by Ian Bull
I lean forward. Paul reaches into my cleavage and tapes down the tiny microphone to the skin of my left boob so that it’s not showing and then quickly retreats.
I look down. My summer dress, red with white polka dots, now has a crease, of course. I point at my dress and the costumer rushes over with a portable steamer. She jets some hot steam on the crease, pats the dress and then dashes away.
I glance back and Rolando is still there, and I see something new in his eyes—confusion. This mad activity is chaos to him. He can’t follow it. I feel a surge of power, because the madness of a film set is my comfort zone. I can use this.
Josh the boom man steps up beside the track. He carries a long pole with a microphone on the end, which is covered with a fuzzy windsock. He waves at Rolando. “You can’t stand there, dude, sorry. That’s my spot,” he says to Rolando.
Rolando looks at him, not ready to concede.
Walker strides over. “Yo, we’re not doing your portrait, we’re doing a movie.”
Rolando backs away. I feel a rush of freedom. I wonder how much of it I have.
“This is a low chest shot?” I ask, into the lens.
Anthony flashes thumbs-up, his eye still on his viewfinder.
I look over at the video village. Nathan the director, David the cinematographer and Xander sit under the pop-up tent, and crowded behind them are two more technicians along with Toni for makeup and Marjorie for hair. They all stare at monitors showing the video feed from the camera. Rolando joins them and stares at the monitors too. He may think he sees everything, but if I’m in a chest shot he can’t see my hands.
“Can my first mark be gaffer’s tape?” I ask. “I see the reflection better.” I walk to my first mark. A production assistant appears with a roll of thick sticky silver tape, kneels in front of me, and rips off a strip with his teeth. I stick out my hand and offer to hold the roll. He hands me the roll and then carefully lays the strip of gaffer’s tape down on the patio tile next to my toes.
“My pits are starting to sweat, boys, we better do this,” I say.
I tap the assistant on the shoulder and motion for him to move. As I head back to my starting mark, I toss his roll of gaffer’s tape off to the side, near my chair.
“Sorry,” the crew all says, and they settle into their places.
A slate appears in front of my face.
“Roll sound…roll camera!” yells Walker.
“Rolling,” says Paul the sound guy, from his cart off to the side.
“101, take one,” Sammie says, and he snaps the slate next to my nose.
“Action,” Nathan says in a low voice.
I become Risa Baker, former New York cop on her honeymoon. I hold hands with my husband Nicholas and we stroll. I hit my silver mark perfectly and the dolly moves back.
“Do you believe people can change?” Bernard asks, who is now Nicholas.
“No, I don’t,” I say. “Being a cop makes you—”
“Jaded?” he asks.
“Realistic,” I answer.
“But I’ve changed. And you’re the one who’s changed me. I’m better with you.”
The dolly stops as I pause, and the camera lowers with me as I sit on the edge of the fountain. I touch the water with my hand, then look in his eyes, and in synch, Bernard turns his back to the camera as it pans over to favor me. The shot is now a single of me, with the camera looking over my husband’s shoulder.
“Then why didn’t you tell me you were once in prison?” I ask. I feel my voice trembling. I feel a rage building in me, but I fight to keep it under control.
“I thought I’d lose you. Now I want to tell you everything.”
“So do it. Tell me everything.”
“It was a long time ago, in Marseilles. I was twenty and a thief. I stole to escape my life.”
I shake my head and wipe a tear away. Bitterness rises up from my gut.
“Usually I can tag a thief straight away,” I laugh. “I guess love really is blind.”
“You couldn’t see it because I’m not that man anymore,” Bernard says.
I gaze in his eyes. “I need to know. Have you ever killed someone?”
“I came close in prison, to survive,” he says. “But no. I am not a killer.”
I can’t hold back. I fall into his arms, relieved. He kisses me on the lips.
“Cut!” yells Nathan.
I look around. Josh, Anthony, Bernard and the dolly grip look at each other and smile. Everyone in video village breaks into applause. Toni is crying.
“Did I tell you we have a good movie?” shouts Xander, and everyone laughs.
“That’s a decent start,” Nathan says. “Let’s do Bernard’s reverse.”
“I need to sit down for two minutes,” I say.
“You can have three, that was so good,” Nathan says, and Walker nods.
I walk to my chair and in one smooth motion I take off my shoes and toss them on the marble, then pick up the roll of gaffer’s tape. Dangling off one chair arm is my canvas satchel that holds the fashion magazines I’m allowed to read. I drop the gaffer’s tape into the satchel as I slide my butt into the chair. I close my eyes and exhale slowly.
I just stole a roll of gaffer’s tape with all eyes on me and then delayed the shoot three minutes. If I can delay it longer, maybe I could steal more, while figuring a way out of here. Now I feel grounded, because I have a plan: stay close to the crew and away from Rolando, and create delays, buying me time to gather information and supplies so I can find a way for us to escape.
But performing for Xander is what’s most important. I can’t show any more fear or anger. My performance as Risa must be great, and then he must believe his twisted seduction is working on me, and that I want to go back to him. That buys me safety.
I open my eyes and look over at Xander, who smiles at me.
He mouths the words—I told you so.
I smile back and wait a beat for effect, and then look away.
I may be his puppet, but I can pull some strings too.
Chapter 21
Steven Day 8: Thursday Morning
Nicole’s kisses wake me up. It’s before dawn, with just grey light in the room. I kiss her back and we touch each other under the sheets. Her skin is the color of dark caramel, and my skin is tan. In the weak light, I can see the contrast of my skin against hers in a way I couldn’t see last night. I like it, and I hold up my arms against hers. We smile and kiss again. I’m anxious, and more than once she slows down my hands as I caress her.
I’m worried that my morning breath is too much, but she doesn’t stop. I probe her mouth with my tongue and she sucks on the tip of mine with her lips. Her breasts are small and perfect, like the bowls of champagne glasses. I lean across and kiss her nipples, which are almost black compared to her skin.
“Is this for me?” she whispers and pulls me on top of her.
She raises her knees, and I slide into her and watch her eyes roll back. This time I don’t climax immediately. When I did that last night, she just laughed, waited for me to recover and then let me try again, thank God.
I start to rush again, and she motions for me to slow down.
“Hold still,” she says and she arches against me while I stay in a plank position, as if I were in mid push-up. She rises against me, controlling our motion—my head starts pounding again as the blood rushes to my wounded face.
“I have to be on my back,” I say and roll off of her.
She wastes no time and straddles me right away. In seconds, she finds her rhythm. I cup her perfect bum cheeks and support her as she moves against me. She arches back and lifts her knees up and we climax. I try to hold her in place, but she tilts over. We detach and she collapses next to me, laughing and panting and we pass out again.
When I open my eyes again, Nicole is already showered and dressed with her purse dangling from her shoulder. She smiles and gives me a tiny kiss on the lips.
“Why are you leaving?” I ask.
“You’re the first girl I’ve been with in a long time, you know,” I say and I tug her back down on top of me.
“I could tell,” she giggles.
The look on my face must betray my crushed ego because she kisses my forehead like I’m a sick child.
“Stop, I loved your enthusiasm. It’s like being a teenager again.”
“Will I see you again?” I ask.
“Is that why you came here? To fall in love with the first island girl you meet?”
“No,” I admit.
She traces her finger around the bruise on my cheek, which makes me wince and pull back.
“Carl told me to be careful with you. He says that you got those bruises because you’re not careful enough. You’re distracted. You’ve got too much on your mind.”
“Carl is also a perfectionist.”
“Cherie has my number,” she says, kisses me, and shuts the door behind her.
I get out of bed and take a shower. I feel okay, considering the three tender purple spots on my face. I’m even relaxed. Awake. Alive. Usually I have to surf all day to feel half this good.
I can hear Carl laughing in the kitchen. I pull on my last set of fresh clothes—shorts and a blue long sleeve T-shirt and sneakers.
I’m already too hot. How do people live in this heat?
I walk into the kitchen and find out: Carl and Cherie are nude. Carl shakes a bottle of hot sauce onto a big plate of scrambled eggs when he looks up and sees me standing there.
“What? You don’t like spicy eggs? D’Vanya’s sauce is the best, man,” he says.
“You’re naked.”
Cherie’s round brown butt bends over the counter as she reaches for a coffee cup and fills it, then turns and shows me her perfect brown breasts as she hands me the cup. She is all one color, light brown from head to toe, with a splash of sun freckles across her face.
“Sugar or milk?” she asks, holding out the cup.
“Milk, please,” I say, trying not to look at her breasts. Carl laughs.
“It’s island living, Steven, get used to it.”
Cherie takes pity on me and tiptoes away. She tosses Carl a pair of board shorts hanging on an open window sill and then heads upstairs. Carl and I both tip our heads sideways to catch a long glimpse of her bum as it moves up the stairs, swaying back and forth.
Carl pulls up the shorts and slaps his flat six-pack belly. With his cue ball head he looks like a tough Kelly Slater, only fifteen pounds heavier. That’s when I notice a gold earring in his left lobe. “You’re wearing an earring. I didn’t notice that last night.”
“Cherie pierced it with a needle and an ice cube mid-party. I was telling people my sailing stories last night and she said I had to get an earring. It’s supposed to protect me.”
Carl pours milk into my coffee and then points out the window. Bobbing in the harbor a hundred yards offshore is a forty-five-foot sailboat with a sleek white fiberglass hull and a teak wood top.
“That’s my sailboat, The Murdina, named after my grandmother. She’s a Hanse 470E, one of the best designed yachts in the world. Cherie says that she’s her only rival.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Let’s go sailing.”
“But you said I couldn’t leave the island.”
“You’ll be coming back, trust me.”
We make bologna sandwiches and put them in a cooler with beer, water and ice. I grab one of my cameras and Carl grabs sun hats and windbreakers. We walk out the front door.
“Tu reviens quand?” Cherie asks, leaning over the upstairs balcony. You’re coming back when?
“We’ll be back late. Lock the house and go to Nicole’s place until I call,” he says.
“Are you kicking me out? You are a very bad boyfriend.”
“I’m a fantastic boyfriend thinking about your safety. Promise me,” he demands.
“I promise,” she concedes.
We use a Zodiac with a tiny outboard motor to putter out to the sailboat. Her white hull is long and smooth, and she rides high in the water. We tie up to a buoy and climb aboard.
“Been sailing recently?” he asks.
“Just windsurfing,” I say. “But I still understand how it works.”
“Good, because you have to raise the sails while I boss you around.”
Soon Carl is standing behind the wheel and barking instructions like Captain Ahab while I pull up the anchor, raise the main and jib sails and run the sheets back down around the winches. We pick up speed and tip sideways as water flows over the heavy keel. I climb on the high side and feel the warm trade wind rushing past my face.
Carl steers the forty-five-foot boat out of the harbor and soon we are racing alongside the island. Carl shouts over the wind and points. To our left is a double rainbow, two arcs of color suspended over the island where a rain cloud has just passed. I pull out my camera and snap photos—the best one catches the double rainbow arching from a cloud and seemingly ending at our sailboat’s mast. I let the camera rest against my chest and grin. Carl smiles back.
We clear the southern edge of the island and a full blast of ocean air hits us. Carl turns the boat so the wind falls behind us, then lets the sails out and pulls the boom across. We surf up and down the ocean swells, but it feels quiet and calm since we are moving with the wind and not against it. The island is disappearing behind us.
“How fast are we moving?” I ask.
“Twenty five knots, which is about thirty miles an hour,” he says.
We surf up and down the ocean swells, and in twenty minutes we’re out of the sight of land.
“So are you Quintana yet?” Carl says. “Or do you still go by Quinn?”
“I use Quinn for the Hollywood stuff,” I answer.
“So when are you going to embrace your beaner side?” he asks. “I thought you were going to use your real family name when you left the Army.”
Webb knows my whole life story. I once told him how my dad changed our name from Quintana to Quinn so that his pale half-Mexican kids could pass for Irish growing up in San Francisco. It says something about Webb that he remembers my story.
“So Quintana…let’s talk,” he says.
“Is that why you took me out here?” I ask. “For a chat?”
“Wind, water and sunshine always stimulate a good conversation. Plus you’re a captive audience. I don’t have to turn the boat around until I get the answers I want.”
“What answers are you looking for?” I ask.
“Let’s start simple—what’s your verb?” Carl asks.
“What do you mean, my verb?”
“A nurse nurses, teachers teach and preachers preach. If you could only choose one verb to describe what you do best, what is it?”
“What’s yours?”
“I protect. I’m always on guard, watching out for my men, my clients, my friends and my family. I can’t help it, it’s just what I do, and it’s what I do best.”
“I can’t choose one word,” I answer.
“If you don’t choose an action in life, then you are simply reacting to life,” he says.
I shrug to avoid answering. I’m not ready to get deep with this baldheaded Yoda, but I also know he’s not going to turn the boat around until he gets the answers he wants.
“Start with what you’re good at,” Carl says, nodding at the camera on my chest.
“My verb is ‘to reveal,’” I say.
Carl nods. “I get it. You see people and situations happening that the rest of us miss, and you somehow get it in your frame. Not until I look at one of your photos can I see it for myself,” he says. “I like it.”
“Do I get T-shirts made now?”
“Reveal anything worthwhile out in Hollywood?” he asks.
“Not really. But it’s not like I work in reality TV,” I say.
“I don’t know what that is. But I do know that you h
ave talent. A gift even,” he says. “You’re the best recon shutterbug I ever had on my team. We bagged some big ones together.”
“The truth is, I haven’t captured anything real since Colombia,” I say with a shamed shrug. “If anything, it’s been just the opposite.”
“What do you mean? The opposite?”
“People are using my photos to tell lies. Like the photo of Julia getting on the yacht. And now people are going to get killed again because of me.”
Carl exhales, and then nods. “Different place, same situation,” he says quietly.
“Do you think about that night in the village?”
He doesn’t answer at first. The sails flap on the edges. Carl tightens a sheet and trims them taut.
“Every day,” he finally says.
“But you did everything right that night,” I insist.
“I was in charge. We should’ve disappeared, but we were fixated on success and too confident. We had done so well that summer we thought we could do anything. We lost our Situational Awareness. That led to improper procedure where I allowed you to talk to the boy.”
“I felt it in my gut that it would work,” I say.
“And I felt in my gut that staying was a mistake, yet I still let it happen. If we had left, we would have escaped uninjured. We would have partied in Cartagena. The village would still be there, and the boy would still be alive. But I didn’t protect. That’s what I think about.”
I got the first ever photo of Caballero—but one of the photos also showed the boy pointing at us. The Colombians mistook that as proof that the villagers were FARC sympathizers, and nothing we said could change their minds. They removed the entire village because of it.
Carl breaks open the ice chest and tosses me a beer and a bologna sandwich. We stare out over the gleaming water as we eat, but say nothing.
I finally break the ice. “Caballero is going to do the same thing to Julia that he did to the boy. But this is our second chance. We can finish what we should’ve done in Colombia, and stop a new problem from getting worse.”
“It’s a second chance, all right,” Carl laughs. “It’s a second chance for me to say ‘no’ and to protect you. That’s why I’m keeping you here.”
“Then Julia Travers will die, and I’ll have two deaths haunting me,” I say.