Just Like You ✓

Seven

I worked hard for the body I had, and it showed. I knew I was working that outfit, but I hadn't been expecting this reaction from her. She was looking at me the way the men were, with the same ravenous expression, as though hypnotized.

Everyone got to their places. Beyonce sat behind her desk.

"Action," the director shouted.

"No way. I am not going anywhere dressed like this!" I said as Wallace, storming into the station, and receiving cheers and claps from the officers, who were predominantly male.

Detective Brown laughed and leaned back in her chair. She was dressed casually, spared the humiliation of dressing half-naked and freezing her ass off. "Wow, Wallace, I never knew you had all of this going on under your uniform. At least you know you have a career waiting for you if the cop thing doesn't work out."

"Hey Detective, give us a twirl," one of the male officers said, guffawing with the others.

"Go to hell," I said. I perched myself on the edge of Brown's desk casually, my legs on full display. "Tell me I don't really have to do this."

Silence. Beyonce swallowed. I waited for her to deliver her line, looking at her expectantly.

"Please tell me I don't have to go through with this," I improvised, hoping she would say her piece.

"Fuck!" she said instead.

"Cut," the director yelled. "Let's go again, just before Wallace sits down."

We started again. I delivered my line perfectly.

"You're the only one who can pull the look off. With your legs, and your . . . and your . . . Shit! Line?" Beyonce shouted, all flustered and red faced.

"With your legs and your butt, no one will think you're undercover. You look like a natural," the assistant director read out.

"Right, got it."

Unfortunately, she hadn't got it. At least, as soon as she got over one hurdle, she botched another line, and became more frustrated and flustered. It went on like that all morning. I'd never seen anything like it before. She never forgot her lines.

"All right, let's take a lunch break," the director said, impatience in his voice. He'd had to yell cut so many times that morning that the words had probably lost their meaning.

Beyonce flounced from the set mumbling and swearing under her breath.

"That was a train wreck. Did you see that?" I asked Noah, moments later when we were in my trailer.

"Of course I saw it. Who didn't? Complete meltdown. I know I shouldn't laugh, but I get a type of schadenfreude."

"She was all over the place. Do you think she didn't practice her lines enough?"

"I don't think that's her style. Probably has some crazy Beyonce Knowles shit she's dealing with. Or maybe she couldn't concentrate with you wearing that costume." He wiggled his eyebrow in a suggestive manner.

"You're such a pervert! Not everyone thinks like you."

He cackled.

Just then, the trailer door swung open and Beyonce stomped in. She barely acknowledged Noah, only glowered at me. "I gotta talk to you, alone."

"I'm busy," I said. "Maybe you should go work on your lines instead."

She stood there shooting me daggers, until finally Noah, looking from her to me and back again, got up. "This is my cue to leave, I think."