The Truth About Hollywood

I pushed the thought of me liking Danny out of my mind for the time being. Instead, I just spent the week looking forward to the screening party on Friday.

The week passed slowly, but eventually, Friday did come. To my mom's delight, I actually wore a dress and heels. The dress was pretty simple, just black and cinched at the waist.

"You look beautiful," Mom gasped. I was kind of shocked that she was even downstairs, since she'd been hiding out in her room lately.

"Thanks," I smiled, twirling around and watching the bottom of the dress billow out around me. "So are you ready to bring me?"

"Yup. Let me just grab my purse." She reached over and weakly put her purse on her shoulder before shuffling out the door.

I opened my mouth to ask her what was wrong, but I immediately shut it again. The last thing I needed was my dad to pop out of nowhere and yell at me for being nosy again.

Pulling the door shut behind me, we started for the car. "Lynn!" Mom called, turning to face me. "Do you have my keys?"

I looked behind me for a second, expecting to find her younger sister, before facing her again. My eyebrows pulled together before I pointed at myself and questioned, "Lynn?"

"Claire," she corrected, hitting herself in the forehead. "I'm sorry, sweetie."

"Anyway, no. They should be in your purse. Let me look."

"No!" Mom objected, pulling her bag close to her chest. "I'll look again. I can do it."

I shot her a confused look. Since when did my mother act like a toddler? She actively acted like a teenager, so much that I was shocked when she didn't act like one. But a selfish toddler? That was a new one.

A minute later, she removed the key ring from the depths of her bag and smiled. "Told you," she taunted, swinging the keys back and forth in front of her so they clanged together.

Rolling my eyes, I walked to the other side of the car. She was starting to get on my nerves.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the studio. The screening was going to take place in a back room behind the set.

"Thanks," I said shortly before closing the door.

"Whoa," I heard someone say from behind me. Turning slightly and slowing down, I let Danny catch up with me.

He looked down at his t-shirt and jeans, he looked back up at me with a cocked eyebrow. "I feel very underdressed."

"Weird, 'cause I feel very overdressed." I smirked at him.

"Touchè," he laughed. "I guess we'll just have to see how everyone else is dressed, huh?"

Nodding, I walked through the door that he opened for me. "Thanks," I smiled.

"You're welcome." He reciprocated my smile and we just looked at each other for a second. My heart picked up a couple beats, but it was broken by someone yelling, "CLAIRE! DANNY!"

I sighed and turned toward the source of the noise to see Stella click-clacking down the hallway toward us. She pulled down her obnoxiously short and tight dress before posing. "How do I look?"

"Great," I lied, smiling. She was pretty, but she wasn't as pretty as she thought she was. It always annoyed me when people were like that.

Danny cleared his throat, but didn't answer. "What was that?" she questioned in a forced high voice, batting her eyelashes at him.

Oh NO way... I thought to myself nervously. There was no way that she liked him...

"Nothing," he responded, and she started walking ahead of us. Danny rolled his eyes at me.

Grinning, I couldn't help but hope that meant that he didn't like her. If he picked her over me...I didn't know what would happen. I'd be upset, definitely. It would cause some drama around set too, especially if, on the off chance, he actually did choose me.

I didn't think it was likely though, since, despite the fact that she wasn't extremely pretty, she was a lot prettier than I was. The thought made me nervous, seeing how much more likely it was that he would choose Stella.

"Claire! Hello? Anyone there?" James' voice questioned. When I came back to reality, I realized that he was waving a hand in front of my face and actually looking kind of worried.

"Sorry," I laughed, trying to cover up the slight embarrassment.

"We thought we lost you," Danny joked. God, his smile...

"Now that everyone is here, mentally and physically," Levi started, giving me a brief look. I blushed. "It's time to show the final cut of our show!"

We all let out a cheer and took our seats. One of Levi's assistants went around, handing us all little tubs of popcorn.

"Yesss..." I cheered in a hiss as the theme song began to play, with our names and pictures showing up throughout it.

"Ugh, I look like a loser," Annabelle whined as she came up on the screen.

"Shut up!" I whispered harshly, hitting her leg playfully. "You look gorgeous."

"No way! Look at you!"

I turned toward the screen and saw my name pop up in big letters. Above it, I was laughing. I remembered when I filmed that... Danny was making stupid faces at me behind the camera in order to get me to laugh, since I couldn't do it myself. The best thing was that I wasn't expecting it at all. Levi was just getting kind of frustrated at me, and Danny popped out of nowhere, saving the day. In the opening sequence, it made it look like I was laughing at John falling off his skateboard, but that wasn't so.

"I'm so jealous..." Annabelle mumbled, crossing her arms and sinking down in her seat.

"Shut up," I rolled my eyes. "You're prettier than me, and you know it."

"You're both freakin' adorable," Danny interrupted in a girlish voice. "Now shut up and let us watch the show."

I blushed fiercely, and was extremely thankful for the dark cover.

Overall, I actually did like the show. I couldn't believe how much hatred actually flowed between Danny and me in the one scene that we shared together. No one would believe that we were really the two closest on the set.

Danny seemed to have the same way of thinking, since after it finished, he whispered to me, "Wow. You don't really hate me like that, do you?"

"Maybe," I answered teasingly. He smiled before turning back to the show.

After the show finished, we all stood up and cheered. "That has to get picked up," I wished. "It has to."

"Of course it will," Stella interjected snobbily. "Did you see how good I was in that? Not picking it up would be a crime."

John looked at her with disbelief. I shot him a look to keep him from saying anything. I almost wished that I let him though, considering that I knew what he was talking about. Stella was definitely and by far the worst actress in the show, and since I was saying that she was worse than me, that was saying something. I never had confidence in anything I did, and even I could see that she wasn't so good.

"Everyone, settle down!" Levi screamed, stopping all the side conversations. "You will all be called within the next couple of weeks, depending on how quickly our pilot is viewed, and told whether or not the pilot is picked up and if we'll continue filming."

We all made different sounds of understanding before Levi dismissed us.

"Here's to hoping that it'll get picked up," I expressed, raising a hand.

"Hear, hear!" Danny nodded, raising his hand too to humor me.

"Now aren't you guys just so cute?" Annabelle teased, hip-checking me and winking.

I blushed and looked out in front of me. "Oh! There's my dad! Well, I gotta go. See you guys later!"

I scampered away from them as subtly as I could before jumping into the SUV. Dad had a solemn look on his face.

"Where's Mom?" I asked.

"She's not feeling well."

"Oh, yeah. I noticed. She's totally off her rocker."

Dad shot me a warning look, and I sat back, shutting up immediately. "There's something that I need to tell you, Claire-bear."

"What?" I turned toward him and took off my seatbelt, since we were now parked in the driveway.

"You've noticed that your mom hasn't quite been herself lately...right?"

"Yeah...?" I bit my lip, my tear ducts already starting their job. It was like I could tell already that this wasn't going to be good.

"Well...we went to the doctor the other day and um... Baby, Mom has cancer. She has a tumor in her brain, and as of now, they're not sure if it's operable."