Prologue

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“Smile big,” she instructed. The lights were blaring and hot; sweat snaked down my back. And I was trembling, as the actor, Hollywood royalty, playing my father was standing beside me discreetly caressing my backside. His middle finger, casually sliding between my legs as if this was acceptable behavior. He was forty-six. I was twelve.

Rule one... what happens in The Woods of Holly stays out of the public’s eye. It was an open secret that actors and elites were involved in pedophilia, trafficking, and other secret society practices that would horrify the average Joe. The person who longs to leave the world a little bit of a better place would fall faint over these terrible realities.

The symbolism of their sinister behaviors was in plain sight, but most unsuspecting, everyday people have no idea what lies behind their hundred-watt smiles and gated homes. They have no clue who they are worshiping from afar. Why do you think they are called actors?

Merry, Merry was my first feature film starring two of The Woods of Holly’s biggest movie stars, Thomas Caine and Juliet Rudy. I, quite frankly, stumbled blindly into this part. I had no professional training. No acting experience whatsoever. My mother took me to an open call for extras truly just for fun. It was exciting as a kid and with calculated intent every door opened for me. Voilà. Filmmaking, however, is a cover for their lifestyles of abuse, and it has been for decades

 

 

Part One- Cassidy

 

- Adolescence 

“Cassidy Lee,” my mother called. “Come downstairs. I have the most exciting news for you. Hurry sweetie.”
I was facing the mirror in my pink and black square tiled bathroom, picking a piece of mozzarella cheese from my braces. I’d been walking around school for close to three hours with cheese stuck in one of my front brackets from lunch. My mother had packed me pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut. I could’ve died thinking about how Justin Harrow was staring at me in history. For a moment, a brief moment, I thought he liked me but looking back at my reflection, I knew he was probably grossed out by the cruddy cheese that shone like Jessica Cogel’s navy blue eyeshadow. The eyeshadow that she’d steal from her older sister’s makeup bag. Life was hard at twelve. You were becoming, at least that was what your body was trumpeting.  My mind, however, hadn't caught up with all the internal and external changes of adolescence. I didn’t know who I was, and I feel quite certain that many adults don’t even know who they are so I thanked God that I had Candace as my guide.

My mother, Candace was my everything back then. She had a fearlessness that I admired as well as envied. “There is nothing stopping you Cassidy but you,” she’d preach. Candace was a freed soul so I assumed. I’d come to the revelation later that none of us are entirely freed in the purposes were created for.
 
“You called mother? I chuckled. “Oh, and no more packing pizza for my lunch!” She turned to face me, shrugged her delicate shoulders and said, “Okay.” Candace didn’t need a lengthy explanation or one at all. If I didn’t want pizza, she respected my wishes. Done. 
“Guess what?” She baited. “ Today in the paper there was a small article about an open call for a big movie that is being filmed right here in Nashville. You meet the required age group. Would you be interested in going on Saturday?” She turned and opened the oven, pulling out a roast that had been cooking for two hours. 
“For what? I asked. “I don’t act.” “I know but I thought it would be fun, something different, a new experience,” she smiled, persuasively. I trusted my mother with every fiber of my being. She was always in my corner so if Candace said it would be fun, I was down. 
“Sure, why not. What does an extra do, exactly?”  “Well typically extras are sitting at surrounding tables in a restaurant or walking through an airport. Extras are like backdrops to a scene. They don’t act, they just help to make the scene look… real. Who knows, maybe we’ll see your face on the big screen.” My first thought was hopefully without mozzarella cheese stuck in my braces. 

Justin Harrow was the most beautiful boy I’d ever laid eyes on. My first crush. He was taller than me by almost four inches, close to five feet, six inches tall. He had salty blonde hair and emerald eyes that could light up Iceland’s night sky. I’d willfully sit one row behind and chair over so I could gaze at his sublime profile. Every so often he’d look back, our eyes meeting for a brief second, heat rising up to the surface of my cheeks. And  I'd break eye contact out of embarrassment and scribble something like the word idiot across my notepad to look as though I was taking notes in class. I longed for Justin to like me without him knowing I liked him first. 

When I turned twelve, Candace had sat me down for the birds and the bees’ talk, her words not mine.
“What do birds and bees have to do with it?” I asked, directly. She’d laugh, head back, displaying her perfectly aligned white teeth. She never answered that question but she did plenty of others. 
“It’s normal for you to feel “tingly” when you like someone.” Check! She went on to explain that any day my period would come and a week later, it did. She took me shopping to celebrate womanhood. Candace was an expert on removing stigma and fears. She stood outside her bathroom, cheering me on as I inserted my first tampon in month five of muliebrity.  She said to stay away from light colors during my cycle and always be prepared in advance,aka menstrual calendar. Candace walked me through this foreign world one tippy toe at a time. 

My father died from an aneurysm when I was eight. He was forty three, just four years older than my mother. He died sitting behind his desk at his office. My father was the manager of Chet Rich, Dylan Ray, and Southern Tide. Three of country music’s biggest songwriters and hit makers. His funeral was like the Who’s Who of Nashville. Right at the time of his death, they had been trying to get pregnant. My mother wanted me to have a sibling but it just wasn’t God’s plan, she’d say. I only remember seeing my mother cry a total of three times during that eerie first year. Death is a strange experience. In the mornings, my father would wake us up by playing the piano downstairs. The day after he died, we woke up to painful silence. Where did he go? I wondered. Is it possible he’ll come back to us? Everything was weird and frightening like a sinkhole under our house or a Poltergeist lingering. His toothbrush remained in the holder. His cologne on the dresser. His clothes were in the closet. His guitar next to the fireplace. His keys. His wallet. His wife. His daughter are all still here. It felt incredibly morbid to keep his things and utterly cold to give them away. The struggle is very real when someone you love is gone. Although we knew my father was in Heaven with Jesus, our hearts broke into a million little pieces. Our lives would never be what they once were. An unsettling tie that binds us all together in this life. 

Four years after my father’s death, Candace still could not bring herself to date. 
“Dad is watching us. It would be like cheating on him and I would never cheat on your father, “ she’d say with a hurting smile. Another stellar quality in my mother, loyalty. 
So I became her everything which looking back now was not healthy for either of us. It’s a lesson I have learned more than once. People, our people are just on loan and we don’t know for how long. My advice, loosen your grip.

Extra, Extra 

Candace took me to Patty’s Pancakes for breakfast that Saturday morning, the day of the movie extras. She reminded me to use good posture and dust off my confidence while I ate blueberry pancakes with a side of greasy bacon.
“Cassidy? I have this gut feeling that you will be plucked from obscurity.” And she was right, I would be. 
We arrived at this large lot in downtown Nashville. I was given a number and shuffled to a nearby building while my mother stayed behind, waving me on with great pride.  I remember the ornery woman who walked me over had an earpiece and neck credentials. She told someone we were on our way and said the words, We have a live one. I didn’t know what that meant back then but I’d come to find out. 
I was asked to put on a long, straight, nicely groomed auburn wig that sat on a white table. The casting director helped me straighten the wig by pulling it tight to my head. I stood there while three people, two women and one overweight man stared at me from behind a large black desk.
“Have you any acting experience?” One of the women asked. “No,” I whispered. “Please turn to the side,” the other woman requested. “Okay, now walk across the room.” I did. “ We need you to laugh like something is really funny. Can you do that?” The fat man asked. For a few seconds, I just stood there looking at them looking at me. I was wearing a red wig and being asked to laugh like a monkey. But show-business is monkey- business.
“Sweetie,” her fingers snapped,” can you think of something really funny? Like something funny one of your friends did or maybe something funny you watched on tv?” The first woman asked, suddenly polite. Immediately my best friend, Felicia, came to mind. At lunch in the cafeteria, Felicia missed the chair and fell backwards on the floor. She was going on and on about Mrs. Simpson purposely trying to embarrass her in front of the class by calling on her more than anyone else. 
“She has it out for me,” she’d say right before missing her chair by an inch. Luckily, she wasn’t holding her lunch tray. She jumped up so fast that not many other kids saw but I laughed so hard once I knew she was okay. So, I thought about that, I thought about her startled face, and on que started laughing. The three strangers loved it. They loved the way my head fell back, my mouth opened like my mother’s when something was really funny. 

From there, things began to accelerate. I was offered a small part, two lines in that movie, a romantic comedy and before production wrapped, I was asked to read for a bigger part in another movie. Life would never be the same. My innocence was about to be snatched on the most insidious level one could imagine. 

Candace was escorted from the parents waiting area over to the building where I’d been being groomed for the first time. The casting director, a female, had paperwork and pen in hand as she looked at my mother, now widowed , and told her I had a bright future ahead of me.
 
“We were so impressed at what a natural she is in front of the camera that we’d like to offer her a teensy part in the film,” she’d gesture. “I’ll need you to sign these consent forms and all contact information. I’ll have one of our acting coaches contact you by Monday to start working with Cassidy. How does all that sound?” As she, without hesitation, handed the pen to my mother.  

On the way home, my mother was over the moon but I was quiet. I had an uneasy feeling. A gut punch. The red wig, the laughing, the studying me. The natural alarm bell inside me was ringing loudly but each time I looked over to my mother, she was beaming from ear to ear.
“Your dad would be so excited for you,Cassidy. God must’ve blessed you with some of his same talents. They said you’re a natural.” She reached out to me with her soft ivory hand and touched the side of my cheek. “I love you. And not because of this but because you are you.” “Me too, Mom, me too,” I said. 

Two days later, Margo, the acting coach, showed up. When I arrived home from school, she was sitting at our dining room table, hamming it up with my mother. Margo had kinky curly shoulder length platinum blonde hair and a fuchsia scarf hanging from her neck. The one thing I remember most about Margo were the size of her hands. They were like bear paws and she would waved them in animation constantly. Each time she took a step closer, I took a step back, afraid she would swipe me with her sharp pink claw. Anyways, I liked Margo. She was funny, warm and had a way to get me out of the shell I so often wanted to stay tucked in.
“Come on, my little crab,” she’d tease. Margo had all types of techniques to get me to loosen up. One time we actually rolled around on the floor like toddlers. Another time, we screamed at the top of our lungs. We’d go for walks around our gated neighborhood and she’d ask me about boys(Justin), school, friends and of course, my father. Margo quickly felt like family. After the death of my father, light was flickering through the trees and tapping at our windows. The light that dances outside your home, beckoning you to come out and play. The black hole that took my dad had almost completely closed up. Candace and I were shifting from the past, gingerly into the present. 

The two lines I needed to nail for Lost With You were...

Excuse me, you dropped this. 
and 
Sure, no problem. 

You’d think that would be easy enough but there is so much more to add and subtract. Inflection, stance, facial expression and body language. In the scene, the main character drops her small clutch as she switches her coat from one arm to the other. By week four, Margo said I was ready for the ball, as in, the clock would still strike twelve and the magic soon vanished.