Extreme Bachelor

by Julia London

  Damn him. Damn Michael J. Raney anyway!

  She was so infuriated that when the director yelled Places for the first take, she scarcely heard him, and therefore, missed her cue, started late, and ended up crashing into one of the Serious Actresses and muffing the stunt. Even worse, the Serious Actress took great offense to it and managed to elbow Leah in the ribs hard enough to knock her down before Harry called cut.

  The T.A. guys trotted out to have a chat with the women who didn’t get their stunts exactly right, and lucky her, it was Michael who appeared at Leah’s side, his big hand on her elbow, pulling her up.

  “Okay,” he said, all businesslike, as if they had never been anything more than a trainer with his soccer mom trainee, “you remember the drills we did in boot camp? You want to do a one, two, and then a big leap to time the contact just right.”

  “I know,” Leah said, shaking his hand off her elbow.

  “Good. Then you ought to get it this take. No problem, right?”

  “Yes. I will get it right,” she said sharply.

  Michael looked at her, his expression maddeningly calm and infuriatingly kind.

  “Is there anything else?” she asked, her voice dripping with ice.

  “Not unless you have a question,” he said as the director yelled for everyone to take her place.

  “Nope. No questions. It’s all pretty clear to me,” she said, nodding emphatically.

  “Great,” he said, and turned on his heel and walked off. Just like that. Just like nothing had happened.

  Leah was still fuming when the second take was set into action, and took two huge enviable Superman strides. So huge, in fact, that she almost overran her target, colliding with the Serious Actress who had elbowed her, and spinning the woman around and into the bushes exactly as she was supposed to do. Perhaps a little too forcefully, but correctly nonetheless. When the director yelled cut, Leah high-fived Jamie and did a rooster strut off the battlefield.

  By the end of the day, they had the first battle scene in the can. And Leah had not required any more instruction from the Extreme Bachelor, which was a good thing, as he and Nicole were sitting under the awning yucking it up.

  This was it, she figured. He was done with her, moving on to the next conquest—not that anyone working this film thought that Nicole was any sort of conquest. But it was just exactly what she’d feared before the Adolfo–Juan Carlo thing, that he would eventually move on to the next woman, because that is what Extreme Bachelors do for a living.

  “Good,” she muttered to herself. “Good riddance.” She stalked off in the direction of Trudy, who she knew would have something fun planned to take her mind off the extreme bastard.

  Trudy did have something fun planned: an outing to Wal-Mart.

  FORTUNATELY the shooting schedule was so intense that the next few days flew by, and Leah had very few opportunities to even see Michael. Most of the time he was holed up with the T.A. guys, making last-minute changes to the stunt choreography. But sometimes she’d catch him talking to another woman, always in a deep conversation that made him smile beautifully, and that made the skin around his eyes crease in the way she loved.

  But it wasn’t until the last day of filming for her that she actually ran into him—literally, as it turned out. The director told them to take ten, and Leah was jogging back to the catering tent when she turned to shout at Trudy to keep her paint gun. That was when she collided with Michael, who had stepped into her path. He caught her by the arms and set her back. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, straightening her camouflage jacket. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. So listen, we were watching the last take, and we think you need to adjust a little to the left,” he said, pointing to a line of fake trees. “What we want is for you to run and hit dirt right in front of that stand of trees, do the tuck and roll, and come up firing at Mary.”

  “Mary,” she said.

  “Right. Skinny brunette.”

  “I know who Mary is.”

  One of Michael’s brows arched. “Okay. Cool. So do you want to go over the stunt before we do the next take?”

  He had to be insane. “No, I don’t want to go over it. I’ve been over it so many times that I can do it in my sleep.”

  The other brow rose up to meet the first. “Good,” he said. “That’s what we need.” He moved as if he was going to walk away.

  Leah couldn’t believe this—almost a week had gone by since the nightmare she had lived, and he had yet to say a word to her. “Michael!” she cried before he could escape.

  He paused. “Yes?”

  He said it as if she were a lowly production assistant, not worthy of his time. No wait, scratch that—he spent more time with the P.A.’s than anyone.

  “What is it, Leah?” he asked, clearly impatient to be on his way.

  It was not an easy question to answer, because it was everything. “Where is Juan Carlo?” she demanded for lack of a good jumping-off point.

  Michael took a quick look around before answering. “He’s locked up. But don’t worry—there is no way he can get out.”

  “And who were those guys who took him?” she asked, folding her arms.

  He sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. “Leah . . . I think the less you know, the better.”

  “Were they CIA?”

  “Some,” he said, looking very uncomfortable. “All government.”

  “Can they just do that?” she asked, both hands slicing the air now.

  “Do what?”

  “Do what? Jesus, Michael, do you have to be so obtuse? Weren’t you in the cabin with me, or did I just dream it? Can those men just sweep in and take someone away like that? Just take him off and lock him up?”

  For some reason, that made Michael smile. “Apparently, they can.”

  Leah sighed irritably, punched her hands, encased in fingerless gloves, to her waist. “Just please give me the bottom line, can you do that?” she blurted. “I don’t know what any of this means.”

  “You mean when the government steps in?”

  “No, no,” she said with great exasperation for his thick-headedness. “What it means for us. Assuming there was an us to begin with.”

  He didn’t answer. He studied her, his eyes roaming her face and his expression—she’d seen that expression once before, a long time ago, and Leah felt her heart slip in her chest. I’m leaving . . .

  “Honestly?” he said softly. “I don’t know anymore.”

  Her heart plummeted, her breath left her. Whatever she thought, his response surprised her, stunned her. “So . . . ,” she said, fumbling for words, fidgeting with her fingerless gloves. “Then . . . I guess that means it was too much to hope for, is that it?”

  He shrugged, looked very uncomfortable. “Maybe it was.”

  Shit. As angry as she was with him, she realized immediately that was not what she wanted to hear. She glanced down at her hands, her fidgeting more frantic now. “Jesus, I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said weakly, feeling herself close to tears. “What was this all about, anyway, Michael? Were you just hoping you could finally commit, but realized you can’t do it? Or do you fear that more strange men will suddenly appear out of the clear blue to terrorize your life?” She suddenly looked up. “Don’t answer—you don’t need to answer, because the truth is, I can’t handle it. I can’t handle the uncertainty with you, Michael. I can’t handle the constant wondering, and the uncertainty and the fear—”

  “I’m sure,” he cut in, his eyes dark. “Just like I can’t handle the constant need to apologize to you, or the need to prove to you that I’m not screwing around, or that every stranger who speaks to you isn’t trying to kidnap you. I can’t erase my past, Leah. It is what it is. I can’t erase what happened in New York, or on Sunlight Canyon Road. I can’t erase the fact that I have dated a lot of women. And I can’t live my life with your . . . constant . . . uncertainty.”

  His response took her aback. “Are you kidd
ing?” she asked. “Seriously, are you kidding?”

  “Kidding?” He made a sound of disbelief. “Why in God’s name would I kid about something like this? I don’t know what else to say to you, Leah,” he said angrily. “You are angry with me because I left you, but I can’t change that, anymore than I can change my eye color. Jesus, I love you, I adore you, and I can’t change that, either—I don’t want to change that. But I am who I am, and if you can’t be certain about me or what I say to you now, and if you will always wonder, then I don’t know what else to say. I tried. I failed. I’m not going to be reminded of my failure day in and day out.”

  Her heart was reeling, her thoughts collapsing, her anger and frustration mounting. “Good, that’s great,” she said sharply, her voice betraying her hurt. “I’m glad to hear you say it, because I can’t live with the uncertainty of you, I just can’t. I can’t live with the Extreme Bachelor or the ex–CIA agent with enemies or the worry whether you are being honest with me. It’s too hard and too much and I don’t want it. I want to be happy, not constantly fearing that this will be the day you break my heart to pieces again!”

  He looked as if she had physically struck him. He blinked. Put his hand to his nape. “Okay,” he said stiffly. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It’s what I want,” she said firmly, yanking the stupid gloves from her fingers. But it was a lie, a stupid lie, because it wasn’t what she wanted, it wasn’t even close to what she wanted. Only it was too late—days, years, eons too late. And now that she’d said the words, had set them free to swell between them, she couldn’t take them back.

  Michael was already moving backward. “I wish you well, Leah,” he said quietly. “Whatever you do, wherever life takes you, I wish you nothing but the best.”

  “Great,” she said, her voice damnably shaky. “You, too.”

  He smiled sadly, shoved his hands into his pockets. “Good-bye, Leah.”

  “Good-bye, Michael,” she choked out, and watched the only man she would ever love turn on his heel and walk away.

  Subject: Re: I’m Home!

  From: Lucy Frederick

  To: Leah Kleinschmidt

  Time: 3:23 pm

  I’m so glad you’re back! There are soooo many things we have to decide, but the big one is the color of the bridesmaid dress, surprise, surprise. So now I’m thinking red, a rich, ruby red. You like red, don’t you? Yes, you do. Remember that red dress you wore to my holiday party? Anyway, I attached another great halter dress to this e-mail. Tell me what you think.

  Hey, did you get a chance to talk to Michael?

  Subject: Re: Re: I’m Back!

  From: Leah Kleinschmidt

  To: Lucy Frederick

  Time: 12:48 pm

  I like the style of the dress. And the red is really pretty, even if most of your bridesmaids are blondes or redheads. I always thought red was a better color for brunettes. And BTW, I never wore a ruby-red dress to your holiday party. I wore black. Maybe a rich green would be a better idea. But hey, if you want red, that’s cool, too. It’s your wedding! I am here to serve.

  I didn’t talk to anyone. I mostly worked. I think I’m off guys for a while. And please don’t give me the speech you always give me when I take a break from guys. I’m not being a hermit, I’m not wearing my feelings on my sleeve, I’m not doing anything but concentrating on my career, okay? In fact, Frances called me today and told me I have a shot at an HBO Original Series about pilgrims or something. Kewl, huh?

  Chapter Thirty

  LEAH did manage to snag a role in the new HBO series, Coming to America, which was about the grueling reality the pilgrims faced in settling America. Leah had wanted the part of the trapper’s daughter, but when she asked, Frances laughed so hard that she threw her back out. “You’re not going to be the star, honey,” she’d said, not unkindly, but as if it was obvious to the entire world, save Leah. “It’s like I’ve been telling you—character roles.”

  Which is exactly what Leah got when they tapped her for the minor part of the wife of one of the settlement’s elders. Essentially, that meant her on-screen time was devoted to slaving over a washboard, lifting giant kettles of water, or, conversely, stirring something in it, and looking after the five kids that supposedly she had given birth to while they eked out their meager existence, which no woman in her right mind would have done. In fact, it became a running joke between her and the other minor wives as to how in God’s name their stinky pretend husbands could possibly be getting any action in bed, what with the life they led.

  The only thing Leah liked about the role was the costumes, but even that got old after a bout of unusually warm weather and the soundstage heated up along with the rest of L.A. Wool was not Leah’s first choice when the temperatures started hitting eighty-five degrees and higher.

  Trudy dropped by the set a few times, always in stylish shades, ostensibly to check out the available guys, but really to bug the director, Ted, into giving her a part. Ted would never take the bait, so Trudy would do the next best thing—make Leah go out with her for drinks before she had to go pick up her kids at one relative’s house or another.

  Their favorite watering hole was a place on Sunset Boulevard, where the drinks were way too high for Leah to afford—she’d spent most of her War of the Soccer Moms windfall on a new car—but Trudy insisted it was a great place to see and be seen by all the right people.

  “Who are the right people?” Leah asked once.

  Trudy shrugged behind her John Lennon shades. “Directors. Producers. People like that. The next big thing is discovered in places like this all the time.”

  They both looked around at the other people in the bar. “Do you see anyone you know?” Leah asked.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  Exactly.

  Leah drank water most of the time; Trudy drank Pink Ladies and talked endlessly about her kid (genius), her boyfriend (loser), and what she’d heard about the post- production work on War of the Soccer Moms. It had been three months since production wrapped, with a scheduled release date in another six months, to hit the summer rush.

  “The film editing isn’t going very well,” Trudy told Leah one afternoon, nodding as if she was in-the-know, which she wasn’t. But then again, she was an actress and liked the part.

  “It isn’t? How come?”

  “Because there are a couple of divergent opinions about how it ought to be edited—one side thinks Charlene needs more screen time because she’s the big draw, but get this—” Trudy paused, glanced surreptitiously about to see if anyone was listening in, then leaned forward and whispered loudly, “Apparently, Nicole was blowing the executive producer the whole time! And guess who is the exec’s good golfing buddy?”

  “Who?” Leah whispered.

  Trudy inched forward a little more. “The head of the studio.” She sat back, clearly pleased with her scoop. “So who do you think is going to get more screen time? Charlene?” she asked, thrusting one hand out, palm up, “or Nicole?” she finished, thrusting the other hand out in the opposite direction. “Do you believe that shit?”

  “I don’t know, and I’ll be honest, Trudy—I don’t care,” Leah said. “All I care about is how much screen time I get. And with whom, of course.”

  With a snort, Trudy picked up her Pink Lady and took a healthy swallow. “You’re not going to get enough screen time to make a difference to an ant, kiddo. With two stars like Charlene Ribisi and Nicole Redding, the rest of us poor bit players will be lucky to get a toe into a shot,” Trudy said confidently. She suddenly sat up, her eyes shining. “Is Nicole a slut or what? She was blowing the exec producer the whole time she was trying to blow your guy.”

  At the mention of “her guy,” Leah almost choked on her water.

  “What’s the deal with him, anyway?” Trudy asked. “What happened to him?”

  Leah shrugged an
d looked around the room, avoiding eye contact. “Who knows? It was just one of those production flings, anyway. You know, once it wraps, that’s the end, and everyone is cool with that.”

  “Really?” Trudy asked, her brow wrinkling. “Are you cool with that? Because I thought he was so into you.”

  Leah shrugged again and pretended to be examining the drink menu.

  “Okay, what about the lighting guy?”

  “Who?” Leah asked, pretending not to know, hoping Trudy would drop it, knowing it was exactly the wrong thing to do.

  So wrong, in fact, that Trudy actually laughed at her. “Don’t give me that crap, girl,” she said cheerfully. “So? Have you heard from him?”

  “Oh him,” Leah said flippantly. “No, I haven’t. He went back to Puerto Rico, I think.”

  “I thought it was Spain.”

  “Spain, Puerto Rico,” Leah said with a flick of her wrist as if they were practically the same country. She’d told so many lies about Juan Carlo the night she came back from the cabin that she couldn’t remember what she’d said any longer.

  “That whole thing was so weird,” Trudy doggedly went on.

  Leah glanced up over the top of the drink menu. “What was weird?”

  “Just you and that guy,” Trudy said thoughtfully. “It was so unlike you.”

  “Everyone has a one-night stand now and again,” Leah retorted. “What about you and the sandwich guy?”

  “Not the same thing,” Trudy said with a shake of her head. “Because I am that kind of person, so it’s no surprise when I do it. But when you do it, we all sit up and take notice.”

  Great, just what any girl wanted to hear. “It was a long time ago,” Leah said, and ducked her head again. “I think I might try one of these martinis,” she added, hoping to divert Trudy to one of her favorite pastimes—drinking.