untitled/

I fell in love with Sienna Browne the evening we arrived in Rome to film Anyone’s Darling. I remember it as if it were yesterday. That exact moment. We were all supposed to meet in the lobby of the crappy little hotel the studio had booked us at 7PM and the car would take us to Stefano’s villa for dinner. We were meant to be “getting to know” one another. Bullshit. Like we all didn’t know everything there was to already know in this industry.

Alana and Jared had gone on by themselves. Said there was a wine bar in Trastevere they wanted to stop by to say hello to some old friends before we needed to be there.

Chad Dylan and I were sitting in these two red velvet armchairs in the lobby, and it was already 7:15PM. I was nervous as hell. This was my first film working with Stefano. I needed to make a good impression. This could really change things for me. Chad was smoking a Cuban. I had my whiskey – that was all I drank back then. I thought it made me seem — I don’t know exactly what I thought. But I liked it. I liked whatever people thought when they saw me with a glass of whiskey neat.

So there we are, we’re waiting for the infamous Sienna Browne to finally grace us with her presence, and I remember I feel like I’m sweating bullets. I’m thinking, well fuck, so much for this silk shirt. And I will admit, it wasn’t just because of Roberto. I was anxious to meet her. This was a woman who’s entire existence had been printed in the papers from the time she was 17 and ran off to marry Bobby Crayton in Vegas. A woman who’s name had been in my ears for the duration of my career, a woman who’s shadow I seemed to be chasing for the past five years. When I think about it now, I don’t know how our paths hadn’t crossed before then, but here we were, in the Eternal City, set to star opposite each other in a film that we had each been promised would cement our careers.

“Well, do we send someone up there after her?” I finally say to Dylan.

“Not yet. Fuckin’ Sienna. The Pope himself could be down here and she’d wouldn’t give a damn,” He huffed, blowing the smoke of his cigar away from me and in the direction of two British blondes who has spotted us from across the lobby, and were now giggling uncontrollably.

“Well fine, but if I finish my whiskey and she’s still not down here I’m — “ but I didn’t get to finish my thought because I was too distracted by the large commotion that had arisen around the main staircase in the parlor.

Amid a small crowd, the two Blondes included, and a great deal of chatter, I could just make her out.

She was wearing a tea length black cotton dress that rested off her shoulders. The fabric was light and lose, maybe linen, but it somehow managed to cling to every curve of her body. It was slit up her left thigh, and I remember thinking, Holy shit, that’s the most perfect leg I’ve ever seen. There was no way in hell she was wearing a bra. I could have bet my life on it. Her lips were painted that signature cherry red and her iconic honey blonde hair was swept away from her face and pulled back with a simple black ribbon at the nape of her neck. She continued down the stairs and our eyes met, and I swear for a second, my heart stopped all together.

So many people, I think, can pinpoint that exact moment when their heart became someone else’s. Watching Sienna walk down those stairs, well, I think I was too scared and confused to realize that that was mine.

So she walks towards us, her silk-wrap sandals click-clacking on the marble floor. And that bitch has the balls to grab my whiskey out of my hand and knock back the rest of the glass.

“Sorry,” she says in that husky voice of hers, “I couldn’t stop thinking about how God-damn good that drink looked as I was walking down through that crowd of assholes and I just could not help myself.”

Dylan burst out laughing. “Classic Sienna,” he murmurs then turns around and walks towards the front door.

I’m still standing there in shock, and remember that I’m supposed to be making a good impression, despite the fact that there’s a drumline exploding in my chest. God don’t let her hear my heart beating, I kept thinking. I thought then, and still think, that Sienna is the kind of person that can hear someone’s heart beating from a mile away. She knows the find of effect she has on people, but she doesn’t give a shit. I don’t even think it registers.

So I finally stick my hand out, all polite, and I say, “Sally Scott. Pleased to meet you. You owe me a Johnnie Walker.”

And that became our thing.

I keep playing with the idea of writing a book. What would it be about? How long would it need to be? How long would it take me? This sounds scary….. so until then, I will write little beginnings and keep exploring this idea that terrifies and excites me at the same time. 

-Ails