Feast of Saints (30 page)

That explained his solicitous behavior, the dinner invitation, the personally brewed tea. He was concerned about the film.

“I’ll find out for sure tomorrow. I guess you already know that there were some issues.” She didn’t want to criticize her predecessor, particularly if Jake didn’t already know the details.

“That’s putting it mildly. Frances called Monty when we were in Italy and told him he’d have to scrap the
Infiorata
. She said it couldn’t be done. The next thing I knew, she’d put you in charge.”

His steps slowed, then stopped as he turned toward her. They’d reached her hotel. “Can it be done? I’m worried you may have set yourself up for failure here.”

Lilly had thought the same thing herself a hundred times this last week. But hearing it from Jake got her back up.

“I don’t fail,” she said adamantly and walked away from him, up the steps, without another word.

At the Brooklyn soundstage, set artists were strewn about the recreated Spello cobblestone streets chalking in the outlines of the patterns and images that would be filled with petals to create the carpet of flower mosaics. A set construction crew was completing the erection of the walls and roofs of the medieval buildings.

Many of the shots would be from above, so after introducing herself to the team leaders she’d previously met only over the telephone and on Skype, Lilly headed for the catwalk to survey the work.

She had already approved the designs for the mosaics. They were composed of angels, virgins, chalices and elaborately feathered pheasants. She was pleased and impressed to see that the chalk outlines now being laid out matched what had been proposed exactly.

Earlier in the week, she’d worked out with Nat and the CGI crew how to film the scattering of the petals, which they’d only have to do once. After that, the sandstone walls of the Spello township would be replaced with green screen and Monty could shoot as many takes of the procession and the encounter between Sofia and Blaylock as his heart desired. The petals would be added back in during post-production.

From her position on the catwalk, she spied the cartons of “flower” petals stacked against a far wall. In the real Spello festival, strict guidelines required the use of only plant material. The entire town chipped in to collect the flowers, take them apart and sort the petals in color shades. Here in the studio, they would be using bulk manufactured synthetic petals.

Lilly headed down the metal stairway and over to the far wall to inspect the petals. Opening the first box marked “RED”, she frowned. They were more pink than red. She opened a few more boxes and felt her throat constrict. The colors were too soft and bright. It was not what she had in mind. Not these pastel-colored petals. She needed the ruby reds and mossy greens of the tiny Memling painting she’d seen the night before, the dark undertones of
Washington Crossing the Delaware
. These petals were as different from what she needed as a watercolor is from an oil painting.

Opening more boxes and fingering the bulk petals, her unease grew. The texture wasn’t right either. They were crepe paper and crumpled and wrinkled easily. Poly-silk petals would have held their shape and kept to true colors. Synthetic petals weren’t cheap, but they weren’t an expensive item, either. Someone had made unnecessary compromises here.

She looked around the studio at the set artists chalking out the mosaics. Laying down the petals would take every bit of twelve hours. If they turned out to be less than spectacular…. Her stomach turned at the thought of how long it would take to sweep them up and start over.

Lilly stepped outside and scrolled through her contacts looking for Harold Levitt, the property master. Tapping his number, she counted the hours until Monty would be in New York. How quickly could Harold fix this?

“This is Harold,” he grumbled, picking up on the fifth ring. It was five-thirty in the morning in Los Angeles.

“Harold, it’s Lilly Rose. I’m sorry to call you so early this morning, but I’m in a bit of a pinch.”

“Aren’t you in New York?” he asked.

“Yes, and I don’t know if you can help me from there or not, but it seems someone ordered the wrong petals for our flower mosaics.” She had no idea who had ordered them, so she was trying hard to be delicate. She didn’t want to sound like she was accusing Harold of making a mistake.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The New York studio is run entirely independent from us out here. What flowers?”

Lilly fought rising panic. She’d met all of the New York crew and none of them had been in charge of props. After she explained the problem to Harold, he promised to call her back when he got to the studio.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” Harold asked her a half hour later.

“Bad news, please,” she said, her heart sinking. Might as well start thinking about a solution. Every second counted at this point.

“Well, looking at the reqs,” he said, referring to the requisition records, “Your brilliant predecessor ordered your petals online from China. I pulled the receipt. It’s a print-out from a website. Looks like she checked some boxes, paid with a credit card and had them shipped without inspecting them to make sure they were even what they were billed to be.”

Lilly rolled her eyes. That was bad news, but it was old news. Nothing she could do about that. “What’s the good news?” she asked hopefully.

“Tell me what you need, and I think I can have it to you in three hours. There’s a floral warehouse in New Jersey.”

She nearly cried. “Oh, Harold! I think I love you.”

The property master laughed. “All the pretty ladies say that. But don’t tell my wife.”

On Thursday evening, almost exactly one week after her arrival in New York, Lilly surveyed the now empty Spello sound stage. She’d done it. Not only that, she’d done it so well that they had ended a whole day early. Monty had insisted on a round of applause for her. She’d curtsied, embarrassed and pleased at the same time, before the whole Spello cast and crew.

She was so proud of herself she didn’t even feel guilty as she hefted her knapsack onto her shoulder, weighted down with mementos she’d taken from the set, including the gilded head of the bishop’s scepter Raoul had carried as he led the
Infiorata
procession. She had started thinking about the layout of her
Feast
collage, and she had the perfect placement in mind for it.

When she exited the studio, she was surprised to see Wil hop out of a big black SUV waiting for her instead of the studio’s driver who’d been chauffeuring her back and forth between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

“Hi, Wil,” she said warmly. “Are you driving me back today?”

“Yes. Jake’s here too,” he said, as he opened the back door for her. Lilly peered in at Jake in the back seat talking on his cell phone.

“We’ll get there around eleven-thirty,” he was saying. “Reserve the whole lounge. No, they’re okay. We’re just a small party. You don’t need to turn away the regular VIPs. Just make sure there are no photographers, and enforce the cell phone policy.”

He hung up as she hopped up on the back seat and fastened her seatbelt.

“I thought you were headed back to LA after Tyler’s rehearsal,” she said, managing a few words of polite conversation. She was so happy about how well things had gone this week even Jake’s presence couldn’t bring her down.

“I had some business here,” he said. “When Monty told me you’d be wrapping a day early, I offered to host a party at Vibe. Let me rephrase that. Maya offered me to host a party later tonight.”

Lilly laughed. “She’s unstoppable. I still can’t get over the fact that we’re shooting in Hawaii next week.” The dream sequence could be shot on any one of a hundred sunny beaches along the southern California coast. “How she got Monty to agree to it is beyond me.”

“You were there,” Jake said. “No, wait, you left before the fireworks started. Over cocktails at the Culver she told Monty she’d only agree to be in his film if he agreed to her locations. She ticked off a list: Jackson Hole, New York, Italy, Hawaii.

“She put the screws to Monty. He’d already sold the studio on Maya playing Sofia but he hadn’t yet signed her. He agreed on the spot, made her shake on it and then got up and left before she could make any more demands.”

Her mouth fell open. “I’m glad I missed that,” she said, genuinely. “I would have crawled under the table. Still, she’s been worth it, hasn’t she?” she added.

“Yes, she has,” said Jake. He pivoted in his seat, turning his whole body toward her. “Because of you.”

Lilly looked at her lap. It was too much of a compliment, too big of a credit to take. But she wasn’t going to deny it, because it was partly true.

When she ventured to look at Jake, she said, “We’re a good team.”

She meant she and Maya, but as she continued to stare at him, her words hung in the air.

She and Jake had been a good team, too.

Lilly couldn’t stop herself. “Why don’t you want me to sign with Mjicon?” she asked, her gaze steady.

It was Jake who looked away. “Phillip runs Mjicon, not me. He’ll take good care of you. He’ll help you get what you want, and make sure it’s what you need.”

Staring at his profile, the frustration and fury she’d been fighting since the flight home from Italy rose like burning bile in the back of her throat.

“And what if I’d wanted that
Jonathan Strange
job? Could he have gotten that for me? Over your objection?”

Jake turned back toward her. “Which
Jonathan Strange
job?”

Jake’s query only added fire to her brewing fury. As if he didn’t know.

“You. Jonathan Strange. The job you gave to Clara,” she spat out. There was no way he could pretend that he hadn’t passed her over for Clara.

Jake’s mouth settled into a firm line. “I didn’t think you’d want that job.”

“Yeah, right. Why would I, or anyone in this business, want that job? Gilliam, del Toro. Peter fucking Jackson.” Lilly never swore but she was so mad.

“I offered that job to Clara because I assumed you wouldn’t want a hands-on job with me. There are bigger, better jobs on
Strange
that are yours for the choosing.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked, some of the air going out of her sails.

Jake turned on her, astonished. “Have you even looked at the offers you’ve received, Lilly? Gilliam’s got three departments in a bidding war over you to work on
Strange
. In not one of them would you be working for me. In all three positions,
I’d
be working for
you
.”

Oh. She didn’t know what to say to that. Before she left for New York she hadn’t had time to do anything but pull the bills from the giant stack of mail she’d received. And she got so much email these days she skipped over the ones from senders she didn’t recognize.

Phillip had called her the day after their brunch and convinced her to send all of the unopened offers and forward her emails to his assistant, Ravi. “Let us show you what we can do for you while you make up your mind,” he’d said.

Thinking about brunch with Phillip, she rediscovered her ire.

“Well, what about Mjicon? If it’s such a good deal for me, why did you argue against it?”

“I told Phillip I’d stay out of it,” Jake said.

“Same difference,” she said obstinately.

“Lilly, I vowed to stay out of it because I thought that if I pushed for it you’d refuse.”

“Why on earth would you think that?” she asked. Phillip had done such a good job of selling her on the Mjicon agency contract that she’d forgotten how hesitant she’d been about it.

It was Jake’s turn to get angry. “Since when have you ever followed one of my suggestions about what’s good for you?”

“Oh, don’t you start that. This isn’t about us,” she argued.

“I’m not talking about us,” Jake seethed. “There is no
us
.”

“That’s right,” Lilly shot back, struggling not to show how hurtful this argument was becoming. Adopting sarcasm as a shield, she said, “That’s why I can’t have a hands-on job with you.”

She didn’t get another word out. Jake unsnapped his seatbelt and snaked across the seat to her, flipping her own belt latch open. Winding an arm around her back, and a hard hand at the nape of her neck, he pulled her against him. He lowered his face to hers and stopped just short of her mouth.

He was too close, his embrace too tight. She could barely breathe. Lilly pushed her fist against his shoulder, refusing to be physically overridden by him.

Jake’s hold didn’t give. Instead, softly, in contrast with his brutal hold on her, Jake slowly brushed his mouth against her lips. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart was pounding furiously.

But he didn’t kiss her. Gently, he grazed his face over her softer one in a scraping caress. He made a slow circuit around her face, skin barely touching. His lips brushed across her forehead, paused at her temple, the side of her nose, returned to her mouth again, lingering only long enough to steal her breath, and then he resumed his circuit.

The effect on Lilly was hypnotizing. She found herself tracking his movements, tracing her own lips along his jaw, brushing her soft cheek against his rougher one. His breath fluttered her eyelashes, swirled in her ear. Goosebumps rose on her flesh and then disappeared as heat built within her. The anticipation for his kiss was much more erotic than if he’d just forced himself on her.

When his mouth came back to hers, her lips parted, straining closer, desperate for him to kiss her. He hovered there, his breath invading her mouth, until she nearly whimpered.

When he still wouldn’t kiss her, she opened her eyes. His expression was merciless as he registered her submission.

He took her hand that had been fisted against his shoulder, pried open her palm and flattened it against his chest where she could feel the pounding of his heart.

“This,” he said against her lips, “is why you can’t have a hands-on job with me. Unless you’re willing to accept the consequences. I’m through apologizing for it.”

Then he dropped her hand and reached over to open her door. They had stopped, Lilly didn’t know when, idling in front of her hotel. If she wanted him to kiss her, she’d have to beg for it. Otherwise, he was kicking her out.