The Movie (57 page)

‘It’s possible that we could have a word-of-mouth hit.’ ‘A hundred-and-thirty-five-million-dollar word-of mouth hit? You’re asking for a miracle.’

Eleanor Marshall thought of Tom’s baby, growing inside her womb. ‘I believe in miracles,’ she said.

Tom shook his head. ‘You just don’t know when to quit, Elemaor, do you?’

‘Absolutely not,’ she agreed. ‘So are you coming out to the wrap party on Saturday? I’m going to book my ticket tonight.’

‘Are you kidding?’ Goldman replied. ‘After everything we’ve been through to see this goddamn movie finished, I wouldn’t miss it for twenty monsoons.’

See the Lights held its wrap party on the beach, under the stars. Tom and Eleanor arrived to a hotel already in chaos as hundreds of crew technicians lugged packed suitcases down the main stairs or hogged the elevator, stacking all their stuff in the hotel lobby in gre.at coloufful piles of leather and plastic, ready to be ferried out to Seychelles airport the next morning. The party atmosphere was in evidence even before they got out to the beach, the lighting director staggering past Tom with his hair covered in sticky coconut milk and the chief grip passing out thick pre-rolledjoints to everybody in sight. Relief was hanging so thick in the air you could almost smell it. And once the

two of them stepped outside onto the soft, powdery sand,

it was insane.

‘Is this a wrap party or Mardi Gras?’ Tom asked Eleanor, gazing at the scene on the shore. Four huge bonfires were stacked along the beach, throwing up towers of flame against the inky black sky, silhouetting the dancing figures jumping crazily around them to the strains of some extra loud rap music that was pumping from a beat-box somewhere. Florescu had organized a trestle table piled with food they could smell two hundred yards away: Creole lobster, octopus curry, sharkmeat with ginger sauce, p, arrotfish soup. As soon as they walked over, somebody from the catering crew shoved a tall glass of something tall and coloufful into their hands.

‘What’s this?’ Goldman asked warily, putting an arm round Eleanor’s waist.

‘La purde,’ the girl said, laughing. ‘Local speciality. Try

it!’

Tom took a gulp and gasped for air, the crushed fruit brew searing the back of his throat. ‘Jesus Christ! What/s this?’

‘Fermented fruit alcohol. It’s pretty strong,’ she said. ‘No kidding,’ Tom said, putting it down on the table.

‘You have anything n0n-alcoholic?’ Eleanor asked. ‘I’m pregnant.’

‘Sure.’ She handed her a plastic beaker ofcitronelle, the light Seychellois brew of mineral water, honey and crushed lemon.

‘I’ll take one of those,’ Tom said.

‘Hey, you guys[ You’re hte,’ Fred Florescu said,

walking up to Tom and slapping him on the shoulder. ‘It’s good to see you too, Fred,’ Tom said, smiling.

‘Plane was delayed in Singapore,’ Eleanor explained. ‘How are you?’

‘Pretty fucking pleased with this movie,’ the director

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told her. ‘I gotta thank you guys for fighting so hard to let us finish it. We’ve made an incredible film. It’s gonna win the Palme d’Or at Cannes next year, and it’s gonna break box-office records.’

‘Really?’ said Eleanor.

‘Sure,’ said Tom.

Florescu glared at him with mock severity. ‘Oh ye of little faith. You care to place a bet on that? A hundred dollars says you make at least thirty million dollars’ profit on this thing.’

‘Sold,’ Goldman said, clasping the younger man’s hand. ‘God knows I could use the money.’

‘We’re out of a job after See the Lights is released,’ Eleanor told him.

‘No you’re not. You can come and work for me,’ Sam Kendricl said, emerging from behind a crackling bonfire. ‘Artemis may be history, but we’re not. Since the divorce I’ve thrown myself into work. We wrapped a fat deal from Troy Savage at Universal just this morning. I’m snowed under, I could do with some help. You gamekeepers should turn poachers. It’d make you more well-rounded human beings.’

‘By becoming an agent? You’re on drugs, Sam,’ Florescu teased him. ‘Kendrick’s just a money-making machine with a greedy, ruthless, one-track mind. Which is precisely why I signed to him.’

‘All directors are just kids whose bullying instinct never found enough expression beaing UP small children in grade school,’ Sam rejoined amiably.

‘What are you doing here, Sam? I thought you didn’t

represent loxana Felix any more,’ Eleanor said, curiously. Kendrick’s face darkened, and he looked away.

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘But Fred, Zach and Megan are still my clients, and so are all the co-stars. I was never about to miss this.’

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‘Where is Roxana?’ Eleanor asked. ‘I’d like to see her.’

‘You will. leal soon,’ Florescu said. ‘Zach and P,.oxana

are both about to make speeches. Have a seat.’

He waved them to a place at the trestle table, and they sat down, aware of figures beginning to gather around and sit cross-legged on the sand, crowding the benches. Suddenly they exploded into cheers and wolf whistles as R.oxana Felix, looking stunning in a sheer white silk dress, her long hair braided in a sophisticated French pleat, climbed nimbly on top of a pile of crates which somebody had erected specially for the occasion.

‘Wow, they really love her,’ Tom Goldman muttered. ‘Yeah, well. She turned from bitch queen of the universe into Mother Theresa,’ Florescu whispered back loudly, ‘Turned up early every morning, made coffee for the wardrobe girls, asked if she could help packing up the equipment - you name it, loxana was in there giving a hand. Everybody on the crew was shellshocked. Now they worship the ground she walks on.’

Eleanor cast a sideways glance at Sam Kendrick, but he had lowered his eyes, refusing to look at loxana as she started her speech.

‘On behalf of the cast, I want to thank everybody in the

crew wh worked so hard to make this movie,’ loxana said, to loud applause from the supporting actors, who banged the tables and whooped. ‘It was you guys versus spoilt models, Murphy’s Law, studio politics and the forces of nature - so naturally there was no contest.’ There was a lot of raucous laughter. ‘I should also give special thanks to Megan Silver, for writing us out of more dead ends than anybody can count’ - huge applause and whistles - ‘and Zach Mason, for kindly getting his ass back here alive, so I didn’t have to do love scenes with a cadaver. Although on second thoughts, maybe that might have been preferable … and lastly, let me say that I have always dreamed of

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working with the most talented young director in America.’ A beat. ‘So when I get home, I’m going to call Quentin Tarantino right away and ask him to give me a test.’

The party exploded into laughter and cheering, and tkoxana bowed and sat down, blowing a kiss towards Florescu.

‘Bitch,’ he yelled, grinning. tkoxana’s place-was taken by the tall, musclebound figure of Zach Mason, his long black hair blowing against his bare shoulders, his broad chest silhouetted in the firelight.

‘Jesus, he looks terrific,’ Eleanor said.

‘The guy’s been pumping iron like a madman ever since he got out of hospital,’ Fred explained. ‘He says he’s going to get back on the road and he needs to be in shape. It’s either that or it’s love. He’s been inseparable from Megan Silver siflce the moment they were found in the jungle.’

‘Ahhh, how romantic,’ Eleanor murmured, and Tom tightened his grip around her waist, squeezing her softly. She hesitated a moment, then settled back in against him. It felt good to be out here with Tom, in the darkness, Eleanor thought. If this was their final bow, it was right that they were doing it together.

I won’t pull back from him, Eleanor told herself. At least, not this evening.

‘They say a thing of beauty is a joy forever,’ Zach Mason began, ‘although in tLoxana’s case I think I speak for everybody when I say that for most of the time a thing of beauty was a pain in the ass.’

‘Amen,’ Florescu yelled, to more heers.

‘Seriously,’ Mason went on, holding up a hand for silence, ‘I have to thank Roxie, Seth, Mary, Jack, tkobert, Fred and the whole cast and crew for letting me see what it’s like to make a movie. And when I next want to do something a little less stressful, I’m going skydiving ov.er the Grand Canyon without a parachute.’ He waited for the

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laughter to die down, and then held out his hand. ‘Megan,

get up here.’

Eleanor watched quietly as Megan Silver, chic and slender in a short Donna Karan dress and loose sandals, climbed up next to Zach and nestled against him, her small hand clasped in his. She looked gorgeous, confident and radiant with happiness.

‘Is that Megan?’ Tom whispered to Eleanor, staring at.

her disbelievingly. ‘What happened to that dumpy little mouse I met six months agoY

‘She made this movie,’ Eleanor replied, finding that she

had tears in her eyes. ‘It changed all of us.’

Tve got a couple of announcements to make,’ Zach

said. ‘The first is that I’m really glad to have had the opportunity of seeing what it was like to act, particularly in such a great fn as this turned out to be, because I won’t be doing it again. I’ve talked to the guys in Dark Angel, and we’re getting back together. Movies are fun, but music is my life.’

There was deafening applause.

, ‘Thanks,’ Zach said. ‘And talking of my life, the second

thing I’ve got to tell you guys - saving the best for last’ - he looked tenderly down at Megan, smiling into her eyes - ‘is that this morning I asked Megan Silver if she’d agree to marry me, and she said yes.’

Anything else he might have wanted to add was lost in pandemonium, as the c, ast and crew burst into congratulations, everybody yelling and whistling and stamping their feet, and Megan and Zach were pulled down offthe crates by people crowding around to shake their hands. Eleanor saw R.oxana hugging Megan, and then Zach.

‘Are you going to say something?’ Tom asked Florescu. ‘After that? Are you kidding? It would be the anticlimax of the century,’ Florescu said dryly. ‘No. I spoke to the crew when we did the final take of the Łmal scene. That’ll have to do.’ He swung his legs over the bench and stood

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up. ‘Excuse me for a second, OK? I have to go congratulate them.’

The too,’ Sam Kendrick added, following his client. ‘I’ll see you two later.’

‘Come on, Tom,’ Eleanor said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘In a second.’ He moved closer to her on the bench and grabbed her two hands, holding them tightly in the shadows, looking at her in the flickering light of the bonfires as people rushed past them towards Zach and Megan, the party raging around them, ignoring them, leaving the two of them alone at the end of the table.

‘Not now,’ Eleanor whispered. There was something about the way Goldman was looking at her that made her nervous. His liquid black eyes were fxed on her, scanning her face as though he wanted to memorize it, as though he would never tak his gaze offher.

‘Yes, now,’-Tom insisted. ‘Now. I have to say it,

Eleanor. I can’t wait any longer.’

She was silent.

Tom reached out one hand and cupped her cheek, softly, gently, rubbing his rough palm across the softness of her skin.

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I’ve loved you since the day I met you. Maybe you felt the same way, maybe it happened to you a little later, but I know you feel something for me. New York proved that to both of us.’ He took a breath, struggling to find the right words. ‘I guess we were both too timid, or too comfortable, or too.shy, but neither one of us said anything until it proved to be too late. I hadn’t been with Jordan long when I realized what an idiot I’d been. I thought about you every second of the day. I thought about you when I was with her. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help it. And the night we had together was the most perfect communion I ever had with another huma.n being in my life.’

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Eleanor Marshall sat listening to him, tears forming in

her eyes and rolling softly down her cheeks.

‘The next day, when I thought Jordan was pregnant…

I was trapped. It was too late. And I realized the full depths of what that meant when I saw you marrying Patti. So help me, Eleanor, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rush up there and carry you away by force. And I couldn’t do a thing about it.’ He touched his finger to one of the tears rolling down her face and brushed it away. ‘Eleanor, I know I hurt you. I know you’re frightened now. But I swear, I love you with all my heart.’ His voice was hoarse with the intensity of what he was saying. ‘Look at me. You know I mean what I say. I love you and I love our child with all of my heart. God gave us both a second chance,

Eleanor. Don’t let’s waste this half of our lives.’

‘Oh, Tom,’ she whispered.

He slipped from the bench and sank to his knees in front

of her, on the sand, holding her hands to his.

‘I love you more than life,’ he said. ‘So help me, I don’t want to live without you. Eleanor, will you marry me?’

‘ She gazed at him for a long moment. Then she bent her

head and kissed him softly, passionately.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ she said.

In the darkness, tkoxana Felix hung back from the crowd, watching them all swarm around Megan and Zach,. shouting congratulations and cracking jokes. She was truly pleased for both of them. Since the night she had spoken to the cast, neither of them could have been more compassionate or friendly towards her. Zach in particular had gone out of his way to be kind; tkoxana knew that he realized, more than any of the others ever could, what it was like living in the centre of the spotlight, where nobody could be themselves with you and everybody already had an opinion the first time they met you. He’d told her last night that She’d gone from the most lonely kid in the world

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to the most sought-after-woman alive, and added, ‘May[ no,w you’ll get a chance to be normal, P,.oxie. I really hoI

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