Sunshine and Shadow

by Sharon

  "To sleep, perchance to dream. Good night."

  But he was still awake at midnight. When Joan and David wandered along a red-brick path through the back garden of daffodils and red tulips, they could hear the majestic passages from his piano. Brilliantly played, the music sank from Wilde's windows and lay like a sorcerer's mist along the cozy walkways.

  "Always the Mozart," David said.

  "Mmmm. Sounds marvelous. Is it live or is it—"

  "That's him, all right. Fabulous technique."

  Joan gazed up at one of his windows. "Everyone says he's good enough to be a concert pianist."

  "No question."

  "I wonder why he never pursued it." Then, "Why was that funny?"

  "He could never do it. He'd go mad from boredom in a month. He doesn't compose, he can only interpret. For Alan to devote himself full time to the piano he would have to write the music, play it, and build the whole damned piano himself. If he were still acting, he'd be commanding over a million a picture. So why does he direct? He needs the autonomy."

  The music stopped, the cessation abrupt, in mid-bar. The garden fell into eerie silence.

  Joan's voice lowered reflexively. "What do you think that was about?"

  "The Amish. How can you doubt it? Probably he's just contemplating our—what did Ben call it?—our sensitivity."

  They had accurately predicted her conservatism. But they had not come within ten miles of gauging the depth of it.

  Susan took the script for Polly's wedding night to read over lunch. Alan found her later sitting by herself near the stream under a sky whipped with mare's tails. Her Victorian-era gown matched the sky, and was beautiful next to the deep tone of her hair, but she had treated the lustrous billows of cloth with scant respect, pulling them up to uncover her bare legs to the knees, her toes plunged into the rippling water. The pages were crushed urgently to her chest.

  He came to her side and sat down. She tapped the pages with her fist. "Have you read this?"

  "I wrote it."

  "You wrote it?"

  "Guilty."

  "But why?"

  "Because if someone else writes the screenplay, they get paid for it. If I write the screenplay, I get paid for it. And if I hire a writer, it breaks a heart when I make a change. I'd as soon film my fatuity as anyone else's."

  The simple statement seemed to deprive her of her powers of speech. Finally she said, "I can hardly believe you've done a single fatuous thing in your life. It's a pity, because I think a bit of foolishness does everyone good. But that isn't what I meant." She riffled through the pages and pointed.

  70. INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT. HIGH ANGLE SHOT SHOWING POLLY AND ADAM, CAMERA PANS DOWN ON ADAM AS HE APPROACHES HER.

  71. CLOSE ON POLLY'S FACE, ADAM KISSES HER. SHE RESPONDS.

  72. ANGLE. TIGHT ON ADAM AND POLLY AS HE CARRIES HER TO BED.

  A cloud of pink color was spreading over Susan's cheeks. He had the strong impression that she had; the idea she'd been looking at some pretty graphic material. Enchanted totally, he tensed his muscles, disciplining the arms that begged to surround her body. "It is their wedding night."

  "I can't see where that makes a bit of difference. I'm not married to David, and even if I were, I'd hardly be having a camera fixed on our marriage bed. What can you be thinking of?"

  You. Holding you. "We want to let the audience know how much Polly and Adam care for each other."

  With great earnestness, she said, "Alan, no one's going to come to a theater to watch two strangers kissing. They'll be disgusted. You won't sell any tickets to your movie."

  He searched her eyes to see if there was any chance she was kidding. No. The dark, lovely eyes flooded him with sincerity. He put the gentleness he felt into his voice. "It's very common for lovers to kiss in movies."

  "Not near a bed!"

  "Near beds—and in beds."

  She looked taken aback by so much vice. "No wonder people sit in the dark to watch them." She stared, appalled, at the pages in her hands. "Does David know about—this?"

  "Sure, he does. It's part of the profession. He does it all the time. Don't worry. Just put yourself into his hands."

  With a distraught moan, she buried her face in her skirts. One of her curls tumbled from her shoulder and fell, loose and sun-warmed, on his hand. A sensual thrill twisted through his nerves and he lifted his hand, playing against the silky column of hair, letting it caress the skin on his inner wrist. "Susan?"

  She looked up to see him carry one dark lock to his mouth and lightly kiss it. His expression shook her. She'd expected to find a reassuringly humorous facade. Instead she intercepted a startling moment of naked longing, a glimpse beneath the casual sexuality and studied indifference. She wondered, shaken, if he knew it was there himself. It was like watching wind move on water, breaking the surface into a thousand reflective points before the water goes still and the hidden depths become sharp and clear.

  "If you wrote the movie, Alan, then you must have Polly Bates inside you. It makes me wonder whom else you have inside you."

  "I thought you knew." He released her curl. "Monsters."

  The wedding set was beautiful, complex, authentic to period. His crew became so carried away that Alan had to make them redo the bedroom set three times, simplifying. He spoke patiently to his set designer. "This is not the Americanization of Fanny and Alexander. I'm not Ingmar Bergman. I'm not Federico Fellini. I want to excite people, and scare them, and entertain them. I do not want to make them think. I make a movie. It has a monster. It eats people. Very basic. Please don't give me art."

  But it was difficult to remember when he saw the bedroom in its final form. Polished woodwork absorbed the subdued saffron lighting. Transparent draperies fluttered around an open window.

  Polly sits in a golden aura, her hair falling in loose, shining waves to the floorboards. She is examining her reflection in a mirror. She touches her cheek hesitantly. What appears to be Polly's poignant reverie is only Susan, baffled by an image of herself that is strange to her.

  When Adam enters with his shirt open, her wide-eyed look is more subtly humorous than she can know.

  She stands jerkily, and he approaches, speaking softly.

  David was in his element. There had been a thousand women, a thousand bedrooms on- and offscreen. Tough and experienced, he was perfectly relaxed, concentrating on hitting his marks and developing the much-photographed facade of moody sensuality that had brought him a small fortune in poster residuals.

  He took her in his arms. A look of sheer terror came over her face. Even for an actor with David's insouciance, it must have taken considerable nerve to persist in the face of her inappropriate bridal response, but David's theatrical background was the finest, and he invariably tried to give some form of life to the most moribund scene. He took Susan's adorably stiff face between his hands with a credible show of savoir-faire and brought his lips down to hers. They met empty air. Susan had vacated his arms and was clinging to the bedpost for dear life.

  The crew looked numb with suppressed ecstasy. Seeing David lose was not a routine event. Max murmured, "Sensational. For a Lavoris commercial."

  Susan didn't need to see the assortment of smirks around her to know that she had erred grievously. David's face was calm, but she was not deceived. If his eyes were sparks, she'd be on fife. Nervously she watched Alan emerge from the line of lights and cameras, his expression cheerful and encouraging, soft-pedaling the disaster.

  "That was nice. I like what you're working on, Susan," he said, as if she'd thought up something really clever. "It had… drama. David, I wouldn't change a thing about what you're doing. Very sexy. I like your instincts."

  He knew David well. Alan's absurdity and his congratulatory tone drew a reluctant smile from the actor. "If she does that to me once more, my instinct will be to tie her wrists to the bedposts."

  "My fault," Alan said. "A couple of rehearsals will smooth it out. Let's take ten and bring back something fresh."
>
  He stayed behind with her until they were alone on the dim, deserted set. She hadn't moved.

  He said, "I wouldn't have kissed him either."

  She found his voice both soothing and exciting. "No?"

  "No. Too much Brando." Realizing she made nothing of that, he said, "He can't help it. His fans want him sultry."

  He brought two canvas chairs and sat on one. When he smiled at her expectantly, she sat in the other, staring at her knees.

  After a short pause, he asked, "What was your husband's name?"

  She'd expected him to talk about David, the scene— anything but this gentle inquiry. She felt strangely uncomfortable, as if there weren't enough air in the room.

  "His name was John."

  "What was he like?" Then, "Why did that make you smile?"

  "Yesterday I got asked the same about you, by some people I know. Some Amish."

  "And you told them?"

  "As little as I could get by with."

  The way he smiled, she could tell he was used to getting talked about. "Tell me about John."

  "Well… He was good with horses."

  He waited. When it was evident she had nothing to add to that, he said, "That doesn't tell me very much."

  To her surprise, she could see that it had not. "I don't have the knack of describing people. I haven't had to do it. Everyone I know knows everyone else." The jumpiness in her refused to dissipate. "John had a pony trained to throw bad boys, he said. The kids used to love it. They'd climb on its back just to see if it would throw them. Of course, John gave the pony a signal, but the kids didn't know that. He was lively that way. He… What I mean to say is that—John was good with horses like Dash is good with horses. They have the same manner, a little, bit. They're practical, but they like to see the best part of a person."

  Clearly, it wasn't what he wanted to hear. "He must have been a paragon. How did you spend your evenings together?"

  "Sometimes after milking we'd go visiting family or friends and maybe stay on to sing hymns. If we were at home, we might do a puzzle or play games—Scrabble and so on. Or we'd sit on the porch to watch the sun set, and plan what we were going to do the next day. In good weather we'd walk out to hear the birds. Just country things."

  "Was he good to you?"

  "Yes."

  "Always?"

  "Yes, always." Kay, from wardrobe, had wrapped a large shawl around her as soon as the big lights went out. She toyed with its fringe. "We wanted the same things. He was contented, not hard to understand, never full of ideas. Not like you. Well, maybe in one way. He always wanted to do the right thing."

  Trust Alan Wilde to take that as ah insult. She saw, fascinated, that his eyes held a vivid gleam.

  "I don't always want to do the right thing."

  "It seems that you do."

  He launched himself from his chair and crossed the short space between them, placing his palms flat on the arms of her chair. His voice was quiet. "Susan, I don't try to do the right thing. I do whatever suits me. Believe it."

  He waited a minute, making sure the message stuck, before he moved back. She stood, too, smiling into the deep storm of his eyes. "Even now—did you notice?—you tried to do the right thing by being honest."

  That checked him. She could see him examining her, examining the statement, trying to find a way around it. She knew that a disbelief in the goodness of human nature, his own in particular, was an important part of what he registered as clear thinking.

  "I don't know what I can do to make it plainer," he said, and Susan knew the subject was closed. "Can we talk about the kiss?"

  "If we have to."

  "What made you slip away from him?"

  "Aside from having a roomful of people and cameras watching me?"

  "Aside from that."

  "I didn't know what he was going to do to me."

  "Just kiss you. Or I would have dropped a boom on his head."

  "Maybe what I mean by a kiss isn't the same as what you mean. I'd thought… it would be just a little smack, but then I saw it was going to be more than that. I didn't know what to do. I haven't seen much kissing."

  "All those brothers and sisters and you didn't see your parents kissing?"

  "Ho! That'd be the day. Never."

  "Why not?"

  "They just wouldn't. They'd think it was—"

  "What?"

  "Showing off, I guess. Or setting a bad example. I don't know. It just isn't something they'd think was right. Did your parents kiss in front of you?"

  "God, yes. They never hid a thing, so I could grow up complete"—the fine mouth shaped itself into a smile— "and without hangups."

  His tone suggested ironic amusement rather than bitterness. Still she caught the echoes of a bleaker emotion long ago put away. He didn't feel complete. He didn't feel that it was possible to become complete. She could tell that he accepted this about himself, that he felt the journey through life was ultimately solitary, with all men and women orphans Under the sun. How desolate that must feel, not to live within a community of the spirit. It was not easy to turn her back and say, ah, well, that's the way it is for him, and leave him to the emptiness. Yet it was surely impossible to change him. Mature, sophisticated, she saw no evidence that he was in any way malleable. But he was not corrupt. Whatever he might think of himself, she couldn't believe he was bad. He might be a sinner, but there was much good in him.

  Dismissing what he seemed to consider the unrewarding topic of his early life, he began to pace the set, viewing it in different ways.

  "Let's figure out a kiss you can live with. Would it help if the scene began with David already in the room?"

  "But the script—"

  "Doesn't matter. It wasn't written in stone. Ben calls it one hundred twenty pages of typing. I've told you. If I were an author, I'd live in Vermont and write novels. You've probably noticed that the rest of the cast regards the screenplay's dialogue as no more than a polite suggestion. I don't think David's said a single line straight since page one. What do you think Polly would be doing on her wedding night?"

  She cuddled more deeply into the shawl. "I think it would make more sense for her to wait for her husband in bed."

  "Why?"

  "Because she would. If it's Wisconsin, and springtime, and you live in a house without central heating, the evenings are chilly, and when you get into your nightclothes, you get right into bed. It's just what you do. And I don't think she'd be so comfortable having him see her in a nightdress, either. If she were in bed, she could pull the bedclothes around her."

  He appeared to consider her words. Then he asked, "Is that what you did?"

  "When?"

  "On the night you were married."

  He had asked so gently, it touched her, though her cheeks colored. "I don't remember."

  Again, with great gentleness, "Were you afraid?"

  "How could I have been afraid? It was the right thing to do to make a family."

  "Were you shy?"

  She stared at her toes. "Not the way I am with you."

  "Susan…"

  She met his gaze with difficulty. He had come to a stop beside the bed.

  "Teach me," he said. He drew back the covers and ran his hand back and forth across the bedsheets. "I'll warm it up for you." His soft gaze pulled her closer. "Teach me how it is with you."

  Her knees were up to mischief. They felt slack, light as two reeds. "How it is with Polly," she corrected.

  "How it is with Polly."

  So his mouth said. But the strict professional distance had vanished from his eyes, and it became hard to know if he was talking to Polly or Susan. There wasn't a bit of doubt in her as to who was responding. She took one step toward him, and it was like stepping into a dream. Even the air seemed different. It began to caress her skin. She could feel the narrowing of her perceptions until they took in only the scent of poplar wood, the ivory bed linens, the closeness of him. As in his films, this was a place of the imaginati
on, potent with secrets and new laws. And the sense of release she had not felt with David, or even with gentle, inhibited John, came to her now as it had on the bridge.

  He moved, or she might have, and he took her hands, nesting them between his palms.

  "Cold hands," he murmured, and carried them to his mouth. His breath and the pattern of his lips began to imprint warmth, touching her fingertips once, then the base of her hand where it met her inner wrist, presently the plumpness beneath her thumb. He was no longer smiling.

  His eyes had become brighter and more diffuse, and his fingers traced hers with exquisite care, imparting deep-traveling sensations.

  Cradling her two hands in one of his, he held them against his chest. His other hand stroked her hair with hypnotic slowness, alternating with his palm and the back of his hand. At length he spread his fingers, supporting her while he tipped her head back. With the sleepy eroticism of a dream, his mouth descended toward hers.

  "You're always too far away," he whispered.

  His lips touched the curve of one cheek, of the other, then came to her mouth, feather-light. Her breath caught in her throat, tightening against the light, quick beat of her pulse. Firm as his mouth appeared to her, she was unprepared for the softness of his lips, unprepared for the rush of feeling that ran to the depths of her body as his mouth kept up its slightly brushing exploration. His thumb did the same to her palm, making a circle there.

  He lifted her to the bed, his arms strong under her, and covered her legs with the bedclothes. Then he sat beside her in the half-world where wan lights and sightless cameras surrounded them like a fairy ring. His hands were braced on the bedcover at either side of her hips, and the sheet pulled at the quivering sensitivity of her thighs.

  He softly kissed her nose at the tip. Clean and mint-scented, his hair skimmed the edge of her face, tickling her hairline. "So far, Susan…" His mouth dragged over her lips, back and forth, a gently questing pressure that left her mouth tingling and unbearably excited. The room around her was falling away and she was tumbling, tumbling into his kiss. Her hands sought and held on to his waist. Under his shirt, she could feel the detail of him, the warm, lean skin, the solid motif of muscle and bone.