minutes and eighteen seconds that it took her to run a loop around West Hollywood fantasizing about gory and painful ways she could kill all of them. The objects of her ire? The producers, director, and casting agent for The Bumbleford Affair. The reason? Yesterday she had been brought in to read for the part of Tom Bumbleford’s mother. The producers had already announced that Peter Shays, with his washboard abs and dreamy boyish looks, would be playing the lead, and since he was only a few years younger than her, Heather assumed she’d be playing the mother in flashback scenes. When they asked her to read with Peter, Heather was stunned.
“Peter, darling, how old are you?” she sputtered out, her ears burning a bright red.
“Well, luv, all of thirty-two years,” he said in his trademark sheepish manner, an impish smile twisting his lips.
“This is a prank, right?” she asked the director. “You’ve got a hidden camera back there, right?”
“Why would you ask that?” the director said, pursing his lips as if he couldn’t fathom her reason for asking him that question.
“Why? Because Peter is only six years younger than me! And you seriously want me to play his mom?”
“We want you to play his hot mom,” one of the producers quipped.
Although she couldn’t believe this was happening, Heather read her lines like a true professional, and under the circumstances, thought she gave a good reading. As humiliating as the experience was, a job was a job in this godforsaken business. But then to add insult to injury, her agent had called this morning to tell her that while everybody loved her, they’d decided to go in a different direction.
“Who got the part?”
“Sweetie, another call’s coming in. I’ve got to go—”
“Nick, no you don’t! If you don’t tell me, we’re through, I swear it!”
Her agent gave the same heavy sigh he always did whenever he was being forced to spell out bad news. “Stephanie Morrison.”
Morrison was two years younger than her, a shade hotter, and two shades blonder. So this was how it was now going to be. When Heather broke into movies at age twenty, her first role was as the hot girlfriend. At twenty-six she started being cast as the “cute” friend. At thirty-two, all she could get were mom roles. Now at thirty-eight, she was too old to play the part of a thirty-two-year-old guy’s mom, even if Peter Shays did look young for his age. Bastards!
As she always did, Heather ended her run two blocks from her condo, and after stumbling to a stop, she bent forward and held her knees so she could catch her breath.
Thanks to the anger that had been fueling her, she had pushed herself harder than usual, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her body. There hadn’t been a day since she had turned thirty that she hadn’t run five miles—even those days when she had to be on set at five a.m. All that running and Pilates and yoga in the hopes of keeping her body slender and toned, and now she’d probably only get grandmother roles! She decided then that she was going to bump her running up to seven miles daily and add an extra Pilates workout each week.
A block away was The Grassy Knoll, and as was her routine, she stopped in for a juice. Rico was working the counter. A pretty gay man with diamond stud earrings, a tight T-shirt and jeans that could’ve been painted on, and long eyelashes that were to die for. He gave her a long appreciative look up and down before leering at her wolfishly.
“You’re looking so fine, girl. You make me almost want to be straight.”
“Rico, darling, you’re just too kind.”
“Simply being honest, that’s all, sweetie. The usual?”
“What else?”
As Rico fed kale, carrots, beets, fennel, celery, and jalapeno peppers into a juicer, he asked her about some of the Hollywood gossip he’d been hearing and told her how much prettier he found her than the other starlets in town. “None of them can make me hard like you do, sweetie.”
By the time Heather left the store with a juice in hand, her mood had perked up. Rico, bless him, was always good for that.
At the end of the block was a small park across the street from her condo, and as part of her routine, Heather would always sit on the lone bench in the park and enjoy her juice. Today, though, there was someone already sitting there. A man, maybe the same age as Peter Shays. Nicely dressed in a Versace suit and wearing an attractive pair of Italian loafers. Good-looking also, with his sandy-brown hair and neatly trimmed goatee. She caught a glimpse of the Hublot watch on his wrist and had a good idea of how much it cost. So he had money also. She smiled as she thought of how he was the right age for her to play a different kind of mommy to, and besides, the bench was big enough for two. He was good-looking in a cute sort of way and presented himself well. She sat to his right and watched with amusement as he tried to act as if he were too absorbed with what he was reading on his cell phone to notice that she was there. As she finished up her juice, she slurped to get his attention. He looked up then with an exaggeratedly startled expression.
“Oh, hi,” he said, blushing. “I didn’t realize I had company.” He held out a hand. “Jason,” he said.
So cute. “Heather,” she said as she took his hand.
He opened his eyes wide. “You’re Heather Brandley! Wow! I’m such a huge fan. I love everything you’ve been in, especially The Day After Yesterday.”
“You mean today,” she said with a thin smile.
He blushed some more, and Heather thought again that he was cute. She also thought about how much she needed this type of an ego boost.
“I guess I was just being dense, but I never made that connection before with that movie title. I hope this doesn’t look like I was stalking you, because this is really just an amazing coincidence, but I’m looking to make an independent film that you’d be so perfect for.”
Her own smile faded fast. “You were stalking me,” she said.
He began to give her a startled look as if he couldn’t understand why she would accuse him of something like that, but then cut it off and instead grinned.
“You caught me red-handed,” he admitted. “I know you live over there” —he nodded toward the condo complex across the street— “and I was hoping to catch you when you left home. I certainly didn’t expect you to sit down next to me on this bench. It must be kismet.”
Heather’s eyes narrowed as she gave him a dubious look. “Tell me about this movie.”
“Pure action. One kick-ass sequence leading into the next. And I want you to star.”
“Nudity?”
“None. I do want you in a spandex outfit, though, to show off your ridiculously gorgeous body.”
She was flattered, but she kept her tone purely business as she asked, “Budget?”
“Six million.” He made an apologetic gesture with his hands. “I know that’s not a lot, but this is an independent film, not a studio picture.”
“I’ve worked on smaller budgeted films,” she admitted. “How do you plan
