I’ll text this Barry guy and talk to him about . . . whatever. It’s not romantic and it sure doesn’t feel like fate, but look at me! I can get dates, too. I might not be making bajillions of dollars on movies or dating models, but I can do this. Drew Danforth can suck it.
Chapter Eight
The only wrench in my “trying to forget about Drew Danforth and how much I hate him” plan is that I’m on the set of a movie he’s starring in, meaning I have to hear about him, oh, pretty much constantly.
“Where’s Drew?” Tommy asks, his voice booming so loudly that he doesn’t need a megaphone.
“His trailer,” Brody says, his mouth full of a burrito.
“Are you ever not eating?” Tarah asks.
Brody gestures to his body, ensconced in a puffy winter coat. “This takes work, okay? I’ve gotta maintain it with daily burritos.”
Despite my general annoyance with Drew, I’ve developed a nice, casual relationship with both Brody and Tarah. Both of them are polite, genuine people, unlike some movie stars whose names rhyme with Schmew Schmanforth. Both of them seem to like Drew, though, and Brody is even one of his friends, which does make me question their judgment.
“What’s he doing in his trailer?” Tommy ask-shouts.
Brody shrugs, and Tommy turns to me. I certainly don’t know, or care, what Drew is doing, so I shrug, too.
“Go check on him,” Tommy says, jerking his head in the direction of Drew’s trailer as he looks at his phone.
My mouth twists into a frown, but as Tommy’s assistant I must assist him with anything he needs, which in this case apparently involves corralling diva actors.
“You want a bite?” Brody asks, holding his burrito toward me.
“Uh, no thanks,” I say before I stomp off toward Drew’s trailer.
I hesitate outside the trailer door, hearing a voice on the other side. Should I knock? Should I barge in? What if he’s naked? The thought of Drew naked is not an altogether unpleasant one, because although I’m not impressed by muscles, I did see that shirtless picture Chloe sent me plus a few more when I googled him and it wasn’t like he was hard to look at . . .
I shake my head. What the hell? Why would he be naked, Annie? Focus.
I knock quietly. No response. I knock a little louder, and all I hear is a laugh. Frustrated, I push open the door.
Drew is facing away from me, pacing the short length of his trailer, and he’s on the phone.
“If anyone’s a turd burglar here, it’s definitely you, bud,” he’s saying with a laugh. “Yeah, I went there.”
He turns around to pace back and his eyes widen when he sees me. “Good God!” he shouts as he drops his phone.
“I knocked!” I yell. “Twice!”
“I’m on the phone,” he says, exasperated, as he picks it up. Then, to whomever he’s talking to, he says, “Listen, I dropped the phone. Yeah, okay. Uh-huh. Tell Mom and Dad I love them. Later, loser.”
He hangs up and looks at me expectantly.
“Tommy needs you,” I say, then turn to leave.
But before I step away from the door, he says, “I was talking to my brother. Not avoiding everyone.”
I stop and look at him. “I didn’t ask.”
“Yeah, but.” He pulls on his gloves. “I can tell you’re thinking that I’m some asshole hiding in his trailer and slowing down production. But my brother’s ten, and he’s dealing with some little shits bullying him because he has a speech impediment and he can’t pronounce his Rs, and I wanted to make him feel a bit better.”
I raise my eyebrows. “By calling him a turd burglar and a loser?”
Drew smirks. “Terms of endearment in the Danforth family.”
It is actually kind of sweet that he cares so much about his family. Tom Hanks, after all, is usually very good with children, whether they’re his own or his dad’s or grandfather’s much younger kids. I open my mouth to ask him more about his family, but then I hear someone burp outside through the thin walls of the trailer, and I remember that this isn’t a movie. This moment is not sound tracked by Harry Connick Jr. or Harry Nilsson or any other Harry who sings in a Nora Ephron film. This is depressingly real life, and Drew Danforth will be gone the second this movie is done filming.
“You’d better hurry,” I say before I make my way down the stairs. The cold air hitting my cheeks helps bring me back to reality.
* * *
• • •
By the time we’re done with the day’s scenes, I’ve made about a million phone calls, fetched about a hundred cups of coffee, and even (thrillingly!) helped Tommy make some minor script changes when he asked me which word was funnier, bozo or jackass. (Bozo, obviously. Duh.) Everyone’s exhausted, and I hear Brody and Tarah talking about going out to dinner somewhere. They bring up the names of a few places I know are good and decide on an Italian place before asking Drew to go with them.
“Thanks, but I gotta pass,” he says, heading off toward his trailer.
“He needs to have some fun,” Tarah says as he walks away, rubbing her hands together to keep them warm.
“He needs to have some food,” Brody says, his hand in a bag of Fritos.
“Annie, listen,” Tommy says, grabbing my arm and pulling me gently to the side. “Are you busy tonight? I need something.”
“I’m not busy,” I say, shaking my head, because sure, I should be writing some internet content about how to properly use painter’s tape, but it can wait if Tommy needs me.
He points a thumb toward Drew’s trailer, where the door has just swung shut. “I need you to take Drew out.”
My mouth opens. Once I’ve regained the power of speech, I say, “I’m sorry, what?”
Tommy waves his hand dismissively. “He’s spending too much time by himself, and I think he needs some human interaction.”
I shake my head quickly. “I don’t think I can—”
“Annie,” Tommy says, placing his hands lightly on my shoulders. “Are you my assistant?”
I nod.
“I need some assistance, please,” he says. “If you really can’t, then okay. But Drew’s performance is gonna be better if he doesn’t just head back to his hotel and spend his evening staring at a television, and if his performance is better, the movie is better. You care about the movie, right?”
Well, he has me there, because I do care about this movie. My name will be in the credits . . . I mean, probably five minutes into the credits and so tiny that no one will ever see it, but still. I need the first movie my name is on to be as good as it can possibly be.
“I don’t think he likes me,” I say.
“He needs to be around someone who’s gonna take the piss out of him,” Tommy says. “And I have a feeling that’s you.”
I frown. Going out to dinner with Drew Danforth? The guy who caught me googling him, made fun of my job, and seems amused by my general presence on this earth? I guess if we run out of conversational topics, I can always trot out some mortifying memories from my childhood. How about the time I puked on a field trip to the art museum? I’m sure he’d love that one.