Beauty and the Brain

by Duncan, Alice

  “Of course I care about my fellow human beings! Why do you think I despise this picture and the caricatures it’s making out of Jerry and his family?”

  “Oh,” she said, musing for a moment. “That makes sense.”

  He snorted.

  “Brenda!”

  She glanced up and saw Martin waving at her to come back onto the set. With one last glance at Colin, she headed over to the faux Indian village. She called back, “Will you talk to me later, Colin?”

  He looked surprised. “About what?”

  She shrugged. “Everything.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she started trotting to the set.

  Colin watched her uneasily. What the devil did she want to talk to him about this time? Was she going to press him for more details about Indian life? He snorted derisively, feeling as low as he’d ever felt and knowing beyond a doubt that no beautiful woman would care to gather information from him if there was another source.

  Or perhaps she was going to try to teach him some social graces, which was almost as awful a prospect as the first one. The notion that she believed he needed to be taught how to behave in company made his heart squinch painfully. Of course, her idea of proper social behavior and real manners probably differed considerably. He hadn’t been caught tossing dice on the floor of a fancy hotel.

  He knew all about the social graces, dash it. His mother, a fine woman and a great lady, had drilled him in polite behavior from the cradle. So had his father, who had greater social deportment than Brenda Fitzpatrick would ever possess. If she thought she was going to turn him into a grinning dimwit like that idiot Carruthers, she had another think coming.

  Although, he acknowledged reluctantly, it might be pleasant to spend some time in her company. She was an enjoyable companion; the first female, in fact, to achieve such a status in his life. Even his mother, whom Colin loved dearly, was boring as all get-out when he had to talk to her for any length of time.

  Strange that it should be an undereducated actress who kept his interest alive in conversation. Colin, feeling even more low and confused than he had a minute earlier, put his experience of Brenda to a rigid test. He was a male, after all, and she was the most tantalizing female he’d ever met. Could it be mere sexual attraction that kept him interested?

  He thought about it, studying the overall impression Brenda created from all angles. All angles were equally delectable and attractive, to be sure. But, he decided after a long and hard examination, there was more to her than physical beauty. She was an interesting and interested colleague. He wasn’t sure he liked admitting it, mainly because it would be much easier to dismiss Brenda if she were merely a sexual object.

  Bother. Colin had never found life particularly difficult until he’d been hired by Peerless Studio as Martin Tafft’s research assistant. In all the other venues he’d operated, his knowledge and insistence upon accuracy had been prized. Here, on the set of this mindless motion picture, it was deplored. He probably should have sought different employment this summer, but he’d been interested in how pictures were made, so he’d grabbed this one eagerly. Showed how much he knew about anything

  The notion that Brenda found him dull and boring surely didn’t thrill him. He ought to have admitted that he did enjoy pretending, at least in his head. He’d always considered his fanciful side to be a weakness. Maybe it wasn’t.

  “Dash it, of course it is.” Fancy could only get a researcher into trouble, and Colin knew it.

  Was there a way to separate the researcher from the man? The idea was new to him, and he mistrusted it. His parents, both of whom were thinkers and teachers, had deplored any tendency in their children to forsake pure research for invention, considering tall tales and fairy stories as beneath their notice. Colin had considered them thus, too, since he’d been taught they were incorrect and, therefore, wrong.

  Maybe there was a place for the imagination in the world of scholarship.

  Good God, what was he thinking?

  The camera started its thunderous cranking noise, drawing Colin’s attention out of the mire of confused thoughts and into the reality of filmmaking He watched the scene unfold with distaste.

  “Look scared, Brenda!” Martin called through his megaphone. “Jerry, keep that nasty expression on your face. It’s perfect!”

  Perfect, his eye, Colin thought grimly. This whole enterprise was a travesty.

  Brenda managed to snabble Colin that evening after dinner. She was tired after a strenuous day’s work during which she’d been kidnapped, carried off into an alien environment, and made to don an Indian dress, complete with buckskin fringe and beadwork, all of which Colin considered ethnically wrong, and set to grinding corn—all for the sake of the Peerless Studio—but she wanted to help Martin in any way she could. Therefore, she aimed to fulfill her promise to try to civilize Colin.

  It wasn’t an easy task. “Um, I think you’d better reconsider that move, Colin,” she said, holding her exasperation at bay with difficulty. What she really wanted to be doing was sleeping, but she was at present in the parlor, trying to teach the man how to play poker.

  “Why?” He looked grumpy. No surprise there.

  She pointed at the cards in his hand, which he was obligingly showing her—the only obliging thing he’d done since they’d met—and explained, “You have two pairs. You don’t want to discard one of either set in the hope that you’ll be dealt something better because there’s no telling. That’s the sort of optimistic play that ends up with people losing their shirts, not to mention the family farm and everything else—and I know you don’t have a family farm to lose. It’s a figure of speech.” She sighed and told herself not to get sarcastic. “In poker, you’re better off keeping what you have, if you have anything at all.”

  His concentration was intense. Brenda wondered if he was this conscientious whenever he set about learning something new. Perhaps that’s what scholars were trained to do, but it was rough on their teachers.

  He pointed at her cards. “But you have a—what do you call it? A flush? Two pairs can’t beat a flush, can it? Wouldn’t I be better off—or not any worse off, at any rate—if I tried to pick a better hand?” He squinted at the paper she’d given him, upon which she’d written down the various combinations of winning poker hands.

  “Yes, but remember that if we were playing this game for real, you wouldn’t know what was in my hand. All you’d know is that you have two pairs in your own hand. Now that’s a pretty good hand as it stands, and if you keep your face straight and stop scowling and continue playing, you might draw a third or even a fourth seven or five.”

  “This is a very frustrating game. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on.” The scowl Brenda had noted before deepened.

  She repressed a soulful sigh. “Yes, I’ve noticed that quality in you.”

  He looked up at her, squinting with suspicion from behind his thick spectacles, which he pushed up his nose. She smiled wearily and decided poker wasn’t the best carne to be teaching him tonight. She didn’t have the energy or patience for it. Thank God the horde of young men who had been her constant attendants since she’d arrived at the Cedar Crest had been shipped off to Los Angeles after the ballroom scene. She was sure she wouldn’t have the wherewithal to deal with Colin and them, too.

  Martin strolled over and peered at the game in progress. Brenda wrinkled her nose at him, and he winked back. “How’s the game coming, you two?” he asked jovially.

  Well and good for him to be jovial, Brenda thought bitterly. Martin wasn’t attempting to teach Colin Peters how to play poker. She was beginning to think that teaching Colin anything at all was a task beyond her feeble skills.

  How had all his other teachers accomplished the task? Somebody must have, since he knew so damned much.

  Colin grunted something Brenda didn’t catch.

  She said, “I think I’m too sleepy for it, to tell you the truth.”

  Colin’s head jerked up and he s
tared at her the way he’d seconds earlier been staring at his poker hand. “Do you want to let it go for now?” He sounded hopeful.

  She grinned at him “Would you mind? Maybe we could have a nightcap in the bar instead.” She saw with interest and some vexation that Colin looked disapproving, from which she gathered that the females in Colin’s family didn’t frequent bars. They were probably all stuffy and pedantic as he was.

  Heavens, what a thought: a whole family of frigid academicians. She wondered how many of them there were and had a sudden vision, spawned, she was sure, by her state of exhaustion, of dozens of Peterses spreading their wintry influence on the eastern seaboard until the whole East Coast froze into a solid cake of ice.

  Colin plopped his cards on the table. “I don’t mind at all.” As if he feared she’d change her mind, he rose, hastened to hold her chair for her in a gentlemanly manner she’d bet her last dollar he wouldn’t have done if he’d been interested in the game.

  She exchanged a wry glance with Martin and rose with as much grace as she could summon. “I think I’ll have a Manhattan.”

  “A Manhattan it is,” Martin said. “What about you, Colin? I’ll tell the bartender what you want while you two pick up the cards.”

  Colin appeared disconcerted. Brenda assumed it was because he didn’t drink. She asked, “Do you like sweet drinks? You might like a Manhattan.”

  “I don’t know.” His furrows were deep. Brenda had a mad urge to smooth them out for him. Lord, she must be tired! “I, ah, don’t drink much.”

  She patted the cards into a neat stack, then took his arm. “I don’t, either,” she said confidentially. “But I’m tired tonight and I think it will help me sleep.”

  “I don’t need help sleeping.”

  He’d gone stiff at her touch, and Brenda wasn’t able to stifle her sigh this time. “Lucky you.” To Martin, she said, “Order him a Manhattan, too. If he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t have to drink it.”

  “Right-o.” Martin sauntered off to the bar.

  Watching his receding back, Brenda murmured, “I swear, he never gets tired. He expends as much energy as any of us, but he doesn’t seem to feel it as the rest of us do.”

  “It’s probably his metabolism,” Colin said.

  She peered up at him and noticed that he didn’t look so stiff. She figured it was because she’d given him a reason to assume his professorial pose. What the heck, she might as well play along. “What’s a metabolism?”

  He didn’t appear too shocked by her lack of knowledge. She gave him a figurative tip of her hat for it, although it most likely only signified that he was too accustomed to her state of ignorance to show how much he deplored it.

  He said simply, “It’s the rate an individual’s body uses the fuel with which it’s been supplied.”

  “Oh.” She blinked and wondered what to ask next. She had no idea.

  Fortunately, Colin didn’t let her befuddlement stop him; she should have expected as much. “Everybody’s body is different.” He glanced down at her and looked away again quickly. “As you know already.” He sounded very formal, and Brenda had a notion he’d realized he’d begun talking about bodies to a female and was embarrassed.

  “I see,” she said, although she didn’t see anything. “So Martin’s energy level is higher than mine?”

  “Not necessarily.” He cleared his throat. “You see, it may only be that he consumes fuel at a higher level than you do. Or perhaps his body is more efficient in its fuel consumption.”

  “Oh.” She hoped he’d drop this subject, because he was making Martin sound like an automobile, and she had an urge to giggle. Obviously, she was in no condition to try to understand the lesson he was attempting to impart. They’d reached the bar, thank God, and she saw Martin at a table in a corner.

  She appreciated this bar. She appreciated the whole Cedar Crest Lodge, if it came to that. It was a tasteful and refined place. Brenda, who hadn’t grown up with any refinement at all, enjoyed it when she sat in it. The lodge, and this bar, were both masterpieces of polished wooden beams and understated elegance. The whole shebang reminded her of old money. Like the Vanderbilts or the Morgans or the Astors. Or, better still, like one of those old British families who’d been spitting out dukes and earls for centuries. She sat with a sigh and leaned back against the soft cushions of her chair. “If I fall asleep, just nudge me.”

  Martin chuckled. “Sure thing.”

  Colin looked faintly shocked. How unusual. With a little grin that probably looked as dry as it felt, she murmured, “I didn’t mean it, Colin. It was a joke.” She took a sip of her cocktail. It was delicious, and the warmth of the alcohol spreading through her gave her hope for the night. She usually slept well, but when she was working, sometimes she suffered from insomnia.

  With an effort, she sat up straighter in her soft, comfy chair and asked Colin, “How do you like your Manhattan?” After his first sip his nose had wrinkled and he looked disapproving, so she anticipated his answer.

  He surprised her. Before he answered, he took a second sip, stared across the table and over her left shoulder, appeared to think for a few seconds, and finally said, “It’s pretty good.” He took another sip and nodded. “Yes, it’s quite tasty.”

  Good grief. Not for the first—or even the hundredth—time, Brenda wondered what it was like to test everything with such care before rendering an opinion. Heck, she’d only had to set foot in the Cedar Crest Lodge to realize she liked it. She’d bet Colin hadn’t allowed himself to form a verdict yet, and they’d been here for several days. He undoubtedly had to put the question to some sort of scholarly test. Curious, she asked, “What do you think of the lodge, Colin?”

  His brow wrinkled again, he pushed his glasses up his nose, and he looked as if he intended to nut that one over for a year or three before rendering a judgment on the subject. Brenda guessed her tiredness had made her short-tempered, because his attitude grated on her nerves like a file.

  Turning to Martin, she said, “I think it’s a wonderful place. I’d like to spend a couple of weeks every summer up here to rest and relax.”

  Turning a weather eye upon Colin, she noted his expression and decided he didn’t respect her opinion of the lodge any more than he respected anything else about her. She wanted to snap at him. Maybe slap him around some. Instead, she lifted her Manhattan and took another sip.

  She didn’t drink very often and never gulped. One was her limit, and she intended to savor this one.

  “It’s a great place,” Martin concurred. “I discovered it last year when I was looking for a suitable location to shoot a mining film.”

  “A mining film?” Brenda’s interest was piqued. “I don’t believe there are any mines up here.”

  Brenda and Martin both turned to look at Colin. He gazed back, noted their expressions, and lifted an eyebrow. “That is, I believe there are many mines down the mountain and around San Bernardino and in the Mojave Desert, but there aren’t any up here to my knowledge. The ore fields are down there.”

  “And you ought to know,” Brenda murmured. She added to herself, since you know everything. She didn’t say that part aloud.

  “Right.” Martin seemed relatively unfazed by Colin’s input. “I found that out last year. I was hoping to find a place that was out of the heat of the desert, which is why I went up into the mountains in the first place. It’s much prettier up here.” He smiled his regular happy smile. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. I fear we’ll be shooting the picture in the desert. I get mighty tired of deserts, but it’s where we film most of the cowboy pictures and so forth.

  Colin nodded and looked as if he were only barely restraining himself from saying, “You should have asked me first.” Asking Colin first, Brenda knew, even though she was sure Colin wouldn’t understand, would have taken the fun out of Martin’s enterprise. Seeking advice was all well and good, but sometimes life was more interesting when you allowed yourself to discover some things on your
own.

  “Are you going to make that picture next, Martin?” she asked in order to take her mind off Colin and how irritating he was. And how much she wished he wasn’t.

  “I’m not sure. I still haven’t found a suitable site. I’m working on it, though.”

  She shook her head slightly. “You do too much. You never take any time for yourself.”

  “Oh, I love what I do. It doesn’t seem like work to me.”

  Colin nodded his agreement, and Brenda was amused. How funny. These two men, who were as different as night was from day, had something very important in common. She didn’t share this aspect of life with them. While she enjoyed her work to a degree, she’d just as soon be able to retire somewhere and read for the rest of her life.

  Suddenly she saw Colin stiffen, as if a mob of people had taken to speaking ungrammatically in his hearing. Or had maybe done something worse, like mistaken a Navajo for an Apache. Actually, he looked as if someone had struck him hard and knocked him cockeyed.

  Good heavens, perhaps he’d had a reaction to the alcohol in his drink. Brenda had heard of some people who couldn’t tolerate even a drop of alcohol.

  She heard Colin mumble “Good God.”

  He seemed to be staring at the door of the bar, which was at her back. She swiveled in her chair and looked to see if they’d been invaded by wild Indians. Frowning, she decided that wasn’t a funny thing to say any longer, if it ever was.

  A young man had entered the bar and was now glancing around with an uncertain air. He was a nice-looking lad: tall and straight, with dark wavy hair and a strong chin. He held his hat in his right hand and licked his lips nervously. He looked vaguely familiar to her.

  It hit her after only a very few seconds. She sat up ramrod straight in her chair and turned her startled glance upon Colin. He still sat rigid, staring at the boy. All at once he stood, bumping the table and sending his chair skittering across the polished cedar-wood floor.