“But I can’t wear that! My father would be scandalized.” I heard a snigger from behind me and shot Selene, our ‘other’ make-up person, a sneer.

“Wo hast du sie gefunden? In der Grundschule?” She laughed. “Don’t tell me no one has ever seen your popo.”

“Selene, please,” Danny interceded. “Now, Evie, it was clearly stated in your pages for today. And I quote: ‘Young woman awakens in her VW bus, yawns, stretches with gamine charm, and, facing away from the camera, slips a pair of shorts over her thong panties.’”

“Umm…” I tried to find a loophole. Suddenly, it came to me. “Why don’t we use Hanna for that shot? After all, she doubled for me all day yesterday.” Hanna eagerly stepped forward.

“Mr. Dantley, I’ll be glad to have you use my popo instead of Evie’s.”

“I’ll bet you would, Hanna.” Danny turned to me and gripped my shoulders. “The audience will know it’s not your booty. No offense, Hanna. Now, let’s go into your trailer and get ready to dazzle the world with your callipygian beauty.” He actually slapped my butt as he directed me toward the trailer. Hard.

“Owww! That hurt!”

“Du täuschst mich nicht. She likes being spanked. All the Hollywood types do.”

“Don’t worry,” Peg whispered to me. “I know a way we can hide all your non-girly bits. It’s a neat magic trick I’ve had to deploy now and again over the years for a few ‘special’ actresses.”

“Promise me it won’t hurt, Peg.”

We were in the bohemian neighborhood of Kreuzberg in South Central Berlin. Trent, I gathered, was still asleep in his hotel suite. His pages weren’t going to be shot until the afternoon. The morning was all me. Lucky me. There was no dialogue to memorize. The music video was a series of scenes to embellish the lyrics of Trent’s song, a cover version of “California Dreamin’.” In the video, Trent and I play two young Berliners in the heat of a typical German summer who dream of California sun and surf. For the entire video, I’m wearing a bikini bra and board shorts. And carrying a surfboard around the streets of Berlin.

For the three-second shot of me slipping on my shorts over a pair of string thong bikini bottoms, Peg maneuvered my bits into the tightest tuck imaginable. I didn’t know you could put them up there! Of course, Danny had me do six takes!

I didn’t have to drive the VW bus through the streets of Kreuzberg. Hanna had already done all that the day before. But I did draw a crowd as I sat in the bus or moved around outside, waxing my surfboard, doing close-ups of my various dramatic expressions, putting on my mirrored sunglasses and taking them off. The locals were mesmerized by what, to the film crew and me, were boring stretches of setting up shots, doing several takes of each sequence, and then Danny viewing the digital replay of what we’d just shot. Tired of sitting and waiting in the trailer, shooting the breeze with Peg as she touched up my makeup, I put on a white denim jacket, placed a baseball cap backwards on my head and stepped out.

“Where are you going?” asked Peg.

“I figure it’s going to be another half-hour before they’re ready. Might as well go for a walk. See what’s slapping in the hood around here…” Peg immediately picked up her handbag and caught up to me after locking the trailer door.

“Oh, no. I’m coming with you. Dressed like that, they’ll think you’re a pro—”

“I’ve got a jacket on, Peg.”

“Button it up, Evie! All the way!”

The rubberneckers watching this morning’s shoot had dispersed by now, returning to their daily routines or places of employment. I overheard the whispers wondering where Trent was. I’m sure they were disappointed that an unknown like me was on camera instead of him. The streets now unobstructed, I decided to check out the colorful shops and restaurants along Bergmannstraße, only two blocks from where our trailer was parked.

“Oh, these sidewalk cafes are charming, Evie. I’m famished. I wish we could break for lunch already.”

“There’s still some croissants on the craft services table if you’re hungry, Peg. Anyway, we need to get back in 15 minutes. Just enough time to window shop.”

“Oh, no. I forgot to bring my sunglasses. The glare is blinding!”

I patted Peg on top of her head. “Peg, your glasses are on your head.”

“Good thing I didn’t forget my head.”

“Look, Peg, a Turkish rug store. Let’s go inside. I’ve been trying to think of a nice house-warming gift for Debbie and Otis when they move into their hew house. A big area rug would be perfect—”

“There are oriental rug stores in LA, dear. Look at the price tags on these! A thousand euros for a rug? I could get you a good deal on one of the carpets they used in the last live-action Aladdin movie—”

It was serendipity indeed to find a Turkish rug store here on Bergmannstraße, smack dab in the middle of a block of cafes and clothing shops. We were half a mile or more from Little Istanbul, the real center of Turkish culture in Berlin.

“These are Turkish Kilim rugs, Peg. They’re flatweave rugs hand-woven on looms and no kilim rug has the same pattern or design as any other. They’re works of art!”

“If you say so.”

I picked out a 2 X 3-meter wool and cotton rug with an interlaced diamond pattern and, using a combination of high school German and New Jersey-accented English, I was able to negotiate its purchase with the Turkish saleslady who kept asking me when Trent Foster was showing up. For no additional charge, she offered to ship it by UPS. Very nice of her. Peg and I took a selfie with her and her husband, who rushed out from their stockroom when his wife announced our presence.

Peg was adjusting her sunglasses as we stepped out into the midday glare, satisfied, for my part, at solving the big question of what house-warming gift to buy Debbie and Otis. We almost walked into a film crew, in front of which stood Ashlee Woolcott, star reporter for the streaming program Entertainment World Now, her microphone insolently pointed in my face.

“Evie Rivers! Ashlee Woolcott of EWN. A few questions, please?”

“Uh, no, I’m not doing any interviews—”

“Is it really true that you played major league baseball for The New York Titans?”

“No, where did you get that? I…was a coach in their minor league system. I never played in the majors—”

“Why did you quit The Titans? You could have been the first woman to play in the majors—”

“Like I just said, I was not a player. Look, can you please not block the street? My friend and I need to get back to the set—”

“That leads to my next question. Has Trent Foster proposed yet? Rumor has it that his parents are canvassing wedding venues in Pacific Palisades as we speak—”

“No…what? How?”

“Ashlee, please stop the inquisition. She’s needed on the set right now.” It was Trent, wearing an Adidas bucket hat and a smirk.

“Oh, Trent. Well, we can do this later. Will Evie be at the show tonight? We can interview both of you together—”

“We can do this in Paris next week. I’ll have more time to sit down and do a proper interview.”

“That would be perfect! The two of you in the City of Love! This feature will write itself. C’mon guys, give them some room on the sidewalk.”

As the three of us walked quickly away, I grabbed Trent’s arm. “Thanks for rescuing us but you’re not on call until this afternoon in Viktoriapark.”

“I felt guilty about not being with you this morning, seeing as you’d be all alone on set with only Danny and Peg as familiar faces—”

“I’m a fully functioning adult, Trent. I don’t need a babysitter. And I can speak German. You can’t.” He stopped in mid-stride, turned around and looked into my eyes.

“I had to see you. I didn’t want to wait another two hours. I dreamed about you last night—”

“Aren’t we supposed to be back on set…like right now?” asked Peg.

“I just said that to get rid of Ashlee. Danny’s still going over the footage. We could get a table at one of these cafes and have an early lunch.” He looked back over our shoulders and nodded. “They’re gone. She’s like a bloodhound. I swear she was on the plane from LAX when we flew to Europe last week. Anyway, this place looks nice.” He ushered us toward a table a row back from the curb. “Kellner! Bitte drei Flaschen Gerolsteiner.” Turning to us with a grin, he crowed, “My German’s not bad at all.”

When we returned from our alfresco lunch, Danny and his crew were munching on the sandwiches laid out on the craft services table, laughing at some remark made by Selene in German. She stopped laughing the moment I appeared behind Danny’s shoulder. Danny looked up at me, still laughing heartily. Trent and Peg stood on either side of me.

“Oh, Evie. I see Trent finally located you and Peg. Stopped for a bit of lunch, perhaps?”

“Yeah, Danny, it was close to noon anyways. Hope we didn’t hold up the shoot…”

“Nah, one more sequence here and then we’ll pack up, move to Viktoriapark, and I expect you’ll have plenty of time to get to your rehearsal at 5PM.”

“What about the scene at sundown? I looked it up and sundown today is at 9PM. Your concert starts at 8, right?”

“Evie,” interjected Danny, “we’re going to use some movie magic. You’ve heard of ‘day for night?’ Well, we’re shooting the sunset scenes at sunrise tomorrow morning. A little filmic sleight-of-hand and no one in the audience will know the difference.”

“But that means—”

“Yeah,” Peg sighed. “We’ll have to be in Viktoriapark by 4:30AM. No clubbing for you tonight, Evie. Or me for that matter.”

After we shot the fake sunset scene at sunrise on Thursday morning, Danny allowed the whole crew three hours of nap time before we resumed some random re-shoots of scenes from earlier in the week, most of which involved Trent and Hanna as my double. So, much of the day was spent in the trailer, and between pigging out on German pastry and cups of Dallmayr prodomo coffee (from Ethiopia!) and reading books on my kindle, Peg would harangue me with her warnings against getting too involved with Trent.

“Not for you, honey. He’s not for you. You won’t be able to hide your ‘condition’ from him much longer. And do you think he’ll be able to accept that when he finds out?”

“I’m not falling for him, Peg. There’s zero chance of getting involved with him. In fact, after this video, I might never work with him again. I’m through with acting—”

“Don’t say that, Evie. You’re a natural. And you don’t ever have to cross paths with Trent again if you don’t want to. By the time the series starts…if it starts—”

“You don’t think the show’s getting produced, do you?”

“By the time the strike is over, GlobalNet will have other fish to fry. And, truth be told, Trent might not want to act in it anyway. He might be too busy with his singing career. I read in the trades where his manager is lining up a year long world tour if his new album really slaps. Japan, China, Australia, India, the Middle East, Africa, you name it.”

“Who does he think he is, Taylor Swift?”

“No joking, Evie, but Trent might be a billionaire in a couple of years.”

“So, you’re saying I should avoid getting involved with a guy who could be worth a billion dollars…”

“You’ll do well enough on your own, honey. You’ve got oodles of talent. You don’t need Trent…or anyone, really. Sisters are doing it for themselves, honey.”

One last thing before Peg, Hanna, and I left Berlin. I had promised to attend Trent’s final concert at the Mercedes-Benz Arena on Thursday night. While Peg and Hanna caught up on lost sleep back at the hotel in order to rise early to catch our 9AM flight on Friday morning, I would be sitting in the sold-out arena trying not to yawn too obviously while Trent and his band performed.

Surprisingly, I felt really good about the music video we had just shot. Of course, I wouldn’t see the final product until it was officially released a couple of weeks later. When I finally watched it, I was a mixed bag of good feelings and awkward memories. Here it is:

Halfway through the concert, Trent asked to have a spotlight shone on me where I was sitting in the first section of field seats. Truthfully, my eyelids were drooping, and I was fighting off unconsciousness. I had been up since 4 o’clock in the morning. I caught the last part of Trent’s intro to his next number. He dedicated “Every Time You Go Away” to “meine spezialle freundin.” It was the same song he’d sung to “apologize” to me after the embarrassing incident with Bambi at the awards show. The crowd appreciated the gesture more than I did.

The woman sitting next to me shouted in my ear: “Du bist so glücklich. Ich beneide dich.” Lucky? Envy me? I yawned. Not in reply. I was just struggling to keep my eyes open.

As one of Trent’s roadies escorted me backstage after the concert, Ashlee Woolcott walked by.

“See you in Paris. We’ll talk!” She smiled and waved. I smiled in return but did not wave.

Trent wanted to take me to some 4-star restaurant in Prenzlauer Berg, only ten minutes away from the arena, but I reminded him that I had an early morning flight to catch.

“Let’s do this then. I’ll order room service and we’ll have a farewell dinner in my suite. You’ll be tucked in before midnight. I promise. You must be hungry. You probably haven’t had a decent meal all day. Okay?”

I was too tired to argue and too hungry to turn down a good, hot meal.

I couldn’t resist the temptation of ordering the Crème Brûlée for dessert after having vanquished my main course of Orange Chicken. Trent had the over-priced Cheeseburger with French Fries. Typical. After a dainty, ladylike burp or two, I looked up to see Trent pouring out two glasses of Kirschwasser, a clear, colorless brandy made from distilled Morello cherries. I’d never drunk it, but I knew the citation from Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen.” Normally, I believe, it’s served in brandy snifters.

“That’s a lot of brandy, Trent. Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“Me? I’m disappointed in you, Evie. No, these are the only glasses in the room. I guess they think Americans drink it straight from the bottle. You don’t have to gulp it. Just sip. Savor the sweet cherry taste. You know, they use this to make cherries jubilee.”

The closer we got to midnight, the faster I sipped the Kirsch, until I had reached the bottom of the glass. That’s when Trent giddily poured more brandy into my proffered glass. Soon enough, my eyes were spinning, and I must have blacked out.

I groaned as I turned in bed. Someone was drawing the curtains and daylight was streaming into the room, forcing my eyes open. Trent was standing by the windows, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, a broad smile on his undeniably handsome face. This wasn’t my hotel room; this wasn’t my hotel bed. Alarmed, I lifted the bedsheet to discover I still had all my clothes from last night on. I reached underneath myself and felt no rips or tears in my pants. Oh, mercy, at least he hadn’t raped me or attempted to. No, he wouldn’t be smiling if he had.

“Hey, sleepyhead. You could’ve told me you can’t hold your liquor.”

“Unnhhh,” was all I could manage to say in reply.

“I’m gonna go downstairs and bring up some breakfast for us. Give you time to shower.”

“Wait a minute! What happened last night? Why am I waking up in your bed? Oh no, what time is it? I’ve missed my flight!”

“Danny called me about ten minutes before take-off. He said Peg tried calling you from 7 o’clock onwards but nobody picked up. I guess I was as dead to the world as you. I explained everything to him and told him I’d get you on a later flight today…if that’s what you want.” He moved to the door.

“What do you mean, if that’s what I want? You’re the one who got me blotto and made me miss my plane. Also, I have no idea what you might have done while I was asleep in YOUR bed!”

The door slammed shut. After a few minutes, I decided the best thing to do was take a shower.

I was making good progress on my eggs over easy and home fries as I resumed my interrogation of the criminal Trent Foster. He was standing by the window of the common room in his suite, sipping a cup of coffee. He said he wasn’t a fan of big breakfasts.

“So let me get the facts straight. After I fell asleep…here, in the common room…you carried me to YOUR bedroom and placed me in YOUR bed—”

“You’re a big girl, Evie. And the other bedroom was farther away. As it was, I just barely made it to MY bedroom and onto the bed.”

“I don’t weigh THAT much!”

“I was tired and sleepy too.”

“Then you didn’t try to take off my clothes?”

“I thought about it, but you were out like a light. There’s no fun in having your way with an unconscious girl. And I like to keep the A/C on high at night. Didn’t want you to freeze.”

“But you slipped into bed with me. You slept next to me all night!”

“You make some really cute little girl noises when you’re asleep, Evie.”

“You probably snore like a choo-choo train.”

“I admit I did spoon you from behind—”

“Oh my god! Good thing I was wearing my chastity belt.”

“What? You wear a chastity belt? But, how? There’s no sign of it under your clothes—”

“Just kidding, stupid. Now, about my flight back to the good ol’ USA…”

Trent picked up his acoustic guitar from behind the sofa, sat down, and started tuning it.

“I’ve got a proposition for you. Just listen to this song before you decide.”

“Trent, there’s no decision to be made. Just have your road manager book me on a flight later today. I’m sure you can afford the ticket.”

“Shhh. Just listen.”

“I’m a changed man, Evie. You changed me.”

“It’s not going to work, Trent. We’re not…compatible. You’re a big star with millions of admiring fans—”

“And you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. You’re not like any woman I’ve ever met.”

“You have no idea. Look, I have a job I have to get back to and my sister’s probably already cracked up the new car I just got last week. I need to get home.”

“You can’t tell me you feel nothing for me…”

“Let’s table the discussion for now. You’re in the middle of a concert tour and I’m in the middle of failing miserably at life so…”

“Spend the weekend in Paris with me. You can fly back on Monday. Chuck will give you an extra day, won’t he?”

“I don’t know.”

“All expenses paid. Paris is just a two-hour flight from here.”

“I get a separate room?”

“I have the same setup in Paris. A suite. You can have the larger bedroom. I’ll miss out on the spooning though—”

“I’m not joking about that!”

“Okay, okay. I won’t try to molest you. Swear to God! We can spend all day together, Saturday and Sunday. See the sights, get some good eats. What is it they say? Paris is the…the…of…”

“That’s Montreal. Montreal’s the Paris of North America.”

“No, I meant Paris is the city of lights…or is it love?”

“Don’t try to think too hard, Trent. It must be difficult for you.”

“Hey, I went to Stanford. Okay, I was a legacy because of Dad but…anyway, I don’t have a concert until Monday night. You’ll be the only item on my agenda for two whole days.”

“I’ve always wanted to see Paris—”

“I see Paris, I see France. I see Evie’s underpants—”

“You wish. Okay, when do we leave?”

“Our flight’s at 4PM. Land at Charles De Gaulle a little after 6. Hôtel Plaza Athénée by 6:45.”

“I have to call Chuck and let him know my change of plans.”

“Do it tonight in Paris. Remember there’s a 9-hour difference between here and Los Angeles.”

“One more thing. Ashlee Woolcott said your parents were looking at wedding venues for us. Is that true?”

“Well, my mom’s been known to do things behind my back. You can ask her yourself when you get back to L.A.”

“You’re insufferable!”

“You’re beautiful when you’re angry.”

The first thing I did when we got into Trent’s suite was make a Skype call to Chuck. It was still Friday morning in Los Angeles and Chuck was undoubtedly in his office. We made a connection and Chuck’s familiar friendly face appeared on my laptop screen.

“Hey, Evie. You’re still in Berlin? It must be 7:30 at night there. Problem with the airline?”

“Hi, Chuck. No, there’s been a change of plans. I’m in Paris right now. I’ll be back in the office on Tuesday morning.”

“What happened?”

“Uhh…well. I’m spending the weekend in Paris with…with Trent. He invited me and—”

“You couldn’t refuse. I see.” His expression turned taciturn. “You’re a big girl, Evie. It’s your life. Just take my advice for what it’s worth. He can’t be trusted. Especially with your ‘special’ circumstances. You’re playing with fire, Evie.”

“Chuck, it’s just I’ve never been to France. I’ve always wanted…Chuck, don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad, Evie. I’m concerned, that’s all. Well, have a great time in Paris. Don’t say hello to Trent for me. Gotta go. It’s been pretty busy in the office this week. It’ll be nice to have you back in the fold next week. Good night.”

“Have a nice day, Chuck. Bye.” I leaned back in my chair and exhaled.

Trent came back into the room just as the Skype call ended.

“So, everything copacetic with Chuck?”

“Yeah, he had no issues with the extra day.”

“Ready to head out?”

“Head out? Where?”

“You have three changes of clothing that you’ve already gone through. You need something to wear while you’re in Paris that’s not wrinkled like a prune. So, I’ve arranged for some after-hours time at the Louis Vuitton store in the Avenue de Champs-Élysées. The French record label distributing my new album in Europe has a lot of pull and I called in a favor. They’re expecting us. Grab your handbag, woman! Let’s go.”