Coming Attractions (15 page)

“You must have
been excited.”

“Oh, I was whisked
off my feet. It was Umberto who convinced me to set up a shop. I had been
saving for a trip to Australia. I won a partial scholarship through the Melbourne
Gemmological Institute and planned to travel, but Umberto convinced me to sink
my savings into bricks and mortar instead, establish my own ‘presence’ or
something.”

“Bad idea?”

“Shithouse idea—pardon
my French. Turned out Umberto was more interested in my tits than my topaz and
when I turned down his proposition, he was gone like a shot. Now, all of my
savings are tied up in this store, which would be okay except that even with a
part-time assistant, between the admin and sales, I am run off my feet. Plus,
there are the boys to care for. And with Brian moving out… I haven’t picked up
a cutter or polisher in months.”

Cara couldn’t miss
the sheen of unshed tears in Belle’s eyes. She was about to suggest that they
grab a couple of coffees from the café across the street, but at that moment, a
bus pulled up and a dozen Korean tourists swarmed through the door, ooh-ing and
ah-ing over Belle’s exquisitely designed rings and pendants.

Fishing in her
purse, Cara quickly produced a business card and pressed it into Belle’s palm.
They locked eyes and Cara did her best to convey her empathy.

“I’ll get out of
your hair, but if you feel like a chat…”

Belle nodded. “Thanks,
Cara. I may just take you up on that.”

****

The conversation
about the script changes was surprisingly enjoyable. The threesome discussed
possibilities for the story over drinks that evening—Otto into the scotch, and
Levi and Cara sharing a bottle of red wine.

As it turned out, the afternoon had
been swallowed up first with shopping and then some drama at the house—a water
main blocked by debris from the storm, the wrong color paint turning up for the
kitchen, and a worker injured when horsing around with an electric grinder. So,
it was nearly eight when they retired to the study for a post-dinner chat.

Otto was enormous. Not especially
tall, the man was wall-to-wall bulk that seemed to be made up of fat and muscle
in equal parts. In his mid-thirties and sporting an artsy goatee, he was strong—when
grinder guy was bleeding and fainting all over the place, it was Otto who
picked him up like he was a doll and carried him to the first aid station. Otto
also unmistakably loved his food. Despite several heaped helpings of the pasta
dinner, he was happily hoeing into a plate of jelly donuts in between sips of
his drink.

Pleasingly, Otto’s laugh matched
his waistline—it was a glorious, resounding boom of a guffaw that was as
genuine and frequent as it was contagious.

Cara couldn’t help but be at ease
around the director.

“So, Cara, Jeans here tells me you’ve
decided to go with the subplot he’s concocted.”

“Jeans?”

“Levi’s,” Levi explained drolly.

“Gotcha,” she told Otto with a
giggle.

Levi rolled his eyes.

“I’ve found evidence that a love
interest would be in keeping with the facts,” Cara said.

“I see,” said Otto. “Any idea who
the mystery lover might have been?”

“He signed his name ‘Styck,’ which doesn’t
apply to any of the people I can think of from my childhood.”

“So, what do you propose?”

“I’ll ask my sister tomorrow if she
has any insight, but I’m not holding my breath. We should probably just come up
with something minor, tasteful, and plausible.”

“So you don’t want her naked jelly
wrestling with hermaphrodite albino dwarves or anything?”

“No,” she chuckled. “Otto, you’re
crazy.”

“Maybe we’ll pitch that idea to the
Aphrodite producers and see where they go with it,” laughed Levi.

“Well, seriously then, are we
thinking more a short, scratch-an-itch, who-can-blame-her fling or a
long-friendship-inevitably-blossoms-into-something-more type scenario?”

“Short,” said Levi, just as Cara
said, “Long.”

Otto just chortled and raised his black
eyebrows. “Gee, it’s going to be fun working with you two. You’re clearly on
the same wavelength.”

They talked around all kinds of
story possibilities, some of them hilariously far-fetched, some heart-warming,
some mysterious, and others that were more prosaic. No one seemed intent on
reaching any kind of agreement and there didn’t seem to be any pressure even to
commit their thoughts to paper right away. It was more of a brainstorming
session that could be fine-tuned and fleshed out at a later time.

She didn’t like to admit it, but
she could already see how adding a lover to the story gave Alessandra more
depth and more complexity, rounding her out as a person. It added a perspective
that Cara, as her child, would never have been able to bring to the screenplay.

Otto was just beginning to slur
when Selena breezed into the room with a tap on the door as an afterthought.

“Hello, darlings! I’m so sorry to
intrude, but I’ve been terribly lonely and longing for some decent company.
Those builders are easy on the eyes, but conversation can be a bit limited.”
Her laughter trilled as the two men scrambled to fetch her a drink while she
sank down into the chair Levi vacated.

Otto handed Selena a scotch, Levi
wheeled the ergonomic leather desk chair over to the coffee table, and seated
himself in it between Selena and Cara.

It was the first time Cara had seen
Selena in the flesh. It was weird, almost creepy to see this goddess of the
silver screen at Flinders’ Keep in clinging gym gear with her bare feet tucked
beneath her and a scotch in her hand. Despite Cara’s imaginings, while Selena’s
nails were quite long, they were unpolished, her hair was tied in a messy
topknot, and she wasn’t wearing a lick of makeup. Her charisma, though, was
category five.

“Otto, Levi, you have no manners.”
Selena leaned across Levi and extended her hand to Cara. “You must be Cara, our
inimitable script writer. I’m Selena Simms. It is an absolute honor to have
been chosen to play your mother. Such a complex character—so three-dimensional,
so real, she fairly leaps off the page. I can’t thank you enough for the
opportunity.”

Selena’s deep brown eyes brimmed
with sincerity as she took Cara’s right hand warmly between her own and Cara
found herself smiling back and replying genially,
 
“I’m looking forward to working with you.”

She’s
an actress,
Cara tried to remind herself
. Of course she knows how to seem sincere.
But she couldn’t shake
her first impression that Selena was a genuine person who really was keen to
appear as her mother in
Lost Treasure.

“So what were you talking with the
builders about, Selena?” Otto asked with a wickedly raised eyebrow.

“Oh, this and that—tools, studs,
erections, you know…”

Even Cara couldn’t help smirking.

“When we ran out of double
entendres, we played a game,” Selena continued. “Hey, we should give it a go.
It was fun! What do you say, Otto?”

“Happy to play a game with you,
City…” Otto turned to Cara.

“Simm City?” Cara guessed.

He made a gun from his fingers and
pretended to shoot her. “You got it. Let’s play!”

Cara didn’t know whether it was
Selena’s disarming nature, Otto’s generous humor, the three glasses of red wine,
or just the fun vibe of the evening—all she knew was that she forgot her
normally reserved nature and let herself be carried along by the others.

“So, what’s the game, Selena?” Levi
asked.

“Truth or dare. I’ll ask you first,
Otto. Truth or dare?”

“Oh, no question. I’ll take a dare.
You’d never believe the truth if I told you.” He chuckled.

“Okay… Let me think… Do a rap
about…” Selena’s eyes darted around the room for inspiration. “Jelly donuts.
Aaaand go!”

“Are you kidding?” Levi protested. “What
rhymes with ‘donuts?’”

“Not our problem,” laughed Selena.

Otto took a long time to clamber to
his feet. Cara wasn’t sure whether he struggled because of the scotch or his
bulk or both. Perhaps he was just buying time to gather his thoughts. It
suddenly occurred to her that she would have to take her turn at the game
eventually. Her cheeks flushed at the prospect and she wished she had gone to
bed earlier. Not that she and Levi had discussed the evening’s sleeping
arrangements… Her blush deepened.

Before she could pursue that line
of thinking any further, Otto began to rap with gusto, making like a beat box
and then launching into impromptu lyrics while he grooved around the room,
jowls wobbling and swathes of fat rolling like waves.

“For dinner we ate chicken
vermicelli. It rocked my buds and sated my belly. But I’m not skinny like you
girls on the tellie. For dessert I’m eating donuts with jelly!”

They all laughed, shrieked, and
applauded. What Otto lacked in finesse and breath-control he made up for in
clever rhyme and exuberance.

“Not bad, even if dinner was
pellizzoni,” laughed Levi.

“Pellizzoni doesn’t rhyme.” Otto
mock pouted.

“Poetic license!” declared Cara

Cara couldn’t imagine ever being
able to perform like that, so unselfconsciously and effortlessly. Just
imagining having to make an exhibition of herself made her feel sick. She was
much more comfortable behind the scenes, preferably behind the word processor.

Thankfully, Selena was keen to take
her turn. It paid to be in a room full of egocentrics, Cara thought, but not
unkindly. She was enjoying herself, and the light-hearted spontaneity of the
evening was an excellent antidote to all the heavy stuff—good and bad—that had
unfolded over the last few days.

“Levi! Do me! Do me!”

Cara’s eyes narrowed, but Otto
chimed in, “Would you care to rephrase that?” making everyone laugh and sending
a wash of pink over Selena’s cheeks. She covered her face self-consciously and
Levi rescued her with the big question.

“Truth or dare?”

“Oh, I might do a dare if it was
Cara dishing it out. She looks like a kind person. But I wouldn’t trust you as
far as I could throw you, Callister. You’d have me skulling prune juice or
swinging from the chandelier. So, truth.”

Cara waited with bated breath,
figuring the question Levi chose might give her a clue as to his feelings
toward Selena. Up until Selena had roped him in to challenging her in the game,
he had all but ignored the movie star. In fact, he had made such a point of
keeping his eyes glued to Cara that she was more than a little suspicious. Was
he making a show of overlooking Selena and focusing on Cara to lull her into
believing he cared for her? That there was something more to his interest than
money?

If that was the case, Cara wasn’t
buying it. But she wasn’t totally writing it off either. After all, he was
undeniably one hot, sexy hunk of man and she’d be crazy to turn him away if he
cared anything at all for her. If nothing else, her wine-fuzzed brain decided,
Levi’s profound proficiency in the horizontal hustle could buy him some short
term ethical latitude.

“Hmmm.
 
Okay…” Levi began, addressing Selena, “what’s
the most embarrassing moment of your life?”

“Oh, really? That’s the best you
can do? There are plenty of them. Plenty! Tripping on a catwalk, congratulating
my cousin when she wasn’t pregnant, realizing I’ve been walking round all afternoon
with spinach in my teeth, forgetting where I parked… But the most embarrassing?
This doesn’t go beyond these walls, you hear?”

Levi leaned in toward Selena, Otto
made a “bring it on” gesture, and Cara scooted forward in her seat. Everyone
nodded solemnly.

“I was five or six years old and my
parents took me and my two big brothers on our first ever holiday, at a
high-rise resort. We were on the third floor and I couldn’t see the swimming pool
over the balcony fence. My brothers kept making fun of how I was too short to
see over it, so I stuck my head through the bars to get a gander at the pool and,
yeah, you guessed it…my fat head got stuck in the gate. My parents had to call
the hotel maintenance guys to cut through the iron and get my head out. They
still tease me about that.”

It was an embarrassing and
endearing story that made them all laugh until Otto’s guffaws dwindled and
ebbed to snores, and that made them laugh again.

“Hey, Otto. Wake up, you big feet
seat,” said Selena, shaking Otto’s shoulder.

Otto woke up with a snort.

“Get it—ottoman?” whispered Levi at
Cara’s puzzled look.

“Come on, big guy, I’ll walk you to
your trailer,” Selena said, reaching for Otto’s hand and pulling on his arm.

Otto did her bidding and, with a
couple of false starts, struggled out of his seat.

“I know you’re falling down drunk,
but don’t be literally falling down drunk ‘cause I’m not going to pick you up,”
Selena admonished.