Free Aurora 07 - Last Scene Alive by Charlaine Harris Page B

with great interest, when I stood back and gave myself a hard look. Was I that dreary cliché, the hometown honey? I found the Hollywood people boring, compared to Angel’s fascinating account of little Joan’s first crawling. Maybe I was pulling a double cross on myself, pretending enthrallment with family scenes of the Youngbloods to hide my secret lust for the Hollywood way of life?
    It was both a relief and a slight disappointment to touch the bottom of my well of self-absorption and find I was absolutely sincere in my preference for the small details of home.
    And I was definitely getting a little too fond of my own navel, I concluded. So I concentrated on listening to every single thing Angel told me. I even volunteered to baby-sit Joan one evening so Angel and Shelby could go out together. Angel rolled her eyes at me doubtfully, but agreed to talk to Shelby about my offer.
    Today the trailers and cables and cameras—all the paraphernalia I’d seen yesterday—had been set up in a new location, the front yard of the courthouse. Even the Molly’s Moveable Feasts van was there, with its table set up and attended by the same auburn-headed young woman. (If she was actually Molly, who was doing the cooking?) Today the table was spread with pitchers of juice and doughnuts, and a plate of fruit. I wondered, for the first time, how long the movie people would actually have to stay in town.
    Robin had told me that most of the shots filmed in Lawrenceton would be exteriors. Sets would be built back at the studio for interior scenes. So maybe scenes dealing with the trial were being shot today? I wondered why on earth they’d need a stuntwoman, and decided maybe it would be better not to ask.
    For the first time, as Angel scanned the street for some safe parking spot, I thought of how difficult it would be to be an actor, to have to imagine how your character would’ve changed as a result of scenes you hadn’t shot yet. You’d have to figure out how the character would react after some of the events in the film, before you’d ever emotionally experienced them. There was more to this acting than met the eye.
    I had intended to drop Angel off and go on my way, but she knew one of the women working in the crew and wanted to introduce me. The friend, Carolina Venice, was one of the makeup artists working in a big trailer a little west of the courthouse. Angel’s friend looked as exotic as her name. Easily five feet eleven, Carolina Venice had a smoking habit, cornrowed and beaded hair, and multiple piercings. The lip and tongue decorations made me a little queasy, I have to confess, though the woman was as warm and welcoming as she could be.
    “Give me fifteen minutes,” she said. “I have to finish this woman, and then I’ll be with you.
    Here, settle into these chairs.” There were two cheap lawn chairs on the rolling platform (with steps built in) that had been pushed up to the makeup trailer.
    I perched on one, looking around me to see if I could spy Robin. I felt a certain need to explain why I was where I’d said I would never go again. I was just yards away from Celia’s trailer—at least I was pretty sure it was the same one Celia had used the day before. Will Weir, pulling on a lightweight jacket, was saying something over his shoulder to (I presumed) Celia, nodding, as he shut the door. Everyone I saw had the Styrofoam cups of coffee and juice that Molly’s Moveable Feasts was handing out. Mark Chesney went to the door of the trailer and knocked, but hurried away after a moment. I wasn’t close enough to hear what response he’d gotten. A young woman I didn’t know darted up to the door, cracked it slightly, and called something inside. Then she darted away as quickly as she’d come. I was interrupted in my study of movie location movement patterns by the emergence of Carolina, who’d had time to get pumped up about talking to her old friend.
    She hugged Angel, shrieked at pictures of the baby, asked