by Zoe Wildau
Lilly reached in and tugged on Jake’s waistband, examining the closure. “Oh, good. When James, the chief costume designer, called me about the fit, I told him you needed Velcro closures and snaps – no zippers or buttonholes. I’m glad he was listening. Otherwise, you’d be crossing your legs until someone helped you out of your pants.”
Jake glowered at her. “I know you’re used to working with children, Lilly, but I can usually find my way out of my pants when the need arises.”
Lilly pulled her hand back. She thought she was being practical, but she must have insulted him. To hide her embarrassment, she picked up the oil emulsion she used to protect his skin from irritation and began to massage it into his hands, hitting hard the pressure points that reflexologists believed healed and invigorated the lungs, heart and brain. Although she didn’t buy much into holistic medicine, she knew a good massage could go a long way toward restoring one’s physical and mental well-being.
When she was done, Jake rewarded her with a slow smile.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” he asked.
“Lia Sundquist. She was a guest speaker at the Institute where I learned special effects. She taught us all an important lesson. If we ever wanted to be hired again, we needed to perfect our knowledge of natural ingredients and massage.”
Quoting Lia, she said, “‘Who would choose to go through this torture if they could find someone just as good who could make it a pleasurable experience?’”
“Who indeed?” was Jake’s reply, as she moved from massaging his hands to rhythmically rubbing his temples. When she’d finished unhurriedly preparing his skin, she patted his arm to signal that she was about to begin the less pleasant process of applying the glues and prosthetics that would transform him into Allegrezza.
As she began the last step of painting his nails to deadly perfection with the obsidian polish she said, “You know, we could cut down our prep time with acrylic nails. You’d have to replace or fill them every month or so, but they’d be semi-permanent.” She suddenly pictured him out on a date with a woman who looked an awful lot like Sierra Nighly, Jake with silvery painted nails, dressed in his tailored shirts, picking up a wine glass, touching the unseen woman, scraping her skin. Lilly swallowed, aroused and unexpectedly jealous at the same time.
“On second thought, this doesn’t take long and can be removed at the end of each day.” She did not want some other woman reaping the benefit of her hard work.
When she’d finished, Allegrezza’s pernicious face stared out at her. Jake was as ready as he’d ever be for the first day of filming Feast of Saints; however, he looked uncertain. She’d never seen him like this. He always seemed so confident.
After she helped him into the crushed velvet tails, Lilly couldn’t help herself. She grasped both of his hands, knowing she’d have to touch them up before he hit the set.
“You are the scariest, most compelling person I’ve ever set my eyes on,” she said earnestly. “I and everyone else who sees you in this role will find it impossible to turn away from you.”
Jake squeezed her palms. Hard. When he continued to frown down at her without letting go, she began thinking maybe she’d confessed too much.
“You’ll be there?” he asked.
“Of course, every moment,” she said, flustered by his intensity. To cover her embarrassment, she slipped her hands out of his and turned for the airbrush to touch them up.
After Jake had left for the set, Lilly hurriedly packed up her emergency kit. Any major adjustments could be done in the Lab, but she needed to be prepared for on the spot touch-ups to ensure he’d stay consistently flawless.
Standing behind the cameras on the sound stage, she felt butterflies in her stomach as Alison called, “Picture is up!” to inform everyone that a take was about to be recorded. “Quiet, everyone! Roll sound!”
The production sound mixer announced, “Sound speed!” and started his equipment.
Alison followed with, “Roll camera!” to which the chief cameraman answered, “Speed!”
The clapper, standing in front of the camera with the clapperboard, yelled, “Marker!” and slapped the clapper shut.
Cueing the ballroom dancers to begin their swirling spins, Alison shouted, “Action background!”
At last, Monty, looking intently at Jake, hollered, “Action!”
And just like that, Lilly’s worst nightmare spoke. “What a delicious pleasure it is, finding you here, my beloved,” purred Allegrezza before rending the delicate neck of the brunette extra standing before him.
At the end of the first day of filming, Jake had been brilliant, but there had been an unreasonably high number of lighting and sound adjustments – dare say, mistakes – requiring multiple reshoots. Even something as simple as the setup for different camera angles seemed to be overly complicated for the disorganized crew. With each mistake, the whole take was lost, and the segment had to be repeated. The sound and camera log of continuity and technical issues was twelve pages long before the end of the day.
It was only four-thirty in the afternoon when Monty, called, “Cut!” and signaled that they were done for the day. Lilly sagged in relief. Her Pradas had been a dreadful mistake. She was hobbling by the time Jake plopped down in his chair to have the appliances removed so that he could shower and go home.
Stepping out of the makeup chair to grab a rolling stool, Jake slid it close and said, “Sit.” She complied.
“Where’s Mary?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. She wouldn’t have known we’d quit so early.” Without getting up, she reached over and grabbed the tray on which she’d organized everything needed to remove his makeup, rolled it closer and tiredly squirted some of the minty liquid on a cotton ball.
Standing, she leaned in and blotted the cotton puff to Jake’s cheekbone, swaying on her feet. Jake grasped her hand and ever so slowly lowered it, then pulled and turned her around until her bottom was perched on his knee. He leaned forward and peered over her shoulder at her feet. Circling his arms around her, he lifted one foot, and then the other, to gently remove her shoes.
“Why didn’t you wear sensible shoes?” he asked, sliding his warm hands over one and then the other foot.
She couldn’t resist closing her eyes and leaning back into his velvet-coated chest as he gently rubbed her sore ankles and feet. “Sensible is a matter of perspective,” she said.
“I’m here!” shouted Mary in a falsetto voice from the doorway. Lilly leapt out of Jake’s lap, embarrassed at how relaxed she’d allowed herself to be with him and with being caught at it.
Removing Jake’s makeup without the height advantage of her shoes was difficult, so she gave Mary the tasks that would have required her to stretch into Jake. If Mary was going to be doing this every day, it was as good as any time to learn. If today was any example of how much her exhaustion could lower her guard to Jake’s charisma, she was doubly glad to have her.
Jake was in the dressing room across the hall taking a shower and Mary had left for the night when Campbell showed up. Lilly was padding around the Lab in her bare feet, putting supplies away, replenishing her carts and filling the double boiler with the glycerin gelatin mixture used to make the appliances.
“How’d everything go today?” Campbell asked, fiddling with his belt.
Lilly eyed him. Perhaps she had poured it on too thick to get him to bend the fire safety rules. As grateful as she was, she found nothing attractive about him but she sensed his physical interest in her.
“Things ran smoothly in here,” she said, trying to find the right balance between gratitude and cool professionalism. “Rougher on the set. Thank you again for all of your help. I couldn’t have handled the challenges we faced today without it,” she said honestly.
Pulling out the Allegrezza molds she’d brought from home, she began pouring the gelatin mixture from the double boiler into them and organizing the molds on mesh trays to dry until the next day. She floundered about for something
else to say, but she was so tired her brain wasn’t processing information the way it should.
She was reaching for a container on the shelf above the warming plate when she felt Campbell come to stand much too close behind her. Without turning, still reaching for the container, Lilly started, “Campbell, I think I may have given you the wrong impression…” but her words stalled when he reached up behind her, ostensibly to get the container down for her, and pressed himself against her backside, pushing her pelvis into the Formica counter.
It was then that she realized she’d misjudged Campbell’s amiable demeanor as a sign of good character.
“Back up, Campbell,” she said through clenched teeth, stepping sideways in an attempt to slip out from beneath him. Campbell pulled his hips back, but he barred her sideways movement by bracing his hands on the counter on either side of her. Lilly’s internal trouble meter tripped and her anger sparked with alarm.
But then, he was suddenly just gone. It was as if he’d been lassoed and yanked away from her.
She whirled around to see Jake towering over Campbell’s prone form, fists clenched, his hair dripping into the fire safety coordinator’s gaping face. Campbell’s nose was bleeding profusely.
“Get up,” Jake gritted out. “Get up. After the day I’ve had, that felt really good and I’d like to knock you down again.”
“Jake!” Lilly shouted, coming to stand in front of him. He was furious, his eyes blazing. Even without the makeup, he reminded her strongly of Allegrezza at his most menacing. Campbell must have seen it too, because he was scrambling backwards like a crab.
Placing her hand on his chest to hold him back and looking over her shoulder at Campbell, she said, “You were just leaving, weren’t you, Campbell?”
Campbell scuttled backwards another yard, then scrambled to his feet. “Yes, I was just leaving,” he croaked as he slipped out of the door.
She dropped her hand, a rebuke on the end of her tongue, but what she really felt was gratitude. She wasn’t quite sure how she would have handled the situation if Jake hadn’t been there. Instead of chastising him, she said, “Thank you.”
“Who was that guy?” Jake demanded. Lilly saw her carefully constructed Lab demolished by a flood of new rules instituted by Campbell’s replacement if she told Jake who he was.
“He’s nobody. Nobody you need to worry about. It’s over. I’m fine. Let’s just get out of here. You’re right, it’s been a long day.”
Lilly grabbed up her shoes and purse and headed for the door, flipping the lights off to force Jake out of the room.
He followed her out obediently but did not let the subject drop. He stared down at her, matching his long strides to her barefooted ones as they walked down the hall. “What was going on back there, Lilly?”
“I don’t know. Pretty much what you saw. I think I must have given him the wrong impression, or something.” It had happened so fast. Now she wasn’t sure if what Campbell had done was just an overly zealous pass at her or whether he intended something more unsavory. Jake had been there so quickly to intervene that, whatever his intentions, he hadn’t gotten far.
“Campbell, wasn’t it? Is he a security guard?”
“Can we just drop it? Up until tonight he’s been pretty helpful. I think it was just a misunderstanding.”
“You’ll let me know if he comes around again?”
“I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again after tonight.” She couldn’t help but smile at Jake. Although her misgivings about Campbell had begun to evaporate, her gratitude toward Jake had not. He reminded her of her brother, who’d always leaped in to defend her, asking questions after.
At the exit, Jake looked down at her bare feet. “You need to put your shoes on. There’s glass everywhere. This morning, two grips dropped the entire rose window for the Assisi Cathedral set out here.”
Lilly nodded and bent over to slip on the sky-high Pradas. When she straightened, Jake was staring harshly down at her, hands on his hips.
“Can you walk?”
“Easy peasy,” she said and took a lurching, painful step forward.
She didn’t get another one. Jake swept her up, carrying her over to the McLaren crouched nearby in a parking spot with his name on it.
“Oh no. I’m not getting in the Death Star again.”
Jake looked affronted and tsked at her. “It’s not the Death Star. It’s the Millennium Falcon.”
“Well, I don’t care. I’m riding my bike home.”
Jake looked wide-eyed at her feet. “Don’t tell me you rode a bike here in those shoes?”
“No, my motorbike. The Vespa.”
Jake’s jaw clenched. “That thing’s a death trap.”
Lilly felt like she was in surreal dream, cradled in Jake’s arms, in the middle of the Warner Brothers’ lot, having this argument. She guessed she should have felt uncomfortable with the way he was manhandling her but she’d spent so much time handling him, it seemed like a natural extension of their tactile relationship.
“You’re going to need to put me down,” she said. “I’ve got to get home and I need to take the Vespa. I have to be back here tomorrow bright and early.”
Jake set her down gently and ran his hands through his still damp hair. “At least let me give you a ride over to your bike.” The below-liners parked across the lot.
“I’m not feeling particularly optimistic that tomorrow’s going to be any better than today. You’re going to need your feet under you.” He was worried, about her, about the film.
She nodded and gestured to the sports car. “You first.”
Jake rolled across the studio grounds to the employee parking lot. When he pulled up behind the Vespa, she hesitated before clambering out of the car.
Scooting forward in the recessed passenger seat so she could look him in the face, she said, “Today was a disaster.” There, she’d said it out loud. “And it wasn’t you. And it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Monty, either.”
“I know,” said Jake. “When Frances got Carl fired up about the film, the studio supplemented the equipment and the crew. They’re experienced, but most of them haven’t worked together and some of the equipment is so cutting edge they’re still learning it.”
She had noticed that, too. And the fact that the camera crew lacked a captain. No one seemed to want to take responsibility on the set.
“We need a Cully Sampson,” she said.
“What’s a Cully Sampson?” Jake, who thought he knew every producer in the business, didn’t know that name.
“He ran the camera crew on Fox Hollow. The problem is, he just retired. But if you can convince him to come in as a consultant for a few weeks, he’ll get the crew organized.”
“Getting that crew working together is going to take some finesse. What makes you think this Cully guy can do it?” Lilly could hear the skepticism in his voice. She was used to the Hollywood bias against people who worked on children’s films, but she was surprised to hear it from Jake. Surely he knew how much money a well-produced G-rated movie could generate, and the profit margin, and the guaranteed DVD sales to mommies and daddies looking for something guilt-free and wholesome for their kids to watch over, and over, and over.
“He’s just a good cameraman, Jake,” she said tiredly. “And good with people. Adults included.”
Jake registered her rebuke with a long look, then said, “I’m willing to try anything not to repeat today. If he’s retired, all the better. The studio won’t have to buy him out of another contract. How do I reach him?”
She took the expensive phone he’d given her out of her purse and forwarded Cully’s contact information to Jake’s number and then crawled out of the car. She slipped off the shoes she’d probably never wear again and stowed them under the Vespa’s seat. Strapping on her helmet, she called to Jake through the open door of the crouching sports car, “I could call Cully this evening to give him a heads up, if you’d like.”
Jake was staring grimly at the Vespa. �
�No, not yet. I’d better call Monty first.”
“Okay, see you in the morning.” Lilly saw him say something else, but his words were drowned out by the tinny whine of the Vespa as she kick-started it.
Jake had been half-right about the Vespa’s safety. It was fine for tooling around city streets, but on the freeway, it really would be a death trap. She wasn’t sure it could get up to highway speeds and she never intended to find out.
When she passed the entrance ramp to the 101, she expected Jake to peel off, but he didn’t. At a stoplight a few blocks later, Lilly turned to look at him right behind her, the silver sports car glowing in the early evening sunshine sneaking its rays under the smog. She could see his mouth moving, talking to someone on a hands-free phone. He didn’t stop talking when he saw her watching him and waved her on when the light turned.
He followed right behind her all the way home, the McLaren alternately purring and growling like a giant cat toying with a mouse. It was nerve-racking. Was he escorting her home to make a point about his dislike for her Vespa? He surely couldn’t be thinking he could escort her home every night.
By the time she zipped into the back alley to put the motorbike away in the shed, her already frayed nerves were frazzled. She thought for sure he’d drive off then, but when she unlocked the back door, she heard Kyle opening the front door with a surprised, “Hello, Jake. Where’s Lilly?”
“I’m right here,” she said, walking into the living room from the back of the house. Kyle took one look at her exasperated expression and said, “I’ll just be upstairs.”
“Jake, I don’t need you to follow me home. You’re worse than my father. Surely you have better things to do,” she said.
Uh oh. He didn’t like that, judging by the thin set of his mouth. “Yes, I do have better things to do. Right now, it apparently involves driving you over to Cully Sampson’s house. Put on some sensible shoes,” he sneered. “I’ll be in the car.”
Flabbergasted, she watched him do an about-face and walk back out the front door, not bothering to shut it on his way out.
