by Zoe Wildau
Lilly pulled her rented Chevy Aveo into the little gravel spot behind the apartment. Mike worked as a bartender at the Snake River Grill and had left a key for her under the mat. Between his night schedule and her early mornings and long days, they’d be like two ships passing in the night. However, the casting call had them finished in Wyoming by Friday and Monday was slotted as a budget and planning day. So she and Mike had made plans to go hiking over the weekend, a two night backpacking trip into the Tetons. She was looking forward to the break.
The following morning, Lilly headed out to the location, arriving about the same time as the busses and trailers with the location crew. She scouted the trailers for the best place to set up a mobile Lab. She found it in the climate controlled camera trailer. Before unpacking her supplies, she had to rub her icy hands together. Warming up in the trailer, she set about making the extra applications for the next day’s shoot.
When she arrived back on location the next morning at three-thirty a.m., everything seemed in order. She had just finished putting the final touches on the bloodier applications and was moving her trays over to the makeup trailer when Jake arrived.
“Wooh,” he woofed, rubbing his hands together, “it’s freezing out there.”
“Tell me about it.” She smiled in welcome. “I hope these scenes are short, or you’re going to end up frost-bitten.”
Without ceremony, Jake stripped off his shirt and sat in the makeup chair. The blue of his veins stood out on his goose-fleshed skin. Lilly warmed her hands and the lotion first before starting on his shoulders, back and arms, rubbing in circles as much to warm and smooth his skin as to apply the lotion. She found herself slowing and focusing on knotted muscles under his shoulder blades, on the column of his neck, beside the ridge of his spine. Jake closed his eyes and let his head drop while she worked, making occasional hmmm sounds so quietly she wasn’t sure she heard him.
Finished, she patted him gently on the shoulder to signal it was time to apply the glue, applications and paint necessary for the day’s shoot. He’d been through it so many times, he knew what was coming. Groaning, he lifted his head and grimaced at her, “Already?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling at him. “Time to make a monster of you.”
Allegrezza’s wounds were some fine work by Lilly. Their flawlessness had already been proven in the dailies on the set in LA. Jagged claw marks on Jake’s back and forearms oozed blood and gaped open to expose working muscle and bone. Although she had kept the use of applications minimal when she had revamped Jake’s face after the Culver City meeting, this work required extensive use of applications. Particularly difficult was a stab wound to his right eye that was created by a multi-layered application adhered with extreme care not to irritate the sensitive area.
Thirty minutes later, Lilly was finished, but not happy. It had been much too hard to set the glue and adhere the applications, which were stiff and lacked elasticity. Jake studied her frowning expression, “What’s wrong, Pix?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s the cold, and maybe the dryer mountain air. The apps look right, but they don’t feel right.”
She started to get a sick feeling in her stomach. This day might not go well. If the applications weren’t pliable, they would tug and pull on Jake’s skin, ruining the natural look that was achieved in the balmy LA studio. She was frustrated and embarrassed; she was a chemical engineer after all. Why hadn’t she planned for the cold? She should have realized that the formulation of the plastics might need to be tweaked to perform.
Her fears only worsened as the shoot began. The apps, which had been mildly stiff in the climate-controlled trailer, became stubbornly inflexible in the bitter cold outside. By noon, Jake’s mouth was set in a thin line. She’d had to adjust the eye stab wound many times as the adhesive on the more intricate pieces froze, then failed. As she gently removed the application for the third time and looked at Jake’s tired and bloodshot eye underneath, she said for what felt like was the hundredth time, “I’m really sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t plan for this. There’s a fix, but I’m going to have to have some materials overnighted. I’ll go talk to Monty and explain.”
“No – don’t. I’ll do it. Go work on your fix. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that, Jake was gone, and she’d been dismissed.
A voice inside her head was screaming. Berating her. It was a simple change in the composition of the silicon, but she didn’t have everything she needed, and she didn’t imagine she could get it in any of the little towns around here. How the hell was she going to have it ready by the next day? Losing the afternoon was bad enough. Tens of thousands of dollars of lost time.
If she let herself dwell on it any longer, she was going to be frozen with fear and unable to do anything. First things first. Order supplies. She needed medical grade adhesive with a higher silicone content and powdered latex to add to her application compound. Unfortunately, in her paranoia at leaving the Lab behind, she’d premixed her powdered materials before leaving LA. She had two five-gallon drums of raw material, none of which was going to work in this frigid weather. Crap, crap, crap.
Think, Lilly! A heavenly vision of shelves upon shelves stocked full of just the silicones, latexes and adhesives that she needed flitted through her mind. She knew that place. It was real but it was back in Kansas, at the warehouses of Dow Chemical, where she’d worked through college. After this fiasco she might find herself right back there.
Sucking in a breath, she jumped up and snapped open her laptop to Google Dow Chemical. They had operations all over the country… including… yes! Riverton, Wyoming, a mere four hours away. Lilly looked at her watch; it was one o’clock in the afternoon. If she left right away, she could be back well before midnight. She’d still have to mix, color test, recast and cure the applications. The cure time alone was forty minutes, which was a hunk of time, but at least they could cure simultaneously. She’d have to work fast, but she thought she could be ready before Jake sat in the makeup chair.
Grabbing her phone and purse, she went in search of her car. She still had to figure out how to get in the plant, which was going to take more than a few calls, but she could make those from the car. She’d also call and place her FedEx order as a backup. Two hours out of Jackson Hole on the road to Riverton, Jill Mackey, the night supervisor for Dow’s Riverton plant returned her call, having spoken with the Kansas plant supervisor to confirm that Lilly was someone worthy of a favor. Lilly gratefully listed everything she needed while Jill jotted it down.
A few minutes before five a.m., bleary but elated, Lilly pulled and stretched the completed applications. The adjustments worked. The new materials remained flexible in the cold and the glue held its stick. If it hadn’t been for the previous day’s disaster, she’d appreciate her expensive chemical engineering education.
When she stepped outside for a bracing breath of fresh air, she saw Monty making his way over to Jake’s makeup trailer. Lilly met him halfway, intending to apologize for her screw up. She’d barely begun to voice her apology when Monty interrupted her.
“How’s he feeling today? Tell me he kicked whatever it is. The executive producer is going to call in thirty minutes, and I don’t want to report we’re out another day. The shit I took for yesterday afternoon was bad enough.” Shaking his head, Monty said, “Weird, I’ve worked with him on three films, and he’s never delayed a shoot, and I know damn well there were times he was puking his guts out between scenes.”
Wrinkling her nose at the image, she tried her apology again, “Sir, I’m really…” only to be interrupted by Monty again.
“Good to go?” he said, looking relieved to see Jake, who had walked up behind her.
“Yes,” said Jake perfunctorily, then grabbed her by the elbow. “Come on, Pixie, I’ve been looking for you. Get it in gear.” He walked away toward the makeup trailer, leaving Lilly no choice but to jog along beside him on her much shorter legs.
Once locked inside the trailer, Jake t
urned to her, one brow raised, “Problem solved? It’s going to be thirty degrees today, not so cold as yesterday, but still below freezing.”
“Are you really sick?” she asked.
“Do I look sick?”
“But Monty said….” she trailed off. “Oh, Jake, you shouldn’t have done that.”
Jake looked hard at her and didn’t pull any punches. “Between the two of us, who do you think Monty is more likely to forgive for yesterday?”
“That would be you,” she said miserably. A mistake like that not only would have earned her Monty’s wrath, she could have been ruined in the industry. Jake, however, could bear it with barely a scratch to his reputation.
“I don’t know what to say, how to thank you,” she said.
“Telling me you’ve got it worked out would be a good start.”
“Yes!” she said quickly, some of her earlier elation returning. “But I had lots of help.” Inspired, she asked, “Can I bother you for a tiny favor?”
“Another one?” Jake said, not too kindly. When her face fell, he asked, “What kind of favor?”
“If I call someone, would you thank her personally? She didn’t know me from Adam last night yet she rescued me. She helped us both.”
Holding out his hand for her phone, he said, “What’s her name and what did she do for us?”
She smiled, happy that she could do something immediately nice for Jill who would be leaving her shift in an hour or so. Scrolling through her recent calls to find Jill’s number, Lilly pulled it up.
“Here’s her number. Her name’s Jill Mackey. She was my personal shopper – our personal shopper – last night. She got me everything I needed to make today go smoothly and she didn’t even charge me.”
“What does Jill do?” Jake asked.
“She’s the night supervisor at Dow Chemical’s Riverton plant.”
Jake already knew that Lilly had driven to Riverton, just not why.
“Clever girl,” he said, finally smiling. Then, to the phone, “Hello is this Jill? Jill, this is Jake Durant. I’m sitting here with Lilly Rose, who tells me we have you to thank for getting us what we need to film in the Rockies today…. It wasn’t nothing. I would like to repay you for your kindness. Would you be able to join us for dinner this week? …Oh, I didn’t realize. That’s a shame. Is there anything else I can do for you? …Sure, I’ll hold on.”
Lilly raised her eyebrows at him.
“She wants me to speak with one of her coworkers,” Jake said, showing no sign of irritation, which pleased her. Listening to just his side of the conversation, she could imagine how thrilled the women on the other end of the phone were. If I didn’t work with him every day, I’d be in a pool on the floor if I got a call like this. Hell, sometimes, she admitted to herself, she did feel like she was going to melt around him, although she clamped down hard on that feeling as soon as it appeared.
“Hello Bridget…. Thank you, that’s nice of you to say.”
Jake laughed, “I’d be happy to.” Then, in an elocutionary recital of an oft-repeated line from another demonic character from one of his early movies, a cult favorite, he said, “I am but one hell of a butler.”
She could hear Bridget’s squeal on the other end of the line.
“It was my pleasure. Okay, bye.”
“That was awesome. Thank you! You made those ladies’ year.”
Jake, smiling sideways at her animated reaction, pulled her next to him and used her phone to snap their portrait. Lilly watched, delighted, as he texted it to Jill’s number.
The second day of filming in the mountains went much better. Although the apps weren’t perfect, because nothing was going to completely eliminate the increased hardness of the plastics caused by the cold, they weren’t so stiff as to be pulling against Jake’s skin or popping the adhesive. By midmorning, Lilly began to relax.
Although the apps weren’t freezing, surely Jake had to be, she thought. He performed in take after take, barely clothed in the frigid air. Maya, by contrast, was fully clothed. Without any elaborate makeup, she could slip into a huge downy coat at each break. Jake, however, couldn’t put on the down parkas that everyone else was wearing without ruining her work. He bore it without a whimper. It was terribly uncomfortable and exhausting to be that exposed in this cold. A heated blanket would be nice. It would also help keep the apps pliable. Grabbing her friend Bryce, she asked him to find someone to go into town to purchase an electric blanket and an extension cord.
When it arrived, Lilly made the electrical connections herself to ensure watertight seals, since it wouldn’t do to electrocute Jake. By the next break, she had the blanket ready and wrapped it around him as soon as he walked off his mark. Jake thanked her profusely. She found herself beaming at him for the second time in one day and realized what a rarity that was. Why had their relationship been so strained before?
The following days flew by in blustery beauty. Monty was pleased. Jake was pleased. Lilly was exhausted but pleased. She’d found that it was best to completely remake the applications every night rather than try to reuse them because the freshly cured applications withstood the mountain air longer without becoming brittle.
Lilly suspected the dryness of the air and lack of oxygen was as much, if not more, to blame for the failed applications than the cold. She’d have to do some research on plastics and altitudes when she got some time; it might make an engaging scientific paper for a chemical engineering journal, especially if she threw in some movie-making anecdotes.
Chapter 13
Filming in Wyoming ended Friday morning with the last of the dawn light. Lilly was beyond ready to get off the set and out into the mountains when Monty finally yelled, “Cut!”
Unfortunately, Mike had cancelled on her. Not to be denied, she had decided to set out on her own. She’d turned in her rental car. All she had to do was pack up her supplies and belongings and leave them in the makeup trailer. The trail she planned started only a mile from their location; so she could set off on foot as soon as she packed up.
As the rest of the crew boarded the bus, Lilly grabbed her backpack and hoisted it on, waving as they pulled away.
Bryce rolled down the window and yelled out a parting shot, “Don’t get eaten by bears!”
Turning, she ran smack dab into Jake.
“Why aren’t you on the bus?” he demanded.
“I’m taking a couple of days off. I’m allowed, right?” She meant to tease him, but he didn’t seem amused. Feeling like she had to explain, he was her boss after all, she patted her backpack, “I’m hitting the trail for a couple of nights.”
When she moved to step around him, he stepped in her path.
“By yourself?”
“Well, I had a hiking partner, but he got called in to work.” Taking in his creased brow, she added, “I’ll be fine. It’s supposed to warm up today and be in the fifties this weekend. The nights will be cold, but I’ve got brand new below zero gear.”
As he continued to frown down at her, she said, “I’ve done this before, Jake, so don’t worry.”
“Well I am worried, and not just about you. You can’t pull something like this on a film with this kind of budget. Do you know how many people depend on us?”
Lilly glanced at the departing bus full of crew then looked longingly at the mountains. Hiking in the wilderness was an acceptable risk to her, but she was the only one who would reap the benefit. Without Mike, maybe it was a bit too dicey.
She turned her gaze back to Jake’s exasperated expression. “Okay, I’ll take your caution to heart and adjust my route to make it plain vanilla: no glaciers, no shale, no climbing. Just some fresh air and a couple of nights of sleeping on the ground. Bears really will be the only hazard and I’m well aware of the precautions to take when hiking in bear country.”
“I’m coming with you.”
What? – No. Half the reason she wanted to get out into the woods was to shake him out of her head. How the hell was she supp
osed to do that with him looming along beside her? She struggled to hide her dismayed expression. No way was she taking Jake on this hike with her.
Thinking fast for excuses, she said, “Jake, I’m already ready to head out. You’ve got no pack, no boots.”
“We’re in a mountain town, Lilly. I saw two outfitters on the same street. Anything I need can be bought. It’ll take an hour. While I’m stocking up, you can rework your route.” Not giving her a chance to argue, Jake grabbed the back of her pack, nearly pulling her over as he pulled it off of her and slugged it toward his waiting car and driver.
“Change of plans, Wil. We’re headed to town. Ms. Rose will be joining us.”
Wil hopped out of a rented Explorer to relieve Jake of the backpack.
Jeez, that guy. Lilly was still staring after him as Wil opened the door. Both men stood by the SUV waiting for her to get in. Cursing under her breath, she gave up, and got in the car.
Lilly stewed in silence while Wil drove to the Marmot outfitter in downtown Jackson Hole. When they got there, Jake commenced to unpack her carefully packed backpack and rummage through it to see what she had and what else would be needed. He handed her the map and park guide from the side pocket of her pack.
“Nothing dangerous,” he said imperiously, obviously assuming she’d do as told and rework the route she’d planned while he stocked up.
It’s my trip you’re crashing -- you’ll take what you get and like it! As much as she wanted to spit out some horrible comments to him, her livelihood depended on him. And, truth be told, she did owe him for covering for her blunder this week. That thought softened her resentment slightly, and with a purer heart, she reexamined the map and park guide.
