Loving (4 page)

B
AILEY’S DOUBTS BURNED THEMSELVES INTO HER HEART AND
stayed there while the song on her car radio finished. By then she was at the beach, and like she had hoped, the parking lot was empty. She found a spot, grabbed the new script and a towel from the backseat, and walked toward the nearest pale-blue lifeguard station. Staff wasn’t on duty at this hour. She walked up the stairs and spread her towel across the platform. Hidden from the world, with her back against the tower wall and the ocean spread out before her, Bailey breathed in deep and stared at the water.

Here it was easy to reflect on the events of the past month. Her uneasy meetings with NTM studios, and a few troubling conversations with Brandon. Assuming West Mark fixed the contract, there was still the issue of Brandon being committed to Los Angeles for the next five years.

Which brought up another frustration that had surfaced lately. Now that she and Brandon were both living in LA, the paparazzi constantly looked for scandalous stories about them. Headlines at supermarket checkout stands regularly questioned whether Bailey was pregnant or Brandon was cheating on her or she was having a secret long-distance affair with someone back in New York. Brandon was used to it, and to some degree Bailey was too. Most people didn’t believe the garbage they printed, but still it was wearying.

More days than not she longed for the simplicity of Bloomington, when no one wondered why she was headed into a drugstore
or having a phone conversation while she walked down the street. The insanely busy streets and teeming sidewalks of New York City were relaxing compared to paparazzi-crazy Los Angeles. A friend from the
Hairspray
cast had called last week to inform her that a couple shows were auditioning for dancers in the fall. Six months away, but still … Could Bailey really commit to LA when her heart was so uneasy? All of it left Bailey confused about her feelings for Brandon, and whether everything between them had maybe happened too fast.

What am I feeling, God? … Help me find the peace I felt a month ago
.

She exhaled and leaned her head back against the weathered wood. Maybe her whole relationship with Brandon was all a little too easy. The way he’d swept in from the beginning and made her feel loved and cherished and special. Now it was like he took for granted the fact that she’d move to LA permanently or that she could handle the constant throng of photographers capturing their every move. She’d hinted a few times that maybe they should talk, that maybe she’d made the move to LA too quickly. But each time something distracted them. She was beginning to think Brandon simply didn’t want to talk about the possibility that her living in LA might not work out.

Because they both loved each other so much. That was the one thing she didn’t question.

The ocean was rougher than usual, white caps bouncing in from the distant horizon. Bailey stared at the water but all she could see was Brandon. The time he surprised her and flew to Indiana to help her pack for New York … the Empire State Building … the carriage rides through the City and seeing him in the front row every night she performed for her last two months on Broadway. The prom on the top of the Kellers’ apartment building. Their Skype dates. She smiled, enjoying the bouquet of memories. The ride might’ve been fast, but it had been beautiful.

So why did she feel so unsettled? Here, on a beautiful windy spring day alone on the beach? It wasn’t thoughts of Cody, because he was her past. Really and truly. Whether she missed his camaraderie was irrelevant. Seasons change — if anyone knew that, she did.

The feeling could be the idea of living in LA and committing to the movie and Mel Kamp and … and whatever they’d done with the script. Or the uneasiness could be the idea that maybe she’d given up her dream of dancing on Broadway a little too fast.

The sun was overhead but still just behind the lifeguard tower, leaving her place on the platform completely shaded. Like a secret hideaway from the towering glass office buildings of Century City and the relentless traffic of LA and the insidious paparazzi.

A place where she could breathe.

She opened the cover of the script and thumbed through it. The whole thing was a hundred and five pages. She could easily get through it in the next couple hours. She stretched her legs out in front of her, crossed them at the ankles, and began to read.

With the sea breeze swirling around her and the bright blue sky hanging over the ocean, Bailey expected the next hour to be one of the day’s best. The first few pages into the script, she felt that way for sure. But there at the top of page six came the first sign that Bailey’s uneasiness from earlier was warranted.

At the beginning of that page, her two costars’ characters were at a party full of gang members when three girls approached them and offered to sleep with them. The descriptive and graphic scene that followed was both gratuitous and offensive. Bailey stopped halfway down the next page, sick to her stomach. What was this garbage? No one had told her there’d be scenes like this in the movie. Clearly Mel Kamp had been alluding to this in the recent studio meetings. Bailey was angry with herself. She should’ve asked more questions, pushed more for an explanation about the
rewrite. But how could she have guessed this? Not with NTM, the studio known for its clean films.

Panic and disgust filled her mind with every page of the script. For the next five minutes Bailey flipped through the revised story and found half a dozen scenes she couldn’t live with. Even the scene she’d originally read for had a number of cuss words thrown in. And in the director’s note on the scene it said:
The teacher is young, but she must dress in a way that turns the heads of the guys in the class. This is how she first gains their attention
.

Bailey closed the script and pulled her knees up to her chest. What was happening? How in the world had the producer thought she’d be okay with this? Surely Brandon’s agent had told Kamp how Bailey felt, her absolute determination to only do family-friendly projects, movies with a message or some redeeming value. She brought her hand to her face. What about her costars? How would they feel about the changes?

The sick feeling in her stomach grew. She dropped the script on the wooden floor of the lifeguard tower, stood, and walked to the nearby railing. Leaning on her elbows, she hung her head and closed her eyes. With everything inside her she wanted to be in Bloomington. Spring would be knocking on the door back home, the snow pretty much behind them. On a day like this, Ricky would have a baseball game, or Shawn and Justin would be tearing up the soccer field. She and her mom could’ve gone for coffee and talked about life. Not a single person would be lurking in the bushes ready to snap her picture, and she wouldn’t be holding a script that made her sick.

Just she and her mom talking like they’d always been able to do.

Her mom would’ve known what to say, and together they could’ve discussed what in the world Bailey was doing in LA and where she would wind up if she stayed. Her breathing came faster,
and she could hear her heartbeat pounding, almost as if she were being chased.

She lifted her head and stared out at the water.
What am I doing here, God?

My daughter, I am with you … Be still … Listen to my voice
.

Bailey straightened slowly, her eyes on the horizon. God often spoke to her through quiet certainties in her heart or Scripture verses. But here it was like His voice was in the wind, His eyes directly on her, His hands on her shoulders. She exhaled and felt her heart rate ease a little.
Okay, God … what do you want me to hear? What are you saying?

She waited, but this time there was only the sound of the breeze. Then gradually, thoughts began taking root in her mind. And this time, rather than flitting through her heart, they stayed. Like billboards in her soul. A sudden slew of doubts overwhelming in their intensity.

Maybe after
Hairspray
closed its doors, she should’ve taken more time. Looked a little longer. Really prayed about God’s next move for her. And when she decided to leave, she should’ve spent more time at home. She didn’t need to be with Brandon every spare hour. She needed to seek God’s plan for her life, pray longer about her next career move. She and Brandon had handled having a long-distance relationship before. Certainly she could’ve waited a few months before moving to LA. Then a thought came that seemed more significant than the others: her decision to take the movie role had been rushed. Even though at the time the part had seemed hand-delivered by God.

Bailey leaned into the railing and suddenly she knew, without a doubt, her next move. She pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and called the one person she could share all her doubts and uneasiness with. The one who had known her and guided her and listened to her and loved her all of her life.

Her mom.

She waited while the phone rang, and just before it might’ve gone to voicemail, her mother picked up. “Hi, honey … how are you?” Jenny Flanigan knew about Bailey’s meeting that morning, so she sounded upbeat, hopeful.

“Not good.” Bailey felt the tears again. The steady ocean breeze made her eyes sting. She swallowed hard, wishing once more that she was home in Bloomington. “They changed the script.”

“Hmmm.” Bailey’s mom sounded surprised, but not overly so. “That’s what the meeting was about?”

“Not really. The producer talked around the topic, but then he handed out these completely new scripts.” Bailey blinked and two tears rolled down her cheeks. “Not that I ever read the entire script before, but now … Mom, the story is awful. Totally different than they told me it would be.” She took a shaky breath and launched into a ninety-second explanation of how she’d gone to the beach to read the script and how the story had been changed and the fact that now — combined with so many other moments and meetings — she was doubting everything about the last few months. She wiped at her tears, frustrated. “The whole thing makes me so mad. I mean, I moved here for this part.”

Her mom allowed a few seconds of silence. “I’m sorry. I really am.” Again she waited, and Bailey knew she was being careful not to hurry into a teaching moment. “I guess I never thought you moved there for that one part.”

A group of college-age girls walked along the sand in her direction, five of them laughing and clearly caught up in some story. Bailey took a few steps back and leaned against the wall of the lifeguard station, fading into the shadows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I thought you moved there for Brandon.”

“Well, yeah. Of course. That too.” Bailey let the statement shake up her certainties for a few seconds. “I love him. But we were handling having a long-distance relationship.”

“I know. I understand that.” Her mom sounded kind, as always, her tone warm with patience. “But you’ve dreamed of dancing on Broadway all your life. And, yes, maybe you had your time and maybe you were ready for something else. But when the show closed, you still had a great setup with the Kellers, right?”

“Yes.” Bailey ordered herself not to be defensive about the direction her mom was headed here. “No musicals were auditioning.”

“Then maybe that would’ve been a chance to come home and take a month to see where God was leading. Finish up a couple of your online classes and pray about what might be next.” She paused. “Instead Brandon knew of a part, Dayne and Katy had a room, and almost immediately you moved to LA. I know you love Brandon, honey. But have you ever thought maybe it all happened a little fast?”

Bailey stared at the blue sky overhead. “Yes. More than I want to admit.” Fresh tears filled her heart, but she refused them. She had to stay controlled so she could focus on her next step. “Right now I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

“I haven’t sensed you were at peace about it.” Her mom’s tone remained gentle. “I guess I wanted the realization to come from you.”

Bailey used the back of her hand to wipe her cheeks. “Even though I was so sure God had brought me this opportunity.” She felt an ache deep in her heart. She’d never experienced something like this. The certainty of believing something was a blessing from God only to see it turn into a mass of confusion.

“You’re crying.” The compassion in her mom’s voice rang strong. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be there.”

“Me too.” Her words sounded small, buried beneath the hurt in her heart. She pinched the bridge of her nose, the sadness spreading through her. “I wish God would give the answers.”

“He will.”

The thought of staying in LA made her feel terrible. But the thought of leaving Brandon … she squeezed her eyes shut and fought a series of small sobs. “I want to come home, but I’m not sure if that’s the right decision.” She hesitated. “I should probably try to make it work here. I mean, I chose this — whether that was the right decision or not. Like maybe give it six months at least.”

“That makes sense.” Her mom’s brief silence felt thoughtful. “It’s something only you and God can decide, honey.”

They talked a few more minutes, and Bailey’s tears eased up, though the sting of salt in her eyes and on her cheeks remained. Before the call ended, her mom gave her a Bible verse. “It’s from Proverbs 16:9.” The sound of pages turning came across the phone line. “Here it is. ‘In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.’”

The Scripture resonated as if God Himself were speaking to her. Along the beach, the college girls were closer now, their voices loud as they carried on the wind. For a long time Bailey remained quiet, watching the girls and remembering when she’d been at Indiana University. It felt like a lifetime ago, back when she and Andi Ellison first became friends. True friends didn’t come easily.

“You’re quiet.” Her mom’s concern filled her tone. “What do you think of the verse?”

“It’s confusing.” She walked to the railing again and watched the girls head away from her. Her words came slow and measured. Like she was still convincing herself. “I thought God had led me to Los Angeles. But maybe it was just me planning out my course. You know, so I could be with Brandon.”