“We can’t afford to sit around and wait like this,” Lawson snaps, his brows furrowed. “How did this happen?”
“We aren’t sitting around and waiting,” Evan says, sipping the drink the hotel restaurant’s server placed at his elbow. “I mean, yes, production is shut down today because we’ve done as much as we can until Neevah comes back.”
“And I’m paying for this hotel and the rooms and the cast and the crew,” Lawson says, red crawling up his neck and over his cheeks, “while Neevah’s laid up somewhere? When will she be back?”
“If by laid up,” I interject, leaning forward and locking eyes with the idiot, “you mean in a hospital being monitored by her medical team because of kidney failure, then, yeah. That’s where she is. And to answer your question, she’ll be back on set as soon as her doctor clears her to be and not one damn minute sooner.”
“You did this.” He points his finger at me. “You cast a novice, an unknown.”
“That’s not fair,” Evan says. “Neevah has killed this role. You know it. You’ve said it. Everyone at Galaxy has been blown away by her performance.”
“But did she lie to us?” he demands. “If we had known she had lupus, we could have—”
“Discriminated against her?” I ask, the anger barely checked beneath my low tone. “Based on her medical condition?”
“Uh, no.” He clears his throat, hearing what he didn’t say voiced out loud. “Of course not.”
“The fact is,” Evan says, “Neevah passed the insurance company’s medical exam with no red flags. We’ve obtained a letter from her doctor that states at the time she began our movie, her official diagnosis was discoid lupus, a condition that is not considered life-threatening and primarily affects skin and hair.”
“When she negotiated her personal hairstylist into her contract,” I add, “she disclosed a hair and skin condition, though she didn’t call it lupus. There was no reason or requirement for her to. If you’re looking for some legal loophole to save you money and vilify Neevah, you won’t find one, and you’ll have me to deal with.”
“Oh, I’ll have you to deal with?” he sneers. “The elephant in the room is that you’re fucking the lead actress . . . again. Maybe if you knew how to keep your dick separate from your work, you could objectively see that this is bad for business.”
“What will be bad for business,” I say, my voice rolling out wrapped in barbed wire, “is when I punch you in the face and Galaxy has to choose between me, the director who’s going to make them lots of money and give them the ultimate movie to check all their fucking DEI boxes, or the privileged asshole who tried to weaponize his power against a young woman fighting for her life.”
I sit back in my chair, reining my rage by a string, but determined I won’t give this son of a bitch the satisfaction of seeing it.
“I don’t see public opinion favoring you in that scenario, Stone,” Evan adds.
“Public,” Lawson mutters. “None of this has to go public. I mean, at Galaxy, we’re a family. Of course, we want to accommodate whatever needs to be done so Neevah can be well. If you misconstrued anything I said—”
“Get up,” I say through gritted teeth. “Get off my set right now, Stone. Take your ass home to LA. If I catch you on my lot when we get back, I promise I’ll find a way to take that job from you and make your name shit in this town.”
“I think—”
“You heard him,” Evan interrupts Lawson. “Get your ass up. Get off the set. And don’t even stop to see your wife, who you don’t deserve, by the way. You can see her when she gets home.”
Lawson stands, his expression and posture stiff, and leaves the hotel dining room without another word.
“That last part about his wife was pretty cold-blooded,” I tell Evan. “Don’t even stop to see your wife on the way out? Dayuuuum, Evan.”
“That was my favorite part, actually.”
We share a smile across the table and sigh in unison. The reality is, we may have called Lawson out and stripped his ass of some bravado, but we are losing money, and this is hard.
“You know he could still cause trouble for us,” I say, some of my hubris draining away with the adrenaline. “Maybe blackball me.”
The irony of making Dessi Blue is that so much has changed since then, but some things remain the same. The reality is that in this town, there are barriers harder for me to clear than others. A powerful man like Lawson Stone can do a lot of damage in ways I might not even be able to foresee.
“He can try,” Evan scoffs. “We may not be those young, scrappy kids anymore, but they knew how to get shit done. Knew how to find money when it was scarce, and managed to make great movies without studio backing. We’ll do it again if it comes to that, but I don’t think it will. Not if he’s smart.”
“Thanks for having my back, by the way.” I meet Evan’s eyes cautiously. “I know you didn’t approve of me getting involved with Neevah.”
“It was clear from day one that Neevah was perfect for this role, and it’s just as clear that this is not just you wanting to get in some actress’s pants. You love her.”
I lift one querying brow. “Do I? How you know that?”
“I’ve known you almost twenty years, Holt. That’s a lot of years and a lot of women, and I’ve never seen you like this.”
I’ve never felt like this.
“So enough of the mushy stuff,” Evan says abruptly. “I’ve prepped Kenneth and Jill and the team about Neevah’s situation and the implications, but I thought you might want to address the cast and crew.”
I don’t want to be here. I want to be at the hospital with Neevah, and I will be, but first, I have a responsibility to my team. I feel like a wish bone being pulled from two sides, tensile, but also easy to break.
“Yeah, I’ll talk to them.” I hesitate and then push forward. “I’m going to tell them Neevah needs a kidney in case there’s anyone who wants to be tested. You okay with that?”
“We can give them the info. No pressure to do anything with it. That’s what they said you should do, right? Put the call out to everyone you know so we can get Neevah a new kidney as soon as possible.”
“Yeah.” I drum my fingers on the table, the restlessness due only in part to not shooting the last few days. “She still needs to talk to her family about it.”
Surprise raises Evan’s brows. “They don’t already know?”
“It’s . . .awkward. They haven’t been close in years, and . . .anyway. She can’t put it off much longer.”
“Speaking of awkward,” Evan says, standing from the table. “Let’s go ask for a kidney.”
We walk across the hall to the large ballroom where the cast and crew is assembled, waiting. Their expressions range from curious to concerned. When you lose the star of a movie, depending on what stage, it could mean in the worst-case scenarios, the movie never sees the light of day and a production falls apart. Or it could mean re-shooting. Or making do and cobbling together whatever you can without the actor. This project has put a lot of people to work, and I know they’re glad to get paid, but I believe they all share my passion for the stories and contributions that slipped through history’s cracks. The Black people who deserved better from this country. They’re not sure what will become of Dessi Blue. My job, right now, is to reassure them.
“Hey, guys,” I say, sitting on the lip of the small stage at the front of the room. “Hope you enjoyed your day off. You’re welcome, and don’t get used to it.”
Their faint laughter breaks some of the tension.
“So, you all know Neevah was sick on set a few days ago and has been in the hospital. We have a little more information now, so I wanted to update you on her condition and how that will affect production.”
Jill, Kenneth, and Monk are seated at a table up front, only a few feet away, and Jill meets my eyes with a sad smile.
“Neevah has lupus,” I say, cutting to the heart of it.
A few people in the room gasp. Sounds of dismay and concern drift through the crowd.
“I know everyone has different ideas about what lupus is, what it can do, and what it means, but Neevah is a fighter and is getting the best care we could ask for. Her doctor is working hard to get her back on set as soon as possible.”
“Thank God,” someone says.
“As you know,” I say, “we’ve only got about three weeks left in production. Most of you will be done shooting once we leave Santa Barbara. A few scenes on the back lots, and we’ll be done. The majority of what’s left only affects Neevah, Trey, and the musicians from the cast. We’ll do the musical numbers back in LA. Neevah should be returning in the next day or so to wrap up our Riviera shots.”
“Such good news,” Livvie says, relief evident in her smile.
“Getting Neevah well enough to return to work isn’t enough,” I say. “She needs a kidney.”
The room goes completely silent. Disbelief and horror mark their faces as I scan the room.
“She’s talking to her family, because that’s her best . . .” I squeeze the bridge of my nose and clench my teeth, holding onto my composure. “. . . her best shot, but the medical team encouraged her to put the call out as far as possible. Family, friends, the community. There is absolutely no pressure to do this, but if anyone wants to check if they’re a match, Graham has the information. I already tried.” I heave a sigh and spread a rueful grin around the room. “Unfortunately, I’m not the right blood type, but we’ll keep looking.”
Evan stands and comes to sit on the edge of the stage beside me. “Are there any questions, concerns, anything about how we move forward and finish this movie strong?”
“I have a question,” Livvie says. “Um, will we have notice before Neevah comes back?”
“Like a day, probably,” I say. “Plenty of time to prepare to shoot.”
“I wasn’t thinking about shooting,” she says. “I mean, of course that, but I thought it might be kinda cool to have a cake or something. Just to welcome her back and let her know we love her.”
The image of Neevah’s bright smile, her stuttering explanation when she gave me gingerbread cookies for Christmas, pounces my heart in my chest. She baked cookies for the whole cast and crew.
God, she’s sweet, and if anything happens to her . . .
“That’s a great idea, Livvie,” Jill adds, her eyes bright with tears and eagerness.
“She loves red velvet.” Takira, who’s been quiet the whole time, swipes at the corner of one eye. “And I think she’d really appreciate that.”
Seeing how this team has bonded around this story, and now how they’re rallying around Neevah, moves something in me. Emotion climbs up my throat, and I don’t know if it’s the cumulative effect of all Neevah is facing and the emotional roller coaster of the last few days, or what. The compassion, the concern, the love they have for her, it washes over me, and I just want to get out of here before I lose it.
The group disperses, some clustering around Evan a few feet away, probably to ask questions they didn’t want to ask me. Jill takes the spot where Evan sat beside me on stage.
“You sure you’re okay?” she asks.
Shit. Don’t ask me that. This is one of those things where you’re fine until somebody asks how you’re doing.
My eyes burn, and I knot my hands into fists. No way I’m breaking down in front of my team. I’m their leader. They need to see confidence now.
“I’m fine,” I answer, my tone terse. I stand and take the first step away, but she grabs my wrist.
“You have people who care about you,” she says, her voice so low only I can hear. Her green eyes, swimming with tears, are locked on mine. “We’re here.” She squeezes my hand. “I’m here, okay?”
I brush a hand over my eyes, impatient with the dampness on my lashes. The people in this room always see me strong, but I can’t remember ever feeling this weak. This job, this movie—for the last two years, they’ve been everything, and now, in the matter of a few days, I can barely concentrate because I can’t stop thinking about the possibility of losing her.
“Her aunt died of this, you know?” I ask. “What if she—”
“She won’t. She’ll be okay.”
“You can’t know that. You can never know that, which is why I didn’t want this.”
“Didn’t want what?”
I look down at the floor, conscious of all the eyes and ears in the room. “To love her,” I admit softly. “To love anyone like this again, because I know how it feels when you lose it.”
“Canon, look at me,” she says. Reluctantly, I do. “You have so much to offer, and you’ve poured it into your work ever since I’ve known you, which was fine, but if there was someone you could share your life with, I hoped you’d find her because you deserve that.”
She reaches for me, hugs me, and whispers in my ear, “There’s no one better prepared to walk through this with her than you.”
She’s right. If there’s one thing my mother taught me, it’s how to love through hard times. I thought I had forgotten, or hoped I’d never have to again.
I pride myself on control, on restraint, but ever since Neevah sang her way into my life that first night, the guard I’ve kept over my heart, over my whole life, has been falling away in layers. I feel more. It’s almost too much. Everything is almost too much.
When Mama died, I think I retired certain parts of myself. Her extended illness and when she passed away—they battered me. Stripped me of faith and illusions and, in many ways, hope. Hope lures you from safety, makes you dream again of things you thought impossible. It coaxes you out of your fears. Forget mercury or arsenic. Hope is the most dangerous element in the world.
But that is exactly what I’ll need if I’m going to be there for Neevah. I honestly don’t know what will be left when all these protective layers fall away, but whatever is left, it’s hers.
