Beauty and the Brain (9 page)

With whom to work
, Colin thought
peevishly. Not that it mattered, and not that he generally spared a
thought for other people’s grammar. It must be that his senses were
disordered by that wretched woman. “Hmmm,” he said again.

“It’s wonderful that she’s the actress
playing opposite those Indians, because everyone likes her, and she
likes everyone.”

“Indiscriminate of her,” Colin murmured
nastily.

Martin didn’t seem to have heard him, which
was probably a good thing. “I don’t think I’ve ever met an actress
who was so little spoiled by her success,” Martin went on.
“Probably has something to do with her circumstances. She’s had to
shoulder more responsibilities than most of us.”

“Hmmm.” Colin didn’t like the turn this
conversation had taken. He definitely felt no need to find
admirable qualities in Brenda, who had become a painful thorn in
his side.

Which made no sense. She hadn’t done a
single thing to him except ask reasonable questions. Colin
generally approved of intellectual curiosity He couldn’t understand
why it should annoy him in Brenda. Bosh.

He was only suffering from apprehension
about the misconceptions regarding Indian culture that this picture
was going to depict. He abominated such shoddiness in so
potentially powerful a medium. The dime novels and yellow press
were bad enough If people began flocking to see pictures that
portrayed Indians as one, single, huge, savage culture, true
history was doomed to be lost in a mire of inaccuracy, melodrama,
fear, and speculation.

Martin, apparently perceiving that his
friendly comments were being wasted on an unreceptive audience,
sighed and sat, in one of the Cedar Crest’s large, comfortably
padded Stickley chairs. “Okay, Colin. Out with it. What’s eating
you?”

Brenda, as bright and brash as a new penny,
arrived at that moment, lifted the skirt of her ankle-length beige
skirt, and sat with a flounce and a big smile. “Yes, Colin, please
tell us. What’s eating you?” She looked as sporty as her clothing,
and she seemed to fit into the Cedar Lodge’s casual elegance as if
she’d been crafted specifically for it. Or it for her.

Colin felt a prickle of vexation that she,
who was uneducated and a female to boot, should have such a
marvelous grasp of the social aspects of life, while he, who’d been
gifted with a big brain and a huge education, should be a dunce in
such matters.

He frowned at her and then endeavored to
ignore her. “It won’t do, Martin. Those Indians, I mean. They’re
Navajos, for heaven’s sake.”

Martin blinked at him. “Yes, I believe they
are. We were able to hire several of them, and Lord knows they need
the work. The reservation isn’t a hotbed of industry, I
understand.”

“Of course it isn’t.” Both Colin’s
irritation lid his sense of the injustice of it all made him
snappish. “But those men aren’t of the tribe called for in the
script.” He tapped his rolled script lightly on the arm of his
chair.

Brenda caught Martin’s eye and winked at
him. Colin saw the gesture and resented it.

“Well,” said Martin, judiciously rubbing his
lower lip with a fingertip, “I suppose you’re right. I mean, the
script calls for Apaches—”

“Which is only one more idiocy,” Colin
interrupted brusquely.

Martin looked at him blankly. “Is it?”

Colin threw up his arms. “Of course it is! I
thought this thing was supposed to take place in the Dakotas.”

“It is.”

The fact that Martin appeared totally
bewildered grated on Colin’s nerves like a metal file, although he
knew he was being unreasonable. Why should Martin. Tafft know
anything about these things? He was a picture-maker, not a
researcher. He was irked anyway.

“Well, then, the whole thing is crazy,” he
said “If the thing takes place in the Dakotas, the Indians should
be one of the Sioux tribes. Probably the Hunkpapa or Santee. The
Apaches were in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Anyhow, even if
this picture was supposed to be set in one of those territories,
the Indians who just arrived on the set are Navajos.”

Martin sat still, and Colin got the
impression he was trying to think of something to say. He felt a
trifle ignoble, since he knew Martin to be a man of honor and
integrity who wouldn’t knowingly perpetuate false information—if he
thought it was important. The problem as Colin saw it was that
neither Martin nor anyone else except himself would probably
consider this matter important.

“Um,” Martin said after a couple of seconds,
“I understand your concern, Colin—”

“I don’t,” Brenda cut in abruptly. “Who’s
going to know?” She shrugged, holding her arms out and looking
adorable, and Colin wanted to stamp his foot and holler.

“I don’t believe you need join us in this
discussion, Brenda,” he said in a cold voice.

“I do.” She eyed him arctically. “I don’t
know who you think you are, Colin Peters, but I can tell you that I
have as much or more at stake in this picture than you have now or
ever will have. I want to know why this Indian thing is so
all-fired important.”

“Because the truth is the truth, and people
oughtn’t try to alter it.”

“Do you think Martin’s trying to alter the
truth?” She was beginning to sound belligerent.

“I don’t know if he wants to, but he’s going
to do it if this picture continues with those men in it.”

“That’s silly, Colin. Nobody’s going to know
what kind of Indians those are.” Martin, Colin noticed with a stab
of guilt, had commenced tugging on a lock of his hair.

“I’ll know,” he said. “And anyone who’s ever
bothered to take an interest in such things will know, too.”

“How will they know?”

The question, although valid, irked Colin.
“For one thing, these men don’t look at all like the Sioux.”

“Nobody in the whole world but you will know
that,” she pointed out tartly.

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Fiddlesticks. Anyway, they aren’t supposed
to be Sioux. They’re supposed to be Apaches.”

“But that’s crazy, too!” His voice had
risen, and he softened it when he added, “Besides, the language is
different.”

“The language? What does that have to do
with anything?”

“What does it have to do with anything?”
He’d lost his temper entirely and shouted the question at her.

She leaned forward pugnaciously. “Yes,
that’s what I asked.”

“Well—well—well—Well, you can’t have a bunch
of people who are supposed to be Spaniards speaking German, can
you? It works the same way with Indians.”

“I’m sure it does,” Brenda said, and Colin
noted a certain smugness in her voice that he didn’t trust. “And it
matters just as much, too. Which is not at all.”

He eyed her doubtfully. “What do you
mean?”

Martin, who had let go of his lock of hair,
smiled gently. “It’s a silent picture, Colin. Nobody will ever
know.”

Brenda smirked.

Blast. They were right.

Brenda knew she should feel some kind of
triumph after Colin stalked away from her and Martin that morning,
but she didn’t. Something was going terribly wrong, and she
couldn’t figure out what it was.

For heaven’s sake, she didn’t want to
antagonize the man. She wanted to lure him into her circle. She
wanted to pick his brain and make him teach her everything he’d
ever known about anything.

Obviously, she was about as far away from
her goal as she was from the moon. With a shrug, she turned back to
Martin. “I get the feeling he’s not happy with us.”

“No,” Martin said with clear distress. “He’s
not. I don’t know what to do about it, though. I admire his
academic integrity, but he doesn’t seem to grasp that this is only
a story. It’s entertainment. If it can be made educational, too,
more power to it, but this one can’t be. It’s a story.”

Brenda pondered Colin’s back. It was a nice
back, broad and straight, and it was attached to a pair of lean
hips and long legs that looked to her as if they might sport a
muscle or two. Funny. She’d never considered academics as a
particularly strenuous pursuit, but it was plain that Colin had
traveled into many remote and rugged areas to acquire his
education. She appreciated the result. “I have a feeling our Colin
hasn’t had much to do with fiction in his life.”

“No,” Martin said sadly. “I’m afraid you’re
right.” He heaved a huge sigh. “He’s been a great help so far, but
be can’t seem to get his mind adjusted to the difference between
the university and the motion-picture venue.”

Brenda thought for a moment, then
brightened. Her nature was optimistic, and very few things got her
down for long. “I’ll bet I can help him out.”

Martin chuckled. “If anyone can do it, you
can.”

“You betcha.” She left him with a jaunty
wave and a big grin, and went off to chat with some of her
admirers. She was going to set up a baseball game, by gum.

On Sunday morning, the day after the arrival
of the Navajos, Colin had been trying to read in his room when a
commotion in the lodge yard nudged him out of his chair. He felt
crabby this morning, a result of his conversation with Martin
yesterday. And Brenda, blast her. Why had she interrupted their
discussion, anyway? It wasn’t her place to interfere.

He knew he was being unreasonable. He was
also being cowardly. Because he was so upset about how the
conversation had concluded yesterday afternoon, he’d taken his
evening meal in his room in order to avoid having to speak to
Brenda again that day. He was afraid he’d either blow up again or
apologize, and he didn’t want to do either of those things.

He wanted her to go away.

So he’d taken dinner in his room. The whole
time he ate, a book propped m front of him, he envisioned Brenda
being lively and charming downstairs in the dining room. Surrounded
by her many friends and glittering like a diamond in the lights of
the chandeliers, she was unquestionably the center of attention.
How she kept her good humor in the face of all the inanity
encircling the making of a motion picture eluded him. The process
was driving him loony.

That must be the reason for his foul mood,
although Colin still wasn’t satisfied it was the only one. As a
rule he didn’t allow himself to become ruffled by stupidity since
he’d been beleaguered by it all his life. But Brenda . . . Well,
Brenda Fitzpatrick was more than stupid. She was—she was—

“She’s not stupid,” he muttered at his book,
and realized he’d allowed his mind to wander again. With a sigh, he
rose from his comfortable easy chair and wandered to the window to
see what all the noise down there was coming from. Maybe more
Indians had arrived. Perhaps the studio had imported some Apaches,
and they were staging a real fight in the yard.

His cynicism was getting out of hand.
Cynicism wasn’t an attractive personality trait, and Colin tried to
avoid it. A woman’s voice caught his attention.

“Steee-rike!” rang out loud and clear in the
pine-scented morning air.

Brenda’s voice. He felt it in the marrow of
his bones, even though he’d only heard it for the first time two
days earlier. He drew the curtains aside and threw up the window
sash. Leaning out, he perceived the source of the racket.

Some sort of ball game was in hot progress
right below his window. He squinted through his glasses, frowning
at the scene unfolding beneath him Brenda glanced up and saw him,
and Colin got the uncanny sensation she’d been waiting for him to
appear. She shot him one of her brilliant smiles and gave him a
friendly wave.

He couldn’t account for the effect her
smiles had on him. It was as if one of Brenda’s smiles shone
brighter than the sun and blotted out any other light source in
existence during its brief life on earth. He couldn’t see anything
but her when she smiled at him that way. His entire being centered
on her.

“Get a hold of yourself, man,” he growled
under his breath with unnecessary savagery.

“Colin!” she called out gaily. “Come down
and play ball with us!”

She was as lovely as ever even though she
stood in full sunlight and was receiving no help from subdued
candle glow, he noted with annoyance. Not that he’d have expected
anything else of her by this time. Beauty was her stock in trade,
and she used her own as if it were as important as—as—honesty
Integrity. Brains. Honor. He grunted and told himself there was no
need to dig for reasons to dislike her. There were plenty extant
already, even if he couldn’t name one offhand.

Today she was clad for sport, in a light
green outfit that would have looked right at home on the golf
course. Not that Colin knew any more about golf courses than he did
about baseball rinks. Stadia. Whatever they were called.

Her hair gleamed in the sunshine, and the
shade dappling her as sunlight filtered through the tall trees cast
intriguing shadows on her face. It irked him that she was the most
beautiful woman he’d ever beheld because it would be much easier to
ignore her if she were ugly.

He was about to decline her invitation
politely—he had about as much interest in ball games as he had in
joining the circus—when Martin joined Brenda’s chorus. “Yes. Come
on down here, Colin. We’re having fun!”

Martin, too, was dressed sportily. In a
moment of snappishness, Colin wondered if all motion-picture people
were as vain about their wardrobes as these two seemed to be.
Sinking even farther into malice, he decided they only dressed as
they did because they could afford to. They could, if they chose,
do something useful with their money. But did they? No. They spent
all of it on fripperies.

Martin waved again. “We’re having a great
time! Come and join us!”

Good Lord. Colin detested games. They were
childish pastimes and unsuited to a man of his education,
self-respect, and position in life. Unlike an actor, who made
his—or her—living pretending and could, therefore, behave in any
sort of way he felt like even if it was demeaning or stupid, Colin
believed he owed a certain consideration to his accomplishments. He
wasn’t about to toss away his self-respect for the sake of a game.
He scoffed. Since he didn’t want to hurt Martin’s feelings, he did
so internally. Again he opened his mouth to decline the invitation
to join the game, politely of course.