He smirked at us.
“So how about it, Mabel? Let Blue Eyes come with me for her shot?”
“Yes... I... of course... tetanus... with the claws... first scene...”
She started babbling, and I totally sympathized.
Archer didn't seem to notice.
“I know that you are responsible for the store and opening it on time and so on. But you have a list of people to call if you're short staffed, right?”
“Store?” Mabel seemed to have forgotten where she was, but then almost pulled herself together. “Yes... Staff. Could you... like... sign my arm, or something? No one is going to believe this,” she said.
“Of course. I don't have a pen, though...”
Mabel didn't move. She was still starstruck and seemed ready to swoon completely.
“Maybe you have a pen I can use?” he pressed.
Mabel was still processing the whole situation, giggling like a teen. I gave her a little jab in the side with my elbow. She just jabbed me right back. She was struck worse than me.
“Mabel,” Archer said decisively, “go inside and get a pen, and I'll sign your arm or forehead or whatever you want.”
With a gasp she finally got it and ran inside. Archer just looked at me, lifting his eyebrows in amusement. He had very green eyes. Have I mentioned that before?
“So what happened to the tattoo?”
Damn, did I say that? You know how it is. I was not being myself. It still felt as if I was standing beside myself, just looking at this from a little distance. And I just said the first thing that came to mind.
“The tattoo?”
“The famous one with the A and the J.”
“Oh, that,” he said disinterestedly. “Yeah, A did something that maybe wasn't so nice, so J left. Or maybe it was the other way around. I forget. No, you just stay put.” He looked down at Alfredo again, who was impatiently straining at the leash.
“I think he's confused by all the smells and things in this alley.”
Mabel came running out the door again, holding a ballpoint pen out to Archer, her eyes shining like a kid on Christmas.
Archer reached out and took the pen, popping off the cap.
“Where do you want it, Mabel?”
She looked quickly over at me and giggled happily.
“Oh, I know exactly where I want it. But I have to show it to other people, so I guess you better put it somewhere other than that.”
Okay, so I was not the only one saying the first things that comes into my head. He had that effect on everyone, it seems, even grounded and sensible Mabel. That's why he's a star, I suppose.
Mabel held out her hand, and Archer started signing his name in line with her index finger. Then she abruptly pulled it back.
“No, that will rub off when I put the gloves on.”
We had to wear rubber gloves when we stocked the produce section, and we sure wanted to wear them when we cleaned up the place in the evening.
Mabel pulled up her sleeve, and he signed a very tidy
To Mabel from Archer Stratton XOXOXO
along her forearm in large letters. I felt almost envious of her. That was the largest autograph I'd seen.
“Okay,” he said, giving the pen back. “We'll just go now. So nice to meet you, Mabel.”
He looked at me and winked mischievously.
“And don't expect Blue Eyes to be back today. Tetanus shots can really take it out of you. She'll be bedridden until tomorrow. At least.”
“Okay!” She was just beaming sheepishly at him. You could practically see the stars in her eyes.
“Have a nice day, Mabel.”
Archer started walking out of the alley, and Alfredo followed willingly. I went along a little behind. As I drew up by Archer, he looked over at me.
“How's your arm, Blue?”
I looked down. I had pretty much forgotten all about my scratches, but when he reminded me, I suddenly felt that they still stung a little.
“Not too bad. I don't think he really meant to scratch that deep.”
“Oh, he did. He always draws blood. He thinks he's being friendly. It's how he says hello, basically.”
Archer waved at a black SUV that was coming down the street.
“That's our ride,” he said. “You can get in the back.”
The car pulled up and Archer easily led Alfredo to the hatch at the back, and then Alfredo just jumped in there, two feet straight up in one easy leap, without even seeming to exert himself at all.
“He's used to being in there. It's his owner's car.”
I got in the back of the big car, and Archer got in the front passenger seat and closed the door with a reassuring thump. It was a very nice car.
“Yeah, so Alfredo scratched her arm,” he said to the driver, who was turning in his seat and looking quizzically at me. “He escaped and ran into the alley behind her place of work.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” the driver said to me in a very British accent. “They do that, the ocelots, if they haven't had all the fight taken out of them. Alfredo is not neutered, because he's supposed to retain some wildness in him. Some scratches and marks are the price we pay.”
“So I guess we'll just get her one of those shots I got the first day,” Archer said, as the driver put the car in Drive and pulled away.
“Don't worry, the medics have a lot of those shots,” the driver said. “They know Alfredo.”
“This is Eric, by the way,” Archer said to me. “He is sort of Alfredo's trainer. If he can be trained at all. Seems dubious to me.”
“Oh, even ocelots can be trained,” Eric said. “It's just a matter of remembering that they are wild animals, even if they can seem very friendly and playful. Some people keep them as pets, but then they're usually neutered and living with a family from birth, essentially.”
“How did you know we needed a ride?” I manage.
“I called him while you were inside, getting Mabel,” Archer said. “It's getting close to eight o'clock. That's my call time. Well, today, anyway.”
“I don't get it. Call time? Are you shooting a movie here?”
“Here in town, sure. The producers liked some of the scenery here. And it's cheaper than some other places.”
I looked out the window at boring old Walco, my home town, its old familiar buildings gray in the morning dusk. Maybe this place was more glamorous than I had ever suspected.
2
It was a short ride, mainly because the town isn't that big. We turned into a huge industrial estate and drove over to a large building that had been there for many years. I had walked and driven past it many times before. It looked like a giant storage facility, just a square building with gray walls, a couple of stories tall. Nothing special. Now I saw that the huge parking area behind it was filled with unmarked trucks, vans and trailers. They could not be seen from the street.
We had to pass a security checkpoint, and the armed guard let us into the lot as soon as he saw Archer. But he gave me a strange glance.
“Yeah, this is the sound stage. They say it makes sense to have it close to where we're doing exterior shots, because it saves time,” Archer informed me.
“And now,” he continued as the car drew to a close, “it's time to find you a medic. Then I have to get to work.”
We exited the car and went inside the huge building. It was a little warmer in there, and much brighter than in the dusk outside. The reason was immediately obvious – there were many spotlights on tripods and four very tall masts with huge lights on them, almost impossible to look at without being blinded. And the whole roof had a section that could be slid aside to let in daylight.
I could easily spot the main set, which was the interior of a run-down living room with one wall missing. That was where all the lights were pointing, and I guessed that was where the filming of the day was going to happen.
Large reflective screens were positioned in mysterious ways, and the floor was a mess of black cables with colored la
bels every five yards or so. Two huge cameras were pointed right at the living room set, and there was one large microphone on a long boom hovering over it.
Immediately a whole bunch of people came up to us, carrying papers and water bottles and all kinds of things. They all started talking at the same time.
“Your call is at eight am. New sides are here. Not too many revisions for you, but some for Amadeo and lots more for Lisa.”
“You have six minutes for makeup retouch, starting at seven fifty.”
“Darren wants to know if the thermostat in your trailer is broken, too.”
“Amadeo is flying in, and is expected to land on set before nine.”
“They moved video village further away towards the AC unit. Your block is still about the same. Evie will show you.”
“Hec will do the medium shots first for the monologue scene, then close-ups. He says to save the main emoting for that. There are no long shots for the scene.”
Archer seemed to go into business mode. He quickly signed papers, received things, gave some answers and orders. Then all the supplicants were gone as quickly as they had arrived.
“Yeah,” he said to me, “so ordinarily, my assistant would have handled all those messages and things. But she quit yesterday. Burned out. It's pretty exhausting work. And she worked too hard, which I told her time and time again.”
A young man with a wire from his ear, an iPad in his hand, a water bottle in his belt and a harried look on his face came over.
“We're technically on lockdown, Mister Stratton,” he said, with a significant look at me.
“Oh, this is.... this is Blue. She needs a medic. Alfredo clawed her. Take her there, please. And put her on the list.”
“Yes, Mister Stratton. I heard Kate quit?”
“She did. Burned out.”
Archer glanced at me.
“You can hang around and watch the shoot if you want. It's pretty boring, but you get to see me make a fool of myself. Always good for a laugh.” He winked jokingly and walked rapidly away
The man motioned for me to follow him, and he took out a pen.
“Blue what?”
“What?”
“I have to put your name on the list of people accepted on set during lockdown. So I need your name,” he said with strained patience.
“Oh, my name is Ashley.”
He wrote on the pad with a stylus.
“Okay, Ashley Blue?”
“No, not Blue. That's just something he started calling me. It's Ashley Davis.”
“Okay, Ashley Davis.” He pushed the stylus to a point on the pad.
“You're on the list now. You an extra?”
“No, I don't work here. The ocelot scratched me, and Archer feels that I need a tetanus shot.”
“Right. The medic trailer is outside, over by the big trucks, where the ambulance is.”
He walked me outside again and pointed, impatient to get on with his other tasks.
“You can handle that yourself, right?”
“I think so.”
He had already turned his back and was heading back into the studio.
I found the medics relaxing with a cup of coffee each. It struck me that they probably had the best job on the set, because everyone else I'd seen so far had been involved in some frantic activity.
I went over to them and showed them my arm.
“It's a good one. Not too deep. I recognize Alfredo's work by now,” the medic said when she carefully inspected the scratch. “You're the one they call Blue, right?”
I was momentarily stunned.
“What, am I wearing a sign or something?”
“Someone talked about you on the radio.” She pointed to a walkie-talkie on the table beside her. “You came in with Archie. That explains the Alfredo mark.”
“So I'm a news item now. Flattering.”
“Yeah...” she said absentmindedly as she prepared the syringe with practiced motions. “I imagine you're a little taken with our leading man, huh? Fold your sleeve up as far as you can.”
It was easy. That LuckyStop uniform had never fit me that well.
“I don't know about taken with. He seems very nice.”
She nodded. “Until he's maybe not so nice, as he would say.”
She swabbed my upper arm with cotton and alcohol.
“You sound like you have personal experience with that.”
“Oh no. Not really. But on a small set like this, where the talent sort of spend their entire days for weeks and weeks, you pick up on a few things.”
She got the syringe and gave me the shot smoothly and perfectly. I'm pretty sensitive to shots, but this one I hardly felt at all.
“Such as?”
She started cleaning the scratches and made a little band-aid ready.
“Just keep your eyes open, is all I'm saying. I can see that you're young and I can tell that you're from the outside. Outside the industry, I mean. You seem unguarded and open in a way that movie people never are. You awaken the mother instinct in me, I guess.”
She put her scissors and gauze down on the little table and continued in a quiet voice.
“So now it's known to everyone that Archer brought the LuckyStop girl called Blue on set for something that your local emergency room could have handled just fine. He's not supposed to do that at all. No one is. Hector is super secretive, even for a big shot director. Archie knows that very well. People here are already pretty pissed about you being let in, because the star openly challenging the director on a set that's already plenty stressed out can't be good for anyone.”
The other medic got up and sauntered over to the entrance to the site and started chatting with the guard. It seemed to me that he wanted to be out of earshot of what his colleague was saying. She glanced over at his turned back.
“Hey, it's not my place to say anything about it. I've said too much already. More than enough to get me fired. Just keep in mind that not everyone here are your friends. In fact, pretty much no one here is your friend. A movie set is a minefield, especially this far into the schedule. And especially for cute young girls brought in from the outside by the star against the director's expressed wishes.”
She finished putting the band-aid on my arm, lightly slapped it in a friendly manner and gave me a smile.
“Just so you're fairly warned, is all. Archie has his eyes on you, that much is clear. You have a fresh look to you. Enjoy your day, now, and if you can avoid coming back tomorrow, you'll probably have a much happier life. ”
I pulled down my sleeve and returned inside.
3
I took up station in a place where I thought that no one would trip over me, but the set was very crowded and I was constantly having to get out of the way of people. I have never felt more superfluous in my life. Everyone was doing something, except me. I was only getting in their way.
People were moving all kinds of lighting equipment, sound recording equipment, endless rolls of extension cord, small and big black boxes by the hundreds and exotic things whose function I couldn't even take a guess at.
The medic had taken the wind out of my sails a little. Was this place really as bad as she made it seem? And had Archer really taken an interest in me? That didn't sound like such a bad thing to me. He was a super famous A-lister, sometimes called the new Steve McQueen by the media. And he was an Academy Award winner, as far as I could remember.
I decided to spend a dollar or two on researching him right away. My ancient iPhone did have a browser, and I was able to look him up on Wikipedia. His entry was very long, even though he was still only 26.
After some reading I had gathered that he had started as a kid doing commercials, then got his big breakthrough as a brooding but immensely soulful adolescent in the huge hit The Pawn. And that's where he got his Oscar.
He seemed to prefer roles that were not heavy on the dialog, but he had the unique quality of being able to convey both emotion and intent with a handful of words. His hallm
ark was to go through a whole movie just deadpanning and smirking, betraying no emotions, before he would suddenly have a scene where he would open up completely, seem to lay his soul bare and show an emotional intensity that caught everyone by surprise and captured the whole point of the movie in a line or two. He would sometimes come up with those lines on his own in the moment, which gave them an energy and spontaneity that no one else could imitate. His fan base was huge, especially among women, who saw in him the ideal of what a man should be.
I skipped down to his Personal Life.
He had been dating a string of famous actresses, who all experienced a boost in their careers while they were with him. That had not happened to the last one, because she was plenty successful before she met him. She was Johanne Wilhelmsen, the Norwegian beauty who had completely stunned everyone with her understated but powerful performance as a young Catherine the Great in Golden Age. Their romance had been the main storyline for every entertainment outlet for over a year. The press tried different names for them as a couple, like Archanne or the ridiculous Joharcher before they gave up and just called them “J and A”. And that was were the paragraph ended. No new girl to be seen.
Under Filmography there was only a couple of titles from the year before, very huge hits, and then two flops from this year. But that was in addition to the thing that had really launched him to superstardom: The Quiller series of spy movies, where he played the main role as the super secret agent Quiller, who which was rapidly becoming America's James Bond.
But I found no clue as to what movie this might be that he was making right in front of my eyes.
I saw him before he saw me. He was calmly walking onto the set, reading a sheaf of paper in his hand and taking a swig from a bottle of water. Then he raised his head and looked right at me. I must confess that my heart skipped a beat. When did his eyes become so green that I could see them from across the room? Almost like they were lit from inside. Green light, giving me the go-ahead. Well, we'll see, mister movie star.
He sauntered over to me.
“Sorry, I had to get the makeup touched up. Did you get your shot?”
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