10 A Script for Danger (14 page)

“Brian, how could you?” Alex said. “Couldn't you just film yourself doing those things without putting this movie in danger?”

“I know how it looks, Alex,” Brian pleaded. “But the schedule was too tight for me to organize anything in L.A. I figured I could send this footage to the director and they would realize their mistake by the time we finished shooting. Plus, I would have had the benefit of professional equipment and cinematography. I just wanted to show them—”

“That you're completely
insane
?” Lali exploded. “This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen!”

“I didn't think it would affect your film, Lali, I swear!” Brian insisted. “I wanted to show the
Blue Ranger
team that I'm creative and resourceful. I wanted to stand out!”

Lali shook her head in disgust and started frantically typing an e-mail on her smartphone.

“You can still make a great film, Alex,” Brian said, falling to his knees. “You have all the footage you need, and I did my absolute best in the role. I mean that.”

“I can't believe that you orchestrated every single prank,” Alex said. “I don't understand why you would think . . .” He trailed off. “Wow, casting you was such a mistake.”

“It wasn't, I swear. No more pranks, I promise!” Brian begged. “Omar, explain to them why I had to do it. You know how brutal this business is!”

Omar heaved all of Brian's belongings on the ground in front of the desperate star: the green juice, the blankets, the scripts, everything.

“I quit,” Omar proclaimed defiantly. “I wanted to get a break so badly that I let you convince me to lie, steal, and try to ruin this film. But I'm ashamed of myself now.”

“You should be!” Alex shouted. Suddenly his anxiety overshadowed his temporary relief upon learning the truth. “Oh my gosh . . . how am I going to finish this movie now?”

He had barely finished his sentence when Lali started rattling off a list of solutions. “Well, first of all, I can get Eldridge Carter on a plane tonight. He
was your second choice to play Dylan, but I know he's still available, so I just texted his agent. We can use some of Brian's fee to pay for reshoots. I'll just spend some time tweaking the budget right now. Don't worry, Alex, it'll be fine.” Lali didn't even look up; she just kept furiously typing on her phone screen.

“See”—Cora poked me—“
that's
what a producer does.”

“Reshoots? What does that mean?” Brian asked, but everyone ignored him.

Then Ronan piped up. “Lali, you may not have to reshoot anything,” he announced.

“Nobody cares what you think!” Alex looked ready to pounce on his former friend, but Spencer held him back.

“Wait, Alex, hear him out,” I urged.

“Alex, I only took this job because I was feeling angry and spiteful that you wouldn't take my calls,” Ronan said, “but after meeting with Alison—I mean, Nancy—I realized how much I missed being friends with you. I'm so sorry.”

Alex's face turned redder than a tomato as he tried to contain his anger.

“Did you say you had an idea, Ronan?” Lali asked impatiently.

“Right. Well, I've been learning how to do visual effects for a while, so I could replace Brian's face with the new actor's in the scenes you've already shot. Free of charge, of course. It would mean you don't have to do reshoots,” Ronan said. “Plus, Brian's already paid for the extra room at Lightning Post.”

“Really?” Alex asked, still unable to meet Ronan's eyes.

Ronan nodded.

“Let's talk,” Lali said, beckoning Ronan over.

“But what about me?” Brian insisted. “I'm under contract!”

Lali gave him a cursory glance and then checked her phone. “Right. Brian, you can discuss that with your lawyer when you get back to L.A. You're booked on the next flight out.”

“You can't cast Eldridge Carter in this role,” Brian
proclaimed weakly. “Nobody even knows who he is. He hasn't been in
anything
.”

“When you finally see
The Hamilton Inn
,” Alex told him, “you're going to kick yourself for screwing up your chance to be a part of it. It will be
that
awesome.”

After Brian had slunk away in a taxi, Alex gave Bess, George, and me gracious hugs and handshakes. “I don't know how to thank you,” he said. “You're all getting invitations to the premiere of
The Hamilton Inn
. You know, provided that we actually finish shooting it.”

“I'm sure you'll be fine. You got this far, didn't you?” I assured him. Alex nodded and gave us a friendly wave before getting back to work.

“Thank you, girls,” Lali added. “Would you like to stay and watch the rest of the carnival scene?” she asked. “You are more than welcome.”

I looked at my friends' tired faces. “I think we're going to take the night off,” I replied, “but good luck!”

As I walked back to the parking lot with my friends, I asked them, “So, what do you guys want to do tonight?”

George thought about it for approximately one second before replying, “I'm kind of hungry.”

“Oh, maybe we could go to the movies!” Bess exclaimed. “I've been dying to see . . .” She caught herself and looked at both of us.

“Or maybe not,” she caught herself.

“Let's save the movie date for next week,” I said, laughing.

Dear Diary,

ALEX AND HIS CREW WERE ABLE TO
finish shooting
The Hamilton Inn
with Eldridge Carter, an up-and-coming actor, in the role of Dylan. Alex e-mailed me saying that the film is going to premiere at a prestigious festival. Apparently, the critics are already raving about both the lead performances!

Although I'm happy everything worked out for Alex in the end, I wish that Brian had considered how his pranks would affect other people. If he had just relied on his talent, he would have gotten to the top eventually—without causing so much pain. But he had to learn his lesson the hard way—and he lost everything in the process.

P.S. Kendall wrote to ask if I would ever consider turning my stories of sleuthing into a movie. I laughed at first, but now I'm wondering, Diary. . . . Should I answer the call of Hollywood?

“I NEED A THING.” BESS
sighed between sips of hot chocolate.

“Christmas was just last month. What more could you possibly need?” George shot back.

Bess rolled her eyes. “Not like that. I mean a thing that defines who I am.”

“I don't get it. We all know who you are. You're Bess,” George said with a shrug, turning her attention back to a game on her phone.

George and Bess are cousins and my two best friends. Even though they seem like total opposites—George
doesn't care about looks or clothes, while Bess is a bit of a fashionista; George loves technology and always has the latest gadget, while Bess prefers snail mail to email—they're as close as sisters. Sometimes, though, George can get so caught up in her Twitter feed that she doesn't notice the people sitting right in front of her.

In general, I'm somewhere in between: I like to look nice and put together, but I don't keep with the latest trends; and I like my smartphone, but I'm not obsessed with it. Sometimes I have to be a bridge between them. I could tell this was one of those times.

Bess had been acting weird all day. We'd gone into town to do some errands—mostly just to get out of the house—and she had barely said a word. At first I thought it was the weather—a cold snap had moved in overnight with the threat of snow later—but even after we'd stopped at the Coffee Corner, our favorite café in River Heights and George's place of employment, to get warm, she still hadn't cheered up.

“What's going on, Bess?” I asked as gently as I could. Ironically, Bess is the most emotionally intuitive
of the three of us. Whenever George or I are upset, Bess knows exactly what to do or say to make us feel better. I wished Bess could talk to Bess, but I'd try my best instead.

“Remember New Year's Eve?” Bess asked.

I nodded. Bess's parents threw a big party every New Year's Eve. Each year they picked a different theme. One year it was An Evening in Wonderland, and they hung at least a hundred different clocks on the wall, replaced the furniture in one room with doll furniture, spread stuffed bunnies throughout the house, and made placemats out of playing cards. They even hung half a mannequin dressed in a light blue dress with a white apron from the hallway ceiling so it looked like Alice was falling through the rabbit hole into the house. It was always the party of the year, and half of River Heights attended.

George, Bess, and I had been going to that party for as long as we could remember. When we were younger, Bess's parents would herd us up to Bess's room and we'd be asleep long before midnight. As we got older, we
kept the tradition of heading up to Bess's room early, only now we watched the ball drop in Times Square on TV, drank glasses of sparkling cider, and shared our resolutions for the coming year.

This year had been no different. The theme of the party had been the 1960s, and George, Bess, and Ned, my boyfriend, had scoured As You Wore, the vintage shop in town, for the perfect outfits. Bess's parents had outdone themselves with the decorations. Entering the house felt like stepping through a time warp. The walls, the furniture, and the rugs were all from the 1960s or earlier. They'd even swapped out their TV for an older model. We ate a ton of food, danced, took goofy pictures in the photo booth the Marvin's rented, and headed up to Bess's room to watch the ball drop. It had seemed like Bess was having as good a time as the rest of us, so I couldn't imagine what would have made her upset.

“Sure. I remember New Year's,” I said.

“Do you remember my resolution?” Bess asked. I thought back, but it wasn't coming to mind. Bess
noticed my hesitancy. “George said she wanted to crack five thousand followers on Twitter. Ned said he wanted to make the dean's list. You said you wanted to beat your personal record for solving a case.”

Suddenly it all came rushing back. “You said you wanted to floss more,” I said.

Bess nodded glumly. I could see tears brimming in her eyes, and I felt like a horrible friend because I still didn't know why this was making her so upset.

It was especially frustrating because I'm an amateur detective. I help people track down stolen goods, or figure out who's behind a blackmail attempt. My dad's a prosecutor and he says that I solve more cases than some of the detectives he works with, so I should have been able to put the clues together and figure out why Bess was so sad. I understood that flossing wasn't the most exciting resolution in the world, but it didn't seem worth crying over.

Fortunately, Bess noticed my confusion. “You all have your things. Like George is a computer nerd.”

“Hey!” George piped up. She had finally noticed
Bess's mood and had put down her phone.

“Excuse me. A computer
geek
,” Bess corrected.

“Thank you,” George replied.

“You're a detective. Ned is a brain. But I don't know who I am or what I'm good at or even what I want to be when I get older.”

I thought for a second before answering because I wanted to get this right. I finally understood what Bess was saying, and there was some truth to it: She wasn't as easily categorized as me, George, or even Ned, but that didn't mean she had no identity.

“You're the most compassionate and empathetic person I've ever met, Bess,” I said finally.

Read all the mysteries in the

NANCY DREW DIARIES

#1 Curse of the
Arctic Star

#2 Strangers on a Train

#3 Mystery of the Midnight Rider

#4 Once Upon a Thriller

#5 Sabotage at Willow Woods

#6 Secret at Mystic Lake

#7 The Phantom of Nantucket

#8 The Magician's Secret

#9 The Clue at Black Creek Farm

#10 A Script for Danger