Chapter 3
1697 Words
3
“That could have gone better.”
The comment came from Una who stood beside Lilly in front of the manor. The partly cloudy night revealed the women as a week older and wiser. Both of them sported faded but still impressive bumps and bruises beneath their dark attire of matching black sweaters and jeans.
Una rubbed her chin where a black bruise stood out like a wine spill on a white dress. “I wish Henry would’ve thought of a face guard on those helmets.”
Lilly winced. “Sorry.”
Una dropped her hand and shrugged. “It’s not your fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going before I hit that branch.”
“You mean you couldn’t see a thing,” Al teased as he sidled up to Una’s other side.
She shot him a look of death. “And you weren’t helping by shouting out where we needed to be headed like it was a game of Marco Polo.”
Al shook his head. “It wasn’t a game, it was a comedy of errors, and you played your part beautifully.” A twinkle of mischief sparkled in his eyes as he gently elbowed her arm.
Una yelped and glared at him. “Watch the arm!” His eyes flitted down her body. “And everything else!”
“Don’t you find me handsome anymore?” he teased.
She shook her fist at him. “If you keep this up nobody’s going to find anything of you for ten years, and then that’ll just be a stupid laughing skull.”
Lilly sidled up between them and pushed the two apart. “You guys need to remember what we’re doing out here.”
Una crossed her arms and cast one last look of disgust at Al before she turned her head away. “I haven’t forgotten. We’re waiting for Henry so we can go to this audition thing.”
“So, Paul can go to the audition,” Al corrected her as the werewolf himself stepped out of the house. He jerked a thumb at himself and grinned as Paul joined them. “We get to have the real fun.”
Paul’s lips were pressed tightly together. “I may not be much of a distraction as I haven’t been to an audition in several years.”
Al slapped him on the back and laughed. “That’s exactly why you’ll make the best distraction! You’re so out of practice that it’ll take you ages to get through the few lines they feed you!”
“Wonderful. . .” Paul muttered before he turned his attention to Lilly. “Are you sure you won’t remain in the car?”
Lilly looped her arm around his and smiled up at him as she shook her head. “Not a chance.”
Al wrinkled his nose. “It’d make my life easier if I wasn’t dragging along a whole entourage.”
Una bopped him on the head. “This ‘entourage’ are your ‘backup dancers’ in case we find trouble.”
Al shrugged. “I doubt we’ll find anything other than a poor budget and some spiders.”
The garage door opened and Henry drove the limo onto the driveway. The group climbed into the car and they sped their way into the city. Una rolled down her window and leaned out slightly with a smile on her face and her hair whipping behind her.
Al frowned at her. “What are you doing?”
Una turned her nose up at him. “You and your fluffy butt might like being out in the wilderness for that long, but I missed the bright lights, the fun parties, and-”
“The shocking amount of traffic,” Al quipped as Henry stepped on the brake. Their car idled beside a streetlamp that flickered on and off. Lilly had to hide her smile, but Al was all grins as he pointed up at the light. “I think your bright lights are trying to call it a night.”
Una fell back against her seat and shrugged. “It’s all about the experience.”
“My experience tells me that you’d better get your head out of the skyline and back down to the basement that we’re going to be headed in,” Al scolded her as he looked between the women. “Now you two know what we’re doing, right?”
Una rolled her eyes. “All we’re doing is following you into the rabbit hole of studio auditions. The worst part about this whole thing is we’ll be following you.”
Al grinned and tapped his eye patch. “Even with one eye I can still get us anywhere around a lot.”
Una’s face fell a little. “I didn’t mean it like that…”
Al shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t.”
The car fell silent as they made their way through the maze of streets to one of the older districts. Skyscrapers and apartment buildings were replaced by fenced lots dotted with huge indoor stages. Henry drove up to the large chain-link gate that barred the entrance.
A hefty security guard leaned out his own window to inspect the party. “What are you here for?”
Al smiled at the man. “We’re here for an audition. Name of Lupe, Paul.”
“One sec.” The guard disappeared into his tiny, enclosed cubicle and returned a moment later. “Alright, you can go in. Past the second stage on the left. The small office behind that is where you want to go.”
He pressed a buzzer button and the pair of gates slid apart. Henry drove them through and both girls took to the windows. They leaned out and watched as they passed through a parade of spectacle. There were people in a myriad of costumes, animals with handlers walking to and from their cages, and scenery being wheeled to their next sound stage.
Una’s wide eyes took in all the sights before she looked over her shoulder at the seasoned entertainment businessmen. “Does this mini city ever sleep?”
Al shook his head as he drew out his phone. “Nope, but that’s good for us. Nobody’s going to notice a couple of people walking around and sticking their noses into dark corners.”
Henry drove the limo past the parade and turned left past the sound stage. The tall building shared a wall with a long, low, flat-roofed building that stretched for several hundred feet. A small parking lot faced the long side of the rectangular short building, and Henry parked the car beside a few more modest sedans with questionable paint quality. A pair of old-fashioned metal doors nearby led inside.
The group stepped out, but Lilly hardly had time to breath before Una grasped her arm. “I need to talk to you.”
Lilly tilted her head to one side. “Sure. What’s up?”
“Alone.”
Lilly blinked but nodded. Una drew her friend to the rear of the limo. Her eyes flickered over to the men before she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Am I being too hard on Al?”
“Al?” Lilly guessed as she followed Una’s gaze to the expected destination.
Una nodded. “Yeah. It’s just, well, I’m just no good at this dating stuff. You saw me with my last boyfriend. He left me for his dog.”
Lilly cringed. “Yeah…”
Una stared at the ground and sighed. “I just. . .I don’t know. I want to bother him all the time, but I know I like him. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
Lilly stared at her friend for a moment before she burst out laughing. Her amusement caught the attention of the men who looked in their direction. Una scowled at their curious eyes before she marched Lilly a little further away. “What’s so funny?”
Lilly set a hand on her friend’s shoulder and stifled her giggles. “Una, do you remember grade school? Where the girl would always bother the boy?”
Una shrugged. “I suppose, and then the rumors would fly that she really just liked him and didn’t want to-” Her eyes widened, and her mouth shaped itself into a circle. “Oooh, right. That’s me, isn’t it?” Lilly nodded. Una hung her head and sighed. “I really haven’t grown up, have I?”
Lilly patted Una’s shoulder. “It’s fine. Sometimes I wonder if Al’s grown up yet, too.”
Una puckered her lips in a pout. “Well, nudge me a little whenever I’m being too hard on him, okay?”
“Are you two going to just stand there all night chattering away like a couple of old hens or are we going to get this ‘audition’ started?” Al called to them.
Lilly grabbed her friend’s hand and tugged her back over to their boyfriends. “We’re ready.”
Al looped his arm through ones that belonged to Lilly and Una and jerked his head toward the corner of the building. “While you distract them at the front, we’ll meet my source at the back doors.”
Paul pursed his lips together but nodded. He moved away from them, but Lilly reached out and grasped his hand. He half-turned to her smiling face. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“But don’t be too fine,” Al chimed in. “We want that distraction.”
“But don’t set the set on fire, either” Una added as she wrinkled her nose. “We’re Stars, not firemen.”
A genuine smile appeared on his lips as he looked at each of them, stopping on Lilly. “I will do my best, and good luck to you with Al’s ‘source.’”
“Hey!” Al protested as Paul slipped out of Lilly’s grasp and slipped into the building. “She’s reliable!”
Una arched an eyebrow. “Who is ‘she,’ anyway?”
Al turned around with the girls still tightly clasped in his hold and marched them down the long wall of the building. “She’s been a runner on these sets for ten years. If there’s anybody behind-the-scenes worth knowing, she knows them.”
Lilly furrowed her brow. “But I thought being the runner was the lowest job on set. Why would she be one for that long?”
“She just does it to get some extra cash,” Al explained as they turned a corner.
The lamps that had illuminated the parking lot didn’t extend their light to this short side of the building. Long shadows covered everything, but Lilly’s weak eyes could make out a dumpster, and behind that was a grungy-looking door with a soiled bottom.
Al released them and rapped on the metal entrance with the back of his knuckles to the tune of ‘Shave and a Haircut.’ The last two notes were answered by someone on the other side of the door and the entrance opened to reveal a tiny woman about seventy years old, but with a pair of eyes as keen as any teenager.
Al stretched out his arms and grinned. “Alma!”
Alma’s sharp eyes flitted over the group before landing on Al. “About time.”
- Writer
