Photographic (9 page)

“Cut!”

“Fuck!” They dropped the stake to the sandy earth of the cave, trying not to crush their feet. He was dazed with heat and a kind of blood lust, glove lust, and he felt the pulse in the space around them, these five, of a testosterone haze, shining off their muscles, flung off with their sweat. He turned to Eammous and the other three and they pummeled each other, something they had started doing after every take, a pantomime of the fight they had teamed up to direct against another. Hesitant to approach, the makeup crew hovered. 

Brotherhood. Ian hadn't felt it in a long time. He paced about, calming his breathing, glaring off in Tor's direction with the occasional swipe of his eyes, daring him to say, "Back to One."

The key makeup artist hovered in for a landing, brandishing her implement burnished with soot. He stilled for her. She dabbed at him.

His mind meandered. He floated on a wavering gray line. Like Odysseus, it felt like death licked at his heels each day. The responsibility for men who lessened in number with every adventure. Adventure seemed just another name for bloodbath. Lines blurred. 

If you risked your life for play, for a play to be watched by few, or by millions, a play to inspire, that was not noble, like risking your life to save your country. Why would anyone risk his life for a play? What was worth dying for? Ian shook his head. The heat was getting to him, engulfing him in waves. He waved his hand as a sign to Tor and staggered a couple of steps away from the set, scattering his retinue, before collapsing into blackness on the forgiving sand.

Tor chalked the incident up to mild heat exhaustion. Ian was given a physical exam by a licensed physician, a morning off, and filming resumed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A
FTER
J
ANE
HAD
seen Tam off to school the next morning, she sat at the kitchen table, drinking her post-school bus cup of coffee. Evelyn came down for her breakfast much as usual: silent, wearing dark glasses, with an injured air. A far cry from her afternoon alter ego. After the granola and soy milk routine she brightened a little, although Jane was careful not to make any sudden moves. When Evelyn cleared her throat and suggested they go into town that day for lunch and shopping, Jane was pleased. It would make for a change in routine, although she didn’t expect the shops in town would offer much to tempt Evelyn.

Evelyn disappeared upstairs to get ready. Jane cleared the table. While she was loading the dishwasher, the doorbell rang. She couldn’t think who it would be. The only neighbor she was on such terms with was out of town. 

She looked through the spy hole. A short, sleek person with ruffled blonde hair was framed in the circle. “Shit.” Jane opened the door halfway. “Marta.” 

“Jane.” Marta beamed as if they were long-lost friends reunited, but with a veiled look in her eyes. “Lovely to see you again.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jane said, her tone pleasant. She heard Evelyn trample down the stairs. It just kept getting better. “Um.” Jane narrowed the door. Evelyn surged up behind, heedless, and peered over Jane’s shoulder. Marta’s eyes widened.

Her hair seemed to get spikier, literally bristling with expectation. Before Jane had quite decided how to play it, whether to shut the door in her face and hope for the best, Evelyn unleashed the smile, as if giving Marta a gift. “Hi.” 

“Hi.” Marta's mouth was open. The guarded expression had melted off her face, replaced by a joy Jane was all too familiar with, from most every public excursion with Ian. 

Jane stepped back, opening the door wide. Evelyn seemed to have made the assumption this was a neighbor or acquaintance and given herself permission to let loose the charm. 

“Are you a neighbor? You’re so stylish for farm country.”

Jane made a face from outside the love fest.

Marta looked down at what she was wearing. “How kind of you.” She swept a glance at Jane, perhaps to gauge whether there was any chance Jane would play along with a subterfuge. 

“Marta is a photographer.” Jane thought this showed a restraint and diplomacy beyond anything Marta had a right to expect. 

“Oh! I’m a photograph-ee.”

“I know, I know.” Marta stroked the strap of her backpack.

“We were just headed out to lunch.” Evelyn glanced at Jane, and despite her look, added, “Would you like to join us?” 

“I’d love to.”

If you don't mind, we’ll be out just in a minute.” She closed the door. “Hey.”

“What? Don’t you like her?”

“She’s paparazzi.”

An odd expression Jane couldn’t identify crossed Evelyn’s face.

“Really?” She blinked and looked at the floor, then back up at Jane. “How do you know her? She’s knocking on your door.”

Jane flushed. “She was on our property. She fell out of a tree and got hurt. I helped her, and she had pictures of Tam, so I let her ask me some questions in return for the memory card.”

“Jane Reilly.”

“What?” Jane had an uncomfortable, twitchy feeling, as if she had to go to the bathroom. God knew what Marta was doing out there.

“I didn’t know you had it in you.” She started laughing. “She fell out of a tree? Oh, sweet justice. Why is she here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ve invited her to lunch. She’ll write something up, but it will probably be nice, not to burn her bridges. Leave it to me.”

“You think it’s okay?”

“Leave it to me.”

“I’m sorry.” Evelyn had come to get away from all this.

“Not your fault. I’ve got to fix myself up a little more. Three minutes.”

“I’ll get my bag,” Jane hustled on some makeup, too, due to her certainty Marta would never travel sans camera. Though with bigger game in sight, it was doubtful Jane would be her target.

The ruins of lunch spread before them, the three women sat around the table at the Treetop Inn. Jane was curious to see what Marta wore when she wasn’t in camo. Although the colors she wore today could also be said to blend into a background, the materials were entirely different. She wore a sleek leather vest of sage green zipped up the front, a knit black shirt underneath, and olive pants. A silver watch encircled her wrist, something Marta hadn’t worn in their other encounter, with inlaid mosaics on the band.

Evelyn had perked up, to put it mildly, and seemed to have some kind of extra level of radiance turned on for Marta’s benefit. Jane didn’t know if this was because Evelyn saw a third party as a kind of audience, after the seclusion of the last few days, or because Evelyn was trying for the very thing Jane had tried to protect her from.

Today Evelyn’s face was pale, as always, and virtually unfreckled, something new. Although Jane could detect a sprinkling on her arms and shoulders, her face was polished alabaster. Now clear-eyed and glowing, in contrast to her morning gloom, she seemed otherworldly, hoarding the light. She had straightened her long hair, letting it down from its perpetual ponytail, and it fell in long swaths along her face and down her back, its color a rich, impossible red that had Jane wishing her hair were that color, wondering how she would look if she tried it; if it could ever look half that deep and fiery and exotic. 

Evelyn had one hand draped around her iced tea, playing with the straw, smiling down into it as she told a story about an actor who had two hairpieces, one on top of the other. The bottom one was supposed to fool people into thinking he really had some hair, and he only wore the top piece as a sort of concession to his job. The real piece was the secret, the one that never came off in public. Jane tore her eyes off Evelyn and her straw’s slow circular trips around the iced tea long enough to see how Marta was taking this. Marta’s face was relaxed, with a small amused smile. Her choppy white blonde hair was spiked off in every direction, revealing earrings that cascaded down like little waterfalls of silver. 

Marta broke in. “How’d you find out? Did you have a love scene and accidentally rip it off?”

“You’re not far off.” She picked up her tea and took a long sip from the straw, casting a glance at Jane. Marta looked over at Jane to see if she knew the story. Jane widened her eyes and gave an infinitesimal shrug. 

Marta chuckled. “I think I get your drift. How long did it take to find out? Did he try to hide it from you as well?”

Evelyn shook her hair back. “I don’t know what he did with the others. But I don’t take well to someone holding me at arms length. I mean, we’re together, or we’re not. I could have cared less if he had a rug. Or three rugs in layers. But why try to hide it from your sweetie? I think that tolled the death knell of that relationship.”

Marta shot a glance at Jane and crossed her eyes. Evelyn was still occupied with her iced tea and her story, so missed it. Jane sucked her upper lip in and looked down. 

“So.” Marta used the conversational yet enquiring tone of voice she had perfected.

“So, what?”

“Who was it?” 

“Oh.” Evelyn poked around the remains of her chicken salad, hunting for croutons. “You know. One of those guys.”

“What guys,” Jane said, despite herself.

“The one hundred.” Evelyn found a crouton and crunched it with concentration.

“The one hundred.” Marta tapped her chin.

“The one hundred what?” Jane looked back and forth between them: Evelyn, with a distant look in her eye, Marta like she’d just been told she had an exclusive with God. 

“Marta knows.” Evelyn signaled to the waitress, who came up from the fifteen feet away where she’d been hovering. Evelyn offered a big smile. 

“I’m a really big fan.” The waitress’s name tag said Joanna. Once one looked beyond the ill-advised highlights and poorly-fitting uniform one could see her large dark eyes, which glowed with enthusiasm as she spoke. “I love
Love Around the Block
. I’ve watched it over and over. It’s me and my Mom’s favorite. We bought it and we watch it when we’re having a bad day or something. I can’t believe I’m seeing you.” She jumped up and down, bosom bouncing. 

Evelyn had assumed a regal grace. “Thank you. I’m glad you liked it. It’s one of my favorites, too.”

“Okay.” Joanna hustled away without taking any plates.

“The one hundred?” Whose leg did they think they were pulling?

Evelyn shook her head and pushed her hair back, almost as if it were a little animal she was putting back in its cage. She flipped her shoulder at Marta. “Why don’t we ask her who she thinks they are?”

Marta had been sitting very still, observing all that happened.The whole lunch Jane had been aware of Marta, gauging her reactions, trying to get a sense of what she was thinking. The Marta she knew over the phone had retreated for this lunch, gone into hiding somewhere.

Marta raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “What I know is very little. I’ve heard that phrase batted around a couple of times. I’ve been intrigued by it, of course. From what I know it’s simply the people…” she hesitated.

“You live in L.A., don’t you?” Evelyn had a smug expression.

Marta nodded.“Some people say…it’s the people who have the most power. That’s all I know.”

“Then you know part, but not all.” Without moving Evelyn seemed to grow smaller yet more intense, to kindle, even her hair throwing off sparks from the light. “They’re not just the people who have the power. It’s what you have to do to get there.” 

“What. Some kind of sex club?” Marta looked skeptical. Jane was pretty sure Evelyn was out-Marta-ing Marta.

“It might not even be true. It could be a joke or a cliché with some degree of truth, and only a person who gets close can say how much it is or isn’t true.” She stared at an invisible point between Jane and Marta, eyes glassy. Could Marta be falling for this?

“It’s funny. You’d think I’d know the truth of it by now. They say someone has to work for, marry…or sleep with someone in the one hundred in order to get into the circle of power.”

The three of them looked around their own circle. Evelyn’s words had a rather terrible ring to them, as paranoid crazy-sounding statements often did. Once spoken, it silenced them. 

It was Marta who finally said, “Doesn’t sound like it would be too hard to do in L.A. I’m sitting here with two members, then? I appear to be the odd man out.”

“I don’t think anyone could claim I’m in a circle of power.” Jane had no idea what was really happening in this conversation.

“It’s those who don’t know their power, the sleeping giants, who are the most dangerous, right?” Marta had a straight face.

“To suggest that simply by association…it’s laughable.”

“Jane is very out of touch with that side of herself.” Evelyn folded her cloth napkin and placed it under the rim of her plate.

“I agree she doesn’t know her own power.”

Had they talked to each other before this? While Jane tried to come up with a suitable response, Joanna reappeared with a menu and a black marker. 

“Could you?” She was bashful but determined.

“If you clear this table I’ll do anything.” 

Joanna leapt to the job with apologies. Evelyn bent over the menu, scrawling a long note, her hair forming a curtain on each side of her face as she wrote. She signed it with a flourish. 

Joanna reappeared from clearing the dishes. 

“If we get the bill anytime soon that would be great.”

This time Joanna was not to be caught out and whipped the bill out of her pocket. Marta reached for it but Evelyn nabbed it first and slipped a fifty into Joanna’s hand, sliding out from the table at the same time. Jane heard her whisper to Joanna to keep the change as she and Marta followed. Marta started to contend with Evelyn as soon as she could catch up with her outside the restaurant, that the lunch was supposed to be her treat, but Evelyn waved her off. 

“Once you get in the circle, you can pay. Anyway, that was a social lunch, right?” She brushed her hair back, playing the grande dame. Marta pretended to take a picture. She ducked and whirled before giving Marta a playful slap on the rear in retaliation. Jane tried to grasp what Evelyn and Marta were communicating underneath all this jousting, but she was at a loss.