“Where’s Drew?” Tommy asks, his voice booming so loudly that he doesn’t need a megaphone.
“His trailer,” Brody says, his mouth full of a burrito.
“Are you ever not eating?” Tarah asks.
Brody gestures to his body, ensconced in a puffy winter coat. “This takes work, okay? I’ve gotta maintain it with daily burritos.”
Despite my general annoyance with Drew, I’ve developed a nice, casual relationship with both Brody and Tarah. Both of them are polite, genuine people, unlike some movie stars whose names rhyme with Schmew Schmanforth. Both of them seem to like Drew, though, and Brody is even one of his friends, which does make me question their judgment.
“What’s he doing in his trailer?” Tommy ask-shouts.
Brody shrugs, and Tommy turns to me. I certainly don’t know, or care, what Drew is doing, so I shrug, too.
“Go check on him,” Tommy says, jerking his head in the direction of Drew’s trailer as he looks at his phone.
My mouth twists into a frown, but as Tommy’s assistant I must assist him with anything he needs, which in this case apparently involves corralling diva actors.
“You want a bite?” Brody asks, holding his burrito toward me.
“Uh, no thanks,” I say before I stomp off toward Drew’s trailer.
I hesitate outside the trailer door, hearing a voice on the other side. Should I knock? Should I barge in? What if he’s naked? The thought of Drew naked is not an altogether unpleasant one, because although I’m not impressed by muscles, I did see that shirtless picture Chloe sent me plus a few more when I googled him and it wasn’t like he was hard to look at . . .
I shake my head. What the hell? Why would he be naked, Annie? Focus.
I knock quietly. No response. I knock a little louder, and all I hear is a laugh. Frustrated, I push open the door.
Drew is facing away from me, pacing the short length of his trailer, and he’s on the phone.
“If anyone’s a turd burglar here, it’s definitely you, bud,” he’s saying with a laugh. “Yeah, I went there.”
He turns around to pace back and his eyes widen when he sees me. “Good God!” he shouts as he drops his phone.
“I knocked!” I yell. “Twice!”
“I’m on the phone,” he says, exasperated, as he picks it up. Then, to whomever he’s talking to, he says, “Listen, I dropped the phone. Yeah, okay. Uh-huh. Tell Mom and Dad I love them. Later, loser.”
He hangs up and looks at me expectantly.
“Tommy needs you,” I say, then turn to leave.
But before I step away from the door, he says, “I was talking to my brother. Not avoiding everyone.”
I stop and look at him. “I didn’t ask.”
“Yeah, but.” He pulls on his gloves. “I can tell you’re thinking that I’m some asshole hiding in his trailer and slowing down production. But my brother’s ten, and he’s dealing with some little shits bullying him because he has a speech impediment and he can’t pronounce his Rs, and I wanted to make him feel a bit better.”
I raise my eyebrows. “By calling him a turd burglar and a loser?”
Drew smirks. “Terms of endearment in the Danforth family.”
It is actually kind of sweet that he cares so much about his family. Tom Hanks, after all, is usually very good with children, whether they’re his own or his dad’s or grandfather’s much younger kids. I open my mouth to ask him more about his family, but then I hear someone burp outside through the thin walls of the trailer, and I remember that this isn’t a movie. This moment is not sound tracked by Harry Connick Jr. or Harry Nilsson or any other Harry who sings in a Nora Ephron film. This is depressingly real life, and Drew Danforth will be gone the second this movie is done filming.
“You’d better hurry,” I say before I make my way down the stairs. The cold air hitting my cheeks helps bring me back to reality.
* * *
• • •
By the time we’re done with the day’s scenes, I’ve made about a million phone calls, fetched about a hundred cups of coffee, and even (thrillingly!) helped Tommy make some minor script changes when he asked me which word was funnier, bozo or jackass. (Bozo, obviously. Duh.) Everyone’s exhausted, and I hear Brody and Tarah talking about going out to dinner somewhere. They bring up the names of a few places I know are good and decide on an Italian place before asking Drew to go with them.