by Eden Maguire
‘What came out all wrong, Mommy?’ Phoebe wanted to know, snatching the Power Ranger toy from her hands. She was three years old, with her mom’s colouring – a little china doll.
‘Nothing. It wasn’t important. Adam, take your shoes off before you climb on the furniture. Charlie, why have you been crying?’
The baby of the famous family wiped his eyes and tried to explain, though his vocabulary didn’t run beyond ‘Momma’ and ‘down’.
‘He slipped in the snow and fell down,’ Phoebe interpreted. ‘But it’s OK. Uncle Charlie was there.’
It seemed Charlie Speke was on hand to rescue other people, not just strangers in the park. He came up the steps into the trailer, filling the doorway and smiling warmly when he saw Orlando and me. ‘Hey, Tania, you made it. How was your course?’
‘Interesting, thanks.’
‘The kids want cookies from the catering trailer,’ he told Natalia. ‘I told them we had to check with you first.’
‘That’s cool, but make sure they have just one each,’ she told him, taking little Charlie on to her knee.
‘Hey, kids, Mommy says one cookie is OK!’ Uncle Charlie caught Phoebe as she launched herself from the chair then he scooped up the baby from Natalia’s lap. ‘You coming, Adam?’ he asked, heading for the door.
As Charlie waited for Natalia’s eldest son to catch up, Jack Kane himself came up the steps and into the trailer.
For a second, body-double Charlie and movie-star Jack stood face to face, neither stepping to one side. I had enough time to study them and see that the only possible way to tell them apart was in the way they dressed. Charlie wore a plaid shirt, blue jeans and well-worn, chunky lace-up boots. Jack was in costume – black shirt with small pearlized buttons, black pants and black leather vest. He had a three-day stubble and dull, unwashed hair.
I guess I have to admit right away that I was disappointed in Jack Kane. You meet the hottest movie actor on the planet and you expect genuine star quality. Instead we got someone who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, with bags under his eyes and definite grooming issues. Still, I supposed he was in character for the movie, playing a hit man on the run.
‘The kids want cookies,’ Charlie told him as they pushed past their dad and rushed out of the trailer.
Jack frowned, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Heading for a high shelf to the right of the TV screen, he took down a bottle and used it to gesture towards us. ‘What are they doing here?’ Then he put the bottle to its intended use, drinking straight from it with greedy gulps.
‘I made some new friends,’ Natalia told him with a bright tone that seemed suddenly forced. ‘Jack, meet Tania – I’m sorry, Charlie did tell me your second name but I don’t recall.’
‘Ionescu.’
‘And Orlando … ?
‘Nolan.’
‘You think I give a crap who you are?’ Jack Kane snarled, still drinking as he turned his back.
I gulped and tried to disappear into the Japanese cushions. So either Jack was a serious Method actor so deeply into his role that he chose not to break out of character between takes (I’ve read that some of the biggest stars work this way) or else – and this was a million times more likely – he was a deeply unpleasant, angry alcoholic on a mission to humiliate anyone stupid enough to cross his path. I’m making this call on one swift first impression, I know.
‘We’ll go,’ I said, quickly standing up.
‘No, please!’ Natalia stared at Jack’s back as if she wished she could wave a wand and turn him into somebody who didn’t snarl at strangers and swear and drink. ‘Pay no attention. Jack’s bark is worse than his bite.’
‘“Jack’s bark is worse than his bite!”’ he mimicked in a high-pitched voice. ‘Actually, my bite is much, much worse than my bark and she knows it.’
I was forced to swallow hard and decide which way to go. Should we stick with Natalia’s request for us to stay or follow our natural urge to get the hell out of there? I was shocked, scared, even a little horrified.
I mean, the moment Jack Kane had lurched into the trailer he’d shattered my dreams of how a movie idol should be, which was bad enough. But worse still, how often did those small kids see their dad like this? Plus, how sad Macy would be when I told her. All this ran through my mind in the length of time it took Jack Kane to raise the bottle to his lips again.
‘Ha!’ Jack laughed harshly at the shocked silence then put the bottle back on the shelf. ‘Hang around, you two little lap dogs. Stay with my wife as long as you like. Idolize her like every other poor sap, fall at her feet and give her a fresh topic next time she gets together with her ladies who lunch – you two country hicks look like good comedy value to me. I’m out of here.’ Making as if to leave, he tripped over one of the kids’ toys strewn across the floor then stumbled towards the sofa where Orlando and I sat. Hard-core swearing followed.
Now I was beyond shocked, moving rapidly towards repulsion and wondering how, if this happened on a regular basis, Jack’s minders managed to sober him up enough to deliver his dialogue when necessary and how on earth his PR team kept his serious alcohol intake out of the public eye.
Still swearing, he slumped on to the sofa between me and Orlando. ‘Have you any idea how frickin’ bored I am making this movie?’ he growled. ‘The director’s an asshole. He keeps me hanging around day after day in this crappy sub-zero climate when I could be spending the build-up to Christmas in the Bahamas. You think I’m kidding?’
‘No,’ I assured him. ‘I believe you.’
Jack grunted and squinted at me from under hooded lids. ‘They give me lines a frickin’ parrot could say. All I basically get to do is play with guns, shoot a few guys and screw beautiful girls. Any moron could do it.’
At the far end of the couch, Orlando shrugged.
‘Today I’m thinking, what the hell? Get Charlie to stand in for the action sequences and some of the close-up work too. I mean, who’s going to know the frickin’ difference?’
‘You want to go back to the hotel?’ Natalia asked quietly, picking up her phone to contact the helicopter pilot.
‘No, I don’t want to go back to the hotel.’ Jack mimicked her again, making her sound prim and disapproving. ‘What the hell do I do back there except stare at a TV screen and drink more whisky?’ He sloppily shifted position to turn his back on Orlando and stare directly at me. ‘What was your name again?’
I felt the full force of his gaze – hazel eyes flecked with amber, long dark lashes, thick stubble on his chin. ‘Tania Ionescu,’ I reminded him.
‘What kind of frickin’ name is that?’
‘Romanian. My dad was born in Bucharest.’
‘Where the hell’s that? Russia, right? Don’t tell me – your dad’s an oil zillionaire. Yeah, they’re crawling all over the city in their Armani shades and Louboutin heels.’
‘Romania’s on the Baltic coast. My dad got American citizenship when he married my mom. He works in construction.’
‘Well, there ain’t a whole lot of that happening right now, not with the economy down the pan.’ As Jack went on staring at me, his voice grew less slurred and he eased off the cuss words. ‘Are all Romanian girls as beautiful as you?’
I stared back, unable to find a response. Really, the guy took my breath away for bare-faced sleaze.
He didn’t seem to notice my reluctance to engage. ‘Long black hair – that looks kind of Italian,’ he went on. ‘And you’ve got good skin, a great body. Hey, now I get it – you wormed your way in here because you’re a waitress/wannabe actress and you see this as the fast route to fame!’
‘Jack!’ Natalia interrupted as he slid closer towards me. His knee was touching mine and his arm crept along the back of the sofa.
‘Move right to the top of my list,’ he went on, breathing in my ear. ‘And I can see you’re a smart kid – you know there’s only one hoop you need to jump through to be an extra in my movie.’
‘Jack!’ This t
ime Natalia stood up to make her point. ‘I invited Tania on to the set today. She’s not interested in anything you have to offer!’
He flicked his beautiful wife away with the back of his hand, not for a second taking his eyes off me. ‘Hey, Tania, I’m serious – maybe you’ll even get to speak a line or two. And take no notice of Natalia. My wife has a dirty mind. I’m talking about your acting experience – I’m not asking you to screw me.’
‘Let’s go.’ This was too much for Orlando, who jumped up and headed for the door. Anyone would react like this if another guy made this sick-making move on his girl and it made no difference to Orlando that his ‘rival’ was a world-famous movie star.
‘We’re out of here.’ I stood up in disgust, leaving Jack to topple sideways into the vacant space.
‘Thanks for inviting us,’ Orlando told Natalia as I joined him by the door.
Her eyelids flickered nervously. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said with a forced smile. Behind that façade it felt to me as if she was begging us not to leave her alone with her drunken husband.
‘Aw, come on!’ Unsteadily Jack pushed himself up from the soft cushions. ‘Why leave the party before it starts?’ he asked Orlando and me as the door opened and an icy blast entered the trailer. ‘Hey, look – here comes Charlie, right on cue!’
Natalia shivered then quickly recovered. The build-up of tension collapsed. She smiled and said hi to the girl who followed Jack’s body double up the steps. ‘Tania, Orlando, this is Charlie’s sister, Gwen Speke. Gwen is a make-up artist.’
Breathing more easily and feeling Orlando relax beside me, I smiled at the newcomer, who looked nothing like her brother. Small, with fair curls escaping from beneath her suede, fur-lined hat, she was dainty and delicate where Charlie was strong and muscular, shy where he was open and laid back.
‘Dude, that was good timing,’ Jack told Charlie. ‘Tania wants a part in my movie. You can fix that for her, can’t you?’
‘Actually, I don’t,’ I said before the situation ran away from me a second time. ‘Orlando and I have to leave.’
‘Oh my God, Tania the beautiful Romanian wannabe turned me down!’ Jack wailed.
‘So not funny,’ Charlie muttered. He saw Jack heading towards the shelf with the whisky bottle and stepped across his path. ‘Time to take a shower and straighten up, Jack. They need you on set in fifteen.’
‘Tell them to go fuck themselves.’
‘You tell them.’ Charlie didn’t miss a beat. ‘You’re the one with the multimillion-dollar contract. See how they like it if you screw this up one more time.’
Taking a step back, Jack smiled uneasily. ‘Don’t tell me my business. You and I both know they can’t make this movie without me.’
Charlie gave an imperceptible shake of his head. ‘So take a shower,’ he insisted. Then he turned to his sister. ‘Hey, Gwen, why don’t you walk Tania and Orlando around the set,’ he told her, ‘while I straighten Jack out and take care of Natalia.’
‘Sorry about that,’ Gwen Speke told us at the steps to the boathouse. Across the lake the usual horde of Jack Kane fans still stood waiting for him to appear. ‘You caught him on a bad day.’
‘He has good ones?’ Orlando asked sceptically.
‘Oh yeah. Some days he can be totally charming. My brother swears he’s witnessed him go up to fans to sign autographs and kiss their babies.’
‘Sounds like you don’t believe it,’ I checked.
‘I haven’t seen it myself,’ she confessed. She bit her lip and considered something for a while. ‘Now that you’re out of Jack’s evil clutches, why not stick around and catch some filming?’
‘What about … ?’ Orlando jerked his thumb towards the Kane trailer.
‘Charlie will fix him, no problem. Anyway, Jack’s short-term memory is shot. By the time he makes it down those trailer steps, he’ll have forgotten you two exist.’
We believed her and went with her for coffee in the catering trailer. The coffee was as bad as Natalia had said, but we soon warmed to Gwen, who told funny stories about the famous actors she’d worked on, giving us the gory lowdown on various cosmetic procedures until the Kane kids came running up to her.
‘More cookies!’ Phoebe pleaded.
‘More!’ little Charlie mouthed.
But Adam, at five, wrecked their high hopes. ‘Mommy said just one,’ he told them sternly.
Gwen spread her hands and pulled a face. ‘Sorry, kids.’
So the little ones groaned and ran off again to pester a guy with a pair of headphones hung around his neck.
‘Poor kids – I know,’ Gwen confided as Adam drifted towards a window, pressed his nose against the cold surface and stared out over the frozen lake. ‘People think they have everything they want, but really they live inside a bubble. They can’t go anywhere, do things normal kids do. I’m not saying that Natalia isn’t a good mom,’ she added quickly. ‘And thank God for my brother – he’s her rock. She even named the baby after him.’
Frowning, I secretly wondered how that had gone down with Jack.
‘Oh no!’ Gwen seemed to follow my train of thought and laughed as she protested. ‘That’s funny. Charlie and Natalia – no way! I mean, how weird would that be?’
‘For her to have an affair with a guy who’s the body double of her husband?’ Orlando caught our thread.
‘Yeah,’ I said, watching Phoebe run from the sound man to a girl with a clipboard and start the cookie thing over while Adam still stared out of the window. ‘Very weird.’
But not impossible, I thought.
Spending the rest of the afternoon with Gwen was fun. Together we watched Lucy Young, an assistant director, run through a scene with fifty or so extras. It was a thirty-second sequence inside the boathouse café, which ended with Jack’s character entering then getting into a brawl with an undercover cop, a role played by an actor named Rocky Seaton. We’d got close to Rocky when Gwen worked on him in the make-up trailer and found he didn’t live up to his tough screen image, sitting there reading Tolstoy and talking politics with anyone who would listen.
He was good in his role though. When he walked on set and the lights came on, he transformed into a cold, calculating cop.
‘Cool!’ Orlando breathed as we watched Rocky narrow his eyes and alter the set of his jaw. We saw him tense up as Jack Kane’s character walked through the door and began to make his way between the café tables. The camera caught Jack’s back view – black-shirted, broad-shouldered.
‘Jack or Charlie?’ I whispered to Orlando. ‘What’s your guess?’
Orlando shrugged. Who knows?
Rocky stood up from his flimsy chair, full of menace. Jack/Charlie swayed and lurched against a table as he walked forward.
‘Jack,’ I muttered.
Cut!’ the director barked and prepared everyone for take two.
After thirteen takes of Jack stumbling into things and fumbling for his gun, Orlando and I went back to find Gwen.
‘You’re leaving already!’ she exclaimed, pouting as she glanced up from a magazine.
‘It’s four thirty,’ Orlando pointed out.
‘You’re right. They’ll soon have to quit – not enough daylight. How did Jack do?’
We both grimaced but said nothing.
‘So thanks,’ I told her, quickly moving on. ‘And please thank Charlie when you see him.’ It had been a fascinating afternoon. A few dreams had been shattered and I’d learned a lot, but on the whole neither Orlando nor I was sorry to be leaving.
Gwen put down her magazine, zipped up her jacket and put on her suede hat to walk with us down the row of trailers. She’d been right – the light was fading and it was growing colder. ‘Come again tomorrow?’ she enquired brightly, aiming the question at Orlando rather than me.
I tried not to bristle and say thanks, but no thanks.
‘Tomorrow’s Saturday, right?’ Orlando checked.
‘Yeah. We work twenty-four–seven until we get what we
need.’
‘So Tania has a workshop.’
Gwen dipped into her pocket and drew out two familiar-looking pieces of card – more crew passes, dated for the next day. She had her back to me so I had to imagine the bright smile to match her light, childlike voice. ‘Which means you have time on your hands,’ she told Orlando. ‘Here, take these, why don’t you?’
She said goodbye and turned back to the trailers before he had time to reply. We went on by the side of the lake until we reached the striped tape. ‘Did you see that?’ I exclaimed. By now I was bristling unashamedly.
‘See what?’
‘Gwen came on to you,’ I complained. ‘With me standing right there beside you.’
‘No way,’ he argued. He nodded thanks at the guy who let us through the tape then led the way through the crowd of hopeful spectators. ‘Why would she come on to me?’
‘Doh!’ Because you’re easily as good-looking as any guy on that movie set, I thought. And maybe Gwen likes your type – someone who keeps in the background, without the huge ego she’s gotten used to dealing with in every actor she ever worked with. And your eyes – you just have to look at a girl and her knees turn to jelly. Orlando didn’t know the power he had. I thought these things but kept them to myself in case he accused me of acting like a jealous bitch.
‘Where do you want to eat?’ he asked. ‘Here or back in TriBeCa?
‘I don’t care,’ I said. He seemed to have forgotten all about my carousel phobia and was walking towards the south gate. I was sore that he’d cut off any discussion about Gwen.
Music played, lights winked, the painted horses went round and round. I shuddered as I relived the moment of my mugging.
‘Let’s ride the subway to Hubert Street,’ Orlando decided.
He knows but had ignored the fact that subways freak me out.
I don’t like being below ground.
A million people ride the subways of New York without even thinking – more than a million; who knows how many each and every day. They read their ebooks and newspapers, step on and off without any of the knotted-up anxiety I feel about taking the right train and getting off at the correct stop. I don’t like being rammed in, shoulder to shoulder with a thousand office and shop workers, staring into their armpits and breathing their stale air. As Natalia said back there in a different context: what’s to like?
