“If you’ll step around the end
of these pallets,” Tony said, “you’ll find a place where you can change into
the towel. Let me show you the way.”
She looked back at Hank and
watched his gaze as it traveled from her bottom to her eyes. The leer had
vanished and he stood motionless with a vacant expression. Not the brightest set of headlights on the highway to Hell, she
thought, and then turned back to follow Tony.
Behind the pallet wall where they
had been standing, the room opened up. A light fixture on a yellow pole
illumined a small stack of pallets. It resembled the halogen drop light her dad
used when he worked on the tractor after dark. On the pallets, some blankets
were spread out in an effort to make it look like a bed and to cover the rough
splintery surface.
On either side, a few feet from
the set, more appliance cartons rose from the floor. She followed Tony as he
led the way down one of the rows between the stacks. The further they walked
the dimmer the light became and she felt like the shadows from the towering
cartons were giant bodies whose hands reached out to grasp her. At last they
came to a place where a refrigerator sized box had been left in the aisle and
he showed her around to the backside.
“It’ll be private here. You can
change,” Tony said. “There’s a hanger with a towel.”
She looked to where he pointed
and saw someone had bent the hanging end of a wire hanger ninety degrees. It
poked through the side of the carton.
Crude,
but functional.
She stepped behind the tan box.
“When you’re ready, just join us
back on the set and we’ll begin.” He turned and walked away.
Natalie slipped her clothes off
like she had done at the studio so many times, and hung them as best she could
on the hanger. She left her boots and purse on the floor. The bone chilling
concrete under her bare feet seemed a little price to pay for the potential
career reward that might follow. She wrapped the towel around her body. It was
just long enough to cover her private areas—not
that modesty matters here.
She stepped out from behind the
box and walked back toward the set, relieved to escape the cavernous boundaries
that closed in on her. As she came to the opening at the end of the stacks of
cartons, she saw Tony standing near the pallet bed with his arms folded. Hank,
next to him, peered at the monitor on a small video camera pointed in her
direction. She stopped and waited for instructions.
“Are you ready?” Tony asked.
She felt like her emotions had
possessed her body. This could be the launch of her career, so she had to
perform well. Yet, a strange man waited somewhere in the shadows to have sex
with her. Tony had been right. This tested both her acting ability and her
will. If she could do this, a love scene with Ansell surrounded by a large film
crew would be simple. She caught herself trembling and although she wanted to
believe it was from the cold floor, she knew that wasn’t true. Insecure Amy
threatened control. She had to be banished. Natalie closed her eyes and forced
herself to remember a lesson from an acting class about centering. Relax, breathe, focus.
She opened her eyes again and
said, “Sure, let’s shoot it.”
“Okay, you’ll walk toward the
bed as if you just stepped out of the shower. As you get there, you will see a
figure in the shadows and think it’s your lover. Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Camera rolling! Action!”
Natalie walked toward the bed
with a sullen expression and sat down. She looked to her right and noticed a
figure stood in the shadow at the end of a row of cartons. She couldn’t make
out his face.
Why the thought came to her now,
she couldn’t imagine, but when the Queen and her court saw her on the screen
with Ansell in his new movie—where I’m a
star—the roles would be reversed. She would be their envy. All the useless cowing and begging to be let into their
tiny circle would soon be a forgotten memory. As a dead girl, she had no reason
to think that when that movie rolled, they would recognize her as the one
Ansell gave the impromptu kiss, but as a costar with credits and a lengthy love
scene, they wouldn’t be able to miss that Natalie Beaumont—Amy Westerhill—had
made it big.
See
that boy?
The shock of that vivid memory
forced a gasp. It had been years but it felt like yesterday. So unexpected, so
distant, and yet so brutal it nearly swallowed her whole. Why now! Not now! To bring her back, Natalie turned to Hank.
“Camera rolling,” she remembered Tony saying and then turned her focus again on
the man in the shadows and imagined him as Ansell Parker. Her body stirred as
she relived his aqua eyes that gently drank her in on the set yesterday. She
stood.
“Is that you, my love?” She
tried to inflect desire into her voice, but felt the improvised line came off
too cliché.
“Yes … uh.” The man forced a whisper. “Close your eyes, I … have … a surprise.”
Natalie noticed his words didn’t
flow naturally and he seemed wooden and nervous, but she closed her eyes. This
was her shot not his. Ansell would see this and she wanted to be as convincing
as possible even if the other actor appeared to be an amateur. She felt someone
touch her shoulders and turn her about. A soft cloth brushed against her nose
and then tightened over her eyes. He tied it behind her head. After the
blindfold was tight, his hands touched her shoulders again. He spun her slowly
to face him.
She remembered the scene as Tony
had described it and reached her hands toward his face.
“Not yet,” he whispered.
She felt him loosen the towel
draped around her and it fell to the floor.
_____
©
Jearl Rugh 2012
All
Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment