Unscripted Joss Byrd Read online

  I’m disappearing little by little …

  On the end table, with papers and maps and receipts, there’s a small envelope sealed with a seashell sticker. It’s the letter I wrote to Norah. I remember the address Terrance gave me and the note Damon helped me write. Norah Rivenbach, 47 Skipped Rock Rd., Montauk, NY.

  Dear Norah,

  I would love to meet you. Please visit our set soon!

  Love,

  Joss Byrd

  “You’re my muse, you know that, don’t you, kid?” Terrance says, as if that still means something special. “I would’ve done anything, anything to have you be my Norah.”

  Including lie to me.

  Norah said, “You don’t want to be his sister. You don’t even want to know him.”

  “You have today to work on it. We’ll shoot it tomorrow night after the drive-thru deli. That way you can get it over with. The winds will be low. It’ll be a nice night out on the beach.”

  You can’t put a night shoot together in one day. He had to reserve the beach and check the winds ahead of time.

  “She hates a lot of things,” Terrance said.

  When Terrance came up behind me, she narrowed her eyes at him—her eyes were sad from being the real Norah.

  Norah doesn’t hate me. She hates Terrance. That’s what’s in Norah’s heart.

  “I think that once you read it,” Terrance says, “you’ll see that it’s not a big deal, really. It’s nothing at all.”

  Thinking back to Terrance’s big, warm hug on that first day, I agree. “Nothing at all.”

  He gives me the script. It rolls up again in my hands as if it’s ashamed of itself. And it should be.

  “That’s my girl.” Terrance pats me like I’m a dog. But really, he should be patting himself on the back for getting away with this.

  12

  As fast as I can, I’m running past wardrobe racks that are packed with faded jeans; the hair and makeup trailer blasting dance music; the old, graying dog that’s sitting in the truck driver’s passenger seat; and Rodney stepping out of Peter Bustamante’s trailer.

  “Hey, Norah!” Rodney yells after me. “Where are you going? Did you talk to TJ?”

  I whip around, fists clenched. “My name is Joss! And you can stay away from me!” I scream because I can’t believe anything Terrance says anymore.

  My dressing room door swings open behind me. “What is going on out here? Joss?” Viva says.

  I take off again, even faster. My mother is the last person I want to see, and basecamp is the last place I want to be.

  “Ray?” I call, spotting him and his friends at the far end of the parking lot on their dirt bikes.

  “Hi!” he says as he rolls his bicycle toward me.

  “Do you know where Skipped Rock Road is?” Until that came out of my mouth I didn’t know what I was going to say. But Norah’s the only one who might understand. Maybe she’ll be on my side. “I need to get to 47 Skipped Rock Road.”

  “Sure, I know where it is,” Ray says as his friends stare at me. “Get on.” He taps his handlebars. “I can take you.”

  I shove my script in my back pocket and hop on. The handlebar digs into my butt as I balance my toes on the bolts of Ray’s front wheel.

  “Are you on a secret mission? Like research for your character or something?” Ray steers and presses his flip-flopped feet over the pedals.

  “Something like that.”

  “I knew it! So cool.”

  “Joss! Where are you going?” I hear Benji yell from the parking lot. “You’re still in school! You already owe two hours! You’re about to owe three!”

  “Montauk’s a small town,” Ray says as we speed through the streets. “But we have a real good time here. That’s probably why they film so many movies here.”

  The breeze hits my face when we turn the corner, and we’re coasting downhill. I almost forget why I’m riding away. If I were a regular kid, just one of the locals, I’d be woo-hooing from on top of Ray’s bike. A part of me is having a grand time, the same part of me that can’t remember the last time I had real fun.

  “Which number again?” Ray asks when we get to Skipped Rock Road, but I can’t think of it. I can only think of Norah and Terrance and Rodney. Suddenly I’m the dirt driveway kid who’s pretending to be an actor.

  But I don’t have to remember the house number because Norah is on her front lawn throwing weeds into a paper bag.

  “That’s her,” I say. “I can get off here.”

  Ray plants his feet on the ground. “I’ll wait right here for you.”

  I hop down but hold the handlebar for a second before letting go.

  Norah leaves the paper bag on the grass. She walks up to me wearing her gardening gloves. She doesn’t seem surprised in the least to see me. As she gets closer, I see little lines at the corners of her eyes, and the freckles on her nose are the same as mine when I get too much sun. But it’s our chins that are most alike, with a slight dent in the middle.

  “Hello, Joss. What is it?” She takes her gloves off. “Are you okay?”

  “You were right. I don’t even want to know him.” I go to pull the script from my pocket but decide not to. I’m not sure why. “He promised I wouldn’t have to do something, but he lied.”

  “Well.” Norah takes a deep breath. “Considering everything else he’s done, I’m not surprised.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He’s making this movie in the first place,” she says, almost laughing. “Isn’t that enough?”

  I remember sweaty Rodney. I didn’t want anyone but Chris to know he came into my schoolroom. Of course Norah doesn’t want the whole world to know that horrible stuff happened to her. That’s why I don’t want to show her the script. Norah’s not just a character I have to play. She was once a girl who got abused by her stepdad. Norah’s a living person with feelings.

  How can Terrance do this to her?

  How can I?

  “He says that we each have to deal with our lives in our own way and that I have my way and he has his.” She smacks her gloves against her thigh. “But that just means he doesn’t care how it affects me.”

  I don’t want to be in this movie anymore. I was so blind. I thought it was better to be anyone but me and that it would actually be fun to play Norah Rivenbach. I couldn’t wait to be Chris’s sister and Terrance’s star. I’ve got guilt so thick right now that I can barely see through it.

  “Five years ago when he started writing the screenplay, I thought, fine. It’ll be therapeutic for him. He’ll get it all out of his system. But as soon as he told me he was actually going to make the movie? That was it for me. That’s not the brother I know. He’s had tunnel vision ever since.” Norah drops her gloves and leads me to the stoop where we have a seat. It feels good to sit. I’m tired, but I didn’t know it. “The Locals has been all he can think about: casting the perfect kids, searching for the same kind of crappy boat, even finding a place with the perfect tree. Hell, he’s even had the nerve to call me in the middle of the night, on several occasions, to make sure he had the dialogue exactly right.” She wipes her forehead. “I told him that since he’s the one who likes remembering, he could figure it out himself.”

  “I’m sorry, Norah.” It’s not enough, but I don’t know what else to say.

  “Don’t be. None of this is about you.”

  But it is about me. I’ve been acting out her secrets for a lobster dinner.

  I watch Norah roll her sleeves over her elbows. “If he has to make the movie, I’m glad that he cast you and not someone else.”

  “Why?” I can’t think of a single reason.

  She reaches over, pulls one yellow daisy from the flower bed, and offers it to me. “Because you are sorry. And if you don’t do it someone else will, probably some shallow Hollywood kid whose face is on lunch boxes and sleeping bags. At least TJ got one thing right.”

  I don’t want to accept the flower. I wanted her to like me so bad, but now,
playing Norah isn’t right. And I don’t want to feel her emotions anymore; there’s too much of them to feel. But I take the daisy from her anyway—how can I say no?

  Over my shoulder, I can see through Norah’s front door, straight through her tidy living room, and all the way through her sliding glass doors. In the backyard, there’s a tall, wide tree in the exact center of—

  I can’t believe it. This must be the house—the one Norah and Terrance grew up in. I can picture them here when they were young, screaming and fighting with their stepdad. This place is its own kind of haunted house. Why would she still want to live here?

  * * *

  As we turn into the Beverly Hills neighborhood, my mother slows the rental car and turns the radio down. She doesn’t care to visit Disneyland or Universal Studios or the beach. For our first time in LA, she wants to see rich-people houses. Now I know why. The Disney castle can’t beat this.

  I don’t know which house to look at first. One has got bushes that look like giant Q-tips leading all the way up the driveway. Another has rounded balconies outside every bedroom. Across the way there’s a shiny, old-fashioned black car; the wheel spokes sparkle like jewelry.

  “Holy moly,” my mother whispers.

  I fold my arms over the car window and rest my chin on my hands. We pass a bright blue door with a thick brass knocker. If I run up there and knock, would they let me in or would they laugh me away?

  Viva gasps at the house with the vines up the side. “Look at all the ivy. Old Hollywood.” She tucks her hair into her floppy sun hat and checks her lipstick in the mirror. “I could fit in here, couldn’t I?”

  We’d both get laughed away. But it’d be mean to tell her so.

  “You see? Now this is where I’m meant to live. Right here. In the 9-0-2-1-0.” She stops the car to take a picture of herself in front of a house with a fountain. “We’re on our way, Joss. Can you feel it?” She drives slowly, watching her dream house roll by. “We’re on our way.”

  My mother says we. But I know that it’s all up to me.

  * * *

  “Norah, is this … the house?” I ask, afraid of my own question. “The one you lived in as a kid?”

  “Yes. It is.” She smiles as she turns to look through the door.

  “Oh…” I keep imagining the hitting and crying and worse that happened inside years ago when the house was shabby. “Well, you fixed it up nice,” I say. It’s not my business to tell her she’s crazy for living with those bad memories, but one thing I’ve learned for sure is that there’s always someplace better.

  “It’s not much different than when we were young.” Norah brushes the hair off her face. “I just keep up with it, that’s all.”

  “You mean…” The clean windows are opened up to the breeze, and neat bricks line the flower bed. There’s even a real driveway, solid and everything. “You weren’t poor?” I ask, shocked.

  Norah looks at the houses across the street. One is very narrow but it’s been built up to three stories. “We weren’t living it up like some families here, but no. We weren’t poor.”

  “But that house we’re filming in…” No wonder Terrance doesn’t mind showing that he was poor—because it isn’t true! Well, he sure had me fooled. He had me, my mother, Christopher, the whole cast and crew fooled. And when the movie comes out, he’ll have Hollywood fooled, too.

  “Yeah. What a joke, right?” Norah stands and pulls a weed from the grass. “I heard the address. But I assumed they’d fix it up, put some movie magic into it. But no.” She throws the weed into the paper bag. “That’s TJ, though. He knows what makes for a better movie. It’s just too bad he can’t rewrite my entire childhood.”

  I understand what she means. The house was rewritten, but the awful parts about her and Rodney are true.

  “But, Norah?” There’s still something I want to know; I can’t let it go. “Why do you stay here?” I look up at her from where I’m sitting, shielding my eyes from the sun.

  “The ocean,” she says, as if it’s so obvious.

  “Hello there!” A man holding a babbling chubby baby steps out of the house. “You’re Joss, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Hello.”

  “I’m Henry, Norah’s husband. And this is Pearl.” He holds Pearl’s arm out so that I can shake her soft little hand.

  “Hey, Pearl. I’m Joss. Nice to meet you.”

  Henry adjusts Pearl’s white sailor hat. “Sunny today, isn’t it?” He lays a blanket on the grass and sets Pearl on it. She sits up unsteadily, grabbing her toes.

  “It’s so nice of you to come visit us.”

  I’m glad for Norah. Henry is calm and kind. He’s the very opposite of her evil stepdad.

  “Can I get you a lemonade or an iced tea?” he asks, and I like him even more.

  “No, thank you. I can’t stay.”

  Norah kneels to play with Pearl. “I was just telling Joss the great things about living in our house.”

  “Well, that’s easy.” Henry gives Pearl a pacifier. “Montauk’s beautiful. We can see the shoreline from out back.”

  “We built a crow’s nest,” Norah says.

  All’s we need now is a pair of binoculars. Then we can see clear through to the lighthouse … one of those old-timey pirate telescopes that stretch … If we get one of those, we’ll have it made. We’ll be the luckiest kids in Montauk …

  Rodney may have ruined the crow’s nest when Norah and Terrance were kids, but he couldn’t stop Norah from building it when she grew up. I guess there are lots of ways to rewrite your life.

  “Bah-bah-bah!” The baby is reaching her arms out toward Ray’s bicycle.

  “She’s obsessed with bikes.” Henry picks Pearl up and walks toward Ray. “You want to see the big boy bike?” Henry holds the baby on the bicycle seat. She looks so happy blowing spit bubbles and clapping while Ray makes motorcycle noises and pretends to steer the handlebars.

  If I do scene 20 will that make me weak, or will that make me brave? If I don’t, will I be a quitter or hero?

  “What will you do, Norah?” I ask, hoping to find my answer in hers.

  “I’m suing my brother and the producer, or I’m trying to—for using my name and my image without my permission,” she says.

  “You are?” I ask proudly. Now that is scrappy. “Then you’ll get your brother’s money and he’ll have to live in that shack for real.”

  “No way.” Norah laughs. “I’m not going to win, Joss.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, aside from the pitiful house, the story’s true. I don’t have much of a case if it’s true. And besides, my brother isn’t TJ anymore. He’s Terrance Rivenbach.” Norah lifts her hand as if she’s reading his name on a movie screen.

  For some reason, I remember Bella Pratt and her smart-aleck friends back at school. There are bullies everywhere.

  “Then why are you even trying?” I ask.

  Norah crosses her arms and pinches her elbow. “Because he didn’t think I would. And if I don’t stand up for myself, nobody will.”

  And what about me? What should I do? I want to ask Norah. But I don’t. She’s got enough of her own weeds to pull.

  I should get back to basecamp. If I don’t, Benji will have a panic attack about my schooling hours. When I turn back to Ray it’s obvious he’s overheard everything. Does this answer his question about what it’s like to be an actor?

  “Bah-bah-bah!” Pearl coos.

  Suddenly, here’s Benji running up the road. He’s come to take me back. Fetch Joss. As soon as Benji spots me, he collapses, hands on his knees. “I found her.” He pants into his walkie-talkie. “I got the Bessie.”

  * * *

  In my schooling trailer, Viva and Damon are looking at me sideways like they’re visiting me in a nut house. I keep my back to my mother while I dial my phone. If she won’t do it, I’ll have to fix this myself. But Viva isn’t even trying to stop me; she’s just watching quietly as if she knows what to expect.

>   “Creative Team Management,” says the voice on the other end. “Doris Cole here.”

  “Doris?” My voice breaks. “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I pull the crunched script from my pocket and throw it on the table. “It’s just bad here, really bad. The real Norah doesn’t even want Terrance to do this movie. Neither do I. They’re making me … they’re making me do an abuse scene!”

  “Joss, calm down, honey.”

  “They can’t do this, right?” I beg. “I’m too young for any of that. You wrote it up in my contract.”

  “Now, now. I’ve read the scene,” she says, easy breezy. “Everything’s gonna be fine. I hear that you’re doing a bang-up job out there. I’m so proud of you. Everyone in the office is proud of you, even Tubsy-ubsy. She says meow! She’s right here … aren’t you, Tubsy? Production is happy. Everybody’s happy. So you just finish out what they tell you to do, and it’s all gonna be—”

  I hang up on Doris as I spin around with tears in my eyes. “Mommy!”

  “Don’t, Joss. Don’t you dare cry,” my mother says, fighting a tremble in her own voice. “Don’t you dare turn diva on me. Now you just sit down and you learn it.”

  “You promised me. You said that Norah had it really bad and that we were drawing the line,” I say, shaking.

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” She turns her back and spreads her fingers on the door. “Show the script to Damon. Learn it.”

  13

  Damon takes his seat. We listen to the faucet dripping in the bathroom, the air conditioner whirring, and someone outside dumping a cooler of ice onto the blacktop. A wardrobe rack wheels past my door. My phone vibrates. I throw it into my backpack.

  “I’m really sorry that you have to do this,” Damon says.

  Don’t. You. Dare. Cry.

  He takes a package of Twix candy bars from his pocket and slides it toward me. I flick the crumpled, rolled-up script across the table at Damon. We stare at it like it’s a stick of dynamite.

  “Maybe it isn’t that bad?” he asks. “I’m just gonna read it aloud, okay? I’ll do it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid.”