The Movie (41 page)

‘Oh, she has to, I guess. Because of all that stuff that keeps going wrong, you know? It has to be changed for the new locations and stuff, but she’s using it as an excuse to rip

up my character, and nobody’s stopping her ‘

‘She’s history,’ Sam said bleakly.

‘Oh, no, Sam. She was really sweet a couple of months ago, in LA. But she” got that makeover and the bleached hair and the expensive clothes…’

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‘She did change,’ Sam said, recalling the last time he’d seen Megan Silver, when she seemed a good kid, maybe a little naive, kind of cute with her brown hair and her jeans. The stylish, sexy creature he’d encountered over here, writing furiously at all hours of the day, was someone else a little brittle, very self-possessed. And, apparently, a new addition in the swollen ranks ofbackstabbing Hollywood bitches.

‘She’s history, Poxana. Forget about it. Just do the best you can,’ he repeated, kissing the top of her head.

‘I will, Sam,’ P,.oxana promised. A small, secret smile curved across her ruby lips. ‘Don’t you worry. I will.’

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‘I want you to go to the doctor,’ Paul repeated.

Eleanor stared at him miserably. Her husband’s lips were

set in a tight grey line, his face white with anger and frustration.

‘It’s a bad time for me at work,’ she said, willing him to

, understand. He had to be supportive, to be there for herin her hour of need. Otherwise, what did they have together? A new respectability for the dinner parties she didn’t have time to throw, a joint bank account, and rigid, monotonous sex, prescribed by Dr Haydn, designed solely for the purpose of getting her pregnant. She was due for her first check-up at the fertility clinic in a month, and every night she prayed they’d find out she had conceived. Because what with the wall charts and stupid positions and thermometers, Eleanor wasn’t sure she could take much more of it.

They had the first major fight of their marriage on their wedding night. Eleano/r, striving to beat back the sense of claustrophobia, the feeling of being trapped, had come to her bridgegroom’s bed in the sexiest piece of lingerie she possessed - a beautifully cut black satin teddy by Janet Ikeger - and without her diaphragm. Trying hard for a little humour and camaraderie, she had sliced it in two with a pair of kitchen scissors, placed the remains in a small cardboard box, wrapped up like a present in red ribbons, and placed it on Paul’s pillow.

He’d opened it, laughed, and then handed her a small

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bottle of pills. ‘Sorry I didn’t wrap them in ribbons,’ he said.

‘What’s this?’ Eleanor asked, smiling. ‘An aphrodisiac?’ ‘Not exactly,’ Paul told her, his handsome face suddenly serious. ‘This is a new fertility drag, the latest thing.’ Only just cleared by the FDA. It won’t work right away, but the

quicker we get you on a course of treatment, the better.’ ‘A fertility drug?’ Eleanor repeated, stunned.

‘That’s right.’ Paul nodded proudly. ‘The best available.’

Eleanor remembered that she’d had to take a second to compose herself, before managing to say, quite quietly, ‘And you don’t think we should allow my body to try and conceive naturally first, before you unilaterally decide I need to be pumped full of hormones and chemicals?’

It hadn’t been a good evening. And lately things had been get[ing worse.

In perfect harmony with the rest of my life, Eleanor told herself.

‘It’s a bad time for everybody at work,’ Paul replied, shrugging. ‘You’re not the only one that has troubles in the office, you know. And it isn’t fair to me to use that as an excuse to shirk your spousal duties.’

‘My what? My spousal duties?’ Eleanor shot back. ‘And what are those, exactly, Paul? Being ready to have sex the second I get home, in case we miss the optimum daffy window for conception? Accepting that you won’t make love to me at any other time in case you waste a few precious sperm? I don’t have “toubles in the office”, Paul, I have a huge crisis that’s threatening to consume my career. I’m about to lose everything I’ve worked for all my life. And you expect me to come home, every night, and be ready for sex, every night, whether I feel like it or not! Im not your goddamned brood mare!’

‘We can discuss that another time,’ Halfin said, his eyes cold. ‘Right now I want you to get this recurrent nausea

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seen to. If you’ve got some kind of allergy or wires, it could

be affecting everything we’re trying to do.’

‘OK, OK,’ Eleanor told him wearily.

His words seemed to have knocked all the fight right out

of her. She should see a doctor for her sickness - not because a virus might be causing her harm, but because it might upset her darling husband’s grand conception design!

He doesn’t care about me at all. He cares about his wife,

the soon to be mother of his children, Eleanor thought. No wonder he was so furious when I insisted on keeping my own name. It took a little lustre off his carefully designed family -picture. But Eleanor Halfin? Eleanor Marshall Halfm? Over my dead body…

‘ She reached for her Herm4s purse and slung it over the shoulder of her smart Kifat Ozbek suit in dark green cashmere, picking up her briefcase in the other hand. Suddenly she just didn’t care any more, all she wanted was to get into her office and spend another hellish day trying to save her job.

deserve this, she told herselE. Maybe Paul doesn’t love

me, but who said he had to? I hardly accepted him in a heady rush of romantic passion.

I wanted a husband to save me from everybody’s pity.

He wanted a wife to complete his New Model Lifestyle. And after Charles and Diana, does anyone believe in the fairytale any more? Werre alike - two cynical people in a partnership of convenience. Maybe, in the end, everything comes down to that: whether you’re swapping wealth and power for youth and beauty, sexual skills for a Green Card, or social approval for an available womb in a suitable body, maybe all marriages are really just trades.

I was a fool to believe it could be any other way.

‘I’m out of here. I’ll have my assistant schedule me an appointment with Dr Haydn this morning,’ she promised.

Her husband nodded curdy, pleased. ‘Thank you.’ He

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spread his hands. ‘Who knows, maybe it’s morning sickness. Maybe you’re pregnant already, and we just didn’t realize it.’

‘Who knows?’ Eleanor agreed, walking out.

She pressed a button on her remote and unlocked the Lotus, sinking thankfully into the soft leather of the driver’s seat, her mind already turning to See the Lights, trying to figure out ways around the latest budgeting disaster.

After all, what was she going to tell her husband? That her sickness predated all their fertility contortions? As far as she was concerned, it hadn’t been brought on by any allergy or virus. It had been caused by the stress of a broken heart.

Megan Silver leaned forward over the PowerBook Eleanor Marshall’s office had sent out to her, typing away furiously. The scorching midday sun was beating down on the back of her neck, heat hitting her from all sides, reflected up against her face from the powdery white sand. Her skin felt sticky and uncomfortable from all the lotions and gels she was having to rub into it just to survive-factor 15 sun lotion, antiperspirant, deodorant, insect repellent, and coconut butter oil as an emergency moisturizer, and despite everything small beads of sweat kept dewing her forehead and legs. Her hands were getting cramps from

overuse and her head throbbed with a crunching migraine. Not the best way to concentrate

Not the best way to write an inspirational script.

But that was what she had o do, or this movie was history. All the delays, equipment failure, location problems and reshooting of scenes had sent them overbudget and behind schedule. The only things that held it patchily together were Florescu, who screamed at everybody, worked like a maniac and shot and reshot until he had something he could use, and Megan herself, who found herself doing emergency rewrites all day, every day, as they

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were forced to change this scene or that one, bringing the mountain to Mohammed over and over again. Florescu had told her he was relying on her, and Megan, desperate to impress the one person on this goddamn movie she had

any respect for, was trying hard to rise to the challenge. The pressure was intense.

‘Megan, do you think you could put somethingin about Peter?’

She looked up, shading her eyes with her hand, to see Seth Weiss standing in front of her. The actor was looking diffident; something she always liked about Seth, he was too secure a star, at forty-five, to have any kind of an ego. loxana Felix could take a few lessons from Mr Weiss, Megan thought sarcastically. Although even if she won three Oscars, like he had, it probably wouldn’t be enough to calm the bitch down.

‘Where, in the escape sequence?’

Weiss nodded, his handsome eyes unfocused, and she could see he was going over the scene in his head. Another pl.us for the guy. He actually cared about acting. ‘He was wounded when we were going to shoot in the forest, right? And he’s still wounded, but now we’re on a beach, and if the shot hit him in the foot, he’d get sand in there…’

‘And sand is excruciatingly painful in an open wound,’ Megan finished for him. ‘Like salt. Of course, I should have thought of that before, Seth, I’m an idiot.’

‘You’re a bona ride heroine, Megan,’ Weiss told her, grinning. ‘Saving this movie single-handedly. Or at least that’s what Fred keeps telling us all.’

‘Get out of here,’ Megan said, but she flushed with pleasure as she punched the code into her machine, looking for Seth’s character, Peter Cavazzo.

‘Seth, Megan, how’s it going?’ David Tauber asked amiably, striding over to them and giving Seth the benefit of a full-wattage smile.

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‘It’s going,’ Megan said shortly.

Why did David only ever ask her that when Zach or one of the co-stars was in her vicinity? The way he sucked up to Sam’s clients was truly disgusting, she thought. Kissing ass, telling them how wonderful their performances were, contradicting any honest advice Mr Kendrick might have given them, pretending to apologize for little creature comforts SKI had failed to provide, when what he was really doing was drawing attention to the problem. And yet in private he never bothered to compliment her work, never gave her a shred of encouragement for the effort she was making. On the contrary, he got pissed offifshe wasn’t always praising him, telling him how clever he was. And if she felt too exhausted for sex, forget about it! He was furious! What had he called her last night? Totally selfish, wasn’t that it?

Megan “felt resentment bubble up inside her. She was starting to suspect that she’d fallen for a class A-jerk.

‘We’re putting in some new dialogue for Cavazzo,’ Seth explained. ‘More agonized than sassy. Maybe I’ll be able to play agonized better.’ He shook his head, a wry expression on his face. ‘Sam told me straight that the forest scene didn’t work well anyway. Said I looked angry, instead of witty. I told him it’s hard to be witty when the leading lady keeps blowing your cue on purpose.’

Megan winked at him. Most people on the set had a strong dislike oftkoxana Felix in common.

‘Hey, I thought you were terrific,’ David said smoothly. ‘Maybe the scene needed work, but you were great.’

‘Thanks, man,’ the actor said, smiling as he walked away.

Megan glanced up at David. ‘That’s not what you said last night. You told me a cartoon would’ve been more convincing.’

‘Jesus, you want to keep it down!’ Tauber hissed, glancing over his shoulder to check that Weiss was out of

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earshot. ‘He’s talent, Megan. You only ever encourage talent.’

‘I don’t notice you encouraging mine much lately,’ Megan said, pushing her blonde hair out of her eyes.

‘You’re a writer, Megan. And you’ve got. me all the time,’ David said impatiently, checking his lolex. ‘I have to get back to the set.’

‘Can’t miss a chance to kiss up to Mary, huh?’ Megan asked, wondering where this was coming from. She’d never dared to criticize David since the day he rescued her from Mr Chicken. Maybe the heat was getting to her… but somehow it didn’t feel so terrifying, somehow it felt pretty good.

What if Fred was right? a little voice in her head was asking. What if David didn’t rescue you? What if you rescued you?

‘What?’ David sputtered, glaring at her. What was this bullshit? Was Megan going to start up on him now? Who the hell did she think she was? Koxana?

‘Mary and Seth are Sam’s clients, David,’ Megan said stubbornly. Sam Kendrick had always treated her with respect, she thought, which was more than she could say for her own agent. ‘You’re undermining him. I don’t think it’sright.’

David Tauber leant forward towards her, menacingly, his eyes narrowed.

‘Listen up,’ he said softly. ‘It’s none of your business. And if you repeat what you just.said to anybody on this set - and I do mean anybody - you’re going to regret it.’

Megan gazed at him coolly. ‘Are you threatening me, David?’ she replied.

He straightened up. Didn’t want to push the stupid kid too far-who knew what she might do in this mood? Megan with an attitude? That had to be nipped in the bud, and fast. Except that right now he didn’t have the time.

‘We’ll talk about this tonight. In private,’ he said curtly.

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Megan clicked offher computer and stood up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘I don’t think so, David,’ she said. ‘I’ll be sleeping in another room tonight.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ he said, unfazed, confident. ‘Oh, yes, I do,’ she said. ‘I need a little time to myselE.’ ‘Right. You need time to yourself,’ Tauber sneered, and Megan found herself staring at his handsome, mocking mouth with dismay. She tried to remind herself that David Tauber was the guy she’.d been longing for, but it didn’t work. The polished veneer David assumed with everyone else slipped a little further every time he was alone with her, and right now he seemed less like an infallible superagent and more like a spoilt brat every second. ‘It’s always me, me, me with you. You’re not the only one putting in time on this project, Megan. What about my needs? What am I supposed to do tonight? After everything I’ve “done for you!’