My head whipped up, the shock in my face palpable and likely guilty-looking. He put his hand to his mouth to cover a laugh and said, “My goodness, you did!”
“No. That’s just tabloid…tabloidery.”
“You’re fibbing. I read that you testified at a trial.” He peeked over his shoulder to spy two teenage girls who’d crept close to us. They squealed and ran away to the other side of the gallery, where they were bolstered enough to begin filming us on their phones. As one, we smiled, waved and left the room to visit Henry VIII. I’d always rather hoped he burned in hell for throwing away wives like soiled tissues, especially when sex selection is made by the male of the species. How beautifully ironic that the best thing to come out of him was a daughter. And maybe a church, you know, depending on your God views.
“Is that why you cast me? Because you think I have practical experience?”
“No, no—that’s merely a bonus. I need a funny foil. I’ve not done a lot of humour, but I’d like to.”
My eyebrows shot up. Wow. This guy was an esteemed alumnus of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He’d won an Oscar and several BAFTAs. I couldn’t even boast a People’s Choice award. And all this while being a man of colour. Leading men of Chinese descent were rare in the cinema, and even rarer were the ones who’d never performed a lick of martial arts. “Well, I hope to pratfall gracefully to try and make you look good. Because, you know, it’s so hard for you to come off well.”
He expelled an offended breath, alleviated by the gleam in his eye. “I’ll have you know that I am a terribly respected thespian. One time, Kim Kardashian said that I was, like, totally hot and stuff.”
“It’s the ‘and stuff’ that cuts the quality actors from the chaff.”
“‘Quality’ is my middle name.”
“Is that Chinese?”
He winked. “After my great-grandfather.”
We stopped in front of a painting of young Henry VIII. Danny scooted in behind me. His heat radiated through the breezy maxi dress I wore, giving me thoughts. Generally, I find thoughts to be wicked, especially the ones in my brain, which embraced the seven deadly sins with great gusto. He got so close to my ear it tickled me straight to my funny-feelings bone. “Shall we lift one of these for practice? Or will we limit our skullduggery to the British Museum, under the guise of ‘rehearsal’?”
I nearly choked on my own spit. Did I only attract men with grand larceny in their hearts? I drifted away and flung a smile back over my shoulder. “It’s all fun and games until you’re frisked by a hardened police officer with cold hands.”
Danny opened his mouth to quiz me more on matters I didn’t want to speak of, so I went on the offensive. It’s a trick I’d learned in Hollywood—everyone loves talking about themselves, and will do so for you gladly when you want to change the subject. Although it did not escape me that he’d read up on me. My ego swelled further under my pushup bra. “So, Danny, how on Earth are you single?”
“Who says I am?” This delivered with a chin swish the likes of spymasters in old movies. “Although I am. Dreadfully so.”
I put my hand to my heart, which broke for womankind everywhere. “Too gorgeous for the masses?”
He scratched his eyebrow and blinked bashfully. Weird to see gestures you’d heretofore viewed forty feet high in your local movie house played before you on an intimate scale. “Not by half, I’m afraid. It’s challenging navigating what and who is real in this field. You must find that to be true.”
Oh, yes—both career-wise and in my personal life. I danced the bullshit two-step on the regular. “I think it’s just plain hard to find someone to be simpatico with. And even harder to live day to day without killing the patico.” So many things get in the way. Careers, interests, the FBI…
Two fifty-something women stopped us and asked to take pictures with Danny, who obliged immediately. He got in between them and put his arms around their shoulders while I took the pic. They laughed like schoolgirls, gushed at him for a minute or two then left with copious waves.
We toured room after room of famous faces and beautiful portraiture, Danny making witty small talk and maintaining the sort of pleasant demeanour that looks friendly in surreptitious candid photos. Not me. When I sat on one of the benches, the cushion made a fart noise that the entire room turned to gawp at. And then I almost fell on a bored little kid who’d decided to sit on the ground behind me. A smarmy-looking dude got a nice chuckle out of that, and a dynamic picture. I began to stick closer to Danny so I could improve myself in the wake of his glow.
At least I was making a good showing somewhere—Ellen texted me a link to The Daily Mail with a spectacular pic of the three of us from our night of revelry, complete with ‘Is She a Lesbian?!’ scare headline. My stock inflated like my ankle currently was.
After a couple of hours in the museum, my heebie jeebies were cranking up in overtime from
a) being in a museum at all—hadn’t I once sworn to never look at a piece of asshole art again? Not good, considering that my new job took place…mostly in a museum—and
b) brain-cheating on Sam, with whom I might have been broken up…or not…oh, who the hell knows.
I suggested we take our afternoon elsewhere, and it sounded entirely too sexified. But in my defence, there are only two ways to say ‘let’s get out of here’—seductively or with terror, as if the aliens are invading.
We walked a little ways to find the bar he wanted to show me—the Beaufort Bar in the Savoy hotel. Holy cow, was this place fancy. I would win +10 You’ve Arrived points with my mother if she could only see it. Everything appeared dark and sexy, black wood and hot waiters. Immediately, we were ushered into one of the golden alcoves at one end of the room—literal golden nooks with couches inside. The shimmering wall curved behind us like a cocoon at Liberace’s house. It was all I could do not to wave my hand and declare, “Let them eat cake.”
After a gin martini—hair of the dog, what what—and staring too long at Danny’s impeccable face with those clever eyes, my tongue loosened. I figured I’d have to talk about it sometime. I ordered another martini and scooted closer to him, which he did not appear to mind. His arm crept around the back of the couch. Ahem, I only got closer because I was about to tell him of trials and tribulations, not because I felt reckless and marooned on a British Isle of doubt.
“About the whole ‘trial’ thing,” I began.
His eyebrows rose like curtains. “Yes?” he led with a half-smile.
“Well—” I swallowed. “I had a day job as an executive assistant, before all this.” I laughed. All this still seemed like a dream. “I was bamboozled by some thieves I met at the office, and there occurred a minute amount of”—more swallowing, a drink of martini—“kidnapping, but it wasn’t bad.”
“It wasn’t bad!” He’d begun to regard me with that look of ‘you’re nuts’, an expression more than a little familiar to me.
“I wasn’t beaten or assaulted or anything. Just…removed from my life for a few days so that I couldn’t tell on them. Anyway, eventually the police found us.” This was the extremely abridged and kinda lie-ey version of the events. “And I testified at trial a few months ago. The one criminal they caught went to prison. The end!” I grinned and took the fresh martini. One shouldn’t guzzle Bombay Sapphire on an empty stomach, but it’d been a guzzle sort of week.
His eyes narrowed in ‘I detect bullshit’ mode. Or so it seemed to me. “So you encountered an art thief at work in an office?”
I nodded.
“And he kidnapped you.”
I nodded. I drank.
“Then you got away and got them…him arrested and were the hero?”
Hey! I liked the word hero. I smiled and nodded.
“Astonishing.”
Astonishing—even better. I shook my head. “No, no. It coulda happened to anyone.” Anyone with a weakness for dimples.
“You leveraged it into a successful career, though.” He scooched closer, just a wee bit. “The
thieves—what were they like? I mean, what does it take to do that?”
For a moment, I couldn’t find a way to answer. Sam wasn’t bad-bad, merely…morally relative. He’d got very insulted when accused of being evil. “Thieves…adapt. If they want to be successful, they’re calm. Smart. Flexible.”
Danny considered that, smiling as I watched him mentally work it into his character. When I offered no more, he asked, “Were you in Los Angeles to try and break into film?”
“Yes, but failing. I couldn’t even get auditions.” The soul-crushing defeat of those years haunted me. My chest tightened. “I wasn’t pretty enough to be the girl next door. In LA, a ‘girl next door’ is always a model. I tried to go for the ‘quirky sidekick’ sort of roles, but there were a billion of us average-looking sorts of ladies with acting degrees we still had to pay off and few roles to nab. Being shorter than hell didn’t help me.”
Understanding washed across his face. “It’s so difficult for women in this business. You get, what, perhaps one role out of four in a script?”
I laughed. “If that. And we’re usually only there for the hero to hump, so she’s got to be a babe. What else are we good for?”
A wry grin. “I can’t think of one thing.”
“And I’m a White lady—I benefit from the gross fact that so many role breakdowns specify Caucasian only.”
Bitterness drew his brows together. “Asian men are either kung-fu masters, takeout delivery guys or funny, sexless clowns. In a few years, I can play an old kung-fu master, dispensing clichéd wisdom to a new generation.”
“Lucky you.”
He stroked his chin. “At least I’ll get a fancy beard.” Staring into his Scotch, he said, “A couple of years ago, the RSC put on the Chinese equivalent of Hamlet with an almost all-White cast. Because, you know, there are so few good Asian actors. We can’t even get cast in our own works.”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew what the smack of sexism felt like, but his racist experiences much have been enraging, disheartening, dehumanizing—to say the least. I squeezed his arm, as if that would erase the degradation.
“If I hadn’t lucked into The Silent Forest, and if it hadn’t somehow blossomed out of the arthouse circuit, I’d probably be selling shoes or something now.”
“Can I gush over you in that movie? I was in college, and it was me and my friends’ favourite sob-fest.” I clasped my hands over my heart. Yes, it was that kind of film. “When Chyou died in your arms?” My voice ended in a squeak and my lip fluttered.
He laughed at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He was probably a dozen years older than he’d been in that three-hankie film, but even more handsome with maturity. “Do I need to find the smelling salts?”
“No, no—” I held him at arm’s length dramatically, “I’ll be fine…someday. No, I won’t. I’ll never get over that movie!”
“You’re too kind.” He leant back and turned inward. “My parents were so gutted when I wanted to do that film. The language. The nudity. My mother.” He shuddered. I guess the horrors of a mother’s shame are universal in any culture. “I’m first-generation born in the UK, and let’s just say they probably would have preferred that I do anything but wiggle my arse on camera.”
I covered my mouth to disguise my smile. “My mother probably wouldn’t let them put my bare ass on camera. ‘Are you sure you want to do that, Samantha? Think of how many glorious heinies have been filmed. Yours can’t even crack the top thousand, I’m sure. Never mind your face!’”
His guffaw held the stench of pity. “Ouch. My mum has come round—now she brags about her son when I bring her to award ceremonies.”
“Aw, I’m glad for that.”
“Me, too. Odd how becoming rich makes your choices seem smarter.”
“Amen, my friend. Amen.”
Oh, but I was having entirely too lovely a time right now. Two martinis in my tummy and no dinner. There must be something about the cloudy British air that turned me alcoholic. “I should go.” I set my drink on the table and gathered my purse to me while trying to ignore the disappointed fall of his shoulders. And ignore the thrill that came with it. “I have to try and pretend that I’m not an idiot at stunt rehearsal tomorrow.”
“How many days do you have?”
“Just the one. I have to jump off a height, and punch a couple people. You have so much more than I do.”
“Yeah.” He scratched his chin and gestured for the waiter to settle the bill. “They’re fun for me—the stunts. I’ve rebelled against doing any martial arts, but just plain kicking arse is thrilling. As far as the production insurance will let me.” He barely glanced at the tab, doubled it by way of a tip and handed it back to our obsequious server. When we were again alone, he said, “May I take you home? Rather, not take you home, but walk you, or…”
A flush crept up his face, and I knew I had to say, “No, thank you. I had a late night, and I’ll probably just cab it.”
Deep breath in, deep breath out. Oh, but I was an evil woman. What sort of lady wanted to jump a new dude right after maybe breaking up with another? I told myself that inner existential turmoil often led to confusion in the clitoral area. Especially when you met a super-hot fellow who was so kind, and human, and normal—and performed a job you could tell your mother about. “Thank you for this. It makes me feel less nervous about the whole film to have got to know you a little.”
“Me, too.”
“What? How can you be nervous? You’re Daniel Zhang.” I said it as if reading off a marquee forty feet high.
We wound our way out of the hotel and onto the sidewalk. “I’m not Daniel Zhang. I’m Daniel Zhang. I get zits.” He pointed to his cheek, but I damn sure couldn’t find a flaw.
I stood on my tip-toes and pressed my lips to the imagined blemish.
Oh, I shouldn’t have done that.
My regret punched me in the gut with a fist the size of Texas. He smelt like sexy, woodsy cologne, with a vague undertone of man.
Oh, I shouldn’t have smelt that.
My mouth dry, I rocked onto my heels and smiled to cover my mortification.
He bent the long, long way to my face. His lips parted softly, and I meant to back away, I really did, and I put my hand to his chest to keep him at a distance. His pecs were hard and warm and oh, no, why was I kneading my hand there? Mayday, mayday!
He kissed me, gently, firmly and with just enough pressure to make my blood zing and cry more, more, more! My body from the waist down had somehow melted into amoral slush. Pulling back, he smiled, hopeful and sweet.
Oh, good Lord, baby Jesus and all the saints. My insides flailed and I tried to form actual words with my mouth, which was paid to make words and say things, but nothing spluttered out. I waved my hand goodbye like a toddler and bolted to the cab stand. Yup, running away with great, clomping steps was the only thing to do when kissed by a movie star.
I waved again from the window as we pulled away. He returned it, his entire demeanour relaxed and easy and sexier than a sexy man who sexes and oh, shit fuck what have I done?
* * * *
As per usual, I discussed my shame with food, which never judged me. My Indian takeout told me that he had kissed me. A very important distinction for the guilty. And that it had been one hundred per cent friendly. Like a friend. I’d given him a chaste smack on the cheek—why? whyyyyyy had I done that?—and he’d reciprocated in the more worldly European fashion. I wasn’t in Puritanical America anymore. This continent had told the Puritans to screw off so that everyone still left here could kiss each other on the mouth like buddies. That’s a history fact right there. I bet Daniel kissed everyone goodbye—pals, women, men…
And then I spent three minutes daydreaming about Daniel kissing a dude as my food got cold. And then I spent twenty minutes downloading that film he’d done in which he played the gay lover of an equally-hot football star. And then I spent thirty shame-filled minutes not watching the movie while I unpacked my suit
cases finally and thought nice thoughts about Sam, still my boyfriend, maybe, and who’d brought me so much joy. And copious frustration. But more joy.
No, I would definitely not watch that sexy movie. I’d go to bed early to make up for the jet lag and the drunken fiestas, er, self-care I’d been indulging in for days.
Sleep overcame me—about twelve hours’ worth—and I awoke feeling like a new person. Ready to kick butt at stunt work. Ready to handle my men, er, man situation like an adult! Ready to open my email…
I read the note, sent from a Gmail burner account, twice through before I nearly dropped my laptop on my foot. I collapsed onto the floor of my bedroom and stared at the picture they’d sent until tears blurred my eyes so that I saw no more.
It was a picture of Sam, clearly used as a punching bag and tied up, holding this morning’s newspaper—the date was legible, even to me, although I didn’t recognise the language of Het Laatste Nieuws. Dutch, likely.
Because the note told me to travel to Bruges, or he would die.
Chapter Five
I Do My Own Failed Stunts
Int. Sleazy Hotel Room, Bruges, Belgium—day
Angle On: Samantha Lytton grapples in the dark with an Unknown Assailant, Assumed To Be A Jerk Thief. Samantha grabs the scumbag by the arm, twists her body nimbly and flips him across the room, where he falls to the floor.
Samantha Lytton: Cough him up! Where is Sam?
Unknown Assailant, Assumed To Be A Jerk Thief: Sam who?
Samantha Lytton: I don’t know!
Angle On: Samantha lunges at the bad guy. He jumps to his feet and dashes across the room, clearly trying for the door. She trips him by whipping out one sexy leg, and he collapses on the dingy carpet next to the bed. She grabs him by the front of the shirt.
Samantha Lytton: I know you have him. You told me to come here. Dammit, tell me where he is!
Unknown Assailant, Assumed To Be A Jerk Thief: Why do you want him back? He’s a liar. Once a thief, always a thief.
Unknown assailant has an Irish accent. It’s a clue! Or maybe it just sounds pretty.
The Dimple Strikes Back Page 6
