Beauty and the Brain (13 page)

“This is a picture, Colin,” Martin reminded
him.

“I still don’t understand why everything has
to be wrong just because it’s a picture,” Colin said stubbornly.
“No Indian would paint a flower on his tipi.”

Brenda kind of agreed with him, although she
understood Martin’s point of view, too. “Nobody’s going to know,”
she said, hoping to forestall another big brangle.

“That’s not the point.” Colin gave her a hot
scowl, which she didn’t appreciate. “Or perhaps it is. Why should
the motion-picture medium spread false information when it would be
just as easy to do it right? I don’t understand.”

“Next time,” Martin said. “Next time, we’ll
consult you first. We don’t have the time or the money to do it
with this picture because everything’s already ready.”

Brenda could tell Martin was trying to keep
his upper lip stiff. She’d bet anything he was about ready to pop
Colin a good one, poor guy. Not even Martin’s patience was
infinite.

“Oh, fine,” Colin said, crabby as all get
out. “So what if it’s wrong, as long as it’s ready?”

“Colin, we’ve been over this ground before.”
Martin’s voice sounded strained, and he reached for that tuft of
hair he tugged when he was under severe stress. Brenda had begun to
think of it as his worry lock.

She decided to step into the fray. What the
heck; Colin already found her irritating. Might as well give him
one more reason to loathe her.

“Colin, stop your grousing. You can’t change
it now.”

He turned on her like a fury, so suddenly
that she actually stepped back a pace. Peeved with herself, and
with him, she braced herself, set her chin, and frowned back at
him.

“Why not?” he said, his voice loud. “Why
can’t it be changed? For heaven’s sake, thousands of people are
going to see this picture—”

“More like millions,” Martin murmured under
his breath.

Colin swirled the other way and gaped at
Martin. “Millions?
Millions!
Then for heaven’s sake, you
have to change it. Why, the whole world will be laughing at
us!”

Brenda caught Martin’s eye and winked at
him, hoping to buck him up.

“Colin.” Martin was plainly reaching for
patience. “You’re wrong. Nobody will know except you and maybe a
few other people who’ve learned a little bit about various Indian
markings and so forth. Nobody will even notice those tents—”

“Tipis,” Colin tossed in crossly.

“Tipis. Nobody’s even going to see them,
because the audience is going to be too involved with the story to
notice. The only time those tents—tipis, I mean—will be shown is
during the post-abduction scene, when the Apache warrior carries
Brenda into the village.”

“Apache warrior,” Colin said in a tone of
unutterable contempt. “In the Dakota hills. In tents that look as
if they came from a girl’s camp.”

“Look, Colin, I’m really glad you’re here to
help us keep things as accurate as possible, but some things just
aren’t possible.”

“Why not?” Colin threw his arms out, as if
piqued beyond bearing. “Why can’t we at least paint some
appropriate symbols on the tipis and get rid of those idiotic
flowers?
Flowers!
”

“Don’t have a spasm, Colin,” Brenda said,
not as acerbically as her words might imply, but in a light voice
she hoped conveyed a spirit of fun. She turned to Martin. “You
know, Martin, that’s not really a bad idea. We can paint over those
flowers. They aren’t my idea of Indian artistry, either, if you
want to know the truth.”

Martin frowned, and something that sounded
like a cross between a groan and a moan issued from his throat. He
didn’t let up on his hair. Brenda feared he’d snatch himself bald
if he kept that up. In order to perk him up, she said brightly, “I
love to paint. I’d be glad to help.”

She ignored Colin’s unflatteringly wrinkled
nose. The miserable poop. How did
he
know whether or not she
could paint?

“Well . . .” Martin let go of his hair and
began rubbing the bridge of his nose with a finger. “I suppose it
won’t delay shooting any. We’re only going to rehearse this
afternoon, anyway, and if you really think you can paint over the
flowers this afternoon and evening—”

“Sure we can! I’ll recruit all my friends to
help.” Brenda was already sorting out assignments as she spoke.
Henry could mix the paint, Eddie could slap white paint over those
ghastly flowers, and she and Gil and a few of the others could make
new symbols on the tents. Tipis. Whatever they were. Something
occurred to her and her smile faded. “Er, what symbols can we use
that will look like Apache stuff?”

“They shouldn’t be Apache,” Colin ground out
through his teeth.

“Yes, yes, I know. But you’re just going to
have to accept the fact that we’re going to be wrong in this
particular instance.” It annoyed her when people refused to face
reality. Hell’s bells, she’d been facing reality since she was
twelve years old. Now she was rich. There was a lot of good to be
gained from playing the cards as God dealt them to you instead of
whining about not having been dealt a better hand. She’d have to
try to explain that concept to Colin one of these days, if he ever
climbed down from his high horse long enough to listen.

Rehearsal went fairly well, except that
Colin kept interrupting the action to explain why, they were doing
everything wrong and to offer suggestions as to how it could be
made right.

Martin almost understood Colin’s feelings on
the matter, but he understood even better that Colin wasn’t helping
to bring about the completion of the motion picture. He wasn’t
doing much for its quality, either. Martin knew how to make movies;
Colin knew history. Martin was beginning to believe the two milieus
were incompatible.

“No, no, no!” Colin cried at one point,
rushing up to Martin and yanking on his arm. He looked horrified,
and Martin thought at first that an accident had occurred. He ought
to have known better.

The actors stopped what they were doing,
which was faking an abduction. Jerry Begay, for whom this was an
embarrassing proposition—Martin could clearly discern that he felt
not merely silly but preposterous, pretending to kidnap Brenda—let
go of her faster than a normal man could sneeze. Brenda
straightened with a sigh, put her fists on her hips, and stared at
Martin and Colin with a resigned expression on her face.

Martin thanked God it was Brenda, and not a
dozen other actresses he’d worked with, who was playing this part.
She was the only one Martin knew who’d put up with this sort of
nonsense without throwing a temper tantrum.

“What is it this time, Collin?” He tried to
keep the annoyance he felt from creeping into his voice, because he
truly did honor Colin’s knowledge. If the man could only learn to
curb his insistence on applying his knowledge to every situation he
encountered, this would go a lot faster.

“It’s ludicrous to have Delsin fall from his
horse.” Delsin was a young cousin of Jerry Begay. “He’s a superb
horseman. And so were the Sioux.”

Martin took a deep breath and counted to
five. He wasn’t mad enough yet to go all the way up to ten. “They
aren’t supposed to be Sioux. They’re supposed to be Apaches.”

“Oh, God.” Colin stabbed a finger to the
nosepiece of his glasses, then raked his fingers through his hair
as if he were sliding into despair. “This is impossible.”

“I’m sorry, Colin. You get to repaint the
tents—”

“Tipis! They’re
tipis
!”

Martin sighed. “You get to repaint the
tipis. But I’m afraid we’re just going to have to differ about what
tribe these people are supposed to be from.”

“It doesn’t make any difference anyway. No
Apache would fall off his horse, either, unless he’d been shot from
its back.” He glowered at the scene he’d stopped. “And they don’t
use saddles, either.”

“No saddles. We can take care of that in a
jiffy.” Martin, pleased to concede this point and hoping it would
mollify Colin enough to leave him alone for a while, waved to a
member of the crew. Take the saddles off the Indians’ horses,
Sam!”

Sam returned a small salute and went off to
do Martin’s bidding.

“No falling off the horse.” Colin still
looked unhappy.

Martin heaved a gusty sigh. “I’m sure we can
shoot the scene and keep Delsin on his horse. It was supposed to be
a moment of comic relief in the middle of a huge catastrophe.”

Colin’s eyes were squinched up tight, and
his frown looked as if it had been shellacked into place. Martin
got the impression that Colin had never encountered comic relief in
his life until now and wished he hadn’t this time, either. He
probably wouldn’t recognize a joke if it bit him on the butt, and
he undoubtedly watched one-reel comedies with an eye to catching
mistakes.

Martin could envision it. No, no! You can’t
fry an egg on as sidewalk! It’s not only unsanitary, but city
sidewalks never really get that hot! He shook his head to clear it
of irrelevancies.”

“Any Indian from a horse-riding culture
falling from a horse without intense provocation is simply
inaccurate. I don’t see anything funny about it,” Colin said,
confirming Martin’s suspicions.

“Delsin can keep his seat on the horse,”
Martin said. “If he can do it without a saddle.”

“Of course he can. He’s an expert horseman.
All of what we now call the Plains Indians—although there were
really no such tribes extant until the white man came—can ride
without saddles. They’re probably the finest horsemen in the world.
Well, except for some Hungarians.”

Martin cut Colin’s lecture short by saying
hastily, “I’m sure that’s true.” Although he was nearing the end of
his patience, Martin managed to achieve a conciliatory tone.

Colin nodded and didn’t continue his
lecture, an example of forbearance of which Martin approved. He was
afraid to ask, but he did so anyway, somewhat tentatively. “Um,
anything else?” He’d rather get it all out and over with now,
before Colin stopped the action again. Rehearsal would go on all
day at this rate.

“There’s lots more, but I suppose there’s
nothing to be done about any of it at this late date. I really do
wish I’d been consulted about what should go into a picture
containing any of the American Indian cultures before the work had
gone this far.”

“Me, too,” Martin muttered. He squinted at
the set, saw that Sam was taking care of the saddles with the help
of Delsin, and noticed Brenda watching him and Colin. He sent her a
wry smile, knowing she’d understand his frustration with the way
things were progressing. She was a most sympathetic person, and
infinitely practical.

Which gave him an idea.

Maybe he could sic Brenda on Colin. Humanize
him a little bit. If anybody could do it, it was Brenda. Even if
she only persuaded him not to interrupt rehearsals every five
seconds, she’d be doing Martin a great favor. He waved to her, and
she waved back and started walking toward them.

When Martin glanced at Colin, he noticed
that his frown had intensified as he gazed at Brenda. What the heck
was going on here? No man ever frowned at Brenda. She was too
lovely to be frowned at, and too agreeable to be disliked.

Leave it to Colin to be contrary. Martin was
tugging on his favorite hank of hair when Brenda reached his
side.

Poor Martin. Brenda could tell he was nearly
at the end of his tether. And, while she admired Colin for his
devotion to historical accuracy, she deplored his interference in
this case. After all, it was only a picture. “I see we did
something else of which you disapprove, Colin,” she said when she
got close enough to be heard. “You’re going to have to stop
interfering, you know, or we’ll never get this thing done.” She
spoke lightly, but she meant every word.

“Would that be so great a tragedy?”

“Mercy, Colin, you sound even grumpier than
usual today. And yes, it would be a tragedy, because Peerless
studio would lose a lot of money if the picture didn’t get made,
and that would mean a lot of people would be out of employment, you
and I wouldn’t get paid, the Indians wouldn’t get paid, and none of
the rest of the staff would get paid.

“I’m sure Martin and Mr. Lovejoy will take
greater pains to achieve historical accuracy in future Indian
pictures, but this one’s ready to roll, and it’s impossible to
alter most of the scenes now.”

“I don’t see why.”

She eyed him for a moment, then turned to
Martin. “Do you want to explain the business to him, or would you
like me to do it?”

Looking as if he couldn’t take any more,
Martin said, `You do it. I’ve got to go over the next scene with
Al.” Al was Peerless Studio’s premier set designer. Brenda figured
Martin wanted to make sure Al hadn’t included flowers on anything
other than the tipis.

She smiled sweetly at Colin. “Where would
you like me to begin, Colin? With the financial aspects of making
pictures, or the duty owed to financial investors, or the hundreds
of jobs the pictures are providing to workers, or what?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and
frowned some more. He looked remarkably like a pouty adolescent.
“You needn’t explain anything to me, thank you. I understand the
business end of it. It’s only that I deplore all of the
inaccuracies.”

“I know you do. We all know you do by this
time, believe me. But you’re causing delays, and that’s not fair to
any of us, even your precious Indians.”

“They aren’t my
precious
Indians.”

“Whatever they are, they’re as irked by your
interference as everyone else.”

He stood still, fuming, and didn’t speak.
Brenda felt a little like a schoolyard bully, but he really did
need to know that his behavior wasn’t admired.