The Movie (21 page)

Tm the head of SKI, Roxana. And if you want to stay represented by us, you’ll shut the fuck up and listen to me.’

She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘My God. Do you think you’re the only agency in this city?’

Kendrick looked her over, slowly. ‘No. But we’re the

only agency with See the Ia’ghts.’

There was a long pause. ‘I’ve been cast,’ she said finally. Defiantly.

Sam leant towards her, a pleasant, businesslike smile on

hig face, so that anyone watching would think nothing of it. When he got close enough to smell the faint tang of cinnamon :on her breath, he said, softly, ‘And I can have you uncast. In ten seconds. With five words to Tom Goldman.’

‘You wouldn’t do that,’ loxana said, staring right back

at him.

Doesn’t give an inch, Sam thought admiringly. Very good.

A player less skilled than he was might even have been fooled. But Sam had been in the game too long not to notice the tiny tremor, the inability to control the breath, that gave away her horror at that idea.

Still speaking softly, he said, ‘Try me.’

She didn’t reply.

‘The stunts you’ve been pulling with the press,’ Sam

said. ‘I didn’t like them, but I didn’t care. When you’ve got to know me a little better, you’ll understand that nothing you can do will pressure me into anything.’ She looked sharply at him, and he gave her a knowing, indulgent smile. ‘You thought I didn’t realize? Come on, baby. I’m forty-five. I’ve been doing this stu’since before you were born. But your cute little games aren’t the point here. What/s is that you put out a bullshit release to the press about getting cast before you were. Now, that embarrasses Artemis and it embarrasses me. And if you ever, ever do anything like that again, this will be the last big movie you ever make. Understand?’

loxana felt humiliation crash over her like a tidal wave. She couldn’t even look at Sam Kendrick as she nodded her head.

‘OK. Good.’

This was turning him on, Kendrick realized. She was too gorgeous to spar with like this and not want to fuck. Despite himself, his cock was hardening where he stood. He had to get away from her, or he’d be the chief talking point at his own goddamn party.

Tm sure you’re going to do us all proud in this picture, loxana. See you later,’ he said in more normal tones, and strode offtowards the dining room.

Momentarily alone - she could see all the tame suits waiting to swarm back in on her-1Loxana Felix watched Sam Kendrick go.

Jesus, how ridiculous. She sensed something stir in front of her that she hadn’t felt in years. Lus. Why? Just because Kendrick hadn’t crumpled in front of her like every other guy? Or because he had that strong, wild look about him, that maleness, a sense of raw power, the real kind? Sam was a lion, whereas David was just a peacock. Poxana had been around the block enough times to know the difference. And it wasn’t just money. She could wrap Howard Thorn

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round her manicured finger, but this one was the real deal. The dominant male.

As the fawning crowd engulfed her again, loxana seethed under her designer silk, almost paralysed with mortification. She could not and would not feel like that. Sam Kendrick had just insulted her. And Sam Kendrick would pay.

Ten minutes to go, ten minutes till dinner. Tom Goldman thrust his way through the crowd, feeling the pressure pulse against his skin with every tick of his platinum Patek Phillipe. Isabelle always held dinner bang on time, and he wanted ko speak to Eleanor alone. Before they sat down. He lnew that afterwards he wouldn’t get a chance; Isabelle had arranged for everybody working on the Mason/ Florescu project to be seated at one table, and he, Tom, a studio head, would be expected to make all the introductions and steer the fucking boring small-talk conversation.

Guests rustled past him in designer tuxes, velvet gowns, tailored suits in silk jersey. Producers, agents, actors. Blondes, redheads, blue rinses, brur/ettes. Long hair, short hair, balding. And just about every one of them appeared to want to talk to him. Goldman smiled and muttered indoherently, said ‘Great to see you’ and ‘Call the office tomorrow’ at least twenty times, kept himself moving, his sharp eyes scanning the crowd for Eleanor. He had to speak to her; he didn’t know: why, he just had to. About the way he’d been thinking of her lately. About Jordan. Or whatever. Maybe that was too indiscreet. And yet he knew he had to talk to her, even if he had no idea what the hell he

was going to say…

‘Tom.’

‘Look, I can’t talk right now,’ Goldman snapped, turning to see who was plucking at his sleeve. He stopped walking, half jumping out of his skin. ‘Eleanor!’

‘Hey, it wasn’t important. I’ll catch up with you later.’

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‘No, no, wait.’ He was nervous. Forty-five years old, with a woman he’d worked with for the last fifteen years, and he was nervous. Jesus. He passed a hand self consciously across his thinning hair. ‘I was looking for you.’

‘You wanted to talk, right?’ Eleanor said, feeling her heart speed up. ‘I thought we might take a walk into the grounds.’

Away from the party. Away from all these people. OK, Goldman thought. You did deals totalling a hundred and

ten million dollars last week. You can handle this. ‘Sure. Let’s go.’

As he followed her down the Kendricks’ alabaster steps, Tom flashed for a second onto the irony of this. He, Tom Goldman, the playboy, the man of a million women, all of them as pretty and forgettable as each other. Except Jordan, who was prettier than the rest and thus his wife. He’d never had a second’s trouble with girls since he’d joined Artemis at twenty-five, straight out of Yale. Making forty-seven grand a year, and that was in the seventies. If he hadn’t left a trail of broken hearts, exactly, he’d certainly left a trail of disappointed starlets, students, debs. Women got nervous around him, not the other way round.

They walked together along the raked gravel path that led to the nearest sculptured grotto, silently, in the aromatic darkness, the hubbub and laughter of the gala behind them. Goldman realized that Eleanor was the only woman he knew who wouldn’t have to ask where they were going. She knew the Kendricks’ gardens as well as he did: she’d been a senior movie executive for more than a decade.

Just as they turned off the path into the little marble sanctuary, with its polished oak bench and statue of a

rearing unicorn, he heard Jordan calling his name. ‘Tom! Tom?’

Her voice carried clearly enough; she was shouting. Goldman realized with acute discomfort that Eleanor

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could hear her. It was unmistakable. Eleanor could hear his

wife shouting for him, and they both knew that he could,

tOO.

He should excuse himselŁ. Go find Jordan. Bring her to

join them.

‘Eleanor, we need to talk.’

‘So you said.’ But she wasn’t mocking him, Goldman realized, with a quick flash of gratitude. He looked at her, the first real chance he’d had to see her since he arrived. Jesus, she looked stunning. Elegant and classy as ever, but somehow - softer, more appealing. Those tiny rosebuds. She looked like Cinderella at the ball, her intelligent sapphire eyes glinting even in this darkness, her creamy white breasts pushed high up, spilling over the boned bodice of her gown, the minute lines around her mouth welcoming. Her hair was swept up, and even though she’d never made any attempt to cover the few grey strands weaving throUgh the blonde he didn’t care. It looked beautiful, like gold shot with silver thread. It suited her. She was beautiful

‘Eleanor tried to look away. She knew she should break

the moment. It was dangerous… Paul, Jordan…

But Tom Goldman was standing there, eating her with

his eyes, lobking as though he wanted to kiss her, and… ‘Tom,’ she said gently. ‘You’re staring at me.’ ‘You’re so lovely,’ Goldman said, without thinking. Eleanor turned her Iaead aside not wanting to let him see her eyes fill with tears. At this moment, in this spot, she felt lovely. Not middle-aged, unwed, overpromoted or barren; just beautiful. For one blessed second she had seen

herself in the mirror of his eyes, and she felt beautiful.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Tm lonely,’ Goldman said, and felt a huge release, as though a physical weight had been lifted from his shoulders, The words had come by themselves, d the

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second he said them, he knew they were tree. ‘I’m so lonely, Eleanor. I can’t talk to her.’

Eleanor Marshall felt time freeze around her, her own pulse thudding out of rhythm, out of control. She tried to breathe normally. Did he say that? Had he really said that? A million obvious responses presented themselves. ‘Is this your version of’ ‘my wife doesn’t understand me”, Tom?’ ‘Shouldn’t you be discussing this with a shrink?’ ‘Try getting in touch with your feminine side.’ But she refused to trot one of them out. Tom Goldman did not play games. Not with her.

And besides, she wasn’t sure if he had a feminine side,

she thought, smiling a little in the shadows.

‘It’s hard, to be with someone,’ she said.

The effort to keep a check on herself was overwheLming. Why do humans do this to themselves? Eleanor thought, agonized. Why have we erected these huge, sacred walls? What she longed to say was, Torn, I love you. Get a divorce and marry me and we’ll have children and we’ll be happy.

But she just couldn’t. Tom was a married man and her oldest friend. For all she knew, this was a passing phase, and next month he’d be as wrapped up in his kid bride as he had been at first and then where would she be? And she, Eleanor, she was still with Paul Halfin… could she cold blobdedly betray him, lere, now, for the sake of a sweet look and a little perfume in the air? Expose him to knowing glances from Tom for-the rest of his life? Because she was kidding herself if she thought Tom actually meant it. There was no way he was going to divorce that young, stacked, tanned sex goddess he’d married, the one who was the new social force with all the hot LA charities, for her, Eleanor Marshall, a career woman with grey streaks in her hair and the odd line on her skin. She had to get real. This was life, and not the movies.

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‘Are you going to marry Paul?’ Tom asked her, urgently.

She shivered at the force behind his question. ‘I don’t

knowo ‘

‘But it’s not certain.’

She said as lightly as she could, ‘Nothing’s certain, Tom…’

‘Eleanor,’ he murmured, and then he was leaning closer to her, his body closing on hers, his head dipping towards her…

‘Tom Goldman and Eleanor Marshall. I’m so glad I found you.’

Eleanor spun round to see Isabelle Kendrick standing in front of them, her emerald-green Balenciaga trailing in the night-time dew. Her expression was one of the purest delight at having stumbled across them, but Eleanor wasn’t fooled. Not for a second. She wondered how long Isabelle had been watching them, and she didn’t even have to glance at Tom to tell that he was thinking the same thing.

‘Hello, Isabelle! It’s a wonderful party,’ Eleano˘ greeted her. ‘You must excuse Tom and me for sneaking away. We were, talking shop - about your husband’s latest project, actually.’

Eleanor knew the tight-assed cow would hate that-I’m talking business with the boys, dear, so stuff your stupid canapes.

‘But how marvellous,.’ Isabelle’s professionally made-up face was totally inscrutable, her smiled freed and gleaming. ‘That’s exactly what I came to find you for. We’re starting dinner in a moment, and Sam simply insisted that all the people on this Bright Lights fdm -‘

‘See the Lights,’ Goldman muttered.

‘ - sit together. So I’ve put loxana Felixl the model, next to you and Paul, Eleanor, and the screenwriter next to you, Tom. Jordan will be sitting with the rock star.’

Her face contracted tautly with disapproval, and despite

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her bitter frustration Eleanor felt a flicker of amusement. So, Zach Mason had done something to piss the old witch off, had he? Maybe he hadn’t pressed his tux correctly? She was pleased. When she’d been into rock and roll, musicians existed for the sole purpose of pissing offpeople like Isabelle Kendrick.

‘That sounds great, Isabelle.’ For the second time in two days, Eleanor had seen Tom Goldman snap straight back into character. Now he was all the relaxed mogul at play, being gracious to his hostess. ‘Let’s go.’

Megan’s head was spinning. Partly from the exhaustion of following David around - he never wanted her to sit down, and he was constandy introducing her to people as his new client, the ‘first-time screenwriter-she wrote the Mason/Florescu thing over at Artemis’ - and partly from lack of fod. She was dying to take one of the little dim sums or handcrafted chocolates that the waiters thrust under her nose, but David kept giving her friendly little warning looks. It was humiliating, but, she reminded herself, it just showed that he cared about her. He obviously knew how to look after his own body. If she hadn’t been such a pig, such a slob, beforehand, she wouldn’t feel her thighs grazing each other under her skirt now. And her feet were in agony. The homegirls back on Haight didn’t even own a pair of heels between them. Jesus, did women wear these things .vo!untarily? But she knew they did.It was a new world for her now, she was going to have to tear up her old rulebook We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.

But this party… Tired, confused, fat and underdressed and she still couldn’t get enough of it. Pure luxury everywhere you looked.., on the walls, in the food, in the dresses of the women ,.. baby tigers! In diamond collars! And no one remotel surprised! And the stars she’d seen Michelle and Winona and Julia, RJchard and

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Cindy, Arnold and Maria, Jack and AI and l:kobert and Harrison, and even, oh my God, it was him, Keanu…

She felt like a jerk for staring. Nobody else gave any of them a second glance. They were all too busy with their double-dutch movie conversations - ‘Did you hear what the rolling break-even on that thing was?’ ‘Five points off the top. And ten per cent of the merchandising.’ ‘Fifteen million bucks, and that’s just for abovethe-line.’ None of it fazed David, of course, but why would it? That was his business. So Megan Silver stood, suffered, and smiled.