Phoenix Falling

by Mary Jo Putney

  "It's ultracompetitive—hundreds of hopefuls audition for a handful of places." He drew her toward him again. "The rejection is good preparation for an actor's life."

  "You've known less rejection than most."

  "I was a good instinctive actor," he admitted, "but instinct will only take one so far. RADA taught me the craft and discipline of acting. How to let a character play through me, rather than me playing the character. How to hit the same emotional point again and again and have it ring true each time. How to be a professional."

  "You're making me even more envious. I learned piecemeal in various acting classes and workshops."

  "Wherever you studied, you learned well, Rainey. I imagine that RADA students and atmosphere weren't much different from your workshops."

  She laughed. "Everyone obsessed with acting, wildly melodramatic about their lives, and half the class sleeping with the other half, with partners changing regularly?"

  His eyes glinted with humor. "Acting classes are the same the world around."

  The music ended and they both slid back into character. "Farewell, my lady. I do not know if I shall return. "

  Since the script called for a kiss, Rainey went into his arms. "Don't leave me like this, Percy! What have I done to deserve such coldness?"

  Instead of Sir Percy's swift, unhappy kiss, Kenzie's mouth met hers with gentle exploration. She fell into him like a thirsty woman discovering water in the desert. He was so close that she saw he wasn't wearing contact lenses. Those incredible green eyes were real.

  Hollywood had changed her from a rebellious girl to a self-protective woman. She had avoided casual affairs because it wasn't her nature to be casual and she couldn't afford distractions.

  But dear God, how she had hungered for warmth. Amazingly, under Kenzie's movie star glamour he seemed to yearn for intimacy as much as she did.

  His hands skimmed her back as the kiss deepened. Soft, expert, passionate. Weak-kneed, she whispered in a last halfhearted effort at defense, "I can see why you have a reputation as a terrific lover."

  "If I slept with even a quarter of the women the gossip columnists claim, I'd have died of exhaustion years ago." He tugged her down onto the sofa so that she was lying full-length along his strong, beautifully fit body.

  She buried her hands in waves of dark hair grown long for the part he was going to play. Too many men looked on kissing as merely a step on the road to intercourse. Not Kenzie. His mouth and hands learned her with luxurious patience. No attempts to rip off her clothing or rush to greater intimacy.

  His restraint made her feverish with longing. Even as a hormone-crazed adolescent, she hadn't felt like this. As he kissed her throat, she said huskily, "So we're going to have an affair?"

  "Yes. But not until we've finished shooting The Scarlet Pimpernel."

  "You're kidding!" She pulsed her pelvis against his. "Granted, it's been a while since I had a personal life, but you feel quite ready now."

  He caught his breath, then lifted her so that they were reclining side by side in the deep cushions. Stroking back her hair, he said, "Think of what waiting will add to the sexual tension in the movie."

  She erupted into slightly hysterical laughter, torn between intense frustration and deep relief that matters would go no further tonight. She wasn't ready for what she sensed lay ahead. "That's diabolical—but you're right. Very well, Kenzie, we have a hot date for when this movie is over."

  He raised her hand and kissed her fingers tenderly. "And, I hope, some warm and friendly ones before then."

  That was when she lost her heart to him. But it was a long time before she admitted that, even to herself.

  * * *

  The phone on her stomach rang, jarring her back to the present. Putting the past where it belonged, Rainey began the next phase of work. She would create a movie, and with it a new direction for her life.

  Chapter 4

  Kenzie entered his trailer and flopped onto the bed, bone tired after rising at an obscene hour to shoot several scenes with a costar who had to be elsewhere in the afternoon. He'd be glad when filming ended; by this time, cast and crew were heartily sick of each other. Not to mention the fact that it had been difficult to play a lighthearted rogue while in the midst of a divorce. But he'd soon be working with Rainey again.

  On the verge of dozing off, he made a mental note to call his English friend and mentor, Charles Winfield. They chatted regularly, but he'd been so busy lately that by the time he thought of calling, it was too late to place a call to London. Today would be a good time....

  Rinnnnnng!

  The phone jerked him awake. Yawning, he lifted the handset without opening his eyes. Hearing his manager's greeting, he said, "Go away, Seth. The star's brain has quit for the day."

  Undeterred, Seth said, "Sorry to wake you, but I just finished reading the screenplay of The Centurion."

  The tone jerked Kenzie into wakefulness. "What did you think of it?" He hadn't had the time or energy to read the script yet himself, but surely Rainey wouldn't have taken revenge by persuading him to do a bad movie. That would rebound disastrously on her own career, and besides, Rainey was never petty.

  "It's a terrific script," Seth said. "I had no idea Rainey could write so well. But Jesus, you really want to do this movie?"

  "What are your objections?"

  "John Randall isn't exactly a heroic figure. If this flick gets made and more than ten people see it, it's going to do strange things to your image."

  Stonewalling with the skill of long practice, Kenzie said, "Sorry you feel that way, but I've given my word and signed the contracts."

  "Contracts can be broken."

  "But not my word. Good-bye, Seth."

  He hung up, feeling a chill of apprehension. He hadn't wanted to admit to his manager that he'd been so careless as not to have read the screenplay himself. Besides not having the energy, he trusted Rainey's professional judgment. When they had been together, her advice on which scripts to choose and which to refuse had been impeccable. She wouldn't be passionate about making this movie if the material was weak.

  So why had The Centurion upset Seth? It was time to dig the screenplay out of his briefcase, and actually read the damned thing.

  * * *

  Tires squealing, Kenzie slammed his Ferrari to a stop in front of Rainey's canyon cottage. He stalked to the door and hit the doorbell. After the opening chords of Beethoven's fifth symphony rang inside, Rainey opened the door, wariness in her eyes. "What an unexpected pleasure. Just passing by?"

  He swept past her into the living room. "I can't do your movie, Rainey."

  She spun to face him, eyes wide with shock. "But you promised! Why are you having second thoughts?"

  He hesitated, wondering how to explain himself without saying too much. "I just read the screenplay."

  "Today? You've had it for three days. There was plenty of time to read it before signing the contract."

  "I was busy, and I took your word for it that the script was good."

  Her face tightened. "Now you've read it and think it's dreck?"

  "It's not dreck. Seth called and was impressed by your writing, but thought that my making this movie would be bad for my career. So I read the script, and realized I didn't want any part of it."

  "Why not?" she asked, expression stony.

  "You told me John Randall was tortured. You didn't mention that he was raped repeatedly, or that he fell in love with his captor."

  "I told you he was abused and tortured, which is accurate, and he doesn't fall in love with Mustafa," she retorted. "It's all going to be a lot subtler and more impressionistic than that, especially the abuse scenes. Is that why you and Seth have panicked—because Mr. Action Hero isn't ever supposed to be a victim?"

  How the hell was he supposed to answer that? He certainly wasn't going to explain his horror of being helpless, even if it was only acting.

  Tamping down his temper, he said, "I can't do the role justice. As you said, Ra
ndall is a complex man who has to show a tremendous range of emotion. I'm not the best person for that. If you like, I'll help you find someone better for the role, but I can't and won't do it."

  "You can't back out now! Everything is in place to start shooting." She glared at him. "You signed a contract, Kenzie. If you don't go through with this, I swear to God I'll sue you for your perfectly capped back teeth."

  "Sue and be damned!"

  Her face paled. "Did you agree to take the part with the idea of pulling out to torment me? What did I ever do to you to justify that?"

  "Damnation, Rainey!" he snapped, angrier with her than he'd ever been. "What have I ever done to make you think I could be so maliciously cruel?"

  "Do you want me to answer that?" she said bitterly.

  Lord, no. He couldn't bear to increase the poisonous tension in the room. Then he saw tears in her eyes. His indomitable wife, who never cried except when a script required it, was on the verge of breaking down. "I don't want to fight with you, Rainey," he said wearily. "I'm not trying to make your life difficult. I just... can't do this movie."

  She closed her eyes for a moment. "To be an actor is to be insecure. You think I don't know that? Every time we take on a role that's radically different from what we've done, it's like jumping off a cliff. But the roles that really make us grow and produce the finest acting are exactly the ones that are scariest. Though you've never played anyone quite as tormented as John Randall, I know you can do it, and brilliantly."

  "Pushing limits is all very well, but every actor has a range of things he can do, and things he can't do. I can't be John Randall. I'm not talking actor nerves, Rainey. This role is beyond my range."

  "I don't believe that. Some of your early BBC work hit the same notes needed for John Randall." She gazed at him earnestly. "You can do this, Kenzie, and I'll help every way I can. Is there any rewriting that would make you feel better about the script?"

  "Are you volunteering to remove the sexual assaults and Randall's complicated feelings about Mustafa?"

  Rainey sighed. "Those are the core elements of the story. The reason Randall is so torn when he returns home is because he's discovering more ambivalence inside himself than his rigid world view allows. Take that away, and there's no movie."

  "Then find an actor who really enjoys playing tortured characters."

  She offered a hesitant smile. "If you're feeling tortured about taking the part, you should be very convincing in it."

  Exasperated, he began to prowl the living room. Rainey had decorated the place in her own charmingly eclectic style, but it was too small. Suffocating. "You don't know what you're asking."

  "Apparently not, but it's clear from your reaction that this is way outside your comfort zone. What exactly bothers you about this story?" she asked. "Is it something personal, maybe the fact of playing a character so vulnerable when I'm directing? Or is it professional anxiety, the fear that you'll fail?"

  He didn't want her to think more about personal reasons, though she was painfully accurate in guessing that he hated the idea of being stripped bare emotionally in front of her. She already knew him too well. "The personal and professional intersect. The combination of this particular role and working with you is more than I can handle. You've created a great opportunity for yourself. Don't ruin it because of some misguided belief that I'm essential to your success."

  "Unfortunately, you are essential."

  He turned to face her. "Truth time. Are you sure your conviction that only I can play John Randall doesn't have anything to do with our disintegrating marriage?"

  She flinched as if he'd slapped her. "You think this is all an excuse to spend time with you?"

  His smile was wintry. "Nothing as simple as that. I won't pretend to understand the workings of your convoluted mind. Only you can say for sure."

  She bit her lip and thought about his question. "To the extent that being married to you gave me a better sense of your talent and potentials, it's personal that I want you for this movie. And... there's a small, sick part of me that loves the idea of working with you again. A much larger part would rather dodge trucks on the Santa Ana Freeway."

  As always, her stark honesty undermined his defenses. Taking another tack, he asked, "Is the potential payoff for this movie worth the psychic cost of working together?"

  "I think so, or I wouldn't put us both through this." Her changeable eyes were pure, cool gray as she regarded him. "Let's take it one day at a time, Kenzie. Don't think about the whole movie all at once. A day's shooting only amounts to a few minutes of usable film, and surely for those few minutes you can handle this role. There's nothing like slicing a story into hundreds of takes to grind the primal fear away."

  She had a point. If he thought of this strictly as a matter of craft, performed one take at a time, it was more manageable. Acting didn't have to be personal, and probably was better if it wasn't. Maybe American Method actors felt the need to immerse themselves in ice water before playing a winter scene, but no well-trained British actor had to do that.

  You're kidding yourself. The voice in his mind was the one that couldn't be denied, that knew him in all his weaknesses. He was kidding himself, but he was caught between a rock and a hard place. Wanting to help Rainey, he'd given his word without checking the project out carefully enough. It had never occurred to him that the story would be one that gave him cold chills.

  But he couldn't back out now without causing enormous damage to Rainey, and that he couldn't bear. He'd have to make the blasted movie, no matter how painful the process. "You win," he said reluctantly. "I won't quit, but don't blame me if my performance doesn't live up to your expectation."

  "Thank God. You had me scared out of my wits." She approached and laid a hand on his wrist. "I'm sorry I didn't handle this better. I should have made sure you'd read the script before sending the contracts."

  "The fault was mine." He looked down at her hand, feeling her touch burning through him. More than anything on earth, he wanted to take her in his arms. Just... hold her, as they'd once held each other at the end of long, exhausting days.

  Impossible, of course. Someday, when the fires of passion had burned out and she'd married someone else, it might be possible to embrace as friends, but not now.

  With effort, he moved away. "Even though I trust your judgment, ultimately the responsibility for reading the work was mine."

  "Apart from horror at having to play Randall, what did you think of the script?" There was more than a trace of uncertainty in her voice.

  "Very powerful. Good characters, good structure. Classic storytelling, which the movies need more of. I'd love to see it with, say, Laurence Olivier in his prime playing Randall."

  "I'd have taken him if he was thirty and available. You're the next best thing."

  "Compliments will get you... somewhere." Wanting to compliment her work in return, he said, "Your dialogue is excellent. Very incisive and British. Often witty."

  "Most of the dialogue came from the book. I'm no writer. I just pulled the best bits out of the novel."

  "There's an art to adapting a novel into a script. Give yourself credit."

  "That's hard when I remember how insane I am to tackle a project this large and expensive with so little directing experience. Did I mention that I insisted on final cut?"

  He rolled his eyes. "No wonder you needed a name brand actor to get financing. Why didn't you try to produce the movie in a smaller way, or for television? It would have been a lot easier."

  "I wanted to make the best possible movie, and reach the latest possible audience. There's great, creative work being done for cable, but the budgets are usually tight and the audiences smaller. Doing it this way may be hard, but if it works, the result will come much closer to my vision of how the story should be made."

  Gloomily he addressed the wall, which was covered with a mixture of paintings, framed prints, and flattish objects like antique rug beaters. "Why did I have to choose a professio
n where I'm surrounded by obsessed creative types?'

  "Because you're one of us, of course, even when you try to pretend that acting is just another business. Movies are more than that. They spin dreams and hopes and fears. So do the actors who make them, which is why you're recognized all over the world."

  "The downside of success." There were actors who enjoyed having women plead for sex, but Kenzie wasn't one of them. He loathed knowing he was a fantasy sex object for God knew how many women. And men.

  He said good-bye and left, thinking how he'd arrived at her house determined to withdraw from her project. Yet here he was, still committed.

  What the devil was it about Rainey that always made hash of his intentions?

  * * *

  She dropped into a chair, shaking, after Kenzie left. For a terrible few minutes, she'd thought her movie was doomed. She didn't understand his reaction to the script, but his distress was quite genuine. Odd. He was one of the least temperamental actors she'd ever met, saving his emotions for the camera. But John Randall had gotten under his skin badly.

  Though she'd been able to talk him into continuing with the project, she could see that she'd have to chivvy him along every step of the way. Just what a new director needed—a skittish lead who was in virtually every scene of the movie.

  She'd take it one day at a time. Kenzie might have to be encouraged or threatened to keep going, but she'd get a great performance out of him if it killed them both.

  * * *

  Needing to burn off some of his restless frustration, Kenzie spun his car eastward out of the driveway to head deeper into the hills. Damn Rainey! Her creative passions and her willingness to put herself on the line for what she believed in still entranced him.

  His response to her celluloid image was pallid compared to the impact when they met at her audition for the Pimpernel. Acting with Rainey was like playing tennis with a champion who anticipated his every move and returned each shot with something extra. They brought out the best in each other, both professionally and personally. With her, he was someone he'd never been before. A man who was almost free.