Jamie stands in front of me, arms folded. The crew waits, slouching by the van, its engine running. I'm focusing on slowing down my heartbeat. The director starts walking toward us again. My vision keeps blurring over, getting wavy. It starts drizzling.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, trying not to whimper.
"I'm picking up a prescription for Tammy," she says.
"Uh-huh. Because she's, like, very sick, right?"
"Yeah, she's very upset," Jamie says coolly.
"Well, right, because she should be."
I'm wetting my lips, panic coursing through the muscles in my legs, my arms, my face-all tingling. Jamie keeps staring, appraising me. A longer pause. The director is jogging up the street, grimly advancing toward us, toward me.
"So let me get this straight," Jamie starts.
"Uh-huh."
"You're taking French lessons."
"Uh-huh."
"From Christian Bale?"
"No, we're having an affair," I blurt out. "I didn't want to bring him to the house."
"I don't necessarily find that unbelievable."
"No, no, it's French lessons," I'm saying. "Merci beaucoup, bon soir, je comprends, oui, mademoiselle, bonjour, mademoiselle-"
"All right, all right," she mutters, giving up.
The director is getting closer.
"Send them away," I whisper. "Please, just send them away, send them the f**k away," I say, putting my sunglasses on.
Jamie sighs and walks over to the director. He's on a cell phone and he snaps the mouthpiece closed as she approaches. He listens to her, adjusting a red bandanna knotted around his neck. I'm crying silently to myself and as Jamie walks back to me I start shivering. I rub a hand across my forehead, a headache's building.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
I try to speak but can't. I'm only vaguely aware that it's starting to rain.
In a cab heading back to the house she asks me, "So where did you take your French lessons?"
I can't say anything.
"How did you and Christian Bale meet?" she asks.
The cab lurches forward in traffic, its windows streaked with rain. The air inside the cab is heavy with invisible things. I'm slouching in the back of the cab. My foot has fallen asleep.
"What is this?" she asks. "Are you doing your big deaf routine?"
"What's in the bag?" I ask, nodding at the white shape in Jamie's lap. "Tammy's prescription," she says.
"For what? Methadone?"
"Halcion."
"I hope you got her a lot," I say, and then, "Can I have some?"
"No," Jamie says. "What were you really doing with that guy?"
I blurt out, "How did you know Marina Gibson?"
"Oh god," she groans. "Are we back to that?"
"Jamie," I warn, then relent. "Please."
"I don't know," she says irritably. "I knew her in New York. Modeling. Whatever. Nightlife."
I start giggling. "You're lying."
"Oh shit."
I ask softly, "Could this have all been prevented?"
Finally she answers flatly, "That's speculative."
"Who else is involved with this?" I ask.
She sighs. "It's all very small." Pause. "The larger the group, the greater the danger of detection. You know."
"I'm sure that works well on paper."
"Did you look at the file?" she asks.
"Yes," I murmur.
"Good," she says, relaxing, and then, "I think Christian Bale's cool." She checks her fingernails. "In a fairly obvious way."
I turn to look at her. "What does that mean?"
"Christian Bale wasn't in Hooked, Victor," Jamie says. "He wasn't in that movie."
I stall, then move into, "Maybe he was just being... polite."
"Don't bother," she mutters.
And outside the house in the 8th or the 16th patches of sunlight start streaming through the dissolving clouds and Jamie and I open the gate and move together silently through the courtyard. Inside, with Bruce Rhinebeck gone the house seems less heavy, better, emptier, even with the second unit setting up. Bobby sits at the computer while talking on a cell phone, smoking a cigarette, tapping ashes into a Diet Coke can, stacks of spiral notebooks piled high on the desk in front of him, lounge music playing in the background. A pool table has been delivered, another BMW is read y to be picked up, new wallpaper has been ordered, there's a party somewhere tonight. "It's all confirmed," Bobby says simply. Inside the house it's twenty degrees. Inside the house, shit, its fragrance, churns everywhere, muddy and billowing. Inside the house there's a lot of "intense activity" and everything's quickly being lit.
