Unscripted Joss Byrd Read online

  “I will, eventually,” he says, scrolling down the screen. “But I thought this’d be a good adventure.” Damon stops at a video called “Nailing the Scene with Vern LaVeque.” He looks at me hopefully. “Vern LaVeque? That name sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, right?”

  “I guess.” We are the blind leading the blind, as Terrance says when his crew can’t seem to get their act together.

  At the same time, me and Damon check the clock on the microwave. Two hours to go until lunch.

  “Uh … we can skip part one, right?” Damon says. “You’ve already been in real movies.”

  “Okay.”

  He presses play for part two.

  In front of a cheesy hand-painted mural of the ocean stands Vern LaVeque in a too-tight black T-shirt and an orange tan.

  “So, the key to everything I’ve been saying is that the lines are not what matter in a scene!” Vern LaVeque raises his arms above his students. “Let go of the lines. And let go of the fear!”

  I sit taller and lean toward the screen. I thought I was the only one who felt any fear.

  “The key to an effective scene is not reading! It is NOT READING! It’s LISTENING!”

  “Score.” Damon turns over a piece of paper and picks up a pencil.

  “So you better believe me when I say this because it is the plain truth. If you can listen”—Vern LaVeque points to his ears. Then he points to his body—“then you can act!”

  Me and Damon smile at each other.

  “You’re a good listener, aren’t you?” Damon asks.

  “I listen all the time,” I say. Even when I don’t want to hear stuff, like Viva calling this shoot a potential colossal embarrassment, I’m still listening.

  On his paper, Damon writes:

  READING → LISTENING.

  Vern LaVeque struts across the carpeted stage and points to his students. The veins on his arms rise as he flexes. “You know the words. You’ve been up to here with the words!” He holds his hand to his forehead.

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  “So I want you to throw that script aside!” Vern LaVeque flings a script off his stool. The pages flap in the air and land on the floor like a lame bird. “You’ve gone over the lines inside and out. Trust that they’re in here.” He points to his head. “Trust that you have them and focus on your partner. I want you to listen to your scene partner. Listen to him so carefully that you hear every word and every breath.”

  I think about Chris. When he’s excited his voice crackles at the end of his sentences, and when he’s upset he sighs real loudly before he speaks. I like listening to Chris.

  “Listen to your partner, and allow his words to trigger your heart, your character’s heart.” Vern LaVeque clutches his chest dramatically. “Tap into your character’s emotions and use them.”

  LISTEN → HEART, Damon writes.

  I’m good with emotions. The Hollywood Reporter called me “fiercely emotional.” They said I had “complete conviction.” And Chris, if I’m being honest, already triggers my heart.

  “I’m tapped into my emotions,” I say softly.

  “Yeah, you are!” Damon grins at me.

  On the screen, Vern LaVeque looks into the camera like he’s talking straight to me. “Feel like your character. And allow your heart to trigger the right words.”

  “Does that make sense to you?” Damon asks.

  “I should listen closely to the boys. Then I’ll feel how Norah would feel. And my heart will remind me what my line is,” I say. “So it doesn’t matter if the dialogue is in a different order!”

  “You got it. That’s exactly what he’s saying.” Damon and I high-five.

  “So, what’s the secret?” Vern LaVeque asks.

  “Listening!” his students answer.

  “Listening,” I repeat in my full voice.

  “That’s right. LISTEN! Listen to your partner.” He points to people in the class. “Listen to what is happening around you. Listen and feel and react. Because acting is reacting.”

  LISTEN → FEEL → REACT, Damon writes.

  “Reacting!” I shout. “Acting is reacting!”

  Vern LaVeque points from student to student. He stops, holds his chest, and lowers his head. “LISTEN to your character’s HEART, and the words will come.”

  “Listen to Norah’s heart…” I close my eyes as if I’m praying. In a way, I am praying for this to work. “… and the words will come.”

  “That, my friends,” Vern LaVeque says, “is what nailing the scene is about.”

  “Please work. Please, please, please work.” I point from my ears to my heart to my mouth.

  4

  If the locals hate us for taking over their “temple,” they probably can’t stand that we eat lunch in their real church basement. Whenever we’re down here I never remember we’re even in a church. There’re the usual statues: Mary in a half shell and Joseph (I think) and apostles (I’ve seen Jesus movies at Easter time). But none of us pay any attention because we’re too hungry to feel holy. I’ve only felt holy once. Viva took me to church when her friend’s baby got baptized. Even when the babies started to cry I couldn’t believe how peaceful it was in there. I wouldn’t mind going to church again, just to be able to sit with my mother for an hour in quiet.

  Our caterers, Lights, Catering, Action!, cook up all of our food inside their catering truck. Then they set up a buffet lunch as if we’re at a wedding or something. The chef gets lots of complaints about too much salt or overcooked this or undercooked that. But I don’t know what all the moaning is about because at home a home-cooked meal is fish sticks and toast with ketchup packets we collect from McDonald’s. Here the buffet’s got a beef station, a seafood station, cold pasta, hot pasta, four salads to choose from, a dozen dressings, chicken and mushrooms, roasted vegetables, paella, and something that looks like beef stew but isn’t, but I’m sure it’s good, too. If you ask me, the food truck is the greatest thing Hollywood ever created, besides Paper Moon. Seriously, how does all of this come out of that?

  I don’t get how so many actresses can be anorexic, especially when catering has a ravioli station on Fridays: there’s cheese ravioli, mushroom ravioli, and lobster ravioli with a choice of sauces. What I get is marinara on the cheese ravioli, cream on the mushroom ravioli, and butter and garlic on the lobster ravioli. But that’s on Fridays. Today is a rice pudding day. Finally, something’s going my way. Rice pudding is a universal favorite. The strategy is to take your share of pudding before you line up for the real food because if you wait until after, there might not be any left.

  “Joss!” Chris calls my name and rushes up behind me as I’m loading three little pudding cups on my tray. Why don’t they just put the pudding in bigger cups? “I gotta talk to you,” he says, no nonsense.

  “I’ll know the lines after lunch, okay?” I slice him like a paper cut. “Don’t I always know the lines when we shoot?”

  “What?” He crinkles his forehead. “No, no. It’s not about that. I don’t care about that,” he says, taking four pudding cups for himself.

  If this isn’t about rehearsal, I don’t know what it could be. I shouldn’t have been so rude. I’m still touchy about the script, that’s all.

  “Ah! Rice pudding day!” Terrance calls from the back of the line. “No hoarding, ladies and gentlemen! One per customer!” he jokes, pointing at Chris. “I see you, Christopher Tate! That is a direct violation of catering code 421, section B!”

  “Just get your food, and sit with me out back, okay?” Chris says, walking toward the back door.

  “Okay.” I try not to look surprised, but I am. We never eat together, just the two of us. Sometimes Chris eats with Jericho, to talk about how to get to the next level on a video game or to quote some TV show I’ve never heard of.

  I thought it’d be easy to make friends with other kids who act. But it isn’t, not when they think I’m Miss Thing when I’m not. When we got to Long Island, Chris asked if I
wanted to go to Splish-Splash water park with him and Jericho. I wanted to go so bad. They were all excited about the Giant Twister—three slides that twist through the trees and end up in one pool. The three of us could’ve gone down at the same time. But, like a complete snob, I told them I didn’t want to go because water parks are where you get pink eye and foot fungus. How could I tell Chris that I had to stay in to memorize lines because I’m dense? I couldn’t.

  * * *

  Jericho and Chris barrel into my schoolroom at our Brooklyn studio. They thump their heavy backpacks onto the table where I’m showing Damon this year’s textbooks. Soon enough Damon will find out that books are not my claim to fame.

  “Ding, ding! School’s in!” Jericho says.

  “Whoa, wait a second, guys!” Damon holds up a hand. “This isn’t school for you.”

  I’m supposed to tutor alone. Viva told the producer that she wants me to have the best possible education. But really, me and my mother just don’t want anyone to find out how slow I am.

  “But Benji sent us,” Chris says. “We’re supposed to start tutoring today.”

  “It says school on the door!” Jericho points at the sign.

  “Sorry. Not with me. You two have another teacher,” Damon says. “I only have Joss.”

  “Your schoolroom is at the end of the hallway,” I add. “The door says TJ & BUZZ’S SCHOOL.”

  “Oh…” Chris says. “Okay.” He and Jericho pick up their things and leave.

  It would be so cool if I could tutor with them. It’s boring to do school alone day after day. But I don’t want them to know my problems any more than Viva does.

  “Why does she get her own private tutor?” I hear Jericho ask as they shuffle down the hall.

  “I don’t know,” Chris says. “Probably because she’s a big deal.”

  * * *

  “Hey, sit here.” Chris says, meaning with him on the back steps.

  I might be blushing. I know it’s messed up to blush over a boy who’s supposed to be my brother, but usually when I’m alone with Chris we’re playing Norah and TJ. When I’m not acting, I can’t help it.

  We set our trays between us, and I wait for Chris to speak.

  “Man, that rehearsal…” He rubs his dirty forehead. “I practiced the fight with Rodney.”

  I listen quietly and watch some bees buzzing over a garbage can.

  “The stunt coordinator showed Rodney how to smack me and shove me and yell in my face,” he says, shoulders slumped.

  For once I’m grateful to my mother. No yelling in my face or smacking or shoving for me. Chris has it tough. The movie wouldn’t work without rough scenes between him and Rodney. There’s no way around violent content for Chris.

  “At one point he rubs my head into the dirt.” Chris takes a deep breath and pushes his salad around with a knife. (He eats a lot of salad for a boy.) “There’s a way to do it so it’s not real-real. But man, oh man … it’s kind of real. I mean, if I’m on the ground I’m on the ground, right?”

  I want to wipe the dirt off his cheek, but I don’t dare. If I was pretty and fourteen and he thought of me as a girl instead of a “little kid,” as he called me, I would. But I’m not, and he doesn’t, so I won’t. This could’ve been one of those movie moments: boy needs comforting. Girl is the only one who understands. Close up on both. His eyes. Her eyes. They lean closer. Will they kiss or won’t they? But really it’s just Christopher Tate and me sitting next to some bees at a stinking garbage can.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask.

  “It doesn’t tickle, I’ll tell you that. And of course we’re going to have to do it, like, fifty times from every angle.”

  He’s right. It might take all day to get it right. In my last movie, a fight scene took four hours.

  “It’d be fine if Rodney would maybe, like, joke around or something with me at least. But he’s always in it; he’s always in the zone. It feels like he hates me in real life.”

  Rodney’s stare through the screen door was mean enough for me. I can’t imagine a punch, even a fake one.

  “Why’d I ever say I would do this? I’m missing the first month of high school.” He kicks a pebble that hits the garbage can square in the middle. “Last week was soccer tryouts. They’ll never let me on now.” Chris stabs a tomato slice, leaving the knife sticking straight up.

  Right now I don’t know what’s harder: being an actor who hates school or being an actor who likes it. But me and Chris are one and the same in a bigger way; he needs to work. His folks and older brothers run a restaurant in Florida. I don’t think it does very good.

  “What if the only reason I was cast is because I look like Terrance in that picture?” Chris asks.

  I don’t know what to say. I’ve been wanting to bond more with Chris, but I was imagining spending a day at Dave & Buster’s arcade.

  “I’ve never done a drama before,” Chris says. “Just comedies—stupid stuff, like riding a Razor scooter through the hallways and junk.”

  I’ve seen the movie he means—Sixth Period Lunch—but I don’t say so because I’ve seen it more times than I want to admit. And when I found out we were going to work together I watched all of his scenes again.

  Chris holds his head and lets out a loud sigh. “Ugh … I’m supposed to cry, too.”

  That’s one part of the script that always stays the same: TJ cries. He’s almost crying now. Just hold on to that, I want to tell him, but I don’t want to interrupt the thoughts that are swirling around in his mind.

  “I’ve seen Hit the Road and Buy One, Get One,” he says, finally looking at me.

  I stare at my rice. It doesn’t affect me much when a hundred strangers watch my work, but I care what Chris thinks. Chris seeing my movies is kind of like him reading my diary, if I had a diary. I look so young in those movies. No wonder he thinks of me as a kid.

  “I’ve seen you cry and scream and all that on-screen.” He leans forward as if I’ve got the key to the universe. “How do you do that?”

  In Sixth Period Lunch, Chris Razor scootered through the cafeteria, smiling at the girls. In this one part, he takes off his hat and puts it on the prettiest girl as he glides past her. I can’t believe a boy like that wants advice from me. I just learned that acting is reacting from YouTube, so what do I even know?

  “Well, uh…” I pick the dirt under my fingernails while I think about how to describe what I do. “I use my triggers.”

  “What are triggers?”

  I peek at Chris. He’s serious. He really wants my help. “Uh … they’re bad stuff from my life,” I say quietly.

  He nods for me to go on. He doesn’t care what my triggers are. He only wants to know how I use them, so I sit taller and explain.

  “I ask for quiet fifteen minutes before a tough scene, block everything else out, and think about it real hard until I feel it behind my eyes and my face and in my throat.” I hold my neck as I speak. “And then I bust it all out the second I hear ‘Action.’”

  Chris sits real quiet for a long time, biting the inside of his mouth. It’s probably the dumbest thing he’s ever heard, and he’s wondering why he bothered asking me. He should ask Rodney how to get in the zone.

  Chris laughs. “I think I’m going to need more than fifteen minutes.”

  I laugh with him. “Well, like the way you’re feeling now. If you can bottle it up, then you can use it later.”

  “Oh, great.” He throws up his hands. “I don’t feel so bad anymore.”

  “You can get yourself worked up again,” I say, secretly happy that I’ve made him feel better. “Use a trigger. Really. The more you practice doing it, the faster it works.”

  He gives me a slight smile. “Okay. It’s worth a shot.”

  We pick up our trays and head back inside. The basement is filled up now with our starved crew, and just as I predicted, the rice pudding cups are gone. But there’s some saint statue standing behind the dessert table with his arms open, praying for more.


  We pass Rodney filling his tray. I can feel him watching me when I cross the room; it gives me the creeps. Poor Chris.

  “Too hot outside?” Terrance asks as me and Chris join the table with the rest of the group.

  “Bees,” I say.

  “Yeah. Swarms,” Chris adds, and I feel like we’re in on something together.

  “Well, be careful. If you get bit on the face, that’ll be it,” Viva says. She’s very into protecting my face, not for my safety, but for the camera.

  “Not bit. Stung,” I say.

  “Cool it, Smart-mouth,” she says, giving me the eye. “And cover your wardrobe.” She tucks my napkin into my collar and spreads it across my chest as if I’m a baby about to eat mashed carrots. My wardrobe is a tank top with a picture of a rocket ship on the front. It’s already dirtied on purpose, but it’s not supposed to get dirty by mistake.

  Just as we’re getting settled, Rodney reaches across the table and snatches two of Chris’s rice pudding cups as he heads to his seat. The grown-ups ignore it, but Chris closes his eyes and curses under his breath. I feel so bad that I give him one of my puddings as soon as Rodney turns his back. Let me tell you, pudding is the last thing that Rodney needs. He’s plenty mushy around the middle, and don’t even try to tell me he put on those pounds for his character.

  “I got some extra potato salad. I know how much you like it, TJ.” My mother passes Terrance the bowl. She started using his nickname when we first got to the studio in Brooklyn. She likes getting chummy with people from the start. But I’d feel disrespectful calling him TJ.

  “Ah, thank you. Bonus,” he says, mixing the potatoes with his corn. He passes me another napkin, since mine is around my neck. I grin at him. Terrance says that having meals together makes for a better movie because it makes us feel sort of like we’re a family. He’s right. This is the type of family I’d like, anyway.

  The closest I ever had to a dad was Brian Shea Towson; he played my country singer dad in Hit the Road. We ate all our lunches together, too. I liked calling him Pops, even off set, which I guess is kind of like staying in character.

  “Go easy there with the healthy stuff, Joss. What is that, broccoli?” Terrance inspects my tray. “If you get too tall, we’ll have to recast you.”