Martin, observing his cast with misgiving, put on a cheerful mien in spite of it all. “All right, everyone!” he called out in a chipper voice. “Let’s assemble for the first scene.”
Huxtable groaned and said bitterly, “Can you keep your voice down, Tafft? None of us are deaf.”
“None of us are hungover, either, except you,” Amy muttered under her breath, hoping nobody would hear.
Huxtable did. He grimaced at her—Amy thought it was supposed to be a smile—and said, “Oh, but perhaps we can help you overcome that flaw, my dear.”
Detestable animal, Amy thought, although she kept that one to herself. Charlie, she noticed, was grinning at her as if he thought she’d said something witty. She thought she had, too, actually.
Martin said in a voice not quite so loud or cheerful, “All right. Take your places, everyone. Miss Wilkes, you’ll note in this first scene that you’ve been told by Charlie here that his boss, Mr. McAllister, is going to buy up your father’ loan on the ranch you’ve been trying to keep since his death. Charlie’s convinced you that McAllister is an evil fellow, although he’s really a noble hero.”
“That’s me, all right,” said Huxtable from the sidelines. Amy’s nose wrinkled spontaneously.
Speaking a little louder, Martin went on. “You’re afraid that if McAllister gets his hands on the notes, he’ll either drive you from your home or exact an improper payment from you.”
Huxtable muttered. “Improper, my ass.”
Amy pressed a sweaty palm to her cheek and prayed that a lightning bolt from heaven would rid the world of Horace Huxtable. At least until she’d finished this job. He could come back after that, as long as he didn’t plague her any longer. She was so nervous about this moving picture nonsense.
Martin said, “Huxtable, please. We don’t need that sort of thing.” He smiled kindly upon Amy. “Ready? Your marks are chalked on the ground, so you’ll know where to stand.”
Thank God for that, at any rate. At least she’d know where to stand, if she didn’t know another single thing about this idiotic picture.
Amy nodded at Martin, feeling more shy than she could ever recall. She’d never even acted in a school play, for heaven’s sake, and now she was supposed to emote in front of a bunch of strangers and, eventually, a bunch of strangers with cameras. Not to mention Horace Huxtable, who had taken to leering at her, in what she was sure was a studied campaign to discompose her.
Little did he know that his efforts were unnecessary, as she was so unnerved already that it was all she could do to keep herself from trembling like a Pasadena poppy field in a breeze. She tried with every fiber of her being not to let her lack of experience show.
With that in mind, and trying to keep Vernon’s face in her mind’s eye as a stabilizing influence, she stepped forward, holding her script steady. Martin had been right about the script. It was merely a story outline, and there was no dialogue printed therein. She was glad to know what the story was, however. Charlie walked up to her and turned to Martin.
“This all right, Martin? Should I be closer? He demonstrated, almost bumping into Amy, who fought the urge to take a step back. She was supposed to be a sophisticate, for the love of glory. She wasn’t supposed to be shy around her second leading man. She tried to remember if she had ever been this close to Vernon, physically, and decided she’d not been.
“Back up a little bit,” Martin suggested. “There. That’s good. All right, Miss Wilkes? Remember, you’re worried about what you perceive as an impending disaster. After all, this ranch has been your only home your whole life.”
“Right,” Amy said, and licked her lips. Determined not to fail, and drawing upon what she remembered of the few moving pictures she’d seen, she adopted what she hoped was a desperately worried expression. She remembered to wring her hands as she’d seen other distressed-looking females do in pictures, and was pleased with herself.
Charlie said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Wilkes, but my boss, the evil Mr. McAllister, is going to buy up the loan on your daddy’s ranch. I’m afraid you’re going to be tossed out into the cold.”
Since the temperature had been hovering in the upper nineties ever since Amy had arrived in El Monte, this seemed singularly inapt phrasing. She did not point it out to Charlie, being way too shaky to say anything at all. Instead, she pressed the back of her left hand to her forehead, tilted her head back, closed her eyes, as she’d seen an actress do in a nickelodeon once, and tried to convey the impression of a young woman who was both horrified and delicate.
“Say something, Miss Wilkes. You have to move your mouth.”
Pickles. Amy didn’t want to say anything, partly because her mouth was dry and her tongue was stuck to the roof of it, but mostly because she was undergoing a moment of exquisite embarrassment and had no idea what to say. Struggling to maintain her composure, she managed to blurt out, “Oh, dear.”
From the sidelines, Huxtable snorted. “’Oh, dear,’” he repeated in a mocking tone. “Good God, Tafft. You have to give the girl something to say. She’s obviously been stricken dumb by the thrill of starring in a picture with me.”
Amy dropped her hand from her forehead and straightened. “I have not! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
“Better,” Martin said with pleasure. “Much better! Only you should probably look a little scared, too. It’s good to be angry, but you need to show that you’re worried, as well.” He tilted his head and frowned, his benign expression not wavering. “Er, perhaps you should forego the dramatic gesture with your hand to your forehead.”
Amy gazed at him, bewildered.
“And, Charlie, try to look sly. You’re a bit of a villain, you know, trying to get the girl away from Huxtable by devious tricks.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t need any devious tricks to do that,” Amy grumbled under her breath. She’d been thinking mainly of Huxtable, but blushed when Charlie gave her a wicked grin.
“No?” he said softly. “Is that so, Miss Wilkes? I had no idea.”
She huffed, beginning to wonder if all men were beasts and not just Horace Huxtable. “It’s because of him,” she said sharply. “Not you.”
He sighed dramatically. “I was afraid of that.”
“Okay,” Martin called. “Let’s try again.” He’d forgotten Huxtable’s condition and spoken too loudly. He realized his error when Huxtable spat out an expletive. Amy gave him a good scowl to let him know she didn’t approve of profanity. He sneered at her.
“Miss Wilkes,” Charlie said, starting over, this time with a sly twinkle in his eyes. “I’m trying to win you away from Horace Huxtable by devious stratagems. Think I have a chance?”
Fighting a sudden urge to giggle, Amy took a step back and tried her best to appear totally aghast. She was assisted in the endeavor by recollections of how she’d had to deal with Huxtable at her uncle’s health spa. The further recollection that she’d soon have to be playing scenes with the actor himself erased any desire to giggle. “I sincerely doubt that either one of you stands a chance,” she said with a snap in her voice. She opened her eyes wide and made a stab at looking scared.
“Good!” Martin called. “Why don’t you squeeze your hands together, too, like you did before? Give the scene a touch of sentiment. We want the public to be worried for you.”
Sentiment? Worry? Good heavens, it was a moving picture, not an episode from life. Nevertheless, Amy did as he’d suggested, clasping her hands to her bosom and attempting with all her might to appear pathetic.
“Better,” she heard Huxtable mumble. “Not much better, but better.”
She stopped emoting instantly and turned on him. “Will you be quiet? You’re distracting me, and this is hard enough to begin with.” When she heard herself, she was fairly stunned. Good glory, she was turning into a shrew. Her mother, who had taught her ladylike behavior before she could walk, would have been horrified. Vernon would be horrified. Amy was a little hor
rified herself.
Huxtable snorted and growled. “Temperamental bitch, ain’t she?”
Charlie scratched his chin and looked as if he were trying not to laugh.
Martin cried, “That’s it! That’s perfect! Use that exact expression, Miss Wilkes!”
“Gracious,” murmured Amy, and decided on the spot that acting in the moving pictures was a lot more complicated than one might expect if one only saw the end result. Then her brain registered what Huxtable had called her, and she whipped around, slamming her fists on her hips. “How dare you! You drunken sot! Don’t you dare call me that word again!”
Charlie lost the battle he’d been waging with his funny bone and burst out laughing. Martin blinked, surprised. Amy stamped her foot and didn’t know if she was more angry with Horace Huxtable, with herself for allowing him to get under her skin, or with Charlie Fox for laughing at her.
With bitterness in her heart, Amy returned her whole attention to the rehearsal. She tried hard to perform as Mr. Tafft desired her to and to ignore Huxtable’s many snide asides. She told herself she didn’t care what anyone else thought of her acting. She had to act in truth when the time came for her to perform with Horace Huxtable.
He lumbered onto the set, still looking green and bloodshot, and smirking up a storm. Amy frowned at him. Charlie, she noticed, was watching curiously from the sidelines, a grin on his face. She’d like to wipe that grin away but didn’t know how to accomplish it.
“All right,” said Huxtable. “Let’s get this over with.”
Martin’s voice had evidently become strained, because he’d picked up a megaphone to help himself project. He looked slightly nervous about this latest pairing, although he sounded buoyant when he called out, “Take your places, Horace and Miss Wilkes. Miss Wilkes, I think you should be at the fence staring off into the distance, worrying about how you’re going to hold on to your father’s legacy.”
“Certainly.” Moving to the fence, Amy thought that, had her own father been so careless as to stake the family homestead as equity with so obviously undesirable a person as Horace Huxtable, he would have deserved to lose it. With her handkerchief she wiped dust off the top rail and folded her arms on it. Huxtable huffed in the background, but she didn’t turn around to see what he was huffing about.
“Prude,” he said. “Afraid of a little dust.”
She heard that one, but opted not to respond. If it was prudish to care about keeping her shirtwaist clean, then she was a prude.
“All right,” Martin said hurriedly. “Let’s get on with it. Miss Wilkes, you don’t know Huxtable has entered the yard. You’re over there mooning into space, and when he speaks, you’re startled and whirl around. Got it?”
“Got it.” She was pleased she sounded so sporty.
“Action!” called Martin.
Amy stared off into the unlovely distance, missing the orange groves and poppy fields of her Pasadena home. She tried to feel bad about losing a ranch in the desert outside of El Monte, but couldn’t make herself do it because the scenery was so ugly. She figured the orange trees and poppies would do quite nicely as substitutes, so she mourned losing them instead.
Huxtable wasn’t exactly light on his feet. He stomped onto the marked-off set border, and Amy turned, trying to look startled.
“No, no, Miss Wilkes,” Martin set his megaphone down and walked over to her. “You turned too soon. You don’t turn until he speaks. Until then, you don’t hear him.”
“But I did hear him. He walks like an elephant.”
Huxtable cast a long-suffering glance into the heavens. Amy resented it like thunder.
“But, you see,” Martin told her gently, “nobody but you can hear him. The audience watching the picture in the theatre won’t. The picture’s silent.”
Fiddle. That’s right. “I beg your pardon. May we try it again?”
“Of course.”
She felt better about her error when Martin smiled and patted her shoulder. Charlie was smiling, too, with what looked like sympathy. She tried not to begrudge his expression as she’d begrudged Huxtable’s, since she didn’t think Charlie’s smile should be cast into the same mold as Huxtable’s long-suffering, insulting glance. She smiled back at Martin. “Very well. I’ll get set again.”
Huxtable sighed long and loud, and Martin whispered, “Pay no attention to him, Miss Wilkes. He doesn’t feel well today.”
“Small wonder,” she said darkly, and resumed her pose at the fence.
Again she heard Huxtable shuffle onto the set. The big boor. But she didn’t turn, awaiting his words. They weren’t long in coming.
“Well, bless my soul, if it ain’t Miss Prissy Wilkes. Do you suppose I can wrangle a kiss from her? Most women can’t resist me once I turn on the old charm.”
She turned at that, horrified. “You beastly man! How dare you say things like that to me?”
“No, no, no,” said Martin, sounding faintly exasperated this time. “Miss Wilkes, you’re not supposed to be angry, only surprised.”
She turned to Martin, furious. “Did you hear what he said to me?”
“Yes.” Martin frowned at Huxtable, who was snickering like a naughty schoolboy. “But you have to ignore his words, Miss Wilkes. I know you’re not used to this.” His smile appeared a wee bit tight. “And you’re doing remarkably well. You only need to keep in mind that this is a silent picture, and that the audience probably isn’t adept at lip-reading. Act you part, and forget Huxtable.
“I wish I could!”
He rounded on Huxtable. “Will you at least try to behave yourself, Horace? You’re not helping any, you know.”
Huxtable chuffed irritably. “I feel like shit, and she’s doing a very bad job.”
Amy gasped.
“You’re the one who told me to hire her,” Martin said.
She gasped again, dismayed. Was that the truth?
Huxtable shrugged. “She’s pretty. I figured I could probably woo her into my bed before the end of the picture—”
Amy shrieked. “What did you say?”
“– but I don’t think I even want her anymore.”
Whirling, Amy shouted again, “What did he say?”
Huxtable, ignoring her, shouts and all, went on, “She’s pretty enough, and she has a luscious figure. But she’s also got a ghastly personality, and she’s a terrible prig.”
Before Amy knew what was happening, Charlie had come over to the little group. She was shaking with rage and humiliation, felt like crying, refused to give in to the urge, but didn’t know what to say or do instead. At least Martin appeared chagrined, which was something. Huxtable, needless to say, sneered at her.
Charlie had been chewing on a straw, but when Huxtable’s vile comment smote his ears, he chucked the straw aside. He didn’t approve of men talking about women that way, even when the women weren’t around to hear it. Miss Wilkes was standing right there, hearing every word. And Miss Amy Wilkes, while assuredly priggish and a shade too sharp, was sure as the devil no match for Horace Huxtable when it came to bandying words. Charlie disapproved mightily of Huxtable’s taking advantage of her lack of experience.
“I don’t think you want to be talkin’ like that in front of a lady, Mr. Huxtable.” He kept his voice low and soft, as if he were merely offering a suggestion.
Huxtable eyed him up and down as if he were an unwelcome species of desert reptile. “What do you have to say about it, pray tell?”
“Oh, I ain’t much of a one for words.” Charlie smiled, giving the oaf a chance.
“You ain’t much of a one for grammar, neither,” sneered Huxtable.
Charlie only smiled some more.
Huxtable flipped a hand at him. “Off with you, bumpkin. I won’t be dictated to by the likes of you.”
Amy gasped.
Charlie’s expression didn’t alter a whit.
“Horace,” Martin muttered miserably. “Can it, will you?”
“Pshaw,” murmured Huxtable, preen
ing. “The ignorance of folks from the sticks is insupportable.” Turning to Amy, he leered and waggled his eyebrows. “Ready for another stab at it, my little dove?”
As she sucked in a huge breath of desert air, Charlie thought she didn’t look as if she’d ever be ready for this. Before she could either say so or lie, Charlie spoke again.
“I think you ought to mind your manners, Mr. Huxtable.” He kept his tone friendly. “And cut out the suggestive comments to Miss Wilkes. She don’t like them.”
Huxtable sighed deeply. “Go to hell, Mr. Fox. You’re an intolerable bore.”
“Probably,” Charlie agreed amiably. “But I still don’t aim to listen to you talk dirty to Miss Wilkes.”
“Then plug your ears. The wench is a handful, but if I have my way, I’ll know her inside and out before this picture is—”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence, because Charlie, with remarkably little effort, socked him in the jaw. Horace toppled like a felled oak.
“Oh, my God,” Martin said, goggling at the scene, slapping a hand to his head and beginning to tug on a lock of hair.
“Oh, my goodness!” cried Amy.
Huxtable was out like a light. Charlie reached down and hauled him up by the front of his fashionable sack suit coat. The actor’s head lolled about like a pumpkin on a vine. Presenting him to Martin, Charlie said, “Sorry about that, Martin, but I can’t tolerate men abusing women in my hearing.”
Patently unhappy about this latest turn of events, Martin said, “I know he’s difficult to take, Charlie, but did you have to punch him?”
Charlie shrugged. “Reckon I did. He wouldn’t’ve shut up otherwise.”
Amy, at a loss for words, only stared at them.
“I suppose that’s so.” Martin turned and yelled into the crowd of movie people who’d begun gathering when they’d smelled a fight brewing. “Somebody come over here and get Huxtable to his tent. Give him some … give him some water or something. Keep him away from the booze, for the love of God.” A sour glance at his star prompted him to add, “And better get some cold rags on his jaw. It’s going to swell or I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
Cowboy For Hire Page 6