GobSmacked82

Morning shippers,
I've gone in and made an edit to the last fic, to nip that error in the bud. I suppose I could have let it slide and created a composite character or something, but you all know better. It's hard to get over on Kevney shippers! Now, is it an obsession if you post part 1 at an ungodly late hour, and then post part 2 early the next morning? Guilty, guilty, guilty. Lock me up and enjoy.


Picking right up from where Whitney redoes her makeup ...

The lot is buzzing as she leaves her trailer and heads to the set where she’ll be shooting the scene with Kevin. As she draws closer, muttering her lines almost imperceptibly, she spots Kevin talking to Mick and a couple of crew members holding charts, binders, and a clapper board. Kevin’s arms are folded across his chest, and when he sees her approach, he smiles and drops his arms to his sides. He holds up an arm and she scoots to his side, instantly feeling at ease as he pulls her in close.

“Alright, Whitney’s here,” Kevin says. “The Bonnie to my Clyde. We can get started.”

Mick asks Whitney if she’s alright and she nods yes. Then he explains to her what Rachel will be doing in the scene, and her motives for asking Frank out. Whitney nods as the crew buzzes around her for last-minute cosmetic changes, and holds a light meter up to her face. Mick explains where her marks are and how she’ll be moving around the set, Whitney nods through all of this and Kevin either concurs with whatever Mick tells her or elaborates.
“Mick, I think I’ve got the camera ready,” one of his assistants says. Mick nods at Whitney, gives her a last-minute pep talk and moves off. After a few minutes, he screams for everyone to take their marks.

Whitney stations herself at her mark, and waits for the loud clack of the clapperboard. She moves close to Kevin and they begin their lines, but soon after they begin, they realize they need to stop.
Mick screams, “Cut!” A small commotion follows as Kevin’s face drops out of character and looks downright serious. Not stern or foreboding, but serious enough that the crew turns off the lights and he walks up close to Whitney, telling her that they have to go back to her trailer. As he walks Whitney off the set, she could have sworn that she saw Mick smack his forehead and shake his head, that a few of the crew all turned their backs and found something else to look at. What was going on?

As soon as they get inside her trailer, Kevin shuts the door behind them and looks like he’s searching for words.

“What happened? Why did we stop?” Whitney asked. Instead of answering right away, rubs his forehead and looks at her face.

“Whitney, what happened here during the 20 minutes before you came out?” Kevin breathed heavily.

Whitney simply shrugs and wrings her hands. She reads what she thinks is bewilderment on his face, and prays that she hasn’t gotten on his last nerve.

“Um … nothing,” she says, and holds her hands behind her back. Her almost childlike tone disarms Kevin completely. He takes her by the shoulders and turns her around to see herself in the mirror.
Whitney is horrified at the sight of her mascara, blush, foundation and eyeliner all running and streaking down her face.

“Oh my God!” Whitney hurries to her vanity and touches her face. “What happened to my face!!”

“You tell me,” Kevin says. “I need to know what you did after I left you in here.”

“I … I … didn’t … like the makeup … that they put on me,” Whitney sobbed and flopped into her chair.

“What? Why?” Kevin says, coming up behind her in the chair.
“Be … because it wasn’t enough,” Whitney cried. “I looked a disgrace!”

“Whitney, what did you put on your face?”

By then, Whitney had dumped all the contents of her makeup case out on the counter and was dabbing on cream to clean it off. She explained that she thought the movie makeup was too thin, so she used her own.

“Let me see it,” Kevin says. He reaches into the pile of cosmetics and pulls out a jar and reads it. “Wow. This looks heavy. No wonder it …”

He stops himself and sees Whitney wimpering in the chair, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I blew it!”

“No, you didn’t, Whitney,” Kevin says. “These things happen all the time.”

“You’re just being nice!”

Kevin turns her chair around, so that she’s facing him, and he kneels in front of her. For a moment, he watches her snatch tissues out of a box and wipe the cream, makeup and all off of her face. He’s really bewildered as to why someone so beautiful and talented—far and away more suited than anyone he remotely considered for the part—could be so unsure of herself. He realizes how slim, small and sad she looks, so painfully self-conscious, and feels slightly guilty that he has chased her so relentlessly and pushed her so hard to do the movie. Obviously she was uncomfortable, and he hadn’t done enough to calm her fears. But as touching as it was to see her quietly sob into the tissues, because she did wipe away a couple tears as she passed the tissues across her eyes, he can’t shake the feeling that she is the one for the movie. As tough as it is for her to recognize the potential that he sees, Kevin can’t let her walk away from something that could turn out to be a major achievement for her. Not possible.

“Did anyone see?”

“No. It happened so fast,” Kevin says. “I waved over to Mick, and I think only he and I really knew what happened.”

“You’re being nice again,” Whitney says, throwing tissues covered in almond covered foundation into the trash.

“Whitney, I have to admit that I don’t understand all this,” Kevin says. She looks up as he’s shaking his head. “Is it really just about the makeup?”

“Yeah,” Whitney shrugs and averts her eyes.

“No it isn’t,” he says, covering her hands with his. “What else is going on?”

After a few more minutes, Whitney stops crying.

“Well, word is kind of out that I’m considering this, and … how you waited all this time for me,” she begins. “It mean it’s not everywhere, but there are rumblings, you know.”

Kevin is so used to being talked about and written about that at first he doesn’t grasp what she’s trying to tell him. She decides on a more direct approach.

“Certain people don’t really think that my first movie needs to be with a guy like you,” and she punctuates the ‘you’ by pointing to him directly.

“What kind of guy?”

Whitney sighs, not believing that she’s capitulating even one bit to outside pressures. For years, she’s been laughing off the unkind criticisms that she’s too white, too lacking in rhythm and soul, too generic to represent her own race with real integrity. It was easy to forget about them whenever she talked with Kevin, whether on the phone or in person. But when creepy letters started to come to the house, she came up with one more reason to hesitate filming the movie. She dodges Kevin’s question.

“And some people booed me recently. Twice,” she says. “At an award show. It was on TV, you probably never even saw it, though.”

“Who in their right mind would ever boo you?” Kevin was completely knocked on his heels.

“Just people. Black dee-jays and that whole ilk,” Whitney presses her fingers onto her face, trying not to cry again. She can’t bear to tell Kevin everything, especially some particularly crude remarks that her new fiancé has been making lately. “I have to be great. There’s talk about how ‘why her?’ and ‘why is he just giving it to her?’ and ‘what does he really want?’”

Suddenly Kevin realizes what Whitney has been trying to avoid telling him. He stands up straight and shakes his head. He wants to hear more, even if it only helps Whitney get certain frustrations off of her mind. But his main concern is getting his co-star refocused. Whitney finishes cleaning her face and darts over to the sink to wash it quickly. She is fast, and is back in the chair scrubbed clean and ready to start afresh. He hopes.

He turns her around in her chair so that she faces the mirror, and holds onto the back, watching her in the mirror.

“Listen to me, Whitney,” Kevin says. “I know the studio is going to love you. We’re all pulling for you and will give you whatever you need to feel comfortable getting through this project. You just have to trust me when I say you and nobody else can play Rachel better than you.”

Whitney wipes her nose with a tissue and looks up at Kevin through the mirror. They stare at each other for a moment, until she breaks away, looking down. She takes a deep breath and looks up again.

“OK. I’ll trust your instincts,” she says. Kevin smiles and says he’ll send the makeup crew back in.

“And this time, I know you’ll let them do their handiwork, right?” He laughs. They both do, like they’ve shared an inside joke. “And Whitney, as for everybody else …”

Whitney raises her head, looking directly into the reflection at Kevin.

“You’ll shut them down.”

After the last pep talk, Whitney walks back out onto the set, and gives Kevin a wry grin as she takes her mark. She becomes Rachel, asking Frank Farmer out with shyness and vulnerability. The scene is actually longer that what gets into the movie, which she doesn’t realize. She does as many takes as Mick needs to capture hers and Kevin’s reactions to each other, mainly hers.

After the filming, Kevin walks Whitney back to her trailer and tries to calm her shaking hands, reassuring her that she did well.

"I have to be great, Kevin," Whitney says. "Are you sure? Because I have to be great!"

"You knocked it out of the park, I know you did," he says. "I'm going to send you mom in and talk to Mick. But I think, I think they'll be happy with what they got."

Whitney is still flush with excitement and paces the floor running her hands through her hair.

"Whatever happens, Kevin, you've been a really good friend and I won't forget it," she says.

He stops her from pacing and holds a finger up close to her face, mere fractions of an inch from her nose.

"I should be thanking you," he says. 'You're going to be the making of this project, Whitney. I just know it."

She nods and squeezes her hands. Then they both laugh, out of relief mainly, but they laugh.

The next day, in Whitney’s hotel suite …

Whitney and her mother are lounging after a day of shopping and hitting a day spa. Whitney’s phone rings and she reaches to pick it up, inspecting a bright silk blouse.

“Hello? Hey Kevin!” Whitney glances at her mother and mugs terror. “You have news?” Whitney’s voice drops, the she looks puzzled. “Oh, OK. No, sure, come on up. I’m here with my mother,” she says, and hangs up.

“That was Kevin, Baby?”

Whitney nods, sitting down quietly.

“I don’t think it was great news, momma,” she says. “He sounded really quiet, and said he had to talk to me personally. Something must have gone wrong.”

“You don’t know that, sweetness,” Cissy says, flipping through a magazine.

The doorbell to the suite rings, and Whitney answers. Kevin strides in, carrying a three-ringed binder. He’s barely able to contain his excitement, which his a totally different mood from the placid greeting he gave Whitney on the phone. Whitney watches him walk in and shake hands with Cissy.

“Well?” Whitney is twisting the blouse around her hand.

“Whitney, you knocked ‘em dead! They’re in love with you! You’re going to be Rachel Marron!”

Whitney breaks into a shriek, then laughter and grabs Kevin. She can’t quite manage a bear hug, but holds onto him as tightly as she can all the same. Cissy sits up, watching this burst of emotion with intense interest.

Kevin notices Cissy’s face and starts to peel Whitney’s arms from around his neck. He succeeds , but the Whitney transfers her arms around his chest. He pulls her grip off again, but then she catches him around the waist. He relents and lets Whitney hold on for as long as she needs to. She goes from thanking him profusely for believing in her, to sobbing to laughing and back to thanking him again. At a certain point, he actually starts to get embarrassed.

“You might as well get used to it,” Cissy says, going back to her magazine. “She was like that after Clive signed her.”

At length, Whitney lets Kevin go. He explains the setting, and how all the studio bosses were gathered around, ready to scrutinize everything about the test. They had some comments and points, he says.

“But for the most part, Whitney, they couldn’t take their eyes off you,” he says. “You were charming and forthright, just like Rachel is supposed to be. You had something to tell Frank, and they all felt like they were Frank! They were actually rooting for Rachel to get him to go out with her! I knew you could pull this off.”

“That’s amazing!”

Kevin explains the proceedings a bit more, and says he wants to sign a contract that evening.

“I’m not letting you slip the hook, Miss!”

“Well, what’s that in your hand?” Whitney asks. “Is it my contract?”

“Oh, just part of it,” he says, smiling. “This is the ‘Whitney will not be showing any @ss clause!”

They both freeze in panic, realizing that Kevin has cussed in front of Whitney's mother. Whitney hits him, playfully but firmly, on the chest. He quickly and profusely apologizes, blaming his excitement.

"Sorry, Momma!" Whitney adds nervously.

"You just make sure that clause is airtight and my daughter's 'walking away' parts of no concern to you during this project," Cissy says. "She's an engaged woman, too."

Kevin has been saying 'yes ma'am' repeatedly during Cissy's speech, and he pauses at her last comment. He turns to look at Whitney.

"Yeah, it happened just before I got out to L.A.," Whitney says shyly. "With everything that's been going on, I forgot to mention it. But yeah, and please don't say anything yet, I'll start wearing the ring in a couple of days."

"No, of course not," Kevin says. He looks like someone just removed the champagne from celebration, though. He glances from Whitney to Cissy. "To ... B----, right? That hip hop guy?"

"Yeah," Cissy's tone is much drier this time, and she shakes her head.

"OK, well I guess congratulations are in order on two counts," Kevin says. And then he leans in with a wry grin. "Welcome to my world!"

Kevin then explains that he's arranged a dinner with the same party to sign Whitney's contract.

"Whitney, I told you that you'd be a trailblazer in this business," Kevin says. "If nothing else, we'll have a modesty clause that's almost downright Biblical!"

Whitney laughs, covers her face and extends her hand for Kevin to shake.

"Thank you Kevin," she says.

"Let's wait until after you endure the early set calls to thank me!"