by Zoe Wildau
Tom and Frances were still talking in hushed voices down the hall from Maya’s door when Lilly returned. They broke upon seeing her, then followed her into the dressing room.
“Jesus!” Tom started as soon as he saw Maya.
“Hush!” said Lilly and Maya in chorus.
“There,” Lilly finally said, fifteen minutes later, brushing out the edges of Maya’s bloody, bruised mouth and using her pinky to blend in an edge of the horrible bruise at her temple.
Maya had been watching the entire transformation without a word. “I see,” she said finally, grimly.
“There are plenty of other opportunities to be lovely in this film,” said Lilly in an attempt to console her.
She must have misread Maya’s thoughts, she realized, when Maya looked at her, irritated.
“How much are we reshooting?” she demanded.
Frances answered her smoothly. “The second half of the fight, the chase and the birth. About two to three days. You have license to slap me to get in the mood.”
“I’d rather punch Lilly,” Maya said, then laughed. Lilly smiled at her in the mirror. She was beautifully battered and this was going to be great.
At the end of the day, Lilly, Nat and Frances gathered around Nat’s monitor station.
“You nailed it, Lil,” said Nat, relieved and excited with the work.
Frances looked at Lilly. “Walk with me.”
When they were out of earshot of Nat and anyone else still hanging around the studio, Frances turned to her and said, “So, are you a free agent, or Jake’s private property?” One thing about Frances, Lilly was learning, she didn’t mince words.
She considered her response. Truthfully, she didn’t know what her employment status was at the moment. Her contract was with Mjicon to work on Jake’s character exclusively. With Clara taking over Allegrezza, she guessed technically she’d been fired.
“Well, we’re not glued at the hip since Clara came on board,” she said cautiously.
“Good,” said Frances. “The budget can’t stand a repeat of the last few days of wasted film. I’m meeting with Maya and Monty in thirty minutes to go over the dailies. Maya’s stylist has threatened to quit. I’d like to propose a replacement: You. What do you say?”
“Yes,” Lilly said immediately. “That is, I’m not a stylist, so I don’t want to take Janice’s place, but I’d like to work with Maya on her makeup and effects.” Jake be damned.
“I think I can smooth over Janice’s ruffled feathers,” she said brightly.
Frances gave her a rare smile. “I think you probably can.”
Lilly headed back to the Lab with a renewed spring in her step. Once again, I’ve managed to land on my feet, she thought.
As news of her reassignment spread, Lilly found herself consulted more and more on everything from scenery to costumes, and not just for Sofia. Although her responsibility was primarily Maya, Lilly still found time to check in with Clara every morning and she still pulled extra hours before and after filming making sure everything for Allegrezza was perfect.
With one notable exception, she barely spoke to Jake. The exception had been two weeks after Clara started. It was after ten p.m., and she had finished cleaning up and was pouring molds for the next day. She thought everyone was gone and nearly jumped out of her skin when Jake said her name from the doorway.
When she whirled around with a squeal, Jake held up his hands, “It’s just me.”
“You scared me!” she exclaimed, hand over her heart.
For a moment, before she realized the man in the doorway was Jake, she’d flashed back to that unsettling interlude with Campbell, even though she wasn’t certain Campbell still worked for the studio. She hadn’t seen him since the night Jake had thrown him out of the Lab.
Jake let her catch her breath and then asked, “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
In the previous week, Lilly had thought of a million things she wanted to say to him and couldn’t settle on one. The things she wanted to say varied widely, but they almost always returned to one simple request: Can we start over?
“Yes,” she said, relieved that Jake was going to break the ice.
Jake stepped into the Lab. He was carrying a large white envelope bearing Mjicon’s stylish logo. “I asked our legal department to draft you a new contract. It gives you leeway to accept other responsibilities at the discretion of the Art Director. Frances will look out for you, make sure you’re not overloaded.” He handed her the envelope.
“Clara was a good choice,” he said on the way out the door. “Thank you for taking so much time with her.”
And that was it. That was what he had to say. There would be no starting over. She was cut loose.
Chapter 18
Lilly and Clara chatted excitedly while waiting to board their flight to Italy. Lilly had never been out of the country, and while Clara had spent a fair amount of time at James Cameron’s and Peter Jackson’s studios in New Zealand, she’d never been to Europe.
Over the previous weeks, Lilly had grown terribly fond of Clara. Clara had stepped into what should have been an awkward situation and made it almost pleasant. Although she was senior to Lilly in age and experience, she never balked at any direction from Lilly. She learned quickly and graciously accepted correction for her few mistakes.
Watching her, Lilly realized that she could learn a lot from Clara’s laid-back attitude. The last two weeks had been challenging work on Jake’s character. They’d completed most of the green screen wire work – where Jake, Alan and a few of the vampire supporting characters performed wire-assisted aerobatics before a green screen.
Post-production, the clips would be handed over to a specialty team within the CGI department, who were a bunch of nerdy prima donnas. The scenery, blood splatter and even other characters would be added with CGI. The success of the final product depended heavily on careful planning during production. Clara had taken charge of coordinating the various departments involved, making sure everyone knew what was expected.
Lilly watched as she bounced between the actors, who were taking direction from the fight choreographer, who always seemed to be in roid rage, and the CGI team, all the while managing to perform her own function of checking and rechecking body markers during the physically active production. The markers, or CG dots, were adhered to the actors’ bodies and would be edited out during post-production. They allowed for digital motion capture during filming, which created data that the CGI team could use to triangulate the 3D position of each actor when the after-effects were added during post-production. The CG dots had to be precisely placed and constantly adjusted, oftentimes with the whole team breathing down Clara’s neck. Clara was unphased by the pressure. Lilly would have been a nervous wreck.
She couldn’t help but also be impressed by Jake, who had enjoyed the wire work. On breaks between filming, he and Alan had started a competition where they would jump as high as they could to see how many back or front flips they could execute before running out of bounce. Jake’s playfulness had reminded her strongly of Tyler leaping off his skateboard.
“There’s Jake,” Clara announced when first class boarding was called. Lilly looked up just in time to see him hand the attendant his ticket and head down the gangway. He must have been waiting in a VIP lounge.
Clara tossed her coffee cup and both women stood, each secretly thrilled that they would also be flying first class on this trip. Unlike the below the liners employed directly by the studio, Lilly and Clara’s Mjicon contracts guaranteed first class travel on all transcontinental and transoceanic flights. Their seats were not together, though.
“Let’s see if we can switch seats with someone when we get on,” said Clara.
As they walked down the jet way, Lilly said to Clara, “I thought Jake left yesterday with Maya, Monty and Alan on the studio jet.”
“Yesterday was Tyler’s sister Emma’s birthday. There was a family thing at Jake’s house.” Clara, who spent all day with
Jake these days instead of Lilly, was privy to those details now. Lilly bit her lip, swallowing back a sudden rush of regret.
When she boarded the plane, Lilly stopped short when she saw that Jake was sitting next to her assigned seat. She checked the seat assignment printed on her ticket twice, refusing to accept that the vacant window seat next to Jake’s was hers. She was holding up the line.
“Oh come on,” she heard an exasperated lady with two young children barely whisper behind her, echoing her own thoughts.
Clara, who’d also noticed her seatmate, made a pouty face as Lilly passed her. She was not about to ask Jake to move.
“How are you, Lilly?” Jake asked politely when she took her seat.
“I’m good. Really good,” she said, bobbing her head for emphasis as she tucked down to stow her purse under the seat. They hadn’t exchanged more than ten words since the night he’d stormed out of her house. They’d talked around each other with Clara, Frances or whoever else was nearby, but, other than the night he presented her with her new contract, she and Jake avoided directly addressing each other.
Straightening from stowing her purse, she tried to meet his eyes but settled instead on the dimple in his chin. “And you? How are you?”
“I’m good. Really good,” he said, tossing her words back at her with a tight, unpleasant smile. Then he blocked her out by making a show of turning his attention to the financial magazine in his lap.
Lilly felt her stomach turn over. There was no way she was going to sit next to this Jake for the five-hour flight to New York.
Pressing her lips together, she said, “Would you mind switching seats with Clara?”
For a moment, she thought Jake hadn’t heard her. Then, he slowly closed his magazine and turned to look her full in the face. “Not at all,” he said, his face a mask of frozen politeness.
He stood up and walked the short distance to Clara’s row, where she heard him offer his seat to her.
“You’re sure?” said Clara, happily accepting.
“Quite,” was his curt response.
When Clara settled into Jake’s seat, she looked anxiously at Lilly.
“I’m afraid he’s in for a long flight. As soon as I sat down, the young lady sitting next to me asked me if I’d seen him sitting over here. She’s seen all of his movies.”
Lilly pushed up in her chair to get a better look. She could see the young woman’s head bobbing and her hands waving animatedly as she talked, oblivious to Jake’s attempt to block her out with the magazine trick. Well, that’ll teach him to be nicer next time.
She settled back down and pulled out the in-flight magazine. Flipping through the first few pages, she was not surprised to see a full page ad with Maya’s picture beaming out at her behind Dolce & Gabbana shades.
Looking over her shoulder, Clara asked, “What’s it like working with Maya?”
“There’s more to her than I thought at first.” she said, musing about Maya, wondering how much to say. Being someone’s makeup artist was a subtly personal position. Part professional assistant, part masseuse, part bartender.
“She’s harboring a lot of sadness, which she covers with arrogance,” she finally said, figuring that Clara was a colleague with whom she could share her observations unfettered by concerns of celebrity gossip. “No one around her is sincere. She had a sister with whom she was close, but they had some kind of falling out. Since then, she’s surrounded herself with a bunch of sycophants. As far as I can tell, she’s got no close friends or family. No boyfriend.”
“Well, that’s not what I would have thought,” said Clara.
“I feel bad for her. She’s so closed-off. She wants to reconcile with her sister, but she doesn’t know how. She also seems to be attracted to Alan Hume, although she won’t let on.”
Lilly identified with Maya. Her family had been strained, too, and like Maya, she protected herself from intimacy with men. But Maya lacked friends, whereas Lilly had close friends who didn’t want her for her connections. Her rich relationships left her feeling perversely superior to Maya. She wished she could help her.
“It seems like Jake and Alan hit it off,” she said, fishing for information from Clara, the inkling of an idea developing in her mind.
“Yes, they have,” said Clara. “Jake’s always so buttoned up, but Alan couldn’t be more different. I think Jake disapproved of him at first, but now he looks for him at the end of the day. The two are becoming thick as thieves.”
“Hmmm,” she mused. “How do you feel about playing Cupid while we are in Italy?”
Clara nodded enthusiastically. “Are you thinking about pairing Jake and Maya? That sounds like a great idea.”
Lilly frowned. “No. I was thinking Alan and Maya. Why? Do you think Jake is interested in Maya?” She frowned deeper at the tumble in her stomach as she waited for an answer.
“Oh, I have no idea,” Clara said breezily. “It just seemed the obvious match-up, but now that you say it, Alan would be more fun.”
Lilly and Clara were still chatting happily about Italy and plans to bring Maya and Alan together when they landed in New York, where they would pick up a connecting flight to Rome. The film crew would be in Italy for barely one week. They would start in Assisi, shooting outside the cathedral, then head for the nearby town of Spello for some street shots. In the film’s storyline, Sofia first sets eyes on her previously invisible protector, Blaylock, at the Infiorata di Spello, an annual festival. They agreed that it was a shame they wouldn’t be in Spello during the right time of year for the festival. Instead, shortly after their return from Italy, a small troupe would travel to a sound stage in New York that was being constructed to mimic the Infiorata di Spello.
As the passengers stood to deplane, Lilly glanced at Jake. Even in profile, she could see the lines of strain around his eyes and mouth. His young seatmate was anxiously waiting for her cell phone to power up so that she could snap their picture. Jake smiled for a photo but then quickly outpaced her on the jet way. By the time she and Clara got to the waiting area for the next flight, Jake was nowhere to be seen, having disappeared to wherever the ultra-wealthy go to wait when they fly commercial.
The second leg of the trip would be an eight and a half hour overnight flight, arriving in Rome at nine the next morning where they’d board a train for Assisi. She and Clara looked at each other with undisguised awe when they boarded the plane for Rome. The first class cabin on the transatlantic flight was beyond luxurious.
Taking her seat, Lilly couldn’t help fiddling with her chair. She let out a startled giggle when she pulled a lever that caused it to recline suddenly, becoming so flat that it could easily double as a bed. She was still trying to figure out how to get it back up, when Jake came to loom in the aisle next to her.
“I believe you’re in my seat,” he said.
Lilly scrambled to sit up and grabbed her ticket out of the pocket in the seatback in front of her. He was right. She was supposed to be in the window seat. Jake had the aisle.
They were seated together. Again. This couldn’t be a coincidence. It dawned on her that since Mjicon’s travel department had booked their tickets, he could easily have requested that she be seated next to him. He could also have asked that Clara be seated next to him. Lilly eyed him over her ticket. If he’d wanted to sit next to her, why had he been so nasty when she first boarded the plane in LA?
Standing as gracefully as she could from the still reclined chair, she moved over to the window seat. Jake reached down and flipped a lever she hadn’t seen, and his seat flipped back into its original position.
Taking his seat, he crossed his arms and turned to look at her. “I’m not moving this time,” he said stubbornly.
She couldn’t help but smile at his childish expression. Then, adopting the look of adoration on the face of the young woman from the last flight, she said, “Did I tell you I’ve seen all of your movies?”
Jake dropped his tired face into his hands. “Don’t you st
art,” he mumbled into his palms. “That’s why I usually have Mary book me a row to myself.”
He stayed with his face buried in his hands for so long – all the way through take off – that she started to think he’d fallen asleep. He was going to feel sick sleeping hunched over like that. Tentatively, she reached over and patted him on the back.
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely and felt him shrug under her palm. Removing her hand, she said, “I wouldn’t have asked to switch if I’d known.” Okay, that was a fib. To make up for it, she confessed, “I have seen all of your movies, you know.”
Jake rolled his head sideways to look at her, his cheek still resting in his hands. “Really?” he said, his eyebrows raised to his hairline.
“Yes. When I was working out Allegrezza’s design.” Belatedly, Lilly realized she shouldn’t have mentioned her Jake movie marathon. She hadn’t found it to be a pleasant experience. She struggled for something honest to say about his filmography that could also be interpreted as complimentary.
“You do dark and scary like nobody else. It made me understand why Monty was so set on you for Feast.” That was true.
“Hmmm,” he said noncommittally. Then, “I think I’ll get some rest.” With that, Jake flipped the lever on the chair making it recline again, laid back and closed his eyes.
She looked through the in-flight magazine, not seeing the pictures. When she was pretty sure Jake was asleep, she reclined her own chair but found herself turning this way and that, trying to get comfortable. Her normal sleeping posture would have been lying on her side, facing toward Jake’s prone form. She avoided that posture for a while; then she gave up and turned on her side, facing him, watching his profile.
Without opening his eyes he asked, “Do you still have nightmares?”