Feast of Saints (11 page)

He looked just like her last Jake bust, only… better. The color, shadows and highlights and his flexible, expressive, living face, added a whole new level of complexity, and sexy, to the demonic character.

He was awe-inspiring and… yummy. The more she looked, the broader her smile became.

Jake started experimenting with facial expressions. First, he frowned, and the sexy demon suddenly didn’t look so sexy, but a bit more like a nightmare. He opened his mouth and bared his teeth. The red of his inner lips and tongue was garish and frightening, the fangs razor-sharp. He looked like he might be able to extend his maw to swallow the whole room.

Jake shut his mouth and Lilly recognized his characteristic bland expression. In a testament to his acting skill, she watched, fascinated, as he ever so subtly adjusted the expression, moving from detached to ruthless, pausing at shades in between. Then his expression morphed into a sneer, and while he was sneering, his gaze drifted to meet her eyes, then dropped to her neck and her exposed back.

He looked like he was seriously considering biting her. When Jake lowered his head toward her shoulder, she let out an eek and skidded out of the bathroom, nearly busting an ankle in her Duccio Venturi shoes to get away from him. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Jake snapping at her. Then he started to stalk her down the hallway, his image reflected and multiplied into infinity by the opposing mirrored doors of the bathroom and hall closet.

She had spent the past month imagining Jake in all sorts of bloodsucking wrong. He was really freaking her out.

“Cut it out,” she breathed, choking back the panicky scream that threatened to gurgle out of her throat. She was just about to make a run for the kitchen to find something with which to defend herself, when Jake suddenly came out of character.

Very excited, he said, “Let’s work on my walk. What are you doing about feet?”

It took her a minute to catch her breath and catch up with him mentally. When she did, she ushered him away from the mirrored hallway and back into the Jake room.

She showed him the casts she’d made of his feet and explained the bone structure and how she had a few applications to highlight the tendons. Allegrezza was an ancient vampire. She’d considered giving him pointy, overgrown yellowed toenails, but decided that was too gross. Instead, she’d opted for an acrylic nail color of swirling, silvered obsidian – like the inside of an abalone shell. She’d mixed the nail colors herself. Opening a small glass bottle, she painted one of her own thumbs so that he could see what she was talking about.

Jake took off his dress shoes and practiced stalking around her bungalow. As long as he wasn’t stalking
her
, she enjoyed watching Jake experimenting with his craft.

When he settled into a graceful sinuous walk that was elegantly creepy, Lilly clapped her hands and pointed at him.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed.

Jake flashed her a wide dimpled smile, so incongruous with the Allegrezza makeup that she burst out in laughter, completely erasing her earlier cloying terror.

Chapter 9

At eight p.m., Lilly was sitting in her office putting the final touches on the boards for the second preproduction meeting the next day when her cell phone rang.

She picked it up on the second ring, greeting the caller with a tired, “Hello.”

“Don’t you ever answer your phone?” It was Jake.

She’d just plugged in her cell phone less than an hour before. It had taken so long for the phone to show a flicker of life, she figured it had finally died for good. She still kept a landline telephone, but only her father and telemarketers ever called that number.

“It’s on the fritz,” she said. “Are you checking to be sure I’m ready for tomorrow?”

“No. But now that you bring it up, are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good. I was actually calling to offer you a ride.”

Good grief, she’d forgotten to call Greg and ask him. Relieved, she said, “Yes, thanks. That would be nice.”

“Be ready at noon.”

“But isn’t the meeting at 2?”

“Yes. We’ll meet at my house, first, so we can go over the final details over lunch.”

That wasn’t a request, she thought. He must not trust her to be ready. “Alright,” she said. Then, unable to stop herself, she said, “I’m ready. This won’t be like last time.”

“I didn’t say it would be, did I? See you tomorrow.” With that, he hung up.

She stared at her phone.
Polite much?

The following day her bell rang right at noon. Lilly popped her head in the studio just to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind, then walked to the door, trying to suppress the butterflies fluttering in her stomach at the prospect of seeing Jake.

Instead of Jake, it was Wil on her doorstep.

“Let me help you with that, Ms. Rose,” Wil said, grabbing up the portfolio.

She looked around and out the open door. “Where’s Mr. Durant?”

“We’re meeting him at the house. He had some business to take care of this morning. He asked me to get you set up.”

On seeing Jake’s home again, as they rounded past the mature trees that blocked a view of the house from the street, Lilly thought she could fit at least twenty of her little bungalows in it. On her first trip here, she had struggled to keep her jaw shut. Only slightly more relaxed this time around, she stepped out onto the cobbled drive as Wil opened the hatch to pull out her portfolio.

A Vietnamese woman of indeterminable age, whom Wil introduced as Kwanga, met them at the spectacular two-story entrance. Kwanga led Lilly to a large library that took up a goodly portion of the south wing. On their way to the library, they had passed a formal dining room, an informal dining room, a living room, a theater, something that could have been a ballroom, and many other doors and stairways that lead to who knows where. The back of the house was largely made of scads of glass doors that opened onto a terrace, sculpted garden and infinity pool.

Kwanga had set two place settings at a round table in the library next to a sideboard loaded with salad, fruit, breads and cheeses. A chafing dish steamed with something that smelled wonderfully of hoisin sauce and lime. There was a large sheet of puff pastry sprinkled with raspberries, blueberries and strawberries and stuffed with more berries, whipped cream and mascarpone.

“Please, enjoy your meal,” said Kwanga, departing as Wil entered with the portfolio. Lilly tried not to salivate at the glorious smell as she selected a place to set up her boards for Jake. She’d brought four large boards of the main design, two full body drawings and two close-ups of his face.

She’d also brought several glossy fourteen by seventeen inch booklets that she’d had professionally printed two days ago that contained twelve color drawings of Allegrezza in different states of messed-up.

She set the booklet on the table next to the place settings and sat down to wait for Jake. Although it was comfortably cool in the library, she was perspiring. She was glad she’d chosen the simple, Victoria Beckham, sleeveless, blue shell. The viscose wool blend was lightweight and breathed like cotton. It was cut low under her arms and wouldn’t darken if she had an earnest attack of flop sweat.

Jake showed up less than five minutes later. Looking from his watch to her empty plate, he said, “You should have started without me.”

She found herself irrationally irritated at the command. He’d invited her to lunch, hadn’t he?

“I thought we were supposed to have lunch together,” she said. Her rebuke implied Jake had been something less than gallant.

Jake was immediately contrite. “Yes, yes, we were. I’m sorry I was late. Please, forgive me.”

She was pleasantly surprised by his quick change to a solicitous attitude. So, he could be pushed around. A little. “You’re forgiven,” she said. “Lunch smells delicious. Does Kwanga do all of this?”

Jake looked at the overloaded sideboard and smirked. “Only for special guests,” he said. “If it’s just me, it’s nothing but chicken broth and gruel.”

Lilly did notice that when they started in on lunch, she piled her plate high but Jake selected only a few things and steered entirely clear of the gorgeous dessert.

Resolved not to feel self-conscious, she cleared her plate. On the farm, she learned never to let food go to waste. Most of what they ate had been grown right there. She knew what a miracle it was when corn, cattle, chickens, eggs and everything else they ate survived the earth’s hazards and the fickle elements long enough to produce a bounty.

She had just licked the last bit of Chantilly cream off of her fork, when she looked up to see Jake staring at her, then her empty plate. Clearing his throat, Jake looked away, picked up one of the glossy booklets and began flipping through it.

“This is nice. Did you produce more than one?”

“Yes, I wasn’t sure how many people would be there today. I brought twenty.”

“That should do it. The two people you need to impress the most are the Art Director, Frances Lisle, and Alison Chervik.” At the mention of Alison’s name, Lilly felt an involuntary cringe. Luckily, Jake was still flipping through the book and didn’t notice.

“Monty will be there, of course, but he’s not going to step on Frances’ toes. She’s married to Carl Burstein, the studio head. He’ll let her take the lead.”

Lilly gulped. She hadn’t known that. She wished Jake had waited until after the meeting to tell her.

“I think you can imagine the power she has over our budget.” Handing the booklet back to her, Jake said, “These effects are quite elaborate.”

“Tell me about it,” she groaned. “Chris Nolan’s screenplay has Allegrezza gleefully jumping into battles where he knows he’s going to get chopped to bits. He doesn’t mind because his wounds will heal, his limbs will regenerate. It makes for great story-telling, but it poses a wee bit of a challenge to duplicate with special effects. Bear in mind that most of this will be enhanced with after effects created with computer generated imagery. Still, it takes a lot of planning, but I think I’ve got it worked out.”

She’d spent many days in the back room at her North Hollywood supplier sampling various compounds, gelatins and color mixers, so that she could be confident that she could recreate the designs in real life, before she presented them on paper.

Putting down the booklet, Jake stood to look at the boards, stacked one behind the other on the easel. The top one was the close-up of Jake’s face wearing the ruthless, bland expression, his mouth closed.

When he removed the top board, Lilly looked at her plate. She didn’t like this one, although she knew it was good. In it, Allegrezza was scowling furiously, his fangs bared. It was the expression that nearly caused her to break her ankle trying to get away from Jake last week in her home.

The third board was a shirtless full-body shot of Jake. She planned to highlight his already sculpted torso with some subtle shading here and there, although not much was needed. His hands and feet were visible in this one, the tendons popping and the silvery nails menacing.

The last board was Allegrezza fully dressed in a crimson velvet tux with tails, complete with top hat, casually leaning against a lamppost, one knee bent. He looked to be examining his fingernails. It was very Victorian. She chose this manifestation because it showed that, as scary as the first three boards were, the special effects makeup would be subtle enough that, properly dressed, he could blend in with humans, a fact that was as important to the story line as Allegrezza’s inhuman brutality.

“These are good, Lilly. Although I think you should change-up the order,” Jake said. “Do the last one first, then the other body shot, then the first face shot. End with the disturbing one.”

She considered his suggestion. She had prepared something to say about each board as part of her presentation. She thought it would still work if she reordered them. Yes, she was sure it would.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll do that,” she said.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll let Frances know we’ve already tried this out and it works,” offered Jake. Lilly felt a rush of gratitude. With Jake’s endorsement, today’s meeting was going to go well.

“We’d better get going.” They were meeting Monty at his new office in Studio City. Jake pressed a button on his phone and Wil magically appeared. “Pack this up and take it on over to the studio,” Jake commanded. “We’ll be along shortly.”

She walked with Jake to the front door, wondering why they weren’t riding with Wil. Outside, the silver sports car was waiting for them in the driveway. Jake pressed a button on his key fob and the car’s butterfly doors slid up smoothly.

“I’ll have to get in first,” he said, indicating the car’s center driver’s seat. There were two passenger seats recessed slightly from the prominent center seat, flanking the driver on either side. Jake gracefully folded his tall frame into the cockpit.

Even as short as she was, Lilly had to squat and scramble into the passenger seat in her snug-fitting, L’Agence cropped cigarette pants and four and a half inch Salvatore Ferragamo wedges.

“Are you in?” he asked with a smirk, twisting to look at her before shutting the doors. She was sure he was laughing at her. Her gratitude for the divine lunch and his gracious offer to support her work evaporated. As the doors slid down like a guillotine, she briefly imagined shoving Jake’s neck under one of them.

The seats were fitted so close that Jake brushed her knees every time he shifted gears. He obeyed the speed limit on Santa Monica, La Cienega and Sunset, although veering and surging around traffic snarls more than necessary, given that they had plenty of time to get to their destination. With all the swerving and weaving, Lilly felt like she was in a grown-up version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland, that is, until they hit the entrance ramp for Highway 101. With a metallic scream from the engine, the McLaren accelerated onto the expressway, pinning them both to their seats. She couldn’t stifle a yelp as the traffic dissolved into a blur beside them.

When they slowed to a stop in front of the studio five seconds later, she patted her hair. The way she was feeling, it must be mussed. “Well,” she said, wide-eyed, “that explains your affinity for the Millennium Falcon.”

Frances Lisle, the Art Director, was not at all what Lilly expected. She dressed with French, expensive style: raw silk, creamy pedal pushers, Louboutin flats, a crisp white cotton blouse. Lilly was familiar with Frances’ resume. She specialized in fantasy, including having held a key position on each of Peter Jackson’s
Lord of the Rings
films.

She had expected someone a bit more… loose. Frances rivaled Jake for unreadable expression. She sat silent through Lilly’s entire presentation.

Alison on the other hand, was not one for reticence. When Lilly revealed the last Allegrezza board, Alison shouted out, “Holy shit! I think I just peed myself.”

She stared at Jake across the table. “This is how you’ll look? It’s hard to imagine.”

Jake turned to Alison, saying casually, “Wait until you see it on, Alison. It’s even better.”

Frances looked from the board to Jake. “Do the effects negatively impact your acting in any way?”

“They don’t,” said Jake and Lilly in unison.

“Still,” Frances said, “I’d like to schedule a screen test. Not that you need one, Jake. In fact we can use a look alike.”

“I’m happy to do that, Ms. Lisle.” Lilly said, but she couldn’t keep from voicing her concern that using a look alike would be a terrible mistake. “However, I’m not sure someone else could do Allegrezza justice. If Mr. Durant wouldn’t mind, I’d like to see him in HiDef myself to make sure everything is completely realistic. There may be room for improvement.”

“I don’t mind,” offered Jake. She could have hugged him.

Lilly picked up the stack of booklets, talking as she walked around the table passing them out. “The basic character design elements you’ve seen on the boards don’t change, except for the fangs, which can come and go easily.

“If you look through the booklet, you’ll see the other effects I’m prepared to do based upon events in the screenplay.”

To Frances, she said, “You might want to select some of these to screen-test in HiDef. I can do them all, if you’d like. Although, factoring in downtime to change appliances and makeup, it would take a solid four or five days.”

Frances paged through the book slowly. Picking up a post-it pad on the table, she flagged two of the gorier, beaten up Allegrezzas. “I’d like to screen test these,” she said, handing the flagged booklet to Lilly. “And that,” she said, pointing to the scary board.

“Alright,” Lilly said. She’d been thinking about how the effects were going to be accomplished for weeks. She was sure she was ready, excited even.

To Alison, Lilly said, “Ms. Chervik, I’ll need to meet with the film’s CGI team leader, if possible, this week,” referring to the person in charge of computer generated imagery for the film. Alison, who was still flipping through the booklet, nodded distractedly.

Lilly turned to Monty and the eight other attendees, all studio people, who’d remained quiet.

“Any questions?” she asked.

“Let me see the dandy board again,” said Monty. “The one of Jake in the red suit.”