The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [2]
Buster emptied his pockets of the pennies he had taken earlier and lined them up in two equal stacks. He and his sister then took turns tossing them back into the fountains, each making wishes that they hoped were simple enough to come true.
Chapter One
As soon as Annie walked onto the set, someone informed her that she would need to take her top off.
“Excuse me?” Annie said.
“Yeah,” the woman continued, “we’re gonna be shooting this one with no shirt on.”
“Who are you?” Annie asked.
“I’m Janey,” the woman said.
“No,” Annie said, feeling as if maybe she had walked onto the wrong set. “What is your job on the movie?”
Janey frowned. “I’m the script supervisor. We’ve talked several times. Remember, a few days ago I was telling you about the time my uncle tried to kiss me?”
Annie did not remember this at all. “So, you supervise the script?” Annie asked.
Janey nodded, smiling.
“My copy of the script does not mention nudity for this scene.”
“Well,” Janey said. “It’s kind of open-ended, I think. It’s a judgment call.”
“Nobody said anything when we rehearsed it,” Annie said.
Janey simply shrugged.
“And Freeman said I’m supposed to take my top off?” Annie asked.
“Oh yeah,” Janey said. “First thing this morning, he comes over to me and says, ‘Tell Annie that she needs to be topless in the next shot.’ ”
“Where is Freeman right now?”
Janey looked around. “He said he was going to find someone to procure a very specific kind of sandwich.”
Annie walked into an empty stall in the bathroom and called her agent. “They want me to get naked,” she said. “Absolutely not,” said Tommy, her agent. “You’re nearly an A-list actress; you cannot do full frontal nudity.” Annie clarified that it wasn’t full frontal but a topless scene. There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Oh, well that’s not so bad,” Tommy said.
“It wasn’t in the script,” Annie said.
“Lots of things that aren’t in the script turn up in movies,” said Tommy. “I remember a story about this movie where an extra in the background has his dick hanging out of his pants.”
“Yes,” Annie replied. “To the detriment of the movie.”
“In that case, yes,” Tommy answered.
“So, I’m going to say that I’m not going to do it.”
Her agent once again paused. In the background, she thought she could hear the sounds of a video game being played.
“That would not be a good idea. This could be an Oscar-winning role and you want to make waves?”
“You think this is an Oscar-winning role?” Annie asked.
“It depends on how strong the other contenders are next year,” he answered. “It’s looking like a thin year for women’s roles, so, yeah, it could happen. Don’t go by me, though. I didn’t think you’d get nominated for Date Due and look what happened.”
“Okay,” Annie said.
“My gut feeling is to take off your top and maybe it’ll only be in the director’s cut,” her agent said.
“That is not my gut feeling,” Annie replied.
“Fair enough, but nobody likes a difficult actor.”
“I better go,” Annie said.
“Besides, you have a great body,” Tommy said just as Annie hung up on him.
She tried to call Lucy Wayne, who had directed her in Date Due, for which Annie had been nominated for an Oscar; she had played a shy, drug-addicted librarian who gets involved with skinheads, with tragic results. It was a movie that did not summarize well, Annie knew this, but it had jump-started her career. She trusted Lucy, had felt during the entire shoot that she was in capable hands; if Lucy had told her to take her top off, she would not have questioned it.
Of course, Lucy did not answer her phone and Annie felt that this was the kind of situation that did not translate well to a voice mail message. Her one steady, calming influence was out of range and so she had to make do with the options that were left to her.
Her parents thought it was a great idea. “I think you should go completely nude,” her mother said. “Why only the top?” Annie heard her father yell in the background, “Tell them you’ll do it if the male lead takes off