Melody Burning Read Online Free PDF

from between my trailer and the wall of the soundstage, and his camera starts clicking away.
    Fury like actual fire just explodes in my head, and I break away from Mom and go after him. He runs, I run, I am screaming at him, he turns and shoots, runs more, turns and shoots, and I know I’m getting into trouble, but I can’t help myself. I am just so mad.
    Then security is there, and he’s soon surrounded and hustled off the lot.
    Mom runs up. “Come on, honey, you’re falling out.”
    Well, not quite, but my blouse is ripped and there’s bra showing.
    “How did he get in here, Mom?”
    She shakes her head. “Look in the wallets at the gate. Carcelli probably paid his way in.”
    My trailer is quiet and cool, and I go in the bathroom and gargle Listerine until I feel sort of clean. Sort of.
    “I want Alex fired,” I say to Mom. “I never want him near me again!” I’m shocked to hear the rage in my voice. I think of myself as mild and nice, and I know that I’ve gone deeper into celebrity. I will wreck Alex’s career because he went too far with me. But he deserves it—he’s totally out of control.
    I want to cry. I’ve never been kissed much before, and in the celebrity bubble where I live now, finding a normal boy probably will never happen for me.
    Ted and Mark and Sam come in, and suddenly the trailer feels like a funeral. And maybe that’s just what it is.
    Mom talks for me. I have nothing to say about anything, it seems. Even though it was me this happened to.
    “Mel, we need to be very careful,” Ted says to me. His voice is different from the usual.
    Mom says, “We understand that, Ted.”
    Their eyes meet, and do I see daggers? What’s happening that I’m not being filled in on?
    “Legal will have to get involved,” Ted says.
    There is silence.
    Then I hear Alex. He’s yelling like crazy, and he’s right outside.
    “What’s going on?”
    “They found meth in Alex’s trailer,” Ted says. “He’s being escorted off the lot.”
    Mom explodes. “But we have a whole bunch of scenes to shoot. We’ll get behind!”
    “He’s in violation,” Sam explains. “You know the contract.”
    Mom has been real clear that if I get in trouble with drugs or alcohol, I’m fired. And it’s the same for Alex.
    “So . . . what do we do?” I ask.
    “I’m writing Seth out. You’re gonna have a new boyfriend.”
    What can I say, that I’m unhappy? Alex was poison, pure and simple.
    Mom is like a statue. She must be thinking how easy it would be to write me out. It’s scary. Of course, I’m the star, so they aren’t going to do that. Only, that’s not how she thinks. No matter how good things may be, Mom is always going to be clinging by her fingernails.
    “I’ll work over the weekend. We’ll start shooting again on Monday,” Ted says.
    I doubt we’re going to be shooting again any time soon. He can’t possibly write Seth out that fast.
    The funeral procession finally gets up and leaves us alone in the trailer. I can hear Alex’s screams over the air-conditioning hum. On the other side of a scream like that is the black hole of being forgotten.
    Mom says, “I need a drink.” Then she laughs to herself. She sighs and says, “Small blessing. We can take off early. Let’s get out of here, girl.”
    When we go out onto the lot, the California sun is painfully bright. A bright, hot desert where the sun burns away the lies.

C HAPTER 6

    Flying on with the stars, with the clouds that love me,
flying in the dark when you cannot even see,
flying on forever . ..forever .. .forever . ..
    W hat happened, what happened, what happened ?
    They were screaming down there, screaming at each other, and Beresford was frantic, hiding in the crawl space above his new hatch. Something awful had happened. He strained to hear, but they were talking so fast and saying so much he didn’t understand. He was sure of only one thing: the fight was over Swingles .
    When Beresford finished his hatch, the first