telling me that if I needed him for anything to please reach out. I almost considered hiding out with him at his house, but my mom would have bullied it out of him. She can be a tyrant, my mother.
“So, anyway, I had filmed three movies since last June, ones where I had big roles. Lots of hours on set, all three were very physically taxing, and I even shot a couple of smaller parts for other movies.”
“Five movies in a year?” Briggs asks, and he doesn’t sound impressed exactly—more like it’s hard to believe.
“Yeah,” I say, bobbing my head up and down. It’s hard even for me to wrap my brain around it. “I needed a long break. I’ve needed one for a while. I landed that big role that I may or may not still have, and I was finishing up my last movie and there were no press tours coming up. Suddenly I had an entire summer with nothing going on. So, I planned to go to Europe for a month or maybe two and do absolutely nothing that had to do with acting or any of the stuff surrounding it. I wanted to travel and see things with no one to tell me what I was obligated to do, and I had lots of plans, a whole itinerary full. I’m sure I would have had run-ins with fans and possibly paparazzi, because that’s part of the job, but I was going to try to stay away from it if I could. I was going to be on a hiatus of sorts. A little summer hiatus.”
“Hey, but you did sort of get one,” Briggs says, his arms outstretched, palms up.
I smile. “I did, but . . . it wasn’t exactly how I planned it.”
“It’s not so bad, right?”
I reach over and give his hand a squeeze. “It’s not so bad at all, actually.”
It’s really not. I’m on a small island, hanging out with a handsome man, and there are no paparazzi, or anything like it, around me. No movie sets or publicists telling me where I need to be. And there’s no Mom, trying to run my career. If I didn’t have the whole viral video hanging over my head, it might actually be idyllic. Exactly what I needed.
“Where were you going to go?” he asks, turning his palm over and intertwining our fingers, which sends a little tingle down my spine.
“Italy,” I say. “I’ve been to Venice before, to shoot a movie. I did a few touristy things during my downtime, but it was barely scratching the surface.”
“I’m assuming your plans were thwarted.”
“Right, yes. So, I was planning my trip, and none of my friends could go with me.” My so-called friends, I want to add, but I don’t. “And I thought, maybe I should ask my mom to join me for part of it. With all the work I’d been doing, and her basically managing my career, I was feeling sort of disconnected from her. Like our mother-daughter relationship was more like client-manager.”
“I get that,” Briggs says. “My mom is a tough boss.”
This makes me cackle. Like, the laugh that comes out of me sounds more witchlike than human. “She seems like she’d be hard to work for,” I say, sarcasm evident in my tone.
